I know your secret. It's okay, I'm not judging you -- really. I've been there myself. Pretty much every other mom I know has been there, too. So you can stop feeling ashamed: At one point or another, most of us have resorted to using Benadryl as Ambien-for-toddlers. In a recent poll of over 26,000 mothers, 1 in 5 moms admitted to to giving their kid Benadryl or Tylenol to get through a long car ride or plane trip; Nancy Snyderman, M.D., a pediatrician involved with the poll, said she suspects the numbers are actually higher.
Well of course they are -- who wants to 'fess up that she drugs her tot for easy travel? But according to Snyderman, the occasional (and I stress, occasional) use of Benadryl to help a kid sleep through a flight or a drive is no big deal, provided parents get the dosage right. And you'll never guess who else is "guilty" of trying out this technique ...
Even moms who are doctors get desperate enough to dose their own children! It makes perfect sense, if you ask me. And if doctors think giving Benadryl or Tylenol before a big trip is safe enough for their kids, I'll take that as a green light.
And now for some very slight backpedaling: I'm not cool with the results of another question on the same poll. Again, I'm not judging, because Lord knows we've all been at the ends of our ropes often enough, but I don't approve of the fact that 1 in 12 moms apparently give their kids Benadryl, etc. to go to sleep at bedtime when they're home -- sort of like how you might knock back a glass of red to wind down at the end of the day.
To me, this seems dangerous. Not immediately physically harmful, but dangerous in a bad-habit-forming kind of way. Kids need to know how to go to sleep without the aid of pharmaceuticals; as someone who's had trouble sleeping my entire life, I can promise you that the last thing you want to set your kid up for is years of sleep deprivation.
Do you ever give your kid Benadryl or Tylenol to go to sleep?
Image via Matt/Flickr
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Comments 106
Why would anyone think it's okay to give your kids DRUGS to put them to sleep unless they're sick?? So parents really think it's alright to give kids drugs to knock them out so that they just don't have to deal with them?? Pretty awesome parenting skills right there, NOT!
I haven't, but after a few nightmare plane trips that we've had, I would consider it. Problem was I didn't try it out at home to make sure it actually made my kid sleepy (some kids get hyper!).
When i was a kid my grandma would give me some kind of SUPPOSITORY (phenergan, I guess) to get me to go to sleep when she said i was "too hyper". She was a nurse. Kinda scary.
I would never do that at home for an easier bedtime. Putting your kid to bed at night is part of parenting. We've gone 12 hours in the car and didn't need drugs to do it. Again, that nifty little thing called parenting worked well.