My six year old with autism will resist taking any form of medication. We basically have to hold him down, force it into his mouth, hold his mouth shut, and wait for him swallow while he tries to spit it out and fights us with every ounce of his strength. Has anyone else encountered this? How can we teach him to cooperate?
My son is extremely tactile defensive in his mouth. We could never get medications in his mouth via syringe and we could never hide it in yogurt or apple sauce either since he was well, tactile defensive. Long story short, he got strep, and because you can die from strep it was imperative he get antibiotics into him. Last resort was to give him a shot of antibiotics in his bottom. The dr told me this will really hurt him as the consistency is thick and it goes in slow. It was awful! We had to hold him down and he was screaming. He could barely walk to the bathroom afterwards and had an accident in his pants. I was not going to put him or me through that again.!!! So, I found a cup in the section of the pharmacy that sells pill organizers, or pill cutters. It basically has a little shelf in the cup(btw, this is how I learned to swallow pills age 18). What you do is cut a piece of candy like a flavored tic tac or an M and M mini or regular size M and M in half and put it on the shelf of the cup, fill it with water, and have the child drink the water from the cup, they don't even realize pill, or candy is there. I would suggest giving the child the tic tac or candy of choice first, so they know it's not yucky tasting medicine. Also, DO THIS WHEN CHILD ISNT SICK, so they learn it by the time they are unwell. Then after they do it reward them with something like a piece of their favorite candy, or a sticker, or whatever is your child's motivator. Practice this for a week or so, just to make sure they got it. Hope this helps! Life is so much easier now that my child knows how to swallow pills. Good luck!! Let us know if you had success. Best, susan
My sister crushes the tablets and opens the capsules and mixes them in peanut butter on toast. Her son cant tell they are there
Google teaching pill swallow kids. Many different sites providing useful advice but basically start from very small pills (candies) and progress to bigger sizes. We taught our NT son how to swallow pills when he was 5 yrs and he is very proficient at it. For our younger one we got him to swallow small round gel pills when he was 3 yrs but then found out he was doing it wrong and gave up. We had made a game out of it calling it the swallowing trick. We will try again once he is 5 yrs old and in the interim mix everything in juice and use rewards. Forcing meds never worked for either of our kids as they would often throw up right afterwards. Good luck.
@ Brinator, so happy to help out. Good luck. I was told by @A MyAutismTeam Member, you can order cup through amazon. They have a few choices . I think I used EZ pill dose cup? It's clear cup with shelf
Wow GREAT suggestion @A MyAutismTeam Member, I'm definitely going to try the cup trick!!! I did not know that was a thing!