Choosing a pediatrician
Choosing your baby’s doctor is one of the most important decisions you make as a parent. This is the person who you will entrust with your baby’s health, and if you’re a new parent — there will be lots of times you will need that trust because you will have absolutely NO IDEA what is going on, and what to do.
Most hospitals require that you name your pediatrician before your baby is born, so the search for The Perfect Doctor will likely begin while you’re expecting.
There are a ton of great resources out there that provide tips on the best way to evaluate and choose a pediatrician — like Babble and BabyCenter. To add some real-life context to your decision-making process, I thought I would share what’s important to my family when it comes to choosing a baby doctor:
- Someone who is a firm believer in diet/exercise as a remedy for most ailments in children (rather than Rx meds). This is a big one for us!
- Warning: controversy ahead. We support the AAP vaccination schedule, and looked for a doctor who does too. That said, we appreciate that our doctor also works with families to create alternative vaccine schedules, in case that is something we ever decide to try
- Someone who provides clear instructions on what to do if something is wrong (like the process for cleaning the area and applying special diaper cream when C had really bad diaper rash due to teething)
- Someone who is approachable as a peer, who you feel like you can talk to. Someone who remembers you and your child
- Someone who your baby likes!
- A practice that has after-hours appointments that can sometimes be with your pediatrician if you catch him/her on the nights/weekends he/she is working
- A practice with offices that are clean and well taken care of — with both sick and well child waiting rooms
- We like that the nurses give all the shots at our practice (as opposed to the pediatrician) so that C doesn’t designate her doctor as “shot giver”
- A practice convenient to home, work and/or school. You WILL go there a lot, and it will help if it’s close by
- A practice that accepts your insurance
What do you love about your pediatrician? Do tell in the comments!
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5 Responses to “Choosing a pediatrician”
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The ability to email the doc with basic questions! Our new doc here has that and it’s great! We also chose family practitioner because we can have our appts together.
Once again, you’ve provided some great guidance for this momma-to-be! I will definitely keep these tips in mind when I attend a pediatric open house early next month.
We absolutely ADORED our ped in Colorado and were so very sad to leave him. I loved that he didn’t pressure me to add formula when our son was on the tiny side of the growth percentiles, and recognized that every family does what feels right for them.
Good tips! Unfortunately, living in a small town we don’t have many options. Two actually. But I do like our current pediatrician so at least that’s a plus!
I came to my current pedi when my son was 4 months old from a really large practice in the city (take a guess which one and you will probably be right); what I liked about him and his practice was that at each well check, we were given a whole packet of information, half an inch thick. His previous practice gave us a slick little newsletter that really contained nothing other than what you would find in a chapter summary of most baby care books, which had been a source of frustration for us. His previous pedi always dodged questions with “All babies are different”; his new/current pedi would actually give us some real answers.
Our current practice, rather than putting you on hold for 15 minutes if you call with a question – what my husband called “voice mail jail” at our other previous practice – will have you leave a voicemail and have the nurse return your call. My calls have always been returned well within the projected time.