Little one sick-hot or cold vaporizer?

[ZachnElli]

Noah has his first cold, he's all stuffed up. He won't take Tylenol Cold, he gags and throws up when I try. So I want to get him a vaporizer, is hot or cold better? Thanks for any ideas!

 

[momof2inPA]

They say a cold vaporizer is better, especially for the croup, but you have to keep them clean.

 

[becka]

I think they only recommend the cold vaporizer. We got a Vicks cold mist vaporizer from Wal-mart and it works pretty well when DD has a stuffy nose.

I hope this helps...it is always rough when the little ones don't feel good. I have a teether right now so I can feel your pain....

 

[barkley]

our ped. always rec. cold mist (said it was safer with spills too). i also just saw a commercial for some type of vicks tablets that you put on the shower floor and run hot water over (idea is take a nice hot shower and decongest at the same time). i imagine you could put one in the shower, close the bathroom door and then take the little one in to sit on your lap on the comode. it might help (i know my kids RAN when the saw the vicks bottle come out).

 

[Kermit]

I agree that cold vaporizers are better. Just make sure you thoroughly clean and dry it in the morning so that mold doesn't form.

The best cure is cold, damp air, which may not be hard to come by at this time of year. Warm vapor from a shower is okay if cold damp air isn't a possibility.

Don't worry about him not wanting to take medicine. Some day you may need to force medicine down him, but not right now. Cold medicines are notoriously ineffective, particularly in children. Children are also dramatically more likely to have an adverse reaction to some particular medications. Home remedies are much better than anything from the pharmacy when it comes to colds.

 

[nwdisgal]

Try to get him to drink lots of clear liquids (i.e water) too. My doctor told me hydration helps to thin out the mucus so it runs well.

 

[MScott1851]

Go for the cool mist, encourage lots of fluids (this means give him ANYTHING he wants to drink, even if you don't normally do sodas or juices), and offer foods with high water content like fruit, too. This will thin the secretions.

Little noses drops put in his nostrils and a good bulb syringe a couple of minutes later (along with helper to hold him) will work wonders on a snotty nose, too.

 

[JayCT]

I strongly disagree with the others on this. Our pediatric ENT (one of the highest rated in the State of CT) told us several years ago that warm is better in his opinion. There no sceintific proof that one is better than the other but he feels cold is accepted more because of the issue with scalding if it is touched. We bought the warm and loved it. It really helped when our kids had a cold or croup. We just made certain we placed ours away from where our child could reach it and it helped our children a lot. My wife also gets bad colds and the warm vaporizer is all that will help her. The cold does very little. I will say that it is hard to find a good vaporizer though. Not sure why they do not work that well. Our old one was great but we lent it to someone and it died. I do not know the brand but we bought it at a high quality pharmacy and paid a good price for it. We replaced the one that our friends broke with a cheap one from CVS and it stinks. I need to go back to the other pharmacy and see if I can find the same one we had before. Good luck. Jay

 

[cheerbop]

Another thing besides the vaporizer is to use Vicks CREAM for baby...it does really help my 2 when they are stuffy! Not the greasy stuff, it is cream and soooo good.
Definitely the nose drops help alot too...
What I do when I really have to get some medicine in the little one just so he can breathe when he is sleeping is to give him a very small amount of juice with the medicine mixed in it...goes down no problem!
Good Luck...just got over colds here!

 

[ZachnElli]

Well, I got a waterless vaporizer from Vicks. They do (Vicks) have both cold and warm vaporizers also. I also found the new things you put in your shower (didn't buy them) and also some that you plug in like air freshner plug ins, didn't buy that either, but it was interesting. I didn't expect to have so many choices, lol. I also got him Little Noses, I remember using this on my oldest, it's nose drops. I actually prefer not giving him medicine, he's only 7 months so it's hard to give him alot of liquids yet. Thanks for the advice everyone, if the waterless doesn't work, I'll probably get the cold water one.

 

[golfgal]

I have tried both the cold mist and warm mist and the warm works MUCH better for us. I never felt that the cold mist helped at all and I finally tried the warm and it worked great.

 

[wilderness01]

No milk products either.

 

[JayCT]

Elli - Actually our ENT told us that the cold does very little to help (I did not want to say that every else postin was wrong). He only recommends the warm one and a good one (not Vicks). The high humidity and warmth help ease the symptoms of the cold and allow better sleep which is very important for recovery. Again, I would strongly recommend the warm vaporizer. It really does work a lot better. The cold one does nothing. JMHO. Jay

 

[momof2inPA]

I never had much luck with either warm or cold vaporizers, to be honest. Our bedrooms are pretty big, and to have any effect, I would have had to hold the kid directly over the darn thing. When they were a bit older, I would take them in the shower.