Conference moira::parenting

    I avidly await a reply to this note. My 4 year old sniffs continuously
    when the weather turns cold and i cannot get him to 'blow out'...
    
    he climbs into our bed around 4 AM and sniffs for the next 2 hours.

    My 3.5 year old has been blowing his nose as needed and then some
    due to 2 things:  softer tissues and a cute tissue box holder.
    
    We use either Puffs Plus or Kleenex Ultra tissues; both claim to
    contain lotion.  They do cause less soreness for me, and apparently
    for my son.
    
    Our daycare provider has a tissue box cover which looks like a koala,
    and entices the kids to take a tissue.  (It is gray and furry with
    a koala face on one side.)  
    
    It works for us.
    
    

    We tought our son to blow air out his nose (wihtout the tissue up
    against it) by doing it and then having him do it.. he caught on
    quick.  If you hand him a tissue he puts it to his nose and blows..
    Unfortunately, you should probably try to show him/her how to do
    this when there is nothing the nose but air.... (make it a game
    out of it when they are feeling good.)
    
    

    Nose blowing?  I'd just like to get my son to stop coughing, especially
    without anything over his mouth.

    I'd like to be able to teach my twins to only blow their noses when
    they have a kleenix in hand!!
    
    Imitation seemed to work for us.  My sinuses have me doing my share of
    blowing, and I guess they thought that looked like fun.  They've been
    able to blow since before they where a year old.  
    
    Now sucking through a straw, how does one demo that???  One twin has
    been able to do this since the first time we introduced a straw to her,
    the other still does'nt quite get it!
    
    
    
    

How well I remember teaching my then 5-year-old to blow his nose! What a
challenge, and I can't for the life of me figure out what the problem was,
except that he for some reason did not want to blow his nose.   He insisted
that he couldn't do it.  Eventually he did learn, thankfully.  It took lots
of encouragement and lessons, though.  Glad that's over!  Now I keep a box
of tissues by his bed so when he gets a cold, or worse - a bloody nose, he
can take care of it himself for the most part.
 
re: .5:
My younger son has been able to suck through a straw since before his
first birthday - just took to it naturally.  I guess since sucking was
still such a primary function for him then (nursing and bottles), when he
wanted to see what the straw was, we just put it in his lips and he
automatically sucked!

    Boy my son Alex was really easy to teach to blow his nose.  When he was
    a baby (he will be 3 in November) we used to use the nasil surynge(sp)
    when he got stuffed up. But when he was about 11 months old we started
    to teach him to blow out through his nose and he caught on pretty fast
    and has been doing it ever since, and boy was I glad cuase he just got
    over having that flu that is going around and was quit sick.  He also
    caught on pretty fast with drinking through a straw.  He was about a
    year old when this happend.  He wanted a drink and we were out and I
    held my cup of soda down for him and he just sucked it up.   I guess
    some kids are easier to teach then others.
    
    
    Liz

    Here's a tangent on teaching a baby to suck from a straw. Another
    parent showed me this (and taught my nine-month-old in the process).
    
    Put the straw of a juice box in the baby's mouth  and squeeze the box
    gently, just enough to let them get a taste of the juice. Most babies
    will instinctively suck at this point. Squeeze a little more if the
    baby isn't getting the idea, but don't do all the work for them - let
    them try to get the juice by sucking. 
    
    This worked os well for Charlotte that she also figured how to suck up 
    spaghetti by 10 months.
    
    My four-year-old knows how to blow his nose -- but how do I convince
    him to *do* it?!
    
    Lucy

    I hate to brag, but my son has been blowing his nose since he was 13
    months.  My husband has alot of allergies and is constantly blowing his
    nose, so I guess my son sees him do it alot.
    
    Everytime he gets a cloth of any kind in his hand (face cloth,
    napkin,etc.) he blows his nose.  It is sooooo cute.  
    
    When I ask him to wipe his face and hands, he blows his nose.  It's a
    riot.  He's 16 months old now.
    
    I don't know what to say to help you with you son, but maybe if you and
    your husband blow your nose at the same time as he does, he'll catch
    on.
    
    Good Luck 
    
    Donna (who hates to see children with stuffy noses :-{.

    Alicia learned to blow her nose around 2 yrs old however she hated to
    do it.  I used to have to fight with her.  Now she has it
    mastered at four.
                                            
    Drinking through a straw.  Try sucking fluid up through the straw and
    putting your finger over the top to trap the liquid.  The put the straw
    in the baby's mouth and slow drip the liquid their mouth.  This worked
    very well with Alicia but Jessie just doesn't get it.
    
    Angie

    I have read most of the replies in this note.  I have tried most of all
    the things suggested.  Tyler still refuses to blow his nose.  He
    understands what I want him to do, he just doesn't want to.  I gave up
    and bought a nasal aspirator last night.  He actually thanked me after
    I used it.  Maybe his nose is just to "stuffed" to get enough air
    behind it to blow anything out.  It has happened to me before.  For
    now, he is happy to have his nose "sucked" out and I am happy not to
    have to listen to the sniffles all night.
    
    For the drinking through a straw, Ty has been doing it since he was
    about 1 year.  He loved soda and realized it came in a cup with a
    straw.  He figured it out real quick.
    
    Virginia

You may want to get one of those drug-free nasal sprays that are advertised for
dry noses.  I think they are basically a saline solution in a spray type bottle.
This might loosen things up enough to get Tyler to blow.

Barbara

    Barbara,
    
    It's not that he 'can't' blow, he just won't.  Thanks though, maybe
    then he will have to.
    
    Virginia
    

Well, it's not that it will help him to blow so much as that it will create
a very runny nose.  It prevents the mucus from building up.  If his nose is
so blocked that he can't practice then this might help.

But these saline solutions in spray bottles (non-aerosol, drops for babies)
are GREAT because they help the nose to clear itself naturally.  They don't 
compress the membranes and work for adults like myself who have post nasal drip
and should really use a nasal gargle but can't.

Cheryl

    OK, so help me out on this one...
    
    What do I do when my "charmin child" goes to the OTHER extreme?
    
    I mean he has literally gone through a box plus of tissues in a day!
    The old use once and throw away routine, while filling up every trash
    bucket in the house, that is IF he makes it to the bucket....he's got a
    tissue covered corner in his room!
    
    Don't get me wrong, but it's almost like an obsession with him.  Would
    I be too gross to suggest he put the tissue on his headboard (it's a
    "bookcase" style bed) and reuse it one more time, or do I try to reason
    with him that too much blowing might hurt him?
    
    What's this mother to do??
    
    Lyn

    
    	I would not personally suggest that he reuse the tissues (I don't
    even like the idea of using hankies for that reason, who wants to
    handle a germ-snot filled rag?). Try buying a cheap brand of tissue
    that will make his nose raw with excessive blowing (you know the kind,
    made of sandpaper). Enough of those tissues and anyone would stop the
    blowing habit - quickly!
    
    				Wendy

Well, I have the same problem and my son is 9.  Granted, he is special needs,
but he does understand what we want him to do, he just can't seem to do it.
It drives me crazy, he is constantly sniffling or WORSE. (I won;t get into details

As for drinking from a straw, we had trouble with that too.  Every time we
tried, he would breath in through his nose.  One day my husband just held his
nose as he tried to suck, and it worked.  He's been drinking through a straw
ever since.

On the other hand, my two year old picked up on drinking from a straw right
away.  Haven't worked on the nose blowing yet.

Deb