Toddler absolutely refusing antibiotics

[Anonymous]

How about a chewable?

[Anonymous]

I remember having an awful time trying to get DD to take the antibiotic. I would get it down her throat, only for her to vomit immediately. Once she was crying hysterically and I got a whiff of her breath with the antibiotic in it. I said “spit it out!!” Yeah, it could be your kid knows what she’s talking about. There must be some other, less traumatic way.

[Anonymous]

Try a compounding pharmacy. They have a lot of flavors. I think Capital in Bethesda compounds.

https://www.capital-compounding.com/why-compounding

[Anonymous]

Add to a very small bit of good juice or koolaid. Use the syringe.

[Anonymous]

The problem with mixing it into things is that you need to make sure they get all of it in. Artificially low doses of antibiotics will cause problems.

[Anonymous]

Would she take a bottle? We have a little bottle for medicine so it’s not a scary syringe. Or is it the taste?

[Anonymous]

OP here- thanks everyone. After calling another pharmacy and asking again the pharmacist said I could mix it with applesauce so I did that. Of course the second she knew I WANTED her to finish the apple sauce even that took bribery. I don't know how I'm going to do this twice a day for ten days.

We have tried so many of the helpful suggestions here. She is just incredibly willful (more so than a run of the mill toddlerhood) and is we say blue she says red.

If the applesauce thing fails we will hold her down and hold her nose. I hate for it to have to come to that but I'm too worried about a kidney infection.

[Anonymous]

Put the antibiotic in a small medicine syringe.

Pin the child down if they refuse.

Put the syringe in her mouth and at the same time, blow HARD on her face and push the squirt trigger.

Her swallow reflex will trigger and it’ll be over like that.

Be ready with a treat and a hug and tell her next time she can pick her reward herself.

[Anonymous]

Does she like honey? Or some type of candy? My son accepted his meds with a honey chaser. So we’d have both spoons ready and filled and he’d pop the spoon of honey in his mouth immediately after the antibiotics to kill the gross taste. We went from me kneeling on his chest to him willingly taking it as long as I had his chaser ready. I feel like jelly beans or candy would work even better?

[Anonymous]

I had a similar fight with DS when he was almost 2 and I hated holding him down. Switching to a different delivery method worked. You can try a medicine cup or spoon. My DS willingly took his antibiotic from a spoon.

[Anonymous]

I've not tried this personally, but maybe one of these?

https://www.amazon.com/Sippy-Sure-Medicine-Dispensing-Built/dp/B081P6BS1R/ref=sr_1_1?crid=6F7ZYQCV0AOR&dchild=1&keywords=medicine+sippy+cup+for+kids&qid=1614740311&sprefix=medicine+si%2Caps%2C189&sr=8-1

[Anonymous]

I’m sorry OP. I remember that well with my DS. For us, day 1 was torture and then he got with the program. We did the head between thighs and syringe for the first day and offered dum dum rewards. Day two he was fine taking it standing up.

[Anonymous]

Bribe her. She takes the full syringe and she gets 5 M&Ms. Or a Hershey kiss. Or a popsicle. Or whatever.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here- thanks everyone. After calling another pharmacy and asking again the pharmacist said I could mix it with applesauce so I did that. Of course the second she knew I WANTED her to finish the apple sauce even that took bribery. I don't know how I'm going to do this twice a day for ten days.

We have tried so many of the helpful suggestions here. She is just incredibly willful (more so than a run of the mill toddlerhood) and is we say blue she says red.

If the applesauce thing fails we will hold her down and hold her nose. I hate for it to have to come to that but I'm too worried about a kidney infection.

Its not being willful. Have you tasted it? It tastes pretty bad. And, she's just being a toddler and figuring it all out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here is a tried and true technique (you need a syringe for this) -

sit on the ground and put your daughter's head between your thighs. Clamp down on her head to hold it secure. Have your spouse hold her hands. Then use the syringe to shoot the meds into her back cheek (where molars would be) and close her mouth until she swallows. Works like a charm. My difficult meds taker is almost 20 now but he sure was a challenge to raise

Yes, this (if the bribes don't work). It sounds mean but it's better than letting your child have permanent damage or death doe to an uncontrolled infection. And this is nothing compared to antibiotic cream in the eye. My kid had a torn retina at 3, and getting the drops/ointment in the eye was absolutely excrutiating and took at least 2 people to hold her still, hold the eye open, and squeeze out the medicine. If she moved even a centimeter, the medicine went down the side of her face instead of in the eye. (PSA if your child is going to be doing anything that might involve eye trauma...make them wear goggles.)

Oh my gosh how did that happen? How did you know about the injury to the back of the eye? Hope your toddler is doing better now.