Gummed up nasal boogies
Jan. 26th, 2008 09:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rootofnewtParents who have gone before . . . I have a question.
In the early morning--sometimes around 5am, Ronan wakes up somewhat with a really stuffy nose. Except, there's no visible snot. It's obviously further back, where the sinuses drain into the nasal passages/throat. But it's bad enough that he can't breathe from his nose. Needless to say, when he half-rouses for that nursing session, he quickly rouses all the way, because he has to go "suck suck, unlatch, breathe. suck suck, unlatch, breathe." It's not very conducive to baby going back to bed. I've tried putting him to sleep tummy to tummy with me, propping myself up on pillows. He doesn't much like that. I've tried letting him sleep in the crook of my arm, propped up again. Again, not a favorite (and tends to impinge on various nerves of mine). Today, I even propped him on a fairly firm pillow (he's a bad/side sleeper). That gave me an extra hour, but he wasn't sleeping very deeply.
And when he can't breathe, he cries, making the mucus issue worse. After about 10-20 minutes sitting up, he's clear to breathe and nurse just fine, but if I sit him up in the bedroom, he's WIDE awake. So we just get up.
Normally, the guess is irritants in the bedroom (at least, so far as Dr. Sears says). Well, I have a dust mite allergy, among everything else. We shower before bed. All the bedding gets washed weekly on hot water and dried on high heat. Pillows and mattress are in encasings. We use vellux blankets. We have a HEPA standard air filtration unit. We use the ultra (actually, the new higher filtration) Filtrete air filters in the furnace.
And last night, I added a warm water vaporizer/humidifier. I had it on the lowest setting, since it can't go all night on the highest (small unit). Tonight, I'll try running it on high when Ronan first goes down, then refilling it around midnight when we go to bed and let it run on low all night.
Thoughts?
Frankly, I've been skittish about the humidifier. The nice thing about winter is that the lowered humidity levels cause the dust mite population to level off somewhat. But something has to change.
The really weird thing? He doesn't have this problem during his naps. He naps in the same room, same bed. It's only for an hour or two, but he doesn't get stuffed up.
In the early morning--sometimes around 5am, Ronan wakes up somewhat with a really stuffy nose. Except, there's no visible snot. It's obviously further back, where the sinuses drain into the nasal passages/throat. But it's bad enough that he can't breathe from his nose. Needless to say, when he half-rouses for that nursing session, he quickly rouses all the way, because he has to go "suck suck, unlatch, breathe. suck suck, unlatch, breathe." It's not very conducive to baby going back to bed. I've tried putting him to sleep tummy to tummy with me, propping myself up on pillows. He doesn't much like that. I've tried letting him sleep in the crook of my arm, propped up again. Again, not a favorite (and tends to impinge on various nerves of mine). Today, I even propped him on a fairly firm pillow (he's a bad/side sleeper). That gave me an extra hour, but he wasn't sleeping very deeply.
And when he can't breathe, he cries, making the mucus issue worse. After about 10-20 minutes sitting up, he's clear to breathe and nurse just fine, but if I sit him up in the bedroom, he's WIDE awake. So we just get up.
Normally, the guess is irritants in the bedroom (at least, so far as Dr. Sears says). Well, I have a dust mite allergy, among everything else. We shower before bed. All the bedding gets washed weekly on hot water and dried on high heat. Pillows and mattress are in encasings. We use vellux blankets. We have a HEPA standard air filtration unit. We use the ultra (actually, the new higher filtration) Filtrete air filters in the furnace.
And last night, I added a warm water vaporizer/humidifier. I had it on the lowest setting, since it can't go all night on the highest (small unit). Tonight, I'll try running it on high when Ronan first goes down, then refilling it around midnight when we go to bed and let it run on low all night.
Thoughts?
Frankly, I've been skittish about the humidifier. The nice thing about winter is that the lowered humidity levels cause the dust mite population to level off somewhat. But something has to change.
The really weird thing? He doesn't have this problem during his naps. He naps in the same room, same bed. It's only for an hour or two, but he doesn't get stuffed up.
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no subject
Date: 2008-01-26 10:30 pm (UTC)Also, is he sleeping in his day clothes for the nap, and PJs at bedtime? Maybe it's something about the PJs (or even the drawer they're kept in) that is causing a stuffy nose?
(also, long shot, but I was waking up congested as hell for a while, turned out to be that my roommate had taken to turning down the heat at night, not realizing how much colder my room was than his. My nose was running from being chilly all night! He stopped turning it down so much, and I got better.)
no subject
Date: 2008-01-27 03:09 am (UTC)Poodles are, of course, still allergenic. They just shed less dander because they're oilier dogs and have a different type of coat that locks in hair a la dreads. Tom reacts to Jericho, but less so than other dogs. If that were a problem, I'd expect more of an issue out on the carpet, where they both play. R's fine out there, but it's certainly something we plan on watching.
I had the heat at 70 and turned it down two nights ago on the off chance that the heat running so often was drying out the air too much. It's not that low now (68F). I like the idea of saving energy, but I hate a cold nose.