Mumsnet Talk

DS had an operation yesterday. He needed me to be there. Breastfed baby also needed me.

I took my Aunt to look after my ds and we were sent initially to a waiting room. The plan was for her to keep him there and for me to pop out of the ward to feed him.

However, we were there for half an hour and my ds started to ask for a feed, so I started to bf. Literally 2 sucks in, we were called. I pulled him off and he screamed so I jigged him about (which quietens him as a distraction) and moved towards the ward with him in tow.

The nurse told me he wasn't allowed. I told her that I needed to finish his feed and then I would take him back to my aunt. I offered to vrubg ds ub 10 mins but she got arsey saying that ds would have to have his operation cancelled if he missed his slpt. Nurse started tutting about him disturbing the other patients and that there was a strict no-sibling rule that I knew about as it was in the letter (it was).

so WIBU?

Well, I can see your POV but yes, YABU, rules are there for a reason, and not just to make life complicated.

Hope your DS is ok

Sorry, but yes I think you were. The rule's there for a reason, and no matter how quiet your baby is, there's still a risk that he'd be a distraction when anaesthetists are telling you important information or carrying out a procedure. I think your solution of taking another adult was ideal though.

Yes sorry.

As much as it was difficult for you, the letter didn't say 'No siblings except in cases of XYZ'.

Couldn't your Aunt have gone into the ward while you fed the baby?

In my trust this rule is being strictly implemented due to mass norovirus outbreak.

Is that the case for your trust or is that the normal visiting rules?

Yabu imo.

My ds has recently had an operation - I asked a lot of questions trying to get around their 'rules' but was simply told 'it's not safe (to do that)'.

You had a good back up plan but it didn't work, the staff in the hospital have rules for a reason, you can't expect them to break rules when the safety of their patients is their priority.

Yanbu its not as if hospitals are quite places without distractions anyway. You were organised & took someone with you to look after your baby too so no big deal for the staff to let you feed him them let your aunt take him.

YABU

yabu. rules are rules, it's not just down to noise tho, there's other health and safety issues, infection spread etc

Not safe for the baby.
When DS2 was 1 week old DS1 was rushed into hospital by ambulance. DH had to accompany him and stay overnight on the ward with him as DS2 was EBF.

Worra, my aunt DID come into the ward, and whisked baby away as soon as he was fed. he didn't disturb anyone because he was feeding, and then not there iyswim.

Aunt offered to go to the ward in my place with ds, but nurse not happy because she couldn't sign hte consent forms.

ENorma, it was normal rules. DS has another sibling who had a 3rd adult looking after her, in keeping with the sibling rules. However, no-one else could breastfeed ds, so arranged for additional adult to be responsible for him for all except feeding.

Having lived for months in a hospital "clean" environment I would say, yes, yabu.

It wasn't for safety reasons that he was not allowed. It was because there was very little room on the ward.

I think by this age, even an ebf baby should be distractable by snacks or toys tbh.

I can appreciate it must be difficult when worried about one child and having to worry about the baby too, but for infection control reasons, I wouldn't want to take my 7 month old onto a ward anyway.

hope your older DS is ok.

YANBU. It's just another situation of the nhs preaching about breastfeeding but then not actually supporting women to succeed. Maybe they should try cleaning the fucking places more often, I imagine that would be more likely to prevent noro.

Go and tear down the patronising 'breast is best' posters and make a bonfire in the car park.

If your baby needs feeding they need feeding, what a joke.

I'll book in for anger management classes

Kveta,

It was only grommets. Thanks. He went in at 9:45am and was allowed home at 11am

I wasn't expecting that. If I had known I could have made sure baby was topped up well and then left him at home. DS had the very same operation 2 years ago at a different hospital and it took all day.

sod's law Starlight!

glad he's ok

The rules aren't there because children are a distraction. Well not just that. Its do with disease control.

Sorry, I understand you were in a difficult position but the rules are there for a reason.

I prefer rules that are for saftey to strictly adhered to. Once they start bending them it goes down hill.

I got ordered off a ward with my six week old once (although there was sod all on the doors about not bringing children) because it wasn't 'safe'. Not sure why it was safe for my disabled and chronically ill dad to be there in that case, although as he got C Diff and MRSA I'm bloody glad I took her out.

I don't think you were being unreasonable, you couldn't have known that it would only take a couple of hours and you had made a good plan otherwise.

I think the problem is that allowing you in with your baby for 20 minutes means all the other families can take their babies in for 20 minutes, and then Granny needs to come in, and Aunty, and then all hell breaks loose. Better a flat no.

The rules stated in the letter were that there was no space.

I left the buggy in the enormous waiting room and just carried ds (who had just started his first feed of the morning) with me to the ward, then he fed on my lap.

Aunt took him away once he'd had enough not to be distressed.

In terms of 'infection control' it's rather ironic that most people think the safest place to have their baby is hospital …

Hospitals are hideously grubby, be glad your dc was spared the filth!
Glad your son is ok

Bigsilky, I don't think allowing an exclusively breastfeeding baby access to his mother (next of kin to the patient) when he needs a feed is anything like a general 'allowing babies in with aunts and grannies' etc.

It is quite a specific detail.

What do posters suggest the solution might have been? Postpone ds' operation until the baby no longer needed me?

Yabu sorry.

I wasn't allowed in for certain things with DD when she had her op as I was pregnant. Thems the rules.

Well, frustrated frosty nurse had no choice but to let me in with baby, and, as it happens once she realised that baby couldn't be noticed by anyone, didn't take up any space, didn't make a sound and was gone in no time at all (I popped out to the waiting room to finish the feed properly once ds was in theatre), she warmed up and we had a bit of a laugh with her.

But I honestly don't know what I could have done differently, except perhaps not mis-timed when ds woke for his morning feed.

YABU

You can't hold up a theatre list because your baby needs a feed. Yes the op would have been cancelled. Theatre runs on a schedule I'm afraid.

A lot of hospitals aren't allowing visitors due to norovirus. Also, we can't be responsible for siblings. We allow siblings on the ward, they cant stay overnight though. I would have made your aunt look after the baby while you took your DS for his operation.

Grommets is quick op. once they're eating and drinking they're allowed home, if it's a simple day case.

True, but if space is already limited on the ward and every child on the ward's mother brings in her baby, things will be even worse, no? I personally don't believe it is so specific that the rules should be bent.

So I was supposed to have left screaming hungry distressed ds in the waiting room with my aunt? Really?

There was NO mention of norovirus. The REASON given was SPACE.

The thought of bringing a screaming distressed baby into a children's surgery ward isn't a particularly good one either.

ok op clearly you don't think you were unreasonable. So why did you posts in aibu?

Pobble, yes, but my ds NEEDED a feed. The op part was quick, but the hanging around wasn't. We were there from 7:45 am. How would anyone else be responsible for him when he was latched onto the breast?

I think you weren't.

these rules are not made for breastfeeding babies, they are made to stop loud children getting in the way.

You should have fought your corner. complain higher if necessary.

YABU because if everyone flouted that rule, then it would be chaos.

He would have only been distressed if he had left my arms and therefore realised that the feed was not going to be forthcoming. He was silent, as are most bfing babies. He was out once he'd finished.

But then if it's a children's surgery ward there would be babies there anyway?! Who is saying he was screaming and distressed?

It won't be just space though. They probably just don't have time to go into the various reasons. As you are proving yourself, reasons such as distraction would be met with 'but my baby....' infection - 'but there's no outbreaks' 'but if I'm there the risk is the same as I'll be in contact with baby'.

I don't even go to speech therapy because ds would be a distraction. I certainly wouldn't take him on a ward.

yes it would not in these circumstances have done baby any harm to cry for a few minutes while DS had GA started and you signed consent forms, while generally I support EBF babies everywhere there are some places it is not suitable and theatres are one of them

and by the way other posters who have said ?yabu - no, the letters are not law.

my letter for DD's hip displacia scan said "bring a bottle of milk or juice for your baby" and she was about 4 weeks old so EBF
I didn't take a bottle, and rang them beforehand to tell them so.

Aunt offered to go to the ward in my place with ds, but nurse not happy because she couldn't sign hte consent forms.

Why didn't you sign the consent forms in the waiting room whilst BFing, instead of in the ward?

That way your Aunt could have sat with your DS and everyone's happy.

OP - AIBU?
Most of MN - Yes
OP - No I am not because of X, Y, Z.

Pointless exercise.

I think some posters on this thread aren't understanding that you cannot just NOT feed a breastfeeding baby when he needs a feed.

