First scare for Mum!

Not long after my post here on Friday night, Austy started coughing in his sleep. I thought nothing of it until he worked himself into a coughing fit, waking up and screaming in between trying to catch his breath! I was worried but most concerned that he got his much needed rest as he has had a cold and thought the cough was part of that. So I held him upright against my chest, rocked in our bedtime chair and patted his back, singing to him until he fell asleep. I held him for about half an hour just cuddling him and feeling sorry for him as he had worked himself into such as state whilst struggling to catch his breath and his breathing was quite rattley.

No sooner had I put him down and walked out of the room that the whole thing started again. He was more upset this time and so was I. I was trying to calm him down so he could breathe easier but nothing would work. Then Slinky Malinki (rapscallion cat) came to the rescue! For those not in the know Slinky Malinki is Austy's favourite book by Linley Dodd in the Hairy Mclary series. Sure enough the page with Slinki Malinki all tangled in yarn got him giggling again and his breathing slowed to a more normal rate. I was too scared to put him back to bed though and called Nanny Robyn around for a second opinion that he needed to see a doctor straighht away. We decided that it would ease my mind (and also didn't think he would get much sleep in his cot if we didn't) so we called the locum out. He came at 12:30am after a 2 hour wait during which Austy slept on my chest in the darkened loungeroom.

I was unimpressed with the doctor's manner as he seemed to hardly care at all except to tell me I was dressing him too warmly (he had a body suit and cotton PJ's on underneath his grobag as it was acool night and that's what the grobag recommendations say for a 16 degree room, which his was). I think he was a tad warm mainly because I'd been holding him and he had woken and fussed for a bit before the doctor arrived. I already felt awful that my precious boy was sick, and this doctor made me feel even worse. Anyway I realised that I should take what he said with a grain of salt once he diagnosed Austin with croup and told me to give him a dose of prednisolone (a broken down tablet from the bottle I had in the cupboard for my asthma) with a teaspoon of HONEY!!! Once the doctor left, I dutifullly crushed up the tablet portion and mixed it with my milk, and Austy took it just fine... no honey needed here to possibly set off an alergic reaction or give him some disease (you're not meant to give honey to an under 12m old for those reasons).

Anyway, the course of pred is now over and Austy seems to be on the mend thank goodness, ready for our trip to Sydney. We are getting him checked over tomorrow morning by our regular doctor just to make sure and then we are off for our big adventure - travelling with a baby for the first time!

Just to prove he is getting better, here's a photo taken last night when it seemed someone had changed his batteries and installed energiser max instead of the regular eveready ones. He escaped me whilst I was trying to get him dressed for bed after his bath and every effort at catching him and bringing him back for his evening massage failed, so I got the camera out instead!