How to Give Medication to a 16 Month Old

If you would be willing to go back to the liquid form pharmacies have flavoring they can add to the medicine to make it taste better. Have you tried that? If not, it might be worth a try.
Good Luck. :)

Crush it and add it to apple sauce and feed it to her.Worked for my nephew.
After such a long time on the medication you may want to see if she still needs it.

Some pharmacies can add flavoring to some medications. I think there is a fee. Maybe she would take it in a new flavor? Try strawberry one week, grape another week, banana another time - just suggestions. I do not know if her meds are compatible with the flavoring. Maybe changing the flavors around will help - CONFUSE her! Let her smell the new flavor, so she knows it is a new flavor - before you give it to her.
Good luck!

I have found the best way to do meds is in a syringe. Talk to your daughters Neurologist and ask about crushing the pill mixing with about 5 mls of water and giving it in a syringe. I have done this with my son for years. My son is also on Epiliepsy meds and it is fine to crush them, altough he was only on the phenobarb liquid for 18 months. I have often times consulted our pharmacist as well as my sons drs and they have always given the same advice. It will be hard to give the meds in the beginning but with a syringe it gets easier.
Good Luck!

You might try crushing it completely and mixing it with applesauce, yogurt, or something else that is "wet". I do that with my little ones vitamins and it works great.

Good luck, and all my best to your daughter!

A.,
I can't imagine how frustrating that is. 16 months old, yeah, you can't bribe, rationalize or trick them. I don't have much experience with this, but you might try disolving the pill in a little bit of cranberry juice, it's tart and hides the bitter taste of meds pretty well. I've also resorted to yogurt smoothies, they cover of bitter meds too. The Stoneyfield is pretty smooth and will go through a sippy cup, some others have "chunks" that can get clogged. Best of luck
T.

I give my 16 month old daughter her nasty tasting liquid vitamins when I nurse her. I just let her latch on then slip the syringe into the side of her mouth and give it to her while she's drinking milk. If she still gets a bottle it might work then or lay her down with her sippy cup and try it?! Good Luck!

Hi A.,
When we lived in St. Peters, Missouri and I was pregnant, I went to a pharmacy called Bellevue Pharmacy Solutions. They are a compounding pharmacy and are able to do a-lot with medicine. When I was pregnant I had morning sickness so bad that I had to try an Anti-Nausea Capsule from them...it did help some but I eventually had to go on Zofran for the rest of my pregnancy.
If I were you, I'd call them or e-mail them and see if they can help you either with a flavored chewable tablet or a liquid they can flavor for you...I believe they are able to do more than a regular pharmacy like CVS or Walgreens. It wouldn't hurt to give them a call or an e-mail if it makes giving your 16 mo. old meds. easier :)

Here is the information for them:
BELLEVUE PHARMACY SOLUTIONS
1034 SOUTH BRENTWOOD BLVD. SUITE 102
ST. LOUIS, MO. 63117

800-728-0288 or ###-###-####
fax: 800-458-9182 or ###-###-####
____@____.com
www.bpharmacysolutions.com

I know they will ship the meds. to you :)
You will probably have to have your childs doctor call in the perscription to them once you find out if they will be able to help you. My OBGYN had to call them for my Anti-Nausea Pills and they were made up of B-6, B-12, Folic Acid, Calcium Carb. and Ginger Root.

Please let me know what you find out: ____@____.com
I hope this will make things easier for you :)
T.

A friend taught me to give a bitter tasting pill by wrapping some Fruit Roll-up around it. You may have to break up the pill if it's bigger, but this really works. Best of luck & God bless you as you raise this precious child.

Well what you could do is crush it all up and put in
some pudding or anything else would be fine.Make sure you crush it with a spoon.It really
works.I hope this letter works.

from Mamasouce.com,

T. Waters

I think you have some great advice already, but I would check to see if you could retry the liquid, but have the pharmacist flavor it. It costs a bit extra, and I don't remember if you can actually do it with phenobarb but another suggestion. As a nurse, Phenobarb is gross! so I understand. Hang in there!

I have a stepdaughter with epilpsy and we put her meds in yogurt. Maybe give her a few bites with no pill and thenbite with pill. I hope this works. GOD BLESS

My son is awful at taking medication and moved to pill form myself to try something different. I have a new idea that worked great for us...go back to the syrup. I now put the syrup in his V8 splash and he can't taste it at all. I chose to put in the a little thicker juice so that he can't taste it at all. The only time he won't take it is when he sees me put it in there! Good Luck!

