Croup Revisited

Twelve years and seven kids ago we had our first experience with croup. It came upon our then 17-month-old in the middle of the night. Of course. For the uninitiated, according to Dr. Google croup, “is a common respiratory infection that primarily affects children. It causes inflammation of the upper airway, leading to a characteristic barking cough and difficulty breathing.”

According to me, croup is when your child wakes up in the night upset and coughing like an angry seal cursing at a driver who cut him off. Depending on your kid and the severity of the croup he may also develop stridor, which is a wheezing sound when breathing in that to a parent is at least as unsettling as the sound of banshee howling in the night.

Recently the 18-month-old woke up in the middle of the night (of course) with croup. Comparing the first time we had this happen with our first, to the first time we had this happen with our seventh is an exercise in contrasts.

Really, it’s an exercise in seeing how differently you handle something when you’re prepared and/or have experience. So much of that first encounter with croup was enveloped in the fear of the unknown. And your toddler making a horrible, barking, geriatric coughing and wheezing doesn’t help settle the nerves at all.

The first time we encountered croup, I vaguely knew breathing in steam might be helpful. My wife and I sat in a steamed up bathroom with the toddler for almost 40 minutes wondering how to know how serious this was (or wasn’t).

Since then I’ve learned breathing in steamy air and alternating it with cooler, sometimes even cold air, is often all that’s needed to help alleviate the wheezing. Ten minutes in the steamy air, five minutes out, back in for another 10, and that usually does it. [Insert the “I’m not a doctor” disclaimer here.]

The first time, we stayed up the rest of the night watching to see if the toddler’s breathing was at any point “labored”. The wheezing of stridor makes it sound like they’re having trouble breathing and definitely freaks out a new parent to the point of not wanting to sleep.

I have vivid memories of that night and not just because it was the first episode of croup. We brought the toddler to the couch and put on a kids TV show I thought would help him calm down and get back to sleep. We had this DVD of various kids educational songs (counting, alphabet, colors, etc) and I put one on figuring in 20 or so minutes he’d be out.

However, I vastly underestimated how big of a deal TV would be to him since he hardly ever watched it. He sat with rapt attention (breathing calmly) and staring at the screen and didn’t close his eyes once. The DVD would repeat when it finished and I heard the song, “number one is fun!” so many times it haunts me to this day.

Our most recent bout with croup was much different, When the 18-month-old woke up in the middle of the night (of course) with a croupy cough, my wife calmly took her to the bathroom and fired up the warm water on the shower. I heard the shower and came over and said, “a little croupy?”. She said yes and after a little steam and then cooler air, the 18-month-old was asking to go back to bed. With the baby monitor on there wasn’t even the need to sleep right next to her. Or watch hours and hours of kids education videos.

When it comes to croup, a little bit of experience can go a long way. Which sounds a lot like parenting, and maybe even life, in general.