How To Bring Down Baby Fever Naturally

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Natural ways to help bring down baby fever in the comfort of your home, and nine more remedies for the most common baby ailments.

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Our Story Of Chronic Baby Fevers

When my third baby was 12 weeks old he came down with a fever that got to 103.5 degrees. It was a Saturday evening and as you can imagine I was an emotional mess.

I called the pediatrician after-hours line, and after an hour finally got a call back from the emergency nurse. It was right in the middle of the 2020 Covid-19 shutdowns, and the only advise she gave me was to avoid taking him to the ER, and give him infants Tylenol to bring the fever down.

I gave him infants Tylenol around the clock, until Monday morning when I was hoping to take him in to be seen by the pediatrician.

When I called them to make the appointment, I was transferred to a nurse who informed me I couldn’t bring my 12 week old baby into the office because he was presenting Covid-19 symptoms. She said I first had to present a negative Covid-19 test, obtained from the drive thru pop up testing sites our state had in place.

I was furious! I explained to her we had been completely secluded since bringing baby home from the hospital, and had no contact with people outside our immediate family, but was still denied an office visit.

To make a long story short, I found another pediatrician who would see our baby when he was sick, that time, and every month for the next year with chronic fevers.

Learning To Bring Down Baby Fever At Home Naturally

I asked for every test possible to see if we could figure out what was causing him to get a fever every single month, but every test always came back normal. There was nothing the doctor could do except tell me to just keep giving him over the counter fever reducing medicines.

There’s nothing like a mother trying to help her baby to send her into a rabbit hole of googling at all hours of the night, and so much reading and research, to feel like she could almost write her own book on the subject.

I knew there had to be a better way to bring his fever down. Especially after finding out Tylenol depletes the body of glutathione which is our body’s very important self-made antioxidant.

When Baby Has a Fever:

This article is not intended as medical advise. I am not a doctor or healthcare professional. Please seek the advise of a trusted doctor before starting any supplement and or treatment. I am simply sharing what we do in our home.

Newborn to 3 Months Old

If baby is less than 12 weeks old and has a fever of 100.4 or higher, it is ALWAYS recommended to take baby in to be seen.

3 months and Older

Fevers in little ones can be so scary for parents, but one thing that has brought me peace of mind is learning that generally the actual fever is not a bad thing! Fever is the body’s way of defending itself from an infection, so it’s best to fight the urge to suppress it.

What the pediatrician told me, is that there is no need to worry about a fever unless it lasts more than five days. If it lasts five days or more, it’s time to be seen because it might be caused by an infection that requires antibiotics, like a UTI or strep.

Signs of Dehydration

An exception to that is if you notice signs of dehydration like, not enough wet diapers, no tears when crying, or very lethargic.

For older babies the following remedies can be used to manage fevers at home, but my first and best advise is to always follow your mama gut and do what you feel is best for your baby.

Natural Remedies To Bring Baby Fever Down

These remedies will not take the fever away, but will help keep baby comfortable and sometimes keep fever from spiking too high.

Try To Keep Baby Cool

• Turn down the thermostat in the house.
• Luke warm baths. Make sure the water feels warm to the touch but not cold so it will cause shivering. Shivering will cause the body temperature to rise.
• Dress baby in light layers.
• Offer plenty of fluids. If you’re still nursing, nurse on demand. Otherwise offer frequent sips of formula or water. If its a baby older than six months of age, offer a little homemade bone broth to help his immune system.

Using Essential Oils To Help Bring Fever Down

• Combine into a 10 ml roller bottle, two drops of peppermint essential oil, two drops of lavender essential oil and fill the rest of the way with a carrier oil. Shake well, and roll blend on forehead, the bottoms of the feet, and/or the spine.

Peppermint essential oil has cooling properties and Lavender essential oil will sooth and help baby sleep.

I try to always manage the fever naturally for at least the first 24 hours to give their natural immune system a chance to strengthen, and fight whatever is causing it.

