Getting a 6 Year Old to Take a Pill....

I've heard a lot of success stories practicing swallowing M&Ms first. What child is afraid of M&Ms? :) Child swallows an M&M successfully, he gets to eat one afterward. Then, transition to medication first, M&M afterward.

Good luck!

My son had to take some really nasty tasting pills when he was recovering from pneumonia, and he has a very hard time even letting them into his mouth, let alone swallowing them. After lots of frustration for everyone involved, we came up with a solution that worked - pudding plus bribery. He could manage to get them down (barely) in a spoonful of pudding. They were still really bitter.

To make him more willing to do this, I filled a pillowcase with small toys, one for each dose he needed to take. If he got the pill down, he got to reach into the grab bag and take something. I normally do not bribe my kids, but in this case, it was absolutely necessary to get the 6 y.o. to voluntarily swallow the nasty medicine, and it did work.

Good luck.

I found this:

"My daughter had to go to pill swallowing classes at NYU Child Study Center. You start with cake sprinkles one at a time with water, then those paper candy dots, then tic tacs. She now takes her pill with drinking yogurt which is thick and takes away the bad taste.".

There are many medications that normally don't come available as liquids, but sometimes you can get them made as liquids at a specialized compounding pharmacy. We have to do this all the time for dogs and cats and other pets (i.e. rabbits and rodents and birds) that giving a pill is darn near impossible. For example, we have thyroid meds in our practice in pill form but if a client needs it as a liquid for her cat, we can call it into the compounding pharmacy and they make up a liquid suspension in whatever concentration and quantity we need. They can even flavor it upon request (and YES, we do ask for fish for cats, and chicken, liver, or bacon for dogs, and usually sweet fruity flavors for the other critters!). I would talk to the doctor and tell them what you are going through, see if they can offer any advice, and see if getting the meds compounded as a liquid through a compounding pharmacy is an option.

I know this has been a trial. Perhaps you can do it like the vet told us to get the cat to swallow a pill. Put the pill on the back of the tongue then point the head up and stroke the throat until they swallow. Works with the cat...lol.

I'm not trying to be silly here, I literally understand what you're saying. This works in this instance so I'd see what the pharmacist says. He may have some cool technique that he tells to patients.

Otherwise can you keep using the patches? Can the med be given after work? So he can practice? Or it is only a morning med? This stinks for sure.

Have him practice swallowing jelly beans or M&M's. Then he should be able to do it. If he has to swallow the M&M's a few times because they're in the back of his mouth then he may get over the idea he can't do it.

I am truly thankful for Depakote sprinkles right now. We hide the Ritalin in a spoonful of applesauce with the sprinkles on top of it. That way he just takes the spoonful of stuff in his mouth and swallows.

Well, what about adding it to a spoonful of something yummy but sticky (peanut butter? honey?) or squish up a mini marshmallow til it's nice and goey and wrap that around the pill. Makes it super slick. Then take a big swallow and down it goes. I didn't learn to take pills til I was 11 or 12, so I feel for the kid. Even small pills I choked and gagged.

How large is this pill? It must be fairly big if you can cut it into four pieces. I hate it when doctors prescribe things that only come in horse pill size. Is this the only available size of this pill, or are there other dosage amounts that are smaller so he could take, say, two smaller pills instead of one large one? I know that that sounds like twice the torture but if this pill is big enough for him to feel (and he probably can feel the edges of the cut pieces, so he's having trouble with the cut version), then if there were pills of half the dosage, he might eventually find that two of those was preferable to one large pill. Ask the pharmacist.

If you can, see a local pharmacy, not one of the huge chains, and establish a relationship with the pharmacists there. You want people who are what's called compounding pharmacists. They often have more ideas and solutions than the pharmacists at the big drug store chains, who seem to me to be too busy ever to talk and who seem to dispense things with zero thought for who's going to take it. Our local pharmacist at his small local pharmacy is much better at making suggestions about alternatives or ways to cut pills etc.

