I’ve made a huge mistake.
Yesterday afternoon, Sam began to show signs of feeling poorly again. We went to a second playground and I pushed him on the swing for about 25 minutes. When he got down he was shivering, and he fell asleep in the car a few minutes later. I woke him up at the grocery store and he was very sedate in the shopping cart. He started shivering again when we were waiting for Will (we picked him up at work) and coughed a few times. Will had a cough for about 24 hours so we had some cough drops for him, and when we got home we spent the evening on the couch. He had a little bit of a temperature but nothing to worry about.
At 4:45 this morning Sam woke me up and asked for water. I got it for him and then tried to get him back to sleep. He was very warm and couldn’t fall asleep. After a few minutes he got up with Will to pee, and I followed them into the bathroom and took his temperature. I used one of those forehead strips, so not the most accurate but close enough, and it registered about 102-103. High(ish) but still not worrisome. Normally I would not have treated a fever of 103 but in my sleepy haze I decided that since I was not ready to be awake he must not be either, so I gave him some Tylenol so he could get back to sleep.
I. Am. Dumb.
Now we have on our hands a small boy who is somewhat listless, has a cough and is sneezing, and is FULL OF ENERGY. I fucking hate Tylenol.
November 14th, 2009 at 10:04 am
Yeah, we stick with motrin over here!
November 14th, 2009 at 11:31 am
Oh, I hate Motrin even more! It never did a thing for him when he was a baby (for teething). I should have said I hate fever reducers in general.
November 14th, 2009 at 11:45 am
Oh, and P.S. As soon as we were in the car and the Tylenol had worn off, he fell asleep. (I didn’t want to take him anywhere but Will’s Vespa needs some work so we had to take a quick drive.)
November 14th, 2009 at 3:27 pm
Poor little guy. :-( There’s nothing worse than feeling like shit and having energy to burn. I’m glad he was able to fall asleep… and hopefully you and Will can get some rest, too!
November 14th, 2009 at 3:33 pm
I have a basic policy of not treating fevers under 104. Over 104 I decide based on how miserable the kid is/isn’t. The Motrin was actually very helpful for us during this flu, but boy, I would have been pissed if it had actually made them all energetic like you describe.
November 14th, 2009 at 6:00 pm
That’s my normal policy, too. This afternoon his temp went up to 104+ and he was miserable, so I dosed him again. Waiting to see if I’ve repeated my mistake…
November 20th, 2009 at 9:56 am
Charlotte’s teething, so she’s a cranky pants. The only time she’s not is right after the Tylenol. For that reason alone I’m keeping it around.