Use Honey Instead of Cough Syrup

Staying up all night with a coughing child sucks. No two ways about it. And trying to get a kid to swallow some awful tasting cough medicine can be almost as bad. Honey A Better Option For Childhood Cough Than Over The Counter Medications, reported over at Science Daily gives hope.

The study [by a Penn State College of Medicine research team] found that a small dose of buckwheat honey given before bedtime provided better relief of nighttime cough and sleep difficulty in children than no treatment or dextromethorphan (DM), a cough suppressant found in many over-the-counter cold medications.

It seems like a good idea to me. The nice thing is that if you try the honey and it doesn’t work, you can still give a dose of DM.

Better yet, you can have some honey, too, as long as you have the jar out of the cupboard and a spoon in your hand.