Vaccinations - what do you tell your 3 y o about them?

[DrFrankenZooey]

???

Am just starting to realise what I thought was the appalling trauma of vaccinating a baby, could be plain sailing, compared to persuading a large and clever preschooler to sit still while a stranger sticks needles in him.

Erm, I was joking about being panicky about the Smarties, yes

This is the tetanus / polio etc booster which has entirely taken us by surprise, Spider. He had this one as a baby so I think he will have the booster. I thought we were done with vaccinations for now and had not put any thought to how to handle it.

I don't feel comfortable about just taking him in completely unaware, anyway. I will sort something out.

I say

"Well, we have to go to the doctors for a nurse to give you an injection, and she will say good boy, then we have to go to Woolworths to buy a very big bag of sweets for you. Do you think we should do that?"

We warned DD, who was just 4, that she was going for an injection. She knew what it meant and wasn't keen. Explained she'd have one in each arm and yes, it might hurt a little bit but it'd be over quickly - and yes, she'd have some chocolate after too She even took her own plasters - we'd bought some Dora ones in the US in the summer. She was fine for the first one, squealed a bit afte rit and Dh did have to hold her tighter for second - but she never tried to move once and never screamed. Tears stopped the second she got some chocolate too

Injections are the only time I don't monitor what he puts in the pic'n'mix bag, except no hard boiled sweets. I let him have l;oads too.

ha ha spidermama - we have that one as well.

Reading a book to ds2 which mentioned "shots" "what are shots mummy?" "err something you don't have darling" "I want one I want one".

If they ever do any sort of mass vacination day at school he'll be very annoyed not to get any!

I used to tell my children, literally, moments before entering the nurse's room. I was always very honest, told them to expect a scratch, and that it would be over really quickly. This way they had little time to get into a state about it. Obviously rewarded them afterwards . Worked everytime.

I didn't say much about pre school jabs, never said anything about it may hurt - it'll only make them expect it to hurt.

Let the nurse do the talking , they do it everyday. have treat afterwards,

No fuss , in to see hurse , needles in, stickers on , out of doctors , into sweet shop .

Message withdrawn

the truth

you're having a vaccination

it will make you stronger and protect you from diseases .. it will hurt for a very short time .. poke him quickly (but not hard) to demonstrate and if you're really good we'll go do / buy xxxx

or give him a lollipop to have just as the nurse is about to administer it

bribery always works

Twig you are talking sense there

Yeah sorry about typo error

my god if ds got given a lollipop I doubt he would notice if someone chopped his leg off tbh

I would just tell him that the doctor was going to give him some very special medicine to make him extra strong and healthy. I would probably tell him that because the medicine was full of such Very Powerful Magic, he only needed a tiny little bit of it, so the doctor was going to use a tiny thin little needle to put it straight into his bloodstream. I would tell him to squeeze my finger really hard while the doctor put the medicine in, and then just distract him quickly when I saw the needle about to go in.

But this is tailored to ds1, who is a little pedantic fact-finding machine who would grill me senseless about exactly what was going to happen and why, and wouldn't be remotely interested in a lolly.

Well yes, I mean my chances of saying "we are just going to see the nurse" and not getting the Spanish inquisition are totally nil. However a lollipop is a lollipop, you know?

OK, but OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO the hell are you?!?!?

don't you recognise me?

Well, I thought I did, but somebody answering your description made a comment on another thread which I thought was most uncharacteristic...and I for one am not going to go back and start counting 'O's!!!!!

Look straight ahead and don't snivel.

I think it was me Greeny

I don't think we see eye to eye on that particular thread, because you are nicer than me