Matthew takes a lot of supplements to stay healthy. I counted 13 doses in just his morning medicines. As you can imagine trying to get all those supplements in a child can be difficult to say the least. But Matthew is a real trooper. In general he doesn’t complain, but really, there wasn’t much chance of making it a pleasant experience while he still couldn’t swallow pills. I would have to order his supplements in powder form or in tablets that could crushed or capsules that could be opened. Then I would have to mix them in some sort of carrier. We tried applesauce and eventually a rice milk custard to mix the powders in and deliver it in the most palatable way. But it isn’t the most ideal method. And frankly, it can taste plain bad depending on what is in the mix.
I went to a pill swallowing clinic at the ARI (formerly DAN!) conference and although they had great ideas, they just didn’t work with Matthew. We were supposed to start out with small, dissolvable candies such as sprinkles ( AKA jimmies in my neck of the woods) and have him swallow them with water working our way up to regular pills. It just didn’t work for us. Then one of my mom friends told me how they got her daughter to take pills and capsules; hide them in a spoon full of applesauce and her daughter would just swallow them down. So we started there with the smaller pills. It worked! Matthew is pretty smart and pretty “with it”, so he started to ask questions about what he was doing and if he could try the larger pills. That became our preferred method for medicine delivery. Until the other night when his father suggested he try swallowing some of the pills with water. He did it with no problem. I couldn’t believe it. Now he is taking some medicine with water, some with applesauce and the item we still have in powder form mixed in pudding. Those powders will be eliminated as we need to reorder. I’ll just get them in capsule form from now on.
It is really worth a try to get your child to take pills. Maybe my method will work for you too. Stay well.
