Benadryl for a bad cough?

missfire

Do you give children's benadryl overnight when your LO has a bad cough? Our old pedi recommended it to us once, but it doesn't have a cough suppressant in it, does it?

IckyThump

Yes, our pedi okayed it. It doesn't have a cough suppressant, but it dries up a lot of the mucous, which means less of a post nasal drip, which means they can (hopefully) get a few hours of sleep.

KariChadDora

No, no cough suppressant.  It's an antihistamine, so it works for congestion/runny noses by drying things up.  It also has a side effect of making you sleepy... perhaps this is why the pedi suggested it, to help your child sleep through the cough?  Personally, I wouldn't give benadryl for a cough only.

gretchenh

We just took DS in for 3 weeks of coughing mainly at night.  Turns out he had pneumonia.  The pedi did suggest benadryl at night only to help with the cough.

laurenshay

How old is your LO?  Our pedi ok'd Delsym at 20 months. 

jc&cat

Agree with all previous posts. It didn't do much for DS sadly. He has a really bad post nasal drip that i believe is allergy based. Pedi said not to give benadryl for a few nights in a row if we didn't think it worked early on. I'm starting to question my pedi alot lately so this might not be consistent with other opinions.

murphyec

DS was coughing at night for a while.  Pedi gave us some Zyrtec to give him in case it was allergies.  We tried it for a few nights, but it didn't do anything, so we stopped.  Turned out he had a light virus that just needed to run its course.