Keeping Your Sanity While Taking Small Children To A Doctor's Appointment
Long waits are hard on small children. The necessity of dragging your kids along to your doctor's appointment requires some creative planning. While pediatricians generally provide books, fish tanks, movies, and little toys for entertainment, your own doctor's or specialist's offices may be a vast wasteland of chairs, plants, and uninteresting magazines in your child's eyes. If the wait is long - and a wait of more than five minutes seems long to some kids - make sure to take some boredom-busting measures to avoid a complete meltdown.
The Lobby
An empty or nearly empty lobby is a boon. Let's face it: kids are curious and they want to move. If it will not interfere with other waiting patients, allow your child to explore a little. Climbing underneath chairs to create a secret hide-out, gently touching plants, or frequently visiting the drinking fountain will go a long way to keeping the screaming at bay. Do not allow youngsters to scream and yell during their play, as this will undoubtedly disturb other patients and office staff.
If the lobby is crowded, it's best to keep little ones as close to you as possible. Prepare a bag full of entertaining items beforehand for this eventuality. Include board books, small toys, paper and crayons, and even a few non-messy snacks. Try to find items that are somewhat new to your child, as the novelty factor will keep them happily playing with each item much longer than with toys, books, and activities that are overly familiar. If you have a phone with games on it, this is a good time to pull it out.
The Doctor's Waiting Room
After the long wait in the lobby, sitting around in the waiting room seems like an eternity. Now you are crammed into a small space with expensive medical equipment, and nothing is more interesting to toddlers than shiny apparatus that would cost you as much as your mortgage to replace.
If little ones have been forced to be mostly still and quiet in the lobby, now is the time to let them move about in a controlled fashion. Play games in which, depending on the age of your child, they can jump, hop around, wave their arms, and climb on the pull-out step of the examining table. Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes; Simon Says; The Chicken Dance; and other singing games come in handy here. Asking older children to identify equipment and answering their questions about the uses of each tool might engage them long enough to forget to whine. Know how to make a paper towel cup. Teach your child to fold his own cup and get drinks from the sink. Pull out a mini 4-In-A-Row game.
All your preparations may not appease a tired, cranky, and hungry child, and if all else fails keep in mind that this, too, shall pass.
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