Our little Juliana just got her first cold at the age of 3 months. It was bound to happen since I have had a cold for over 4 weeks now. Even though Juliana sleeps for 7 to 9 hours at night, by the time I fall asleep from my stuffy nose I get only about 4 to 5 hours of sleep. It is hard to get better when I cannot rest.
When she started coughing and sneezing, we took her to see our family doctor. He told us it was just rhume (a cold) and prescribed her some medicine. So far so good,I suspected it was only a cold and was looking forward to getting her medicine to help relieve her symptoms.
The first thing he prescribed to her is Stérimar Hygiène du Nez, which is a nose spray. It is gentle for infants but Juliana cries bloody murder when we give it to her . She is supposed to get this 6 times per day, we have only been giving it to her 3 to 4 times per day. Today we will try harder to give it to her 6 times – it is just hard seeing her so upset.
The second medicine he prescribed is the suppository Coquelusédal Nourrisson. Yes, that is correct. Not only is my poor baby dealing with her first cold, spray up her nose, but now we have to shove something up her little tushy. As you can imagine, she is not too happy about this one as well. She gets it twice per day.
The third prescription was for Doliprane, a liquid pain reliever. It is supposed to taste like strawberries to make it easier to give to children. Juliana apparently does not care for strawberries. Be sure to use a bib when administering this, it gets messy! The doctor told us to give it to her as needed.
The doctor had a good laugh at my face when my husband translated everything. I asked my husband to translate because thought I did not understand correctly – I could not believe he was prescribing her a suppository. He said that it is not very common in the UK to have suppositories for babies, so his English patients always have the same reaction as I did. I am not completely sure about in the US, but I have never heard of giving a baby cold medicine this way.
So mammas, here is another reason why to make sure your baby does not get sick in France. I just hope my little angel gets better soon. It is so difficult seeing her this way.
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