Tips please !!- How to get baby to take pain medication

[madamefreckle]

My 8 month old dd has a high temperature and is extremely congested. She will not let Calpol, baby nurofen (or any other brands) near her either on a spoon or in a syringe. If I manage to pin her arms down, hold her head still and force it into her mouth she screams blue murder (well, wouldn't you!!) and spits it out. She does not take a bottle, only breast-fed, and she never takes food off a spoon (except for yoghurt- but she won't even have that at the moment) so there is nothing I can think of that I could 'hide' it in that she would eat/drink.

Is there another way????!

With DD we lie her on my lap with her head hanging down over the side of my leg, wait until she is screaming blue murder (as soon as she sees the syringe) then shoot half of the medicine straight to the back of her throat/cheek so that she can't spit it out.

We find if we don't hold her arms down, she puts her hands to her mouth, which gives us another opportunity to squirt the meds in.

Could you use a suppository like Paralink?

Would she suck on your finger? It's a bit time-consuming but you could measure out the dose then dip your finger in and let her suck it and repeat until it's all gone. Once she realises how sweet it is she might take to it.

Flisspaps - I did that with DS when he was very small a couple of times and it triggered him not breathing for a scary amount of time (probably only 10 seconds but it seemed ages!) - so i'm a bit reluctant to try it...
Udderly - I've never heard of Paralink - that's definitely an idea if the temperature doesn't subside soon.
Brahbrah - Thanks for the idea but she won't let me get a finger in her mouth - (furious head-shaking and arm-flailing if I try - then if I pin her arms down she loses it even more)

It's weird as a month ago she took a couple of doses of calpol from a spoon very happily- I think maybe she just feels so rotten she doesn't want anyone messing about with her.

On amazon they have a dummy thing you can put either the medicine in or has a hole for you to put the syringe in so when they are taking the dummy you can give them the medicine. My DD does exactly the same as yours (and won't take a dummy) so am clueless apart from that. Someone suggested to me to pinch her nose and then put the syringe in after, although this is not something I want to do. Really feel for you!

I give Ds his dummy then pull it out enough to shoot some in, let him suck the dummy then keep repeating until he has had it all. Works well here!