For those who think he shouldn't be allowed to feed in a ward, what do you proposed happens?

How is a bf baby on the outside any different from a pregnant woman with a baby on the inside?

He just fed. Then he left.

crashdoll, most of MN are not saying YABU. It is mixed. You are biased.

Nickel - that's hardly comparable.

Starlight herself said that her baby was 'screaming hungry distressed' in her post at 15:31:09. Of course there would be other children there, why should you disturb them by bringing more in?

Silence isn't the primary issue here anyway, but how can you be so sure he would have stopped crying immediately?

'Why didn't you sign the consent forms in the waiting room whilst BFing, instead of in the ward?'

I have no idea. Except that first we had a visit from the anaethetist, then the nurse wanted to do weighing and questions, then later some doctor came around with a form, and then later another doctor. I expect they weren't all prepared to walk that extra bit to the waiting room, and even if they were, I doubt the NHS communication system would have enabled this to happen.

But I would have been happy with that as a proposed solution, if it had been proposed.

The majority are disagreeing with and you don't think YABU, so why ask?!

Dizzy - yes it is.

i was showing that the letters aren't that important.

If I had rung and they'd said "no, your baby has to have a bottle because of x,y,z, i would have said "either i feed my baby properly or we'll have to postpone.

my point is that babies can't wait.
babies have to be fed when they need to be fed.
if i'd left DD at 7 months in a waiting room after starting a feed and not finishing it (and left her behind) she would have gone absolutely apeshit and probably cried herself into a fucking fit.

Bf babies who are crying for milk ALWAYS stop crying when they are given the breast. - don't they?

I said I didn't want to leave a crying distressed baby in the waiting room, which is what he would have become had I handed him over to someone else. He knew the milk was coming as I was holding him and jigging him. He was quiet. He would not have been.

As it happens, there were 5 beds on the ward, and the children were much older than ds, and actually there really wasn't much space. However, there was space on my lap, which is where ds fed.

YABU. You should have anticipated things a bit better, fed the baby ahead of schedule to make sure it didn't scream.

Breastfeeding isn't a pass to do as you please.

Well I have to say, I have an issue with that.
Op, YANBU because that baby is bf so no one else can do that for you and you can't possibly be at the same time with your ds and in the waiting room with the baby.

But it has highlighted a big issue for me, regardless of the bfing.
If you have 2 children, one of them needs surgery, the other needs to be looked after AND you are a lone parent with no support. What on earth are you suppose to do?

BigSilky - crying hungry distressed is foxed by boob.

that's how it works.
i would sooner have small baby taking up a square foot of space than a screaming hungry baby.

A lot of people on Mumsnet breastfeed or have breastfed. Not just you. I did. But I would have respected the rules of a hospital. And people who are being unreasonable never think they are being. The world doesn't revolve round you and your baby. The patients are the hospital's first priority.

fixed not foxed!!!

Shatners, the baby isn't ON a shedule, in line with the NHS guidelines.

Shatners - if you're an expert, you'd also know that hospital appointments rarely run on time.

The solution of baby in waiting room with aunty was perfect.

except baby wanted to feed at just the wrong time,

ywbu to take baby into ward regardless of rules.

hospital wbu to not wait 5 mins for baby to finish feeding, you could have been on the loo and taken longer!

Oh and I by people saying that the baby's feed should have been sceduled.
1- because I thought that bfed babies feeds couldn't be scheduled
and 2- because it's just impossible to schedule when the opeartion will happened in an NHS hospital. So how on earth can you plan ahead?
<<Memories not so long ago about me spending one full day, twice!, in hospital waiting for surgery that didn't happen...>>

My babies didn't always stop crying immediately.

1. How old is the baby? 2. Yes you are BU - I would normally advocate your right to feed your baby wherever and whenever you want, but you were clearly told that you couldn't bring the baby on the ward. Did you ask the nurse how long it would be before you were needed and could have then timed the feed better?

Did you ask the nurse how long it would be before you were needed and could have then timed the feed better?

I have yet to see an NHS hospital being able to give me that sort of information re some surgery...

Indith exactly - and Starlight returned the baby to the aunt immediately.

she wasn't being inconsiderate of the rules, she was abiding by a different NHS guideline.

Why blindly respect rules Vienne without challenging? If the patient's baby brother was screaming in a side room this may well have affected his well being.

The other option is they could just have given you a few minutes to finish which saving the time for arguments and faffing would have probably been quicker in the end..

'Did you ask the nurse how long it would be before you were needed and could have then timed the feed better?'

No. There were no nurses in sight. Receptionist directed us to waiting room. Plan was to settle ds in ward, come back and feed baby, return to ds (even though the letter also said that ds should be supervised by parent at all times - another issue - but figured I could feed baby in not much longer time than it takes to pop to loo).

However, we were waiting in waiting room for quite some time, and baby woke up and wanted feeding, so I stuck him and two sucks in nurse turns up and calls ds.

YABU. You should have found out how long it was likely to take and made your arrangements accordingly. You can't say no one minded/was disturbed. They might have been and were just inwardly eye rolling.

Well I'm obviously not an expert, just passing comment on a situation that seemed quite easy to avoid.

My point was, you can feed a breastfed baby as and when, and the first feed of the day can be brought forward to suit the situation. It was one of the best things about breastfeeding for me, I could head hunger off at the pass when I was anticipating a situation that could make feeding tricky.

I think some posters on this thread aren't understanding that you cannot just NOT feed a breastfeeding baby when he needs a feed.

are you saying that posters could only possibly think you are unreasonable because they don't understand?
Again op if you are that sire you are reasonable by post?

I understand ebf perfectly. Still think you bu.

YWBU. As a mother who bf's on demand I would have not broken the guidelines. It is easy to anticipate what would happen and feed DS2 before the operation was to go ahead.

It is not difficult to do and the rules are there for a reason

i had something similar but as i knew the nhs rarely run on shedule and babys have no shedule i had expressed as baby was not allowed on ward no matter what...they where exteemly strict at our hospital it wouldn't of mattered how old baby was.

maybe this could be a consideration for next time??

fwiw i think your being U for not having thought that maybe baby would have needed a feed during the time and not got anything for if you had not been their - so if baby had woke up with aunt hungry and you already on ward what would she have done with hungary baby??

If they give her time for the baby to finish (say 15 minutes), it pushes the whole schedule out for the day.

You could have just offered to sign the consent form in the waiting room and let the Aunt go to him if it was necessary.

Also, how old is the baby?

I think some posters on this thread aren't understanding that you cannot just NOT feed a breastfeeding baby when he needs a feed.

Why do they die after 5- 10 minutes then?

I BF my second for 18 months he, he often had to wait for a fed. For example if i was driving or his brother needed me or i was in the middle of the school run he waited.

How do you know when the op happens if they don't tell you? I doubt it was going to take her 15 minutes with a 7 month old.

Personally I think YANBU.

If its for reasons of space then I fail to see how a breastfeeding baby on your lap takes up any extra space. I also fail to see how a feeding baby can be distressing other children. It sounds as though you made every extra provision you could by having your aunt there, but she cannot breastfeed DS2 or sign consents for DS1.

Yes rules are there for a reason but sometimes you need to be a bit flexible. I would have happily have put my foot down with any one getting up tight about DS2 being there while you feed him.

(Doctor by trade)

'It was one of the best things about breastfeeding for me, I could head hunger off at the pass when I was anticipating a situation that could make feeding tricky. '

yes. The baby was asleep when we arrived. I was predicting that he would stay asleep and I could wake him when it was convenient to pop out. It didn't work like that however. I don't have that level of control 100% of the time.

So they DID let your aunt come on to the ward while you fed your baby? There was a rule which they didn't enforce. What am I missing because I don't understand the problem

Sounds a tough situation but I think YABU too.

Thank you too.

DS has times when he NEEDs bm, but other times when he can have water/rice cake. But when he is grouchy, and for the first feed of the day, he NEEDS bm.

I cannot express and ds cannot take a bottle, and tbh, that isn't what ds needs most out of a breastfeed anyway.

After the first feed of the day he almost certainly falls asleep, which he did. Anaethetist was surprised when she saw his foot move as she hadn't even noticed him despite talking to me even though he was feeding.

how old is baby?? some posters have said 7 months but can't see op say this?? also why not express?? as my post above ^^ says YABU

They did let my aunt in, but I never asked them too. I just wanted the baby. Aunt was holding back in the waiting room, but nurse then beckoned her.

