How to give a baby medicine in the form of a tablet or syrup - instructions for parents

Website “kid.htgetrid.com/en/” warns: the information is given for information only and is not a medical recommendation. Before using the medicine, be sure to consult your doctor!

When young children get sick, one of the major problems in their treatment is taking medication. Kids still do not know how to swallow pills, in addition, the medications themselves can be bitter or just unpleasant for the child to taste. What to do if you need to give medicine to a child who is not yet able to understand why he should drink “this muck”? There are special methods and “tricks”, knowing which, parents can give a child a syrup or tablet without any problems.

How to give your baby medicine in the form of a syrup or suspension

A syrup or suspension is one of the most “sparing” drug options for a child. Very often, children's preparations in this dosage form have flavoring additives and are transported calmly by most babies. When prescribing a medicine in the form of a syrup or suspension, you must use the following rules:

• We find out what dosage is needed. Since the medicine is in liquid form, we will talk about milliliters. For many drugs of this kind, measuring spoons or syringes are included, but if they are not, you need to use a regular syringe without a needle. It is not worth measuring the amount of medicine “by eye”: it is fraught with the fact that you can “undersize” or exceed the dosage;
• Before giving the medicine, the vial must be shaken. This mainly concerns suspensions, because they are not homogeneous in their structure and at rest they “separate” into medicinal powder (sediment) and water. After that, we collect the right amount of medicine into a syringe or spoon;
• It is better to fix the child: the baby can be swaddled and held, as when feeding, slightly raising its head, and an older baby should be put on one’s lap by an adult and ask the adult to hold it. To prevent the baby from getting dirty, you can tie a napkin to him.
• The point is small - the baby must drink the medicine:
  • From a spoon: With a spoon, you need to slightly bend the baby’s lower sponge and, waiting for the child to open his mouth, pour in the contents. This can happen both at once and in several steps. It is impossible for the baby to completely shove the spoon with the medicine into the mouth: this can injure the oral mucosa and cause a violent protest in the child;
  • Pipette: This is a "baby" way for children up to six months. The medicine is collected in a pipette and dripped into the mouth in several passes. Children who already have teeth can accidentally gnaw a glass pipette (for example, if the jaws are closed in a burst of resistance), so this method is not suitable for them;
  • From syringe: either a medical syringe without a needle or a syringe that was complete with the medicine will do. The syringe must be inserted closer to the corner of the mouth, with emphasis on the lower lip. Enter the medicine slowly so that the baby has time to swallow. Do not pour syrup or suspension directly into the throat: the medicine should, as it were, flow down the inside of the cheek;
  • With a dummy: either the dummy is dipped into the medicine and given to the baby, or it is filled with medicine (you can make a hole in the nipple and insert the medicine dropper there. See the picture below.) In the first case, dip the dummy and give the child to lick it up until all the necessary amount of medication has been taken.

Pictures clickable:

What else do parents need to know

1. A bitter medicine (for example, an antibiotic in the form of a suspension) is better to pour closer to the root of the tongue. Firstly, there are fewer taste buds and the child will feel less bitterness, and secondly, irritation of the root of the tongue causes a swallowing reflex, and even if the baby rebels, he swallows the drug reflexively.
2. It is better not to dilute the medicine with water, milk, juice or fruit drink to improve its taste. It is much more difficult for a child to drink a large volume of liquid, especially if the unpleasant taste of the medicine joins the taste of the drink. As a result, the body will not receive the desired dose of the drug.
3. Some medicines can have a bad effect on tooth enamel and leave an unpleasant aftertaste in your mouth.therefore, after taking the syrup or suspension, you need to brush your baby’s teeth or wipe the gums with a napkin (how to brush teeth).

How to give your child pills or capsules

Most drugs that are prescribed for children have a convenient dosage form of a syrup or suspension, but sometimes you have to treat the child with tablets or capsules. This is more complicated, but if everything is done according to the rules, it is quite doable.

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1. Specify that the medicine is really allowed to the child by age, and is also compatible with his diet and other medicines.
2. Calculate how much of the pill you will need to give your child. The instructions always indicate how much mg of the active substance contains one tablet or capsule, therefore, following the doctor's instructions, determine whether you will need to divide the tablet into 2 or 4 parts, or give the whole. In case it will be necessary to divide, the tablet can be cut with a knife and take the desired part, or grind into powder and divide it into parts already. By the way, it is most convenient to rub the tablets into powder between two tablespoons: put the tablet in one, and put the other spoon in the first one directly on the tablet and carefully rub it. With pills, everything is simpler: you need to open it and pour out the contents.
3. We dilute the required volume of powder with a liquid and give by any of the methods by which a suspension can be given. To dilute the powder, you need to use the liquid that is indicated in the instructions. Most often it is water or milk (if possible).

