I had croup often as a kid. It was often enough that I knew, as a little 4 or 5 year old, to run a hot shower and sit on the edge in the middle of the night to help clear it up a little and cough up a bunch of nasty stuff.

One night I woke up short of breathe again and started the shower but it didn't get better. I woke my parents up and apparently my lips were blue. I was so dehydrated and my throat was so irritated that it started closing up.

If this becomes a chronic thing as he gets older, use a steaming hot shower to act as a home remedy. It works similarly to the nebulizer.

I believe they should be using normal saline 0.9% unless they see a reason to use an inhaled steroid. The steroid has an anti-inflammatory effect that reduces any possible swelling in the respiratory tract. Normal saline just helps loosen up the mucous stuck in the respiratory tract. A steamy shower would do the same once he's a little older.

I hope it all works out.

You both got this, get some rest when you can.

Very similar story for my 1.5 year old. Visits to the ER for steroid nebulizers two nights in a row. We were never kept for observation, but that may be because he's older. I don't think croup is supposed to last long. We had two bad nights and got better steadily for another week until it was over.

But yeah croup is nasty. We thought he had inhaled something and was choking the first night.