Please tell me the secret. We just had a 30 minute ordeal trying to get some Motrin into my 2.5 year old resulting in wasting a quarter of the bottle, throwing up, spitting, a few outfit changes and lots of crying. UGH. So frustrating. He has had a fever all day and knowing this would be tough we waited till bedtime. We haven't had to really give him anything in a while and this time was the worst. How do you deal with this?? We tried offering the little cup and just squirting into his mouth with the dropper.
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I bribe. I know, terrible. But it works! Have you tried Tylenol or Advil? Sometimes different flavors help too.
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I squirt it little by little with a syringe into her cheeks (which is what a nurse did for one of her vaccines when she was littler) while she's crying. Sometimes she chokes/coughs a little but usually she swallows most of it.. We have only used tylenol for molars recently though. Fevers suck.
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Our pedi told is to try chocolate syrup one time when DS was very sick and we couldn't get anything down. Worked like a charm.
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H loves sucking the medicine out of a syringe. We also call it fun names, like bubble gum yum yum (which sounds like a terrible Chinese food dish), but it works for her.
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She actually likes taking medicine. Weird, I know. But, I have a friend with two tricks: when LO is brushing teeth going AHHHH she does a sneak attack and when her LO still took a pacifier, she would pull it out a little and sneak it in the side (not sure that would work given your LOs age!).
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@matador84: did you mix the medicine with the chocolate? How did they eat it??
My LO is suuuupperrrr picky and has a very sensitive gag reflex, so we just struggle.
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@HLK208: we tried every bribe we could think of tonight. No dice.
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@hellobeeboston: with the gag reflex though- the only reason my LO really gags or coughs is because she's crying so hard and on top of everything drooly.. So it's kind of hit or miss in that way.
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Depends on the medicine and how it tastes. I've definitely used bribes before..."If you take this medicine you can have an M&M"
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Mine loves Motrin. She will ask for it, my juice, when we brush her teeth. Then gets mad when when we say no.
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It usually takes some bribery (aka, M&Ms), and he absolutely insists on giving it to himself in the syringe thing. Also, when he had pink eye recently, we let him pretend give his Mickey doll drops too and it really helped. So he would give Mickey his eye drops (with the cap still on) and then Mommy would give him his eye drops. I think it made him feel like he had some control too. He's actually still pretending to give Mickey eye drops every night 2 weeks later, even though we stopped doing his a long time ago!
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We let her have two chocolate chips before the medicine and two after - the two before kind of coat her tongue a little so it doesn't taste quite as bad. And we have milk/water chasers available for immediately after. There are still lots of tears though!
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We tell her she can do it herself by holding the sringe. She holds it and tastes the medicine, then we push the rest into her mouth. We had a few accidents, where it goes all over, but it generally works. She is 20 months!
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Squirt it in there and blow in his face. It's awful, but it works. (Generally, he's pretty good with meds, but when there is one he hates, this is what we do. The blowing in his face forces him to swallow.)
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@hellobeeboston: ours is the same, terrible texture issues and tons will make him gag. I showed him first (opened my mouth and poured syrup in, gross I know) and held him down, medicine and poured chocolate syrup in. it made it better by just a little bit!
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He doesn't like the flavor? DS loves the berry or bubble gum or whatever flavor target infant ibuprofen is. He'd eat the whole bottle if I let him.
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No. He does not like the taste, hence the gagging/throwing up. We have tried only 2 flavors or so. Maybe I will get something new!
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I have more experience with this than I would like to admit. For DD we had to get bubble gum flavored Motrin, because she had thrown up the other favors. For some antibiotics, which WERE flavored bubble gum and I had to pay extra for it, I had to dye it pink and offer a candy cane lick in between sips. Lying to her that it was Motrin.
For DS #1, who is three and currently sick, he did Motrin ok but the antibiotics are a struggle. He insists that they are pink, the medicine is white and I use good coloring, and he gets bites of chocolate.I have tried everything! And, at this age they are so irrational. I would rather give my 15 month old medicine than my three or five year old!!!
Hope your LO feels better soon.
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LO hated all medicine so we used the suppository for awhile. Ultimately the magic formula was two bites of strawberry sorbet to numb and shock the tastebuds and prep for swallowing, followed by a quick medicine syringe to back of inner cheek and then immediately (get it ready first) another bite of sorbet.
open wide!! -
@Mrs. Taco: my little weirdo likes taking medicine too. Once in a blue moon I have to squirt it into the back of her cheek but usually I ask if she wants medicine (if it's motrin or whatever) and she says yeah and wants more. She even liked the nasty iron drops.
@hellobeeboston: any chance you can mix it into something he will always eat- yogurt or something?
