Pediatric Associates of Whidbey Island

01/31/2026

We are seeing lots of miserable kids with flu. It’s not too late to get your flu vaccine

A Marysville teenager has died from the flu, the first pediatric flu-related death in Washington this season. Link in comment below 👇

01/30/2026

🚨 Weighted Sleep Sacks & Infants: Why I Do NOT Recommend Them — Even When Marketing Says They’re “Safe” &/Or If They Say “Pediatrician Approved” (I’m looking at you Dreamland & Dr. J)!

I understand how exhausted parents feel when their baby isn’t sleeping. I was there too! I also understand why products that promise “better sleep” are incredibly appealing. But as a pediatrician and child safety expert, my responsibility is to follow evidence-based medicine, not marketing — and when it comes to weighted sleep sacks for infants, the evidence and expert guidance are clear.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) does NOT recommend weighted sleep products for infants. This includes weighted blankets, weighted swaddles, and weighted sleep sacks. These items should not be placed on or near an infant during sleep.

Here’s why:

⚠️ No established safety standards
There are currently no federally regulated safety standards that determine how heavy is “safe,” how weight should be distributed, or how these products should be tested for infant sleep. Parents are being asked to trust marketing claims in the absence of real safety data.

⚠️ False or misleading claims
Many weighted sleep products are marketed as “pediatrician approved” or “tested,” yet there are no peer-reviewed studies demonstrating that these products are safe for unsupervised infant sleep, especially overnight. To be VERY clear, I have no respect for Pediatricians that take part in this kind of marketing. As professionals and experts we should be following evidence-based medicine & recommendations.

⚠️ Pressure on the chest
Infants have immature respiratory systems. Added weight on the chest can restrict chest wall movement, potentially impacting breathing and oxygenation — especially during deep sleep or illness.

⚠️ Difficulty maneuvering and repositioning
Infants must be able to move their head and body freely to protect their airway. Added weight may limit an infant’s ability to reposition, increasing the risk of suffocation or rebreathing.

⚠️ Impaired arousal
One of the greatest risks is that weight may reduce an infant’s ability to arouse from sleep. The ability to wake and respond is a known protective factor against sleep-related deaths.

⚠️ Reported deaths
There have been reported infant deaths associated with weighted sleep products, prompting warnings from child safety organizations and consumer protection agencies.

The AAP’s safe sleep guidance is evidence-based and has been shown to reduce sleep-related deaths:
✔️ Babies should sleep alone
✔️ On their backs
✔️ In a crib or bassinet
✔️ On a firm, flat surface
✔️ With NO weighted items, loose bedding, or sleep accessories

So when companies market weighted sleep sacks — and when pediatricians publicly endorse them — I struggle to understand how that aligns with evidence-based medicine, AAP guidance, and expert consensus on infant safety.

Parents deserve clear, honest information — not reassurance that contradicts well-established safety recommendations. And certainly not false or predatory marketing.

01/28/2026

We are open to new patients! Call for an appointment

01/26/2026

Students and parents, this is for you! Get help creating your StudentAid.gov account or completing financial aid forms, including the FAFSA or WASFA, from library staff and community volunteers. Plus, there will be a gift card for every family, and a laptop to use if needed. Visit https://buff.ly/7zhykkv for more information and for resources on what you will need to bring with you.
¡Estudiantes y padres, esto es para ustedes! Reciban ayuda para crear sus cuenta en StudentAid.gov o completar formularios de ayuda financiera, incluyendo FAFSA o WASFA, de parte del personal de la biblioteca y voluntarios de la comunidad. Además, habrá una tarjeta de regalo para cada familia y una laptop disponible para usar si la necesitan. Para obtener más información sobre ayuda financiera, incluyendo una lista de documentos que deben traer, visite https://buff.ly/7zhykkv

Thursdays from 5:30-7pm at the Oak Harbor Library, on January 22, February 12, and March 26.
Jueves 5:30-7pm, Oak Harbor Biblioteca, 22 de enero, 12 de febrero, y 26 de marzo.

01/26/2026

Today's A Mighty Girl Community Pick is for all those parents struggling to help their children through these insane times: "Something Bad Happened: A Kid's Guide to Coping With Events in the News." Whether from TV news reports, the car radio, social media, or discussions by adults or their peers, children are often bombarded with information about the world around them. And even when the adults in their life try to shelter them from frightening news, kids are often exposed to far more of it than parents may realize. With many of the leading news stories focused on disturbing or scary events such as acts of violence, wars, extreme weather events, disease outbreaks, or more dispersed threats such as climate change, children can become frightened and overwhelmed.

In this invaluable resource from child psychologist and best-selling author Dawn Huebner, kids and parents will learn how to have the often tough conversations about the news. Because the generic term "bad thing" is used throughout, parents can apply this book to any situation, from violent acts to human tragedies, from wars to natural disasters, and help kids learn to talk about their feelings about the news. This reassuring guide is both encouraging and empowering, providing comfort, support and action plans for children and parents learning about troubling events. Highly recommended for ages 6 to 12.

