Finally Mastering Infant Medication Delivery

Since her days at the NICU, miss V. Has been exhibiting some signs of reflux. She would grimace and gag a little when her bed was flat post feed and sometimes have an associated brady. Later, she would be fussy at the breast and sometimes arch her back. Of late, her weight gain has dropped off slightly, bringing her to the third percentile for corrected age. With the stagnating weight being the last straw, our respirologist recommended we start giving her Ranitidine (also known as Zantac).

Well, miss V. is not a fan! Giving it to her twice per day has proven to be very difficult. When the entire amount of medication is spit right out, you start to question the usefulness of what you are doing. We tried mixing with breastmilk, feeding it to her when she is particularly hungry, sneaking it in when she is sucking on her pacifier or during breastfeeding with a syringe (without the needle, obviously) and feeding it to her via a dropper. The only time some amount seemed to be swallowed was once when she was half asleep... Not something I could count on, since it needs to be given quite rigourously every 12 hours in our case. 

We had a rough time until last evening when we had a eureka! moment. You see, the best results (albeit quite mediocre) we had were when we used a syringe to sneak the Zantac in. The problem seemed to be that the 1mL suringe could not be subtly introduced: it inevitably interrupted her breastfeeding or pacifying flow. The solution : we used a plastic catheter usually employed intravenously! NOT the needle part, obviously, we just the plastic sterile part. Its great because I get to control the amount of medication I administer and it is small enough not to interrupt the suction on the pacifier or the breast. Its so great! Here are some pictures:

See, we just use the plastic part. No needles here! Those go in our nifty sharps container.

Here's Miss V. Happy as a clam, sucking on the plastic bit and swallowing all her medication for once, without tears!

Has anyone else tried something like this before?

What tricks do you have to get your sweetie to take their medication?

Xo

C