It is no fun when your child has breathing issues. When you add in a nebulizer, it can be an even bigger pain. Not only do you have to watch your child be sick, but you have to struggle to get them to take their medicine. As someone who has been giving their toddler medicine with a nebulizer for over a year, here are a few tips and tricks that I have picked up along the way.

Why Mac Used a Nebulizer

Mac started going to school at the age of 19 months. Before that, she had been at home with me and with grandparents. I knew she was going to get sick. Like a lot. Any child who has not been in a child care setting has only been exposed to a fraction of the germs that other children have been exposed to, so they tend to get sick frequently that first year. (Make sure you know when to keep you kid home sick from school!)

But after a few months, Mac started getting really sick. Almost scary sick because her breathing would get very wheezy. So we took her to the pediatrician who diagnosed her with Reactive Airway Disorder. For Mac, that means she basically has asthma, but her trigger is getting sick. When her body gets sick, her bronchial tubes overreact, become irritated and therefore become smaller, making it harder for her to breathe.

So she was given a nebulizer with medicine. She had a preventative medication that she did every night and another medication that we would give if we noticed any wheezing or struggling to breathe. So we had to do the nebulizer at least once a day if not up to four times a day for about a year.

(I actually had asthma in childhood and my dad also has asthma. So Mac having a similar diagnoses was not totally out of the blue or foreign to me.)

It Won’t Be Fun At First

When we first started doing the nebulizer, Mac hated it. She acted like we were trying to torture her with it. And I get it. It is loud and kind of scary and you have to strap a mask on your face that blows air at you. It isn’t exactly a comfortable situation for someone so small and still so new to the world.

So when we started doing the nebulizer, it honestly took both of us to help. One person would hold her and pin her arms and legs down while the other would keep the mask on her face as she twisted and turned, trying to get it off of her face. It was not fun. I felt like a terrible parent making my child do something she didn’t want to and pinning her down to do it. But one thing I will tell you is that:

It Gets Easier

As we did the nebulizer more and more, Mac got used to it. It didn’t seem as loud to her and definitely became less scary. We slowly loosened our grip on her until only one of us had to sit with her. Then after a while, we just had to sit next to her.

We Started to Give Her Choices With It

Giving a toddler choices is always a good idea. (Seriously, I even wrote an entire e-book about it!) So once Mac got to the point where the nebulizer wasn’t so scary, we started to give her choices. The two big ones were:

1. Did she want to hold it or were we going to hold it?
2. Did she want to put the strap around her head or not?

Once she was able to get some control over how we were doing it, she was a lot more agreeable to it. We also showed her that it was nonnegotiable. She couldn’t choose not to do it otherwise we would wrestle it onto her face. And that wasn’t fun for anyone.

Screen Time For the Win

We try not to use screen time too often. In fact, besides the TV, Mac doesn’t have access to electronics. (Not even at the store! If you want to know how I survive that, check out my post with tips to help toddlers behave at the store without electronics.)

But when it comes to getting the nebulizer medicine done, screen time is where it is at. We still stuck to the TV, but we would let Mac pick what she wanted to watch. Her favorite show for a long time was Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood. So we would watch an episode each night as we did the medicine. Knowing she was getting the “treat” of watching a show meant she was so much more willing to sit nicely.

If the iPad is more of a treat for your child than the television, then let them have the 20-30 minutes of iPad time while they do the nebulizer. It is a reward for a job well-done.

It’s Okay If They Cry

I know what you’re thinking, “Mikki, it is terrible if they cry.” Yes, emotionally it is terrible if they cry. But our pediatrician assured us that as they cry, they are actually taking deeper breaths and getting a lot more of that valuable medicine inside of their bodies. So while it is super hard to watch them hate the nebulizer, it is helping them in the long run.

Other Medicine Won’t Seem So Bad

This school year, we transitioned to an inhaler. And you know what? We have had absolutely no problems getting Mac to take her medicine. She agrees with us that compared to the nebulizer, it is easy and fast and definitely the way to go. So the upside to all of that wrestling is that she has been much more willing to take medicine in the long run.

Do you have any tips and tricks to help with the nebulizer? Let me know in the comments!