Croup!

Cross you fingers that we do not have a night like last night! Graham has had a runny nose since Thursday, and a slight cough, no big deal....or so I thought. He went to bed happy and normal last night at 7:30, like any other night. Now, keep in mind that Graham rarely wakes at night, and if he does, I hear a little whimper on the monitor, or a quick two minute cry, and that is that. I can honestly say that since I stopped feeding him during the night when he was about 3 weeks old (crazy, right?) neither Pat nor I have really ever ventured into his room at night. I have peaked in to check on him of course, put his blankie back over him, but we have never gone to him in the night because of him crying. I've found that when we hear him cry, if we ignore it, it will stop in less than 10 minutes. He is really good at self soothing, and always has been.
Anyway, around 11pm we heard him start to cry...after a few minutes it just got really bad, and sounded like a horrible panic cry, like he was in pain. We went up to him, and I scooped him out of the crib, and the poor little guy couldn't breathe. He was crying so hard, and couldn't catch his breath. Then he tried to cough and the scariest sound came out. It was like a bark or a seal I thought to myself. Then I realized, Oh my goodness, I have read about this cough in all my baby books! I then was trying to remember what they said to do and all I could remember was to take him outside in cold air, or go in the shower and run a hot shower and sit in there with the steam. Also, in my slight panicky head, I was confusing croup and whooping cough, and couldn't remember which the seal bark cough was associated with, or which remedy belonged to which cough! UGGH. So, instead of thinking to actually look it up, we sat and rocked and tried to calm baby boy down. We gave him water, refilled the humidifier, and after about an hour, it all stopped and he went back to sleep. It was so scary though! They say that when you hear that cough, you know, and well, you really do! Here is a link to some info....http://www.askdrsears.com/html/8/T084200.asp .
In the morning Graham woke happy but snotty. We still called the doctor and he confirmed that we indeed had a "croupy" baby and either of the two things I thought about doing were correct. He said it very well may occur again the next few nights, as it tends to happen at night most often. Hopefully Graham will have a restful night, poor little guy was so stressed last night, it was kind of scary!