I have been trying to get my 13 y/o to be able to swallow medication (vitamins, antibiotics, etc.). We have to get everything in chewables. Any suggestions?
She did it! After much patience, encouragement, and letting her try different ways on her own, she did it. She got it down drinking milk, maybe with it being a little heavier than water it helped it go down. My advice to anyone else facing this would be to have lots of patience. It really is a frustrating thing for the children to have to do and staying calm and encouraging I think really helps them stay calm as well.
When I try to get my kids to swallow meds I always put the pills in pudding. Take about a teaspoon full of pudding and stick the meds in the middle. Tell your child to swallow all the pudding at one time and the pills will go down with it. It works for my 7 year old and he can now swallow pills without anything to coat them. Some times I still do that with some of my meds if they taste bad.
I always put the pills in apple sauce. That seemed to work for my girls.Good luck!
K.,
The only thing I can think of is to hide the pills in food. Your 13 y/o might just have a really sensitive gag reflex. Other than that, please, please, please do not force it. I have horrible memories of my mom trying to force my sister to swallow pills when I was a kid. I use to hide in my room, but I could still hear it going on downstairs and if it was that tramatic on me, imagine what it did to my sister!
KarynG
I use to work at a Dr. office (kids) and the Dr. there use to say to give the kids M&M's to practice with. Because they don't melt in your hand(heheh) but they WILL melt in your throat. This teaches them to swallow pills and it is a fun treat for them
When we were teaching our daughter to swallow pills we started with mini M&M's...you can tell her if it was to get stuck by some chance it will melt and go down anyway...then we graduated to swallowing regular M&M's and by then she was swallowing just fine.
HTH,
J.
Alot of people made some great suggestions. However, if you are going to hide it in food, ask your pharmacist what would be best. Some medications can not be taken with Milk or Juice. And even apple sauce can be to acidic if the medication can cause stomach upset.
Thanks to the mom who suggested the pudding, worked great on my seven year old who stresses over swallowing pills.
Most all everything can be given in liquid form. There's a way around it if she has a sensitive gag reflex. If she's just being stubborn try chopping it up and putting it in her food. My mom used to hide them in moon pies (do they still even make those), but after awhile I caught on to it. I would say to chop it up and put it in Sprite or OJ that masks the taste better than anything.
Good luck.
T.