Maybe ask your doc to try another med? I sell an epilepsy drug- there are a lot of choices out there for kids- and it's better to try another one then to have her not take her meds and sieze. Some come in sprinkles that can be added to food and are tasteless. Hope this helps!

Do they have a liquid form of it? Try covering it with Hershey's chocolate sauce or crush it in some sorbet(lactose friendly ice cream:).

hi, my son has epilepsy also, we have been giving him meds since he was about your daughters age. he was on trileptal and now topamax and actually we are trying to take him off because he has not had a seizure for two years on the topamax. we also have to give him melatonian at night because he has issues sleeping. but we crush the melatonin in a crusher and then we have sprinkle caps that we sprinkle on his food. sometimes he takes it great crushed in his yogurt but others we have to come from the back and grab his jaws and push his bones to open his mouth. he is almost five now. and i know how you feel i hate doing it. these past two weeks since i have not had to it has been a great relief even know i am staring at him 24-7 to see if he is going to have a seizure. we have to do the same with the motrin and tylonal though.my husband mixes in his yogurt but he completely mixes it up. i don't because i am afraid he will not get every little piece of his meds. but he gives it half the time and it seems to work. so that he does not even see it when he gives it to him and i think barly taste it because it is in about one cup.

Hi A.! I'm not sure if it is possible or it you have tried this yet, but ask her doctor if you go back to liquid form if you can add it to her juice. If there is enough juice in the cup, it might hide the awful taste of the medicine. Good luck!

Hello!

I have one idea that worked well for my dad. As he got sick he was unable to swallow whole pills anymore. So we would crush it up and put it in apple sauce or pudding. He never tasted the pill. I also worked in a nursing home for a few years. This was the same way the gave the residents their medicine when they were unable to swallow pills anymore.

I hope this helps.

Hi A.,
Have you talked to your doctor about this? You might see if you can go back to a liquid form and see if she'll take it in her juice - or something else that might cover the taste a bit.
Good luck!

as a child i used to take pills with a spoonful of pudding. it could be her special treat.

I just read your letter.
Have you asked the pharmacist if the liquid can be made to taste better?
If so, here is what I would do.
In a case where such medication is absolutely necessary, your only alternative might be to have your husband hold her tightly and put the dropper in the back corner of her mouth as far as possible.
It usually works if you get it back far enough.
I have had to do this with some nasty-tasting medicine.
It is not pleasant but has to be done.
I would talk with the pharmacist about it.
Sorry this is so late.

Since the baby food worked before I would just find something she like alot and keep using it. Or try applesauce or yogurt. My son is 19 months and I still feed him baby food squash just to get veggies down him if he won't eat what veggie we are having. I will feed him the baby food squash until he won't eat it anymore:-)

Hope you find something that works soon and best wishes all around.

A.,

My daughter used to have to take a pill crushed...and hated it. I let her taste "condensed milk" right out of the can, and she LOVED it! So until she learned to swallow her pills, as she does now, I had to crush the pill between 2 spoons until it was powdery, then add condensed milk on top and blend well with a tooth pick, then offer it to her. It was a good deal to her because the condensed milk is SO yummy and it hides the yucky bitter medicine taste.

In case you are not familiar with condensed milk, it is very sugary. In the baking isle at the grocery.

Good luck.

A.

Have you completely crushed it with a pill crusher until it's almost powdery and then put it in a couple of spoonfuls of applesauce???

Talk with your pharmacy. It is amazing what they can do with flavorings these days. I know Target and I believe Kroger has many kid friendly flavors, that can be added to most liquid medicines. So try that and good luck! :)

Have you tried having your pharmacist add the optional flavors to the liquid to make it taste better? I know many pharmacies have this feature for about $2.00. Maybe if it tasted better she would take the liquid. I am not sure how well these added flavors work, but I have seen them advertised so I thought I would suggest it.
J.

when our 7 month daughter was recovering from heart surgery she was on alot of meds and 2 of them had an awful taste i had the pharmacy flavor them to somehting that i knew she would take like strawberry or cherry. it worked wonderfully, she put a fight at first when she saw the bottle but once she figured out that it tasted good she was ok. this worked for her until she came off of the meds when she was about a year and a half. it also works for my older son, he is a medication puker. our pharmacy was cvs or walgreens both do flavoring and it is only like 1.99 per script, unfortunatly there are some meds that cant be flavored. good luck, i often wondered why things they needed had to be such stressers.

