When my kids were little they told me to alternate giving the tylenol and motrin. But that has been several years ago.

I was always told to alternate giving them too...but that's been awhile ago. I do know that you need to be really careful on the amount of Tylenol that you give because too much can be toxic to the liver. How old is your grandchild and how much does he/she weigh? I would just be really careful on how much Tylenol to give....try pushing fluids and taking a bath in tepid water.
PS how high is the fever and is he/she throwing up, diarrhea....dehydrated

I have always heard to alternate. She will be shocked if she goes to an ER or a peds unit and sees them putting kids in tepid water wont she?

My son was seen in the ER last week with a fever of 105.7. He was given both motrin and tylenol. His fever came down within an hour.

Char: you can give both Tylenol and Motrin safely at the same time. I do it all the time in the ED for high fevers in both children and adults. The two drugs are not in the same chemical class, so this is perfectly safe.

You don't simply want to give a larger does of one or the other. In adults, you don't want to give more than 1gm at a time, or 4gms in 24 hours. In children the total dosages are smaller, and weight based. The dose for kids varies with Tylenol, anywhere from 10mg/kg to 30mg/kg. Most ED's I've worked, the standing order was for 15mg/kg.

Motrin is 10mg/kg and should not be given to children younger than 6 months, even tho there is now an infant dosed version. The risk with Motrin is gastritis and gastric bleeding. I

We often instruct parents to alternate Tylenol and Motrin. Tylenol can be given every 4 hours, Motrin every 6. So I tell parents to use a 3 hour schedule. For example: Tylenol at 12 noon, Motrin at 3pm, Tylenol at 6pm, Motrin at 9pm, etc. You don't have to worry about overdosing this way.

Tepid baths can work (it works through the mechanism of evaporation), and cool mist is used to treat heat stroke or malignant hyperthermia. However, in fevers you still need to identify and treat the core problem. Medications will treat the core fever more effectively than tepid water. Then you have to find the source of the fever. In children the culprits are most often ear infections and UTI's, occasionally URI's like RSV or influenza.

The key is to get appropriate treatment and diagnosis. In children, most infections that cause fever are VIRAL (excepting UTI's), so antibiotics, while commonly given, are not always the best choice.

Once the fever goes down, you have to keep checking the temperature and give more Tylenol and Motrin. You can't just give one dose and expect the problem to go away, which is often what I encounter in the ER.

Preventing dehydration is another issue. Sips of water, Gatorade, or Pedialyte, 1-2 tsp every 10 minutes will prevent vomiting. Avoid dairy products during fevers: they curdle and cause more vomiting.