Practical advice for getting child vaccinated

[AnnaMM]

My 3.5 year old with ASD is completely non-verbal with the language understanding level of about 12 months.
He is due to have his pre-school jabs this summer. We don't have an issue with the jabs, in fact I want him to have the one with whooping cough soon as a friend's child had it recently and it was horrendous.
But we would like some advice on how to get the jabs ino him! He will fight and resist if we even try to take a temperature, comb his hair, touch his face, hold him too tight unless he wants it. I can only cut his hair and nails when he's asleep!
Any practical help for holding him firmly enough without hurting him?
The clinic are understanding and supportive and recommend a "quick in-and-out" approach with only one jab done in the session if he kicks off. But they can't restrain him, that's down to us LOL.

If he is only having the one (and no more in the near future) you may get away with the quick in and out procedure, simply as he won't be expecting it. But if he needs more than one that won't work.

However, I would recommend if your doctor is co-operative that he doesn't have the jab in a room he would normally see the doctor in. DS2 after having his jabs (probably his 3 year ones) started having MAJOR hysterical fits if he went near the room he had his jabs in - he had to go to the doc a lot for asthma and hayfever issues, and the doc we saw was next door to the jab room. Fine once he got through the door into the normal doc, but hate to think what it would have been like if it was the same room.
Had to take him to the docs this morning, and his first question when in the waiting room was "I don't want to go in the pin roo, am I?".

I don't know if they offer it for jabs, but when DS1 had a bloodtest they gave me a cream to put on a short while beforehand that numbed the area down. Might help?

My surgery had me holding DS1 firmly and two nurses did both injections, one in each arm, at the same time! It worked, amazingly!

My DS (3.7, probable ASD) had his pre-school booster this week. We couldn't prepare him for it as he wouldn't have understood, but he does understand the doctors surgery is a place where he gets proded and poked, so he doesn't like setting foot in there anyhow. I booked the first appointment of the day so there would be no waiting (still ended up waiting 25mins) and got DH to come so he could hold him. The surgery staff offered to help hold him if necessary. In the end, it was only 1 jab and DH was able to hold him by himself by wedging DS's legs between his (DH's) knees and hugging him to him very tightly while they but the jab in. It wasn't too bad and DS seemed to gecover quite quickly (from the shock) afterwards.

PS, my DS is like yours - never had his hair cut /combed and refuses to have his temperature taken etc etc

He is due to have two but we've said he will have them on separate occasions, one this year and one later in the year. He doesn't ever go to the doctor's, he's been once since he was a baby and that was a nightmare, he was terrified when they tried to take his temperature. Luckily that was a different surgery. The jabs will be in the clinic which is tucked away behind our surgery. He came there with me for my check-up last week and just played in the waiting room so we won't have a problem there which is good.

He won't understand "going to doctor's / having an injection" etc, he has about 100 words he actually understands so we can't prepare him, or worry him in advance!

zzzz, good point on paperwork. We will be phoning them when we leave home so they can have it all ready. If they keep us waiting more than 10 minutes we will leave and make another appointment! He doesn't understand the treat/bribe theory yet, but he does calm down eventually if we hold him close and recite his number mantras. It will be the subsequent days that cause problems. Last time he had a melt down it was a week before we could put his shoes on without terror. That's why we're waiting until the holidays as we don't want it to affect his progress at preschool.

Zen, holding between the knees sounds good, safer than a lap as he can't fall off. Hubby is worried that he will hurt him if he holds him tightly enough to be secure!
Luckily the long hair suits him. In fact one little boy at our Toddler Group has requested the same style! He points at him and says "hair"!

Thanks for the advice so far!

definately a good idea to do them on separate occasions - I don't think we would have been able to get 2 into DS in the same sitting!! Yup, long hair is cool - my 3 DS's all have long hair (DS1, 9, still cries when I suggest a trip to the hairdressers!)

Hubby does too! He's not been to a barber's since he was a boy either.

Pre-prep

1. Both parents sounds like a good plan.
2. Practice: Child more or less on lap, tight cuddle which holds the arms firmly, with legs locked between adult legs, extra parent to grab escaping limbs.
3. Make sure the receptionists have you down as the first appt, if it's a walk in service the manager can pre-authorise you to queue-jump.
4. Have one of you go into the dr/nurse room when the name is called, dc in only after they've finished drawing up the jab and writing in the red book etc.

The actual jab day

1. Clothes: sleeveless t shirt or vest
2. Nurse or doctor: BOTH. GPs are often more willing and able to inject from silly angles or restrain a struggling child. But nurses are often slicker and faster.
3. 2 staff doing 2 arms with 2 jabs sounds better than come back for the other one next month, you'll have lost the surprise element
4. Stick a lolly in his mouth as the needle approaches
5. After the jab, immediately take him straight out of the "pin room". You can mess around with cotton balls and plasters in the waiting area, he'll be much happier there. We usually bring our own!

Dd (3.6 years) had her jabs a couple of months ago. She does not have the language skills yet to understand verbal prep either. HV and nurse each do a jab at same time. I'd always thought dd had a high pain threshold, and HV was really surprised that dd barely flinched. HV asked for any details of specific stressors prior to appt in order to try and make it as "successful" as poss. Good luck

I arrange to take ds for two jabs at the same time - surgery were really cooperative and made me an appointment with two nurses so that they could do it at the same time.
They also arranged a time the surgery was quiet.

It was a case of hold on tight and go for it - nurses were fab and just got on with it.

I think I had him on my lap with my arms clamped around him (he is very small though).

We've done it!

Thank you all for your advice, especially Mariamariam. The idea of two at once hadn't occurred to me at all.

I had two phone calls with the actual nurses and they were happy to do the double. I phoned up on the day so they knew we were definitely coming in and were waiting for us.

He was quite happy playing in the room while we talked about the jab as they had a big mirror and a number board.

Hubby held him as you advised and although there were screams and a struggle it was all over before he really knew it. He seems to have a very high pain threshold (walked through a nettle patch last week!) so the jabs themselves haven't bothered him. The fact that the nurses have about 50 years jabbing experience between them probably helped too!

Psychologically we won't know until he goes back there or see a woman in a blue uniform!

Thanks for all your support.