Doctors at Marshfield Children’s Hospital offer health tips for back to school

MARSHFIELD, Wis. (WSAW) - As kids prepare to start school in the Wausau and Stevens Point areas, doctors have provided some tips that parents may find helpful before sending them to class.

Doctors Rachel Occhiogrosso and Kiranmayi Vuthaluru are third-year residents at Marshfield Children’s Hospital. They both graduate next summer and have specialized in children’s health.

In Wisconsin, schools require students to receive certain vaccinations to begin school. They are the D-tap, Polio, Hepatitis B, and MMR vaccines.

However, there are other vaccines doctors recommend children take as an extra precaution.

“Definitely influenza. So September, October. We start in the next three weeks, we’ll start to roll out the new vaccines. We recommend that all kids get the flu vaccine, especially given the uptick in admissions for influenza last year,” said Dr. Occhiogrosso.

According to data from the 2024-2025 school immunization assessment, 3.8% of all students were behind on their vaccines.

Doctors recommend parents talk with their pediatricians about what vaccines are best for their children and when they should be administered

Vaccines are important when it comes to your kid’s back-to-school list; however, there are other things, like a healthy sleeping schedule, you also want to add to that list.

And how can you do that? Well, doctors recommend you start waking your kids up a bit earlier, a week before the first day of school.

If you are a parent who wants your child to take advantage of their full summer vacation, it is not too late to get your child into a healthy sleeping routine.

“I recommend starting a 20-30 minute bedtime routine because that also helps children get into the practice of that schedule and staying consistent with it as the school year goes on. It also helps to involve the children in the bedtime routine and help make those decisions,” said Dr. Vuthaluru.

Parents are also advised to minimize their child’s screen time before going to bed - that includes TVs and other electronics with glowing lights. If they are scared of the dark, they can use a dim night light, but definitely no glowing lights that may distract them from sleeping.

Teens can also practice a healthy sleep schedule. That includes staying away from screens before bedtime and doing calm activities such as reading with a dim light if they wake up in the middle of the night and can’t sleep.

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