"5-11yo COVID vaccinations"

My young son and daughter had their first COVID vaccines recently. Both my daughter and I were dreading the experience. She used to be fine with medical and health professionals, and needles, but is scared ever since a negative experience with a specialist (elsewhere) around 6 months ago.

Months in advance, I spent time with the kids explaining why we need the vaccines, and how important it is to be vaccinated. They understood and knew they needed them, but were nervous nonetheless. I took them when I got my booster, so they knew where we were going and what would happen. The nurse was great and involved them.

On the day, I prepared by letting them dress up in the enchanted forest theme, and pick toys to cuddle. When we were there, after registering, we were lucky enough to get the same nurse and room as last time. I found she was fabulous, she showed me how to hold the kids firmly, spoke to them calmly, waited until they were comfortably clutching their toys, gave them a choice of pretty bandaids, and gave them a sticker each. My daughter didn’t even make a noise! After all my stress about her!

Then when we went into the waiting room, a staff member gave the kids a little toy each (fidget spinner and fish stress ball), got them to write their names on leaf stickers and stick on a tree. Then another staff member used a bubble gun to blow bubbles for the kids while we waited our 15 minutes or so. The kids honestly had such a good time! I am so grateful to the whole team who I dealt with. They were amazing.