"Doping Your Children"

[Tigermoth]

My childminder recently mentioned I could buy some phenergen for my toddler, if I was having problems with him on long car journeys, as a very last resort. It helps them sleep. She's very responsible and gave me lots warnings about it. I decided to look up this message thread to see what others think. What a revealation!

Rachel, it's all very well for you! You argue the toss for a living and sound like you're very good at it! Some of us mums find ourselves up against a tidy amount of implied or overt criticism at work, at postnatal "support" groups and whenever we pick up the phone to our beloved mothers, so I find the careful attention to being supportive on mumsnet quite reassuring - and the heated debates that do break out stimulating. Not all of us are feisty and self-confident and up for a good old e-scrap on any subject relating to parenting 24 hours a day. And I'm just a worried middle-class mummy who has never had a serious problem to confront in her life: some regular posters here are up against enormous difficulties and how they manage to keep going is awesome.
Thanks for giving me a big laugh about what really goes on behind the scenes at Cosmo. You mean to say it's all LIES?

Sorry I have come in here with something completely different to the previous conversation ( but must quickly say how much I can't stand India Knight's writing, grrr..! ) Anyhow, I just popped into Boots yesterday wanting some cough medicine for my little girl. When I told the pharmacist that she had been waking in the night he recommended 'Tixylix night-time coughs' syrup, which sounded spot on for her and I was just about to had over the cash when he added "yeah this should be good it's got something to make them drowsy in it". I said "excuse me, what?!" and he went onto explain that it contained an anti-histamine. I really only wanted something that would sooth her throat and was a bit shocked at the thought of doping her for a cough in the night. I asked for something else and saw Benylin for this cough and that cough and more Tixylix, to be told that they all contained anti-histamines. I eventually found a Boots own simple cough linctus that was just gylcerol based. I'm sorry to sound so naive, but I really didn't have any idea there was so much on the market. I was actually quite shocked by the experience and I think the guy saw how astonished I was by it all. The worrying thing was had he have not casually mentioned what was in it - I'd have bought it, checked the dosage on the box and probably given it to her in the night without reading the ingredients at all. I worry that it is just too easy for manufacturers to assume that all parents know and understand what's in their products but I, as a fairly well educated human being, really had no idea you could buy 'doping' drugs so easily - and in kid's cough medicine! Am I over-reacting? Are most people fine about giving their children this type of drug in a cough mixture?

Thank you Croppy and Gracie, I can't really explain my point better than you have. Thank you also for the kind comment Gracie, actually, since last year we now have childcare at home, which is an enormous help.
Rachel1969, of course it was that question - we all work don't we! whether we are Household Management Executives (apologies to someone, can't remember who) or wage slaves, but I was joking. That is an interesting insight into journalism that you have given. I too have given up on women's mags for the same reason as others, my regular reads these days are called Wap Week and TotalTele.com!

Lizzer, I agree about cough drugs, I prefer the simple tintures too, or paracetamol if they can't sleep because of a cold. (Totally unscientific, now someone will probably just tell me that paracetamol is worse!) But in any case, I have found with my children that the psychological effect of being given a dose of nice tasting medicine is huge - they usually go straight off to sleep even if it's just vinegar and blackcurrant syrup.

Believe me Marina - I am Mrs Paranoid when it comes to the parenting bit - I just talk a good fight! I know what you mean about the overt critisism - the school playground's the worst place for that ... I feel about four feet high (I'm only five feet tall anyway!) most of the time while these super-mums look down their noses at me because I invariably look like I dragged myself out of bed five minutes before hitting the playground.
Each new term I resolve to wear make-up, decent clothes, a non-maniac expression on my face each morning - by week two I'm a lost cause again.

Croppy - I'd love to be a fly on the wall when you verbally batter the little ***s. And I know what you mean about the stuff about parenting being the most annoying - I amaze myself with how sanctimonious (sp?) I sound sometimes ...

And re doping - with my kids I apply the philosophy that if something works OK for me then it'll be OK for them too. When I've got a hacking cough that keeps me awake then I take a cough mixture with an anti-hist in it so that I'll sleep - I don't fret about the affect it'll have on me, although I know I'll be a bit hung-over in the morning. If the kids need something similar then I give it them and accept they may be grouchy next day and keep them off school/nursery if they're really groggy.
I don't see any point in them suffering if an anti-hist will help - I think we all get really guilt-ridden about anything that helps a child to sleep simply because life's that little bit easier when they go off to the land of nod, especially if they're poorly. No child has ever died from being given the correct dose as and when needed - I think we're just under so much pressure (damn those media machines) to be brilliant at everything that we're terrified to be seen to be taking an easy option - ie resorting to medicine to help our child feel better when surely our own magical healing hands should be up to the job...

Plain and simple old Buttercup Syrup and if its really bad then, out comes the child Nurofen, which is great to bring down high temperatures as well.

If we all agreed on this site, then wouldn't we be a bunch of boring old farts!, I like this site, because everyone has different opinions and ways of doing things, but sometimes we are all saying the same thing, excpet in different ways.

Anyway off now, the men in white suits are coming this after (MAFF vets) to place a Form D on us as our vet was at a farm last monday and came to us on wednesday last week, and the farm he was on on the monday came down with F&M on the friday, doesn't life just get better. We had 30 lambs ready to go for consumption as well, no way we can get them away now, I shall ask them what I'm to do with them when they arrive.

Tigger, I'm so sorry to hear that. Can't you get that wily woman lawyer from Devon to force them to reconsider?
Nurofen is fantastic isn't it. I find it much better for lowering temperatures than Calpol.

