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Every day, healthcare practitioners perform simple medical procedures to assess and treat sick or injured children, and can cause them significant pain and distress.1,2 These common procedures include intravenous cannulation, heel lances, lumbar punctures, urethral catheterizations, wound repair, and medical imaging of injured limbs. Unfortunately, fear of needles is common, and is estimated to affect one quarter of adults and almost 2/3 of children.3 Almost 1/5 Canadian caregivers report needle fear as the primary reason for immunization non-compliance.4 While 5–7% have mentioned needle fear as a contributing factor to their COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy.