How Do You Handle Your Kids’ Doctor Appointments?
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Here’s something we haven’t discussed in a while: How do you handle your kids’ doctor appointments? Do you delegate them to a caregiver, such as a nanny, and have that person call you once he or she is in the doctor’s office? Do you “take turns” with this duty with your partner? Who schedules the appointments — or looks up symptoms — or calls the nurse with questions before or after appointments?
Recently, I had a frustrating week that seemed filled with kid-related appointments that I couldn’t get out of. Kid #1 needed to be somewhere when Kid #2 needed to be picked up, and my husband was traveling, so I was on deck for Monday. On Tuesday, the husband was still traveling and the ophthalmologist’s office actually required a parent to be there. On Wednesday, Kid #1 got sick… the time in transit or in waiting rooms seemed interminable.
{related: tips for handling frequent doctors’ appointments – for yourself}
These visits are all tinged with very mixed feelings for me — I love to be able to talk with the doctor face to face and ask whatever questions pop up, including those based on my child’s behavior or symptoms at the appointment itself. But that said, I hate being at a totally inefficient doctor’s office where we end up sitting for 45 minutes in a germ-filled waiting room — and if I try to do what I presume is “the working mom thing” and ask to be put on speakerphone once the doctor actually shows up, I inevitably feel like a princessy helicopter mom who doesn’t trust whichever caregiver took the child. However… I tend to be the one who knows the most about whatever underlying condition we’re worried about (history, symptoms, etc.) and can ask the questions that will save us future trips, so it often has to be me, or at least it feels that way to me.
What are your thoughts, ladies? How do you handle these appointments?
Stock photo via Deposit Photos / gpointstudio.
We don’t have very many routine appointments in the UK – 1 doctor visit at 6 weeks, vaccines at intervals and then the health visitors. The health visitor does development checks at regular intervals at home, about 5 or 6 in the first year and then one yearly or so. I did the ones while I was on mat leave and we’ve traded off vaccines since then. We’ve been lucky, we’ve only done an illness appointment twice and this was at the out of hours clinic so we were both able to go.
I don’t think it’s helicopter-y to call in to appointments if a nanny or babysitter is taking the child in, only if it’s their father. That said, I’ve taken off for all my LO’s appointments so far because Mr Lana can’t drive.
We’re those dorky parents that like to both go to our child’s well-checks so we can ask the doctor questions. We’re lucky to both have jobs where popping out for an hour for an appointment is no big deal. That said, our pediatrics practice is great and I don’t think we’ve ever waited more than 10 minutes. Usually it’s 5 minutes max, even if we show up early. I’d be singing a very different tune if I had to wait 45 minutes at each visit. When she’s sick, whoever is staying home with her will take her, and that’s usually determined by whoever has less important work stuff that day.
When Kiddo was young and had frequent doctors’ appointments (both routine and sick), I often had our nanny take the kid to and from the appointment but met them there. Our pediatrician’s office runs pretty efficiently, and it took me about an hour round-trip to make the appointment. It was a nice middle ground between calling in and taking care of the whole thing.
Now DH stays at home/works from home part time, so he’s way more flexible. Also, Kiddo is older (almost 4) and doesn’t have nearly as many appointments. I haven’t taken him to the doctor in years.
Both DH and I go to doctor’s appointments (well-check and sick visits). DH is a SAHD, we have one kid, I work 15 minutes from the doctor’s office, and we see a family practice (so the doctors know all of us as both patients and parents). DH is not good at medical information, at all, so I prefer to be present to ask questions and get a clear diagnosis (I have been known to attend his non-routine doctor’s appointments with him from time to time as well as he has serious white coat syndrome as a patient). We rarely wait more than 10 minutes from our appointment time and they have a lot of early morning and late evening hours that make it work.
My husband handles all of the well visits and dental appointments, with the exception of the first few baby “routine” visits which we alternated to spread the misery of baby vaccinations. He has much more PTO than I do, so that’s how we landed on that division of labor. I generally handle the sick appointments because we trust my clinical judgement and ability to not freak out more.
I usually make the appointments and my husband takes the kids. He is a doctor and has a lot more questions than I do. When the kids were very small I would take them but in the last few years, it’s been all him.
