When Your Child Has a Fever, Log the Time You Gave the Medicine

When Your Child Has a Fever, Log the Time You Gave the Medicine

It is two in the morning and your child's forehead is hot. You think it is time for another dose, but what time the last one was will not come back to you. It might have been after dinner, or it might have been right before bed. The memory of someone who has been awake all night is the hardest thing to trust at a moment like this.

Leave the time instead of remembering it

One tap at the moment you give the medicine and the time stays there. The next time you pick up the bottle, what you check is not your memory but the record.

It matters even more when the two of you are taking turns. “Did you already give it?” is a question that does not get answered well at two in the morning. Decide on one phone to keep the record on. Then that one phone is all either of you has to look at.

Name the buttons after the ingredient

If you use two different fever medicines, make two buttons. It is better to name them after the active ingredient than the brand. The name still holds when the bottle changes, and it tells you how the two differ without you having to remember.

• “Acetaminophen”
• “Ibuprofen”

The ingredient is printed on the syrup bottle or on the box. Check once, make the buttons, and that is it.

The elapsed time sits on the button

A button you have logged shows how long it has been since the last record, like “2 hours ago”. Before you pick up the bottle, the home screen alone tells you.

Each medicine carries the time since you last gave it

Show it as it is at the pediatrician

When the question comes in the exam room, when the fever started and when you gave the medicine, open the record and show it. The Day tab on the Statistics screen puts how many times that day, at what hours, and how long the gaps were on one screen, together with the temperature notes. It is far more accurate than an account rebuilt from memory.

The times, the gaps and the temperature on one screen

A run of several days is easiest to show on the Timeline, moving from date to date.

A record does not make the judgement

What the record tells you goes as far as when you gave what. How long to leave between doses and how much to give follow the package insert and the guidance of your pharmacist or doctor. Alternating between two medicines, too, only when you have been told to do that.

If your child seems different from usual in a way that worries you, see a doctor rather than collecting more records.