Children's medications can be dosed by age or by weight, but these two methods  are not equally accurate.

Age-based dosing is simple and commonly used on medicine labels because it is easy for parents to follow.

However, children of the same age can vary greatly in size, which means age-based dosing may give too much medicine to smaller children or too little to larger ones.

Weight-based dosing is more accurate and safer because it matches the amount of medicine to a child's body size.

For this reason, doctors and pharmacists prefer weight-based dosing, especially for prescription medicines and fever or pain relief.

Whenever possible, parents should use weight-based dosing, measure medicines carefully, and ask a healthcare professional if they are not sure about the correct dose.

Know the weight of your child and understand the best way to dose your child's medications.