Is Giving Drugs to Our Children Always Wrong?

Another Mama-Om re-run... the last one! We're back in town now, though this trip was much shorter and we administered no drugs whatsoever to any children. Honest.

A friend of mine just left for Paris with her hubby and her not quite two-year-old son. She was asking for some traveling advice and it reminded of the time I asked for traveling advice on my neighborhood moms group.

We were getting ready to fly to the Philippines to visit my husband's family; Orlando was just over two years old. I wrote the moms group, asking if I should bring the car seat or not, and everyone said:

BRING BENADRYL!

I said, "What about the car seat?" and everyone said:

BRING BENADRYL! But be sure to try it out first, because it makes some kids hyper.

And I said, "Uh, okay, but what about the car seat?"

Oh, sure, bring the car seat. But DON'T FORGET THE BENADRYL!

I'm more of a supplements person myself, so finding myself in the flourescent-lit mega-pharmacy obssessively reading about berry-flavored drugs for children was a bit disorienting. But I walked out of the store with a pretty pink package. Even my naturopath recommended it, albeit only half the dose.

And then the night before we left, I gave some to Orlando an hour or so before his normal bedtime. When he sleepily crawled into my lap and started to snooze, my husband raised his eyebrows, indicated that I should dump the kid upstairs in bed and come right back. Well, hello benadryl!

So our kid wasn't one of those who got hyper, but I still felt a bit uncomfortable about the whole thing. I carried those pink pellets in my pocket around the airport and planned to hold out as long as I could.

But when Orlando started freaking out in the line to board our flight from Los Angeles to Hong Kong, I knew he had crossed the line from tired to overtired, and we all know what that means. Lots of noise and thrashing, in a very small space with strangers all around. Fun!

So after we boarded, we put on his jammies, nursed, and then I gave him half a pink pill and strapped him in his car seat. He slept for five hours straight!

I frittered away those five hours eating cup-o-noodles and watching movies and looking at my husband and giggling. Turns out that was a bad idea, because once the drugs wore off, Orlando wanted to be in my lap, where he stayed for the next three hours, while I tried to sleep.

I honestly can't remember if we gave it to him on the way back or not. Oddly enough, I don't remember anything about the flight back from Hong Kong to Seattle. But the night we were back in Seattle Orlando was motoring around the house babbling like a banshee at 11 PM and my husband and I knocked him out with another dose of the pink stuff.

For weeks afterward, whenever Orlando seemed especially wound-up or didn't nap or had the tiniest sniffle, my husband would say, "Let's give him benadryl!"

And I would say, "No, it's for exceptional circumstances only!"

And he would say, "But he would fall asleep and we could talk to each other!"

And I would say, "Honey!"

And then one time Orlando said, "Bena-dree? Pink pill ummy."

I gave my husband an incredulous look.

"I didn't! I swear!"

This is my husband, who hails from an entire nation of people who buy over-the-counter antibiotics -- over the counter -- whenever they get a cold. I needed to take some action, so I went from drugging my child to the next less-worse thing: lying.

"Orlando, we don't have any more. The bena-dree is all gone."