Toddler doesn’t sleep when congested

I am out of ideas and we are so tired. Please share any advice you may have!

Whenever our two-year-old is sick and congested, she really can’t breathe well when she lays in her bed and she wakes up crying within an hour of being down. She is struggling to breathe and sometimes sounds like she is choking on phlegm. My husband (she prefers him maybe because he’s larger?) ends up holding her in the reclining rocking chair in her room the rest of the night so that she is more upright. This of course means that he doesn’t sleep well and really wipes him out the next day. He usually has to do this multiple times each illness, which lately has been very frequent (sister in pre-k). I have tried to be the one to hold her to relieve him, but she is less comfortable.

We do everything I can think of: humidifier, lots of fluids during the day, saline and suction (though the amount of crying that elicits often makes her congestion worse), ibuprofen, steamy bathroom at bath time, slightly elevated crib mattress and a pillow…

What else can we do? Aside from when she’s sick, she sleeps independently in her room fairly well. Her older sister never had this problem except a couple of times when she had a really rough cough. I feel so bad for her with how congested she is, and I also feel bad for my husband. It’s really untenable. We both work, him in a high-stress thinking-oriented job, and we all just desperately need sleep!

Any suggestions out there??