We found our current pediatrician from our insurance website about an hour before we had to put a name on Levi’s NICU discharge form. Perhaps we should’ve taken referrals or spent a bit more time researching who would be our son’s primary caregiver for the next 18 years.

Don’t get me wrong – our pediatrician isn’t bad. He’s very nice and funny. He always gives us plenty of time to ask any questions. He always asks about things like how Levi’s sleeping and how the breastfeeding is going. He takes good notes and keeps up with all our specialists. He’s pretty open to our opinions and gut instincts on certain things. For Levi’s shots, he granted our request to use two nurses so as to get it over with twice as fast. He’s very encouraging to us and says we’re doing a great job, which goes a long way.

BUT…

He’s been saying Levi should’ve been able to sleep in 4-5 hour stretches since the boy was two weeks old, and to let him cry it out (not sure I agree with all that). He presses really hard on Levi’s tummy during exams; so much so that Levi spits up even if it’s been hours since his previous meal. At our last appointment, they had a scheduling glitch and we barely got to see the doctor (after we had managed to get all three of ourselves out of the house, on time and even fully clothed! Quite a feat.). When we called in a couple weeks ago b/c of Levi’s abnormal diapers issue, they dismissed his symptoms as normal, even though we knew otherwise. A five-second search on Google revealed thousands of pages describing a definite problem with a list of two potential causes. When I called in last week to ask about safely breastfeeding with a couple medications I had taken, it took multiple calls, took longer than expected, and I still don’t think the nurse ever understood the situation. This is the same nurse who couldn’t explain to us a reasonably intuitive milestone test that she administered to Levi. I hate to penalize a doctor because of his nursing staff, but realistically they’re at least as important as the doc, if not more.

I’m not totally sure that we’re going to switch. Brad thinks these issues are just par for the course, and I’m being one of those moms. But, if there is a good pedi in or near Presby Plano that somebody would highly recommend, then I’d at least like to look into it. So if you know of one, please let me know!