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Fever in a baby or child: when to call, and what helps
For anyone looking after a baby or child with a fever: a parent, a grandparent, a sitter, at any hour. This page passes on, by name, what MedlinePlus and the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) say: which number counts as a fever and how to take a temperature, why a fever in a baby under 3 months needs a call now, what a fever is and is not, comfort at home, eating and drinking, what the pages say about fever medicine, what to do during a seizure with a fever, and the signs that mean a call to the doctor or 911. It builds the questions to ask. Take only what you need tonight.
Right now
- Call 911 if your child has a fever and cannot be awakened easily or at all, seems confused, cannot walk, has difficulty breathing even after their nose is cleared, has blue lips, tongue, or nails, has a very bad headache, has a stiff neck, refuses to move an arm or leg, is crying and cannot be calmed down, or has a seizure. That list is MedlinePlus’s. Its page for babies adds a new rash or bruises.
- A baby younger than 3 months with a rectal temperature of 100.4°F (38°C) or higher? MedlinePlus says to contact your child’s provider or go to the emergency room, and to contact the provider first before giving any medicine.
- A seizure? MedlinePlus says: lay the child on the ground in a safe area, do not hold the child down, do not force anything into the child’s mouth, and turn the child to the side if they vomit. If the seizure lasts several minutes, call 911.
- Do not use cold baths, ice, or alcohol rubs, and do not bundle the child up, even with the chills. MedlinePlus says these often make the situation worse.
- Do not give aspirin to a child unless your child’s provider tells you it is OK. That is MedlinePlus’s line too.
If you cannot reach a provider and you are frightened for your child, go to an emergency room or call 911. That line is ours. This page is not for emergencies.
More help
- A seizure, at any age: When someone has a seizure. First aid: First aid: what do you see?
- A baby who will not stop crying, and safe sleep: Crying baby: when the crying won’t stop.
- Counting wet diapers and feeds: Baby log. Writing down what happened and when: Symptom diary.
- Too much of a medicine, or the wrong one: When it might be a poisoning.
- A fever during chemotherapy: When the doctor says cancer.
- For a visit: Get ready for your appointment. No insurance: When you need a doctor and can’t pay.
- A newborn at home: Pregnant, or with a new baby.
- All our free tools.
This page and its wording were written with AI (Claude) for Scarlet Beast (our AI policy). No doctor, nurse or pharmacist has reviewed it. The facts were read on October 9, 2026 on two government websites. On MedlinePlus, from the National Library of Medicine, four pages of its Medical Encyclopedia, each read in English and in Spanish: When your baby or infant has a fever (reviewed October 1, 2025), Fever (reviewed July 31, 2024), Temperature measurement (reviewed January 14, 2026) and Febrile seizures (reviewed January 1, 2026). On ninds.nih.gov, in English: Febrile Seizures (we found no date in the text we read). The page says whose words it is passing on, and what is marked “ours” is our own. Where the sources differ, the page gives both: the youngest babies are “younger than age 3 months” on one MedlinePlus page and “3 months or younger” on the other; a lasting fever in a child under 2 is “longer than 48 hours” on one and “longer than 24 to 48 hours” on the other; ibuprofen is not for children “younger than 6 months old” on one and “6 months or younger” on the other; a new rash or bruises is under 911 on one and under calling the provider right away on the other; MedlinePlus says to call 911 when a seizure lasts several minutes, and NINDS says longer than five minutes; MedlinePlus says a simple febrile seizure lasts a few seconds to 10 minutes, and NINDS says up to 15. MedlinePlus prints 105°F as both 40.5°C and 40.6°C, and 100°F as both 37.8°C and 37.7°C; we print the first of each. Both fever pages say “one lightweight blanket for sleep”, and the CDC and NICHD pages read for our crying-baby guide say to keep blankets out of a baby’s sleep area: this page says so and sends babies under 1 to that guide. What we left out or did not read: every brand name; every amount of medicine, and how often each one is given (the pages give hours; the package and your provider have them); the medicine MedlinePlus says is sometimes prescribed against repeated febrile seizures; how many febrile seizures a child may have in a lifetime, because MedlinePlus’s English and Spanish pages say different things; the adult lists on the Fever page; its list of rarer causes of fever; the tests done at a visit; NINDS’s list of what makes a second seizure more likely, and its research section; the Spanish version of the NINDS page; MedlinePlus’s page on dehydration; and anything on fever in an adult. We called no number. It saves nothing and loads no tracking.