Mommy Monday: organizing medicine for multiple children

So last week one of my girls was sick. It's been a while since either of them was really sick (thank goodness)- I was reminded again of how sad it is to have a child who is sick! Watching them in any discomfort is no fun, and my daughter had 2 nights in a row with a fever of over 103. Thank goodness she is fine now, and I was reminded of a few organizational things I have done that help a lot when I am taking care of a sick child (or two!).

One of the problems with having multiples is the high likelihood that any disease will automatically be shared between the two. Yes, it's true, they really do share everything. And when they are young enough to still be putting things in their mouths and fingers in their noses, the germs spread that much faster. I learned quickly as a new mom that I needed to be prepared to take care of two sick children, not just one.

One of the things I have done that has made taking care of two sickies a lot easier is to keep their medicine droppers organized.

For infants and young children, medicine usually comes in liquid form with a syringe. And each type of medicine comes with its own syringe with measurements markings specifically for the dosing of that medicine. At first, when they were both taking medicine at the same time, I would wash the syringe between each child. But that takes precious time away from screaming children. When I ran out of the first bottle of Tylenol and quickly opened the second back-up, I realized I was now the proud owner of TWO syringes. Score! I quickly opened all of my back-up packages of medicine so I would have two of each syringe.

I had already gotten some little stickers with each child's name on it to use as labels for daycare, so I stuck them on each of the syringes to keep them sorted. You could easily use plain stickers in two different colors, or write on them with a sharpie. and get the same effect. But being able to quickly grab a syringe and know that it hasn't just been used by another sick child is a huge relief!

The next thing I realized was that I now had lots of syringes and bottles to keep track of, and in the middle of the night I do NOT enjoy sorting through the syringes to see which one says "ibuprofen" in tiny little letters. So my next solution: keep each bottle, with its respective syringes, in a small ziploc bag.

I even got some bags in different colors! The infant medicine bottles will fit in the snack size bags, but I have found that the children's medicines will only fit with the syringes in the sandwich size bags. No more hunting through the cabinet in the middle of the night! I keep all of the bags in a larger bag with the thermometer and first aid kit so I know exactly where to find what I need quickly, and the whole thing is in the top drawer inside the cabinet doors of my tall armoire in my bedroom where my children have the least likelihood of reaching it.

Maybe this is something everyone else is already doing and you're all sitting there going, "duh, when are you going to get to the idea?!?", but this system has really made my life easier so I figured it was worth sharing either way! So tell me: do you use this system? Or do you have another system to keep track of your medicine for multiple children? I would love to hear your ideas! Leave me a comment.

Happy Monday!