The nurse can best promote hydration in a 4-year-old with sickle cell anemia by which of the following?
A. Telling the child how important it is to drink fluids
B. Forcing fluids of bottled water every two hours
C. Providing soup on the lunch and dinner meals
D. Offering flavored ice pops or iced Slurpees
This is a classic take-the-horse-to-water, can't-make-them-drink case with kids. If you tell a 4-year-old to chug water, you're going to have a bad time. So how do you get them the essential fluids they need? Well, we've already ruled out B. You can't force this 4-year-old to do anything.
A is a very positive approach but I promise you the child does not care AT ALL about how it's important to drink fluids. Kids that young can't think in a big terms about how it impacts their health. So A isn't it either.
And soup is a great idea, but some kids don't like soup or won't eat enough to matter for hydration purposes (buh bye, C).
Slurpees or ice pops on the other hand? Those will be repeat favorites and, best of all, will get fluids in this kid in a way that keeps them content and their labs wonderful. The correct answer is therefore D!
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