Pediatrician or family practice?

knightbaby

Hello,

First timer here. I love my family practice doctor that my husband and I go to. The location is great too. They take infants/children so Im thinking about using him for our little one on the way.

Do you think it's a bad idea not to use a pediatrician?? I suppose they will be more experienced with abnormal problems that arrise.

Thank you for your advice!

CNAMamaof2

We started with the family practice dr that DH and I see for DD. Due to a change in insurance we switched DD to a ped. I while he was a great doc, we could never get into him when DD was sick, they would always send us to urgent care. After this happened 3 times I'd had enough and switched back to our family practice doc regardless of the insurance and her being out of network. I find her to be extremely knowledgable and the fact that she has 3 young children of her own she not only has medical knowledge, she also has practical parenting advice.

pete0121

Personally, I love my pediatrician.  She is so knowledgeable and comfortable with my son.  There have been times where I have taken him to an urgent care on a weekend and she has not been pleased with the medication they gave him.  For example, he had an allergic reaction to something once and had hives.  They prescribed a certain steroid that the pedi said she'd never give to a child unless it was last resort.  

That being said, I don't know your family practice....so it would just be whatever you are comfortable with.  I like knowing that his doctor and all of the doctors at his practice went through the extra years of residency to specialize in children.

MrandMrsAndrews

We started with using DH and I's family practice.  We love our doctor and still do!  But, we switched to a pediatrician because if we couldn't be seen by our doctor (she isn't on call, not in, etc - in fact, she is on maternity leave right now) we would see someone else in the practice.  Not that they aren't all great doctors, but they just didn't have the experience with kids that my son needs.  He is very active, small for his age (and I don't need people telling me I don't feed him enough) and has reflux - which is not a fun thing to deal with in a toddler.  So, I wanted a practice that has more experience with kids on an every time basis. In addition, the peds office we chose has walk-in hours every day from 8am-9am in case you need to be seen.  Our new doctor is fantastic, the office is definitely geared toward kids (toys in the waiting area and rooms) and the nurses are great with kids as well.

nic326

We started out with a family practitioner and while he was a great doctor it was difficult getting seen when we had an urgent issue. Also, the on-call doctors seemed put on the spot when I would call in the middle of the night when we had a problem. I dont think they were used to getting calls for infants/small children. The office wasnt really child freindly either, unlike a pediatrician's office (in my opinion). We also had to wait longer to get seen too (in the waiting room). I went ahead and switched and do not regret it at all. The offices, medical assistants and doctors are all geared specifically towards children.

You could always try it out and switch anytime. Good luck!

MrsWarner

I did a peds for the first year and now DS sees a family practice.  For me, I thought that it was important to have a doctor during that first year who specialized in peds.