Parenting pro-tip: Stop baby from coughing
You’ve got a baby and they got sick. Even days after they got sick they’re still coughing because the immune system has turned on the nasal gateway and it’s running into the back of baby’s throat and triggering a cough rather than letting it get into the lungs. You might wonder how to stop baby from coughing without another doctor’s visit or more medicine.
This is something we’ve had happen twice now – sick baby, immune system nasal response, coughing for days after whatever virus is gone. Both times we’ve tried this trick it’s worked out within 15 minutes and one or two nose wipes.
Rub the baby’s feet in mentholated rub. You can use whatever brand you want, this is what we used. I’m not sold on a brand, it’s just mentholated rub. I’m not certain, but I have the feeling the stuff is about the same for babies or adults. We went with the baby branded option just because, but if you’re in a pinch at 3am you might want to try a tiny amount of regular on their feet.
Put socks on the mentholated feet. Wipe runny nose. Should clear up shortly unless it’s allergy related.
When I was a kid, the directive was to put this on the chest. It was like a spike in my nose and pretty terrible as I recall. Baby doesn’t seem to have any issue with the snot fountain turning off via feet. I’m guessing that the smell is significantly diluted but does the job when it’s in sock on the feet as opposed to drilling your nose out, but it could have some mysterious foot absorption properties. Kind of doubt that but I’m not particularly up on the absorption capabilities of the baby foot.
One thing parents should remember though is that the body’s immune system response turns on the mucus to expel garbage from the system. This garbage being dead viral load/immune system garbage. While nature’s defense mechanism isn’t perfect due to coughing, the running nose does let you know that something’s being done by the body.
As such, other than sleeping times, it’s probably best to let the nose run free as much as possible as long as the little one isn’t completely miserable and making themselves sicker.
