Rylan's 4 Year Old Checkup

Rylan had his annual physical today.  We recently changed pediatricians so this was our second time seeing Dr. Huss (our first was Carter's ear infection about a month ago).

Basically, all looks good with Rylan! His blood work was all normal and his BP was 80/48. He's staying pretty much on the same growth curves for weight and height which is good. Here are his stats from today, last year, and Carter's 4-year-old appointment for comparison.

Rylan's 4 year stats:

• Weight: 39.25 lbs (77th percentile) 
• Height: 40 inches (44th percentile) 

Rylan's 3 year stats:

• Weight: 35 lbs (80th percentile) 
• Height: 37 inches (50th percentile) 

Carter's 4 year stats:

• Weight: 35 lbs (50th percentile) 
• Height: 40.5 inches (50th percentile) 

After getting all his measurements done, the nurse did a blood draw. There was one small whimper out of Rylan when she first poked him, but that was it. He was super brave!

Dr. Huss was very much not rushed with Rylan's check-up.  He spent probably 30 minutes with us.  He's very social sharing stories about his 3 boys and talking with the kids.  I'm very happy so far that we switched to him.  I didn't have many concerns - more just sharing things we had previously discussed with other pediatricians.  Like Rylan's cradle cap that is still difficult to control and Rylan's speech.  Dr. Huss wasn't very concerned about any thing he learned in the examination.  He talked to Rylan about eating his vegetables, wearing a helmet, and all those normal things but it was a very laid back appointment.

Until he left and the nurse came back with 4 shots to administer.  We could have split the shots up with Rylan's 5-year-old appointment but Dr. Huss recommended doing them all now because kids tend to do worse emotionally at 5 than at 4.  I 100% agree.  Carter's were split up.  He did fine at 4-years-old but was scared to death for a few weeks before his 5-year-old appointment because he knew he might have to get shots again.  The anticipation just about killed him.

When we laid Rylan down to do the shots he finally realized what was going on and started crying.  The nurse was quick at least but there was a lot of screaming still.  Rylan recovered after a couple of minutes though.  A reward of gummy bears helped :)