In some countries, every new parent is handed a book: a child health record that goes to every check-up and holds the growth charts, the vaccines and the milestones. Canada has no national equivalent. What it has instead is a schedule of well-baby visits with your family doctor, paediatrician or nurse practitioner, a clinical record many of them work from, and a patchwork of provincial booklets and portals.
This guide covers the visit schedule, what happens at a visit, the Rourke Baby Record, the growth charts used in Canada, and the provincial records I could confirm. Everything below is linked to the professional body, health authority or government concerned.
Disclosure
I am a doctor, and I founded exora, a personal health record app. It appears once, near the end, and I am explicit there about what it is not. Nothing here is advice about your own child: if you are worried about your child’s health or development, your family doctor, paediatrician, nurse practitioner or public health nurse is the right person to ask.
The short version
- There is no national baby book. Your child’s main record is the one their family doctor or paediatrician keeps.
- Well-baby visits are recommended in the first week, then at 2, 4, 6, 9, 12 and 18 months, and from 2 to 5 years, according to the Canadian Paediatric Society.
- The Rourke Baby Record is the Canadian guide to those visits, endorsed by the Canadian Paediatric Society, the College of Family Physicians of Canada and Dietitians of Canada.
- The recommended growth charts are the WHO Growth Charts for Canada.
- Some provinces add their own: B.C. families usually get a paper Child Health Passport, and Ontario has an Enhanced 18-Month Well-Baby Visit.
- Keep your own copy of what is measured and given, especially vaccines. Records do not always follow you between clinics or provinces.
The well-baby visit schedule
The Canadian Paediatric Society’s parent site, Caring for Kids, sets out a schedule of well-child visits:
- Within the first week of going home from hospital.
- At 2, 4, 6, 9, 12 and 18 months.
- From 2 to 5 years.
- After age 5, every 1 to 2 years until 18.
Your own clinic’s timing may differ slightly.
What happens at a visit
According to Caring for Kids, at the first-week visit the provider weighs your baby, measures length and head circumference, checks for jaundice, asks about feeding and how the family is adjusting, does a general exam, and completes any screening tests not done in hospital.
At the later visits, they ask about eating and sleep and about developmental, language and social-emotional milestones, do a physical exam, measure weight, height and head circumference, and give any vaccines due. If your provider does not give vaccines, they should tell you where to get them.
The Society also suggests you start looking for a paediatrician or family doctor early in your pregnancy. If you are in Ontario and do not have one, the province points to Health Care Connect, where a nurse helps you find a doctor in your area.
The Rourke Baby Record
If you glance at your doctor’s screen during a well-baby visit, you may see the Rourke Baby Record. It is a set of visit-by-visit guides for the first five years, originally developed by Drs. Leslie and James Rourke, with an evidence summary behind each one. The current edition was launched in November 2024.
The Canadian Paediatric Society describes it as “a freely available knowledge translation/mobilization tool” for clinicians caring for children in the first five years of life. It is affiliated with the Society and endorsed by it, by the College of Family Physicians of Canada and by Dietitians of Canada. A visit using it covers growth and feeding, development, physical examination, immunizations, and guidance on safety and family well-being.
Its visit guides run from within one week of birth, then at 2 weeks, 1, 2, 4, 6 and 9 months, 12 to 13 months, 15 months, 18 months, and 2, 3, 4 and 5 years. Not every family will have every one of those visits; it is a guide for the clinician, not a rule for you.
Two things worth knowing as a parent:
- It is the doctor’s record, not yours. It is filled in by the clinician and lives in their chart. You do not take it home the way you would a baby book. You can ask for a copy of your child’s record; our guide to getting your medical records in Canada covers how to ask.
- It has a parent side. The Rourke site has advice sheets for families, organized by age, and a set of parent resource links. They are a good way to see what your next visit is likely to cover, so you can bring your questions.
Growth charts used in Canada
The growth charts recommended in Canada are the WHO Growth Charts for Canada: the World Health Organization’s growth standards, redeveloped through a collaboration led by Dietitians of Canada with the Canadian Paediatric Society, the College of Family Physicians of Canada, Community Health Nurses of Canada and the Canadian Pediatric Endocrine Group. They were reissued in March 2014 and reviewed again in 2019. The collaborating groups set out their recommendations in a joint public policy statement.
Dietitians of Canada’s guide for health professionals makes three points that are useful for parents too:
- From age two, BMI-for-age is the recommended measure for screening; under two, weight-for-length is used.
- For babies born early, growth should be plotted using corrected age until about 2 to 3 years.
- The cut-off lines on the charts are guidance, not diagnostic criteria.
In practice, what matters to your doctor is usually the pattern across several visits, not a single percentile. If a number worries you, ask how it compares with your child’s own previous measurements.
Provincial records
Several provinces give parents something of their own. These are the ones I could confirm from the province or its health authority.
British Columbia: the Child Health Passport and Baby’s Best Chance
Most B.C. families receive a Child Health Passport, a small booklet usually given in the birth pack or by your local public health unit. HealthLinkBC describes it as a place to record your child’s health information, including immunizations, and it has space for growth, illnesses, allergies, hospital stays and the findings of hearing, dental and vision checks. If you never received one, you can ask your local health unit.
