How do I teach my daughter to swallow pills?

[Gloopygoggins]

We've tried every method I can think of, and a few we found on the Internet and no joy. So far we've tried with water, yoghurt, with a straw, with bread, with fizzy drink, tilting head forward. Sometimes it sticks to her tongue, and if it gets further back it sets off her gag reflex. She really wants to be able to do it but is getting so disheartened. Any top tips?

I also learnt as a teen using tictacs

I taught ds, put tablet in your mouth fairly near the back of the tongue, drink a massive suck through a straw, something fizzy & ice cold, head back & swallow. He can take 3 or 4 tablets at once now, no trouble.

I'm 39 and still can't do it easily. I take a bite of banana, chew it a little, pop the tablet in and swallow the lot together. Other food is possible too.

I learned really late but what finally did it was swallowing baked beans like tablets.
Started with one (much smaller than a tablet obviously) but worked upto about 6. Then my mom piled 6 baked beans next to a tablet and said "if you can do that many,
You can deffo do a paracetamol"

Crushed up in raspberry jam. The pips mean you don't know what's what.

I thought I was a weirdo struggling to swallow tablets. I have found my tribe.

my dc had to learn very young. we were on holiday and dc developed bad hayfever and only tablets were available.
those are tiny.
for the holiday we put them into the soft inside of bread. and practiced swallowing with tictacs.

many medicines are only available as tablets. or prohibitively ecpensive as liquid.
and not all are suitable to be crushed and mixed with food.

There’s a good leaflet here flipbooks.leedsth.nhs.uk/LN003942.pdf. It also helped mine to talk to another similar ageD child who could do it to build confidence (she learnt when she was 6 and the alternative was a liquid that she thought tasted so vile it made her throw up. Which she needed for 9 months). There are also some videos of kids talking about it on YouTube you could try.

@purplesequins is quite right, some medicines are not available as liquid and some are just ridiculously expensive (for example a bottle of nitrofurantoin for UTI costs around £300). And some can’t be crushed so don’t do that without checking with a pharmacist.

We now have the opposite problem occasionally - when the dose needed for my child can only be given using a liquid she gets really cross!

I still can’t take them ! I take a cracker or a bit of bread and chew it up then put the tablet into it.

It’s a bit embarrassing when I’m out and I need food with my paracetamol. It’s also a problem when I need them and I’m feeling sick as I don’t want any food.

I'm 60 and still cannot swallow circular paracetamol type pills. I can do capsules with a struggle. Solid pills I crush up. Mum gave up with me when I was little.

Marshmallows are quite soft an squidgy - hide it in a piece of marshmallow. Eat a piece, swallow piece with pill without chewing, eat remaining piece.

I remember practising by swallowing baked beans whole!!

What kind of pill, can you cut it?

I can’t take pills easily, pushing it into the middle of a bit of jam and then swallowing that helps. Smoothie is easier as well, a thicker liquid than water helps disguise the tablet. Or just any food chewed right to the point of being swallowed, pill in, swallow the lot. But I still can’t do big pills.

Fill your mouth with water first and pop the tablet in before you swallow. You can follow it with more water but this way it never sits on your tongue so you never taste it

Haven't read the full thread but I'm in my thirties and have never managed pill swallowing, even after trying various methods.

Now I just go for popping the pill on a teaspoon of Nutella one or two small crunches and down it goes. I'm not saying it's an ideal method but it works for me.

@NotMyCat

I really struggled and can only swallow them with a mouthful of water. So I take a mouthful of water, shove tablet in, and then drink from a glass of water so it never actually touches my mouth if that makes sense?

I honestly thought this was how everyone took tablets

I get mine to have a mouthful of water, put the tablet in before swallowing, then take another small sip and swallow. Having it floating about on the water means it’s not sitting on tongue etc so you don’t think about it as much.

One of DD's lockdown successes due to the large number of pills she now takes

She sticks her tongue out, I put pill on tongue half way down, or she tips them into her mouth.
She takes a small mouthful of drink whilst tipping her head back.
She's gone from struggling with tiny pills to being able to do large capsules.