Taking Your Medicine

When it comes to taking medicine, Sloan is usually awesome. We will approach her with a syringe, place it in the corner of mouth, and squirt the liquid in with no objection.

Usually, Sloan is great about taking her medicine.

Recently, Sloan found herself in an unfortunate battle with pneumonia. Our pediatrician prescribed her an antibiotic that, to put it mildly, was disgusting. It was basically a thick white paste that even made me gag. Suddenly, it wasn’t so easy getting our daughter to take her medicine.

After the first day of pleading with Sloan to take her medicine, Sid and I looked at each other and wondered how we could continue this for nine more days. I mixed the antibiotic with milk and tried to convince her that it contained no medicine. I encouraged her to chug it and she actually did. However, it would not last. The next time I offered it to her she called me out, Daddy, this is medicine. Yuck!

I put some milk in a sippy cup for myself and tried her to get to drink with me but to no avail. We tried straight up bribery, promising almost the world if she would just take it. Sidney would pretend to give some of Sloan’s stuffed animals the medicine, reasoning that if they could take it so could she.

When the stuffed animal strategy didn’t work, Sid let Sloan give her the “medicine” (straight milk) via syringe with the promise that Sloan would take it after her. Can you believe that our honest little daughter broke her promise?

It came to the point that she had to be forcefully held down on the floor by one person and the medicine entered into her mouth by the other. Sidney’s mom helped us refine the process by advising us to just squirt a tiny bit at a time. It helped a little but getting her to take the dosage was still an awful process filled with lots of tears and anger.

Then, miraculously, toward the end of the 10 days, Sloan simply allowed us to give her the medicine. No fight, no protest, no squirming. Sidney rationalized that Sloan finally realized that no matter what, she would have to take the medicine eventually. Once she had the epiphany, it just made more sense to suck it up and take the medicine.

Sometimes in life we can be like Sloan and refuse to do something that is for our own good. We can fight it and resist it, but until we realize that taking our own medicine will be the best option for getting healthy and not spending negative energy, it can be a brutal process. If you have any tips for getting your toddler to take their medicine, please let us know! Don’t Blink.