Giving medicine is sheer Armageddon. Advice?

[hope2]

I have read / contributed to a bazillon posts on this topic but please experienced meds-givers to stubborn children, help me. DS, 5, has scarlet fever. He just won't take medicine as goo, never has. As a baby, he had suppositories. We now give him paracetamol tablets in quarters. Hallelujah! Works fine. Now we have to get goo antibiotics and goo antihistamines down him multiple times a day. We've already lost one dose all over him / me. Doc says there are no tablet formulations for kids and that I "just have to get it down him". My questions are: at what point is holding down your screaming vomiting boy forcing medicine into him child abuse? And how do you bribe the unbribable? He hates chocolate, ruses with yoghurt / ice cream / jam / maple syrup etc don't work on clever 5yos. I have threatened everything. I have cajoled. I have promised the world. I have cried. Nothing works.

I presume you've tried a syringe (in the mouth, not the arm!)

This is probably no use at all but we pour sprinkles over the top of the medicine. But this is for a 2-year-old girl so probably wouldn't work on an older boy.....

Does he drink cartons of squash ? We had this problem when my eldest was 2 . We were told we had 3 hours to get a double dose of antibiotics down him or he would have to go on a drip .
My mum bought the cheapest nastiest looking orange squash and snipped the end off and put the meds in , refolded and gave it to him . He had no idea and drank the lot .

Not really a long term solution I know but it may help .

Mine get their medicine in a spoonful of jam.

Mine had them in strawberry milkshake but if all else fails imho, holding down and forcing them is not child abuse when the only other option would be a very poorly child or being admitted to hospital for them to be given intravenously .

Thanks everyone. He used to syringe himself when it wasn't yukky stuff (DS was on various irons and calciums and calorie things for being underweight ages ago) but the syringe now gets flung across the room.

Anyone tried to hide yukky meds in anything savoury?

Will try to smuggle it into something new, like a carton of something, he has never had before eg your squash idea, TravWilbury.

I'm wondering more about mind games that aren't out-and-out carrot or stick. Like, if you take this, I will give you a sweetie (doesn't work) or If you don't take this, I will throw all your toys in the bin (doesn't work). Something more fiendish. You would have thought two adults could out-think a 5yo but no, we are stumped.

Have you read "I won't eat peas" (or "I don't like peas"). The mother ends up promising to buy the little girl everything in the world including chocolate factories and all sorts if she eats her peas. In the end, she promises to eat her peas if her mother eats something she doesn't like.

However. In reality if a child doesn't want to do something it's pretty difficult to make them do it.

Good luck with the squash plan!

How about 'I bet you can't swallow that medicine before I.....run to the end of the garden and back!'

I have resorted to those type of clown antics to get my kids to eat their brocolli

I do lots of hiding behind my hands 'I don't believe he[s going to swallow it...oh he has!!'

he's 5 - does he understand that he's ill and the medicine will make him better

stop trying to trick him and explain to him when he's calm

then ask him what he would like to take the taste away immediately after - an ice lolly? a sweet? a piece of cheese

get it out and give him a little control -staying calm

might work - did with one of mine, didn't with another one