Homemade Cough Remedy

Our house in the winter time is constantly full of coughs.  We have puffers for 3 of the boys, and a diagnosis of "possible asthma."  That just means that they end up pretty sick from a common cold, and their coughing is constant.  Even throughout the night I hear them coughing and coughing.  The puffers seem to help sometime, but I'm always looking for natural ways to help them.

I've heard a lot about honey, and how it's just as effective (if not more so) as cough syrup, and cough syrup shouldn't be given to children under age 6 anyways.  We've tried a teaspoon of honey striaght, and that seems to help a bit, as does the honey with cinnamon.

But today the coughing just kept going and going.  No one was napping or sleeping, and without that rest, no one was going to get any better.  So - time to check out Pinterest!!

I found this post of a cough remedy that uses honey as well as onions.  I've heard lots of old wives tales about onions and colds and coughs, so I figured I may as well try this one. Basically, you chop up one onion and put it in a small saucepan.  Add enough  honey (she said raw honey but I only had regular) to cover it, and add a few medicinal herbs.  I only had powdered ginger, so I added 1tsp of that.  Let it simmer on very low heat for about 20 minutes, stirring every now and then.  Strain it, press it through a sieve and store it covered in a glass container.  You can give children 1 tsp of this up to every half hour.

I tasted it, and it was a little strange -tasting, but not horrible.  My 4-year old said it was kind of "spicy," and I had to bribe with a Bob the Builder DVD to take the medicine.  It's only been about 20 minutes or so, and I've already heard less coughs than before.  I like the fact that you can give it so often (hopefully they'll take it).  It should be fine to give to kids older than 1 year, and adults can take a larger dose.

Note: Please don't give honey to babies under one year.  They have a risk of contracting infant botulism which can be serious.

Head over here for the original post.

Update:  It's been about 12 hours since I've been giving this to my boys.  Each one had a much better sleep last night that previous nights, and are coughing much less.  Still coughing a lot, but less than before.  I've started to give it in a syringe so they won't taste it as much, but the younger two (21 months, 3 yrs) don't seem to mind it too much.

Do you have any tried & true home remedies? I 'd love to hear some.  At this point, we are open to almost anything!

For more home remedies, check out the post about Ear Infection Remedies.