Well-child visits and your child’s health records

In many countries, new parents are handed a book. A child health record that goes to every checkup, every vaccination and every hospital visit, with growth charts and milestone lists inside. In the US there is no such national book. There is a recommended schedule of checkups, a set of free milestone tools from the CDC, and records spread across every pediatrician, urgent care and pharmacy your child has seen.

This guide covers how well-child visits work, what the schedule looks like, what milestones to watch for, what to do if something worries you, and how to keep your own copy of what matters. It is general information, not medical advice: for anything about your own child, your pediatrician is the right person to ask.

Disclosure

I am a doctor, and I founded exora, a personal health record app. It appears near the end, and I am explicit there about what it is not. Everything before that applies whatever you use, including a paper folder.

The short version

• Well-child visits follow a recommended schedule from Bright Futures and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP): frequent visits in the first two years, then yearly from age 3 through 21.
• Most health plans must cover them at no cost when you use an in-network provider, though HealthCare.gov notes $0 is not guaranteed in every case.
• The CDC’s milestone checklists and Milestone Tracker app are free, and cover 2 months to 5 years.
• If you are worried about development, do not wait for the next visit. And for a child under 3, you can contact your state’s early intervention program without a doctor’s referral.
• Keep your own copy. Nobody else holds the whole record.

The well-child visit schedule

Most pediatricians follow the Bright Futures/AAP periodicity schedule, which the AAP describes as “a schedule of screenings and assessments recommended at each well-child visit from infancy through adolescence.” The current schedule was updated in February 2025, and the AAP says the recommendations are updated annually.

On HealthyChildren.org, the AAP’s site for parents, the schedule of well-child visits is:

• The first week: a visit at 3 to 5 days old.
• The first year: 1, 2, 4, 6 and 9 months.
• The second year: 12, 15 and 18 months.
• Toddler years: 2 years (24 months), 2½ years (30 months) and 3 years.
• Then once a year, from 4 through 21.

The AAP says a visit covers prevention, including recommended immunizations; growth and development, including milestones; any concerns you have, such as behavior, sleep or eating; and building a relationship between your pediatrician, you and your child. Its practical tip: bring your “top three to five questions or concerns” and raise them at the start of the visit.

What gets checked, and when

The periodicity schedule sets out what is recommended at each age. A few examples worth knowing as a parent:

• Length or height and weight at every visit, with head circumference through the 24-month visit, and BMI from 24 months.
• A formal developmental screening at the 9, 18 and 30 month visits, with developmental surveillance at most other visits.
• Autism spectrum disorder screening at 18 and 24 months.
• Immunizations, with the schedule noting that every visit “should be an opportunity to update and complete a child’s immunizations.”

Your pediatrician may do more, or do things at a different visit, depending on your child. The AAP is explicit that the schedule is not “an exclusive course of treatment” and that variations, “taking into account individual circumstances, may be appropriate.”

What a visit costs you

Most health plans must cover a set of preventive services for children at no cost. HealthCare.gov’s page on preventive care for children lists well-baby and well-child visits, developmental screening for children under 3, autism screening at 18 and 24 months, and immunizations among them. The services are generally free when a provider in your plan’s network delivers them, and the page is careful to note that “$0 cost isn’t guaranteed in all cases.” If you are unsure, ask your plan before the visit.

Vaccines at well-child visits

Most well-child visits in the first two years include vaccines. Two bodies publish childhood immunization schedules: the CDC publishes its child and adolescent immunization schedule, and the AAP publishes its own. In 2026 the two have not matched: the CDC’s January 2026 changes to its childhood schedule were challenged in court by the AAP and other medical groups, a federal judge blocked them in March, and the government appealed, as AAP News reported in May 2026. When this guide was checked in November 2026, the appeal had not been decided and the CDC’s schedule page still showed its 2025 schedule.

I am not going to tell you which schedule to follow or which vaccines your child needs. That is a conversation for your pediatrician, who can tell you which schedule they use and why. What I would suggest is keeping a clear record of what your child has actually had, because that is what every one of those conversations starts from. Our guide to vaccination records covers how to get a copy from your state’s registry.

The milestones to watch for

The CDC’s Learn the Signs. Act Early. program publishes free milestone checklists in English and Spanish, for 2, 4, 6, 9, 12, 15 and 18 months, 2 years, 30 months, and 3, 4 and 5 years. The CDC describes milestones as “things most children (75% or more) can do by a certain age,” grouped into four areas: social and emotional; language and communication; cognitive (learning, thinking, problem-solving); and movement and physical development.

