Help - LO hates Calpol

Giving medicine will always be a challenge because if they are in need of it, they are already feeling under the weather / not themselves. From experience (my eldest is 18), it is all about how you approach it, and if you are giving off a calm and relaxed mood, then it helps keep them calm. If you come at it stressed / agitated due to previous experience expecting a battle, baby will pick up on your tension and will become tense before you begin. Try distracting them, signing a nursery rhyme or talking about one of their toys as you steadily give a little bit at a time, with the syringe directed towards the side of their mouth, pointing it straight to the back of their mouth can cause them to gag or a dislike to taking anymore after the 1st bit. Take example from the calm personality of an immunisation nurse and how they just talk about anything unrelated to what they're doing. Hope little one is better soon x

Have you tried an alternative brand of paracetamol? My little one doesn’t like calpol, but will happily take my local chemists own brand infant paracetamol. Essentially the same thing, but must just taste slightly different. I agree also with Louise, a calm approach gives better results, and I tend to take the syringe in and out of her mouth while she swallows it. I hope that helps x

So my son who is now 5 years old has always hated calpol he would kick up such a fuss he would sick it back up He took ibuprofen fine although that is now a struggle too but I think that's down to constant awful tasting antibiotics If baby is bottle fed have you tried putting it into a bottle teat and let her suck it out?

Thanks everyone! She sees the syringe and the chaos starts straight away so even if we're calm or distracting her she knows what's coming. She just pushes it out with her tongue. She does take ibuprofen a bit better though so maybe we try another brand of paracetamol! X

Me and my partner have had the same thing with our 10month old, he really doesn’t like Calpol. We now pass the spoon round and pretend to all have some off the spoon and he copies 😂 it works.. for now!

Our baby has the orange Neurofen and she will grab the syringe and drink it, she loves the taste 😂 worth a try!

This is the exact same with my little girl! I give her it on a spoon and she accepts it much better! So ill syringe it out, then just put that on a spoon. Haven't tried it when she's been crying but when she's calm she takes it! And the sad thing is, calpol tastes delicious! Haha

We have the same, my daughter hates medicine. We've tried calpol, nurofen strawberry and nurofen orange. Honestly she reacts like we are trying to kill her, we approach is all calmly but she kicks off, essentially shuts her throat and then pushes it back out her mouth 🙃 I've taken to going with Nurofen at the moment as that's only a 2.5ml dose compared to the 5ml.of calpol!

If they’re bottle fed, could you mix it with their milk? Mine loves calpol but HATED his antibiotics when he was on them, so I either put it into a bottle teat or added it to his milk. Tricked ya!

So we actually had success by just using the lid of a bottle and syringing it into there and my girl was happy to have it like that!

@Kirsty wooooo! This was the only way we could force his antibiotics in 🤣 such little minxes!

@Layla it's so funny how they decide it's fine once it's given a different way 🤣