Easter and Ear Infections

Kyndall, Rustin, Kaydence, Ryder and Kassidy

Our luck finally ran out and the little virus that has been going around made it to our house and decided to stay a while. It started with Kyndall and Rustin, and then moved on to Ryder, Kaydence and Kassidy. For some, it was a cold (coughing, sneezing, runny nose, low-grade fever, and general unhappiness), but for Kyndall, Ryder and Kaydence, it blossomed into ear infections. This of course meant many sleepless nights and lots of rule breaking when it came to naps and bedtime routines. Fortunately, I think the worst is behind us and hopefully everyone will be back to full health within a few days. It will probably take a little longer than that to re-train everyone on “The Rules” and get back to sleeping (mostly) through the night.

With all the antibiotics and medications to give out around here, I have learned some tricks for getting babies to take their medicine. Contrary to popular belief, a spoonful of sugar does not help the medicine go down, at least not for my babies! Despite the yummy orange creamsicle flavor, no one wanted to take it without a fight. Here are some of the tricks that worked for me:

1—Measure out the medicine and squirt it into a bottle nipple. Have the baby suck the medicine out of the nipple. If the baby won’t take it at first, start with a pacifier and then use the bait and switch method to get them to suck on the medicine nipple. For thicker medications, a nipple with a cut in the top may be necessary. This trick works like a charm for Kyndall. Everything else we have tried with her usually results in the medicine (and anything eaten in the last couple of hours) being thrown up all over everything in a three feet radius.

2—Pinch the baby’s cheeks together, squirt the medicine into the side of the cheek and don’t let go until they swallow. With their cheeks pinched, it is harder for the baby to spit the medicine back out. Of course this method is no fun for either baby or parent, since it makes the baby pretty mad, but it does get the medicine down. One other trick when using this method is to blow on the baby’s face after putting the medicine in their mouth---this causes the baby to swallow.

3—Mix the medicine with a little bit of rice cereal and spoon it in. Try this only when the baby is hungry, and only if the baby actually likes eating cereal normally. (Hence this method does NOT work for Kyndall at our house, but works well with Kaydence and Ryder). It may be necessary to alternate bites of medicated cereal with something the baby loves like bananas or applesauce.

4—Stick a finger in the side of the baby’s mouth, squirt the medicine in and wait for the baby to swallow before removing the finger. With the finger in there, the baby can’t push the medicine back out with their tongue. I haven’t actually tried this one, but a friend that was over tonight suggested claims it works well, and it sounded good to me J

I would love to hear any tricks that other people have used, so please share them in a comment!

With all the sleep depravity going on around here, I think I have started to act a little loopy. Someone called the other day and said, “Good Morning!” To which I responded, “Good, how are you?” Oops. Then a couple of nights ago we were in the middle of the bedtime routine when someone knocked on the door to tell us that my keys, complete with a house key, were dangling from our mailbox. I hadn’t even tried to get the mail that day, so they had actually been sitting there for over 24 hours. Double oops! Fortunately no psycho baby kidnappers found the keys in that time.

I think my friends took pity on me and a couple of them came and stayed overnight to help out. My friend’s husband even came over to help one night. Wow! I don’t know many men who would be willing to do that! I definitely consider myself blessed to have such wonderful friends!

Another blessing---Target Pharmacy has color coded medicine bottles in all my colors (except pink, but red was pretty close). What a lifesaver for me. Hurray for Target!

Today was Easter and we decided to take the babies to church with us. We have only been to church two other times with the babies (for their blessings and for Christmas). Since January, our church meeting time has been at 9:00 am, so getting out the door was quite a challenge! Jayson was in Denver for his sister’s wedding, so it was my mom and I getting everyone ready with a little help from our friend, Virginia. Considering we had to get five babies, two older kids, ourselves and four diaper bags ready and still have time for an Easter egg hunt before we left, I think we did pretty well being only seven minutes late. Once we got to church, there were lots of willing hands ready to help with the babies, so it was actually quite pleasant! We may even try it all again next week (minus the Easter Egg hunt…)

Below are some pictures of all the Wilkinson kiddos, wearing their adorable Easter duds:

Kassidy

Kaydence

Rustin

Kyndall

Ryder

Kaiya and Riley

Kaiya

Riley

Easter and Ear Infections