Infant paracetamol tips for 5 month old

[sunnyfields25]

Hi

DD is nearly 5 months old and she's getting her first tooth. We're managing through the day with teething toys and an occasional bit of Anbesol, but at night-time the pain seems to be pretty bad and she gets quite upset. I've had a few attempts at giving her pain relief and I just can't get her to swallow it. It's not that she refuses to take it, more that she makes no effort to swallow and it eventually comes dribbling back out. Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

So far I have tried:
Syringe tiny bit in followed by dummy to encourage sucking
Stroking cheek
Stroking neck
Blowing on face
Giving on spoon instead of in syringe

Nothing has worked so far but I'm hoping I'm missing something.

For teething I find Nurofen a much better painkiller. Weirdly mine take it happily despite them both hating Calpol. Another benefit is that you only need to redose every 6-8 hours. If you’re really struggling though ask the pharmacist for a suppository.

Have you tried squirting a tiny bit into her cheek rather than on her tongue?

is she bottle fed?! i used to put my DS gripe water/calpol in the teat of the bottle and he took it no bother. I was desperate He will now happily take it straight from the syringe.

I don’t know why us Brits are funny about bums, but suppositories are so much easier (and healthier) than trying to force artificially sweetened syrup down babies throats. Suppositories are used throughout Europe as standard, but you can get them on prescription here in the UK (though the pharmacy will probably have to order it in for you as none I’ve ever visited stock them). Unfortunately ibruprofen is better for teething though, and you can’t get them in suppository form here (I have them shipped in for me by Irish relatives).

Sorry I should have said, we tried ibuprofen last night instead of paracetamol, thinking the slightly different taste might help. It's didn't though, she sicked back up the tiny amount we'd managed to get her to swallow

We've been squirting it onto the inside of the cheek but still no luck unfortunately.

DD is breastfed but does sometimes have a bottle of expressed milk, so that's something we could try actually (giving it through the bottle teat).

Squeeze her cheeks together, will make her swallow