Feeding Tube Tips and Tricks

Tip 1: Dissolving Pills in a Syringe

Do you have a child that uses a feeding tube? Do you have to give your child medications, sometimes on the go? If you answered yes, then this tip is for you. Imagine you are away from home and need to give your child their medication. Usually, you have a medicine cup, water, and the comforts of home so you can pour water into a cup to let the pill dissolve. But, you forgot to pack cups. You don’t want to drop the pill into the bottle of water because you need the water for other things, too. Here’s a quick trick:

• Pull the plunger out of the syringe
• Drop the pill into the syringe
• Place the plunger back in place and then pull up water to let the pill dissolve in the syringe itself

Not only will this save you from having to carry extra supplies from home, but it also helps to make sure that the entire pill is given. I can’t begin to count the number of times I found little grains of dissolved Prevacid still hanging out in the bottom of the cup after giving it. Once I learned this trick, I used it for all kinds of pills. As long as they can dissolve, this is a huge time saver.

Tip 2: Washing “Tubie” Covers

Many of our children’s feeding “tubies” wear little tube covers. They are a cute way to accessorize. And they are reusable, unlike the box of 30 disposable gauze pads that never last the entire month. If your child’s tube leaks at all, you may notice that these pads get stinky! Even after just a few hours they can be nasty.

When you take off the pads to put them in the wash, you don’t want to just toss them into the laundry basket. One, they are small and can get lost. But also you don’t want to add the stinky pads to the regular laundry. Try putting them in lingerie bags to launder. These bags can be found in many stores (Target, Walmart, CVS, etc.) in the laundry section. Put your bag in an accessible location at home and when you take off the pad, put it directly in the bag. The entire bag will then go into the wash. You will never lose another cute tubie pad.

I will have more tips and tricks in future blog posts.  

Here are several more feeding tube articles shared by other parents.