Tylenol or Advil?

a spoonful of sugar

A spoonful of sugar or a spoonful of stevia?

What’s better to give my child, Tylenol or Advil? Acetaminophen or Ibuprofen?

We really shouldn’t be using brand names, but this question comes up often, and just like Kleenex or Band-aid or Post-it, we more often hear parents refer to the brand names than the  generic names.

Tylenol is a brand name for acetaminophen. Sometimes on medicine labels it is listed as APAP.

Motrin and Advil are brand names for ibuprofen.

Acetaminophen and ibuprofen are the SAME in these two effects:

Both treat pain.
Both lower fever.

Here is how acetaminophen and ibuprofen are DIFFERENT: Continue Reading

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Toddler meal ideas

Time to start finger foods! Toddler meal ideas

Having trouble figuring out what to feed your toddler? Read our post for easy, healthy, and economical toddler meal ideas, featuring finger food suggestions. Spoiler alert: you can stay out of the “baby and toddler food aisle” of your local food market!

Julie Kardos, MD and Naline Lai, MD
©2019 Two Peds in a Pod®

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Update on Gardasil vaccine: yes, it is safe and effective


“Should I give my kid the Gardasil® vaccine?” Friends and relatives, as well as our patients’ parents, continue to ask us this question.

Our answer is always: “Yes.”

Gardasil® vaccine is the current HPV vaccine on the United States market. The vaccine prevents cancer-causing strains of human papillomavirus from infecting a person’s body. HPV cancers include cervical cancer in women, penile cancers in men, and cancers of the mouth and throat in everyone. The vaccine also protects against genital warts. Continue Reading

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Another measles outbreak: recognize measles in your child

recognize measles

A typical measles rash, courtesy of the public health library, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

It saddens us that we need to post about how to recognize measles, but the recent measles outbreaks in the United States force parents to be vigilant for a disease that was nearly eradicated in this country.

Both an increase in international travel and a decrease in parents vaccinating their kids is thought to be responsible for the increase in measles cases.

Measles typically starts out looking like a really bad cold
Continue Reading

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How to burp a baby

Wondering how to burp a baby? We decided that words just didn’t convey what to do. So we introduce baby Emma in her first, and our first, how-to-video.

Any other video requests, send them our way.

Julie Kardos, MD and Naline Lai, MD
©2019 Two Peds in a Pod®

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Four month sleep regression

Tired parents, four month sleep regression“I think we just hit the four month sleep regression. My baby used to sleep better, and now at four months, she is waking up every hour! What happened?”

Sound familiar?

The term “four month sleep regression” did not appear on Google searches in the United States until 2006 and has been on the rise ever since. Continue Reading

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How to dress baby (and big kids) for winter

dress baby for winter

Dr. Kardos’s fourth child wears her coat without fuss in cold weather.

Now that the weather has turned “freezy,” parents ask us how to dress their baby (and big kids) for cold weather. Even Dr. Kardos’s teenaged kids allow her to  thrust winter coats on them as they head out to the bus stop. Wondering how to know if your baby, toddler, or older child are dressed correctly for the weather? Read our post on this topic.

Stay warm!

Naline Lai, MD and Julie Kardos, MD
©2019 Two Peds in a Pod®

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