The Importance of a Good Pediatrician
March 1, 2007
Xander has another cold. Which means another trip to the doctor’s office. We sort of fell into this practice, as it’s the local one who interacts most frequently with my Ob/Gyn. When we signed up for the practice, we didn’t know which doctor would be Xander’s, as there are 3 pediatricians and a few nurse practitioners. Our pediatrician actually attended the c-section and was the first to examine Xander (Xander was kind enough to pee on the good doctor at that point…) Since then we’ve seen this guy 4 out of the 6 times Xander has visited the office. He is by far my favorite. When we went for Xander’s 4 month check-up, I spoke with the doctor about my concerns around Xander’s distaste for tummy time. Instead of scolding us, and telling us how important tummy time is, he remarked that he was having the same difficulty with his 3 month old son, and said it sounded like we were doing everything we could to encourage the tummy time.
When I brought Xander in to check on his cold this time, our doctor was available and brought us right into the exam room, and immediately asked me about tummy time, laughing with me about our last visit, when Xander performed perfectly for the doctor on his tummy, immediately after I finished telling him how much Xander hates tummy time. He ended the visit by telling me that Xander is definitely the cutest baby he’s met (aside from his son, where he is of course biased). I’m sure that he uses this line on plenty of parents, but it’s still nice to hear 
I often hear parents nervously say they aren’t looking forward to their child’s doctor appointment because they know the doctor will not be happy for some reason or another. Our doctor is very relaxed, and spends time telling us not to worry rather than scolding us for things we haven’t done, or because Xander isn’t performing properly. So, I can’t emphasize enough finding a doctor that you are happy with. Babies and children see their doctors so frequently (which means that you see those doctors pretty frequently too) and looking forward to the visits instead of dreading them is so much easier to take!
I don’t know how many other parents experience this, but Xander hates “tummy time”. Developmentally most places say he should be able to do a little baby push up, and maybe even roll over one way by now. But every time I put Xander onto his tummy, he just cries. He can lift his head, but mostly he just flails his arms, and cries, face down. I have tried everything I can think of - we’ve got different mats with interesting things on them - one even has water with some colorful animals in it. I’ve tried rolling up a receiving blanket and putting that under his chest so that his face isn’t planted into the ground. I’ve tried laying next to him so that he can see me, or putting him on a couch or chair and sitting underneath him so he can see me. I’ve tried flipping him over after diaper changes, but then the changing table that he used to love started to make him cry whenever I put him on it, so I stopped that. So, I’m out of ideas.
