Parenting Pro Tip: Mentholatum Ointment on baby feet
A long time ago someone told ITMama about to help a coughing baby put some Mentholatum Ointment on baby’s feet, and put socks over it to keep it on.
Sure enough one night we did this and Maggie’s cough disappeared. We did it a couple of other times and like a charm it worked. It was old wive’s tale confirmed. But this being theITbaby you know it wasn’t.
I did a little experimenting with this, putting the ointment on her belly, yup the cough went away just as quickly as the feet and without keeping her feet confined (I’m pretty sure she like free-range feet).
The next coughing spell I tried putting the ointment on the back of her neck. Guess what worked?
As near as I can tell from the next experiment all you need to do is get mentholatum ointment within eight inches of the baby in order for it to be effective. Not that I have a particularly non-messy way to position it near her head at all times since she moves around in the crib and I don’t want to mentholate her out with multiple drop points, but the results were the same.
A little ointment anywhere on the body stopped the coughs, but if it gets too close to the face you deal with eye and possibly nose irritation.
The usefulness of this is if you’ve got a baby coughing in her sleep and don’t want to wake her up to put mentholatum and socks on, or take shirt off and apply to chest, etc, you can just get a bit and put it behind the ears, on the outside of baby socks, or in something immediately outside the crib.
The stuff’s pretty sweet. Remote control cough management. Just make sure they can’t get it on hands and then put into eyes or mouth or that formerly coughing baby will be a very very angry little toddler.
Also remember a very little dab will do the trick. VERY LITTLE DAB. If you can smell it, you’re good. One $5 container should probably last you until you’ve got grandkids who need it.
