Fever Freakout

Tonight has been an interesting evening in our household.  Sweet Pea is teething and so we thought her fussiness was due to that.  She had a fever of 101 and Daddy wanted her to have some Tylenol at 6pm, but she spit most of it out, but we hope she got some.  She then fell asleep on me and I was enjoying the snuggle!





Little did I know that things weren't as calm as they seemed.  When she started stirring around 7:15 I got up and changed her diaper and started getting her into her jammies.  She was crying up a storm which wasn't like her and then I thought I saw her shaking, but thought that it just had to be from her crying so much.  I pulled back out the thermometer and was in disbelief when it read 107.8 and redid it immediately..."hi"...repeat..."hi"...again and again.  Ok, I freak out!  I ask Daddy to call the doctor and I call my brother-in-law.  He tells me to do cold cloths and so I do that immediately and she is already stripped down to her diaper.  Pretty soon I ditch even the diaper in hopes of cooling her off that much more.  We get her fever down to 104/105.  Daddy can't get the doctor or their 24 hour help line so he leaves messages.  We then call our nurse friend (thank you again Mrs. M) and she tells us to get some pediatric Motrin so Daddy runs to the store to buy some.  Turns out you can do Motrin and Tylenol together!  Who knew?!?!

We have heard of a cool bath helping reduce a fever so we draw a cool bath and Sweet Pea freaks out when she is put in it.  I just can't imagine that being helpful so I pull her out instantly and go back to the cool washcloth on her head and back and neck.  Mrs. M actually comes over to check in on us...more on mommy and daddy probably than on Sweet Pea, but checks out Sweet Pea to make sure she is looking ok.  All is well and the fever is slowing coming down...now we are in the 103 range.  When the help line calls back we get the advice to draw a regular temperature bath (or just a touch cooler than normal) and put her in it and let it cool down as she is in it so that it isn't such a shock to the system.  Keep up with the cool cloths and alternate Motrin and Tylenol every 3 hours. The bath worked well and poor Sweet Pea just stared at Daddy with a look of "Help Me" and Daddy was just breaking apart inside.



Now we are watching her like a hawk and hoping that tonight goes ok.  She is sleeping pretty well and her fever has just come down to 101 so we are heading in the right direction still.  I have lost all credibility when it comes to not worrying about a 101 fever now with Daddy and he will always win on the Tylenol battle, but that is alright.

Please keep her in your thoughts and hopefully the morning will bring a healthy little girl back to us. Thanks Grandma for being willing to babysit yet again!!!!