Once they knew baby was coming regardless, they didn't seem to mind aunt (perhaps because most of the other children had two parents!?). Aunt left after less than 10 minutes with sleeping baby.

your baby would have cried because he was not feed exactly when he wanted to be fed but also he would have come to no long term harm being left with aunt for 15-20 minutes,

I do understand BF did it myself but if driving on motorway you have to go to next service station at very least before you can stop, ( as stopping on hard shoulder would be idiocy) that could be anything between 1 and 25 miles away so you just carry on driving with crying baby not nice but not life threatening at that precise moment your older child was the priority not the baby

sarah, he would have not come to harm, except stress. However, he would have pissed off a whole waiting room full of people screaming the way he does when he doesn't get his feed. He would not have been consolable (and I expect we would have heard him from the ward), and I had no way of knowing how long it would be before I could get back to him. It could have taken any length of time.

Did you ask the nurse how long it would be before you were needed and could have then timed the feed better?

I have yet to see an NHS hospital being able to give me that sort of information re some surgery...

Actually we tell our patients what time their surgery is. So less of the sweeping generalisations about the nhs please.

I didn't see a nurse. When I did, she wanted ds NOW.

When my daughter had an op your were allowed breastfeeding babies 6months and under in with ou and o stay the night. My baby was older so had to go home with daddy and bottle of expressed, my boobs were killing by the morning!

Clearly the world is BU, so I'm not sure why you posted.

In hospital we have a job to do, theatres have to run on time else patients get cancelled. There can't be delays. I don't see why your baby couldn't be allowed with you to feed, but you cannot take a baby into the anaesthetic room or theatres.

Safety is a big part of it. I've had to chuck chairs out the way before to get to a patient in an emergency.

I would have prioritised my pre-operative son rather than insist that I,as a BREASTFEEDING MOTHER BE ALLOWED TO DO WTF I LIKE (AND FUCK RULES, INFECTION CONTROLS, OTHER PATIENTS ETC ETC.)

Iirc you have often had issues with hospitals and rules etc. this is another in a litany is it not?

Your baby would not have imploded for waiting for some milk.

YWNBU

Some people are way too obedient.

yANBU, there seems to be some very petty rules in hospitals. Patients not allowed mobile phones but doctors and nurses carrying theirs in their pockets. Only this weekend I had words with a nurse who made the wife of a dying man stand in the corridor because she turned up 10 mins too early for visiting time.

I hope your baby hasn't caught something from the patients on the ward.

YABU and very argumentative. Crash doll summed it up!

I don't think YABU. If the NHS was a better service, they wouldn't have needed to rule against bf siblings in the first place.

The problem isn't with you breaking a rule, it's with the massive underfunding in hospitals that make them so overstretched that they can't either

a) give you your appointment on time so that you could have planned around it efficiently
b) waited for you for 15/20 minutes without putting a whole days worth of operations late
c) offered you somewhere private away from other patients where you could have met the needs of both of your children at the same time.

'I don't see why your baby couldn't be allowed with you to feed, but you cannot take a baby into the anaesthetic room or theatres.'

Baby didn't go into anaesthetic room or a theatre. Quite surprised I was expected to go into both tbh.

Baby just came to the ward, fed and went back to waiting room. Siblings were not allowed to attend for reasons of SPACE, not safety or infection.

TSC The baby would not have imploded, but he would have annoyed a hell of a lot of people with his screaming, some of them in-patients. I have never had issues with hospitals and rules btw.

I have spent quite a bit of time in children's wards over the past couple of years.
Some patients/parents with mobiles are a fucking pain in the ass. Carrying on huge conversations, at length, while others are trying to sleep/rest.

Blanket ban is for the inconsiderate arseholes.

When you 'had words' with a nurse it all sounds a bit Jezza. If I'd been that nurse I'd have hoofed you out via security knackered mother.

I must've confused you with someone else (I've not but won't advances search you to prove myself right )

Anyway, you 'won' well done..

I don't know if you were BU or not, but you clearly don't think you were, so why ask?

For goodness sake of course Yanbu what if you baby was the patient! Can't understand posters who think you we're being unreasonable.

I haven't won anything. Perhaps if I pointed the hospital to their very own baby friendly initiative I might 'win' a better service for bfing mothers in future.

Well the secondcoming seeing as I was that patients doctor and therefore had the best interests of him and his family at the forefront of my care I think I was perfectly within my rights to have a quiet word with the nurse involved. It was totally inappropriate to refuse to let his wife in.
Had I not been the doctor in charge of the mans care I would have Considered reporting that nurse.

It's quite normal for parents to accompany their child to the anaesthetic room and see them to sleep. Same as we let them in recovery to collect them.

Rules are rules and when I was in having dd2 I did say to the MW why isn't my partner allowed in yet the women had hers.

Soon after he was told to go.

There could have been many other mothers in the same boat as you, and it does cause other people to complain about it.

I wasn't allowed anywhere near recovery. But went into the theatre where he was put to sleep AND operated on, which I found very surprising. I had no baby. I doubt the huffy nurse would have allowed that regardless, and I would not have asked. The reason given then would not be space I expect.

To be fair, the hospital is more likely to tell you that the reason is no space rather than infection control when you are about to send your child into theatre where there's a risk of infection.

It would make some parents worry even more if they started worrying about infection when their child was about to have an op, and they probably just use the 'no space' rule for everyone because they probably really don't have the space for everyone to bring along younger siblings and pushchairs.

Yanbu. Another example of baby unfriendliness and a lack of understanding and promotion of breastfeeding.

You made provisions for the baby to be properly supervised. The baby needed one feed. So you fed him. What's the big deal?

Rules can be bent in exceptional circumstances.

The hospital my Mum was in essentially closed due to norovirus. We were allowed to stay as she was dying. It was made completely clear to us that rules had been broken purely for this situation and the nurses had to fight our corner when infection control came round. I had my 9 month old BF baby with me and I felt torn (MacMillan encouraged me to stay).

I do not think your situation merits you breaking the rules.

Ah, your post sounded (to me) like you 'waded in and had words'

I wish the no mobile rule was enforced more strongly tbh...

Secondcoming, yes it did sorry. I forget we are all strangers on here not knowing each others jobs and lives! Am very sleep deprived.

I just don't see breastfeeding as a reason to change or break hospital rules (except in cases like Bonker's).

The child the NHS was providing for was the child having the operation. Why should it make provisions for its siblings too?

Wouldn't most people prefer the rules being bent a little to allow a baby to feed rather than a screaming baby in the waiting room?

I would have thought that would have been less disrupting for other patients, visitors and staff.

Yes there are rules. No siblings visiting due to no space. But does it have to be as black and white as that?

A small baby feeding on mums knee is not the same as a 3 year old running round the ward is it?
Surely there has to be a bit of flexibility?

Anyway, the idea of a 'win' is tempting TSC

Their website says that aiming to become the first fully accredited UNICEF baby friendly hospital in the London area and I have the name and email of the lead contact.

I will email them and update when I get a response.

Good work starlight. You keep it up.

I think YANBU. If the baby needs to be fed it needs to be fed.

A lot of people have asked how old your baby is, but I haven't seen a reply anywhere.

Given that you were warned in advance about the 'no siblings' rule, in your situation I would have called the hospital and asked about exemptions for breastfed babies (a previous poster mentioned a policy for babies <6mths at one hospital), and then planned accordingly.

I would not have just turned up on the day and expected them to bend the rules for me.

I had an exclusively bf baby & she had to go without a bf in order to have her operation. I think you are being ott about this, at 7 months I'd have taken some finger food or a yoghurt for aunt to give in the waiting room.

I don't think you were being unreasonable.

It'll be very interesting to see their response, considering they're classed as 'baby friendly'

I don't think you were being unreasonable. I think that 'babes in arms' are different to children, and I think that a feeding baby coming in with you for 10 mins is infinitely preferable to a screaming baby for the time you're away.

'Rules are rules' is a very silly way to behave - rules are there for a reason, and unless you understand that reason you are destined to mis-apply the rules, or not apply them when you should because they don't meet the exact letter.

YANBU my personal experience is that hospital staff like rules for the sake of them. Having threatened to report to police if they touched my "not allowed" flowers in the past I have found they tend to back down if you are assertive with them, and threaten to complain about the individual concerned.

How much space does a baby being closely held take up? total nonsense.

