When a family has their first child, they should be given the option to take specialized training in how to safely and effectively give young children medication via humane darting.
I’m only mostly kidding.
J needs to take pain medication/anti-inflammatory every 4-6 hours as needed. “As needed” has been “get that gross crap down his gullet every 4 hours on the dot or all hell will break loose” since last Monday, as expected. Medicating a toddler is as easy as medicating a feral animal who hasn’t been tranquilized. I truly do feel like I am taking my health and safety in my hands sometimes.
J is 39 inches tall and 34lbs (maybe a little more now). He is all arms and legs and despite looking like a little scarecrow this kid is all muscle. You can tell this immediately at medication time as he seems to sprout four more limbs and just attack, full on. Every limb is flailing and until last night, they were all sharp and pokey (thanks nail cutters for saving my face). Every square inch of his body seems involved in the single minded mission of “avoid the medicine that helps me be able to function”.
He is given his medication via oral syringe. I generally can get it into his mouth then massage his cheeks til he swallows but there was a short time there where I would end up with most of it drooled back onto every handy surface. We have now added liquid Lortab to the array of scars upon the furniture*. Emergency measures were enacted. Suppositories were given instead.
This kid was livid at the oral medication, can you imagine how that change of pace went over? I bet you’re correlating strange sounds heard in your home over the last week with howling that just must have been him over this indignity.
So, in all honesty, I’d be absolutely down for those lessons in darting. If I could just dart him while he’s mid-play he’d probably only be livid for five, maybe ten seconds before returning to play and I wouldn’t have to worry about pain taking over his world and turning him into a total terror rather than the mild, goofy terror he generally is.
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* Everything gets cleaned but hey, all the furniture in this living room has been through hell and back since J’s birth. Also, Lortab is only busted out at night. No one likes to see a little kid hopped up on goofballs all day.
I hear ya. Our youngest daughter would fight us every time. It was a trial for both of us.
When the moment’s passed I can at least look back and sort of laugh but gosh, don’t I feel like a monster at each and every dose. Hopefully this will be all done for a little while soon.