Here, for example, is the CDC’s 1-year list:

• Social and emotional: plays games with you, like pat-a-cake.
• Language and communication: waves “bye-bye”; calls a parent “mama” or “dada” or another special name; understands “no” (pauses briefly or stops when you say it).
• Cognitive: puts something in a container, like a block in a cup; looks for things he sees you hide, like a toy under a blanket.
• Movement and physical development: pulls up to stand; walks, holding on to furniture; drinks from a cup without a lid, as you hold it; picks things up between thumb and pointer finger, like small bits of food.

The Milestone Tracker app

The same checklists are in the CDC’s free Milestone Tracker app, for iPhone and Android, in English and Spanish. It covers 2 months to 5 years, with illustrated checklists, photos and videos of each milestone, tips and activities, and reminders about developmental screenings. It adjusts the checklists for a baby born early, using corrected age. And it can produce a PDF and email summary of your child’s milestones to share with your pediatrician, which is a good thing to bring to a visit.

If something worries you

A milestone not reached yet is not a diagnosis. But the CDC’s message to parents, on each milestone page, is short: “You know your child best. Don’t wait.” Its guidance for concerned parents says:

• Talk to your child’s doctor about how your child plays, learns, speaks, acts or moves, and ask about developmental screening. You do not need to wait for the next scheduled visit.
• If your child is under 3, contact your local early intervention system.
• If your child is 3 or older, call any local public elementary school, even one your child does not attend, and ask for an evaluation for preschool special education services.

And the part many parents do not know: “You do not need to wait for a doctor’s referral or a medical diagnosis to make this call.” The CDC adds that your state’s public early childhood system can provide “a free evaluation.”

Keeping your own copy

Here is the practical problem. Your child’s record is not in one place. The pediatrician has the visits. The hospital where they were born has the birth records. Urgent care has the ear infection from last winter. The state registry has some of the vaccines. A specialist has their own letters. Change pediatricians, move states or switch insurance, and the pieces scatter further.

A few habits help:

• Ask for the visit summary after each well-child visit, or download it from the patient portal. Growth measurements, screening results and vaccines given are all on it.
• Keep the hospital discharge summary from the birth. It is the record of how your child started, and hard to get years later.
• Save the milestone summaries from the CDC app or checklists, with the date.
• Keep a copy of every school or sports form a doctor fills in. You will be asked for the same information again next year.
• Use your right of access. As a parent, you can usually ask a HIPAA-covered provider for a copy of your young child’s records. Our guide to the HIPAA right of access covers how, and the limits.

For school forms specifically, HHS explains that a HIPAA-covered provider can send proof of immunization directly to a school that is required by law to have it, with a parent’s spoken or written agreement. Most states have “school entry” laws, which HHS describes as prohibiting a child from attending school unless the school has proof the child has been appropriately immunized.

As children grow, access changes. Some patient portals limit what a parent can see once a child reaches adolescence. Our guide to family health records covers how that works, and how to talk to a teenager about it.

Where exora fits, and where it does not

exora is a personal health record app, and it can be where your copy lives. Upload visit summaries, discharge papers and photos of forms, and exora reads them for you, with a reading system built for medical records, into one record for your child, each entry linked back to the page it came from. exora is free to start, with an optional membership.

• Photos of the pages. Upload a photo or PDF after each visit. Milestones exora finds are matched to the checklist, and any it is unsure of are left for you to confirm.
• A milestone checklist based on the same CDC 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.
• Growth charts with percentiles for height, weight, BMI and head circumference, using the World Health Organization and CDC growth charts.
• 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. Where it does not help, honestly:

• It does not assess your child. The checklist is a guide, not a screening test. Any concern goes to your pediatrician, or straight to early intervention.
• It does not tell you which vaccines your child needs. That is for your pediatrician.
• It can misread. The reading is automated, so check anything that matters against the original, which is always one tap away.
• No connection to any patient portal or state registry. You download or photograph records and upload them.
• Your data is stored in Sydney, Australia. exora is an Australian company, it is not a HIPAA-covered entity, and it holds no certifications. The security page explains how your data is protected.
• It is not medical advice. It organizes and presents your information.

Traveling with a young child? Our guide to traveling abroad with a medical condition covers what to bring.

The short version

Well-child visits follow the Bright Futures/AAP schedule: the first week, then 1, 2, 4, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 24 and 30 months, 3 years, and yearly from 4 through 21. Most plans must cover them at no cost in-network. The CDC’s milestone checklists and Milestone Tracker app are free, and if something worries you, talk to your pediatrician or contact early intervention without waiting for a referral. Vaccine schedules have been in flux in 2026, so ask your pediatrician which one they follow. And keep your own copy of the visit summaries, the birth records, the vaccines and the forms, because nobody else holds the whole thing.

Claims about well-child care are sourced to the American Academy of Pediatrics (aap.org, HealthyChildren.org and AAP News), the CDC, HealthCare.gov and HHS, all linked inline and checked on November 9, 2026. Schedules 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 pediatrician. How exora handles your information is in our privacy policy.