The op seems very good at avoiding certain questions. I doubt you will get confirmation of age. I suspect her baby is well over weaning age and she thinks if she says that more people will call her unreasonable.

nefertiti I think Starlight's DS2 is about 7 months.

nefertarii even.

so not well above weaning age and about the clingy age where they can't understand why mummy knows they need food but have disappeared into another room and will they ever come back and i'm starving now oh help, i think i'm going to die because my one source of food has leftr me forever and i will starve to death

YANBU I had to feed my 4 month old in a cubbyhole thing at the dentist today (They were running very late and I am too embarrassed to feed in full waiting room )

So, to recap:

Your ds2 was operated on and discharged within 3.5 hours, despite expecting it to take all day. You were welcomed into the theatre to offer him reassurance as he was anaesthetised and were quickly reunited afterwards.

Prior to this they waived the rule of no-siblings on the ward in order for you to breastfeed, despite being warned in advance that siblings would not be allowed due to a lack of space (which yes, causes safety issues).

And yet you want to email a complaint. About what exactly? That a nurse was 'huffy' when you made a fuss when she pointed out that you'd be warned that siblings wouldn't be allowed?

I think a thank you letter for the safe, speedy treatment of your ds2 and the flexibility shown towards your baby would be rather more in order quite honestly.

other posters have said 7 months because they know roughly when she gave birth and also, in her profile, one of her last threads she says "DS is 7 months"

YABU. You knew the no sibling rule and decided it didn't apply to you otherwise you would have made sure your DS had his first feed before you were likely to be called in. You wouldn't have relied on him staying asleep long enough.

so roughly 7 months, over weaning age then. Some babies are clingy at 7 months some not.

There is a reason the op doesn't want to confirm the age.

Frankly, I think they went the extra mile by allowing you to do that, at that age a child can have ebm.

Your older child needed your whole attention, you risked missing his operation slot (and probably delayed those of other patients that may have been in the waiting list for long), the staff had to be dealing with you rather than paying attention to their patients, and you want to complain? Good grief!

And being clingy is not a excuse to bring a child to hospital. I can assure you that in every hospital there are a handful of parents who have left young children in the care of relatives for longer hours as they spend weeks in the ward.

I haven't said the age because it has been mentioned many times.

Weaning age has nothing to do with the UNICEF and NHS guidelines on breastfeeding who state that babies should be breastfed on demand until well into the second year.

However, I can confirm that my ds isn't weaned.

nefer - no not above weaning age!
you start to wean them at approx 6 months, but there is no way a 7mo would be expected to take normal food and accept it as filling!
it's quite normal and expected for a baby of less than a year not to understand that food is food.
and 7mo is only just above the age of guidelines to start weaning.

when DD was that age, she would have screamed the place down if i tried to give her to someone else once I'd started feeding her.

'You were welcomed into the theatre to offer him reassurance as he was anaesthetised and were quickly reunited afterwards.'

Less welcomed, more to interpret. DS has autism and they were scared of how he might react. I wasn't, but they wanted me there all the same. Not complaining, but not a huge favour either. Just doing as I was told.

Could dad not have been there for DS and you stay home with baby?
I am a paediatric nurse and do children's pre op and theatre alot.
We usually say 'no siblings' as the parent needs to be there 100 per cent fpr the child having the operation.The lists run very quickly and there is no time unfortunately for any hold ups.Theatre just cancel if any problems.
Did you have a pre operative assessment?
That is the place to iron out any difficulties and maybe reach some compromise.
The consent form is a legal document that the parent has to sign having been informed of associated risks,outcomes etc so needs to be done without distraction if possible.
Also I usually tell parents that whilst their child may be allowed home withon a short time,it is by nomeans guaranteed as it is never possible to forsee how a child will be after an anaesthetic.
The other concern would be space around the bedside.Again,should anything untoward happen an emergency team needs clear access to bedside,and also in this scenario a parent would need to be available without distraction.
I believe taking another adult was correct,and am sure I would have accomodated ypou if I were your nurse,but can see their point of view very well

'would have made sure your DS had his first feed before you were likely to be called in.'

And where exactly, can these Crystal Balls that tell you when you are likely to be called in , be found? I timed it as best as I could. Do you really think that anyone would start a feed exactly 1 minute before being called by a nurse?

'Did you have a pre operative assessment?'

No. We got sent a questionnaire which I sent back.

Weaning is from 17 weeks to 26 weeks. So 7 months is above weaning age.

I have several children and don't need that explaining thanks. My point is there were several options available to the OP, possibly including finger food.

the fact she is reluctant to answer these sorts of questions is very telling. YOur 7 month old is not the same as everyones.

'The consent form is a legal document that the parent has to sign having been informed of associated risks,outcomes etc so needs to be done without distraction if possible.'

The baby was feeding. He wasn't a distraction. He just does it. No-one knows he's there. Not even me. At night he helps himself and I don't even wake up.

No. Guildelines state that you should START weaning (not FINISH) after a period of exclusive breastfeeding for 6 months, and that babies rely on milk as their main source of nutrition until a year.

Weaning is 17 weeks?
Really?

Yanbu, and neither is anyone else who says Yanbu as long as you / they would agree that a ff baby be treated the same ie. A ff baby who has always been fed by the mum, can't wait for his feed etc.

But, are you saying that your opinion would be different if he was 5 months. Are siblings allowed iyo then?

what questions nef?

'Again,should anything untoward happen an emergency team needs clear access to bedside,and also in this scenario a parent would need to be available without distraction.'

This is a bit dramatic no? Why is anything more likely to happen to ds whilst he's sat next to me in a ward waiting for paperwork, than say, on a bus/in cinema etc.?

The minimum weaning age is 17 weeks. Its recommended that you wait until 26 weeks. But not always.

My opinion would not be different. My point is that there is a reason you ahve avoided confirming the age. I suspect the reason is that is due to his age there would have been other things possible.

Personally I would have worried what would have happen if you son really needed you and baby needed bfing. What if something (god forbid) had gone wrong?

Did you inform the ward that you would have baby with you beforehand?
Or did you just arrive with him?
Would make a difference to me if I knew situation before op day

nef ds can eat rice cakes, kind of. but they make a mess and don't fulfil his nutritional nor comfort requirements.

OP, am I right in thinking you often have issues around wanting to breastfeed in places where babies aren't welcome/wanting special provision made? I seem to remember previous similar threads...

Look, even with a demand fed baby it is possible to feed them before you have to go and do something or distract them for a little while with food or drinks or cuddles. It seems like you made a big fuss about this to make a point.

'Its recommended that you wait until 26 weeks. But not always.'

I don't think a yet to be confirmed sibling operation date is a factor in deciding when to begin weaning.

And the emergency scenario I outlined you may think dramatic but no anaesthetic is to be taken lightly and the risk is always there.
The hospital were trying to minimise possible risks and do their best by their patient.
That is all.No one wants to alienate mothers and cause problems ,well at least I certainly don't.
i think letting them know beforehand would have been the polite way to handle it,you may have done so,aoplogies if that the case.

Sam, I had a potential tribunal case when my baby was a week old. That was very worrying for me. We settled, so it didn't happen. The accomodation I was seeking then was bringing court date forward if accomodation could not be made.

I didn't make any point. He was asleep. He woke up. My experience of hospitals is that there is a lot of waiting at the start. In fact there was, but the nurse came for us to do the waiting in the ward much much earlier than I expected based on my experience.

I did misjudge it. Baby was gone within 10 minutes and never went on the ward again, as I was able to pop out. If I was making a point I would have kept him with me, aunt as well.

George, DS hadn't had an anaesthetic. I just wanted to finish an already started feed whilst waiting for the various paper-work.

OP what are you talking about. I didn't say arrange your weaning around an unplanned operation. I was talking about weaning guidlines.

Your child is around 8 months, Is that correct?

The questions you don't want to answer are
How old is the baby?
and why post in aibu if you are so convinced you are reasonable.

Tbh I am out now. You clearly think that hospital rules don't apply to you and didn't even bother to ring ahead.

Then to drip feed your ds has SN, which is why other options are out. This thread is getting a bit silly.

Clearly you think you are reasonable OP.

There was very little in the way of contact with the hospital beforehand. I didn't even have a number for the department. However, I would on reflection call them and explain. I didn't envisage there being a problem as I had made arrangements for my aunt to keep baby away from the ward anyway.

My baby is a young 7 months. He doesn't eat every day. I have already confirmed the age. Why don't you read the thread.

I have posted in AIBU for the same reason everyone else does. For a discussion. You are so convinced you are right but a lot of posters here don't agree with you either.

Can I ask a question? If your aunt was there to be with the baby, and you were on the ward with your DS, where were you planning on feeding the baby? Because all you have said is that you couldn't have the baby making a fuss in the waiting room- but surely that was going to happen anyway.

nef Your post is out of order. My ds' SN has nothing to do with my OP and does not have any implications for my situation.

I was explaining to one poster who asked, why being invited into a theatre wasn't something I felt especially grateful for. My baby was long gone by that point and wasn't involved in the theatre aspect.

You don't need a crystal ball, you should just have fed your ds before arriving in the hospital. Yes there is waiting but at least your ds wouldn't have screamed down the waiting room if he had woken up and you weren't there. It is common sense to plan ahead. Your older ds needed you there so your younger ds feeding should revolve around that.

No need to send an email, they didn't stop you feeding or sent you away.

Why would my baby make a fuss in the waiting room? He never makes any fuss anywhere else provided he is fed. If he isn't, he's louder than a fire alarm. He might coo a little and clap his hands. You can usually shut him up with a rice cake for entertainment when he isn't hungry.

I did feed him before arriving at the hospital, but he wouldn't take it as he was too sleepy. He woke when he was more hungry than sleepy. That was in the waiting room.

Yanbu. Your baby is ebf. The nhs want you to breastfeed so why can't they facilitate this. I had a similar issue when dd was readmitted due to weight loss. A right cow of a nurse made be feel 20.times worse than I already felt by basically saying that the other babies on the neonatal were there through no fault of their own but my big full term baby should not be there. Also said they say breasfeeding is best but and than trailed off. Also denied me access to a breast pump. I really should have complained. Incidently baby is now doing well and is ebf.

Because he was hungry and because you would be on the ward with your older son? Or am I misreading?

Why couldn't you have just expressed before hand in case something like this happened?

YABU. The letter clearly stated the rules. It is not important what the reasons are. The rules are the rules and you knew you wouldn't be able to take your baby on to the ward. If they had to bend them for you, they have to bend them for everyone.

Why is it when people know the rules, they alway think there should be a slight exception for them!

You are going around in circles with your own argument OP, you can't say that there should be exceptions made for EBF babies when you have confirmed that the main reason your baby will not take expressed bottles or other food is the comfort he gets from breast feeding. Maybe all the other parents there had other children that equally needed comfort. It is how it is when you have more than one child, you will always be pulled in different directions, but the hospital have these rules in place for ALL, and their priority is their patients, not you.

Ah, your aunt was supposed to be with your son. Apologies!

I used to 'top up' Ds if I knew bfing wherever we were going might be a bit tricky. Can't really do that with a small baby but from about 5 months onward it should be an option.

I think the crux of the matter is the fact the ward was not prepareed for you to turn up with baby in tow.
As I have said,I would have been very willing to accomodate situation had I known prior to op day.
As they didn;t know what I do think would be unreasonable would be for you to complain about your treatment.

Big, my aunt was there to look after the baby in the waiting room. She cannot sign the consent forms for my son.

' you have confirmed that the main reason your baby will not take expressed bottles or other food is the comfort he gets from breast feeding.'

Where have I said that. I have said that I cannot express.

Additionally ds only seems to be prepared to drink from the breast, probably for comfort. Either way. I can't change that at the moment.

Well, same question again then

Bigsilky, ds will scream if he wakes up hungry, sees me and I walk off. He's a bit more patient if I'm not actually there, though would have needed feeding soon.

However, you would NOT want to be in a room with ds, if I had actually picked him up and put him on the breast for 2 sucks before pulling him off and walking away.

Congratulations city. You must be very proud

I see. Thank you for answering.

You have got your answers.

Clearly you are right as you are having a comeback to every answer.

Accept you are wrong and be done with it. If you are so convinced you are right then why ask in the first place.

Ahhh, I get it, you thought that because you are BF, then it automatically gives you some godgiven right to do what you want to do.

I agree with TSC - you don't want a debate, you want to be told you're right.

I didn't mean you can't express because he gets comfort from breastfeeding, but you have confirmed that the reason you need to feed him is the comfort factor, which is of course fair enough, however it does look like you implied (by initially refusing to state baby's age) that this was an EBF newborn, which is a very different matter than a 7 month old that is currently being weaned. I think YABU.

'Why is it when people know the rules, they alway think there should be a slight exception for them!'

I don't much know about 'people', but I didn't read 'no siblings' to mean starve a totally dependent breastfed baby. I considered that a baby friendly hospital did not consider ebf babies in the no sibling rule any more than they did babies inside pregnant women.

'this was an EBF newborn, which is a very different matter than a 7 month old that is currently being weaned.'

Why is it different? Is it more humane to starve a 7 month old than a 7 week old?

Starlight you are boring now. Why start such a one sided thread when you are not prepared to listen to anyone elses point of view?

'Starve' is a bit over dramatic.

A 7 month old whos weaning age is far less likely to starve than a seven week old so quit with the amdram please

Ohhhh, your baby is breastfed. In that case Madam, come right through...

I'm listening, but the arguments against aren't very good.

exlusively breastfed

Newborns blood sugar levels can drop rapidly. 7 month olds that eat other food and are not EXCLUSIVELY breast fed do not generally starve. You have said yourself (twice) that it is more about comfort for your baby, than the fact that he will starve if you delay the feed slightly.

When your medal arrives, let me know as I'm still yet to receive mine.

I think the arguments offered have been great. Yours on the other hand smacks of 'im right and thats that' with precious little else to back up your point.

When I received the letter stating no siblings, I'd have rang the ward and asked if they could offer a solution rather than reading the rule and ignoring them.

You may have got a better reception from the nurse if you'd had the courtesy to phone ahead.

My argument is that you should have informed the hospital beforehand.
If you had,I suspect all would be different.
So it was in actual fact a situation of your own making,and I think you should accept that and move on.

I have no personal vendetta and no idea which thread you're on about? If it's the one about your 'friend' and soc services I think I asked once if it was really you and then left the thread as it was smoke and mirrors and became circular.

I remember reading numerous threads (of yours I think-not advanced searched you?) where you are battling the authorities, the midwives, the hospital, schools... Endless battles about vaccinations, home births, internals etc to.

It must be very tiring being you. However I've no vendetta

cross posts Chesty but exactly my point.

I have said once that he is comforted by the breast. I have never suggested that he should be breastfed in hospital for that reason, though it contributes to why.

He is totally reliant on breastmilk for his nutrition and hunger needs, - as well as his comfort needs.

I was going to go against the grain and say YANBU. No siblings is one thing. No ebf babies is quite another. Mothers and newborn babies should not be separated when there is no need. Baby could have been snuggled into a sling and wouldn't have been in the way, taken up space, been at any risk of contracting viruses or made any noise.

But then I saw that your baby is 7 months old. That's quite old enough to have water/juice/a snack instead. Sorry, YABU.

I used to work in the medical field. Despite what you were told it is not about space,its about infection control. That's why hospitals have to be extremely strict with the rules but some parents don't like being told that their cute baby could kill someone,like immune compromised patients or premature babies.
YABU.

He is 7 months, not a newborn and he is not exclusively breasted. You cannot expect the hospital to change their rules to accomodate you.

I have a friend who had her 3 year old in hospital for two weeks, sedated and touch and go for around five days. She also had a 4 week old, exclusively BF, who was not allowed on the ward.

Now imagine that. She managed - taking it in turns with her DH to sleep beside DC1, and then popping out to BF the baby. Two weeks of it! I have no idea how she managed, but she did. DC1 pulled though, and the baby was fine.

TSC, I had an unusual set of circumstances that included being pregnant with no address, no GP in the area that I was sleeping, let alone hospital, 2 young children, one with SN, in the middle of a tribunal that caused SS to want me to justify why the children were not up to date with their vaccinations and MWs want a medicalised birth due to my late registration, that I was resisting on the basis of research and, well, good practice.

That part of my life is over thank god. And it was bloody exhausting. Kids all now in schools, settled tribunal, bought a house, had home birth, been offered a job and am class rep for one of the kids.

Hope you're pleased for me........

Do you accept you were unreasonable not to let them know beforehand?

he is exclusively breastfed, bar a couple of rice cakes and an odd something or other that rarely gets anywhere near his stomach.

He is reliant on milk, as he should be.

Georgina On reflection I think it would have helped if I had let them know, but in all honesty, my plans were to keep ds in the waiting room and not take him on the ward. It was only because he had started a feed that could not be stopped that I requested he came with me.

At 7 months he will not starve if he has to wait for a feed though. And surely that does not count as exclusive breastfeeding?

