My baby wont use his inhaler

Hi

My son (aged 14 mths) has been using an inhaler since January. Recently he has been refusing to use it and pushes it away from his face and starts crying - we have tried lots of different games to get him to use it again, but he wont, as a result he is now very whezzy.

Any suggestions on how to get him to start using it again?

We use the brown one morning and night and occassionally have to use the blue during the day. he takes the inhlaer through a spacer.

Cheers

Rachel

[yaf_user681_23350]

Hi we used to show my Son"" Tedda"" using his inhaler (his favourite teddy). Tedda always felt a lot better after his inhaler!! Tedda had nebulizers too, he even had his own mask! We let him put his favourite stickers on the aerochamber to make it his.Also he loves star wars and we told him general grievous was asthmatic and used his! we had general grievous stickers all over his aerochamber.The mad things we do to give kids their meds, you should have seen the white lies we told to get steroids down their necks!

Good luck, they are just as bad taking meds in their teens in fact it's harder thinking outside the box to get them to take them.

Kate

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Thanks Kate, will try the teddy trick!

Bye for now

Rachel

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I agree with rattles, her suggestions are really good.

When I was little my mum covered my spacer with mickey mouse stickers so that I would be encouraged to use it.

I hope your son starts to use his inhaler and feels better very soon. simi x

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Hiya Rachel, it's such a mare. We tried lots of different things too but the things that helped the most were letting him put it on our faces, letting him try to depress the inhaler into the air so that he could see what was going on, we put it on his teddies too and played a game of teddy going to hospital etc and then best of all instead of counting to 10 when he had it on his face, we reeled off ten words about something he liked e.g. vehicles (tractor, ice cream van, steam train, double-decker bus....)! I know it sounds dilly but it really distracted him and he really enjoyed it. His personal favourite ""list"" was berries (??!!) so we used to sit there reeling off raspberries, blueberries, strawberries. But it really worked. I think the key to it is to tap into something that he likes and make a game of it, or a distraction. Above all, and this is the really hard part, as with everything with children, try not to show your stress about him not getting his meds. Avoid giving it him when you're running out of the door. If all else fails, it might be worth asking the asthma nurse if it's ok to give him his nightime dose whilst his asleep? That halves your battles and might take the stress off for a bit, and also will make sure that he's getting something. And if he's getting some of his meds his compliance might improve as he'll be feeling better, if that makes sense.

Hope some of this helps! Leish x

PS - have you got the little spacer with the teddies on? maybe he could choose some stickers of his own to put on there? x

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Thanks for all the tips, will try the distraction and keep on going and not get stressed!

Cheers

Rachel