administering medicine to our ds - who ibu? Me or dh?

[notasgreenasiamcabbagelooking]

Can you please help settle an argument. Our nearly 2 year old son is ill on meds at the moment and the doctor told us to give them to him every 6 hours.

My belief is that that means every 6 hours, so I set my alarm to give them to him in the middle of the night if needs be. My dh believes that that means roughly 4 times a day and tries to fit doses in to be convenient with him or ds waking up.

This argument comes up every time we have to give ds medicine. My dh has a rather slapdash approach to taking medicine himself which is bloody stupid but fair enough but when it's ds I think it's bloody dangerous and just not on.

In other ways he's a great dad and easily does his fair share of the childcare. But this is driving me mad.

So who ibu?

id go with what your husband says - four doses spread evenly, not on the dot of 6 hrs

Depends what the meds are and what they're for.

But I'd go with what your husband says. They usually say 'every 6 hours' so that morons people don't give 4 doses in 2 hours or something.

4 doses spread evenly, unless it was exactly specifed otherwise. But antibiotics etc are usually given first thing, lunchtime, tea time, bed time sort of thing

Same as Judy. My dc have never been on meds that need to be given through the night.
I suppose it could depend on the illness and meds though.
General AB's, just give during the day. For anything more serious, ring the dr and ask.

DD has lots of meds and apart from the iv's we do them around our waking hours (might wake alittle early etc but wouldn't set my alarm clock to do one in the middle of the night).

Even with the IV we tweak them by half an hour each day to get the routine where we want it (2 week courses).

Depends on the meds doesn't it? My ds has been having paracetamol/ibuprofen the last week or so after an op. We started off giving them at the exact times advised i.e. setting an alarm to give them during the night. Once his pain was less, we gave them at roughly equal periods or not at all if he wasn't complaining of any pain.
I'd ring NHS Direct and ask some advice.

Depends what they are really, if they are for pain relief and he needs them through night then give them as long as not exceeding max amount in 24 hrs. If they are antibiotics then its usual to spread the doses evenly through waking hours, wouldn't normally wake someone through night to give meds.

If you are really argueing/unsure would call a pharmacist to check.

What are the meds? If it's antibiotics, we've always been told roughly breakfast, lunch, dinner, before bed and let them sleep. If they're ill, the sleep's as important as the medicine.

Most people I know will evenly space through the day and not wake at night. And that's the way we've been advised by the GP.

My DS on long term meds 4x a day. Bottle says every 4-6 hours but school required one that said 4x a day.

GP thinks school are mad (or rather local guidelines) as it common place to give meds in waking hours.

He has his 7.30ish-12-4 and 7.30 ish.

I agree with your husband. Especially as you will be tired the other way and that won't be much use if your DS is ill.

Obviously though if insulin, heart meds etc that must be dead on time specific then your DH is BU.

If they were anti convulsant medicines or regular analegsia for a painful condition id give them at regular spaced intervals (i.e 6,12,6,12) otherwise four doses during the waking day (so 8,12,4,8)

PMSL @ a row of identical answers.

I'd hate to give advice without actually knowing what the meds are. For commonish meds though I'd probably go with DH but I don't know how seriously ill your son is.

What about actually calling the doctors surgery to get clarification?

I've never had ABs over here that say every 6 hours.... they always just say 4x a day, not closer together than 4 hours.

Your dh is in the right (sorry!), silly to be waking an ill child for medicine (insulin, pain meds, etc notwithstanding).

If they're ABs don't the specify with food anyway?

the op doesn't say they are ABs. As others have said, very hard to judge without knowing what the meds are (and also how ds reacts to being woken up....if he wakes, takes them and then takes hours to go back to sleep I would be tempted to go with your DH....!)

op check with the pharmacist rather than rely on all of our guess work on what your dc's condition may be and what type of medication is prescribed.

(having said that, I am going with the majority in that you should use common sense if it is something like calpol or abs)

Oh God, my daughter is on ABs like that at the moment, Isitreally. It's a right pain in the arse!

Can I just add that when I worked in a hospital (am a nurse) the standard medication times at night were 10pm and 6am. obviously some patients needed to be woken between those times depending on their illness/medication regime. But on the whole people didn't need to be woken so I would be surprised if you needed to wake a child in his/her own home.

Agree with everyone else, it's just a general every few hours thing....

Are you still there op? It's no often you get so much agreement on an aibu thread!

Cheers for all the replies.

The meds are for chicken pox. Not antibiotics - just to help reduce the symptons (I'm in Spain and it's the norm to give them over here although don't think you're given medicine for cpox in the UK).

Ok, I'll try and lighten up and not be so strict with the times. Ds is a crap sleeper so that's probably why dh happier to fit in with his wakings.

*not

Probably anti-virals then, or anti-inflammatory/painkillers. Certainly not worth waking a sleeping child for.

Hope he gets better soon

Oh, in that case it will be fine just to give them when he's awake.

Yes, I think they're anti-virals. Dh will be pleased he has won this argument (he doesn't often ).