Hi, I am currently giving, or trying to give Zantac to my son who is 7 weeks old, but 9 weeks early...so he is small..and the amount is small just 1/2 of a ml. So, I smelled the stuff, very pepperminty, and strong. He hates it and I just wondered if anyone knew of something to add it too to make it better, or easier to give? I do breast pump for him, as he never really has taken to the breast...so I could add it to his milk, but sometimes he doesn't drink all his milk. Thanks!

My little girl has been on zantac too and she HATES it. The minty taste is awful and I even put a dab on my tongue and agree with her it's pretty bad. I once put it in her full bottle of pumped milk and she wouldn't take her bottle. I guess the peppermint is too strong.
I've continued to give it to her and she's gotten used to it a little bit, but still hates it and that was 5 months later. I end up giving it to her and then giving her a bottle afterwards so she can get rid of the taste quickly.
I have heard that pharmaciosts can add another flavor to it, like orange or grape. I don't know if that would help or not, but you could put some of it in another container and have the pharmacist add a flavor to try it out.
Good luck, it's too strong for our little ones.

I have to give some to my 7 weeker too....I just give it in small drops at a time in the cheek of his mouth where its less likely to be spit back out. He always makes the icky face and DH tried it stating it tastes awful, lol.....DS is not a preemie but his dose is 1 ML....keep trying and good luck! :wave:

I used to try apple juice, about 1 tsp, just to kill the taste. NOTHING gets rid of that taste. You may want to ask the doctor about another acid reducer and see if the taste is any better.

Amy

A good trick is to put a bottle nipple in the baby's mouth and squirt the med in the nipple with the syringe that you measure it up in and the baby should suck it down before he/she really knows it.;) You will hear the air sound when the baby has taken it.

Another way to give it would be to quickly squirt it in the baby's mouth and hold the nose closed. I know....sounds awful but it works!!:)

Hope this works for you.

~ Goody:angel: :wave:

i gave zantac to both my girls and yeah, it was NASTY! neither of them were preemies though. my oldest daughter HATED IT! we were advised by our pharmacist to get it flavored, so we went with that option, and though it was still pretty gross, my daughter took it okay after that. my second daughter is weird and took it straight without any issues (she also prefers broccoli over cookies....). anyway, definitely go with the flavoring if you can (if you get your prescriptions from target pharmacy - which i highly recommend! - they will flavor it for free...).

a good method for getting the medicine down is gently squeezing baby's cheeks and shooting the medicine into the side of the mouth (between the lower cheek and gums) towards the back. we also tried diluting the zantac with water and putting it into a medicine binky and that worked okay (until we learned about flavoring it!).

I thought about flavoring it....worth the money if it would work, but the mint is so strong, I don't know (like you all said) what would really cover it. He takes his iron and vitamins just fine, but the Zantac....wow. I don't have a target near me (1 hour away)...so we have to pay for flavoring ours. I will try diluting it. I am hoping not to have him on it long, as he really doesn't have major issues, just minor. :)

I have a question... My daughter had what I thought was terrible reflux at only a few weeks old. She couldn't keep her food down and was crying when she ate and flexing her back. My doctor insisted on waiting until her system could develop some more before giving her anything. He was very adamant on the fact that reflux does not come in to the equation until the child is a couple months old. He explained that there is a huge over diagnosis of Zantac and other like drugs on small children when it's not needed in the first place. They just need time to let their systems develop. If at that point they are still suffering, then they will prescribe something after testing has been done to determine if it is in fact reflux.

My daughter has since been wonderful and keeps every last drop down and does not cry at all. So back to my question...How is your doctor sure a less than 2 months old, that your baby does in fact have reflux and needs to be medicated for it?? Please don't take this the wrong way, I really am curious. My SIL had Zantac prescribed for her son. Before she filled the prescription, they some testing and found he did not have reflux at all, that in fact, since he was a preemie, his system was till maturing. Good luck and I hope your baby feels better soon!

what my doctor told me with my first, is that she probably did NOT have reflux, and that her little system just needed more time to develop (like what you said, aelliot).... BUT her doctor said since she was spitting up all the time, it was probably irritating to her digestive tract (imagine how you'd feel if you were throwing up every thing that you ate!). he prescribed zantac to help reduce the acids in her stomach, so that when she spit up, it was less acidic and less irritating. it didn't stop her from spitting up, but after a few days of giving it to her, she was a lot less irritable and cranky. after a month or so, we quit using it because i thought maybe she was better (she was still spitting up like crazy, but i didn't like the idea of giving her medicine if she didn't need it, and she was so happy all the time...), but it didn't take long before she went back to cranky and irritable, so we got back on it and stuck with it until she quit spitting up all the time! she was probably 9 months before that happened!

anyway, that was my doctors reasoning for prescribing zantac to a non-reflux baby... it made sense so we went with it! :)

ps - you asked if flavoring would be worth it? with my first, we got the zantac flavored with grape flavoring (at the time, grape was the only flavor recommended for zantac!), and i remember being really suprised at how much it covered the minty flavor!

We have been giving zantac to our 4 month ds since 2 months old and he made a terrible face when given it as minty flavor, but still swallowed it. But we discovered the grape flavoring and have been having pharmacy flavor it for us (extra $3)- yet he makes the same face as when it was minty! We still flavor it anyway since it just has to be better than that stupid mint.

Who decided to have it be minty anyway? Do adults ever use the liquid zantac? I am just confused as to why it is that flavor to begin with.

My pharmacist refused to flavor it, saying it just diluted the medication and was not allowed by Rx rules or something. shrug.

So, we started out trying to give our DD 1ML straight in the mouth -- utter disaster.

We now just put about 1oz of formula in a separate bottle with the Zantac and she drinks it fine. I guess she's not that picky.

If I know that she's really hungry and is going to finish an entire bottle with an hour then I'll go ahead and put it in her whole bottle.

Life is much easier now that we put it in the bottle. (And of course, not having the flavoring makes it easier to put in the bottle...)

I don't know for sure that he has reflux, although my DD did for months, and so I am assuming he does too. He also does better on it that off (tried this). He is less cranky and fussy. He was a preemie, and so I know his system does need maturing. However, whatever makes him comfy is what I am going with at this point.

Thanks for all the input. I haven't gotten a refill yet, but will ask about flavoring. I gave him grape flavored Tylenol for his shots and he LOVED it. So, that is a def possibility. ;)