Babies have very delicate lungs that are still developing. Babies that came early or have some kind of health issue may have additional challenges.
Inability to breathe adequately can make it impossible for a baby to get to sleep. A baby that is tired and having trouble breathing and can't sleep will be miserable and will let everyone know.
Obviously, if there are serious respiratory issues, baby should be getting checked by a doctor for that and should be getting appropriate medical care, but there are a lot of non-medical things you can do to help baby breathe easier and get to sleep.
In the long run, you need to improve air quality in the home to help baby sleep well with as little medical intervention as possible. Drugs that open the airways are stimulants and they tend to interfere with sleep, though not as much as inability to breathe will.
But less NEED for drugs will help baby sleep better, so removing triggers from their environment will help them sleep and also help them simply be healthier overall. Look for hidden mold, donate books to the library (get a Kindle and download books to read instead of keeping the dead-tree variety around), reduce how much upholstered furniture you have, get the dust down.
Clean baby's sleep area first and then go through the house room by room and slowly upgrade air quality as time and energy permit.
Baby also needs very good nutritional support on an ongoing basis so their lungs will outgrow some of their issues. If you are able to breastfeed, breastfeeding a baby with lung issues longer than you might otherwise will help give them a good start in life and breast milk provides immune support that formula doesn't provide.
So even if you can't provide all their nutrition with your own breast milk, it's good to breastfeed part-time if that works for you and baby. Even once a day for a few minutes provides some immune support.
In the short term, here are some emergency measures if baby can't sleep due to respiratory distress:
Ditto with breathing. Your lungs are bigger and stronger and your breathing will physically provide some of the energy for baby's breathing if baby sleeps up against you. Your body providing an outside source of energy can help baby relax and get to sleep.
Babies can also have trouble staying warm and being up against a grown up can help them stay the right temperature. This goes double if they have any health issues. Heart and lung issues interfere with staying adequately warm.
If baby ends up hospitalized for respiratory issues, one of the things the hospital will do is elevate baby's head by placing them in a bassinet with an inclined section and an oxygen tent over it. So if they are having respiratory issues, just elevating their head can help you provide some of the same kind of care without a hospital visit.
When my kids were little, I was a military wife, so I didn't really have to worry about medical bills per se. Hospital stays were super cheap -- a few dollars a day -- and most other medical care was free.
My reasons for working to keep my special-needs kids out of the hospital and to minimize medical intervention, like IVs, was primarily for quality of life of my children and concern for their developing psyches. Some studies have shown that being hospitalized as a toddler can be psychologically traumatizing in a serious and long-term fashion because they basically interpret it as torture and don't know why they are being punished.
Neither of my sons was ever hospitalized but they did get enough medical intervention for me to know from firsthand experience that small children can find medical care traumatizing and you can't explain it to them. One of them had chest x-rays at age 8 months and they put him in a device to hold him still and he screamed the entire time. He didn't like it AT ALL and let us all know.
So I used a lot of home care to minimize how much medical care my sons needed, one of whom has a very serious medical condition with which he was born. He also was seen PLENTY by doctors. He was NOT denied necessary medical care, but if I knew of some trick to give him the care he needed at home, I tried that first.
Inability to breathe adequately can make it impossible for a baby to get to sleep. A baby that is tired and having trouble breathing and can't sleep will be miserable and will let everyone know.
Obviously, if there are serious respiratory issues, baby should be getting checked by a doctor for that and should be getting appropriate medical care, but there are a lot of non-medical things you can do to help baby breathe easier and get to sleep.
In the long run, you need to improve air quality in the home to help baby sleep well with as little medical intervention as possible. Drugs that open the airways are stimulants and they tend to interfere with sleep, though not as much as inability to breathe will.
But less NEED for drugs will help baby sleep better, so removing triggers from their environment will help them sleep and also help them simply be healthier overall. Look for hidden mold, donate books to the library (get a Kindle and download books to read instead of keeping the dead-tree variety around), reduce how much upholstered furniture you have, get the dust down.
Clean baby's sleep area first and then go through the house room by room and slowly upgrade air quality as time and energy permit.
Baby also needs very good nutritional support on an ongoing basis so their lungs will outgrow some of their issues. If you are able to breastfeed, breastfeeding a baby with lung issues longer than you might otherwise will help give them a good start in life and breast milk provides immune support that formula doesn't provide.
So even if you can't provide all their nutrition with your own breast milk, it's good to breastfeed part-time if that works for you and baby. Even once a day for a few minutes provides some immune support.
In the short term, here are some emergency measures if baby can't sleep due to respiratory distress:
- Elevate baby's head. If nothing else, you can lay baby on your chest and arrange your body in a semi-inclined positioned, such as in a recliner.
- If they are visibly gasping for air as they drift off and this is preventing them from sleeping, you can use a straw as a dropper to give a very small amount of a caffeinated drink to baby to ease their breathing. I will suggest Diet Coke.
- Not respiratory related, but you can also use a straw as a dropper to feed baby small quantities of Sprite if their tummy is very upset.
- Let baby sleep with you so YOUR heart and lungs dictate the beat of the drum and provide some of the energy for it.
Ditto with breathing. Your lungs are bigger and stronger and your breathing will physically provide some of the energy for baby's breathing if baby sleeps up against you. Your body providing an outside source of energy can help baby relax and get to sleep.
Babies can also have trouble staying warm and being up against a grown up can help them stay the right temperature. This goes double if they have any health issues. Heart and lung issues interfere with staying adequately warm.
If baby ends up hospitalized for respiratory issues, one of the things the hospital will do is elevate baby's head by placing them in a bassinet with an inclined section and an oxygen tent over it. So if they are having respiratory issues, just elevating their head can help you provide some of the same kind of care without a hospital visit.
When my kids were little, I was a military wife, so I didn't really have to worry about medical bills per se. Hospital stays were super cheap -- a few dollars a day -- and most other medical care was free.
My reasons for working to keep my special-needs kids out of the hospital and to minimize medical intervention, like IVs, was primarily for quality of life of my children and concern for their developing psyches. Some studies have shown that being hospitalized as a toddler can be psychologically traumatizing in a serious and long-term fashion because they basically interpret it as torture and don't know why they are being punished.
Neither of my sons was ever hospitalized but they did get enough medical intervention for me to know from firsthand experience that small children can find medical care traumatizing and you can't explain it to them. One of them had chest x-rays at age 8 months and they put him in a device to hold him still and he screamed the entire time. He didn't like it AT ALL and let us all know.
So I used a lot of home care to minimize how much medical care my sons needed, one of whom has a very serious medical condition with which he was born. He also was seen PLENTY by doctors. He was NOT denied necessary medical care, but if I knew of some trick to give him the care he needed at home, I tried that first.