Fever relief

Oh man has this week already been crazy!  Monday night I put Austin to bed and he was just fine, no symptoms of sickness what so ever.  At about 11:00pm I heard him start to whine, but I am trying to allow him to self sooth himself back to sleep so he sleeps through the night on his own so I start timing him and give him about 10 minutes.  Ususally he goes back to sleep on his own after about 3-4 minutes max, but he kept whimpering, and I realized it was a different quieter more pathetic sounding whine so I decided to check on him.  When I picked him up he was on fire.  I took  him into our office, it's where I keep the thermometer and on the other side of the house from our bedroom so I don't wake up Dustin.  I stripped him down and took his temp, it was 104.9 degrees F.  I panicked!

I went and woke up Dustin to help me read the What to Expet the Toddler Years book to find out what to do about fevers.  We gave him Motrin, sponged him off and gave him lots of juice.  He was very alert and didn't seem to be too upset other than he didn't like the wet towel for the sponging part.  I stayed up with him until about 1:30am when I checked his temp and it was down to 101.5.  I put him back to bed.

He woke up at about 3:00am I think and I didn't temp him, but he didn't feel super hot so I rocked him back to sleep.  He woke up again a 5:00am and was feeling hot so I checked him again and he was 104.1.  I gave him another dose of Motrin and got him cooled down a bit and back to bed. 

I remembered my doctor saying that so long as he is alert and taking in fluids that a fever up to 106-107 probably won't do any damage so I was trying to not worry too much.  I checked his temp at 9:30am and it was 103.2.  I decided to call the clinic and talk to the nurse.  She verified that I did not need to rush in since the temp was responding to the Motrin.  She said to start alternating Motrin and Tylenol every four hours so long as he had the fever and to come in the next day if that did not work, or if the fever stopped responding to the medicine. 

By last night he was feeling much cooler so I opted not to temp him because we just have a regular digital thermometer and I figured he was tired of having his temp checked that way, if you know what I mean.  At 11:00pm he was whimpering so I checked on him and he actually felt cool so I think he was too cold to be comfortable for sleep so I put him in his sleep sack.  He slept through the rest of the night and woke up this morning at normal temp. 

I know now that he was just fine the whole time, but man it is scary as a parent to watch him go through that.  I feel for the parents whose kids have febrile seizures with fever, that would be aweful.  I definitely have been motivated by this experience, the next time I am shopping I am going to buy a temporal thermometer!