As part of a campaign to tackle drug-resistant superbug health chiefs recommend children suffering common ear infections should be treated at home with pain killers rather than given antibiotics.
Paracetamol or ibuprofen should be the first resort, as most infections start to clear up within 24 hours, according to the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE).
The organisation said routine prescribing of antibiotics was inappropriate for middle ear infections and the drugs should only be used if the condition worsened or failed to improve.
The guidance comes a year after a government report which warned that medicine could return to the Dark Ages if bugs became resistant to antibiotics.
