3 Tips To Help Get Children To Take Medicine

Once my children got so old, it was time to move on to the chewable pills versus the small medicine droppers of Tylenol.  My youngest son will make himself gag after smelling any form of children’s liquid medicine.  I try to avoid the liquid medicine and lean towards the very small pills he can swallow and the children’s chewables.  Now that he is getting older, he is required to take larger amounts of the children’s chewables and this is a problem!

When he is sick, we get to the doctor, diagnose his problem and head to the pharmacy.  Now comes the worst part:  getting him to take the prescribed medicine.  After all the crying and gagging, we have finally come up with a sure fire way of taking capsules, liquid medicine and children’s chewables for my preschooler.

Taking Capsules

My son loves peanut butter and Twinkies and has decided that we should use these snacks when he has to take medicine in a capsule form.

• Pop open the capsule and mix it with a spoon full of peanut butter.  You can even make a peanut butter sandwich or peanut butter and crackers if you’d like.

• Open up the back of the Twinkie where you can see the cream filling.  Drop in the contents of the capsule and push the Twinkie back in place.

I used to try to hide this from my son, but then he was afraid to take snacks from me when he was sick.  Now I tell him what I am doing and most of the time he watches me “prepare the snack.”

Taking Liquid Medicine

• Pop the liquid in a small bowl and mix it with a spoon full of peanut butter.  You can even make a peanut butter sandwich or peanut butter and crackers if you’d like.
• Get a fruit flavored liquid medicine and mix it in a Fruit Flavored juice box.  My son loves chocolate milk and Walgreen’s even has chocolate flavoring for liquid prescriptions.

Taking Undesired Children’s Chewables

We get a small bowl and put some gold fish crackers in it.  I cut up the chewable pills in fourths and place inside the gold fish mix.  My son will put a handful of goldfish / chewable mix in his mouth and wash down with a drink until all the snack mix if gone.  No matter how sick he is, this concoction always works!

Do you have a creative way of administering medicine to children?  If you do, please share with us on the mom blog.  When our kids are sick, every little idea or tip always helps!