Feeding medicine challenges
If you have challenges feeding medicine to your child when he is sick, do not get frustrated.
You are not alone. My 11 1/2 months old son fell sick recently and doctor prescribed antibiotic for his sore throat. The challenge began when we reached home to feed him his medicine. Initially he opened his mouth to take the medicine, but when he realised that the medicine did not taste like the food he normally takes, he put on a struggle. It was impossible to feed him alone. We have to work in pairs. One to hold him and one to shoot the medicine into his mouth using a syringe. It was a heartbreaking sight to see him struggled and cried his heart out. At his young age, he did not know that it will do him good. At times when he cried and struggled too much, he will vomit out the medicine. If that happens, all the effort and the joy of succeeding in getting the medicine into his body go down the drain. So the challenge is to get the medicine into his stomach at the shortest time possible with minimal struggle and crying and to keep the medicine inside once it is in.After many trials and error, I found that the few tips listed below are quite effective.
1. Keep him distracted at all times by showing him things or toys that he likes.
2. If you are a Christian, pray with him first before you give him the medicine. It is really a miracle to see the result. There will be less struggle and sometimes he will open his mouth willingly. Talk about the power of prayer.
3. Point the syringe to the “cheek pocket” and inject about 1 ml to 1.5ml of medicine at a time into the “cheek pocket”. In this way, less medicine will reach his tongue and minimise the taste of the medicine. This will enable him to swallow it down easily.
4. Immediately distract him again by showing things that he likes or take him for a walk around the room or house. This will prevent him from crying too much and minimise the risk of vomiting.
5. Repeat the same procedures until the syringe is empty. But try to minimise to number of times forcing the medicine into him.
Hopefully the above helps to overcome the challenges in feeding your child medicine and makes medicine feeding time a less heart breaking experience.
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I read this and your previous post about medicine giving. Let me share what worked for my children.
Though it may sound odd (or even mean) at first, when you do it you realize it works well. And after awhile, both my kids would just get right into position for medicine!
1. have all medicines ready. If you’re using a dropper, try to have it loaded, but if you can’t, just get it close by. Have a napkin or tissue ready as well.
2. lay your child on the floor, with their head in your crotch. Place your thighs over their arms, and gently hold their body in place. This is the “mean” sounding part, obviously. With their head in your crotch and their arms GENTLY pinned under your thighs, they can’t fight you, and you still have both hands free to help open and guide medicine.
3. Place medicine into mouth, toward the back of the cheeks (using your “pocket” method) so that it will be swallowed, but not gagged on.
4. Blow gently onto their face, which causes them to swallow immediately.
5. After all medicine has been given (I often try to mix all the medicines and use a big dropper in order to get it all done at once) immediately lift your child up and give a lot of love, hugs, kisses and praise for how well they did.
Like I said, at first, my kids hated it, but then they got into position. Long after my daughter was old enough to take medicine without arguing, she would want to do it this way, just because she thought it was fun!
Thanks Linda. Never thought of that. I think it is a brilliant way of holding them down and yet you have two free hands to feed them the medicine. Thanks for sharing.