It also helps to understand how your pediatrician's office is run and what you can expect from the people you deal with there. Realize, too, that many doctors must field several calls an hour, even on weekends if they happen to be the one in the practice on duty. To help speed things up, receptionists or answering service personnel are often trained to get preliminary information so they can help the doctor determine whom to call back first. It's up to you, however, to communicate whether the situation is an emergency, something that can wait a few hours, or a nonurgent question that the doctor can discuss with you when he or she is less busy and free to talk. In any case, there are certain pieces of information you must convey-regardless of whom you are speaking to.
Most physicians realize that it's a frightening event for parents when their baby gets sick.
Doctors encourage parents to use their intuition, and the more experience you have with your baby, the easier and more natural that will become, and the calmer you'll be. He no longer wants to know only what things are, but also how to use them. Give him an assortment of items to choose from-blocks, balls, rattles. He'll probably pick one up in each hand, turn them over, bang them together, then drop them to see what kind of noise they make.