Melinda, thank you so much. My 7yo is a massive needle-phobe (and has experienced more than her fair share of medical trauma in general) so I have been the parent holding her kid down at 90% of pediatric appointments in her lifetime. It never gets easier -- it seems, in fact, to only be getting worse as she gets older -- and I have been putting off getting her flu shot while waiting for the Covid shot because I know it's going to be a rough on both of us. (She is finally old enough to go to Walgreen's for a flu shot but I seriously doubt the ability of the staff there to handle the level of screaming and fighting that will go down.)
I never thought of buying and applying numbing cream on our own ahead of time -- I'm going to try that. I appreciate this whole post from beginning to end. Just knowing there are other parents out there dealing with this (and doing their best just like me) is helpful.
This is great! I love the post shot video idea. I've also had success with helping my kids get used to covid testing and shots using social stories, which you can find for free on the internet. I just printed one out on getting a shot with my son and found him a toy syringe to play with. We'll see how it goes :-) one thing that I really struggle with is whether to kind of restrain my kids just to get it over with. My instinct is that this is going to make their memory of getting a shot so much more intense and not want them to come back the next time, but I also have kids who fuss and scream and then if you hold them down and just get it done are perfectly fine afterwards. Tricky stuff!
My five year old has never had a problem with shots because we have always talked about them in advance and made strategies of distracting ourselves during "the sting" and usually there's no issue. Monday he had his flu shot and he barely even flinched. This afternoon he had his COVID shot, and he totally lost it. I'm not sure what happened, or why this one was suddenly different. Anyone have any thoughts?
My children are all terrified of needles, the sheer sight of them makes them run to me. Me and my husband have to hold these kids down to even get them prepped, I just want them to be safe from all these sicknesses and diseases. Sometimes we have to strap them down, our kids are quite strong.
Melinda, thank you so much. My 7yo is a massive needle-phobe (and has experienced more than her fair share of medical trauma in general) so I have been the parent holding her kid down at 90% of pediatric appointments in her lifetime. It never gets easier -- it seems, in fact, to only be getting worse as she gets older -- and I have been putting off getting her flu shot while waiting for the Covid shot because I know it's going to be a rough on both of us. (She is finally old enough to go to Walgreen's for a flu shot but I seriously doubt the ability of the staff there to handle the level of screaming and fighting that will go down.)
I never thought of buying and applying numbing cream on our own ahead of time -- I'm going to try that. I appreciate this whole post from beginning to end. Just knowing there are other parents out there dealing with this (and doing their best just like me) is helpful.
This is great! I love the post shot video idea. I've also had success with helping my kids get used to covid testing and shots using social stories, which you can find for free on the internet. I just printed one out on getting a shot with my son and found him a toy syringe to play with. We'll see how it goes :-) one thing that I really struggle with is whether to kind of restrain my kids just to get it over with. My instinct is that this is going to make their memory of getting a shot so much more intense and not want them to come back the next time, but I also have kids who fuss and scream and then if you hold them down and just get it done are perfectly fine afterwards. Tricky stuff!
My five year old has never had a problem with shots because we have always talked about them in advance and made strategies of distracting ourselves during "the sting" and usually there's no issue. Monday he had his flu shot and he barely even flinched. This afternoon he had his COVID shot, and he totally lost it. I'm not sure what happened, or why this one was suddenly different. Anyone have any thoughts?
My children are all terrified of needles, the sheer sight of them makes them run to me. Me and my husband have to hold these kids down to even get them prepped, I just want them to be safe from all these sicknesses and diseases. Sometimes we have to strap them down, our kids are quite strong.