As a budding pediatrician, I spend every Monday in my clinic and many weeknights on the phone talking to parents. Usually, they ask me medical questions: "How much tylenol can I give my one year old for a fever of 102?", "What should I do if my five year old has been vomiting all day and can't drink anything?", "What should I do about my son's constipation?". These are the easy questions because I can use tried and true evidence based medicine, facts, and formulas to come up with a plan.
But then come the questions that have a million answers: "How do I wean my baby from her pacifier?", "How do I deal with temper tantrums?", "Why won't my baby sleep through the night?", and so on. These questions have so many different possible answers for different kids that it's completely reasonable that if I give a family only one answer, it's going to fail. This is why I usually offer at least two tactics to any given question. Still, this may not be enough. And many parents, myself included, might find themselves searching the internet for another answer.
And this is why I am advocating today for parents looking for easy advice at their fingertips to make sure the sources they are reading are GOOD QUALITY and written by people with real credentials. Some sites look professional, but actually have some bogus advice hidden within some good articles. My favorite sites for parent advice are put out there by true medical professionals. Without further ado, here they are:
Healthy Children by the American Academy of Pediatrics
Family Doctor by the American Academy of Family Physicians
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