to let my 15month old play with an inhaler and spacer?

[misdee]

dd4 is asthmatic and has 3 different inhalers. which she doesnt like to take and screams blue murder every time.

she is currently playing with her old spacer (mask is now too small) and an empty inhaler. i am hoping that by them becoming normal and part of the furniture, so to speak, she gets used to them.

she has taken the spacer apart, and has put the inhaler into it.

was thinking, if anyone saw this going on, i would get a right rollicking wouldnt i?

i also let her play with medicine syringes (non-needle type)

all medications are actually locked away in one of three cabinets. apart from her epipen which is in a lock-n-store box in the nappy bag, hung out of reach.

Sounds like a sensible way to get her used to these items being part of her normal life, instead of feeling terrified everytime she sees one. Providing there's no way she can ever get access to one that's actually loaded!

yanbu

on a less extreme level, we did this with dd ot tyr and get her used to the Calpol syringe

still didn;t work [sigh]

I'd let her play with the spacer but not the inhaler - whose to say she wouldnt try playing with someone else's full inhaler another time as they have become too much like a play toy to her? And I really wouldnt let her play with syringes - but then I live in a city where we see syringes complete with needles on the roads and I've spent my time trying to teach DS1 not to go anywhere near them - so its purely because of where we live.

All that said, I wouldnt judge you for letting your DD play as she does though.

Sounds fun as she is supervised.

As to treating someone elses inhaler as a toy, that person should look after their inhaler better.

there is no cannister in it.

not ever seen a needle syrine when out and about, and dd4 not even waking yet. the medicine syrienge is an old one that the kids play with in the bath to squirt water at each other.

YANBU at all, great idea to let her get used to the spacer.

I do the same thing with my own DS, I think YANBU at all. It really helped my DS get used to the spacer. I also gave it to his teddy as a game, i.e. 'teddy is going to do his breaths now' etc. I wouldn't personally use the actual inhaler (brown/blue) as a toy though, no, that's a bit dangerous as your DC could accidentally push it & get a bit puff directly or whatever.

we have blue, brown and white ones. she is playing with an old blue one, without a cannister in it (completly empty) as one of the other dd's ripped the label off the cannister, so i cant check the date on it, so the cannister has been disposed of. the casing will be turned into one suitable to go on a lanyard for dd1 (10yrs old, and carries her inahler herself)

Sure, if canister has been removed then it's a great idea to let them play with the inhalers too, again, it makes the whole thing more familiar & comfortable.

I let DS play with a syringe after he's had some antibiotics, DH went mad, but I let him play with the spoon if I give him them on a spoon and just didn't think

I also often let DS play with the syringe, not sure what the problem is with that really, we wash it well afterwards. Stealth, what was your DH's problem about it?

Ds2 is 7 months and diagnose with being asthmatic just before Christmas, due to prolonged respiratory problems, we were advised to allow him to play with his spacer and inhaler, and also his nebulizer, so he was not frightened off them, and so he was comfortable ith them.

To him he play with them as they are a toy, and he is getting better each day with it also.

I think he thinks they look too much like the needle kind and obv if DS thinks its a toy then sees one in the street he'll pick it up

Sounds like a sensible way to let her get used to the inhaler and spacer. All of us have asthma and my DS was under a year old when diagosed. Asthmatics need to be in control of the disease and if this helps, then go for it. Also, even if she took a puff of inhaler, it wouldn't hurt her...

YANBU as long as the inhaler is empty without any medication in. There will come a time when she will have to use it on her own so will have to get used to it sooner rather than later. The calpol syringes arent like the ones used for injections, just a plastic plunger type thing shaped with a nozzel.

Hi, when my DS (age 4 at the time)was first diagnosed, he had a nebuliser at home and the nurse encouraged him to play 'pilots' with it, pretending to be in an aeroplane. When he moved onto an inhaler she gave him stickers to put all over the spacer and positively encouraged him to explore the (empty) cannisters.
She said it would help him to not fear his medication and accept it as part of his life, which we did, and never had any problems. Hope this helps!

piglet - i know they're different, i use them! But they are similar and the association is there

Relax. I dont see the problem.

Also, bottle of prozac makes a great rattle