Digital themometers

We have one and think it is great. But at our daycare, they have the underarm ones. When everyone was sick there a while ago, the carers were spending valuable time holding kids' arms down to get readings.. I thought this was a bit old-fashioned!!

Does your daycare have a digital thermometer? I know the plastic caps have to be changed for every child - is this a problem? Too costly maybe? Too germy? I would like to do some fundraising for them to have a dig thermom (The Braun one is $80 odd and the caps are $13 or so from the chemist, maybe cheaper in bulk?)...

Love to know what you think...

I had a bad experience with the digital thermomoters. My digital one gave me false readings whne my 6 week old baby had a urinary tract infection. When the doctors took his temperature it was much higher then my home readings and he had to be rushed to hospital. Thankfully he made a full recovery.

Scared me enough to now take the time to use the underarm method, which my doctor said gave more accurate readings.

I would love to have a digital ear thermometer as I have spent ages today trying to keep DS arm still for long enough to get a reading with our under the arm one.

the day care where i used to work at used under arm ones until we had a director that went out and brought a digital one and her comment was 'stuff what the owners think, it's needed' as prior to this we couldn't get one becase it's 'too expensive'.

I think the should be mandertory(sp?) in all centres. BUT the new centre that I have my DS and DD enrolled in is an ABC one and you are supposed to take your own sunscreen and tissues (they don't enforce it)so I can't imagine them splashing out on a digital thermometers in all their centres that are around the country.

I have 2! One a braun brand the other an omron.
The Braun's batteries are forever going flat and I don't think the Omron reads properly.
The nurse in the ED said you can use alcohol swabs on the end so you don't always have to change. But I would prefer centres to change the tip covers.
The ED also use the under arm digital one though.

I think I paid about $30 for mine on ebay and it is pretty accurate. A few times I compared it to the underarm one and they were both fairly similar.

Interesting.... actually I take dd's temp several times as I have had "low" readings with the digital one, i.e. temps like 34.5 and such.

But she wriggled SO much with the underarm one, drove me batty!

I have a digital thermometor and cannot fault it. Its a braun one, and the doctor we go to uses the same one.

Connors daycare also use this thermometor.

If you dont hold it in there ear properly it will give a low temp reading, i have found this when connor wiggles around. but he usually stays still to hear the beep. lol