Nice Try, Mom.

Benadryl won't work on this model.

The little loverboy broke out into hives sometime last week. Don't know if it was the little bit of cow's milk that we gave him for the first time, or if it was my mother's doing- drying his little skin out after the 4th bath of the day (after his 4th poop- my mom is weird). Regardless, it was a good excuse to try benadryl. I'd been meaning to give it a whirl for his plane ride to Hawaii, to see if it would work in calming him and putting him to sleep for the nice, long 10 hour flight.

As a nurse, I'd given benadryl many a time to a sick child in the PICU. It would work wonders, and the child would instantly fall asleep. As a nurse I also knew that giving benadryl could have a paradoxical effect on children, causing them to actually be hyperactive. The latter is NOT what I want. I imagined him hanging from the overhead bins giggling while my husband tried to peel him off.

For some reason, I'd been hesitating to give it to him. I'm not sure if its because I didn't want to find out that it didn't work, or perhaps I was afraid of giving him a little too much...making him sleep for days...or what if he was allergic?? My mind was racing with the possibilities, and when he broke out into a rash- it gave me the perfect excuse to have a go at it. I mean, in the safety of our own home, what could go wrong?

The rash (or monster hives) was all over his body. Under his neck, in his armpits, behinds his knees, in the diaper area- just all over. Huge pink welts. If he wasn't spinning in circles, laughing at himself getting dizzy, I might have been slightly alarmed at the sight of his swollen body. Be he seemed to be acting normal, so no call to the doctor was necessary for this one.

I pulled out my trusty old Harriet Lane Handbook. The resident's guide to pediatric drug usage and dosing (this book is totally for residents, but where I had worked, every nurse had it too). Hmmmm, the dosing for benadryl said 5mg/kg/24hours. Hmmm, how much do I think this little boy weighs? I went through the calculations, and came up with a little over a teaspoon to give him. Shrugging my shoulders and hoping that I had done it right, I squirt the benadryl into his bottle, and said, "bottoms up baby"!

Mind you, he'd just had a late nap, from 6pm to 7:30pm. Usually when that happens, he's up until midnight. WOW! Great timing. You see, if he's not tired, and he takes benadryl, and it works, it will make him drowsy- correct? This way, hopefully he'll fall asleep with this bottle (10pm), and sleep like normal- you know, like the rest of us!

Nope. Didn't touch him. 20 minutes after giving him his bottle with the magic potion in it, he stood up- and started spinning in circles again. I had to read to him, I had to put on Baby Einstein, I had to play peek-a-boo, and I had to play I'm-gonna-get-you over and over again. The child was not sleepy whatsoever. One eyelid did not even get a little bit heavy. Not even one yawn. Nothing. He wasn't hanging from the ceiling though, I guess that's the good news. But he suuurrrrreeeee wasn't sleepy. He ended up going to sleep around midnight..after tossing and turning for a bit. And his rash? Gone by morning.

Any other great ideas?