How do you get a 2 year old to take his inhaler?

[merlotguzzler]

Hello

So asthma runs in my family, a lot. I have it, my dd has it, my uncle has it, my sister has it and now it would seem her little boy has it

I know doctors are reluctant to diagnose asthma before 5, but it's pretty obvious that my nephew has joined the club.

He won't have the aero chamber over his face at all. He goes completely crazy and is clearly, very distressed

I've suggested a few things, ie putting it on one of his teddies etc, but wondered if any mumsnetters had any other ideas.

They don't want to keep whacking him on steroids.

Thanks ladies.

We use teddies if needed but ds is well used to it now. We also have a spare spacer which helped him get used to it when he played with it. At the very start thou it was a two man job. One pinned him down with hand on head and other round flailing arms while the other person did the puffs. Then lots and lots of praise.

Tbh a few minutes of distress each day is better than a week of steroid induced demonic child!

Well I agree and that's what we had to do with our dd in the beginning. It's absolutely horrible, but we didn't really have a choice

From the sounds of it, the doctor who was dealing with my nephew wasn't keen on the tougher love approach and so just gave them a prescription for steroids.

*tough

Bump

Sorry, only just seen this. We had success with stickers after lots of flailing about.

DH held son, just under aged 2, up against his chest, his head on DHs shoulder, facing me as I stood behind DH. So all I had to do was hold his head in one hand and the inhaler with the chamber mask thing in the other. We said put it on for 3 seconds, we counted to 3 and did mega cheering and dancing when he did it. Then he got a sticker (Thomas the tank). Then we said 10 seconds. Repeat process of dancing and sticker. Then said "we're going for 20" and we squirted the inhaler. Each time he does it now he gets a sticker and he gets to stick it on the chamber. We do it now and he his happy to have it and he doesn't flinch, he'll even ask for his "space mask" as we call it because he'd been watching a thing on youtube with a lego man and a space rocket and the lego man had a space helmet mask thing on.

I showed him my inhaler as well to let him know that its a good thing to have his inhaler to make him better and that all the cool people have one so its nothing to be afraid of or think he's done something naughty.

Good luck.

I had to wrestle with DD2, then aged 2. I had to convince the nurses I could do it on my own before they would discharge us - DH was away (typically). I found chocolate buttons after each puff worked quite quickly. I also think that she could feel the positive effects of the salbutamol, so that helped her to accept it.

My son only had his from age 4, but when he was grumpy about it we 'flew' with it by pumping his arms up and down with each breath.