[FarmBaby]

My 15 month old son has a cold. He has a particularly bad cough when horizontal, runny nose and, I think, a headache and sore throat. At the moment he isn't sleeping well and generally hates being horizontal. I am assuming this is because it makes him cough. Normally quite a good breast feeder he now grizzles and fights when I lay him on my lap to breast feed and refuses to breast feed at all. I can't really force him but I am useless at expressing and want to feed him to help him recuperate.

Any ideas? Keep in mind I live no where near a town so I need techniques that don't require me to buy anything.

[CharliMarley]

Could you try and feed him straddled on your knee (sitting up). This will alleviate the laying down and will help with his suction. Also, could you try and clear his nose before the feed, with those saline drops or what-ever they give to babies these days for colds and blocked noses.

[Tesseract]

I had this problem too. I would first try to clear her nose via the saline drops plus the snot sucker thing. It wasn't very effective though so sometimes I would just quickly suck it out myself - gross I know, but she was really suffering.

Then I would feed her while she was sitting upright. Lots of ways you can do it - sit on the floor with your legs spread (knees bent) and sit him between your knees, sit on the couch and have him sitting on your knees and even drop him between your legs (with his little legs straddling you, so cute!). I also did it with her sitting on the edge of the change table and me standing up. I have large breasts that aren't perky so I had to support my breast with my hand to get it to the right height for her, but it worked.

Also, you might have noticed yourself that when you are lying asleep on your side the mucus tends to drain to the bottom nostril, leaving the other one clear. So you can try to feed him while he's asleep/half asleep as he will probably have one clear nostril to breathe from.

Oh and a humidifier worked wonders for helping her nose, she was still snotty but not so blocked she couldn't breathe.

[TwiceThe Woman]

He may likely have sore ears. As above - try feeding him sitting up facing you straddling one leg.
Ask your Dr. to check his ears and ask if it's ok for him to have some antihistamine.