Amoxicillin

Edith had a cold that lasted longer than I thought it should so I took her to the pediatrician, and he said that while the cold just had to run its course, she coincidentally had the beginnings of ear infections in both ears that weren’t far enough along to be bothering her yet.

So I now have this bottle of amoxicillin and I’m supposed to give her 5 mL morning and night.

I have been provided no instruction on how on earth this is possible.

The liquid takes like super sweet bubble gum, so you’d think Edith would just suck it down, but she can tell I really want her to take it and she inherited my contrariness (a family trait) and so the second I approached her with it, she set her little jaw and glared at me. I gave her some and she decorated my dress with it.

I have sought advice from other parents and one thing that has come up is that if you put a baby on her back and put the syringe in past her tongue and then blow on her face as she takes it, it triggers a swallow reflex.

Well, either that’s nonsense or Edith is especially talented, because when I tried this she closed her throat up like a vice and then spewed the medicine right back into my actively blowing face, like a geyser in the wind.

So I’ve been putting it in her milk. This works, but I read online that they might not get the full dose if it’s in milk. I figured this is maybe because it gives it more of a surface to spread out and cling to, so more of it gets left behind, so I called the nurse to ask. And she said that they don’t really recommend that method because it isn’t that efficient and they instead recommend that you put it in food, like ice cream or sweet yogurt or coffee creamer.

The thing is, though, Edith DEFINITELY will not eat food that I especially want her to eat merely because she can tell I want her to eat it (see above re: contrary). I don’t see how coffee creamer differs from milk? So we’re just going on with the milk, since it seems to be the only way, and I hope she’s getting enough down her to keep the infection from setting in.

I thought force-feeding a biting rabbit her meds was the trickiest challenge along these lines that I would have to face, but this is harder.