Sick and wimpering in sleep

All of us have been sick with the same virus for a couple weeks now. Starts with a bad cough and fever, a few days later comes the stuffiness, congestion, and then the stuffiness goes away and the cough sort of lingers on, and there is pretty much no appetite. My husband got it first, my son got it last Tuesday, my daughter on Thursday and me on Saturday. My son is much better, just has the cough lingering on, and he's eating better but still not normal. My daughter seemed to be getting better on Sunday. Her nose stopped dripping, didn't seem as stuffy, she perked up and played well. But yesterday it was worse again - no fever though. During her nap I kept running in there because I could hear her crying out and wimpering in her sleep. But she never woke up. It took her awhile, but once she was awake she eventually got back to being a happy kid and she ate her dinner ok. Then last night she was back to wimpering and crying in her sleep a lot of the night. I figured it's got to be her ears. I woke her and gave her ibuprofen. She was good for awhile, and early in the a.m. she was back at it, so I gave her tylenol. After she was awake for the day she was crabbier than I've seen with an illness. Normally she acts pretty normal when she's sick. But she was beyond crabby today. We got in to see the doctor. She had no fever, her lungs were clear and I was actually very disappointed to find her ears were absolutely clear. He figured she just must be uncomfortable and stuffy when she's sleeping. But she's had at least 10 colds this season and she doesn't usually act this way. Actually, it's very unusual for something to even wake her at night (not that this woke her, but there was clearly something wrong). Now she fell asleep on the couch (also, unusual) and is wimpering in her sleep again.

What am I missing? I'm watching her sleep and she doesn't seem stuffy. What else could it be? could you still have ear pain even if there's no fluid in the ear?

 

Alice has been a royal b!tch with this most recent/current bout of illness. Nasty little thing. Anyway, I just chalk it up to her feeling bad, even when she's not running a fever. Body aches and stuff.

 

Thats what I was thinking too- just feeling crappy. Do you think her tummy hurts?

As a side note, I have one kid who gets SUPER crabby and emotional (more so than normal which is saying a lot!) when sick, and another who becomes sweet as pie when sick (she is a handful when she is well though).

 

Ok, this just made me laugh out loud!

 

She slept for over 3 hours on the couch and when she woke up she kept falling back to sleep in my arms. I took her temperature at it was 100.6. Not high I know, but I still think it's odd that she started this a week ago and has gone days without a fever. I really think there is some sort of infection working on her, but I'm not sure what the doctor would have missed. I just called the nurse and she said she'd put a message out to the doctor for me. I hate to be a pest since we were just there, but I hate seeing her so miserable. This is really unlike her.

I also told her I'd give her anything she wanted to eat, which I never do. They "earn" treats by eating their meals. So I broke out the ice cream for her because so far all she ate today was a banana (with her sitting on my lap and me feeding it to her). She left most of it sitting there. So now I KNOW she is just not right!

 

How is she feeling today Denise?

 

Yesterday she spent most of the day on the couch and hardly ate anything. Her fever came back around 100.0 mid day, but even when it went down she still wasn't well.

Today she woke up and played with her brother for the first time in days. She acted like herself for the first time in days. Until just before lunch I asked her to pick up the books she dropped all ever the bathroom floor. Then she turned into a crabby monster for the next hour. I finally gave up on lunch and put her down for a nap. She was out in a matter of minutes. I guess the morning just tired her out.

Still stuffy and congested and coughing. I haven't noticed the wimpering in her sleep lately. I hope she is gradually getting better. Considering we all had the same virus, it sure affected her differently.

Thanks for asking!