to give my 3 year old a dose of piriton before a long flight?

[gemmalovestiggy]

DD 3 is very hard work, stuggles to sit still for longer than 10mins. Whilst getting holiday jabs nurse said "large dose of piriton before take off should do the trick".....kind of thought she was joking but I am very tempted!! AIBU?

I can't speak for people I don't know that well but the friends and family I do would absolutely never do this - hence my shock that anyone would! I have never flown long haul with mine but I have a good friend who has flown long haul with her kids twice a year to see family and I will have to ask her but up until now I was assuming she hadn't drugged them and I'll be very surprised if I'm wrong.
OK so you can get out of a car but can you just hop off a train leaving yourself stranded, possibly for hours, until the next one when you've paid hundreds of pounds for tickets? So is it OK on trains too? Lets face it people who do this will try and justify it but it's not what many medicines are intended for and a lot of the drowsy medicines mentioned on this thread aren't even supposed to be used, even for their intended use, if the child is under 6!
Why is it ridiculous to equate it with drugging your child at bedtime? Neither scenario is what antihistamines or Medised are intended for and both are situations were some children become very distressed. I can't see you have any moral highground over people who occasionally drug their children so they will sleep at home.
Anyway I'm bowing out from this thread as I very much doubt that anyone who drugs their children on planes is going to stop doing it as a result of this thread. Nor am I going to be convinced that it is an acceptable thing for a parent to do.

How about coming back with an opinion based on experience? Like I've done - I travelled without giving any kind of medicine and my exhausted daughter threw up through sheer fatigue. Had she had Medised, she'd have slept for at least part of the flight.

I spent several hours being vomited on and was up all night, having been traveling for 20 hours, giving 2.5ml doses of Diarolyte to rehydrate my daughter for fear that the combination of flying, humidity, sickness would leave her dangerously dehydrated.

But I'll make my decisions based on (bitter) experience rather than ill-informed hysteria about variable age-limits and uses of children's medicines.

I gave my toddler son medised to make him sleep on a long haul. He had had it at home when he was poorly as prescribed by the doc so I knew he would be OK with it.

It was a win win all round, he slept well and so did we. He had it on the way back too.

Think everyone needs to calm down a bit.

Going to repeat a lot of other posters here, but definately check the reaction if you are going to do this- rightly or wrongly, I can't quite decide on this.

My DD had her first dose of Piriton (or similar) as recommended by a pharmacist when she had chicken pox. Within half an hour she was laid practically unconcious on the sofa, her head had swollen up like a balloon, and she was all lumpy, as if she had pools of water under her skin. It took 2 days in hospital to get her better, they couldn't give her anything to help as they didn't know which ingredient she was allergic to. She was out for the count most of the 1st day, but the second day was spent sobbing as the soreness/water retention worked its way down her body and out towards her toes and fingers finally. They were itching her like crazy, and it was heartbreaking to see. I think it was similar to that horrible burning sensation like you get when your hands are freezing cold and are then heating up.

I know this was an extreme reaction, but believe me it's not one you would like to happen when you're stuck on a 24 hr flight and no access to medical services.

Oh god please don't. When DS was wee (2ish) and still in nappies we gave him some piriton one bedtime and I have never seen him in such a mess in the morning. Runny poo everywhere . No more Piriton ever for him!

I'd never, ever give a medicine for the first time on a plane! Hence the use of tried-and-tested (but not strictly for travel sickness) Medised, rather than Piriton, which I've never had cause to use for my DCs.

It is just common sense.