The First Year of Life

During the first year of life, your child should be seen for check-ups 8 times before turning 12 months.

So much growth and development takes place during this time, we feel it is important to monitor your baby’s health frequently.  During these visits, our clinical staff will take careful measurements of your baby’s growth, including height, weight and head circumference.  Your physician will ask you questions about developmental milestones (speech/social development, motor development, etc.) and make sure your baby is given the appropriate immunizations. Sleeping and eating patterns will be discussed.  We recommend you watch a video that Dr. Sheryl Jawetz made which discusses sleep training… 

At the six-month visit we advise you to start giving vitamins and solid foods.  Many patients have questions about when to start feeding their baby solid foods. 
 Click Here to see the handout we give patients.

At the nine-month visit we will test your baby’s blood for anemia and lead with a small fingerstick.  We prefer to do the test in-house so that we can get faster results, but if your insurance does not cover in-house blood tests you have the option of going to an outside lab. We also discuss the transitioning from baby food to table food.

Another website describing the common “1st year milestones” can be found by clicking here.

Common Questions:

What is the schedule for well visits and vaccinations?

Our website has a page that lists the entire schedule of well visits and vaccinations. 
You can quickly go to this page by Clicking Here
You can also print out a chart that includes the diseases the immunizations protect against by Clicking Here