A couple of weeks ago B. asked for medicine. He was fine, he just wanted the chocolate payoff for swallowing amoxicillin. (Over Christmas we had to give him antibiotics three times a day and convinced him to swallow the pink liquid by plying him with M&Ms.) That's when it hit me like a bolt of lightning. I washed out a little glass bottle and filled it with fruit puree (Peter Rabbits Organics in mango, orange, banana), added a couple of drops of food dye and told him he could have a chocolate chip after his medicine. He tasted it, looked at me and said, 'Mom, this tastes like a fruit snack,' (it's been 6-8 months since he's had one so it's amazing he remembered) and kept on sucking.
Now he takes his "medicine" twice a day. Only, I've switched to calling it vitamins because I can just see running into problems at school when he tells his teachers that he's medicated every day. And while four teaspoons of fruit a day might not seem like much, that's a lot compared to zero.
The crazy thing is he doesn't seem to find the taste offensive, but he still refuses to eat the fruit pouches. So even though I feel a tiny bit guilty for being so sneaky, it takes one master manipulator to fool another. Game on, little dude.
But what would Dr. Spock say? Unless, pediatricians are heavily invested in the cocoa industry since they know parents need it for potty training, medicine-swallowing, nap time and other disagreeable childhood traumas.
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