Lizzer, don't you find that the night time cough constantly wakes your child up? My son is not a good sleeper, but when he has a cough if I don't use the Tixylix nighttime he just keeps having coughing fits and waking up very distressed, something in the nighttime medicine seems to surpress the cough better too.

Just to reiterate, I don't have a problem with giving cough medicine to an ill child who would benefit from the medicine. I just don't feel happy dispensing it to an otherwise healthy child in order to get them to sleep (i.e. for my benefit rather than theirs).

Thanks for your responses, and my thoughts go out to Tigger...
I've been wondering about why I reacted in such a way to the cough medicine and I've realised it's probably because I myself have never taken any Benylin or whatever with anti-histamine in it. I did once take Nytol when I started a stressful new job and couldn't sleep and felt so ill and groggy the next day I threw the packet away. As you said Rachel1969 it leaves you and the kids a bit 'hung over' and I think I'd rather have a restless night with her than make me or my child feel like that - although I'm sure the effects after cough syrup would be less dramatic than Nytol. It's funny how I, like Sml and Tigger, would not have a problem with giving Calpol or Nurofen if they were bad with a cold, yet who is to say pain killer's are any better than sedatives? As it has been mentioned in this thread before it is deemed as 'good' to relieve your child of pain but 'bad' to dope them up, even if it's for their benefit. I still don't think I could give it to my child even though she was waking up through coughing in the night and it may have stopped this as Paula1 said works for her son. I guess it's just a personal choice thing and I'm sure I initially over-reacted now, nice to hear other opinions too...

A really good homeopathic remedy, recommended to me by my homeopath, for temperatures in babies, children and adults is Belladona, it is worth keeping some in the medicine cabinet.

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Robinw, for once and for all, the difference between sweets and drugs is that drugs have a greater immediate effect on your child's consciousness and quality of life than sweets. Sweets do rot the teeth - therefore I should in theory not let my children have sweets unless there is no alternative, which means NEVER, as sweets are never strictly necessary. There is always an alternative, including in the car. However, my children live in the modern world, surrounded by consumer goods including sweets, and other sweet eating children, therefore I do let them have sweets as a treat, and I frequently allow this treat at a moment when it is of benefit to me to have their attention distracted by the treat. The point I am trying to make is that my children do not have EXTRA sweets because they are naughty in the car. The same is not true for drugs however, which would not be offered if there was not a behaviour problem.

As for condemning doping, I smack my children sometimes, but I am aware that many parents think that I don't have the right to do that. That's OK by me because I have thought it through and decided that smacking is sometimes justified. After this board appeared on mumsnet, I thought about doping too and came to the opposite conclusion. Sorry if I was a mite tactless in sharing my conclusions!

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Robinw,
I think you may have contradicted yourself to some extent there.You mention that the long term problem with giving sweets is rotten teeth but as you say aspirin may have been banned if it had come out now. How can you be sure that there won't be any long lasting side effects of any other drug you could give to your child. (For example I'm sure scientists were looking into the link between paracetamol and asthma at one point?) I would prefer to placate with sugar and know the consequences than take a risk with giving medicine with possible unknown long term consequences. As Croppy has said as long as you include sweets in a balanced diet and have good dental hygiene routines, where's the problem?

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Robinw, if your child has sweets occasionally, what's worse about giving them in the car?
Sweets are not a behaviour altering substance - they don't alter children's behaviour by force, but because the child wants to alter his/her behaviour on receipt of a sweet. That's the big difference as far as I'm concerned. I think we shall just have to agree to disagree on this one!

By the way, I had baby houdini larks at the weekend - the 1 1/2 year old wriggled out of his restraints and stood up waving a stick of rhubarb around his head! Fortunately, when I stopped the car and turned round, really mad, he was quite overawed, sat down again and went off to sleep soon after. So no need for any desparate measures!

Sml, re baby houdini: please can I borrow you for long car journeys?

I'm no expert, but is tooth decay SOLELY related to sweet consumption?. In any case, sweets do have benefits for a child - namely nutrition. Depending on the type of food, the vitamin and mineral content can be considerable. While fat and sugar content will generally be high, there is of course nothing wrong with this as part of a balanced diet. The emphasis all along here has been on a balanced diet so I don't really see where obesity comes into it.

Actually, I don't really like the "power" thing of administering medicine to a child solely so I can get some rest (i.e. when the child concerned is not actually ill). I feel uncomfortable with this for elderly people and disabled people and so on too. While I accept that I exert power over all aspects of my child's life, it is always done with his best interests at heart, not mine. His occassional sweet treats give him a great deal of pleasure and given his very good diet and dental regime, don't do him any harm. Of course, sweets are a normal part of the average adult's diet.

I agree though Sml, time to let this one go!

ha ha Tigermoth we were on the way home after a day spent running around outside, which probably helped - in general though I find my children can spot when I am genuinely angry, and instantly behave like angels. Volume has nothing to do with it, neither does my choice of words!

Sml, if it's not volume or your choice of words, what signs of anger can your children spot? Am all curious now. Twitching left eyebrow? Steam coming out of your ears?

Must be body language I think ... wouldn't rule out the steam though!

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Robinw, you wouldn't give a child a sweet that would make them choke or vomit, for goodness sake. But, there is absoloutely NO HARM in giving sweets, it is the Tooth Hygiene that matters the most, might I add that children can tell when they have the parents wound up to boiling point, I have a son like that, who is like the Phantom Crisp Thief!. Just an idea, but if you don't like sweets, you can get little boxes of dried raisins or packets of dried banan as well, my god the thought of them and my good old friend the roids are playing up!