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Before LO became a hypochondriac- mixed into yogurt or applesauce was the only way to get meds down. Now LO demands medicine all the time. She noticed that my (adult) Tylenol cold liquid was yellow, and calls it "Rapunzel witch medicine" (because it apparently glows like Rapunzel's hair???) and demands it every night.
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My 2.5 year old loves taking medicine now. He asks for the Vitamin D drops for fun. Last summer, I put him in his car seat and would give him meds.
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My 3 year old son had to do a round of 10-day antibiotics a few weeks ago for pneumonia, and we had a terribly difficult time until! ROLE-PLAYING. He's really into pretend games, so we tried on different roles until we landed on him being a ferocious tiger who had pneumonia and needed medicine to get his roar back. I also let him wave his hands over the little cup to "make it taste good" and BOOM. Problem solved. It took several days and trying different methods to get there, but once he took on the tiger persona we were golden.
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My toddler much prefers the chewable tablets to liquid now, might be worth a shot!
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My DD is another weird one who likes medicine...the poor thing has had so many ear infections this winter and was also sick with roseola (high fever) for a week so I think she thinks taking medicine is normal. She's currently teething and miserable so I gave her some baby ibuprofen earlier, and she asked for more when the syringe was done and cried when I said no. I'm fully prepared for her to change her mind at any point and medicine to become a struggle, though...
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my kid is a wierdo.... when she isn't sick, she asks for medicine ("special juice") but when she is actually sick then FORGET IT. hubby holds her in a baby position (she's a huge 3 yr old!) and holds her hands tight, tilts her head back and I force her mouth open and into her cheek. I most often end up with it in my face though.
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Deception. I was totally against it and tried reasoning, bribing, holding her down, etc. My husband felt it was too much of an ordeal and felt we should hide the meds. I protested, but he mixed up some chocolate milk, squirted in the antibiotic, and brought it to her...she gulped it down and begged for more, so he laced the second one with Motrin. She gulped that one down too...all smiles, and I changed my tune.
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Thanks all. Lots of good suggestions. Still has a fever this morning
dreading giving more Motrin... Will buy the bubblegum flavor to try! As well as many other tricks. Thx
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Figured i would update in case anyone ever searches. DH just brought LO to the doc (we heard his daycare class has 2 cases of flu) even though his temp isn't that high, wanted to check in, and he asked about the medicine issue. They tried to give him some there and no luck. He has mastered this spitting technique so nothing will go in, and forget forcing it, he will throw it up. So, they suggested suppositories and DH said its way easier than the medicine. Yikes!! I think we will have to wait till he's a littl older to be able to reason with him more.
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This terrifies me. I can't do liquid meds. I hate hate hate the taste (even if it is flavored). Even taking some pills is a challenge for me. I can do capsules but I hate tablets. I have to cover the pill in fruit rollup to get me to swallow.
I can't imagine how hard this will be when I have kids.
DH had to take meds as a kid and his mom would crush the pill up and mix it in apple sauce. For me, I could still taste it in the apple sauce.
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@hellobeeboston: yep we did suppositories until we came up with the sorbet trick. Had to be done. DH was the brave one almost all of the time. I eventually did it once. Eek!! Gives 'open wide' a completely different meaning. Sorry- being silly so you can laugh about it later. Hope LO feels better.
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@bluestriped bee: yup. I HATED (still hate) liquids growing up. I was super young when I started swallowing tablets, and I still used to gag. LO was OK when he was little, but he's bigger now so it's tough. Honesty. The suppository really wasn't bad. We did it tonight with minimal tears!!
@808love: omg, LOL. I told DH about the ice cream sorbet and we are def going to try that next! At this point we would rather do the suppository than liquids! It's way less traumatic if you can believe it! At least for now. We will see when he's a bit older.
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@Mrs. Taco: both of my kids like taking medicine too. We don't usually have problems but if we do then we bribe them.
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Glad he suppositories are working! Seriously, give the chocolate milk a try though!
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Oddly enough, my son who doesn't like to eat likes to take medicine. Weirdo.
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@78h2o: we tried giving him some yesterday and he wouldn't touch it!! That was pre medicine just to see if he would drink choc milk but no. Ha. Oh well.
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Awww poor J! Hope he feels better soon and hope the suppositories work better than trying to get him to swallow it! No advice that hasn't already been mentioned
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@hellobeeboston: oh i'm sorry he isn't feeling well and hates the medicine. hey if the suppositories work, then go for it. whatever makes things easier.
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Suppositories.
open wide!! 
dreading giving more Motrin... Will buy the bubblegum flavor to try! As well as many other tricks. Thx
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