For those mommies who give their kiddos Zantac liquid...how on earth do you get your babies to take this?
Bethany started it today and it is so nasty tasting that she screamed and let it run out of her mouth. The pharmacist said he is unable to flavor it and that it shouldn't be mixed with food/liquid.

Any ideas?

Who the heck is your pharmacist?? They flavor it Grape (and will flavor other flavors in some places), it's in their book - tell them to look it up.

As for the mixing it in... it can to go in formula or BM... the Zantac will NOT mix with the formula (its like oil and water).

However, you can just keep giving it to her and eventually (after a few days or so) she will start to accept the flavor. However, if it's a big issue, since Bethany is a year old why dont you ask for the Efferdose? It's citrus flavored and there is no nasty flavor.

Good luck and I hope that helps.

P.S. You should think about finding a new pharmacy, maybe one that knows what they are talking about. :)

The liquid Zantac that Frankie took was mint flavored...but it didn't help. He hated the taste. I just would put it in a nipple and he would suck it down. Now he is on Zantac Efferdose which a solutab and its stronger. I found mixing it in the formula was not as effective.

Stacy

Our ped gi prescribed Pepcid for this very reason. The Zantac is nasty. The Pepcid isn't so bad. They both are H2 blockers. Ali takes the Pepcid with no problems.

Our pharmacy, ped and GI all maintain NOT to flavour the zantac as it can alter its effectiveness. Having said that, I know of many on the board here who do still have success with it being flavoured. We have Curran who opens his mouth like a baby bird for it, despite the taste, and Iain who runs and screams like we are torturing him when we give it to him. :roll:

We used to take a syringe and lovingly try to squirt a tiny bit in the back of his cheek at a time, all the while he would spit it right back out into our faces while doing his best Tasmanian devil impersonation. Now, we put him on the floor as if we were going to change his diaper and then put our legs over his arms and legs. Then, we take the syringe and lovingly squirt a little bit into the back of his cheek until it is all in. This way we are able to control it MUCH better and he actually gets almost all of it down without spitting it up. It sounds much worse than it is... our OT and dietician saw us doing this and thought it was remarkably ingenious and the name of the game is getting the meds in. Poor Iain hates being restrained, but with all the meds he has been on and still needs we have to make sure he gets it all. In a way, it is easier than having 2 or more people hold him down as it is really gentle and one person can do it alone.

You are supposed to wait up to a half hour before giving any fluid in order to give it time to work. When you give fluid or something to eat it starts the reflux action as acid is immediately produced in response to the signals that food has entered the system. We wait only 15 minutes as it seems long enough for Iain and our pharmacist and GI said that was fine, but we only give an ounce or so.

Who the heck is your pharmacist?? They flavor it Grape (and will flavor other flavors in some places), it's in their book - tell them to look it up.


P.S. You should think about finding a new pharmacy, maybe one that knows what they are talking about. :)

I have been going to this pharmacy since I moved here--it's a neighborhood pharmacy where I know the two pharmacists and trust their advice (they are so friendly, call to check on us and know their customers and thier histories without having to look them up); however, they recently hired a new guy and I don't like him. He's not very friendly and his suggestion to me tonight was that "she'll need to learn to take medicines that taste bad". :evil:
Great. She's 12 months old and I need to start reasoning with her about bad-tasting medicines. :shock:

Is the efferdose like the Prevacid tab? Does it dissolve quickly?
Maybe I'll call the GI tomorrow and ask him to call this in. The Zantac liquid tastes just like Robitussin...

. Now, we put him on the floor as if we were going to change his diaper and then put our legs over his arms and legs. Then, we take the syringe and lovingly squirt a little bit into the back of his cheek until it is all in. This way we are able to control it MUCH better and he actually gets almost all of it down without spitting it up. .

Leigh, you are so cute! You pin him down and "lovingly" give him the dose! :lol:

If dh would ever get home in time to help me, this sounds like it could work...

