Topic: i need advice about giving my 4yr old cold medicine!!!! Posted By: Beth Date: 03 Mar 2002 7:27 PM
Here's my problem...my son is incredibly stubborn when it comes to
taking medication of any kind, I used to be able to give it to him in
an eyedropper easily till he was 3,but now he absolutely refuses to
take caplets(hides them in his cheek)and if I give him the liquid
kind,he gags it up,throws a major crying/screaming fit. The only thing
left is crushing up a tablet and mixing it w/ a drink,but he refuses to
drink that too. His pediatrician told me that if worse comes to worst,
to hold him down physically and pour it in his mouth,then he'll just
spit it up again. I don't understand his behavior,I know medicine
isn't popular with kids,but it has to be easier than what I'm going
through,and we have the made-for-kids fruit -flavored kind. Is there
anyone out there reading this who is familiar with this behavior??any
advice would be welcomed!!
Responses:
Subject: Giving medicine From: Heather Date: 03 Mar 2002 12:59 AM
I have been through what you're facing and my solution is actually very
simple. I don't know if it will work for you but let's hope! My
youngest daughter who is now 4 is very independent and always has
wanted to be in control of everything. She would get very adamant
about not taking medicine. We started giving her the medicine and
putting her in charge of taking it herself. Making sure the medicine
wasn't in a spoon that was easily dumped - a dropper works well - we
told her she was in charge of making sure it all got taken. She got to
hold the dropper herself and put it up to her own lips. She liked
having this control instead of us holding the dropper or spoon up to
her mouth. There were a couple times that she would get stubborn about
that too and then we made it a game with the timer on the stove. We
would set the timer for 30 seconds or so and then tell her if she could
get the medicine all taken by the time it beeped she could get a
reward. The rewards wound up being 5 extra minutes up at bedtime, a
special snack before bed, etc... Soon she got into the habit of just
taking the medicine and we didn't have to make such a production out of
it. I hope this will work for you or I hope you hear from some other
moms with great advice.
