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How To Teach Your Kids To Swallow Pills: A Small Guide

Training your child to swallow medicinal pills is similar to potty training. You can tell your kids what to do and when to do it, but eventually, the child has to do everything by themselves.

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Swallowing a pill is a special skill that we take for granted and never understand its importance until we have a child who needs to swallow a pill. The human body is more sensitive to danger than you may give credit for. Our body senses danger before our brain can analyze it. This is the reason why we experience a gag when we try to swallow a little too big a chunk of food.

There are many reasons why children find it hard to swallow pills. From anxiety to stubbornness, anything can be made harder for your child to swallow their pill. Fortunately, you can make your child learn the art of swallowing pills.

When Should Kids Learn?

Oral medication is something that your child learns at an early age. However, they only experience fluid medication. Once they grow up, their medication changes to tablets and pills; this is where things get messier.

Every child is unique, so the age at which they will learn to swallow pills also varies. Try to avoid your kid with others’ not even with doublings.

In general, at the age of 4 where they learn to swallow their medicinal pills with ease. When you find that your kid is having a problem, take oral medication help. Ideally, you would want to take things slow so that your child can take medicine without any pressure.

How To Teach Your Child Swallow Pills?

Training your child to swallow medicinal pills is similar to potty training. You can tell your kids what to do and when to do it, but eventually, the child has to do everything by themselves.

Instead of forcing your child to do things as you tell them, allow them to do it independently. Let your child exert their own control over the process.

Here are a few steps that will guide you in teaching your child to swallow pills.

Step 1: Help Your Child To Moisten His Mouth

Let your child have a few cups of water before letting him swallow a pill. Drinking water before swallowing the pill moistens the throat and helps with the gulping process.

Step 2: Place The Pill On The Tongue

Once the mouth and throat are moist, place the pill on the tongue. Where you want to place the pill on the tongue is up to you. You can either place it at the tip of the tongue or the deep end of the tongue.

Step 3: Give Some Liquid In The Mouth

Give water to your child and ask him to gargle for a few seconds. This is just to confuse the brain that you do not have any pills to avoid and gag.

Step 4: Ask Him To Gulp It

Once the gargle is finest, ask your child to gulp the water along with a trash pill. This method works best for children. You can further enhance the method by using your child’s favorite juice instead of water.

Other Methods

Apart from the method mentioned above, there are other methods as well that will help you teach your child to swallow the pill.

  • Big Gulp Method: This method involves gulping a huge amount of liquid.
  • Mix With Soft Food: This method involves food that your child is accustomed to swallowing and uses to camouflage the pill.
  • Taking Help From Pill Cup: Pill cup has a small enclosure with a narrow opening to deliver pills. As your child gulps down the liquid via a pill cup, the pill glides along with the water down the throat.

Seek Doctors’ Advice

Eventually, your child will learn how to swallow pills. But, there is always a chance where they might have trouble due to the following reason.

  • Your child may become anxious, which restricts him from swallowing pills.
  • Your child might have been a late bloomer.
  • Your child might have had a bad experience with swallowing medicine which made them gag.

For kids like these, it is a wise decision to delay their training and seek a doctor’s help and ask them about methods you can use to make your child swallow pills.

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