Guiding your kid to use a nebulizer isn’t an easy job! Especially when administering medicine through inhalers and nebulizers is to be carried out at regular intervals, sometimes more than once daily. This piece of writing would guide you through the tips and tricks that would help you find your way out through this tedious task (of making your child use the nebulizer)!

Let them feel grown-up

Explain to them the functioning, uses, and advantages of using a nebulizer. It’s quite simple – the machine is used to transfer liquid medicine inside your lungs. The liquid is converted to a gaseous form of mist or aerosol and sprayed into the lungs. The simple form of medication and its direct application to the lungs helps the body respond faster and effectively to the medicine.

Now let them decide whether it would be wise to take the nebulizer or suffer from the symptoms. When you ask them 'what to do', they feel important. They consider themselves to be decision-takers and attempt to act wisely!

Let them choose their variant

Pediatric nebulizers come in interesting shapes – teddy bears, penguins, panda, car, etc. You can well imagine that for your kid, it would be kind of choosing his/her favorite toy! Engaging the children in the process of an important task transforms your job into a much easier one. The moment they carry home their chosen nebulizer and other nebulizer accessories, they’ll be keenly interested in using it also.  

Make a fun routine…

You could set an alarm (that roars like a lion or chirps like a bird) to remind your child of this task. You could bribe your kiddo (of course with something fair) with say, reading out a story or taking him/her out for a walk or play session in the garden, after the nebulization is done with. This may help you in inculcating the habit and the task on your part (of coaxing him/her to use the nebulizer) becomes much less daunting.

Apart from all my suggestions (that I have jotted down above), you could try other innovative things too. Allow the baby to decorate the device with stickers. Praise the child after he or she has used the nebulizer well. You could even try using the device when the little one is sleeping (if your child is too squirmy)!

The fine line of difference between an inhaler & the nebulizer

Although the basic functionality of both devices is mostly identical, there are some key differences.

• Inhalers are more portable (nebulizers too are but with less portability).
• They are smaller in size compared to nebulizers and therefore function as convenient handheld devices.
• The most common type of inhaler is the MDI (metered-dose inhaler) which sprays out a measured amount of medicine into the lungs. With nebulizers, the user needs to place the correct amount of medicine.
• A kid may be too young to use an inhaler as this one needs a bit of coordination. Nebulizers, on the other hand, do not require any stern instruction to be followed (by your kid).

Besides, in a nebulizer, as per your doctor’s advice, more than one medicine can be mixed at the same time and high doses of medicines could be administered too.

Cleaning your pediatric nebulizer

Finally, when it comes to an object being used by your little cherub at home, you're more than anxious about its hygiene issues, aren’t you? Here are the tips for you…

Segregate all the parts of the nebulizer – mouthpiece, mask, etc. Soak them in soap water followed by hot water. You can mix 3 parts of vinegar in 1 part of hot water too and rinse the parts. This aids in disinfecting the parts. However, do not apply this to the mask! And certainly, don’t forget to dry out the parts completely before storing them away. You could also turn on the machine to dry your nebulizer quickly!