As the weather chills, children are more prone to come down with colds and other illnesses, which means giving them medicines. A big question for many parents is how to follow the doctor s orders. When doctors prescribe a teaspoon of medication, they are referring to five milliliters of liquid. The best way to get the exact amount is to buy a syringe.
Plastic syringes are inexpensive and take away the guesswork.
They also may help parents administer medicines more easily, since some young children cannot swallow a whole teaspoon of liquid at one time. Many prescriptions call for multiple doses daily. A cough medicine, for example, may need to be given three times a day. Some parents interpret it as every eight hours while other parents interpret it to mean morning, noon and before bed. Some children s medications come with age or weight charts to help determine dosage.