Horrible Time with Liquid Medication- Help!

i go through this every time. the ONLY way i can get my daughter to take it is in chocolate milk. and by chocolate milk i mean mostly chocolate with a little milk . i usually mix the med with about 1-2 tblspns chocolate syrup and about 3-4 tablespoons milk. (think along the lines of about no more than 2 inches in the glass". since it tastes so strong of chocolate, the med is pretty will hidden, and there's not as much to drink. definitely keep to the smaller tries, so they are more likely to finish. not to mention, since she never gets it this strong she thinks its a treat. i tell her it's her extra special milk. good luck!

My 3 year old was just on Amoxicillin for an ear infection and wouldn't take it either. We sprinkled sugar on it and she took it everytime with a quick drink right behind it to chase it down.

Hello, I had the same problem with my son. I finally found a method that works every time for us. Rule #1 - You have to do this the first thing that enters their body in the morning. Meaning, no food or drink when they wake up. Try to have prepared this mixture to hand them upon awakening. 1. bottle (even if he takes a sippy-cup) 2. A little over 1/2 of a package of Vanilla Carnation Instant Breakfast powder (comes in individual packages...located in the cereal isle...oh, and do not try chocolate...trust me). 3. fill it up with whole milk to the 6 oz. mark (after the Carnation powder is in). 4. stir it up really well and let it all become a nice little milk-shake (minus the ice-cream) 5. lastly, stir the medicine dosage into it (mix really well). Now, hand it to your child upon awakening. Works every time! Even with the nastiest tasting medicine (they sill drink it all...trust me!) If you even knew what we went through with our son before this method, you would know this to be the only way that will ever work.

we lay our daughter on the sofa, on a towel, with her head slightly over. use the syring dispenser, and put a small amount on the side between her cheek and gums, then pinch her cheeks.

It forces her to swallow. I know it sounds mean, but it works.
M.

My child was the same way, and she would not take her meds. Finally her ear infection got so bad from never really clearing up the doctor started giving her rocephin injections. They are very painful but since she was a pain about oral meds this was the only choice. Now once she was about 2.5-3 and she had a ear infection I told her you can swallow meds or get shots....she swallows with no probs and if she gags I say SHOT coming your way drink it down NOW. She is 4 now and it still works.

.

I agree with this,

use a medicine syringe and SLOWLY dispense into the cheek pocket. By very slowly dispensing, it is hard to spit out. Hold him down if you have to. Good luck.

But add, that if you pull the cheeck out away from the teeth they cannot push it out or spit it out, if just rolls right back to the pocket again. Eventually they will have to swallow it

J.,
I have been there. Very frustrating.
I would say at this age, it's more important to get the meds in him than to soft peddle the administration of it!
I had best luck with a syringe. He won't like it, but he'll get used to it after a couple doses.
Also, I have found that bribery is very effective in this situation.
Get something he REALLY likes to eat (an M&M, jelly bean, whatever) and when he swallows the medicine, he gets the candy/cookie/whatever. It has to something he REALLY REALLY likes and you should probably reserve it for this use in the future.
The bribery will get him used to swallowing it and it will get easier.
Also, isn't the amoxicillan bubble gum flavored? I didn't think it tastes that bad--call your pharmacy or find a pharmacy that can flavor it with something else. Good luck.
I am reminded of the phase when my hubby & I had to hog-tie my son to get his nails clipped. It was awful. I feel for you. But get it in him O. way or the other!

my son is a pro at taking medications. ppl are shocked. i am not we werent raised to hate meds. we just took them...no big deal. seeing adults gag and act like a baby while taking medications is obnoxious. here is what we do (and have from the get go). using the syringe tell him its med time. we usually had our son sitting on the changing table. if he is crazy and pushes it away be patient. he thinks your going to shove it into his mouth and he knows mom is frustraited and he is picking up on it. let him hold onto the syringe if he feels more incontroll while you are actually the one still holding it and truly incontroll. just let him put his lips around the tip of the syringe and squirt a little bit at a time. dont force it in his face or to his mouth but slowly gently offer it to him. let him swallow the first bit and excitedly tell him there is more. dip the tip in something yummy like jam , chocolate, or something simular if he isnt responding. treat him like you would want to be treated when taking meds. it would make me feel weird if someone put a syringe way in my mouth and forced it on me. you wouldnt do that with food...same applys here. our son now two is excited to receive meds now...he thinks its a treat. wal greens offers flavoring to prescrip meds. we have not done this yet but you could ask. best of luck to you hope everything works out for you and your little one and the battle of the meds!