Areyou I'm really sorry but I cannot be held responsible for the hospital giving me false information about their reasons that conflicts with their baby friendly initiative.

If they had SAID it was about infection control (as was in the theatre) then I might have felt differently and let the baby scream.

It counts in so far as nothing else would have met his needs.

If you do complain op I wouldn't say he is ebf and has other food, but that doesn't count etc. As he is not exclusively bf so saying he is might undermine your complaint

Why does your baby's needs override those of the other children on the ward? Or did you think the rules were just there for the fun of it?

I would have thought it was obvious that non-patients shouldn't be in an operating theatre unless in extreme circumstances.

And FYI I have managed to bf up to two years old,they often had to wait for a morning feed and they are far from damaged by it.

Yanbu at all. I hate it when a baby's need to bf is dismissed so easily.

Not that you'll listen but I think YWBU too.
Your baby is old enough to have been popped back in his buggy by auntie and walked around the grounds with a drink of water and a rice cake for the 10 mins that you needed to sign consents etc.
Yes it would be different if he were newborn as you well know as an established feeder-to suggest you don't is just being obtuse.
Your (pre op) son needed you and the staff needed to know they had your full attention. They can't be expected to know how well your baby will or won't behave.
Believe me-no matter how important and individual your case is, once we start rule bending for one, the floodgates open.

ata It doesn't really matter as the nurse didn't enquire as to whether or not he could have anything else, nor how old her was. Therefore her attitude would have been the same regardless of his age or weaning stage, which is worthy of a complaint imo.

I have sent an email. It wasn't a complaint. The nurse turned out to be quite lovely with ds in the end, and once she realised that I wasn't a problem. It was more a FYI and a request for a consideration of those kinds of situations.

He was too sleepy to feed before going to the hospital is not good enough. You should have woken him earlier, really it isn't rocket science.

Yes it is unfortunate that he just started feeding when you were called in but you should have prevented that situation beforehand.

I would have let someone else take DS (i.e. his father or a grandparent) if I really couldn't leave the baby even though it would have upset me not to be there. As a parent of more than one child I have to accept that I can't always do everything for each child. Although I must say if you were giving the baby his first feed in the hospital I would have thought you could have worked round that by waking him earlier and feeding him before you left. Then you could have left him at home for a few hours - surely they can go four hours between feeds by 7 months?

crashdoll, no babies were in operating theatres. Where has that been said?

Even I didn't want to be in the operating theatre but apparently they wanted me to be so I went WITHOUT baby.

crunch, he is fed on demand, as per NHS guidelines. You can't force a baby to breastfeed if he doesn't want to.

Bigsilk, It was a requirement that I accompany ds as his next of kin. I had a baby dependent on me. I made arrangements that he could be there but in a seperate room. The arrangements didn't work out completely as I had planned, but did for the most part.

Newborn babies look very different from 7 month olds though. Anyway this is really not the point, as has been explained to you many times there are many different reasons why they have these rules in place... Infection control, emergency access, etc, but you are choosing to ignore this and focus on the fact that your baby needed you, yes he did, but it doesn't make him more important than the hospital patients. Can you not see that?

No,you can wake them earlier,they will fuss and be comforted by bm. You said so yourself,its a comfort for him.
What if it was a formula fed baby who would only take a bottle from Mum? Should she be allowed to flout the rules?

'Even the dogs on the street could have told you its about infection control DESPITE what you are told.'

I'm sorry but it was not and is not obvious to me. I read no siblings and thought no siblings. I didn't count bf baby as a sibling because we can't be seperated. I have a 4 yr old dd. I arranged for my mum to look after her at home. I had to arrange for 3 adults to do as best as I could within the hospital rules.

Are. Stop going off on a tangent. The main reason, as stated, frequently, that my ds cannot be seperated from me is because he relies on me for nutrition, and to satisfy his hunger.

If you can't find a halfway decent argument against that then don't go round the houses looking for ways to 'win' that have no bearing at all on the situation.

Now you are being silly. Of course you can be seperated. You want special treatment because you are breastfeeding.

Mutley77 Currently my ds goes around 2 hours between feeds, day and night

I'm not going off on a tangent. I gave you the exact scenario you had except it was formula.
You cannot accept you were wrong.

Bout, I am chosing to ignore the reasons for not allowing the baby to bf in the ward, that were never given to me by the hospital.

I don't believe they are an issue because if they were an issue, they would have said so in the letter. The issue they stated is space. For that reason I carried him and kept him on my lap, leaving the buggy unattended but out of the way in the waiting room.

I doubt they will relax the rules. They'd have to for ff mums with 'fussy' babies, mums with 2 yo who won't calm down except for them etc. Just not feasible.

'Your baby is old enough to have been popped back in his buggy by auntie and walked around the grounds with a drink of water and a rice cake for the 10 mins that you needed to sign consents etc'.

AndFanjo, you are probably right about this, but there was no way of knowing, and the nurse was not forthcoming with any information about where we were going, what we were doing and how long we would be. For all I knew we were going to be gone for a couple of hours, or at least a good amount of time. Otherwise she would have said 'well, lets get you sorted then you can come back and feed, as we won't be long'.

Although, the consent forms came at random intervals with random people who didn't introduce themselves over a period of an hour and a half.

Arghhhhh. "I read no siblings" but thought it didn't mean me. And all the other people who think "it doesn't mean me" for a million and one valid and not valid reasons. That's how chaos starts and that's why there are RULES. If we all think "oh but they don't mean ME".

You are coming over as smug, supercilious and incredibly entitled.

And you CAN be separated you CHOOSE not to be. He does not need fed 24 hours a day.

Well she was quite rightly expecting you to follow hospital rules.

Are have you ever breastfed?

If you wake an asleep baby and bf them, they will fall straight asleep again within seconds and NOT feed.

I'm sorry, OP, but your baby could have been left for a few minutes. You would not have caused him damage. Would he not take a bottle or cup of expressed milk?

'What if it was a formula fed baby who would only take a bottle from Mum? Should she be allowed to flout the rules? '

Perhaps. i don't know much about ff babies tbh but if the baby really had NEVER been fed by anyone other than mum and was dependent in that way, then probably the same should apply.

I think those people would be very rare though.

Yes. He could have been left for a few minutes, but not abandoned for an unknown quantity of time.

Yes I have,tandem fed my last two. Obviously couldn't feed on the school run so had to make it work around my schedule. Obviously couldn't feed the older one whilst I was in hospital having the younger one. Expressed and gave formula,re established bf when I came home.
Thanks for asking.

But there are plenty of babies who will cry if left by their mum, particularly between 9-13 months or so. I had one of those, but I still had to leave him at times.

I think the feeding is not relevant, tbh, it is just an excuse (and, yes, I have BF a baby, FF another, and would have left them both with a relative in the next room if asked).

Yes I have,tandem fed my last two. Obviously couldn't feed on the school run so had to make it work around my schedule. Obviously couldn't feed the older one whilst I was in hospital having the younger one. Expressed and gave formula,re established bf when I came home.
Thanks for asking.

I never know why people start AIBU and then don't listen. You clearly started in the view that the hospital was unreasonable-on average 50% will disagree. I would say that it was time to put your older DC first with your undivided attention-apart from the fact that rules are rules and not up for interpretation.

Sorry,heavy fingers on the post button

YABU. Completely and utterly.

And it is ridiculous to say a baby is exclusively breastfeed "bar a couple of ricecakes." He either is or isn't exclusively BF. Yours isn't.

"abandoned for an unknown quantity of time'

oh, so dramatic

Left with his aunt who presumably he is close with since she came with you to the hospital - and you could have asked how long it would take

AIBU - yes. No I'm not. Yes you are. No I'm not and so on.

Yawn.

I am very identifiable after that last post so I am going to name change and leave this thread.

Actually, he doesn't know my aunt. She lives in Lancashire and made the journey to London for the purpose of helping me with my childcare issues, as my 'interesting circumstances' recently posted about mean that I am only starting to make friends where I am and have no-one to call on to help.

But I believe he would have been 'alright' with her otherwise I wouldn't have agreed to her offer.

sitting, presumably a 9-13 months has had more a chance of being past the exclusively breastfed stage? DS doesn't cry when being left by me. He cries when he is hungry, sees me and then his only source of food walks away.

There's no drips, just challenging of assumptions.

My aunt can't breastfeed. Is that a drip feed?