I generally handle all of it, and DH usually comes along for the ride. What’s annoying is that I have to email or text him for his available dates (bc if I just ask casually, at home, where we live together, he can’t give me dates. And this is rich, bc I live and die by a paper planner, so if I’m separated from it, and you asked me for an available date, I’d have to punt, too.) I’ve missed one or two well visits or sick visits, and it was totally fine, but I didn’t feel totally fine about it. I would not feel comfortable having MIL or FIL (part-time caregiver) handle an appointment unless it was an actual emergency.
My husband and I both go to well visits, and handle sick visits on a “whose schedule best permits” basis. We rarely wait more than 10 min for our current pediatrician, but would regularly wait 45 min for the pediatrician in the state where we previously lived. (Note: the wait for our previous doc was frustrating, but he was so wonderful, the kind of doctor who took time to get to know every patient and their families, hence why he constantly ran behind…for anyone else, I’d be annoyed as all get out and would switch practices if I routinely waited that long to see a doc!)
I am amazed by the short wait times you all describe. Our pediatrician and my OB/GYN are the only doctors we see who do not keep us waiting for a minimum of an hour every single visit. With my GP and any specialist, it’s a minimum of an hour in the waiting room after the scheduled appointment time and then often another 20 to 30 minutes waiting in the exam room. There aren’t that many specialty practices or female GPs around to choose from even though we are in a decently sized city, so the doctors have all the market power and can be as slow as they please.
When we had a nanny, I loved having the nanny take kiddo and calling in or my husband calling in as needed. So efficient! We had a great nanny who I trusted for medical stuff, but for something like a well check, I wanted to be part of the conversation.
Now, I work more flexibly and take the kids for their appointments (and for lunch/a snack after). My kids don’t remember anything else—we saw a van for a child transportation service in the pediatrician’s parking lot and my kid was perplexed that a parent wouldn’t be available/able to take a vacation day to take a kid the doctor.
This all assumes a healthy child who occasionally gets sick. And if that’s your case, you’re very lucky. My oldest daughter had a serious condition that required multiple specialist visits as we dug into causes and treatment options. There was no way I could have sent a nanny to these appointments, nor would I have ever wanted to (also my husband also went to all these appointments). My career flexibility ground to a halt during this time–I had to stay in my job (that I had outgrown) because I had enough seniority to get the flexibility needed for these appointments. Thankfully my child is doing much better and the appointments have vastly decreased. And really, it’s an incredible privilege to have been in a position that afforded me this flexibility or to even have a nanny to go to medical appointments.
I have to plug the Heal service. It’s an app that sends primary care docs to your home in a 2-hour window and we have used it several times for our DD when we suspected ear infection or similar run of the mill illness but not warranting a visit to the pedi. With our PPO insurance, it works out to $89/visit and counts toward our deductible. Paying out of pocket when we had an HMO was $99. That is well worth the ~$55 difference to me to not have to drive back and forth to the pedi and to avoid the sick waiting room. The only complaint I have is that now we are further from the city center, they often don’t have availability until two days out, which sort of defeats the purpose for a lot of things we were using it for. I have also used it for myself. If you’re in a city where it’s offered, I highly recommend it.
For regular ped visits, I almost always end up taking whichever kiddo has the appt (when baby is older we’ll probably try to combine them), because DH can’t leave work during the day whereas I have a lot of flexibility. If he happens to be off that day or out early, though, he definitely takes them. We don’t usually both go except on rare occasions like a specialist visit, and neither of us has called in to an appointment.
My husband is a SAHD, so he can take the kids each time without me, but my job is flexible enough that I usually tag along for visits that are planned ahead of time (check ups and the few times there’s been a follow up to something possibly (luckily never actually) troubling). I sometimes find myself thinking that a dad with a SAHM wife would almost never do that, but I don’t know, it’s nice to be able to go and see in person that things are OK and hold the kid when s/he has to get shots and whatnot. He handles the unplanned but routine ear infections/sore throats/etc. type things.
Has anyone tried telemedicine for children’s illnesses? My insurance provider just came and gave a presentation on it and made it sound like it would eliminate most of the need to bring a sick kid to the pediatrician’s office.