Help giving medicine

[Olive2022]

Just looking for any tips/tricks I haven’t thought of!

Never had this problem with my first but my second DS is a complete medicine refuser! Now we first discovered this when he had his imms. Luckily he hasn’t needed any since then but now(6months) he’s had his first cold and my word have we struggled to get any medicine into him.

so far we’ve tried:
squirting slowly into cheeks and blowing on his face(moderate success but he looks absolutely terrified so I hate doing it)

medicine dummy

squirting in cheeks with normal dummy in (both of these it just comes straight back out)

giving in end of bottle with a small amount of milk(just spat all of the milk out with it)

giving on a spoon as if it’s puree(spat it straight back out)

I feel like I’ve exhausted all options and I’m only left with suppositories but I’m not sure if they are even a thing for paracetamol/ibuprofen are they readily available from a pharmacy?

my main worry is that whilst he had a day of mild temperature this time around i am very aware that there could be a time very shortly when I need to get some medicine into him to control it.

any tips or tricks I haven’t thought of would be greatly appreciated as we are now at the point where he sees the syringe the mouth gets clamped shut!

My eldest DD was exactly the same. If I remember correctly we found the best way was to use a 1ml syringe and give her tiny amounts, about 0.3 or 0.5 ml at a time. Not very practical, a total nightmare and horrible at 3am but the only way she didn't spit it out. Also, I tried different brands. It turns out she quite enjoyed the taste of Lloyds pharmacy cherry paracetamol. Calpol brand was a total no, she'd get so upset when we tried to give that. Thankfully we hardly had to give her any medicine!

@HouseFullOfChaos will try a different brand see if that helps. He’s had calpol and nurofen so far and both the same so my fear is that it isn’t a taste thing but worth a try!

Or ds was like this as a tiny baby, unfortunately (and very last resort) was to do a little bit, and then hold his jaw closed till he swallowed and repeat. It wasn't a fun process but as he wouldn't take it any other way, was a must when he was running a high fever 😢

@Mommabear20 it’s so horrible isn’t it. The only way he’ll take maybe half, 3/4 is through blowing on his face to force him to swallow but he looks so worried and scared I hate it

Agree with PP about trying different brands. Our son point blank refused Calpol, we tried everything you’ve mentioned, the only time we managed to get any into him was when he was very sleepy and we mixed it into a full bottle of milk, but getting to the point of very sleepy with an unwell baby was hell.
We recently tried Nurofen for babies and honestly I think if he had the chance, he’d empty the bottle.
Good luck, hopefully you find something that works!

Hide it. Either put it in some yoghurt or in his milk.

My daughter has become a medicine refuser. Currently she's having her lactulose mixed into her water. Everyone but her knows it's there.

I appreciate he's only 6 months so this may not be useful yet but we mix it with a pouch of strawberry or raspberry yoghurt - I always have some on hand in case we need it. Just tip out a bit of yoghurt, replace it with the medicine and shake it up.

We used to put it in yogurt for my first which seemed to work but he loved yogurt not sure if that's any help

In between tiny squirts into little ones mouth I pretend I'm having some too and that I'm enjoying it, I also give her a spare clean, empty syringe for her to hold onto at the same time as it seems to make her feel a bit more in control even though she's not doing anything with it.

Squeeze into his cheek and then squeeze his 2 cheeks with you fingers to make him swallow it

Putting it in yoghurt or ice cream usually works for me

I feel like I could have written this post! Absolutely the same for my little boy! I mix with an Oz of milk - which I know blah blah you shouldn't but it's the only thing to get it into him!

The only other success I had was the orange own brand ibuprofen from Home Bargains. But he used to have infacol which I am guessing is a more similar flavour! But you can't give ibuprofen for long ...

The nurses at his imms said to me to try own brands as the favour might not be as strong but yet to find an orange paracetamol!

I'm hoping now we started weaning he might be more receptive, but when he had a temp a few weeks back I was struggling so much to bring it down I rang 111 and they very condescendingly told me 'mummy is the best person to convince them to take it' I was like oh helpful because HE WON'T TAKE IT. lol.

Thank you all for your suggestions! Will definitely try to find an own brand of paracetamol to see if that makes any difference.

nurofen didn’t really make a difference but that’s the most medicine we’ve managed to get into him purely because of us blowing on his face and once during the night he was still half asleep so didn’t fight as much.

will also try the mixing with a purée suggestion. It’s hard as we’ve only just started weaning the past few weeks so we’re still finding what he really likes/or just spits back out. But hopefully going forward this suggestion will get a lot easier.

Put it in a spoonful of jam.

I agree that you need to have a strategy for if your child has a very high temperature; but on the whole not sure it should be needed for a cold.

@Mischance we had 24 hours of raised temperature hence the need to get it into him.