Three Must Haves for an Infant with a Cold:

Last night as Craig and I were about to head to bed, I peeked in on Hutton as I always do, but this time I heard an unfamiliar sound...Or should I say snort? His sweet little button nose was completely congested causing him to snort in his sleep. He started to wake up and I noticed his bed sheet was drenched with snot! I didn't know his little body could produce so much mucous! He started crying and after about an hour of trying to console him, I gave in and brought him to sleep with Craig and I. Thought it was a good idea at the time, but ended up being bad for everyone. No one slept at all last night! He was squirmy and snotty all night long and Craig and I, being the over concerned new parents that we are, worried ourselves to the point of sleeplessness! Craig had to head out the door super early for work and Hutton woke up at his departure. So we shut ourselves in the bathroom and tried to breathe in some steam from the shower. Helped a little bit and we went back to sleep for a couple of more hours.

Once we were up for the day, I did a bit of research on remedies for babies with colds since they are too little to take any kind of cold medicine. Here's what I recommend after surfing the net:

1. Warm Mist Humidifier
2. Nasal Aspirator (the bulb lookin' thing)
3. Saline nasal spray

I wasn't sure about what kind of humidifier to get because there are many types. After doing some reading, I chose a warm mist humidifier for a couple of reasons. One, because of it warms the air now that it's getting colder. Two, the water is boiled which cleans it of impurities before it's released into the air. Three, the one that I bought has a medicine cup to put some of Vick's vapor stuff in it to be emitted into the air. For more information on picking the right humidifier for you, I found this site helpful:

http://www.iallergy.com/category11_86/default.html

We are using ours tonight for the first time so I'll let you know how it goes!!

The saline nasal spray has been huge!! There were points when the mucous got pretty dried up in his nose and that spray really loosened it up. I thought he would hate me spraying that up his nose, but he actually found it quite amusing and laughed when I squirted it!

After the spray, I used the aspirator to remove the loosened mucous. Not fun for him, but really helped open him up.

It's also really important to keep your baby hydrated when he/she has a cold. They tend to not want to eat much because it's hard for them to suck when they can't breathe through their nose, but keep trying! They need that breast milk!

Hope someone finds this information useful! Please pray this clears up soon! It was an extremely long day for all of us Howards today!! I must say though that he kept his joyful spirit even when he wasn't feeling good! I love that he is such a happy baby!