Help!! How Do I Get My Breast Fed Baby to Take Meds??

My daughter was a spitter. No matter where in her cheek I put the meds, she' find a way to get her Tongue behind it and spit it out. Take the Syringe and put in his mouth, between his cheek and gums. You want to angle it behind the tongue. That way he can't spit, or taste it. squirt a little bit at a time, so he doesn't choke. I didn't do the blow in the face, cause babies do that and hold there breath. The blowing in the face only gets them to close there mouth. They can choke on the meds doingit that way, and it makes for a more tramatic thing for them. Especially if you have to do it that way everytime. Good luck,and hope you find a way that works for you.

Hey L.-

My Daughter had the same problem. The dropper on the inside of the cheek worked a couple of times, but she learned how to stop that too. My mom told me that after we put the medicine in with the dropper to blow softly on her face. It worked every time! She said she did that with me when I was a baby. Hopefully that will work for you too!

Hope your little one feels better soon!

That's tough! I've found that if I gently squeeze my baby's cheeks to keep her mouth open and slowly give her the medicine with the dropper in the back of her mouth, she'll swallow without choking when I let go of her cheeks. My baby does this now without fussing and it works like magic. My mother, who was a NICU nurse taught me this trick:-)

Does your son take a pacifier at all? If so, try putting a pacifier in your baby's mouth right after you give him the medicine and he'll begin to suck and swallow the medicine.

Good luck! Ear infections are rough. Hope your little guy feels better soon!

Well, if he's anything like my daughter, it's really hard. Madi refuses to take a pacifier, will not take a bottle, and will not swallow meds even when I disperse them very slowly she refuses to swallow and then pukes them up. I've tried slowly siringing them in while I BF and that doesn't work, and I've let dad try, which also doesn't work. So, as an alternative, did you know you can treat an ear infection with breastmilk? That might work. You can ask your doctor about it. Hylands also makes ear drops and tablets that dissolve that help. Maybe you can talk to your doctor about something like that. Good luck!

http://www.ehow.com/how_###-###-####_infants-ear-infectio...

There is a "nipple" that you can get that is for medicine. I think you can get it at any drugstore.

When do you give your son the meds? When my son was a little younger than yours, with an ear infection I could only get him to swallow the meds if I gave them to him right before he ate (was nursed) other than that he would spit them back, if I did it when he was hungry it was much easier.
Good luck

I have mostly bottle fed my children & so we've just mixed liquid meds with their bottle & it's always worked great for us. If your baby will take a bottle- you could try pumping & add the meds to it. Good Luck!

I used to hold my kids against my bare breast, but not latched on. I would cradle their head with one arm and hold down their arms and legs with the other arm. My husband would then administer the medicine. He would squirt a little bit of medicine in their cheek and wait until they swallowed, then give them more. We liked the syringe the best!

We have graduated to practically sitting on our kids now to give them medicine-it's lots of fun;) I despise the taste of ALL medicine, so that is where my kids get it from.

Walgreens has mini liquid medicine dispenser attached to a pacifier. My exclusively breastfed baby would still suck the medicine out of it if I mixed it w/ breastmilk. I would slip it into her mouth quickly after breaking her latch from the breast. good luck!

My 4th son just turned 5 months old today. He has been battling RSV for almost one month now. Last week he was prescribed a liquid oral steroid and I was nervous because during this time I had to resort to suppositories for Tylenol for his fevers because he would gag and throw up the liquid Tylenol EVERY TIME!! So...being nervous about the oral steroid that he desperately needed to take, I discovered that if I held him on my lap horizontally, face up, and head tilted just a tiny bit back toward the ground, I would use a syringe and SLOOOWLY squirt into the back of his cheek (like where wisdom teeth would be if he had them) a tiny, tiny bit at a time. This would take sometimes 5+ minutes to allow for cry time and recovery from the murderous trauma he acted like I was imposing on him with each tiny squirt! :-) The further back I got though, the easier it was for him to swallow. If you can bypass those sensitive taste buds in the front of her mouth, the better chance you will have at getting her to swallow. Getting it in the back of her cheek will be your best bet. The head being tilted back seems to really help too because then you have gravity working with you. Gently blowing on her face will also get her to swallow. She may not like anything you do to help her out, but hang in there. She'll get it no matter how much she fusses. Good luck, take care, and happy mothering! :-)

Use the dropper and squirt the medicine in the side of their mouth--in their cheek. A pediatrician taught me this trick and it worked every time. They can't help but swallow it.