Medicine Mom or Medicine Dad?

Exellent advice..... You can never be to careful... My hubby and I always check with eachother first before anything is given to the kids... I would never forgive myself if something happened to our son because of a simple mistake. They can be made so easily.....

OH boy, you have no idea. My brother was once in hospital for a while because he had a chest infection. i gave hi mantibiotic, and went to work. my sister thought i must have forgetten because i was running late( trying to force it into him) so she also gave him some. my grandmother than gave him some about an hour later because he looked awful nd figured noone had given him any, and then my mum did about an hour after that. when i came home and saw the amount left in the bottle i just about had a heart attack!!

MY and my lttle sister have alos had emergency trips to hospital for the same thing! when I was about 2 i climbed up the kitchen draws onto the bench where i could easily access the medicine cupboard, and had seen mum using the child latches so they were no problem. kids panadol- arent they supposed to have child proof caps? after i downed about 3/4 of the bottle mum saw me and rushed me on in.  my little sister did the same thing about 18 months ago.

you can NEVER be too careful.

When my brother was a brand new first time dad, his partner (only 19 yrs old) had severe PND and my brother was working 3 jobs and caring for his partner and their new born.  When the baby had a temp he gave him panadol, but in his stressed out and sleep deprived state he miss read the tiny little writing that has the recommended dosages and gave their 2 month old 9ml of panadol instead .9, fortunately not long after he administered it he realised his mistake and they rushed the baby to hospital where they (I think) gave him charcoal or something, so he was okay.  But had my brother in his sleep deprived state, not realised his mstake, it may have been a tragic end.  I have my pain relief medicines in a white ice-cream container on which I have written in big clear writing with permanant marker the reccomended dosage per age (as she's fairly standard age to weight).  The writing is small, in the dark through tired eyes and a stressed out brain, I am surprised not to have heard many simular stories.    Always double check, and communication is key.

Izzy, you ought to post that number on the US group blog too! Great advice.

I really like this idea.  We've never had a plan as we hardly ever administer medicine.  I guess in the rare instance that we have, I'm always the one who does it, being "mummy".  But if we ever had to do a regular course of something I will let hubby know about this and get him to check with me first.   We use tissue salts a lot here - which are little white tablets, similar to a homeopathic remedy, but are simply minerals that our cells need from time to time.  They have become my "medicine" cabinet now.  The only thing with any kind of homeopathic or herbal remedy is that it usually has to be taken regularly over a period of time.  So the kids get used to chewing their little white tablets.  I've had to refer to them as "vitamins" as my 4yo son thinks "tablets" are medicine and it's ok to chew them and will often ask for them.  I've had to be very careful about why I'm giving him one and will explain the reason now and refer to medicine not being a good thing and not to be taken like lollies. 

But regardless, we had a mighty scare with him a few months ago.  He has always been a climber, so we discovered the hard way, that putting drugs up high was not safe.  They have to now be under lock and key.  We had an incident where our 4yo son got to hubby's anti depressants.  When hubby found his empty packet of meds he yelled for us all to get in the car!  We raced to the emergency dept and they took us to another hospital via ambulance that was better equipped to handle this.  In the meantime hubby went back home and searched for the tablets, as it is more like our son to poke them into things than eat them.  Fortunately he found all but 2 of the tablets.  Son and I stayed in ICU overnight for observation, but he was fine once the sleepiness wore off.  It was such a scare! 

Hubby learnt a very valuable lesson about leaving his meds around and I learnt to be careful about how I refer to the vitamins and tissue salts.  Because they look like tablets, yet are safe, I need to instil in him that it could be medicine and is not to be taken unless I give it to him. 

My husband and I have a whiteboard in the kitchen.  when we are trying to determine the reason behind behavioural changes and the like, we use it to log what they eat, drink, etc.  We also use it for when they are sick.  If one of us gives the medicine, we write on the board, the time, date and how much.  We started this because we had an incident where we both gave medicine.  Nothing bad happened, thank goodness, and we didn't want to wait for that to happen again

I think my husband and i have both gave my daughter some tylenol. but i'm usually the one who give's her it. i'm the one who's mostly home with her anyways.

that's a good article though, i really it, and every parent should know about poision control!!