How We Survived Our Baby’s First Cold

We were excited that our little bao was finally going to start daycare. Even though hubby was able to get some days off each week for me to focus on work, it was still an interesting balancing act to watch her, pump, and work a full-time demanding job for over a month. As we got closer to the first day of school, I read up on advice from other mamas who have children in daycare. “Prepare for your baby to get sick often” was the most common tip.

So what happened after the 4th day of school? She was warm to touch, so I took her temperature and of course she had a fever. It was hubby’s first Father’s Day weekend and we were going to head down to my parents’ house to spend with family. The first thing that entered my mind was if it were COVID. We were so careful and still masked up wherever we went, but with daycare, germs are just unavoidable. I immediately set up an appointment for her to be seen by her pediatrician.

Rapid COVID test came back negative, lungs were clear, ears were fine. They took a sample to perform a respiratory panel and her fever was decreasing. So we made a decision with my family to still visit. In hindsight, we should’ve stayed home.

Our LO started to develop a terrible runny and stuffy nose. She would wake up covered in caked up snot, poor thing! And her fever was on and off. On the second day, she was pretty drowsy and didn’t want to drink much milk either. We gave her Tylenol religiously every 4 hours and took her temperature. If she consistently didn’t have a fever for two readings, we stopped giving her the medication. But, she would develop a fever quickly after again!

We returned home early Sunday morning on Father’s Day so she would feel more comfortable at our own house. Again, the fever was on and off and she even started to cough a little. We kept her home from daycare for the following days to make sure she recovered before bringing her back. LO ended up passing her cold to hubby and I. Thankfully, it was one after the other so we could take turns taking care of her. It was a really bad cold that involved losing our voices, sore throats, fevers, headaches, and so so much mucus.

Tuesday night around 9pm, she reached the highest temperature ever: 102.2. That’s when we called our pediatrician who told us to either go to a hospital or PM Pediatrics, a pediatric urgent care facility, since she’s only 5 months old. We quickly packed her diaper bag and went to our nearest PM Pediatrics. It took a while to fill our paperwork electronically and to be seen, but the staff were all so nice.

Since by now her fever sustained and reached its highest after 5 days, the pediatrician on staff suspected a UTI. She asked for our permission to put in a catheter to get a clean urine sample. We agreed since we wanted to rule out whatever we could and for our baby girl to feel better. The initial results came back slightly positive, so they recommended her to start antibiotics while we waited for the final results.

Her fever stopped consistently the following day, while her runny and stuffy nose decreased tremendously. Her cough lingered a little but wasn’t bad. And a few days later we got the final UTI results that said that her levels were slightly below needing antibiotics but they recommended her to finish the medication anyway.

It was certainly a whirlwind! I knew that seeing your baby sick would be upsetting for any mother, but not seeing her get better for a while was definitely a struggle! Poor baby waking up with snot all over her face and crying was heart wrenching. And making sure she wasn’t getting dehydrated since she wouldn’t take all her milk was tough. The positive I’m taking away from this though is that she’s at least building her immune system earlier. She either gets sick now or in preschool/kindergarten. Supposedly, babies get sick on average 8-12x’s their first year in daycare!

This is what we learned from our first cold. Hope these help you too!

• Stay home and don’t travel with the baby if there’s any sign of sickness. You’ll be closer to familiar pediatricians and the baby will be more comfortable at home.
• Continue to give Tylenol consistently every 4 hours for half a day, even if the fever has died down. Since the fever may have just been reduced by the medication and not naturally gone. (Disclaimer: I’m not a doctor. This is only what worked for us. Please talk to your pediatrician for more information.)
• Using cold, slightly damp paper towels on their forehead and change them out when they’re warm to touch. Giving a bath helps too.
• Strip down to just the diaper during the day if the fever is high.

Spoiler alert: Baby Bao did end up proving the statistic true and got sick roughly once every two weeks during the winter months, including Covid and RSV. Whenever she wasn’t sick, the germs cycled through hubby and myself. It was a rough 6 months, but fingers crossed that we’re over the hump!

xo Kris