We had a very rough night last night.
Yesterday was Judah's cousin, Elijah's first birthday party. Judah had a great time running around with the other kids and playing in the tunnels with all the balls. It was a lot of fun. On the way home, however, Judah started having a coughing fit that lasted from the time we left the party in Edmonds until we go to our house in Everett. It was terrible!
He has had an ongoing night cough since around Christmas time, but it really hasn't showed up in the daytime for quite some time. I wasn't going to let it worry me because it didn't seem like anything to be concerned about. Then out of the blue, after the party, it was as if this cold virus hit him like a ton of bricks! He was coughing and sneezing and sniffling his runny nose.
I was able to give him his bath and get him down for bed easy enough. He did slip and fall in the tub after I drained the water out. I was pretty worried about him then, but he calmed down very easily and was ready to get into bed, so I didn't protest.
Judah slept for about 2 hours, when all of the sudden he woke up crying. I got him up, knowing he didn't feel well and tried to lay him back down. He wanted to sleep, but his cough was so persistent that he couldn't. He cried for me again. I went back in and decided that he probably needed something to drink after all of that coughing. I took him downstairs to calm him down and to give him something to help him feel better. He had a little water and I gave him some Zicam which is a homeopathic zinc remedy for colds. He was calm, but when I went to lay him down again, he couldn't fall asleep. His cough was too much.
He spent the next 2-3 hours going from tears to coughing to calm and back again. The poor guy was absolutely exhausted and horribly miserable. He couldn't fall asleep for the life of him. We tried everything. We tried holding him and standing, sitting and holding him, laying him down with us in bed, laying him down in his crib. You name it, we tried it.
Finally at 11:30 pm I decided that I would take him for a car ride in hopes that he would calm down and conk out for the night. As soon as he saw that we were getting into the car he calmed down. I decided to just get on I-405 and drive. I wasn't sure how far I was going, but I was sure the constant movement and sound of the engine would put him out. I drove all the way to Kirkland and although he was quiet, he kept coughing which disturbed his peaceful attempts to sleep. I figured that it was probably a lot cause. I turned around and came back home. We had driven for a good 45 minutes.
I felt defeated when we walked into the house, but at least he was calm and far from tears. Andrew thought I should just lay him down. I did so without any high hopes. Although he protested a little bit, he finally fell asleep at about 12:30 am.
He actually slept through until 7:30 this morning. Not too bad for a really sick little boy. I decided last night that I wasn't going to have a night like that again. Screw the FDA, I was going to give Judah some cough medicine.
The fact that cold medicine for infants was pulled from the shelves a couple years ago really made me angry. It's not my fault that some parents can't read or follow directions when it comes to their precious children. I talked to Andrew's mom this morning and she agreed that it wouldn't be harmful at all to give Judah Dimetapp. She used to give it to her kids all the time when they were babies. Two of her sons had chronic ear infections and it was the only thing that would take the pressure off the ears.
I picked some Children's Dimetapp up today on the way over to watch the Superbowl at Andrew's parents' house. While Judah was running around I decided that it would be better to actually watch him and see how he reacted to the medicine, than wait until bedtime and hope that it didn't have any adverse side effects.
He did fine on it. It seemed like it cleared up some nasal congestion and his cough was less frequent and severe. Of course it didn't take any of it away, but it helped.
On the way home after the game, Judah actually fell right asleep in the car. I was surprised because he's been so miserable. Our plan was to give him another dose before he went to sleep, but we didn't have a chance.
Hopefully he sleeps much better tonight!
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