Fever in the morning.

Fever all through the night.

Tuesday began like any other day. Get up, place Wyatt in his high chair, give him some cereal to munch on while I unload the dishwasher and tidy up the bathroom. At 9A, we began watching Live! with Kelly and enjoyed an hour of clever banter between Kelly and the ever-fabulous Josh Groban.

Then around 11A, I noticed that Wyatt’s forehead felt warm. Hot even. I grabbed our handy {but not accurate} temporal thermometer and found that it read 99.1˚F. Knowing that temporal thermometers were often inaccurate {the doctor had mentioned it to me at previous visits}, I rifled through my perpetually messy junk drawer and located the thermometer the nurses had sent home with us when Wyatt was a wee 9 days old.

It was then that I realized he was definitely hot, not warm. His temperature had hit 101.5˚F. That was enough to scare me, especially since it was the first time I had ever taken Wyatt’s rectal temperature..

I immediately put a call into our pediatrician’s office. After leaving a message for the nurse to call me back, I gave him a 0.6 mL dose of Tylenol. After speaking to the nurse for about 30 minutes about the ins and outs of Wyatt’s bowels, mealtimes, fluid intake, etc, etc, etc, she decided that he was more than likely constipated due to the no fruit diet and the change-over from formula to sweet milk.

She recommended giving him two teaspoons of Miralax and waiting out the fever. She also said that due to his larger size, I could give him 1.2 mL of Tylenol next time. She kindly offered to call and check on him in a few hours to see if he could poop and if it made his fever go down to a normal range.

At 4P though, when she called me back, his fever had spiked to 102.6˚F. She told me to begin giving him 3 hour rounds of rotating Tylenol/Ibuprofen to keep the fever down. She tried to get us a worked-in appointment, but to no avail. She then recommended that if his fever hit 105˚, I needed to immediately take him into TC Thompson’sUrgent Care Center at Erlanger Hospital. She also said I should try giving him a lukewarm bath.

So I did; lukewarm bath, which he hated, and a 1.85mL dose of Ibuprofen. Immediately after the bath, his temperature was down to 100.5˚. It held right around there for the rest of the afternoon, floating from 101 to 99 throughout. I gave him his last dose of Tylenol at 10P and we all went to bed.

I checked on him all through the night, having put his Arm’sReach Co-Sleeper back together for the time being. He felt fine for the night, but I never let him have anything other than a thin swaddling blanket.

At 5A on Wednesday, I reached over to check on him and he was hot again. This time it wasn’t as bad as 103, but it was at 101˚. I gave him a dose of Ibuprofen and began the daily rotation of meds again. At 11A I made the mistake of assuming that if his temperature was 98.7˚, his fever had broke. Not so much. By 12:30 it had spiked again. I gave him his dose of meds and at 2:30 it had raised to 102.7 ˚F. {For those of you who can’t keep up with all these numbers, is the HIGHEST it had been thus far.} I smacked myself on the forehead and drew him a lukewarm bath, which he hated.

For the rest of the night, I kept him on his rotating meds, giving him his last dose at 12 midnight.

On Thursday morning, at 6A, his temperature was a steady 99 ˚F. I gave him his Ibuprofen anyway.

At 9A, he was at 99,1 ˚F. I gave him his Tylenol anyway.

There's Wyatt, looking like a giant in his co-sleeper.

And at 12 noon, I gave him his Ibuprofen again, even though he felt just fine.

I thought about not giving him the meds to see if his temperature held normal, but after watching it go up and down for two days, I didn’t want to make it three. I think it is safer to just give him the low dose of Ib/Ty for another 24 hours to make sure. Why chance it?

Now, OF COURSE, he has a diaper rash. This could be from the Miralax the nurse had recommended—it definitely made his bowels move—or from the apples I added back into his diet. Either way, I’m taking the apples back out. Wyatt’s doctor has told me that he’d rather him eat veggies than fruits anyway. And I can always add fruits back in as he starts eating harder foods. I don’t think there’s any point in giving him the apple sauce until then.

As of right now, he’s wrapped in a towel, completely naked, taking a nap on our leather sofa.

 

He refuses to wear a diaper because of the rash; screaming uncontrollably until it is taken off. I can’t say I blame him, if my butt were on fire I’d feel the same way.

Wisdom learned for the day: it’s better to have leather than microfiber—no matter what the furniture store tells you.

Leather wipes oh-so clean.

 

Here's a little clip of Wyatt playing this morning. He's had a tough two days, so seeing him play was SUCH A RELIEF!

|MrsG