If your baby coughs at night but not during the day, you should pay special attention to whooping cough. Whooping cough is characterized by a spasmodic cough at night, followed by a coughing sound like a chicken’s tail, but when not coughing, the baby’s mental condition is fine. This cough needs to be treated with azithromycin or erythromycin to be effective, but ordinary penicillin or cephalosporins are not effective.