Toddler coughing at night

My son will be three in June, he is being treated for asthma since he was one - this year he has had persistent coughs regularly - i find that singulair is very effective but only when the cough is not related to a virus (cold, flu), however i am reluctant to keep him on singulair as i find that it affects his behaviour in that he will become quite hyper and restless.  

I am glad I am not the only one with this problem.  I am so frustrated.  My son is almost 4yrs. and was a premiee too.  He will having coughing spells at night where he coughs so hard he broke blood vessels in his face.  I feel so terrible for him.  We give him Zyrtec at night and Nasonex in the morning and night.  This seems to help, but sometimes he will have coughing fit and we end up taking to the Dr. and they give him Dexamethasone.  He gets it right in the dr. office (it is a steriod).  They think is allergies, but it happens in the winter too.  I almost think it is asthma.  They also suggested Singular, but the risk are not worth it to me, so we stick with Zyrtec.  I don't want  him to be on allergy meds for ever.  Has anyone heard fo them growing out of it? 

I just feel frustrated becuase between the allergy specialist and peds you would think someone would know what is going on or why this is happening.  I also stated giving himi acidophillis--probotics.  They are suppose to help with allergies.  Hasn't been a month yet so we will see what happens.

Im so glad to see that others are in the same situation. My two year old son has been having this problem since he was three months. He had phnemonia when he was three months old and that was a scary experience because his temperature went up to 103. Since, that episode I've been really nervous when he gets sick or has this cough. I've changed his pediatrician three times since birth and he's now been with his present pediatrician for a year. Im contemplating on changing his pediatrician again because this docter is like seventy years old and keeps prescribing my son antibiotics that dont work. He also dosent think my son has asthma. I've been to the childrens hospital in my area numerous times about his coughing and every time they check him his lungs sound clear. They keep telling me that its seasonal allergy and asthma. I will be going to see a asthma/allergy specialist tomorrow because I dont know what else to do. My son is experiencing the worst episode ever because he has been coughing for two months now. Usually he has the coughing problem for about two weeks and it eventually goes away. However, this time its been nonstop for two months. Some days I think he's getting better and the coughing returns. I have not heard anyone say anything about their child coughing in the morning. My son coughs the worst in the morning. He will cough terribly for about three hours and then the coughing will slow down a little during the day. He also sometimes coughs so hard until he throws up phlem. I forgot to mention that he also has a nubelizer breathing machine which dosent really work either. Im considering asking the allergy/asthma specialist about singular.

Same here, my 15 moths old son coughs every night for 3 moths now it sounds like he has a lot of mucus but the doctors said his lungs are clear. Doctors said its allergic asthma and he is on Singulair... it does work; however, I am looking for an alternative/natural medicine I don't feel comfortable giving my baby something that can cause hallucination,anxiety,depression, etc. I am reading about how vitamin D can help reduce inflammation, and also how pasteurized cows milk and process meat can cause the inflammation and also dehydration and poor nutrition  can make it worse. My baby was allergic to a protein in the formula so I breastfeed him for the first year and i am giving him only organic milk i will look into oils eucalyptus and basil seam to work for inflammation too. I might stop dairy.. if i don't see any changes soon.  I notice this is more common among boys??!! There has to be a more harmless alternative.

After 4 months of coughing my daughter has finally stopped coughing after I changed to all organic products. She coughed all the time not just at night. Got sick of attending the doctor as they couldn't find anything wrong. Finally we are sleeping again after 4 months of sleepless nights.

My son who is 3 1/2 also has similar symptons as most people here.  I have been advised and after many diagnosis's and test he's been tested for Whooping cough! So its a long standing thing, needing lots of nutrition, immune boosting dietry requirements and vitamins and supplements.  I caught it and so did my ex. We choose not to do antibiotics, but apparently they work well.  

Hi,



Just curious if you ever figured out what it was that made your son cough and also whether you found ways to heal it. I am all for natural healing. I come from a foreign country where asthma is practically non existent.. but am now struggling with the same issue after I move to Texas with my 3 year old daugher. I am refusing to accept it as asthma yet since that is just the name for an illness that doctors call "I don't know". Something is causing this cough and medicine is not a solution to healing it and you were the only person here actually considering a change in diet. I am trying a diet right now on my daughter that I started yesterday and will let you know how it goes after a couple of weeks. Please let me know in case you found any solutions to this problem. Thank you.

We actually just started on raw fruit and veggie diet yesterday. I will continue for 2 weeks and will see if that helps my 3 year-old daughters cough. We juice vegetables and eat fruits. Preety drastic change for us but we will continue as taking medicine for the rest of her life is not an option.

My son has/had the same problem. He is just about four. he's been coughing badly for about 6 months. I have seen doctors, natropaths, iridologists, pediatritions, kinesiologists.

