Daft question about antibiotics

[Pinkstuffs]

DS 6 months has antibiotics to take twice per day. It says on the label to take 2 hours after food or 1 hour before.

He has a bottle at 6am so have given one dose at 8am, then bottles at 10am, 1pm, 5pm and then another about 6.30pm when he goes to bed and a final dream feed at 10pm. When would you fit in another dose? I really don’t want to have to wake him up as he’s poorly. Is it better to take on a fuller tummy or spread doses less evenly? Ideally I’d give a dose either at 6pm bedtime (but fuller tummy) or 4pm (not evenly spaced).

I'd go for before the bottle at 6am when he wakes, then try and delay the bottle for a little with cuddles and distractions, but don't worry if it's less time, and before at 5:30pm, that way you're spreading it round the day fairly evenly.

Or with a syringe you may be able to get him to dream feed it at 8pm. One of mine could take medicine brilliantly that way. They'd just suck it in while asleep. Didn't work as well for the others, but might be worth a try.

If they're twice a day, you ideally want to be giving them as close to 12 hours apart as you can. So the 8am dose sounds ok. Then could you do 9pm? I was very lucky when mine were babies that they would take a syringe of medicine quite happily so I could have 'dream fed' them their medicine.

@mychilddeservesaneducation you are lucky because DS hates it, we have to swaddle him in a towel to force it in! I think we may just need to forgo the ‘empty stomach’ part of the instructions because it’s so tricky to fit in perfectly.

Perhaps speak to the pharmacist. It's more important for some antibiotics than others to have distance between meals / space the doses equally and they'd be able to advise a suitable schedule.

If he uses a dummy, a medicine dummy would help because it would hit the back of his mouth before he tastes it. And he would be more likely to dream feed it.