How To Handle High Fever In Kids

Hi,

One of the most scariest thing to deal with is when your baby is sick as they are too young to tell you how they feel. So you need to know your baby well and be very observant of their behaviour.

When you observe that your baby is not well; eg. typically, they sleep too much or not as active as usual, you need to feel his forehead and body for high temperature. You should get a child thermometer that measures the temperature by putting the instrument into the ear and not into his mouth or anus.

Of course, the first thing to do is to get the baby or kid to your family doctor and get the necessary medication.

But this is not the end of it!

You still need to monitor the baby in case the fever does not subside but goes up instead especially overnight.

Having spoken to my friends, I learned that you should try to sponge your baby or you can take the baby back to your doctor or to the hospital ( if it is at night to the Accident & Ememrgency section ). We were told that if you take the baby to A&E or the hospital, they are likely to put ICE around the baby and it can be quite a sorry state and very pitiful for the baby.

As such, we have spent the whole night sponging Jason to bring down his fever despite giving him his medicine. This happened to us a few times.

Believe it or not, our friends actually recommended this approach than looking at your baby sleeping with ice around him and you can do nothing but just wait. They said that they felt helpless about the whole situation!

What did we do?

We got a pail of cold water and a face towel. We wet the towel and made sure it was damp and applied it on the chest and under the armpits. We found this most effective through trial and error. Of course we also placed it on his forehead and the feet and hands too. Practically, all over Jason. It sounds easier than said as there were times that Jason resisted the attempts to sponge him. When he is lifeless, you also worry about it.

It is tough but with patience and continuously monitoring the temperature during the progress of the sponging, the temperature will eventaully go down.

I have a disclaimer here.... If you are not comfortable with what I have just shared with you, please do what is best for your baby or child and consult your family docotr or go to the hospital.

BTW, I also do the same for adults too; eg sponging my wife when I came home and found her with high fever and too weak to move at all. If the adult or child is old enough and not too weak, taking a cold shower is another option.

As parents, you will have to decide what is best for your baby or child.

Happy Parenting...!

Jason Playing At Home

Hi,

Yes, we finally got him home from his nanny after almost a year and with a Philipino maid to look after him while we were at work.

He is 1 year old plus in these photos.

His teeth were starting to come out then.......

Still not able to stand on his own yet .....!

Gosh..... time flies.......! I missed those cutie days .......

Bringing Jason Home

Finally, we decided to hire a maid and bring Jason home when he was about 1 year old.

We got a Philipino maid and requested my parents to come to Spore to supervise the maid during the first few months. My parents have to cut short their trip in Melbourne to come to Singapore.

The maid was Merle and she took care of Jason for about 2 years before she went home due to the death of her mother. Merle was a very young girl and below 20 years old then; inexperienced too but I cannot remember why we chose her then.

My parents did a good job training Merle and they maintained a good relationship after 2 months of guidance by my parents.

Apparently, Jason was quite naughty and he would beat Merle on her back when he played truant. My mother told me that Merle dare not report him to me as I was very bad temper and she was concerned that I may beat Jason.

That's very nice of her indeed!

Initially, Merle slept with Jason in the second room with the air-con on during the night. We have a remote monitor and realised that Merle slept like a pig and not sensitive to Jason's crying etc.... So we brought Jason to sleep with us instead.

We made every effort to spend time with Jason once we were home; eg feed him and play with him. This was to ensure that Jason does not stick to the maid like glue...ha..ha..ha...

In fact, we managed to get Jason into the nearby Kinderland as we do not want him to be with the maid for 8 - 10 hours during the day while we were at work.

Also, we heard that Kinderland would be in a better position to train or teach Jason to bathe himself, change his clothing etc.... and to socialise with the other children too. In fact, he met his best friend, Ryan Tay, there.

More to come....stay tune!

Jason Almost Blinded

During his first year as a baby under the care of his nanny, Jas almost got blinded by a large safety pin.

When we arrived at the nanny's home one evening, we saw a long cut across Jason's right cheek. Our hearts sunk and we were speechless for a while.

The nanny said that Jason was playing with the big safety used to hold his nappy in the afternoon.

Luckily, all was well and Jason did not show any signs of trauma over the incident.

Thanks GOD for looking after Jason.

Jason's First Year With His Nanny

Both LLM & I were almost at the peak of our careers when Jason came into our lives.

Being new parents and still very involved in our careers, we outsourced the caring of our newly born child to a nanny in Pasir Ris.

During the weekdays, we would finish our work around 8pm daily. We would then have our dinner and took a taxi to Pasir Ris to spend at least 1 hour playing with Jason. We would take a taxi back to our home in Opera Estate, reaching around mid-night.

The nanny told us that we need not visit Jason every evening but we felt that we needed to connect with him. Jason would be at the door waiting for us and then would not be so happy to see us go but he never cried.

Every Sat, we look forward to bringing Jason home. Those days, we still worked on Sat so we would have our lunch and then took a taxi to Pasir Ris to fetch him for the weekend.

However, we would find it very taxing looking after Jason being inexperienced parents and without help then; eg the cooking, nappy changing, feeding him. By Sun afternoon, we would look forward to returning him to his nanny. Typically, we would send him back to Pasir Ris after our dinner.

While we were relieved to be home without him, but we started to miss him again....! Ha..ha..ha...

And the whole vicious cycle continued for a year!

Baby to Teenager

Hi,

Here is our ( my wife & I ) favourite photo of Jason when he was a baby.

We like to put him on our Queen size bed and played with him before we all go to bed.

Jason is so chubby and cute....!

15 years later, with his funky hairstyle.....

Apparently, his classmates introduced him to a hairstylist that only charges S$10 for cutting and styling student hair, including a hairwash too!

My wife took him once to her hair stylist and it cost us S$30 and he has been wanting to have his haircut at her saloon since then...!

Now we save S$20..!!!

Any girsl interested in Jason, please make an appointment for an intereview with his parents first.....ha..ha...

Just joking-lah!

Welcome to My Blog !

Last year, while I was visiting my parents in Penang, I came across a book written by a Singaporean father on his experiences in his lifetime. This book was dedicated to his only son. It was very enlightening and touching too and I also bought his second book on my next visit.

Since then, I was inspired to write something similar for my only son, Jason.

When I see some of the photos when Jason was a baby, his years in Kinderland and Temasek Primary School days.... it brought back many memories.

Time flies and he has grown into his teens and I have crossed over to the 50s too.....

When he was below 10 years of age, around 8 - 10 years old, I remember that I told him how I wish that time can stand still as he was so cute and lovely to play with during that period. Also, I was scared to lose him when he hit puberty as a friend told me once that I can only have 10 years of his life .... When they reach puberty, they will not want to be seen with us and want his freedom....!

I am glad to say that while Jason does not let me hold his hand in public like when he was a baby or a kid, he is still very close to us. We still spend a lot of time together and weekend is reserve for the family where we go out for meals, some shopping and even a movie occasionally.

So let me take you down my memory lane .....

David