Emma doesn't like her Zantac, but she swallows it, and her eyes tear up so I know it must taste nasty to her.

The first time we had the Zantac filled, our pharmacist flavored it with grape....this time, another pharmacist, (who I trust more), said that flavoring affects the medicine. She wouldn't flavor it.

. Now, we put him on the floor as if we were going to change his diaper and then put our legs over his arms and legs. Then, we take the syringe and lovingly squirt a little bit into the back of his cheek until it is all in. This way we are able to control it MUCH better and he actually gets almost all of it down without spitting it up. .

Leigh, you are so cute! You pin him down and "lovingly" give him the dose! :lol:

If dh would ever get home in time to help me, this sounds like it could work...

The beauty of this technique is that you do not need the DH at all! You are pinning her by yourself and using no force at all, just merely draping your legs over her arms and legs. We cottoned on to this when we were at our wits end before the reflux was under the better control it is now and had to give him ventolin, flovent, the antibiotic of the week :roll: , zantac, and the trial of prevacid, put antibiotic drops into his eyes, suck the snot out of his nose and put in saline drops, put canestan on his wicked diaper rash caused by yeast, and that was only the morning.... It needed to be repeated. We had very little luck doing any of that without becoming extremely motivated as we knew he needed those meds desperately. My DH and I figured it out one night together as we struggled for the umpeeth time just to get a speck of anything into him as we were crying so bad. Interestingly, our older boys would scatter pretty fast when it was "med time for Mr. Iain". :?

Point is, it makes it much more controlled and is likely to make the exercise much faster and less likely to have you and Bethany in tears and by the end of it you know she has her much needed meds in her. Give it a try and let me know if you want to join the "oppressive Mommy torture club". No membership fees required. :lol:

When Noah was on Zantac is came from the manufacterer flavored like mint. It was a disaster trying to get him to swallow it, so our pharmacy recommended using grape on top of the mint. It turned out much better, but we still had little luck. He finally took it in a one-two ounce bottle of formula. We called them grape bottles.

Zantac has been wonderful for us, despite the nasty mint flavor. That being said, we mix the Zantac with her bottles and her baby food and she eats it like a champ. Now to give it to her alone, doesn't work too well. She barely swallows it.

I know my pharmacy will flavor, however, I've never had it done.

Connor won't take his Zantac without gagging we mix it with about 1/2 oz of formula and he sucks it right down. The Gi his Ped and our Pharmacist said it was fine to mix with formula. In fact on the front of his prescription it says take 1ml 4times per day with meals. It's so wierd how everyone is told different things. Very confusing.

Molly has been on Zantac since about 4 weeks (she's 17 months now). When she was little bitty, I used to squirt it in her cheek and immediately put her bottle in her mouth to keep her from spitting it out. After time, she got used to the taste. Now I just squirt it in her cheek a half hour before eating and she never blinks an eye, just sucks it down. I think it just takes a little getting used to.

I can barely get any in Kaitlyn's mouth when I try to give it to her not in her bottle and since she has been getting it in her bottles for months, she actually gags at the bottle without the Zantac... I'm thinking of splitting up the meds to go in every bottle since she seems to suck those minty bottles down.

Mary, I believe the efferdose is a solutab type thing... let me get the site. http://www.zantac.com/ there you go, you can read about it... I'm going to see if we can get Kaitlyn the Efferdose on Tuesday when we go see the Dr. I'd love to be able to give her her meds before she eats to see if it makes a difference.

Good luck, I hope you get things figured out!!

SOrry I'm late :oops: but when zac WAS taking zantac it took him a bit and he got use to the taste. At first I just had to kindof force in between his back cheek/gums and he'd have to swallow, it got easier. However, little beth is older so who knows how long it would take her to get use to it. I do know that you are right in NOT mixing it w/food or formula as I too was told not to do this.

I have a sticky floating around here somewhere about why you should not mix meds with food or formula. It does work best if you can get it in by itself, although I realize thats not a realistic goal for most.