Tuesday, October 30, 2012

How To Distract a Toddler at a Lab

Saturday morning we had to take the girls to get blood drawn for routine tests.  Annika has never had any blood drawn (besides just her heel at the hospital when she was born) and neither has Annabel.

Josh and I decided to take the child that favors us the most hoping they would be more comfortable. And yes, our children have favorites but we do not!  I love those girls 100% equally and so does Josh.  Annika always prefers me and Annabel lights up when she sees Josh.  The girls do have their moments where they want the opposite parent but at least 70% of the time if Annika is upset she comes to me and Annabel goes to Josh.

I didn't warn Annika what we were doing.  I just told her we were going to an appointment to see a nurse.  I tried to remain calm ( I was a little nervous for her) so that she wouldn't realize it since both girls are really good at picking up on stuff like that.

The nurse called us back and I had Annika sit in my lap.  I told Annika that the lady would like to look at her arms so she put them both out on the little arm rest.  Then I started the distractions!

I asked Annika what color were the lady's gloves.

Then I asked what color was the "bracelet" (the thing the tie around your arm) was.

They gave her a tube to squeeze and I told her to squeeze as hard as she could!!!

Then the nurse quickly put the the needle in and I was so glad we got a good nurse that was fast!

I asked Annika what color the lady's shirt was.  (Annika answered each question I asked).

And she didn't cry!!!! The lady put a cotton ball on her arm and then the tape.  THEN Annika cried as we were walking out.  She hated that tape and would not stop talking about her "boo boo" to the people in the waiting room.  She only cried about 30 seconds.

Annika got more upset when she heard Annabel crying.  She wanted to go back into the room to see if she was okay.

I think remaining calm and distracting Annika with questions really helped her.  After we were done she asked for a cookie and we got one for her at Panera because she really did do a great job!

Annabel wasn't bad either.  She just cried but she didn't try to pull away or anything.  Josh just said that it took longer with her because the first arm they tried they didn't feel anything so they had to switch the other arm.  But she only cried about a minute or two afterwards while we were out in the parking lot and then she fell asleep.

1 comment:

  1. Oh thank goodness it went well! That kind of thing is so much worse for us than for them! Good job girls!

    ReplyDelete