When one twin gets medicine, the other gets apple juice

Kristin's got the opposite "problem" many parents have -- her kids want to take medicine!

When one of my 2-year-old twin boys are prescribed medicine, it's inevitable that the non-sick boy will pitch a fit for medicine too. So...I have two dispensers ready to go, one with the real medicine and the other with apple juice. When I give the sick boy his medicine, the other boy gets a shot of apple juice and is perfectly happy.

Related: Track medicine dosage with a reusable chart

Comments

[hedra]

Dang! Chart that one under 'wish I'd thought of that!' (though we can't do apple juice, I could easily do something else...).

[amy]

Try water w/ a drop of food coloring, if you want to avoid juice. That's our recipe for all sorts of secret potions in our house.

[trip]

We did this once with Gatorade as an older sibling was getting a dose of cough medicine. Wouldn't you know the next night, the little one had the bad cough. After getting the real medicine the very next night, she paused and said, "weird."

[none]

Brilliant! I had just been telling them, "it's all gone!" Now I'm ready for next time (though I pray it's a long time from now...

[Brandy]

Great tip! My boys aren't twins but the one who's not sick is always up and ready for medicine. *chuckles* I've been using a spare dropper to give water instead. Though they have that all the time so water doesn't really make the cut. I think its more of the some one got something special out of the dropper...where's mine?

[Jill in Atlanta]

I've considered this, but I decided that I don't want my children to think they can get sweet, candy tasting medicines just because they want them. Maybe I'd do it if the stuff tasted badly!

When I tried to explain "Red Ribbon Week/ Just Say No" to my six year old, I explained that drugs were medicines that someone didn't need and wasn't supposed to take. If you aren't sick, you don't take medicine (drugs) or things you think are drugs. I want my children to continue to trust in doctors to prescribe any medicines they consume.

When my toddler wanted the cough syrup I didn't really worry about teaching him the larger lesson about drugs. But now I'm glad I started when I did.

[Bjørn]

Our twins are the same about liking medicine, they picked up the ASL for medicine faster than any other word they like it that much. We use a combination of "All done" and using water or Gatorade if we have any. Usually it is just water though.

[none]

I almost responded to the poster above by saying, what a coincidence! Our twins also learned the ASL for medicine very quickly.

Then I realized that the poster is my husband :-P