Eyedrop help!

My 16 month old daughter has an eye infection for which her doc prescribed antibiotic eye drops..We are having the hardest time getting tehse into her eyes.
If you have ever had t do this for your toddler, any adivice or tips would be gratly appreciated
Thank you!

My best advice is try to keep her as calm as possible (which I know is probably not easy at that age! My daughter was a bit older and able to understand what we were doing at the time) and have 2 people work together if at all possible. One person can hold her and calm her while the other holds her eye and puts in the drops.



Good luck!

DH usually does the drops. He has them tilt their head up (or lay on his lap), close their eyes and puts them in the corner of the eye (close to the nose) and then when they open their eyes they go in. Seems to work well for him. Good luck.

I once heard somewhere, that it might make it easier to put eyedrops in while they are sleeping. Just put them in the inner corner of the eye and it will go into the rest of the eye. I've never tried it though--so I'm not sure how well it works.

This post has been edited by DillsMommy on Jul 16 2008, 05:56 AM

ONG, I have SOOO been there. Its Horrible! It took both of us to hold my 5 yo down for his drops. Basically, we ended up having to bribe him with candy, then I had to sit on his chest with my knees pinning his arms down, and his head between my thighs to hold his head still, then I had to pry his eyes open with one hand and drop with the other.
Def. Not the most un-traumatic way to go about things, but it was the only option I had. Thank goodness we only had to do it 2 times a day for 10 days.

What works best for us is if I have them lay down, I get behind their head and tell them to look at my left hand (somewhere off to the side) and then do the drop...I think it helps if they can't really see the bottle coming towards their eye.

We had to do this with Allie about three or four months ago - right around the time she turned one I think. She actually did really well with them though so I don't have a lot of advice on how to do it with a struggling baby. With Allie I'd just lay her down on the floor, talking to her and playing with her, and then say ok I'm going to put your eyedrops in now, and then just do it. She'd squint up her eyes and blink hard because they stung, but that was it.

You guys, I just have to laugh. What is wrong with me? y-all are all, "oh, we just drop them in... no struggles... my kids sit still... blah blah blah... " and here I am " beat them up!!!! Sit on 'em! Grrrrrrr..... Seriously, I knew I was mean, but MAN!!!

You're not alone. Tanner wouldn't do drops until he was about 4. Aiden has had pinkeye already and both Troy and I had to hold him down while we pry his eyes open.

If I am by myself, or if Troy is, I have to literally pin him down with my legs with his arms underneath, and pry his eyes open to get them in. He will NOT take eye drops.

I don't know who suggested keeping them calm, but I had to laugh when I read that. In this house, that would be like trying to give a rabid raccoon a bath. Calm would not be a term to discribe either of my children when it comes to eyedrops, no matter how calm you remain yourself. Pin, pry, and squirt would be the way we go in this house.

This post has been edited by Boo&BugsMom on Jul 18 2008, 11:48 AM

That's exactly how we do it.