I like the suggestion about mixing it with yogurt. It's actually a very good idea to give your child yogurt right before/after you give the amoxycillin because that antibiotic has a tendency to rob your body of the good antibodies that your body naturally creates and yogurt can help replenish them.
Just recently, my 4 year old had a bad ear infection and I had to administer amoxycillin. He was so worried about getting a shot that when the doctor told him that it was a liquid medicine, he was so relieved that he didn't care about the taste. However, the pharmacist happened to mention that she flavored the medicine with a bubble gum flavor (you can specifically ask for it to be flavored now a days) and Jayden ended up loving the medicine and wanted to have lots of it. We went and got yogurt and I let him pick out the flavor of yogurt just in case I had to end up mixing it. He chose a non-flavored (vanilla) yogurt so Im' relieved he actually enjoyed the taste of the medicine.
-Jen

Have you tried using the yogurt drinks? When my son was sick I would get his favorite cup with a straw and mix his medicine in with one of those drinks and add milk to fill. I called it his "medicine milkshake".

Been there! I don't have anything special. Still, I suggest you try again with the squirt, liquid drop thing (though a syringe might be another name for it). My advice is to give him a small amount, have a glass of juice or water handy, and offer him the drink (maybe he is using a sippy cup), then repeat every several to five minutes until the entire dose is given. If doing this works, try to decrease the amount of time between little squirts, until he will take the whole amount at one time. Maybe you are talking about a teaspoon dose; 1 teaspoon equals 5 ml (milliliters); so one ml at a time, five times, should do it. Most of these liquid drop squirt things have lines for teaspoons (down to quarter of a teaspoon) and for milliliters.

Good luck!

Hi,
We have had a lot of trouble with this issue as well. I can sympathize with you. My daughter is currently on the same med for a sinus infection. We put her first dose in her morning yogurt (and mix it really well) She loves yogurt so she takes it and then next two doses we put in her milk at naptime and at bedtime. She LOVES her milk so even though it tastes different, she still drinks it. I would ask your pediatrician for ideas if you don't get any new ones on here. Also, I heard that many pharmacies will flavor medicine any flavor that you request. Maybe you can find a flavor your child will like or at least tolerate.
Good luck!!!

How I wish!! I definitely feel for you, my DD is TERRIBLE about taking medicine. I have to put her head between my knees and crank her mouth open (often my hubby has to also hold her down) and shove the syringe in as far as I can & she still usually gags and spits it out or cries so much she throws up. Then you have no idea how much she has actually had, and you start over. Many times a day for days on end. Then she gets terrible stomach problems and horrible diaper rash from the antibiotics (especially since she's not getting a consistent dose). Rinse, repeat. Such a nightmare...for some medications we can hide them in a literal spoonful of sugar & offer a treat afterwards, that works for about 2 days. I now beg our ped for short-dose, not so bad tasting medicine and also finally had tubes put in her ears so we'd stop getting so many ear infections & constantly needing antibiotics. Everyone has a magic trick until they actually see what she can do and how strong she is - not to mention strong willed. The tubes are the only thing that finally saved us - no need for antibiotics in almost 6 mos - but obviously that only works if ear infections are what you are fighting and your ped recommends tubes. Good luck to you and hang in there!!

My son has always been great about taking meds until our second round of Biaxin. That stuff is bad. I would use a bigger dosing syringe, fill it with the Biaxin and then fill the rest with cherry juice from a jar of marichino cherries. He didn't like the chocolate method. I tried everything. He ended up taking it all with the cherry.

Call your nurse. She will have suggestions and may even suggest a different medicine.

BEEN THERE

What worked for me was to tilt his head back as far as possible then squirt the medicine in, Hold the mouth shut, when done give him something to drink and a treat and tell him how good he was to take his medicine...

Try mixing it with some yogurt, this worked with my daughter at around this same age. Good luck.

Call your pedi and tell them what is going on- they can give a shot if need be! My daughter had one over christmas- one dose - one shot and in 3 days a different child!

Do it while he is starting to fall asleep then pop in a pacifier. Worked for my kid every time lol

like other people suggested here.
YES we did the same method like others- use the syringe, tilt his head back, put on the side of the cheek then pinch his cheeks.
I used 2 syringes - 1 is for the medication, and another 1 is for the chocolate milk. Put a litle chocolate milk in first, then quickly put the med in his mouth (use a small amount), while I'm doing that, my hubby played some toy with music that distracting him. So just rotating until the med is gone. Make sure don't put too much chocolate milk.
Good luck

my daughter was the exact same way. our pediatrician told us to pull the medicine into the syringe and then "top it off" with a very small amount of chocolate syrup. Let him taste the chocolate syrup and then he won't be resistant to the rest of the medicine. this worked beautifully for our daughter and now she takes medicine like a champ!

I use a medicine syringe and SLOWLY dispense into the cheek pocket. By very slowly dispensing, it is hard to spit out. Hold him down if you have to. Good luck.