Entice your sickie with a medicine-dipped lollipops

Stephanie: we do what we must.

Our daughter recently battled an ear infection along with another virus. She's usually pretty good about taking medicines, but her doctor prescribed a horrible tasting medicine for the virus, which in turn caused our daughter to start refusing all medicines.

Monday morning she woke up with a fever of 105 degrees and there was no time for struggling to get the medicine down. I grabbed a grape lollipop and my husband poured out the appropriate dosage of Infant Tylenol into a spoon. I rolled the lollipop into the Infant Tylenol and gave it to our daughter. She sucked off all the Infant Tylenol and let me repeat the process, until she had finished the dosage. Her fever was down to 102 in a matter of minutes.

Dum Dums are the recommended lollipop for the procedure, as they are small and round (which is good for rolling them in the meds).

And you're sure to get a few Dum Dums in the trick-or-treat bag.

More: Best of Parent Hacks: Cold and flu season tips

Comments

[Parent Club]

Freezies also help with giving yucky medicine. The freezie numbs the tongue and tastebuds -- then you give the medicine (quickly) right after.

[Jen]

So, my daughter is battling eye/sinus/ear infection as we speak. She is a CHAMP at 2.5 at her eye drops, b/c she KNOWS she will get a treat if she cooperates. She's changing up between fruit snacks (like the polly pocked corn syrup ones) and M&Ms. I figured, the Spoon Full of Sugar route worked in the song...

[Julie Qidwai]

Dude, I've been there. Our daughter received an antibiotic that she was allergic to, which made her vomit and drool continuously for 3 days. But since she had a really bad ear infection, we still had to get a different antibiotic down her! What a horrible experience.

These days, we do one shot of medicine, one big drink of juice or some ice cream or something, another shot of meds, etc.

My daughter is 4, so she could take chewable acetaminophen, and I tried giving her 4 Sweet Tarts and then sneaking the chewable meds in, but she was spat the meds right back out.

I've heard some kids love the chewable meds, and if you've got one of those kids, count yourself very lucky!

[Leeanthro]

We used these suckers to get through two echocardiograms with our 16-month-old. He was screaming until we pulled one out, then he was calm and still. (albeit incredibly sticky)

Guess the trick is that we never give him candy, so it was a novel treat.

[Maura]

We had a similar problem with my son. Trick that finally worked was to use a syringe for the teaspoons of medicine and then suck some chocolate syrup into the syringe. It also helps to cover the outside and tip a bit. The chocolate coats the mouth and then the medicine can slide right down.

[kidlet]

Man, forget the kids... I'm using this one for me. Probably better for my long term health than scotch.

[Lerren]

Check with your pharmacist. Ours has specially made lollipops & such with the meds already in them. GREAT if a kid has a chronic condition that has nasty medicine.