Sneaky Ways to Help Your Baby Heal
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My son has been struggling with a variety of ear and throat infections the past few months. We’ve been struggling to get him his medicine and also to keep him hydrated.
Some children don’t mind taking their medicine, but others really protest. My son is a protester.
If your baby doesn’t like to take his or her medicine, there are things you can do to help make your life a little easier. Firstly, ask your doctor if you can have a prescription which can be taken only a few times a day instead of more. Some babies actually don’t mind the taste of some anti-biotics. If your child seems to be able to tolerate a certain prescription better, ask if you can use that one.
Also, some pharmacies offer a medicine flavoring option which you may find helpful. It costs extra, but if that’s what it takes to get the medicine into your child, it’s worth it.
There are several products which may be helpful if you have a medicine resistant baby as well. You can buy pacifiers which actually allow you to measure a dose of medicine into the back of the dropper. This is a sneaky, yet effective way to get your child to take his medicine, especially if he likes pacifiers.
Walmart also has a product called “Redi-Dose” which is basically a bottle where you can mix medicine and formula or juice. The bottle is expensive (almost $10 in our area). However, this may be the gimmick you need to get that medicine into your child! I’ve found that mixing the medicine with juice works better than mixing it with breast milk or formula and also that it’s best to only use a few ounces rather than mix up a whole bottle.
In our case, none of the above options worked and so we were left with the only other alternative: my husband would hold my son’s arms while I used a medicine dropper and squeezed the medicine into the back of his cheek near his throat.
Our son, proving that “helpless” babies aren’t really as helpless as we like to think, continues to spit out most of his medicine despite our efforts. If your child is prone to this behavior, make sure to get a re-check at the end of the 10 day medicine regime to check and make sure that he or she got enough medicine to clear up the infection.
It’s also important to follow the directions of the doctor. For example, if the medicine is to be given for 10 days, do so. Also, even if your child seems to spit most of the medicine out, do not give him another dose or try to make up for what you believe was spit out. Wait until the next scheduled dose and continue with that dose.
Have you found something that is helpful when giving your child medicine? Please share here if you have!
Juliette (new baby on the way) Gold says...
I know what you mean about fussy babies. We had to give one of our boys eye drops a while back, and he just HATED them! We ended up with my husband leaning on top of him to hold him down, while I put the drops in. I was amazed at how strong a little boy could be!
You feel awful having to do something like this, but you know it’s for his good. He needed a lot of cuddling afterwards.
Ta ra
Juliette