Mom in the City

After all of the partying that we've been doing lately, inevitably my kids got sick.  With my younger son Sean it was a pretty mild cold (runny nose).  Michael (my four year old) had a tougher time.  Usually, I let the kids' colds run their course.  (I'm not a big fan of medicating kids.)  However, this time Michael had a stuffy nose/ sneezing/ a really bad cough/ etc., so my dear husband went to the store to get a multi-purpose cold formula for him. 

To my surprise, he called me and said that besides the Vick's Children's Nyquil, the cold medicines recommended doctor approval for kids under six.  Since I didn't want to either put my kid to sleep with medicine or bother my doctor, we just got the PediaCare® Children's Long-Acting Cough medicine (since the cough was the thing that was keeping him up).  When my husband came home, I started doing some research about cold medicine for kids.  (It's still weird to me that you can "knock your kid out" with Nyquil but should not use other cold medicines without your doctor's approval.)

It turns out that back in 2007 a panel recommended that popular over-the-counter cold and cough medicines should not be used for children who are 2 to 5 years old.  (There's a great article about it here.)

It simply goes to show that information can be out there but until it applies directly to my life (i.e. kid with a cold), I don't necessarily think about it.  (I vaguely remember there being a big "to do" about the panel's recommendation in the news last year.)