6.5 month DS fever

[Babyfeverbutnotlikethat]

When you’ve exhausted the internet and stumped 111, turn to Mumsnet…

My DS is 6.5 months old. Generally a healthy, thriving, big and happy boy. Cut his first teeth a couple of weeks ago. Bit grumpy for a day or so but that seemed to be it in terms of symptoms.

On Sat night he seemed a little warm but nothing too concerning. Sunday morning he seemed really out of sorts, wouldn’t settle for morning nap. We figured teething and Calpol helped. Patchy naps all day. By bedtime around 7pm he had a temp of 38.1. Brought it down with nurofen. Woke at 3am with a temp of 38.6. Brought it down with calpol and back to sleep.

Initially fine this morning but two more incidents of temp spiking, including to 38.7. He was also super lethargic all day - he’s usually very active but was just lying on me all sad, looking upset. Nurofen perked him right up and lowered temp again.

No rash, no sensitivity to bright lights, he’s having wet nappies and feeding normally, no vomiting. No symptoms of a cold. NHS111 guy and Internet say a temp over 38 is I’ll see and not teething. I tried a Covid test on him (with some difficulty) and it was negative.

Should I just assume this is teething and keep treating it with calpol and nurofen (following the correct dosages). Did anyone else’s babies have a teething temp over 38?

thank you!

My DS didn't have a temperature with teething.
Your DS could be fighting off some sort of infection. There is so much going around at the moment.
It's usually when a temp reaches day 3 in babies if is suggested to contact your GP.

Hope he feels better soon!

My guess would be ear infection or tonsillitis. That's what it always seems to be for my DD when we have otherwise symptomless fevers.
I'd get an appointment with your GP. They're usually pretty good at seeing babies.

My first child did, temp up to 39 but only on the day the tooth was actually cutting through, so to me this doesn’t sound like teething.

Could it be something like roseola? My son had that as a baby and it was just a fever with no other obvious symptoms then after the fever broke the rash came out and I finally worked out what it was.
I assume if you’re 3 days in you can be fairly sure it’s not chickenpox, but if there’s any suspicion it could be then please don’t give nurofen.

Id assume it’s a virus not teething, so keep him at home and not doing anything too active, medicate the temperature and keep ip with milk and fluids.

Another for ear infection or tonsillitis.

Day 3, lethargic I would ring the GP for a check over.

Thanks all. It’s an ear infection. We found out in pretty dramatic fashion this morning.

I went into his room to get him up around 7.15 when I heard him on the monitor and when I saw him I realised that he couldn’t move his head… he was just lying with his left cheek on the mattress and no matter what I (and then DH) did, he wouldn’t move it. He just tracked us with his eyes. Very scary and obviously a stiff neck gave me meningitis concerns. I called 111 who sent an ambulance.

Paramedic’s theory was he had a febrile convulsion in the night and strained his neck fitting. I felt like the worst mum in the world. He’s only been in his own room for a week or so.

They didn’t want to move him too much because he yelped in pain every time we touched his neck so he was stretchered into the ambulance on his changing mat.

Paramedics also took his temp - 39.1. Far higher than the temp I got on our thermometer a few minutes earlier. Our thermometer is going in the bin and we’ve now bought the one the paramedics recommended - Braun Thermoscan 7+.

Doctors checked him over and gave him more painkillers (he can have double the dose of nurofen that the box says for his age, as he’s 10kg). He gradually moved his head after about 3 hours of being stuck. It was very scary. They think it wasn’t a febrile convulsion though, more likely he just slept heavily after I gave him nurofen and a feed at 3am, and got a bad crick in his neck. Perhaps partly because he’s still getting used to his big cot and being able to sleep in more positions than he could in his little next to me crib.

They checked for a UTI (have you ever tried to catch a baby boy’s pee in a bowl?!), took bloods to rule out meningitis (horrible screaming) and checked his ears.

Nasty ear infection is the diagnosis - we’ve got amoxicillin for a week.

Just so shocking - I’d been watching him like a hawk, even looking out for signs of an ear infection like ear tugging and he’s given nothing away. As soon as he was dosed up in hospital he was his usual chirpy, flirty self too!

Hope this helps anyone else searching MN for answers in future…

Omg how scary!
I can't even imagine how you both felt when he couldn't move.
Fingers crossed his results come back all clear.
My son showed no sign of an ear infection either other than not himself and temp!
Catching a boys urine sample is the worst, I followed him round for hours!!

Hope he starts to feel better soon.

Glad he's ok.

FYI, teething does not cause high temperatures.

Thanks both. Yes @annoyedneighbour1 , that was my understanding too. Then the NHS 111 guy yesterday was stumped and said it could just be teeth and he runs a bit hotter than average. Paramedic this morning said the same. I’ll know for future reference that it’s v unlikely to be teeth though. And now I’ve bought a better thermometer, that should help.

Yes the thermometer thing shocked me!

Which one did you have initially?

Glad he's ok, that must have been so scary. I was shocked the first time they told us tonsillitis as my child hadn't complained of a sore throat at all and was eating normally. They cope with a lot with no complaints!

@laura753 Yes they’re more resilient than we think aren’t they! Bless him you wouldn’t realise he’s ill most of the time at the moment.

He’s had 3 doses of amoxicillin so far - quite a struggle getting it in him but he’s definitely managed to keep some down as they’ve given him spectacularly loose nappies 🤢

@annoyedneighbour1 I’ve attached a pic of the one we had initially. Also a braun and it had good reviews. I can’t believe it was over a degree different from the paramedic’s reading within a matter of minutes. I want to test them side by side to properly compare, but we used the new one on him last night and it read 40.1 and he didn’t feel much different from the temp he was when the other thermometer was reading 38.6 the other night.

So glad he's ok OP. Interesting that paediatrics didn't think it was a febrile convulsion (although tbh I don't think it would have changed the tests or the treatment if they did)

One of mine had a couple of febrile convulsions as a baby and it's very scary. And I had to try and catch his pee in a bowl at paediatrics afterwards so I totally feel your pain! With mine it was tonsillitis.

@SatinHeart Sorry to hear your LO had febrile convulsions. My brother and I also had them and my parents have talked about how scary it was so I’ve been quite anxious about keeping my DS’s temp down. Because of the family history of it I wouldn’t rule out that he had one, but also there would have been limited time for it to happen I think. I gave him nurofen when he woke up around 2.30am, and he was definitely cooler after a big feed when he went back into his cot around 3.20am, then he was awake around 6.50. He’s have had to burn through that nurofen and have his temp spike back up quite quickly.

Anyway, that’s what I’ll tell myself to ease the mum guilt! Didn’t stop me sneaking in to feel the back of his neck nearly hourly yesterday evening though, as we put him down at 5pm for a nap as he was under napped from all the hospital fun.. and he didn’t wake up for 6 hours! I was tempted to wake him up for more nurofen and his next AB dose but DH convinced me sleep was the best thing. He had then both at 11pm instead. Think that was the right call.

It’s reassuring hearing about other people’s experiences of these fever scares. It’s the first time he’s had any kind of medical issue - he’s barely had a cold so far - and it was all a bit scary. FTM here and I’m going to have to get used to the idea that he’s going to get ill occasionally I guess, and that it might not be immediately obvious what’s wrong.

As you can tell from my rambling, I’m still processing it all and questioning what happened and what I could have done differently I think! But he’s over an hour into a morning nap now and has had nurofen so all is well 👍

You didn't do anything wrong! Stop questioning yourself.
Glad you're getting rid of the thermometer though. If you'd recorded 40 yesterday you would have got him seen straight away!