Do you drug your babies so you can get a good night's sleep?

[pablopatito]

DP and I are not ones for drugs, both being brought up my mothers from the "plenty of water and lots of fresh air" school of medical care. But DS (11 months old) has been teething and has a cold and he's been having even more broken sleep than normal and he's never been a brilliant sleeper. So the last couple of nights we've given him a dose of medised and omg, he's slept like a log! We haven't had a peep out of him for 12 solid hours. Its bliss! I've had the best nights sleep I've had in over a year.

Suddenly, the tempation to drug him at the merest whiff of a sniff has become overwhelming.

So the decision to drug? How can I be sure I only drug him because its right for him, and not be influenced by my selfish desire to get a good night's sleep?

there was a story in the newspaper recently about a 16 year old addicted to calpol - i assumed her mother had given it to her all through her childhood

Ugh! I like to think I'd have more sense than that.

I did get a bit addicted to taking Benylin to make me sleep when I was at university, then realisedi that I was being a bit sad and knocked it on the head!

addicted to calpol? ouch.
Had a colleague once who was addicted to painkillers. guess that's along the same line.

if your baby is ill then medised is fine, but i don't think you should give it him all the time!

I'm medium relaxed about diet - and medium relaxed about medication. I don't 'drug my child to sleep' for no reason, though I will give her medicine if she's really unwell, and I try for organic and don't give her junk food at home, but I will let her eat whatever her friends are eating when out.

when pregnant with my 1st a friend told me not to get into the trap of giving calpol to help baby sleep. i thought what an awful thing to do, but at about 7/8 months my son was ill and the doctor said to give him calpol to get temp down etc. He got to sleep no probs that night and the next, then i found myself the following night giving him calpol even though he didn't need it. I suddenly remembered what my friend said and stopped immediately, and i make sure that now when i give my new baby calpol at night that it really is teething pains and that there's nothing else to help.

I've never heard of medised. I know how hard it is and how tempting, but you know its not right, and more than anything not fair on your son.

Paracetamol isn't a sedative even though it can help you sleep. This isn't a direct effect of the drug, it's because of the the toxic effect it has on the liver, the same way alcohol makes you sleep. In actual fact, it completely disrupts sleep patterns and causes insomnia in the long run. There is more information for this on:
freespace.virgin.net/ahcare.qua/literature/medical/paracetamol.html

just thought id add i don't really agree with painkillers for myself. i would rather put up with the pain and run a temperature. you get over illness a lot quicker if you just let your temperature run its course. if you are ill, by lowering your temperature it takes longer for the white blood cells to engulf the foreign cells and get rid of them. however with children their temperature can rise very quickly and it is dangerous so paracetamol IMO should be used in this case. for a stuffy nose i like to use something like olbas oil or a decongestant spray. i think its better to get it all out than to dry it up as it were. and for a cough vicks rub is excellent, but i will use cough syrup too as many don't actually contain paracetamol. this is just how i would like to do things and if you do it differently it is highly unlikely you will harm your child - i would just try to treat my children how i treat myself as much as possible.

Ah HC I think you are tarring everyone with my brush....you seem to be on a crusade to expose perceived hypocrisy this week my dear. As I said to you before I don't give ds squash etc because I can see no advantage in it and plenty of harm. However I do give him Medised occasionally, or Calpol when he needs it, because I can see the difference it makes to the quality of life for all of us, between him being up half the night crying and sniffling, or alleviating his cold with MS or whatever so that he gets a good chunk of sleep at least.

I don't 'drug him to sleep' and I don't believe anyone on here has said they have done it either - just that they have been tempted, which as I say I think any sleep-deprived parent could relate to.

franny I know what you said I wanted to hear from others.
I didn't say it was hypocritical, I just find it surprising, and - in fact - "drugging your child to sleep" I took from the thread title
just asking just curious

I couldn't see anyone else who I know to be strict about their child's diet. So I thought you meant me. If you don't want me to post put "franny bog off" at the end next time.

I could lockets

hmmm franny
paranoia
or rampant egotism [bigger grin]

or just darn right as usual :o

dd1 was tixylixed tonight.

she's obsessed with it lockets
think Gillian McKeith

I am liking tixylix as a verb
I tixylix
we tixylix
she tixylixes

she actually likes to tixylix. i spiked her yoghurt w/it at tea time. she's been hacking at night w/all these weather changes.

it works great! it's just guafersin, the cough suppressant, and nothing else - no paracetamol or decongestants.

expis, so the humidifier didn't work for you? just curious as i remember recommending it as a surefire cure for your dd's cough. sorry it didn't work well for you.