The withdrawal last year of over-the-counter cold medicines for children under 2 leaves many pediatricians and parents relieved, but the question remains: What should distressed parents do when their baby is sick on the eve of yet another flu season?

First and foremost, parents should keep in mind that no matter what, most viral infections will get better in three to five days and go away completely within two weeks, say Johns Hopkins Children’s experts.

Hopkins Children’s doctors offer the following tips for parents:

• Give your child plenty of fluids.
• Avoid giving straight water to children under 6 months because their kidneys are not mature enough to handle too much water.
• To help relieve congestion, use saline nasal drops up to four times a day and a cool-mist humidifier at night.
• Use baby acetaminophen to relieve high fever in infants older than 3 months.
• Use children’s ibuprofen to take down high fever in children over 6 months. Typically, a temperature over 101 is considered a high fever, but tolerance varies from child to child. Follow your gut on this one.
• Don’t over-wrap a feverish infant and don’t cover the face and head. Over-wrapping prevents proper cooling.

Call your pediatrician when:

• Your child is younger than 3 months and has a fever over 100.4 when taken rectally.
• Your child over 3 months has a fever higher than 104 when taken rectally.  
• Your child hasn’t had a wet diaper in six hours, a sign of dehydration. Other signs of dehydration include dry mouth, fussiness and producing few or no tears when crying.
• Your child’s symptoms don’t improve in three to five days.
• Your child is lethargic, particularly with NO fever present.
• Your child is unusually cranky and does not calm down when picked up and held.
• Your child’s breathing is rapid or labored.
• Your child refuses to drink.

If a baby refuses to drink, it may mean that she is having trouble breathing, pediatricians say, because if a child is forced to choose between breathing and drinking, breathing comes first.

Last but not least, doctors recommend a flu shot for children 6 months and older. To protect those younger than 6 months, all family members should get vaccinated against the flu.

Remember, antibiotics don’t treat viral infections, such as the flu or common cold, only bacterial ones, such as strep throat, sinus and ear infections, and bacterial pneumonia. However, a viral infection makes a child more susceptible to bacterial invaders, so see your pediatrician if your child’s symptoms don’t improve after a week.

Infant cold and cough medicines were taken off drugstore shelves in 2007 amid growing concern over adverse effects caused by overdoses in children younger than 2 years. A Baltimore group led by Hopkins Children’s pediatricians spearheaded the original effort to alert consumers and push the Food and Drug Administration to ban the marketing of such medicines for children under 6.