Are there any great tips for getting an 18mo old to swallow her medicene???

[mumgoingcrazy]

DD2 is driving me insane, she's on anti biotics AGAIN for another double acute ear infection. She needs 3 doses of that plus alternating calpol and nurofen.

We can get some into her mouth and then she just holds it there, crying with her mouth shut. We've tried blowing in her face (good for newborns apparently), tried stroking from her chin down her neck (the vet advised this for our dog!) and sitting her up, lying her down.

Tonight it took 25 minutes, she just doesn't give in at all.

GGRRRrrrrr, does anyone know a sneaky way to get up to 15ml's into her??

can I take it you havea syringe and thats not working?

what about hiding it in a yogurt?

hold her nose, she'll have to swallow to breath.

breathe, even. nasty but it works!

Won't she choke if I hold her nose? I must admit I was seriously losing my patience after 25 minutes.

I could maybe hide some in yoghurt but not 15 ml I don't think. What about the bedtime/night time doses?

I should have mentioned that she is orally defensive which doesn't help I don't think.

Sorry yes, we use a syringe. Usually 5ml one although I've tried the 2.5 and 1ml ones but it's not getting it into her mouth that's the problem, it's trying to get her swallowing it.

A very determined little girl!!

I know its hellish, I would rather have given a tasmanian devil medicine than DD2 when she was little

she's now 2.8 and takes it off a spoon no problems

we hid it in petit filou and yogurts otherwise held her mouth open and squirted it into the side and closed her mouth so she had to swallow - not fun am afraid

good luck

no, my parents did it to both us and the cats. its a classic. quite mean, but definitely works. if she doesn't spit it out directly at you, that is!

Right, that's what I'm doing at 10pm tonight then. Holding the nose it is!!

Tomorrow I'll see what I can get into yoghurt then persevere with the rest. It's so frustrating that they don't realise that it'll help take the pain away!!!

Thankyou for the advice

With my boys I referred to calpol as "special barbie pink juice"! It worked a treat because they thought they were having something special or magical! They bothseemed to grow to like the taste. With antibiotics I mixed the antibiotic with the calpol so they took the two together and never noticed the difference. BTW Calpol is still called "Barbie Pink" in our house and my eldest son is 7!!

Well holding the nose worked a treat. 15ml's down the hatch in under 3 minutes. She got very cross and gagged quite a bit but she seemed to get the message and in the end started to quickly swallow as we moved toward her nose.

Fab!!

Madmazza, the barbie pink would work for my older DD so will use this next time she needs it.

Thanks all
xx