What to do if your child coughs before going to bed

It is inevitable for children to catch colds, get angry, and cough during their growth process. After a child is completely weaned from breastfeeding, his or her resistance will drop rapidly. Children with poor resistance will be more likely to catch colds and get angry. During infancy, breast milk can help children improve their resistance and prevent colds, but after weaning from breastfeeding, a child's resistance will drop significantly, making it easy for them to get sick or catch a cold. So what should you do if a child coughs before going to bed? Let’s take a look at it together below.

【Nursing measures】

1. Rest and keep warm. Children should reduce activities, increase rest time, and slightly raise the head and chest when lying in bed to allow unobstructed breathing. Keep the indoor air fresh, maintain appropriate temperature and humidity, and avoid convection wind.

2. Ensure adequate water and nutrition supply. Encourage children to drink plenty of water and supplement intravenously when necessary. Provide easily digestible and nutritious food, and it is advisable to eat liquid or semi-liquid food during fever.

3. Keep the mouth clean. Because the child has fever, cough, and has a lot of thick sputum, and severe coughing may cause vomiting, it is important to maintain oral hygiene to increase comfort, improve appetite, and promote the excretion of toxins. Infants and young children can be fed an appropriate amount of boiled water after eating to clean their mouths. Older children should rinse their mouths in the morning, after meals, and before going to bed.

4. Fever care: No special treatment is required if the fever is not high. When the fever is high, physical or drug cooling measures should be taken to prevent convulsions.

5. Observe the nature of respiratory secretions and whether the sputum can be effectively coughed up; guide and encourage the child to cough effectively; if the sputum is thick, the humidity in the ward can be appropriately increased, and the indoor temperature should be maintained at around 60% to humidify the air and dilute the secretions. Ultrasonic nebulization inhalation or steam inhalation can also be used; for children who cannot cough effectively, the body position should be changed frequently and the back should be patted to make the respiratory secretions easier to discharge and promote the dissipation of inflammation; if the secretions are excessive and affect breathing, a suction device should be used to clear the sputum in time and keep the airway open. People with cough and wheezing symptoms can be given oxygen inhalation.

6. Health education strengthens nutrition, carries out appropriate outdoor activities, and performs physical exercises to enhance the body's ability to adapt to temperature changes. Add or remove clothes according to temperature changes to avoid catching cold or overheating. During the epidemic of respiratory diseases, do not let children go to public places to avoid cross infection. Actively prevent malnutrition, rickets, anemia and various infectious diseases, get vaccinated on time, and enhance the body's immune capacity. The first step in treating a cough is to determine whether the disease that causes the cough is serious.

To sum up, this is a detailed introduction on what to do if a child coughs before going to bed. Parents should observe their children's every move in daily life. If they find any adverse conditions, they should be treated early so that the children can recover faster. In terms of diet, many children are picky eaters or have partiality. Parents should correct them in time. Children with partiality will also have reduced resistance and are prone to illness and colds. They should eat more fruits and drink more boiled water.