Help Me- I Cannot Get a Syringe of Medicine Into Him!

My ds1 has an ear infection and i desperately need to get antibiotics into him. I cannot syringe the liquid into him, it is impossible. He just thrashes around and refuses to swallow and spits the medicine everywhere. I just had 3 attempts and eventually gave up. Please help me, i am so frustrated. I just want him to get better.
Is there anything i can do? Can i put some in a bottle of chocolate milk or something or is that completely ridiculuos? I'm so tired of him being miserable, i just want to help him get better.

Hes too young for choc milk. OOPS sorry just realised its DS1 not 2 so yeah try it in choc milk and foprget everything else i wrote LMAO sorry tired baby brain

But put some in some EBM or formula depending on what he has.

We had to give DS reflux meds from 5 weeks till 6 months and it was a fight also, i did find some days a spoon was easier and other days a syringe. Dh would hold him and i would shoot it down back of throat so he couldnt spit out. I also tricked him with infants friend which was also for wind and reflux as he liked that so i mixed them together sometimes.

If he is bottle fed you can actually get a a teat thing that you put medicine in as a friend had this.

Good luck and hope he is better soon

oh I hear ya hun!!

To get my DS2 to take any type of medicine - we have had to resort to what feels like torture - lay him down between my legs, pin his arms down, put a finger between his gums so he cant clamp up, syrnge a bit in - blow on his face suddenly (all very gently of course :)) to get him to swallow - and repeat - he has just had his first course of anti's and of my gosh!! we even had to put our fingers under his nose once to get him to breathe - it was very traumatic more for me I think - but we had to get it into him and nothing else worked!!! It is only within the last week he will suck the syringe with paracetomol in it and it takes a few minutes to get the dose in.

gosh, my other two were no probs at all LOL> good luck!

i stuck my finger in between his gums and he bit me! i feel like crying.

Oh I can so sympathize with you hun. I have three different lots of meds to get in to DS17mths at the moment and it has been nothing short of a nightmare.
I tried giving it to him to do himself and he squirted it all over the floor, I tried putting it in his milk or juice or whatever and he refused to drink it as he could taste it. Restraining just sucked as both him and I became so upset.
In the end full on OTT praise is what is working. I sit on the floor with him and tell him what a good boy he is and he is so clever and well done and every single full of praise term I can think of over and over. He gets into the swing of it wanting to please me I guess so he takes it. It does take a while, like 15 mins but much nicer than the forcing him.
Good Luck

when DH is around one of us holds him down, or wraps him up in a sheet, whilst the other squeezes his cheeks together & puts the medicin in slowly so he doesnt gag on it. This is how the nurse showed us & have done it often as he was one sick little boy last yr & needed his medicine.
If I'm on my own....yep I'd go with the choc milk option....or anything he'll love. I used to put small amounts on his spoon when feeding yogurt or weetbix or something he was going to eat. Just now before his afternoon nap I put panadol in his milk due to an ear infection........luckily for me he'll take the antibiotic & ask for more!

so it doesn't like 'wreck' the antibiotic by putting it in the milk?
itms?
so it will still work?

It will still work, unless the medicine label specifically says not to give with milk.

Also, I'm a big fan of the Lolly Bribe. Good luck :hug:

Yep, choc milk, lollies, whatever it takes. Failing all that pinning to the floor is probably your last resort, unfortunately.

Hope you get it into him soon hun!

thanks guys, i'm going to try it in chocolate milk. i'm just so upset and frustrated. i've been crying cos he's so sick and miserable and i feel awful.

Oh darl, it is so horrible when they're sick :hug:. But he will get better soon. I'm sure the choc milk will do the trick, if it's a fave of his :)

G - i'd go the choc milk option - also prob good for him to have the milk since he has been off his food...
i am lucky - N seems to LOVE medicine... hmm not sure that will be graet in teenage years...
hope he is feeling better soon. xxx

thanks
i'm so upset and emotional. i don't know what's wrong with me. i just want him to start feeling better.

If you put it in the choc milk you need to be exact about the ratio and quantities so that if he only drinks 50% of the milk you know how many mls of antibiotics he's had and you can top him up with the syringe - having half doses of ABs doesn't just mean that it is less effective but it also gives the bugs a chance to develop resistance and become AB resistant super-bugs.
If it's panadol etc it doesn't matter if he has a half dose.

The further back you put it in their mouths the harder it is to spit it out.

sorry - i reread and realised you were talking about your nearly 2 yo - not 5 month old - I was a bit shocked with all the choccy milk responses for a 5month old :rofl:

:hug: hun its hard seeing your kids sick especially when they dont understand that your just trying to get them better, id go with the chocolate milk too

I like to use the concentrated cordial method, a spoonful of cordial mixed with the antibiotics, the taste is well covered, and you are only doing a small volume, and not have to worry about him not drinking the entire amount of chocolate milk.

For the younger babies, squirt 0.5ml or 1ml at a time against the inside of the mouth, it'll slowly trickle in. Also ask your doctor to prescribe a more concentrated formula of the antibiotics. eg. Amoxil has a 100mg/ml strength. For babies around 12 months of age(weighs 10kg), you only need to give 1ml each time.

For those struggling with Panadol, there is Panadol suppository, it's easy to use once you get the hang of it. If your child is older, I find Nurofen For Children tastes much better than Children's Panadol.

Not a very gentle thing to do.. but the nurse showed me how to do it when we had to get steroids into DS at the hospital for his breathing.

She lay him down, held his nose and squirted the medicine into his mouth.. he had to swallow to breathe. It worked and is quick. It's the only time we've had to do it.. he usually sucks the stuff down.

Hope you can get it into him soon. I also find DS only rejects his medicine when he's feeling his worst, once he's feeling better he takes it better.

I also second the lolly bribes.. he has the lolly in his hand ready to pop it in soon as he has it.. that's when it's yucky medicine like the steroids.. not flavoured stuff like panadol.

how'd you go G? Bront is right you need to make sure he has ALL the choc milk with the dose of AB's in it, so making it a small-ish drink would be better. Load it up with Milo! :hug:

choc milk worked a treat :)

awesome!!

Woohoo!

Good work. Make sure you use the minimum chocolate milk possible, so you can be sure he will drink it all.

If that doesn't work, I have had to resort to nose holding as well. It's very unpleasant, but it does work. You need to squirt just a little bit in at a time when you do it, and put the syringe down the side of their cheek and trickle it in - if you squirt it straight down the throat they may choke or vomit.