103.3 temp... why does this always happen on 3 day weekends?

[peanut4us]

Sara is sick :( We were at church this morning when I noticed her forehead was extremely warm... we've given her tylenol all this afternoon but her temp keeps going up.

Any thoughts for what I can do for her through the night? She's 15 monhts, and I think that i read somewhere that little kids can have really high temps before they are dangerous. Does anyone know what the limit is before I should take her to the hospital?

[MartiesMom2B]

I don't know if this will work, but I read in the latest American Baby, that someone's MIL put cabbage leaves from the fridge all over her baby and the temp went down. Maybe the cool cabbage leaves will help with they tylenol to lower the temp?

Sonia http://www.planetsmilies.com/smilies/character/1/character03.gif
Proud Mommy to Martie

[flagger]

I would call your pedi just for peace of mind. I would worry about anything under 104. Remember fever is an indication that the body is fighting something. You still need to figure out the source of what is causing the fever.

HTH

Edited because big difference between over and under.

[egoldber]

I would also not worry about a fever less then 104 (easier said than done I know). My ped doesn't even want to see a toddler with a fever less than 103 unless it has been that high for more than 48 hours.

What has worked for us in the past is to give her a lukewarm (NOT cold) bath. Also, I prefer motrin to tylenol. You can actually alternate motrin and tylenol every 3 hours to bring down the fever if just one does not work. (So motrin at 7, tylenol at 10, motrin at 1, tylenol at 4, etc.).

Also here's a link to the Dr Sears site with info about fevers. Lots of great suggestions there.

http://www.askdrsears.com/html/8/T082100.asp

HTH,

[JElaineB]

Have you tried ibuprofen (Motrin or Advil)? That always seems to work better, faster and longer on fevers than Tylenol for us. What I usually end up doing is alternating Tylenol and ibuprofen every 3-4 hours, it is safe to do that and neither medication ever "runs out". The Dr. Sears website has more info on it if you want to check it out. If you do have some ibuprofen try giving that now, even if you have just given the Tylenol. If the fever still doesn't go down withing 30 - 45 minutes (or keeps going up) you might want to call the doc. DS has had several fevers in the 103 range but they always have come down with medication, except for once. To me a fever that won't come down with either ibuprofen or Tyelnol is more worrisome than one that does. Hope Sara feels better soon!

Jennifer
mom to Jacob 9/27/02

[Sarah1]

Like Beth said, definitely give her a lukewarm bath, and alternate tylenol/motrin. That's what we did when Audrey was running a really high fever (103), and it got it down and kept it down.