On Stuffy Noses and Sucking Out Snot

My baby experienced his first cold when he was about four months old. I could possibly be blamed for it, as I also had a cold. I felt so bad for the wee little baby. He sounded so congested when he slept - snoring like no other. He was able to nurse with no major issues and acting otherwise normally, so we just let it pass.

When he went in for his four month visit, his pediatrician said that if I hadn't mentioned anything, he wouldn't even know that the kid was congested, so that is a good thing. He also told me that by nursing him, I was already doing everything I could for him.

At about six months, when he was having some serious issues with teething, he had a resurgence of congestion. His nose was constantly running. He also developed his first fever a couple weeks after the congestion started up and luckily, I was given a couple options as far as what to do to help.

The nurse at the pediatrician's office suggested two things that could help clear him up a little. One, was a cool mist humidifier. This was easy enough. I did find that humidifiers cost about twice as much when purchased at a drug store than at Target. I'm glad I checked, because I really didn't want to shell out as much as they were charging at Walgreen's. The second recommendation was saline drops and aspiration. This proved to be easy to get, but horrible to carry out. Babies apparently don't like it when you put things up their nose and they are almost even more determined not to let you suck anything out. Yay.

After fighting and fighting with the baby, because they can be very squirmy when attempting this procedure, I figured it out. The trick I found to work, is as follows. I propped my left leg on the tub and straddled the baby on that leg facing towards me. I then wrapped my left arm around the back of the baby's neck pinning his right arm under my arm and grabbing is left arm with my left hand. This secured his head in the crook of my elbow and held it more or less in place. By leaning over positioning the baby more on his back laying along the length of my thigh, I was able to apply the saline drops to his nostrils. I held him here for several moments to let the saline run up into his sinuses. He did squirm, quite a bit, even with this positioning, but I was at least able to get some drops in which is more than I can say for other attempts I had. I then stood up straighter, propping the baby straighter at the same time. Fluid flowed freely out of his nostrils as the saline helped to break up the mucous. Trying to keep his head as still as possible, I was able to suck out even more fluid from his nose with the aspirator. After doing this relatively successfully multiple times, he actually held still for the aspirator. Whoo hoo for mini wins.

I hope this method helps out if you are having the same sort of struggles.