Vivien got an ear infection, and she so hates the medicine that it is torture to get her to take it. Right now, I’m playing chicken and allowing her dad to do it. I hear her screams. Well, it does taste like crap. But it’s hard to explain to a little kid that you have to finish a whole round of the junk.
photo credit: vieux bandit
Mixed in milk… didn’t work. Put it in yogurt… didn’t work. Just jam it in with a juice chaser, but she is screaming the whole time. Is this how it is at Gitmo?
Sorry to hear about the ear infection. As you might remember, we had 4 of those in the fall, culminating in ear tube surgery. The first infection was by far the worse, so at least know that if there are future infections, the worst is behind you…
For the medicine: Did the pharmacy tell you to refrigerate it? Ours said refrigeration makes it taste better for the kids, so Amy’s was always served chilled. She was on amoxycillin (didn’t work), then cefdinir/omnicef, then bactrim — and they all tasted okay. Maybe Viv’s on a different one?
New reader here–but one who just survived 8 weeks with a 4 year old and a truly vile tasting antibiotic. Did your pharmacy offer to add extra flavoring to disguise the taste? Walgreens has a “custom flavoring” program–I would always ask the tech for extra, and after seeing what the medicine was, she would always oblige! It made the special trip to Walgreens completely worth it. In our experience, the extra flavoring changed it from awful to sickly sweet grape with a slightly unpleasant aftertaste…which brings me to….milkshake/chocolate milk/whatever works chaser! I’m not a big bribery fan–but our daughter got to have a strawberry milkshake or a dish of ice cream after taking the meds. Stellar parenting? Probably not. But it worked. And the dairy does cut the taste.
Here’s the deal. From a mom with 3 kids, many ear infections. Get the pink stuff. I think it is amoxycillin. Must refrigerate. Nothing else will do. If they still don’t like that you just get one of those big dropper things, and kinda stick it halfway down their mouths and squeeze, that way they don’t taste it as much. You don’t want to end up WEARING the medication all over your new J Crew sweater. No Na No No No. Then offer them the forbidden beverage as a chaser. That’s right Coca Cola at 8 A.M. Worked for me!!!!
Maybe you could do what I did in high school, recovering from a tonsillectomy with a giant bottle of nasty-tasting liquid codeine: mix it in warm apple cider. Of course, this resulted in a nasty, yet delicious, addiction.
I hated the taste of meds so much that I learned to swallow pills at 8. I still can’t take cough syrup or anything like that without throwing a major fit –
the ONLY thing that worked for my mom was smushing pills into apple sauce with cinnamon sprinkled on top. for some reason, that combo was the only thing that disguised the flavor/texture and get the awful stuff down.
hope she feels better soon!!
great stuff all. yes, Mike I do remember you went through those ear infections.
Well,here is my happy update the last few days viv said “let me take it myself” and that worked much better than Mark and I holding her down like militant Saudi. She handled the plunger. It is amoxicillian, served chilled, it’s white, not the pink stuff, but she only spit it out a little. I would chant “swallow, swallow” like it was a beer bong party. Then have some juice or jello to chase it.
Ugh, I remember this fight. My (now) 6 year old twin girls used to completely melt don at the thought of liquid medicine, no matter what the flavor.
My secret, CHOCOLATE SYRUP. I know, not the healthiest (it IS fat free though), but I would put the medicine in the little medicine spoon, then squirt some chocolate syrup on top, or even just let them hold a little teaspoon full of chocolate syrup to take after they had the meds in their mouth. It finally stopped the melt-downs.
Beer bong party! LOL. You are just brilliant! : )