dioralyte dosage (arrgh makes no sense)

[Pembslass]

10 month old with the runs. The out of hours nurse says to follow the dosage instuctions on the packet. Actually she said this in a REALLY patnonising voice-like it wouldn't have occured to me to read the packet! Doh! Anyway the packet says "Infants up to the age of 2: One to one and a half times the usual 24 hour feed volume".

Erm ok, so what exactly does that mean in English???

"patronising". Maybe I deserve to be patronised considering I can't even spell it OR understand the back of a packet

I've had exactly this problem over the past few days when my DD was ill. I just made up a normal amount of water that she would usually drink (about 5/6oz) and she drank that with one sachet, but I have no idea if that was correct. I agree that they need to change the instructions!!

Its really important to make it up correctly, if the balance of the salts aren't right it won't do its job as effectively. Just make up a full packet at a time (can't remember but I think its something like one pack to 7floz).

You then need to try and get them to drink as much of this stuff as they do of their milk over a day. So if they have 5 8floz bottles of milk a day, thats 40floz. You need to try and get them to have at least 40floz of the water on top of their milk.

In reality thats virtually impossible so just split it into whatever amounts you think bub will drink in one go (or over an hour) and divide it up and get them to drink as much as you can. Keep the rest in the fridge til you're ready for it.

Don't get overwrought about it, its a fluid replacement NOT a medicine. Keep an eye on bub, if they go lethargic, floppy, fontanel dips or eyes are sunken try and encourage them to take more dioralyte and pop back to the docs.

hth