Fever in toddler - plus newborn baby around

[ilovetosleep]

I know this is probably very overly anxious of me but I hve a teeny baby and so am a bit emotional and anxious anyway.

Ds1 (almost 3yrs) has had a temp of 39 for last 24 hrs, is quiet, tired and subdued but has been awake all day in front of the tv with bursts of energy, is totally off food (v unlike him!)

Calpol reduced fever to 38.0 but not any lower. Is that anything to worry about? I always though paracetemol should return your temp to normal.

He has absolutely no other symptoms, just a fever. I'm also worried about DS2 catching whatever he has, but I'm breastfeeding which should prevent that, am I right?

Argh it's so minor yet I'm so anxious!

Hi Your newborn should be protected from any infection until 12 weeks, so he shouldn't get a fever. He can catch a cold though. Please do take him to the GP if you notice that he is hot, it should always be checked out.

A temp of 38 is a little high, you can give him children's ibuprofen too, just make sure you leave a gap of a couple of hours in between the calpol and ibuprofen doses. If it's still not going down then he needs to be seen by the out of hours. It's OK not to want to eat for a couple of days, just make sure he's drinking as a temperature will make him dehydrated. I hope he's on the mend quickly

Ah, sorry. Your newborn should be protected from any infection as he has your antibodies in his blood. At 12 weeks his body has replaced your blood with his own.

Hi

As long as the fever is reducing a bit that's ok. In some ways it's better to stay up a bit and kill the infection.

I know dd wasn't quite a newborn but when she was 12 weeks we all caught swine flu and ds then 4 went on to have pneumonia. Dd managed the best out of all of us! Babies are tougher than you think.