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I think if you don't trust your doctor you should start shopping around for one you do trust. In general I figure I'm going to listen to the person that went to medical school But also if I felt like a doctor was hasty I would not hesitate to fire them and find someone I liked better.

Sometimes, but rarely about medicine. She's very, very good about not prescribing too quickly. Usually if I ignore something, it parenting related, not health related.

I totally pick and choose with the doctor's advice, but that's mostly developmental stuff (I think her advice is pretty random).

at the end of the day, they know medicine but you know how sick your kid is. maybe you should go in person to have a further discussion and mention your concern about over-medicating?

I trust our practice for medical advice, so I haven't ignored any advice on that front. I have absolutely ignored advice on sleep, breastfeeding, solids...a few other things. I don't consider pedis experts on parenting or breastfeeding (though I should think they should be on breastfeeding, or at least informed!) I like to ask my questions to get their perspective but I see it as parenting advice rather than a course of medical treatment. I could imagine there might be a time in the future where I might defer to my own judgement on a minor medical issue. It's true that you know your kid best. It's tough to do that when they are so little though, and can't tell you how they feel.

I wouldn't straight up ignore a medication she prescribed if my LO was sick.

A lot of doctors nowadays are very reluctant to prescribe antibiotics, not sure what your doctor's approach is. What worries you about these particular medicines in this case?

On less medical related things-- like at our 4 month appt, he said LO doesn't need night time feedings and I can go ahead and try to drop them if I want-- but I didn't feel comfortable doing that yet so I haven't forced it. And he recommended starting with rice cereal, then going to whatever purees we want, but I went straight to BLW instead.

But we haven't had any actual medical issues since her jaundice cleared up after birth. I would question if medication is necessary if I wasn't sure.

Brought LO in for a suspected ear infection and the doc prescribed antibiotics for his cold (separate issue we did not go into the office for specifically). I knew it would take some time for his body to fight the cold and opted not to get the prescription filled. At the next appointment we let LO's pediatrician know that we did not take the antibiotic and she was fine with that.

@mamimami: The problem with croup is it gets so much worse overnight. Mrs Jacks explained it to me this way "Just remember that the natural rhythm of the human body is that our own steroids go down at night, so you may hear Stridor when you didn't before and frequently it's two or three in the morning when it peaks. " So even though he may sounds OK during the day, the nights can be scary with croup.

@mamimami: If it was bad enough that the doctor prescribed steroids, i'd do it. I know steroids just *sound* bad but remember it's not going to be at a dosage your LO can't handle. I think the problem is that we get all these people claiming that doctors overmedicate. If you notice a tendency for your doctor to whip out the prescription pad for everything and you're not comfortable with that, i'd probably look elsewhere. But for something like croup, i'd give your LO the medication.

Also, croup doesn't mean you'll be visibly awful. It gets worse at night and it can definitely affect his sleep which can make him miserable.

@mamimami: ditto to what @mamamoose said. One of my nieces was rushed in an ambulance and hospitalized other times from croup and breathing complications. It's nothing to mess around with IMO.