My two year old DD is having a lot of nasal congestion and we're having trouble helping her deal with it. I can hear it gurgling in her nose when she sleeps and it is making it hard for her to nurse. The past few days she's had a few episodes where she sucks in and the mucous goes from her nose to her throat and she gags and then throws up. This, of course, upsets her quite a bit. We have tried to get her to blow her nose, she “knows how”, but doesn't put any real force behind it and nothing comes out. When she was younger we did saline drops and used an aspirator most nights as a part of our bedtime routine, but now she won't let us anywhere near her without putting up some sort of fight. When we do fight her and try to get the snot out ourselves she cries so much it only serves to make the situation worse. We're trying to let her lead and are talking to her about needing to get the mucous out, but we haven't been very successful.
I need help with how to teach her to really blow her nose.
I also need better ideas on how to get the mucous out. We currently use ocean saline drops and boogie wipes with limited success.
Help...we both need more sleep and lot less gagging!
