8 Month Old Has Mild Croup

I've done exactly what Acecia has done - the responder below. My son, who is 2 now, often had coughing issues and still kind of does at night. His crib mattress has been permanently elevated. He almost always has a humidifier in his room and I've used the vicks on the feet several times this past winter/spring. When he's coughing really bad I just have to pick him up - sit him up and it helps. I know that as an adult coughing at night is the worst when I am sick and the only real relief I get is to sit up/prop myself up as much as possible.

I assume you are in the NY area and since we have had so much rain I would suspect there is mold in your house somewhere. I stopped smoking years ago after smoking for too many years. Well to my surprise I developed a nasty cough that would come and go. My Dr diagnosed a mold allergy and sure enough, I only cough when mold spores are high. I can walk into a room and tell if there is mold present almost immediately.
Make sure the filter on the AC is clean and I would stop the vaporizer and try to dry out the air, but there are so many mold spores outside its hard to get rid of them. One thing that might help at night is to elevate the head of his crib, if he sleeps at one end.

First, herbs are medicine and should be treated as such. They are not regulated by the FDA and there is no one making sure that what it says is in them is really in them. Second, herbs more often then not are not safe in a child this age. With little guys you have to use herbs sparingly as they can be very potent and dangerous. If you don't want to go the cough medicine route (which now a days most doc's won't even give it to you and everything over the counter has been removed from the market) try the shower. He doesn't even need to be in it, it's just the steam. Let him sit in his bouncy chair while you shower or even let it run. Milk products will make the mucus thicker, so give them as little as possible. Vitamin C will help his body fight it off, so try giving watered down OJ or having him eat citrus. But if you don't have experience with herbs, I'd avoid them. They are medicine.

You can try putting a pillow under the mattress in your babies crib to elevate his head. That seems to help and I also have tried rubbing vicks vapor rub on their feet.. silly enough as that sounds it does work for a little while. I have not tried Hylands so I cant help you there.. sorry...But i hope the little bit of information I gave you helps:0)Good luck and hope he feels better!!

When my daughter was 12 months old she came down with a mild case of Whooping cough. She had a really bad reaction to the pertussis vaccine so we didn't give it to her. Whooping cough is terrible the coughing is nonstop and really prevented my daughter from sleeping. I remember my husband and I made our own tent out of her crib and literally faced the humidifier mist directly into her crib. We draped a sheet over her crib mobile (to create height) and left the entire front open. We faced the mist into the crib and it really did act as a tent. Something they would have put her in had she been hospitalized. The sheets did get damp so I made sure she was in warm pj's but it really did help her to sleep. With the croup usually warm moist air helps so the air conditioner although you need it with the humidity is probably not going to help. Even if you do not want to do this at night time maybe try nap time and see if it helps. Good luck!

Hi M.,

Cold works well for croup (standing in front of the freezer, drive in the car with the windows down just a little at night). If you're up with him all night anyway, it might be worth trying the cough suppressant. As for the Hylands, I strongly, strongly urge you away from it. Homeopathic medicine is very specific, and it can be very dangerous if there's an underlying condition (example: 4 out of 5 of my kids are asthmatic; the last one has shown no signs of it. When she got a bad cough over the winter, I tried the Hylands cough tablets on her--she was, almost instantly, worse--spasming cough, etc. When I stopped them, she returned to her run of the mill illness. She may have a touch of reactive airway disease, she may not. You probably wouldn't know yet with your baby, so don't do it. He's on the steroids, which should have it under control soon).
Good luck--see if you can both sleep during the day--nighttime is always worse with croup,

my son had the croup at a year old and I was told by his doctor you never do the steam or shower thing. My son had it in the fall and I was told to take him outside in the brisk air in the middle of the night or open the freezer door and stand him in front of it. To my surprise the cold air really helped. It is scary to hear them breathe like they do during croup but you just wait it out. My son was given shots for it so his didn't last long.
If you have an air conditioner or a freezer to stand him in front of for a couple of minutes it really does help.
My sons doctor told me when children wake up with the croup in the middle of the night and the parents rush them to the emergency room they are a lot better once they get there because from the car to the house and from the car to the hospital they are breathing in the brisk night air.
You are getting a lot of suggestions for hot and steamy but from my experience with it the cold air really does make them feel better.
After the croup is gone is goes into a cold so your baby will be coughing for a while after but just treat that as you would a regular cold and cough.

Hi M.,

I have always personally been very pro-natural/homeopathic. However, more and more research is showing that these treatments aren't just like drinking herbal tea for a sore throat -- they often have medicinal properties that can be very potent. Of course, this can be good (means they can be effective), but it can also be dangerous because they are unregulated and unstudied, so no one really knows what's a safe dose -- even for adults, much less for infants! -- and how it can interact with other medicines.

Also, I don't know the size and shape of the homeopathy, but I see it's a tablet, so I'd also consider the risk of choking. The humidifier and steam shower seem like great ideas, however. I also firmly believe that sea water is very healing for respiratory problems (doctors are finally catching on to this too :), so if you live by the coast, I'd think about taking him to the beach for a day or two.

Hi M.. I have dealt with croup ALOT with my 2 boys. It's horrible...but the "good" thing is that it usually sounds a lot worse that it actually is. If you already have your son on a steroid...most likely he is at that point of just sounding bad, but not really struggling (like when they wake up at 4 am barking like a seal). I wouldn't be giving him motrin...it probably isn't really doing anything for the croup. You should google croup and read all the different sites about it to give yourself a better idea of what it is and why it happens, etc. The humidifier blowing on him while he sleeps is really the best bet. They really need that humid air. If he has an "episode" in the night again, I would really suggest going into the bathroom with him, turn on the shower (HOT) and make sure you close the curtain so there is no chance of your son getting burned. Then just sit in there with him for about 10 minutes and sing to him or whatever to calm him down. That is usually the hard part is that when they start crouping and then crying it just gets worse. The thing that actually does the trick is after all that steam, when they come out into the cooler air it helps the inflamation in the airways go down and they breathe easier.
I have used the Hylands tablets...homeopathic medicine is very specific, so unless a homeopath told me to use that particular one, or unless it said it was specifically for croup i wouldn't use it. There is one that is for croup that I got as part of the Hylands Kid Kit and it's called: Aconite (Aconitum Napellus)which helps with croup. I love the description of it in their little booklet, it says for croup (waken from sleep with croupy cough which frightens everyone). SO TRUE!!
Anyway, I have written you a book here....Hope he gets better for you really soon. The cough can linger actually for a couple of weeks, but as long as those scary episodes aren't happening, it's much easier for everyone to deal with.

God bless!