Tips On Giving Medication

One of the hardest things about giving medicine to small children is getting it all down. Don't try putting it into a bottle or a glass of juice. You won't know how much a child has taken if all the liquid is not drunk.

• You can use an eye dropper or vitamin dropper, or even a syringe which you can buy at a drug store for such purposes. Squirting it into the side of the mouth then, is really quite easy to do.

• Or you could also get a hollow graduated medicine spoon from your drug store for a child who will drink from a spoon.

• For a pill, butter it lightly or coat it with salad oil, and it will go down pretty easily. Or bury it in a spoonful of applesauce. Or you can even press a pill between two spoons to crush it, then mix it with applesauce or jam. Serve it by spoon with a "chaser" of water or juice.

• If the medicine is going to taste badly, why not rub an ice cube over your child's tongue to kill the taste buds before and after giving the medicine.

• If a child absolutely refuses medicine with clamped jaws, gently squeeze his or her nostrils shut. Trust me, the mouth will open very quickly.

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