You are NOT exclusively feeding him, that would mean 'excluding' all other forms of food/drink. You keep adjusting your argument to whatever will garner you the most sympathy, but no one seems to agree with you. Why on earth should you get special treatment? I just don't get it.

YANBU at all.
As an NHS Ward Manager I would be embarrassed to hear how you had been made to feel.
Some constructive feedback is in order, it would have been helpful if you'd known you were going into theatre, your well thought out plans may have been different if you'd known in advance.

Can't believe the level of ignorance about BFing on this thread!

Bout. I am exclusively breastfeeding my ds.

He doesn't have formula. He doesn't have water. He doesn't have juice. He ocassionally plays with a rice cake, he appears to eat pine needles he finds under the sofa by the state of his nappies. He probably also eats fluff and I suspect by his mouth that he may have once had a lick of my dd's nutella on toast.

But by all accounts, he's exclusively breastfed.

No ignorance here re breastfeeding. I've done 4 years of it thanks. My (sick) son only ever eat b.m from my breast for 9 mnths. If dd1 or 2 had needed an op I'd have had to make a decision based around the needs of my kids and 'the rules.'

Just been on wards, many times, with people who felt entitled to special treatment. Just like the OP does.

YABU but also you also act like one of lifes victims (((sigh))). I'm suprised you had the audacity to fire off an email to the hospital but there again as one of lifes victims, the rules must be bent for you & you alone...... :-/

You should send a thank you card to the hospital/nurse for allowing you to take said baby onto the ward when you knew you weren't allowed not whinging and whinning.

And as mentioned previously, at 7 months old it is not usually dangerous to keep them waiting for a feed. But you allegedly are a special case and require special treatment.

I want to say Yabu but as mum to a (formula fed) 7 month old ds I feel really at the idea of your little one being distraught and left without a morning feed as I know my ds would go ballistic and be inconsolable. However luckily as I formula feed someone else could have given him a bottle, this is obviously not possible in your case.

It sounds like you were being very quick and under a lot of pressures. I can see where you're coming from..but...I can also see the hospital point of view.

I think people who are suggesting somehow you can fling a rice cake at a newly weaned or weaning 7 month old first thing in the morning and expect them to be satisfied are bonkers. There's absolutely no way my ds would be calmed down with that at all .

Thank you Sauv. I went into theatre 1 hour 45 minutes after we had arrived on the ward. The baby was well and truly topped up and fed and stuffed by then and back with my aunt. He didn't need me then. I fed him for as long as I could at the beginning of the day in the first feed to free me up for the rest of the day.

Turns out, ds came back out of theatre and was thrown out almost immediately (for drawing pictures of hands with needles in them I expect )

Starlight should not get special treatment, her BF baby should be reasonably accommodated, as per NHS policy.

I think you are misleading us as you go on to say that your exclusively breast fed child takes water and rice cakes at different times in the day.

This to me does not mean exclusively breast fed. This means gets a breast feed in the morning.

I'm sad that you were unable to prioritise your older child who was having an operation over his younger sibling who it appears has alternative routes for obtaining calories and hydration. WTF did you not just leave the baby at home? It might not have been a very easy baby sitting gig but at least your older child would have had the suppport he needed.

I am very suprised on the basis of your previous posts that you did not find out you would be expected to go into the aneathetic room beforehand. This is absolutely standard practice in the UK. The only parents IME (which is extensive) who don't are those with teeny tiny babies who don't want to come or those with hulking teenagers who want to do it without their Mum.

Oh my god this is still going?

Seriously, if ten minutes separation has this effect on you you need a psychiatrist. This isn't normal. Its ten minutes. Baby wouldn't have starved. Sometimes there are rules that mean we have to be slightly inconvenienced. That.is.life. get on with it like the rest of us.

lurker, we're experimenting with weaning. He doesn't actually consume much at all. His nappies are still neon yellow.

He isn't ready to be left without bm.

I don't the you were being ur but I do think you could have phoned before and said " I have childcare for ds's sibling but he is BF so that they will be waiting in the waiting room if needed I may have to either go out of the ward to him to feed or bring him in to the ward to feed,is that an issue?"

Would have solved a lot of problems wouldn't it.

I find this really unusual. Maybe I've been lucky but DS practically lives on our local ward and - instead of banning his sister, they accommodate her and have often helped with warming milk/food and providing things for her.

We are always given a room though, don't know if that makes a difference. But when I was bf DD and DS was in hospital they were really kind and helpful.

Personally it doesn't actually sound like anything went wrong with letting your baby have a feed then return to the aunt, you didn't hold up surgery and because they demanded you be there, then they should have accepted your fully bf babe in arms.

I feel for you OP - when DS was/is in hospital it is a juggling act for me, as it was for you today. I can't always get DD minded and sometimes she just has to be with us. Luckily my hospital is far kinder than yours. I think you tried your best to provide a solution it's just a shame the hospital timings were at the same time as baby's feed. Still no real harm was done, baby still got fed and DS still had his op. Hope your DS is feeling ok.

I think YABU.

I had spinal surgery 3 years ago, and the ward had a 'no children visitors' policy. I adhered to that, my DC were 15 and 13 so hardly like to cause a commotion, but it was a rule for everyone, or so I thought.

On the afternoon I came back from theatre, in walks a woman with mahoosive buggy with a baby, of about 7 months, to visit her mother in the corner. She told the nurse the baby was BF, mother needed visiting so baby had to come. The nurse got the matron, who was bloody lovely, and she told the woman she could stay as long as the baby made no noise!

So, baby grizzles for a feed, a while later. Woman starts pulling curtains round the bed, (fair enough she wants privacy) and knocks the water jug flying, so now the bay is awash with water! Cleaner comes and mops it up! Not only do those who can get out of bed with walking frames and sticks have to manouveure round a buggy, they now have to negotiate a bloody wet floor!

The baby was fed, but it obviously got tummy ache or wind after because it howled, and I mean howled for almost an hour. The woman kept jigging it and telling the nurses it would be quiet in a minute, but it wouldn't. They asked and asked her to leave. The lady in the bed next to mine was sobbing because she was in pain, and tired and the howling was too much for her. In the end the matron said if she didn't go they would have her removed by security!

I hated that fucking woman, she thought rules didn't apply to her too!

OP-AIBU

Posters-YABU

OP-IANBU

Why start a thread when clearly you feel you are in the right

NHS policy is no siblings on that ward, according to the OP.

The rules are in place for a reason. You need to make reasonable compromise, at 7 months the baby could have waited 10 minutes.

He wouldn't have been left without bm. You are being dramatic. He would have waited ten minutes while you signed forms. What is the big deal?

Lurker, she has stated the baby has no other fluids. And she was not not expecting to go in the anaesthetic room its going into theatre whilst he was operated on that threw her,

That would catch me unawares also as despite having loads of kids and o e of the having had a opp last week I've never had it happen.

Dizzy Who said it was going to be 10 minutes? The nurse certainly didn't. The paperwork actually took an hour and a half, though for all I knew it could have taken 4 hours like last time.

An hour and a half? For grommits? Really.

'I am very suprised on the basis of your previous posts that you did not find out you would be expected to go into the aneathetic room beforehand. This is absolutely standard practice in the UK.'

No it isn't. I didn't go last time. And besides I had 6 lots of grommets when I was a child and my mum didn't come once.

But that is besides the point. I never took ds into the theatre, nor would I expect to. He was on the WARD for 10 minutes whilst we were waiting for the first person to do their rounds.

An hour and a half? What paperwork was it exactly you were signing?

The prep and form signing took an hour and a half from the first person doing their rounds until the last. The operation took around half an hour from going in to being brought back to the ward bay.

BUT, no-one told me what was going to happen when, how long it would take etc etc. I fed my baby the biggest feed I could as early as I could and then sent him away.

How do you get your older DC to school? Is he/she regularly late because you're baby needs a feed? Are you regularly late to collect?

A 7 month baby, regardless of how it's fed, can wait 10 minutes for a feed. Even if it's extremely cross for those 10 minutes. YABU.

Why is nobody reading the OP's posts and just making random assumptions, I don't get it?

Sirzy. Hardly anything at all. Just about 3 lots of A4 sheets, that came at random intervals with the first an hour and a half earlier than the last.

Are you asking for any reason? informational? supportive? bullying?

There was no-body there to ask.

An hour and a half for forms is bollocks.

An hour and a half seeing the different people you listed earlier yes, but then you could have gone in, saw first one and then come and fed ds before second one comes.

Sorry for appalling grammar, I hate my tablet and cba to speak properly on it.

Op you are being very patient!

