Health and wellbeing for the under 5s

Your doctor's surgery is central in supporting you to keep your children fit and healthy. The doctor, nurse and health visitor should have an active involvement in your children's early life.

Every child under 5 has a named health visitor who can advise on everyday problems such as teething, immunisation programmes and any special difficulties. They can also support the rest of the family providing advice on employment and benefits rights, childcare and talking to new fathers about their role.

The NHS Start4Life website has lots of useful guidance for parents of children from birth to 5 years.

There are lots of tips for protecting your baby or toddler from some of the commonest accidents on the NHS website.

If you are worried about your child's speech, the paediatric speech and language therapy service can help. It provides assessment, advice and therapy for children who have significant difficulties with: 

• speech
• language
• voice
• fluency
• eating and drinking 

There are lots of ways to access friendly breastfeeding support in North Somerset. Midwives, health visitors and local trained peer supporters can provide information and support if you need it.

Your local children's centre has information about local breastfeeding support groups which welcome all expectant and breastfeeding mums. The support groups are friendly and welcoming and run by local peer supporters. Facebook groups provide information and support between weekly groups. They're a great place to post a question, get reassurance and connect with other breastfeeding mums in your area.

Parenting programmes give parents the opportunity to share experiences, learn new skills and help build positive relationships.