Baby coughing before bed

The physical health of children is often the most important concern of a family. Many children are in a very fragile state and are easily invaded by bacteria, causing symptoms such as colds and coughs. Therefore, parents need to pay more attention to their children's physical condition. Many parents have found that their babies often cough before going to bed, and in severe cases, it may even affect their sleep. What's going on?

1. Shallow cough

If the child has a shallow cough, he or she will rarely cough during the day and will mainly have a runny nose, but the cough will be more severe at night. This is because when the child lies flat, the throat is in a low position, and the secretions in the nasal cavity cannot be discharged through the runny nose. Instead, they will flow back into the throat, irritating the throat and causing coughing. This will cause the child to often wake up from coughing at night, making parents think that the child's condition has worsened, but this is not the case.

A deep cough occurs regardless of day or night. Some children even cough more severely during the day and relatively less severely at night. Therefore, children with deep coughs can actually sleep well.

Tip: Shallow coughs usually occur in the throat, while deep coughs occur in the trachea, bronchi or lungs, and sound like they are coming from the chest cavity. There is a characteristic that is relatively easy to distinguish between shallow coughs and deep coughs, which is to see whether the cough sound is long or short. Shallow coughs occur at a very fast frequency and sound very short, while deep coughs last relatively long.

2. Rhinitis causes

For example, if a child has unhealed rhinitis, although we cannot see the mucus secreted, it will flow back into the throat when the child lies down to sleep at night, causing coughing. Morning is the time when the mucus is most accumulated, so some children will cough when they get up in the morning. However, because the rhinitis is not too serious, they will not cough during the day.

How to prevent your baby from coughing while sleeping

1. Babies over 1 year old can drink a cup of warm water with honey to effectively improve nighttime cough and sleep problems. For babies under 1 year old who cannot drink honey, drinking a few sips of warm water can also relieve some of the symptoms.

2. If you think the air quality is bad, then improve the air quality, wash the bedding, reduce the plush toys on the bed, turn on the air purifier, use the humidifier, and pay attention to regular cleaning of these devices;

3. Take a hot bath before going to bed, or stay in the bathroom with hot water steam for more than ten minutes. Of course, if the air outside is very humid, you can also go out for a walk. Humidified air can improve coughing (please use this method with caution if you have asthma);

Now mothers know that if the baby coughs when sleeping, it may be caused by a shallow cough or the baby may have rhinitis. The key is to find out the cause of your baby's cough at night so that you can treat it accordingly. Before going to bed at night, you can give your baby some honey water, turn on the air purifier or humidifier, and give your baby a hot bath before going to bed.