This difficult situation may seem familiar to some parents, especially in the season of the year when there are many infections: the child has a fever, but paracetamol and ibuprofen fever juices are difficult to obtain this year due to supply bottlenecks.

Many mothers and fathers prefer these juices to other dosage forms because they have two advantages: They can be dosed exactly to the milliliter. And they are particularly suitable for the very little ones who may not yet be able to swallow pills. But what to do when the funds are gone?

One thing in advance: It doesn’t always have to be an antipyretic drug. “If the child is doing well so far, that’s not a must,” says the Berlin pediatrician Jakob Maske, who is the spokesman for the professional association of paediatricians (BVKJ).

In principle, fever is not bad at first, but a normal defense reaction of the body to an infection. If the child’s general condition deteriorates, fever-reducing preparations containing the active ingredients paracetamol and ibuprofen can provide relief.

If the fever juice with the desired active ingredient is not available, you can be lucky – if a product with a different, comparable active ingredient is available. But this strategy often doesn’t work. And now?

“Then it can make sense to switch to another form of administration – suppositories or tablets,” says Jakob Maske. As with fever juice, the same applies here: under no circumstances should more active substance get into the child than is recommended based on its body weight. “An overdose damages the liver – and that’s much worse than the child’s fever,” warns Maske.

But what if the baby needs a suppository with 75 milligrams of paracetamol – and parents perhaps still have suppositories with 125 milligrams from their older siblings in their medicine chest? The suppository should not be cut through, as the active ingredient may not always be evenly distributed in the suppository, says Maske.

However, parents can very well use divisible tablets if half of the tablet corresponds to the dose that the feverish child needs. However, suppositories are very unpopular with the vast majority of children, and there is sometimes great protest when it comes to tablets.

But pediatrician Jakob Maske knows a few tricks: Tablets can also be administered whole on a spoon with some yoghurt or liquid, or crumbled into a yoghurt bowl or drinking glass. However, parents should pay attention to one thing: “The child should drink or eat everything so that it absorbs the entire amount of medication,” says Maske.

However, suppositories and tablets are not the only alternative if the fever syrup is not available. If you are lucky, you will find a pharmacy in the neighborhood that makes fever juices with ibuprofen or paracetamol.

Because that’s what pharmacies are allowed to do in times of supply bottlenecks, as reported by the Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices. However, this is time-consuming and by no means every pharmacy can handle this effort.

However, there is a difference between the fever juices sold in pharmacies and those that the little ones may already be familiar with: “With fever juices, the industry is very keen on taste. Of course, the fever juice from the pharmacy doesn’t taste as good in comparison,” says Maske.

Here, too, parents may have to be prepared for a little more persuasion – as with suppositories or tablets.