Well-Child Visits-What You Need to Know

At each visit, your healthcare professional will usually ask several questions about how your baby is doing. They'll vary with each visit, based on your child's age, expected developmental behaviors and past history. As a parent, you are the most significant source of information about your child's everyday activities. The information you provide is crucial to the overall assessment of your child's health. There will not be time at each visit to cover all of the topics, so if you have any specific concerns, make sure you bring them up. You can expect to be asked:

• Overall, how are things going with the baby? Are you feeling overwhelmed?

• Feeding patterns: How much, how often and what is your baby eating?

• Sleep patterns: Is your baby sleeping through night? Taking naps? What are his bedtime rituals?

• Baby's personality: Is she fussy? What calms her?

• Wet diapers and stools: How many per day? What is your baby's stool pattern?

• Family adjustment: How are the other children doing? Do you have a chance to get out of the house - with and without the baby? How has having a new baby changed things?

• Mom adjustment: Are you feeling tired or blue? Are you planning to go back to work? Are you getting enough rest?

• Social support: Do you have a family member or friend you can go to for help or advice?

• Childcare arrangements: If you're going back to work, what are the arrangements? Are you satisfied with these arrangements?

• Developmental milestones: What is your baby doing? Can she hold her own bottle? Is she starting to babble? Is she crawling?

• Do you have questions or concerns about any of these issues?

After your discussion, your healthcare professional will complete a thorough physical, similar to the first visit, also checking for progress of developmental milestones.

At each visit, immunizations will be administered. You will want to bring your baby's immunization record with you at each visit so that you have a current record.

As the visit wraps up, again feel free to ask how your baby is doing. Your healthcare professional will provide you with information about what changes to expect in your baby over the next few months, ways to prevent injury and illness, nutrition and other issues.

Next page: Growth Charts

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