How to treat a cough in a child at 2 years old

Coughing is a normal reaction of the body to phlegm that accumulates in the airways and allows you to get rid of it. When the baby coughs badly, and this symptom exhausts him, of course, you need to consult a pediatrician. If a cough has just appeared in both a 2-year-old child and a baby at a slightly older age, you should not wait for it to intensify. You need to treat immediately!

Many parents who are faced with acute respiratory infections in their child are puzzled by the question: how to cure a child's cough? The elimination of this problem must be approached with all responsibility, especially if a child is coughing at 2 years of age. In no case should you self-medicate. Parents should coordinate all their actions with the pediatrician.

What to do to make your baby feel better

The baby needs to be given a lot of drink. You can drink a child with water at room temperature, compote made from various dried fruits, teas and fruit drinks. A large volume of fluid entering the body will bring out pathogenic microorganisms and toxins. Warm drinks also help restore water-salt balance.
If the baby suddenly starts coughing, steam his legs in mustard. To do this, put boiling water in a bowl and throw in a small amount of mustard powder. Wait for the boiling water to cool down a little, and ask the child to hold the legs in the basin. The procedure should take about 20 minutes. After completing it, put on warm socks (preferably woolen). Please note that it is strictly forbidden to soar your feet in mustard if the baby has an allergic reaction or fever.
You can treat a cough in a 2-year-old child by using mustard plasters. This method can be used as an adjunct to the main therapy prescribed by the doctor. Put mustard plasters on your back. Small red spots will appear on places exposed to mustard plasters. This is a normal reaction, you should not be afraid of redness. After the end of the procedure, the baby must be covered with a warm blanket and put to bed. Take into account that you cannot put mustard plasters if the cough in the crumbs is accompanied by a high fever. Ignoring this rule can lead to increased heat.

How to treat a cough in two-year-olds

First of all, you need to call a doctor or go to see him. The pediatrician will conduct a detailed examination of a 2-year-old baby, listen to him and make appointments appropriate to what he saw and heard. Self-medication is strictly prohibited. After all, giving a child medications or traditional medicine at random can cause significant damage to the health of the little patient.
If the cough is dry, try to get the child to drink as much different liquid as possible - plain warm water, milk, linden blossom tea or chamomile tea. Thus, they also achieve the transformation of dry cough into wet.
A good remedy is warming compresses. They are superimposed on the chest. Compresses can only be used at normal body temperature.
To treat a cough in a 2-year-old child, the doctor usually prescribes the following medications:

expectorants (for the earliest possible coughing up of sputum);
mucolytics (they dilute the separating phlegm well);
bronchodilators (increase the lumen of the bronchi).

With a strong dry cough in a two-year-old that does not stop for a long time, the doctor prescribes special anti-inflammatory drugs.
If the cough is characterized as barking, it becomes difficult for the child to breathe, and the temperature is within normal limits, you can give the baby a foot bath. They are necessary so that the blood rushes to the limbs, after which it is evenly distributed over the baby's body. Thus, the respiratory system will be able to warm up and the swelling will be significantly reduced.
The child should eat well - and not only during the period of illness. The diet should be rich in vitamins. If your baby does not have food allergies, feed him citrus fruits, various fruits, and cranberries.
When inhaling small children, you need to be very careful. This procedure can provoke the occurrence of airway spasm. A child at two years old is allowed to breathe decoctions of chamomile and mother-and-stepmother for a short time. If there are no allergic reactions, you can try adding menthol, eucalyptus and thyme decoctions.

So, it can be argued that the treatment of a cough in a child in the second year of his life directly depends on the reason for which it arose.

"Grandma's" recipes

Let the baby breathe over a saucepan with boiled potatoes. Be extremely careful when doing this. The procedure should be short-term to rule out bronchospasm.
An effective folk remedy is soda inhalation. It is undesirable to use essential oils for the treatment of two-year-old children. After all, if an allergy joins the cough, there will be a very high risk of developing edema.
A popular recipe is radish with honey. This syrup should be given to the child a teaspoon three times a day.
A mixture based on onions and honey has proven itself well in the treatment of cough. To prepare this medicine, carefully chop a medium-sized onion, add natural honey, a little lemon and food grade glycerin. The drug should be infused for about an hour. It is necessary to give it to a child strictly after eating.

What is prohibited

Children who have a genetic predisposition to allergies are deprived of the opportunity to be treated with plants. After their use, characteristic allergic symptoms appear - itching, hives and skin rashes. You need to carefully monitor the child in order to notice an atypical reaction in time. If there are no side effects, it is not only possible, but also necessary to treat a cough with the help of medicinal herbs.

Of course, herbal remedies work well for coughs. Another advantage is affordability. Homeopathic remedies are relatively inexpensive. However, the effectiveness of herbal expectorants has not been proven by clinical studies. Despite this, folk remedies are used very widely.

Why a cough is dangerous for a child

Bronchospasm in a baby indicates the development of an inflammatory process in the respiratory tract. If you do not start cough treatment in a timely manner, the infection will begin to gradually descend, capturing all new territories - first the bronchi, and then the lungs. Bacterial and viral diseases are accompanied by an increase in temperature. Bronchospasm is aggravated and takes on the character of attacks.

Coughing can also cause ear or nose inflammation. As a result, the baby also receives otitis media or tonsillitis, depending on the localization of the inflammatory process. How to understand if there are any complications:

to measure the temperature;
monitor the general condition of the baby;
see if the child has a blocked nose or ears.

Let's summarize

Never ask the pharmacy how to cure a cough in a 2 year old child. In no case should one treat such small children on their own. Cough medicines bought at random are especially dangerous. If the dose is miscalculated, medications can cause nausea and even vomiting. Antitussive syrups are not well tolerated by every child. Reception of such funds for some crumbs ends with diathesis, upset stomach and intestines, allergy to certain components of the medicine.Many pharmaceutical preparations contain alkaloids. When they are abused, breathing is first actively stimulated, and then sharply suppressed. And this is fraught with serious complications.

So, firstly, it is imperative to ventilate the coughing baby's room and humidify the air. Secondly, it is necessary to ensure that the patient consumes a large amount of warm liquid, as well as the patient's adequate nutrition. If the body temperature is normal, it is very useful to walk in the fresh air. Of course, you need to know how to treat a cough correctly. However, knowledge is not a panacea yet. When your child is sick, try to give your child as much attention as possible. Keep in mind that stress can cause complications for your child. After all, two years of age is the time in a child's life when his health should be taken very seriously.