The medicine drawer, after the winter we had
Between November and March we had two sickness bugs, one ear infection, hand foot and mouth, and a fortnight I have mostly deleted. This is what’s in the drawer now, and what I wish had been in it at three in the morning in January.
Between November and March: two sickness bugs, an ear infection, hand foot and mouth, one week where all four of us had the same thing at slightly different times, and a fortnight in February that I have chosen not to retain in detail.
We got through it. But there were about four separate moments in that winter where I was standing in a dark kitchen at three in the morning looking for something that I was certain we had, and this note is the result of writing those moments down as they happened, which I did on my phone, badly, and which turns out to have been the most useful thing I did all winter.
What’s actually in it now
A thermometer, with batteries in it that I have tested since Christmas. Ours was dead in January and I discovered this at the worst possible moment.
Two syringes. Not one. One syringe lives in the dishwasher and will be in the dishwasher, mid-cycle, at the exact moment it is required — this is a law, and it applies to the last clean one specifically.
Whatever pain and fever medicine the children can take, in date. Rehydration sachets, which I had never bought before that winter and which are the thing I would grab first now. Plasters. Antiseptic. A small pot of the thing for mouth ulcers, from the hand foot and mouth fortnight.
And that’s about it. Everything else can wait until a pharmacy opens.
The list on the door
A bit of paper taped inside the cupboard door: what, how much, what time.
There was a night in January when Tom and I stood in the kitchen and neither of us could say with any confidence whether anything had been given, or when, and we came fairly close to doubling up. Four broken nights does something to your memory that I had not previously understood.
Thirty seconds to write, every time. It removed an entire category of fear.
I’m not going to write anything here about doses, because I got one wrong at four in the morning once and that is exactly once too many, and because a pharmacist will tell you in ninety seconds and is right. That’s the whole extent of what I know.
The bag
This is the bit that isn’t medicine and is the bit I’d keep.
A bag in the airing cupboard with two old towels, a spare fitted sheet, and a spare duvet cover. All in one bag, on one shelf, at the front.
Because the actual problem at three in the morning is not illness, it’s logistics: a child who needs changing, a bed that needs stripping, and a person who has to make four separate trips in the dark while carrying someone. One bag, one trip. It is the single most useful thing in this note and it cost nothing.
Out of the bathroom
Everything used to live in the bathroom cabinet, which is the traditional place and is wrong on two counts.
It’s warm and damp, which is bad for medicines. And it is up a flight of stairs from the sofa and the kitchen, which is where somebody is actually ill in the evening. It’s a high kitchen drawer now, with the childproof box we already had, which was the one thing I got right the first time.
Twice a year
Same week as the smoke alarms and the washing machine filter, which is becoming a small tradition of Tom’s.
When I did it in April, four things had expired. One had expired in 2023.
Things people email to ask
- What should you keep in a medicine drawer with young children?
- The things that stop a bad night getting worse: a working thermometer, two dosing syringes, whatever pain and fever medicine your children can take, oral rehydration sachets, plasters, and a written list to record what was given and when. Everything else can wait for a pharmacy in the morning. Check dates twice a year — most of ours had expired without anyone noticing.
- Are pre-made family first aid kits worth buying?
- Ours was not. Forty items in a moulded case, of which perhaps four were relevant to a house with a three-year-old in it, and the things we needed most — syringes, rehydration sachets, a thermometer that worked — were not among them. Buying the six or seven things you will actually use costs less and means you know where each of them is.
- Where should medicines be kept in the house?
- High up, out of reach, and near where somebody is likely to be ill rather than in a bathroom cabinet. Bathrooms are warm and damp, which is bad for medicines, and ours was up a flight of stairs from the room where a child is actually poorly at two in the morning. A high kitchen cupboard or a drawer with a childproof box in it is better on every count.
- How do you keep track of doses in the night?
- Write it down, every time, on a list taped inside the door — what, how much, and the time. At three in the morning, after four broken nights, neither of us could reliably say whether anything had been given or when, and we nearly doubled up once. The list took thirty seconds to make and removed an entire category of fear. For anything about doses themselves, ask a pharmacist rather than the internet.
Where we checked
We are not experts in any of this. Where an entry touches something that has a proper answer, here is where the proper answer is.
Anna
Mid-thirties, former magazine copy editor, now works part-time from the kitchen table. Started this as a private record and only made it public because friends kept asking for the recipes.
If this was any use
One load a day
The washing was never finished, which I had accepted as a fact about life rather than a consequence of doing four loads on a Sunday. It is the second thing, and the fix took about a week to bed in.
The radiator that was cold at the top
Cold at the top, hot at the bottom. Anna had put a jumper on and mentioned it twice and I had said I’d look at it, twice, over about five weeks. It took four minutes and a fifty-pence key.
Presents for people who say they don’t want presents
My mum has said “don’t get me anything” every year since about 2011. For a decade I treated that as a politeness to be worked around, and bought her nice versions of things she already owned, and she thanked me properly every time.
Comments
They’re open, but they go through me first — every one is read and approved by hand, which is slow and occasionally very slow. Email is the fastest route, and I answer most of them.
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