You might try pudding. Just take a spoon full of pudding and put the pill in it. It should slide down with the pudding and she won't feel the need to chew it and wouldn't get the bad taste in her mouth. Keep some pudding cups in the fridge for the job.

My daughter is on a liquid form of Prozac. She refused to take the medication for a long time. I talked with our pharmacist (also a friend) and he stated that it would be OK for me to hide it in a small (2 ozs at most)of a liqiud drink that she likes. The most important thing is that it is a small amount of liquid so that I am sure that she drinks it all. YOu might check if you could do that with her medicine in liquid form. I also know and have had many clients that were on depakote sprinkles. I don't know if your neurologist would be able to change her medication to that. When they take they, they put it on mashed potatoes, pudding, applesauce, etc. Just some ideas.

Hi A.,

Could you maybe try mashing up the pills into a powder form and mixing it in applesauce? (the sweet to take the bitter away?) Is this medicine available in a powder form that dissolves? (if it was, maybe you could dissolve it in her juice?)
My son (23 mo.) is on trileptal (for seizures) - liquid form...2 times a day...it's a little bitter (not too bad) we made a game out of taking his medicine (he now takes the syringe and shoots it in his own mouth). Hang in there and GOOD LUCK!! Epilepsy is sure scary!!

We had to give my 4 year old medication from the time she was 13 mos until just recently. (She outgrew her problem - yay!) Anyway, I feel your pain. It can be a real struggle to get that medicine down! Do you think she'd take the liquid form now that she's older - there are a lot of flavorings the pharmacist can add to make it better. What I did for awhile was mix the medicine with breastmilk to make it taste better. Then I used a little less milk each day, and finally she took the medicine straight. Is there a chewable version of the pill? Sometimes that can help too. Good luck! It's a tough one!

A.,
Does it dissolve in liquid? If so, you could put it into strong flavored syrup...like the kind used in coffee drinks. You could even mix the medicated syrup into her milk as part of her "dessert". You could also try dissolving it into liquid children's vitamins, soda or juice. Taste it yourself, first and make sure it is OK. Tylenol adn Motrin are taken so well because they are so horrendously sweet with a strong flavoring agent.
Let us know what works...
E.
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what if you got a piece of bread and squash it flat, rolled a tiny pieve of it into a ball shoved the pill into the middle and dipped it in fruit spread or jelly (fruit spread like polamers is low in sugar) or maybe pancake syrup. The sweet will entice her, the bread will hide the pill and the sweet should cut some of the bitter taste. If you gave a few of them without the pill, then she might not necessarily associate it with her meds. Give them to her a couple of times a day without the pill and then it won't be as obvious that it is for her meds. Just a thought.

They make flavorings for meds. you can even buy them over the counter at your local Wal-mart Pharmacy. They come in a four pack, and a fairly inexpensive. They really worked wonders with the specieal needs children I have worked with. mix into the liquid form and giveit a try again. If that still doesn't work try the applesauce trick. Grind the pills and mix into applesauce or pudding. You might have to add a bit of cinnamon or nutmeg to hide the bitterness.

My oldest daughter was on the same meds at that age. We gave her a spoonful of icecream with the medicine inside. She never turned down icecream and it masked the flavor of the phenobarbital really well.

Check with her dr. first about this, but you may be able to crush it and add it to something like a glass of chocolate milk, where the taste is covered up. But some pills aren't allowed to be crushed, so you definitely have to check with her dr. first!

I don't know anything about children with epilepsy, but I do know about kids really fighting medicine. I have 3 children and have had to fight with all of them at times. My oldest was particularly bad about not wanting to take any kind of medicine for any reason. Many times, if I managed to get her to take it, she would spit it back out or throw it up if she'd swallowed it. I finally had to ask her doctor to give me a prescription in suppository form. To this day, she sometimes prefers a suppository to an oral pill or liquid. You may want to ask her doctor if her medicine is available in suppository form.

Hi,
Just a suggestion, a lot of the bigger pharmacies, Walgeens, Rite Aid, etc., can add flavoring to medicines like antibiotics. Maybe you could go back to the liquid form and have the pharmacy flavor it. I think it only costs 2$ which if it works would be priceless!!! Best of luck!

I struggle with medication and my kids. I have been successful in puting liquid medications in a small cup of juice (v-8 Splash has a strong flavor and seems to mask just about every yucky medication). If your doc says the pills are dissolvable, try this. Or possibly try going back to the liquid form and adding it to a strong flavored juice. I have also used a small cup of hot chocolate, that seems to mask strong flavors as well, and the kiddies love the special treat. Good luck!