Fever in the Morning, FEVER in the Afternoon. FEVER!

Hi blog-land. Hopefully I'm back. Made it through a very busy fall wedding season and the aftermath (READ editing) is almost done. Now I can do things that I like to do such as baby bloggin'

So, after the holidays (Owen received plenty of shiny plastic and battery operated toys) Owen decided to spend our last 4 days of vacation time operating at a balmy temp of 103.6. Now this is only the second time he's ever been "sick." Both times were just fevers without any other symptoms and both times coincided with teething episodes. I just wanted to write a quick post about his fever and how we dealt with it.

He was hot one night when I went in to nurse him around 11:30PM and it was directly after a day of serious drool so I figured it was just another 24 hour fever like the last one. He wanted nothing more than to hug my shoulder fall asleep and nurse endlessly and sleep on me (he never wants to sleep on me). That night he had trouble sleeping and woke up many times. The next day he was hot all day and we took his temperature and it was 103.6. I have a pediatrician friend, so I called him and he said to just stay on the Tylenol, lukewarm baths and ride out the fever. I'm a believer in keeping the fever somewhat hot because your body is rising its temperature for a reason: to kill stuff. With babies; however, they just cannot get comfy so we did give him Tylenol and on day 3 broke down and gave him some IB. Luckily he didn't have any febrile fits (rolling eyes into head and having small seizures). The doctor said 103.6 is too high to be a teething fever, but he had no other symptoms, so I'm chalking it up to fever. We did the bath, we kept his activity low key and he rode it out. Four days later it just went away. It was a long four days and nights and there were a few naps in there that kept us alive. Each time this happens it takes him several more nights to get weaned off the constant night nursing but after about a week his schedule is back.

This fever gave me pause because I thought of all the parents out there who deal with terminally ill children and see their children in the hospital frequently and even just the thought makes me tear up. I can think of nothing worse, really. We have been fortunate that Owen is very healthy and happy child.


Cheers and Happy 2009.