It’s an age old struggle of mom’s fighting the good fight to
help their children feel better. Doctors are good at what they do and we try to
follow their instructions to the letter… until you have a toddler. You see, toddlers
have opinions, LOTS of opinions. They even have differing opinions from the
doctor. The struggle is real.
The Baby was diagnosed with acute pneumonia (also a double ear infection just to round things out). We caught it
early and began a pretty strong antibiotic to kick it out of my sweet little
angels lungs (and ears). The problem word in that sentence was antibiotic. The Baby is
against medicine. When he was teething it took the Tylenol like a champ.
Sometimes he sucked on the syringe to get the last drops of the sweet nectar.
Now that he is one and has an opinion on EVERYTHING he has decided he doesn’t
like taking medicine. He has decided that no matter what his mother tries he is
NOT going to take the medicine. Because his mother obviously can’t be trusted, and
what she says is medicine might actually be poison.
At first I was trying to be sneaky about the medicine. I
have yet to kick his bottle to the curb because that thing makes him really
happy and I really like it. So I tried to hide the medicine in his bottle like
I do with the Ibuprofen. The Baby is a smart little thing and rejected this
bottle. I even put a little bit of chocolate syrup in the bottle to mask the
flavor, but he was not fooled. Baby- 1 Me- 0.
I tried mixing the medicine with chocolate syrup and giving
him a shot. He refused. Baby-2 Me-0. So I tried giving him just chocolate syrup from the
syringe to get him used to it. He rejected it. I then got really sneaky. As I
was feeding him dinner I would wait until he opened his mouth for the next bite
and squirt a little of the medicine in his mouth. This worked for about three
bites. Then he wouldn’t take his eyes off the syringe and he decided he needed
to feed himself because I could not be trusted. Baby-3 Me-0. So I put the medicine in his
dinner. He decided he was done eating. Baby-4 Me-0 I tried to forcefully inject the
medicine in his mouth and he spit it out. There were tears and it sucked. Baby-5 Me-0.
Yesterday I hit my breaking point. We started the medicine
debacle on Friday and through the weekend he maybe ingested about 1/20th
of the medicine he should have had. He was pulling at his ears and I knew I had
to figure this thing out. I found a solution and it made me feel like the worst
mother ever. Lineman is gone so I had to devise a plan to force my child to
take his medicine. I laid him on the floor, and then pinned him down with my
body, then I have to pry his little jaw open while he fights with every fiber
of his being, then I have to stick the syringe in the back of his throat and
plug his nose while I get the medicine in his mouth so he is forced to swallow
it. Baby-5 Me-1.
I hate doing this to my child. He cries and looks at me that I am the worst human on the planet. We have had two successful
medicine doses since last night. He is supposed to take this medicine for 10
DAYS. I have to give it to him twice a day for another 7 days. Which means for
the next 7 days I will have to repeat the process of forcing my child to take
medicine. If toddlers were just reasonable people I could explain that taking the
medicine is going to help him feel better and the less he fights the easier it
is. But toddlers are not reasonable people. They are crazy lunatics that cannot
be reasoned with. I sincerely hope that he will realize that I have to give him
his medicine, but of course he will not realize this. He will think that I am a terrible person that is making him drink something that tastes really gross for my own sick pleasure. I am dreading the next 7 days. This medicine better damn well work or I am going to have a breakdown. 13 more doses, 13 more doses, 13 more doses.
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