helping a dc take tablets

[eddielizzard]

my dd has been on medication for years and will be for many more. she absolutely hates it. i crush them up into a bit of smoothie but they are very bitter.

she absolutely refuses to try and swallow them whole which i think would solve the problem. they are very small but she is adamant.

every morning is a battle and i feel for her, but she really has to take this medicine.

does anyone have any tips?

If you don't have her cooperation you probably can't win I'm afraid. She's got to feel relaxed and confident that it will work I think.

It is not hard to teach a child to take tablets- stick tongue right out- tablet as far back as you can put it and a huge gulp of liquid ( fizzy said to help, probably because the bubbles mean you can't " feel" that tablet, but a big gulp will float it down anyway).

You could practice with tic tacs or bits of broken polo mint or similar.

How big are they?

We put them in a muller corner yogurt. One that comes with little balls and that encouraged her to swallow them as they were mixed in! They needed cloaking with other things so she couldn't tell the difference. Now she takes them just with water, with ease.

bensfold thats a magic trick with the muller corner!

We also tried Ice cream and mini smarties (bit cold for that). I spent hours searching for sweets the same size that I could cloak steriods in!

thanks for the replies.

i don't get the muller corner / smartie idea - surely they just crunch into the tablet? this tablet is hard and bitter.

i tried the tic tacs route about a year ago, but i think i will give it another try. she's 8 - so far i haven't explained that it'll be another year or so, maybe i should. i don't want to dishearten her, but at the same time i think we need a much better strategy so i need her on board.

the tablet is small, about a mini smartie size, maybe a bit bigger. smaller than a skittle.

Mix the tablet in with 2 of the muller corner bits on a spoon with loads of yogurt and get her to swallow. Because there is more than one lump and lots of yogurt it will go down easier. It also weights it down. waste makes it swish in the mouth. It's a natural reflex to swallow the yogurt and lumps as it lies heavy on the tongue. Worked for us, first try she was concentrating and aware there was a tablet, so had to reyogurt! but after she swallowed the tablet the first time she could do it with ease.

should say Water makes it swish and float in the mouth. It also begins to dissolve it.

thanks - it's worth a try! and she loves muller corners.

My DD had to take a tablet from age 5. We started off putting it in a spoon of jam, which worked OK-ish. We then tried it in a spoon of jelly. This works brilliantly! She swallows the lump of jelly without the tablet touching her mouth. No problems at all . Only thing is we have to keep a supply of jelly made up in the fridge!

I taught dd2 to take them using smarties instead of the tablets. She could eat one for each she got down with water.
However dd1 (aged 14yo) refuses to even try.

I have no idea. Dd started taking tablet age 5. The dr gave the tablets instead of the liquid for some reason, pharmacist questioned it but obviously couldn't change it. dd took tablets for a couple of days and when we got it swapped to liquid it was so vile she begged to go back to tablets so we did. We just encouraged her to put it far back in her mouth and to keep drinking until it was gone. I guess it is a pretty good skill to learn young. The amount of paracetamol ds1 goes through (hypermobility pain) I wish he would start taking tablets it would save us a fortune!