My son is 21 months old now and his cortef doses are high. He is on 2.5mg in the am 5mg in the afternoon and 5mg in the evening. This is actually a lower dose... he used to be on 5mg 3x per day! This is a pretty big dose for a child his size, but we have not been able to lower it yet... As far as cortef goes, the dosage is determined based on surface area, which is based on height and weight (have you seen your doctor use a chart with three columns of numbers and a ruler?? column on the left is height, column on the right is weight, column in the center is surface area, determined by placing a ruler on the height and weight scales at the childs correct measurements - the ruler crosses the center column at the point that corresponds to the childs surface area.)

Cortef is normally prescribed as 15-20mg/m squared. Eg: My son is approx. 11kg (24lbs) and 76cm (30in) tall. (and yes - he’s small for his age...)  So according to the graph his surface area is .48m squared. Do some math... and he should be getting 7.2-9.6mg per day.

A less accurate, but easier method to determine dosing is 0.56mg/kg/day. With this method my son should get 6.16mg/day.

Hope this helps!