Some tips for treating pills

• Do not dilute the crushed tablet with a large amount of liquid to give from the bottle. As in the case of the suspension, the taste of the tablet can be unpleasant, so it’s easier to give the child a teaspoon of bitter solution than 100 ml of tasteless drink. Moreover, it is not always possible to grind the tablet so finely that all its particles pass through the nipple opening;
• Do not add the medicine in mashed potatoes or other foods: if the tablet has a bitter taste, the child will not realize that the food has become bitter from it, and may begin to refuse food;
• If the drug has analogues in other dosage forms, except for tablets (suppositories, suspensions) - it is better to use them;
• Almost all babies do not like to drink medicine, so they can scream, dodge, close their mouth, spit out the drug. Mom needs to remain calm, confident and persistent in her actions. Screaming at the child at this moment is not worth it: it will only aggravate stress and set the baby in a negative way in relation to any manipulations and procedures.Also, do not roughly push the spoon or syringe into the baby's mouth or pinch his nose so that the child opens his mouth. Instead, lightly press on the cheeks;
• You can try to distract the child from discomfort with a toy, song or cartoon;
• Always praise the baby for drinking the medicine and explain that this helps the treatment and will soon be completely healthy.

How to give a baby a bitter pill? Here's what moms write on the forums:

JuliusMamius: I’m divorcing on a spoon with some water and deep in the neck and right away a different title.

KiraPlastinina: we injected with a syringe from nurofen, disgusting, the poor one frowns ... but what to do.

Elena Eliseeva:Yes, I agree, it’s very convenient to inject any medicine with a syringe. Bitter is better to pour not on the tongue, but on the cheek. So in the mouth less bitterness remains, I tried on myself.

Chamomile: we swaddled tightly, collected medicine in a nurofen syringe, held our cheeks so that the child could not snort, spit, and poured. A syringe was inserted by the cheek, and away from it, not in the throat, but between the cheek and gum. There was no gag reflex - I had to swallow.

Frosina Mom:I give the breast like this: I dilute any medicine in a tablespoon with my milk (I can suck in a syringe from a panadol, etc.), if there are no helpers, swaddle, unclench my jaw (press the cheekbones), pour in, squeeze my nose and immediately! a chest or a bottle (what do you have there?). Doesn’t have time to recover

Mary 0808:We were prescribed diacarb, I pushed it into powder, the necessary part was placed on the nipple / finger and mouth of the child, it was smeared on the cheeks with my tongue, wrinkled but licked.

How to drink medicine

To “bring down” the unpleasant aftertaste from the medicine, parents immediately after it give the child a drink. This should be done taking into account the compatibility of drugs with some drinks.

• Antibiotics can not be washed down with milk: milk violates the structure of the drug substance and it is hardly absorbed by the body;
• Tea can not be drunk with tea because of the tannin and caffeine contained in it. tannin reduces the effectiveness of many drugs, and caffeine is not compatible with sedatives, because it gives the opposite, stimulating effect;
• Aspirin is not washed down with milk, since milk, as an alkali, completely neutralizes it;
• Antibiotics, anti-inflammatory and sedatives can not be washed down with juices, since the citrates contained in them neutralize the effect of these drugs. In particular, aspirin cannot be washed down with citrus juices, and grapefruit and cranberry juices are not compatible with almost any medicine.

The baby’s health is the most expensive, although the children themselves do not like to be treated. The correct use of medications in the form of tablets or suspensions will relieve the whole family of stress and help to keep the child calm in relation to various medical procedures.

We also read:

• How to make an enema for a newborn baby – https://kid.htgetrid.com/en/zdorove-rebenka/kak-pravilno-sdelat-klizmu-grudnomu-rebenku.html;
• Vent pipe – instructions for use;
• How to instill drops in the nose, ears and eyes of a newborn – https://kid.htgetrid.com/en/zdorove-rebenka/kak-pravilno-zakapat-kapli-v-nos-ushi-i-glaza-rebenka.html;
• How and how to measure the body temperature of a newborn baby - a review of thermometers and how to measure the temperature in the armpit, rectally (in the rectum), in the ear – https://kid.htgetrid.com/en/uhod-za-rebenkom/kak-novorozhdennomu-rebenku-pomerit-temperaturu-gde-luchshe-izmeryat-i-kakim-termometrom.html

Watch the video:

Children and medicines - School of Dr. Komarovsky

The need to give children medication often raises many questions for parents. However, the main thing to remember is: “Any drug, if not shown, is contraindicated.” And if the doctor prescribed, then “educational program” from Yevgeny Komarovsky in dosages, dosage forms or how to “shove” a bitter pill into a child.