Preparing for 18-month-old health assessment & vaccination shots at the polyclinic

Little P was due for his 18-month health assessment and developmental screening. He also needed to get his polio and influenza vaccination shots at the polyclinic. We delayed the shots due to the deteriorating Covid-19 situation in the earlier months of this year. He has become a lot more aware of what was happening around him and to him, so I wanted to ensure that I prepare him for what was coming up.

The beginnings of a doctor’s visit and injection-themed tray.

Here are some tools I used.

NOTE: I wrote this post last year August but somehow I just got overwhelmed by life and discover I had not published it. But in any case I find the information still relevant for Singapore parents looking to prepare for their child’s 18 month health assessment at the polyclinic, so here it is! :P

Apolline’s Little World Series – Little Doctor (阿波林的小世界 – 小医生)

A book is always a good starting point for a conversation for us because Little P loves books.

I hunted around in my bookshelf and found my one and only book that talks about giving an injection. In this little book from Apolline’s Little World series , Apolline gives her toy bee an injection for his fever.

Left: “Doctor” Apolline assures her toy bee that she will help him get well again.
Right: Apolline gives her toy bee an injection for it’s fever during her pretend play.
More about Apolline’s Little World

Little P was very responsive to this little story. He stuck out his tongue when Apolline asks Doodoo the Bee to stick out its tongue. He helped to give Doodoo an injection, and also wasn’t resistant when I play-poke him with my pretend injection syringe.

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Buy this series of books “阿波林的小世界” from Amazon.

A plastic toothpick in a syringe used for syringe feeding was pretty useful as a pretend-play needle. :P

DIY Booklet of Photos as Real World Reference

But still I worried that this wasn’t realistic enough to prepare him. So I further compiled a booklet of photos that show him exactly what is going to happen. This booklet consisted of photos of babies doing the following:

lying on a weighing scale
having the circumference of the head measured
having their height measured lying down or standing up
getting injections on the arm and the thigh
medical staff wearing masks.

Here’s a sample look at the DIY book. He is obsessed with cars so the cover shows the model of our car with the title, “Today we go to the polyclinic.” Top right is a photo of a masked doctor checking a young girl’s breathing with a stethoscope. Bottom right shows Little P wearing a mask that is too big for him.
Not showing too much because of copyright reasons. This booklet was made in the middle of the night so that I can quickly brief him during the car journey to the polyclinic the next morning after all. :P

No time to make a DIY book? Here’s a book with real photos. It’s not as specific to the occasion as my DIY book, but it does talk about what doctors do and also about injections.

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Buy this book on Amazon.

And what was the result of all these very last minute preparation just the day before?

Not unexpected, Little P cried through every single checkpoint at the polyclinic.

He didn’t want to lie down to be weighed.
He didn’t want to lie down to have his height measured.
He didn’t want to stand and have his height measured.
He didn’t want his head circumference measured.
He pointed at the photos in the DIY book and shook his head.

While the nurse prepared the injection needle, we read our books. I was able to take him through the DIY book and also Apolline’s pretend play with the needle so he understood what was coming up.

He was so calm sitting there and looking at the needle, until it pricked his thigh. It went all the way in. And then he burst out in tears again. He didn’t struggle at all for the second jab. The poor boy just continued crying.

Oh my poor baby! The vaccination jabs were not the end of the session. Little P still had the 18-month developmental assessment to do. By then I have to say whatever little self-control or patience a 19-month-old can have was already well used up. A very hands-on doctor shining a light in his eyes, assessing his spinal development, touching him here and there was just something we all had to endure together.

My Vaccination/Doctor’s Visit Preparation Basket

The vaccination conversation is something we will continue to have because Little P has his Hepatitis A jab coming next month.

Rather than leaving my “Vaccination/Doctor’s Visit Preparation Kit” on our Montessori shelf as a self-service tray, I prefer to have the items to go through with Little P as a morning or evening basket of sorts.

The concept of the morning basket is derived from the ideals of the Charlotte Mason homeschooling method, but it is easily adaptable to many different styles of education. It might also be called circle time or morning meeting. The basic idea is to bring everyone together and do some learning as a family or group. It’s an easy way to include topics that you might otherwise forget or skip in your learning, review what you’ve been learning so far, connect and chat with each other, memorize things, read books, and touch on subjects that are of importance to your family. All the resources needed to work through this time are kept in a basket or something similar and portable so that it is easy to transport as needed and is easy to access. The goal is to have a relaxed, fun, simple time together covering different things for short periods of time.
Morning Basket – What is it and how to use it in your homeschool

I think this ensures that I use the basket with Little P intentionally. And I also think it helps to keep Little from getting bored of them too quickly. That is likely to happen if they were readily available on the shelf. I plan to to use this particular morning basket a few days before and after scheduled vaccinations and checkups. In this way, Little P and I can prepare for and review these visits as learning experiences.

Items quickly corralled into a basket as I worked through my thoughts about putting this Morning Basket of Vaccination/Doctor’s Visit Preparation Items together.

Learning body parts with books and an anatomically-correct doll

From our experience at the polyclinic this morning, I realised I could include some of our existing books on Body Parts in the basket. The physical examination at the doctor’s included an eye exam as well as examining other parts like his spine and posture, genitals, ears and teeth, etc. I neglected to brief Little P on these. When he is older and understands more, I can also possibly weave in topics such as being touched by strangers.

I think our anatomically correct Miniland doll is also useful for such conversations. We can name the body parts and talk about being touched by strangers.

Miniland dolls have genitals, which is why they are described as anatomically correct. They also come in different races. Unfortunately, at the time of my purchase the caucasian doll was significantly cheaper, so we went with the caucasian doll. Check them out on Amazon.

Learn to recognise emotions with language cards

I also included some existing emotion recognition cards – “sad”, “mad”, “happy” and “worried” – which I hope will help Little P gradually differentiate and understand the big feelings he experiences during these checkups.

Four out of a set of 50 Emotions and Feelings printable cards that I bought from Teachers Pay Teachers here. I probably should add “frightened” in there as well but at the time of taking this photo I didn’t. The good thing about these printables is that you can print just the photos or the photos with the adjectives. You can also print duplicates for matching. The bad thing is, it is time consuming to print, laminate and cut everything to size.

At this point, 19-month-old Little P can match the same two pictures together. For example, “Happy” with “Happy”, “Sad” with “Sad”. But he does not respond if you ask him what he was feeling when he was getting an injection. He was definitely more interested in slotting the cards into the little card holder that I use to hold the cards.