"Something Bad Happened" is available at https://www.amightygirl.com/something-bad-happened

There is also a similar guide also for ages 6 to 12: "What to Do When the News Scares You" at https://www.amightygirl.com/what-to-do-news-scares-you

Dawn Huebner is also the author of the bestselling guide “What To Do When You Worry Too Much” for ages 7 to 12, now in a new updated edition at https://www.amightygirl.com/when-you-worry-too-much

For parents and educators, there's an excellent guide filled with conversation scripts and tips on helping kids feel calm in an anxious world, "When the World Feels Like a Scary Place" at https://www.amightygirl.com/world-scary-place

For a simple yet powerful picture book that reassures kids that the world is filled with helpful and friendly people -- and serves as a counterpoint to scary news stories -- check out "Most People" for ages 4 to 7 at https://bookshop.org/a/8011/9780884485544 (Bookshop) and https://amzn.to/3wKwNzL (Amazon)

For more books to help kids of all ages manage their worries, visit our blog post "25 Books to Help Kids Overcome Anxiety, Worry, and Fear" at https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=22612

01/26/2026

: BBWOO Baby Loungers The recalled baby loungers violate the mandatory safety standard for Infant Sleep Products, posing serious risks of fall and entrapment hazards to infants. Get refund. https://www.cpsc.gov/Recalls/2026/BBWOO-Baby-Loungers-Recalled-Due-to-Risk-of-Serious-Injury-or-Death-from-Entrapment-and-Fall-Hazards-Violate-Mandatory-Standard-for-Infant-Sleep-Products-Sold-on-Amazon-by-LSY-Direct

01/26/2026

01/26/2026

We are open to new patients! Call for an appointment 360-675-5555

01/23/2026

“If someone tells you there is no evidence that social media is harming children and teens, share with them the podcast or the paper. “

My team and I just published research grouped into 7 lines of evidence that companies are hurting children and teens. The academic debate has focused on mental illness, but there are also many direct harms happening at vast scale, including sleep deprivation, sexual harassment, and sextortion. These are not correlations. And there are longitudinal studies, RCTs and natural experiments.

I talk about it on the The New York Times Hard Fork podcast:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/jonathan-haidt-strikes-again-what-you-vibecoded-an/id1528594034?i=1000745421942

And here's a preprint of the paper, which will be published in the World Happiness Report in March. We are sharing it early, with permission, so that academic debate can begin as soon as possible:
https://osf.io/xsje9/overview

If someone tells you there is no evidence that social media is harming children and teens, share with them the podcast or the paper.

It's time we began to act, as families and as a broader society, to limit social media harms.

01/23/2026

01/21/2026

Date December 2025 Ages & Stages (0-2 yrs) Infants (3-5 yrs) Preschoolers (6-10 yrs) Elementary School (11-13 yrs) Middle School (14-18 yrs) High Schoolers Topics Parenting Privacy Social Media Share Options Share to Twitter Share to Facebook Share to Linkedin “Sharenting,” a term that combines ...

01/21/2026

Meningococcus is such a scary, fast infection! That’s why we continue to recommend this vaccine

“I KNOW THE SUFFERING THAT RFK JR.’S VACCINE CHANGES will cause, because I’ve lived it.

In May 2004, I slowly woke up from a drug-induced coma to find myself in an intensive care unit at what was then called the University of Kansas Hospital. There was a feeding tube snaking down one of my nostrils, there were IV’s in both my arms, and a catheter was running from the lower part of my body. The breathing tube that had painfully gagged me during fleeting moments of half-consciousness was mercifully gone. But I couldn’t move my hands and feet, which was disturbing. They were covered in bandages so I just assumed the hospital staff had wrapped the bandages way too tight. Not so.

A doctor came and told me I had contracted meningococcal disease, a form of bacterial meningitis that transformed me overnight from a perfectly healthy 22-year-old college student, working at the school newspaper and playing just about every intramural sport, to a comatose ICU patient, fighting for my life on a ventilator. The infection, which I may have gotten just from sharing a drink with someone, had ravaged my bloodstream. Heavy doses of antibiotics eventually killed the bacteria and after three weeks the hospital staff had been able to stabilize my internal organs. But the blood flow to my extremities had not fully returned, and never would.

“You have tissue damage equal to third-degree burns over 30 percent of your body,” the doctor said.

When the staff removed the bandages I saw what that meant: My arms and legs had turned pitch black, and my fingers and toes were dried up, lifeless claws. My limbs were rotting while still attached to me. My initial response to this was just straight-up denial. I couldn’t process what I was seeing or deal with it emotionally, so at first I just didn’t even try. Those weren’t my arms and legs. And even if they were, they were going to come back and be fine, no matter what those doctors said.

But during the following three months in the hospital’s burn and wound unit, things became too real to deny. First there was “debridement,” a process wherein doctors, nurses, and wound techs sliced off layer after layer of dead tissue, searching for something that would bleed, in an effort to save as much of my limbs as possible. I was awake for that, and had nightmares about it for years afterwards. Then multiple skin-grafting procedures, in which a plastic surgeon took the top layer of skin from my thighs and stapled it over debrided areas that were so big they wouldn’t scar over on their own. Then surgeries to amputate my fingers and toes because hospital staff had debrided down to the bones and tendons and nothing was left alive; only my right thumb was spared. [Editor’s note: Some photos of what’s described here—graphic patient images—appear below.]”

Full article in comments 👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