Parents- do your little ones know how to open pill bottles?

When katawaGrey was 10 she sometimes had to open my pill bottles because I was too weak from chemo and radiation. I worried about it a bit, but because we had so few prescription meds in house, and they were all boring (anti-nausea and the like) it wasn’t a matter of huge concern to me. The opiates hadn’t worked for me anyway so I had disposed of them already.

I remember finding pill bottles when I was young, but I couldn’t open them. I just kept turning the lid and it wouldn’t come off lol. When I could open them, I already knew not to take things I wasn’t aware of.

I was five or six when childproof bottles came out. My parents had trouble opening them, but I didn’t. I frequently opened them up for my parents. I never took any of their med except for once I ate a ton of mom’s birth control.

I don’t know when my daughter figured it out. Shes 15. My son is 12 (in a few days) and he’s been opening pill bottles for years. For his mother. Who couldn’t open them.

I think education is more important than hardware solutions to this problem. I think that by the time a child is 5, they should be able to understand the difference between candy and a pill and why this difference is important. I wonder how old a child is meant to be foiled by child proof poll bottles?

One of the first things I taught them.

@wundayatta I’m not sure of the exact age, but I think my 16 month old daughter is definitely a reason for childproof caps. She has mastered the ability to open and unscrew almost any cap on her own, but she still has the “put everything in your mouth” instinct. A week ago, she was playing while I was on the toilet and I turned my back a second. She had managed to reach the baby shampoo, take the cap off and got ready to take a swig.

Toddlers are so frustrating. They can do so much, but still have big gaps in their ability to understand things and follow directions. But I’m guessing once she gets around preschool age, she can be trusted a little bit more. I’m guessing around 6 or so, they should know better than to open pills and eat them like candy.

Yes. My daughter’s nine. She knows better than to touch them.

They’re 5 and 3 and no they do not.

Nope they are 2 and 3, but my hopes that with the education I am giving them about medication that when they are able to that they won’t take anything thats in them unless I give it to them because its subscribed to them.

My preschool grandsons carefully watch their grandmas (plural) open medicine bottles, and they have learned how to do it, at age 4 and 2. The 2 year old isn’t successful yet, but I saw him pull an empty out of my trash (ooops, no more in that trash can) and try to open it.

They are very observant, and learned how to operate the child proof door handle covers fairly quickly, open the child gates, and lock or unlock the doors. I keep a key right outside the door leading to the laundry room because they locked me out once. We put locks on the sliding glass doors where they couldn’t reach, but they both know how to climb, so the locks aren’t kidproof.

The only kidproof lock so far is the gate on the pool fence.

I’m pretty sure I was able to open them very young. I don’t have kids. It never occurred to me to take a bunch of pills when I was little, but of course it happens. I do remember my mom once telling me never to take more than one Flinstone vitamin in a day.