The "drinkable yogurt" idea someone listed below is a good one, but is you son used to the texture of drinkable yogurt? It would be a good solution if he were used to that texture.

I remember well when I taught my daughter how to take pills. She used to take a lot of medicine when she was younger (now that we know her issues, she rarely ever takes meds anymore). Anyway, with her sensory issues, she got to the point where she absolutely HATED taking medicine in liquid form--hated the taste. I told her the only way she would get away from drinking the liquid medicine was if she learned to swallow a pill. She learned to swallow when she was 6 years old.

I started with a very small pill. I can't remember if she put it in something first...I think she just took it with some juice. I had her drink some juice to get her mouth/tongue wet, placed the small pill way at the back of her tongue, so that it almost fell into her throat, and then I had her drink her juice until the pill went down her throat. Actually, it went very, very easily for my daughter because she didn't want to take anything in liquid form.

She's 12 now and takes supplement pills in all sizes and shapes and has never had any issues. Once they "get it," it's very easy from then on out. It's getting that initial one or two first pills down that's the hardest. Hang in there!

My son has to take daily allergy pills. He was a little older, 8ish, but this worked great:

http://www.amazon.com/Maxi-Aids-The-Pill-Takers-Cup/dp/B0...

Found this on google - maybe it'll help.
You'll need skittles or something similar sized to "practice".
http://www.ehow.com/video_###-###-####_children-swallow-p...

My kids learned how to take pills like this: put a mouthful of food in your mouth, chew it and just before you're about to swallow, shove a pill in with it and swallow it all down. If a person can swallow a mouthful of food, they can swallow a pill hidden in the food.

My 15 yr old son (who is on the Autism spectrum and has ADHD and Tourettes) is a master pill taker. He takes about 10 different supplements every morning. Know how he does it, now that he's had a decade of practice? He throws them ALL into his mouth, takes a huge gulp of orange juice and down they all go. We all have no idea how he manages this - it's pretty amazing!

My oldest daughter has ADHD so she had to learn to take pills early too. Here's what we do. She gets a snack, usually pretzels, chews one or two of them up but before she swallows it she sticks the pill in the chewed up pretzels in her mouth and just swallows the whole thing. It sounds kinds nasty but I'm so glad we figured it out because the daily "pill fights" were terrible! Hope this idea works for you too.

Put it in a spoonful of jam.

I haven't read all the other answers so I apologize if I am repeating someone else's answer. We were told to place an M&M or other small candy on the lip of a can of sprite or something like that and have the kids take a drink and wash the pill down. This is just a practice method for them to get used to swallowing something. With two of our kids, my husband would have them place the pill on the very back of their tongue and then take a drink so the pill was already in the back of their mouth. They picked it up pretty quickly that way.

Is there anything that he would drink that you don't let her? Like a Dixie cup of soda (coke or ginger ale?). My daughter would love to get her hands on soda.

I like gamma's idea - just mock it up for yourself. Take the pill. Put something on it (ice cream or applesauce) and cover it with rainbow sprinkles. No need to chew! Just swallow it down. Or chew it up a bit. It will go down.

I don't have time to read through all the responses. I taught my kids to swallow pills at 2 and 4 when we traveled to Hawaii because I wanted to use melatonin to help with the time change. I gave them the pills shoved into a small bite of banana. Bananas are kind of mushy and you don't normally chew them that much before swallowing. My oldest is now 8 and has ADHD and can take his meds without even water to drink! SO glad I got the pill taking thing of of the way. They are both big enough now that they can take adult tylenol and ibuprofen and I don't have to buy that ridiculous liquid or those super expensive chewables...

im 45 and still have problems. anxiety sets in. its awful. have him take a deep breath the swallow. im sorry he has to take this at such a young age. my 14 yr old has to take pills without anything to drink. she figured that out on her own.

It took my son a good month of practicing before he got the hang of swallowing his pills. Keep practicing he will get it. I wouldn't keep putting it in food cause you don't want him thinking he can chew it.