![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
As your baby ages, you will find from time to time, that you need to give said baby something to drink that they may not want. In our case, it's gripe water. We've found it does a marvelous job of settling his tummy when he's not feeling the best.
However, to say that Lex hates the gripe water would be to understate the matter. When he smells it now, he clamps his little jaws shut and tries to cry through gritted gums. The thing is, it settles his guts in a very short space of time, and gives him relief, but of course he doesn't understand the connection between foul taste and the vanishing of the pain in his tummy. And so he screams, bats at us, clamps his mouth shut, etc.
And then if you get the medicine into his mouth, he makes excellent use of a baby's inbuilt gag reflex, and his tongue, to spit it all out.
So what to do?
You take a small syringe (without a needle in it, of course) and fill it with the medicine. Then lay bub on it's back, slide the business end of the syringe down the inside of the baby's cheek, between the cheek and the gums. You need to get the medicine into the baby's mouth behind it's tongue. Then you start squirting small manageable amounts of the medicine into bub's mouth.
In our case, each small dose takes a little while, as Lex will gargle it for a bit first. While crying. And screaming. But the end result is that a good 90% of it goes down, unlike previously where maybe a quarter made it into his gullet, and everything and everyone nearby was covered in a gripe water and drool cocktail.
There may be other methods, but so far we've found this to be the most effective way to get him to down the lot.
However, to say that Lex hates the gripe water would be to understate the matter. When he smells it now, he clamps his little jaws shut and tries to cry through gritted gums. The thing is, it settles his guts in a very short space of time, and gives him relief, but of course he doesn't understand the connection between foul taste and the vanishing of the pain in his tummy. And so he screams, bats at us, clamps his mouth shut, etc.
And then if you get the medicine into his mouth, he makes excellent use of a baby's inbuilt gag reflex, and his tongue, to spit it all out.
So what to do?
You take a small syringe (without a needle in it, of course) and fill it with the medicine. Then lay bub on it's back, slide the business end of the syringe down the inside of the baby's cheek, between the cheek and the gums. You need to get the medicine into the baby's mouth behind it's tongue. Then you start squirting small manageable amounts of the medicine into bub's mouth.
In our case, each small dose takes a little while, as Lex will gargle it for a bit first. While crying. And screaming. But the end result is that a good 90% of it goes down, unlike previously where maybe a quarter made it into his gullet, and everything and everyone nearby was covered in a gripe water and drool cocktail.
There may be other methods, but so far we've found this to be the most effective way to get him to down the lot.