If you are a full time mummy,  try this method:
1. Chop a few slice of ginger
2. Boil together with 600ml of water
3. Add in 1/2 teaspoon of Raw honey.
4. Give the water to your baby while it still warm ( Best before milk every morning)

This is the home remedy to remove phlegm.

it could be a dairy allergy my son had exact same symptoms. had inhalors etc. took him off dairy better in a few days

This may help some. If there are smokers in the household, it may very well be the culprit and if so, the only solution would be to quit smoking and wash and vacuum everything that may have been exposed to second hand smoke. If you've smoked in the house then you may have a bigger problem at hand in cleaning your indoor air. Good luck

EVERYONE WITH A COUGHING CHILD PLEASE READ THIS!!! I HAVE A POSSIBLE CAUSE FOR THIS:

I was determined to find a cause of cough for my daughter and made myself a promise to come back to this site (that I read in tears in the middle of the night with a caughing sweet little girl in my hands) and update it with a solution once I find it.

My 3 year old daughter who was the healthiest child that I have ever seen started coughing in June of 2011. At first the cough was only at night and pretty rapidly progressing to night and day with nights still being worse. I went to numerous doctors and done numerous tests.

Most doctors will prescribe antibiotics. My daughter was on them for exactly 31 days. Doctor thought this was due to sinus infection that they found. They did a repeat CAT scan and her sinus infection was gone but the cough never went away.

We had numerous chest Xrays done and they were all normal.

We asked her to be tested against TB (in the light of recent TB exposures in some schools) but everyone refused saying that she does not look like she has one.

We had blood test done to check her allergies and they all came negative.

Then we had carbon monoxide testing on her blood done just to make sure she did not have carbon monoxide poisoning due to a very small leak that we found out in the attic which was fixed. Carbon monoxide in her blood came out normal and fixing the leak didn't help her cough either.

I have tried humidifier, air purifier, food elimination diet, only distilled water, and gave her vegetable juice for two weeks in hopes of helping her immune system to fight out whatever it is what was bothering her. I rewashed everything in the house with vinegar on hot setting: drapes, bedding, pillows, clothes, etc. It did not help her.

I was convinced that something is causing it and kept on looking for a potential cause. Doctors were steering towards astham because they simply did not know what it was. I have no asthma hisotry in my family nor my husband. She had no breething problems until June 2011. I was determined to find out what it was and was not going to accept giving her medication for the rest of her life.

She was on inhalers, steroids, albuterol, budenoside and singular and all helped somewhat but were only covering her symptoms rather than attacking the cause.

We took her to Florida (we live in Texas) for two weeks and by the end of it she was coughing substantially less. In Florida we also found out that giving her natural Aloe (only clear portion of it) was helping her drastically. In fact, we would give her Aloe pieces and she would be cough free for a good 3 hour period.

When we came back to Texas the cough returned. We changed detergent, went on only soap and water for any cleaning, didn't let her paint or draw all in hopes of finding a cause for her allergy.

Toddler cough is on the rise and from what I have been reading many toddlers are suffering from this condition. I kept on thinking that the only thing that changed from the past were the products we were byuing. The air was the same, thus, I didn't believe in her being allergic to something in the air. I was rather thinking that she might be allergic to something in the house, something that we are purchasing that a lot of people are purchasing as well.

A couple of days ago I realized that it might be our clothes washing machine. I started research online and apparently many front loaders carry black mold in them. Not wanting to irritate my daughter's possioble allergies I washed every compartment of my front loader with just soap and water and some vinegar (no bleach). I cleaned the little filter at the bottom, the dispenser compartment and the gasket. I tried to pull the gasket as much as I could but it had so many folds that it was impossible to clean thoroughly so I poured vinegar wherever I could and even used Qtip in the areas that were hard to reach. Then I let machine air dry with the doors open. My daughter has coughed that evening and barely coughed starting the following morning through today which is only 2 days but it is such a substantial improvement that I am almost convinced that this was a contributor. If this mold was on her sheets and clothes it would obviously irritate her very much, especially at night when she is so close to the sheets breathing it all in.

Makes me so mad that a washer that we only had for 1.5 years that cost us a lot of money would assist in creating mold and endangering our daughter. If you have a front loader please make sure to not remove it as a possible allergy clreator for your child. With so many toddlers coughing without an obvious cause I bet this might be a commonly shared item that so many parents use but never thought of as a contributor to allergies.  Let me know if you have any questions and I will update you on my daughter's health in a couple of days.

My daughter is also 2 and a half and has had the chronic cough since she ws 6 months old. It comes and goes, but lasts for up to 6 weeks. She's been prescribed flovent and ventolin but they do not help. the only thing that is effective is antibiotics. We;re at a loss.

I finally got my son over coughing....after many many visits over a year I would say, a doctor at emergency at a hospital, id had enough, diagnosed it as croup! Put him on a prescribed steriod...3 doses....no more coughing. However he is allergic to dairy now, he might grow out of that.



that was months ago now...not a cough since.



Hope this helps others.