B.C. also publishes Baby’s Best Chance, the province’s parents’ and caregivers’ handbook of pregnancy and baby care. It is a guide, not a record, but it is the closest thing B.C. has to a single book for pregnancy and the first six months.
Online, a parent can add a child aged 11 or younger to Health Gateway to see their immunization history and schedule. For a dependent, that is the only record it shows, and access ends at age 12.
Ontario: the yellow card and the Enhanced 18-Month Well-Baby Visit
Ontario’s paper record is the vaccine “yellow card”. The province says that after any vaccine you should make sure your provider updates it, and that you, not the provider, must report your child’s immunizations to your local public health unit, using Immunization Connect Ontario (ICON). It matters later, because Ontario schools check vaccines under the Immunization of School Pupils Act. Our guide on how to get your immunization records in Canada covers this, province by province.
Ontario also has an Enhanced 18-Month Well-Baby Visit, which you book with your family doctor or other health care provider when your child is 18 months old. It includes the 18-month immunization and a chance to ask about your child’s physical, emotional and social development, learn about community supports, and catch up on any missed vaccines. Ontario suggests the Early Years Check-In survey before the appointment, to help you spot anything you want to raise.
Elsewhere
Other provinces and territories have their own public health records and parent resources, and I could not confirm each one from an official page. Ask your public health nurse or family doctor what your province gives parents, and where your child’s vaccines are recorded.
The milestones parents watch for
Development is part of every well-baby visit. Your provider will ask about how your child moves, communicates, plays and responds to you, and the Rourke guides give them age-by-age points to check.
A milestone not reached yet is not a diagnosis. Children develop at different paces. But you do not need to wait for the next scheduled visit if something worries you. Book an appointment and say so.
If your baby was born early, ask your provider whether to use their corrected age, meaning their age counted from their due date, when you think about milestones.
Keeping your own copy
The well-baby record lives in your doctor’s chart. The vaccine record may live with public health, a portal and a paper card at the same time, and they do not always agree. If you change doctors, move provinces or move countries, the chart may not follow you quickly, or at all.
Some simple habits help:
- Write down the numbers at each visit: weight, length or height, head circumference, and the date.
- Photograph the vaccine record every time it is updated, whether that is a yellow card or a Child Health Passport.
- Keep the hospital discharge summary from the birth. It holds the birth weight, gestation and anything that happened in the first days, which later doctors often ask about.
- Bring your questions written down. Visits are short, and the question you meant to ask is the one you forget.
If you are juggling records for a child and an older parent, our guide to family health records for kids, parents and carers covers who can see what, and when that changes as your child gets older. If you are moving, moving countries with your medical records covers what to request first.
Where exora fits
exora does not replace your doctor’s record, the yellow card or the Child Health Passport, and it does not connect to any provincial system. Keep those, and take them to every visit. Where it helps is keeping a copy of what matters, together with the rest of your child’s health record, on your phone. exora is free to start, with an optional membership.
You upload what you have, such as photos of a booklet page, a discharge summary or a vaccine record, and exora reads them for you, with a reading system built for medical records. For a child, that gives you:
- Milestones from your documents. Milestones it finds are matched to the checklist, and any it is unsure of are left for you to confirm.
- A milestone checklist based on the US CDC’s Learn the Signs. Act Early. milestones, from 2 months to 5 years, with corrected age for babies born early, and a report you can share at the next visit. It is not the Rourke Baby Record and it is not what your doctor is using; treat it as a way to bring your observations to the visit.
- Growth charts with percentiles for height, weight, BMI and head circumference. These use WHO charts to age 2 and US CDC charts from 2, not the WHO Growth Charts for Canada, so after age 2 the percentiles may not match what your doctor shows you. Your doctor’s chart is the one to go by.
- Birth history, filled in from a discharge summary where it can be.
- One profile per child, each with their own record, alongside their immunizations and everything else.
There is more on the growth and development feature page. Your health data is never used to train AI models. It is stored in Sydney, Australia, which is outside Canada. Details are on our security page.
Where it does not help:
- It does not assess your child. The checklist is a guide, and any concern goes to your family doctor, paediatrician, nurse practitioner or public health nurse.
- No connection to any provincial portal or clinic system. You add documents yourself. It is a manual step.
- No Canadian certification. It is not certified by any Canadian health authority.
- It can misread. The reading is automated, so check anything that matters against the original, which is always one tap away.
- It is not medical advice. It organizes and presents your information. It does not diagnose or tell you what to do.
Claims about well-baby visits, the Rourke Baby Record, growth charts and provincial child health records are sourced to the Canadian Paediatric Society, the Rourke Baby Record, Dietitians of Canada and provincial governments and health authorities, linked inline, and were checked on November 9, 2026. Schedules and booklets are revised from time to time. This article is general information, not medical advice. If you are worried about your child’s health or development, talk to your family doctor, paediatrician, nurse practitioner or public health nurse.