After 24 hours if baby is having trouble sleeping, or the fever gets so high that it starts to make me nervous, I do give one dose of dye free ibuprofen.

Baby Fever When Teething

If you suspect the fever might be caused by teething, the number one thing I have found that works so well on my little one is rubbing copaiba essential oil on his gums and jaw line.

Copaiba essential oil numbs the gums a little and helps sooth baby.

1. Wash your hands well with a non-toxic soap like Dr. Bronner’s baby castile soap.
2. Put one drop of Doterra’s Copaiba essential oil on your finger and rub on baby’s gums and jaw line.
3. Repeat every few hours as needed.

Natural Remedies For Other Common Baby Ailments

Eczema

The best advise I can give about baby eczema is to find the root cause.

There can be so many causes. Diet, antibiotics, lotions and soaps with synthetic ingredients, and so many other factors can trigger eczema in little ones or even adults!

The two main things I did in our home to alleviate and heal our little one from eczema were:

1. I very first made sure to only use non-toxic natural products on anything that touched his skin. From diapers, to soaps, lotions, and detergents. For a full list of products I used free from irritants, fragrances, and other synthetic ingredients you can checkout my baby must have list.
2. Second, I paid very close attention to his diet from the minute he started eating solid foods. I follow the nourishing traditions diet as closely as I can in our home. It consists of nutrient dense foods made from scratch. It’s basically, organic fruits and vegetables, grass fed meat, farm fresh milk and eggs, and try to cut out sugar as much as possible.

The one product I recommend besides the two things above is the tubby todd all over ointment. It really helped moisturize and sooth my little ones skin when he developed little spots of eczema after a round of antibiotics he went through to clear up a bad UTI.

Constipation

1. Diluted pure organic prune juice. Just a few sips is enough for babies.
2. A daily dose of a good probiotic. I started out giving our baby Mary Ruth’s infant probiotics, and when he got a little older moved to Smidge infants probiotics.
3. For six month+ you can mix whole milk plain yogurt with a little flaxseed meal and prune puree.

Stuffy Noses

1. A good baby nasal aspirator is a must! My little one is 18 moths old and I still use it with him when he gets sick. It’s a life saver!
2. Natural chest rub to open airways. Badger, Wellements, and Tubby Todd all have clean natural ingredients for little ones.
3. Diffuse two or three drops of Breath essential oil or Eucalyptus essential oil at night.

Cough

Cough is one of the few things we haven’t had to deal with too much in our home, but that’s another symptom that is better not to suppress. You want your little one to get all the yucky fluid out of their lungs.

A couple of things you could do to help are:

• Place a cool mist humidifier in their room or sit in the bathroom with them as you run hot water in the shower. Let the bathroom fill with steam, I sometimes will put a few drops of eucalyptus essential oil on the shower floor as well.
• If cough is getting in the way of good quality sleep at night, Wellements has an organic cough syrup for babies 4 months old and up.

Just remember like with a baby fever, try not to supress a cough. Try to only give suppressive over the counter medicines if symptoms are getting in the way of sleep at nights.

Quality Sleep

Getting a good night sleep is important all the time to maintain a healthy immune system, but it’s more so when we’re sick. That’s when our bodies cognitively and physically restore themselves.

Safeguard your little one’s sleep as much as you can.

Even one lost hour of sleep can suppress an immune system. Adequate & quality sleep is pivotal in maintaining health or fighting infection.

Shannon Tripp RN

Immune Boosting Supplements When Baby is Sick

Nutrition, natural sunlight, and fresh air play the most important role in staying healthy and helping heal faster when sick. But when baby is sick I also give a few extra immune boosting supplements.

Before 6 moths of age:

1. Vitamin D3 drops
2. Infant vitamin C drops
3. Infant probiotic drops

6 moths old and up:

• Everything from the list above plus liquid zinc and elderberry syrup without honey.

As always please remember this is mama to mama advise. Always follow your mom instincts, you know your baby best.

What Other Ways Have You Found, Help Bring Down Baby Fever Naturally?

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