Despite vigilant hand washing, trying to eat well, drinking lots of water and other cold-prevention strategies, we at the Combiths household have gotten our first round of winter colds, starting with our two-year-old little girl. Thankfully, she only suffered from a runny nose and mild crankiness – neither of which slowed her down much!

As often happens, at nighttime, our daughter's congestion worsened, and we heard her struggling to breathe unhindered. So we dug out our favorite humidifier, the Air-O-Swiss ultrasonic humidifier and set it up in her room.

When we went in to check on a while later, we were dismayed to find that the room seemed overly damp and her sheets were even beginning to feel wet! Since the Air-O-Swiss has a built-in humidity gauge and we'd set it at 45%, we wondered what was going on. We soon realized that we'd set up the humidifier too close to the heater we keep in there. This must have thrown the hygrometer off, since heated air is much drier than unheated air.

We moved the humidifier over, pointed the nozzle away from her bed, and when we checked on her again, the humidity seemed right. In fact, the humidifier had stopped spewing steam because ideal humidity had been reached. We also noticed that her breathing was much improved, and we felt great knowing that she was getting restful sleep, which would help her recover.

We recommend humidifiers to all our friends with young children because we've seen firsthand the difference it makes in comfort and recovery, especially during winters fraught with sickness.