Xander's First Cold: My Tips and Advice.

I guess it was inevitable, with the weather the way it is and a chill in the air that Xander at some point would get a cold. What I didn't expect was for it to come on so suddenly. Literally within an hour or two Xander went from being his usual chatty, happy self to a little bunged up snot bag with a nasty cough.

The last couple of days with the little man have been tough, but he seems over the worst of it now and this is what we did to help him:

1) Calpol: it's a wonderful thing! 2.5ml every six hours seemed to take the edge of the cough.
2) Baby Vicks: we rubbed some of this on a muslin and tied it to the handle of his Moses basket to help him breathe at night.
3) We folded a small blanket and placed it under his Moses basket mattress to slightly elevate his head . This seemed to help him with his bunged up nose at night.
4) I fed him little and often. We didn't want him getting dehydrated but appreciated he didn't have his usual good appetite. I also breastfeed him more than I usually would (we combination feed 50% formula, 50% breast) I read that breastfeeding would pass on my healthy antibodies.
5) As difficult as it was I stayed in with Xander all weekend. (The one time I needed to go out I called on my sister to babysit.) We stayed in the warm, had lots of cuddles and ensured he didn't pass it on to anyone else and that he didn't catch anything additional to what he had already. Plus a couple of lazy days meant we could both have a little snooze every now and then and catch up on the sleep we'd both missed out on over night!

We must have done something right as a couple of days later he seems to be back to his usual smiley self!: