Playing doctor with your kid is a good way to address concerns and alleviate fears about going to the doctor, and its fun! You can talk about how shots hurt, but only for a little bit, and play giving shots with a syringe. A cheap plastic doctors kit only barely represents the items they’re supposed to be… to an adult, how is a kid whose never seen them supposed to recognize them? They’re going to learn a stethoscope is a cheap piece of plastic that only barely works, if at all. We got our daughter this blood pressure cuff and stethoscope, they’re real and come in different colors. The pressure release screw does come off and is a swallowable part. I never worry about such things, but you have been warned. The velcro for the pressure cuff is quite strong, we just leave it stuck and slide it on and off so she feels like she can do it herself. Comes in many colors!
And of course a doctors kit would not be complete without one of these. Be careful, the end of the handle of these hammers are almost always sharp, its for some kind of nerve test but if your child is prone to destruction with sharp stabby things you may want to avoid this one.
The quality on this otoscope we got was pretty low and the batteries ran down super fast, this is about twice as much but it’s LED so it should last a lot longer, and you can actually use it for real.
Of course you need a syringe to give shots with. We got a large 60cc enema syringe, as well as being bigger, with bigger numbers on the side, I thought it would make an excellent squirt gun for impromptu water fights. When I was a kid growing up on the dairy farm we used to scavenge trash cans for syringes they used on cattle, I have fond memories of carrying around a backpack of loaded syringes looking for my victim to soak. Alas, it was prohibitively difficult for 3 year old hands to compress it. Our doctor gave us something smaller when my wife relayed our dilemma. I’ve gotten small syringes from the pharmacy for free to clean my ears, doesn’t hurt to ask, otherwise here’s another option though I haven’t tried. Comes in a wide variety of sizes.
And if you’re comfortable with your kid having stickers, most bandaids are easier to remove from walls and furniture. You can get just bandaids in just about every popular cartoon. If you can find out the kids favorite cartoon, it makes a great personalized gift.
You definitely need an eye chart to avoid that awkward conversation. “Why do I have a letters posted all over my wall?”, “Because letters are awesome?”, this way you can just say… “It’s an eye chart!”, and they have to learn the letters to use it. To brag, my daughter memorized all the letters on the chart overnight. We just googled eye chart and printed one out, that way we can change the letters. But if you want an “official” one, here ya go.
Radical Kids Toys 