The purpose of this paper is to describe the characteristics of clients (i.e. mothers) and public health nurses in child health services based on interviews of the mothers and the public health nurses. In addition, the meaning of the visit to the participants is described. The data were collected by interviewing 20 mothers in their homes and 20 public health nurses. Grounded theory was used in the data analysis. Four categories describing the clients were found: disengaged clients, interested but shy clients, interested but disappointed clients and eager and responsible clients. Three types of public health nurses were identified according to their own descriptions: families' needs are the more important, balancing and orders are the most important. Client's satisfaction depended on the mother's mood, the child's behavior during the visit, having the same nurse and especially the public health nurse's character or personality. The paper emphasizes the importance of nursing research on interactions in health care, especially client‐public health nurse relationships and their consequences for both partie