Choosing A Pediatrician

I read in the "What To Expect" book that you are supposed to go ahead of time and choose your pediatrician. Then, you are supposed to interview them before the baby is born and finally, take the baby for their first visit about 3-5 days after you are discharged from the hospital. Well...procrastinator checking in. We didn't do that. I did, however, ask a trusted friend  who had just had a baby recently for a recommendation. We went with her recommendation.

We were discharged from the hospital on a Saturday and told by the in-house pediatrician to make the first available appointment the following week. Ajay had lost more than 10% of his body weight and was slightly jaundiced, so they wanted us to keep an eye on him. Well, when we called our pediatrician, he wasn't available until Wednesday and we needed to get Ajay in, asap. First mistake. We took Ajay in on Tuesday and he saw one of the other doctors in the practice. Well, this doctor prescribed supplementing with formula and I was devastated. We'd been working so hard to get things going and I wanted to make sure that Ajay and I were able to continue breastfeeding. I knew that supplementing would not only hurt my supply but it was unnecessary. But with the doc not on my side, I had no leg to stand on. Arvind thought (but has since been re-educated) that formula was somehow superior. It was awful. We were supposed to bring the baby back in a week to get his weight checked, but we were snowed in and so had to actually wait an extra couple of days - I think it ended up being 10 days in all. We were supplementing with one feed a day. I hated it.

When we got our appointment with the recommended doctor, Dr. Dixon, I was so relieved. He checked Ajay out, thought he looked great. Told us we could stop supplementing and just let Ajay call the shots. Feed every 3 hours during the day and go as long as 5 hours in the night. He seemed to have no lack of confidence in my breastfeeding ability. It was then and there, that I understood why it is important to choose a good pediatrician. The pediatrician should act as the baby's advocate and should have similar beliefs and principles as the parents. I wanted to breastfeed, I did not want to supplement. I should have had a doctor who believed the same. Oh well, what's done is done. You can't turn back time, but you can make good decisions going forward. Thankfully, Ajay is now almost 7 months going strong and while we've had our hiccups, the breastfeeding relationship is also going well.

So I guess my advice would be to make sure that your pediatrician is on the same page with your parenting styles, i.e. breastfeeding, co-sleeping, cry-it-out, vaccinations, etc. so that together you all can make the best decision regarding the health and well-being of your child.