Some posters are not going to accept that the rules were re save not infection, no matter how many times you repeat them. Some seem hell bent on telling you what the rule is there for, even though they don't know which hospital!

They also seem to ignite the fact that you and the nurse got on after the initial grump. Maybe she was having a bad morning and you bore the brunt of it, I don't know, I wasn't there.

Anyway, all turned out fine, you sound completely reasonable to me, not at all entitled. Hope your ds recovers quickly.

I was asking because you seem to be making a mountain out of a molehill. After the first form and nobody was there couldn't you have gone out then and finished the feed?

When you took him in you didn't know how long it was all going to take. Somebody came for you then could you not have asked them?

Arghh ignore not ignite!!

YANBU

I spent two years in and out of hospital with DD. I was a control freak about infection.

I would not have batted an eyelid at a bfing baby (or a ff one for that matter), in fact it would have made me smile. A feeding baby is not noisy or distracting. A child having an op needs its parent. What is the problem?

What on earth is a bfing mother supposed to do? Cut herself in half? Why make a stressful situation worse with blanket rules?

trio, my older child goes by special needs taxi.

Again, are you looking for information to be supportive, to help, or are you going to jump on the bullying irrelvant argument just to win, bandwagon and side track the thread with random questions?>

Or will you be like a previous poster and suggest that I've now drip fed that my son has SN in order to get a sympathy vote?

The OPs post at 16:06:50 states
"DS has times when he NEEDs bm, but other times when he can have water/rice cake."
She later changes her mind that he has absolutely NO other fluids and only plays with a rice cake because not enough people were agreeing that exceptions should be have been made for her.

I am quite surprised to read this thread. When DS, then aged 2, was admitted to hospital with a chest infection, the nurses were quite happy for DH to bring DD, then about 5 months, on to the ward to be fed at regular intervals. DS was otherwise getting distressed if I tried to leave him.
This was 17 years ago. Shocking that things have gone backwards since then.

It doesn't really matter why the rule is there. Its a rule and it is quite frankly strange bordering on neurotic to be upset about it. ost of us just deal with things like this.

I can't take my son who is mostly bfed and eats very little everywhere, it distracts dd. I don't go hysterical.

Did they have superbugs 17years ago moomins? And was norivirus doing the rounds then? I believe things have got lots worse (in terms of hygeine control and bugs) I might be wrong though.

So you emailed your 'thoughts' after the event but couldn't be bothered to do so beforehand????

'An hour and a half for forms is bollocks.'

Not really. I thought it was quite efficient based on prior experience.

'An hour and a half seeing the different people you listed earlier yes, but then you could have gone in, saw first one and then come and fed ds before second one comes.'

Yes. If there was any way of knowing that there was even going to be a second person. I hadn't a clue what was going on. Person came to get us, got huffy, left us to it. People came and went but it looked like ward was in a kind of corridoor. Asked one person where the toilets are and they clearly felt it wasn't their job to tell me, though did. They weren't rude, just appeared very busy and annoyed at the interruption.

So I sat in the ward, with ds, wondering what was going to happen next, not daring to leave the ward in case somebody needed to find us. Every now and then someone would appear with a form. Eventually a nurse came and told us that we were next and that we had been bumped up, so presumably, even if she had known what was going to happen it could have changed anyway.

Yes, as a distraction bout. Do you read the thread?

TSC The reason given was space, not infection.

Georgina, as already explained, I had no intention of taking my baby onto the ward. However, the timing was very bad which required me to do so for 10 minutes.

Why are they concerned about space starlight? It has already been explained to you that it may be because they needed space to get emergency access to one of their patients, but your response pertained only to your own child as though no one else mattered. I think your rather entitled attitude is why so many people have not got any sympathy for you.

And yes I read the thread, it is you that keeps adding/changing information

My dd2 was the same at that age, mainly bf still. When ds1 (11 yrs) had to go in to have his appendix out, they set up a bed for me and a cot for her too.

They also brought me meals, they said this was hospital policy as I was breastfeeding.

The only time she couldn't stay was when we went down to the anasthetic room, the nurses kindly offered to watch her for the 10 mins it took.

Yanbu. Bit weird them wanting you in the theatre part too.

But as you knew from the info given that siblings were not allowed,you should have let them know your circumstances beforhand.
I know I keep repeating myself but it would have been common courtesy,they could have advised you about any difficulties that may arise and worked with you to make it all go smoothly.
As I said,I would have been only to willing to help any mother in these circumstances.
I would be very upset if I was that nurse though,that you could take the time to raise the issue afterwards but not before.

Bout, There was little space. I didn't take my buggy because the letter stated there was little space. Each bed was in its own alcove. I had a baby on my lap. I was no less mobile than anybody else. No-one would need to get past me except to get to ds who was either sitting beside me or playing across the ward corridoor with the lego.

Omg people. It's about space not infections. How many more times!!!!

I didn't know that it would be a problem beforehand. I certainly hadn't got the infant feeding specialists email at that point and if I had and had emailed her, I doubt hugely that the message would have got to day surgery, where I only found out my ds was going to go, on the day.

Before you get your knickers in a twist, at the last hospital, children didn't go to 'day surgery' they went to 'lime ward', and I was in 'children's ward', and I have no general idea about how hospitals work so tend to just go and do as I'm told, which I believe I did to the best of my ability this time.

DD1 went to theatre weekly for months on end and there were siblings in the waiting area nearly every time.

If she was neutropaenic they just took her through the back and bypassed the waiting area and she went into theatre.

But they do operate to a strict schedule and she was bumped a few times and/or did the bumping.

I didn't know that it would be a problem beforehand

Yes you did because you had a letter stating the issue. You should have contacted them at that point and explained the issue.

nef
your children are obviously older then
as since 2001 nhs guidelines state that you shouldn't START weaning until 26 weeks.
and even then you should treat the next 6 months as fun, not food. ie learning what food is, learning textures and the mechanics of eating.

Blanket rules are made because nursing staff do not have the time or head sapce to make case by case assessments as to what constitues a good enough reason to be allowed an exemption.

It is completely unreasonable to expect nursing staff to do this.

There could be a hundred reasons why a parent feels their case is the special exception: a single parent who has no other child care, a parent with a child with SN who is frightened with anyone else etc etc.

If every parent who felt that their case was exceptional simply ignored the no sibling rule the ward would soon become crowded, noisy and unhygenic.

The letter stated no siblings, not no siblings in the hospital grounds. Baby was never meant to come into the ward.

But you did take the baby onto the ward which you knew was against the rules. You should have sorted things beforehand.

The rule was no siblings. It said so in the letter. You knew that. If that was a problem for you why did you not ring up and say so. Instead of just ignoring the rules on the day. It doesn't matter why the rule was in place, it was. And if you feel so strongly that it was unfair then you should write to the hospital trust though I imagine they have a lot more things to worry about than this trivial stuff.

As usual, someone asks if they are BU. Majority of posters say yes, YABU. OP spends rest of thread explaining why they are right and majority are wrong.

Move along, please, there's nothing to see here....

It wasn't supposed to be a problem. I made arrangements so it would not be so.

The plan went wrong.

As you did take him on ward and fed him,the operation went well and you were discharged early,what have you got to complain about???
This is why i hate my job sometimes.Nothing we do is ever right for some people.

I don't think it's 'trivial' at all. A good NHS manager release on patient feedback to improve the service - I do.

I don't think it's unreasonable for a BFing mother to think that a EBF baby should be subject to reasonable adjustments.

A fuller explanation of the unit'sprocedures and what would happen on the day would have helped.

A woman with six children makes arrangements for them to be looked after while her eldest has an opperation.

The arrangments fall apart. The plan went wrong. It wasn't menat to happen. Is she unreasonable to take her six children onto the hospital ward?

the hospital was being ridiculous. a mother and breastfed baby are a single unit.

And you didnt 'make arrangements' with the very people it might be a problem to.
There in lies the problem
Anyway,hope the gromets work.

Ah, so your plan went wrong, the nurse wasn't to blame and the ward policy seemed reasonable when you found out about it. Unfortunately your baby dictated that you wouldn't abide by the rules but the staff were good enough to let it slide so you could make the best of a difficult situation. I do like a happy ending.

No Georgina we will never make every patient or relative happy but if you ever have any complaints training, you will know that the vast majority of complaints arise from poor communication and staff attitude, both of which appear to be lacking in the situation the OP describes.

But she's still complained

'A fuller explanation of the unit'sprocedures and what would happen on the day would have helped.'

Yes. That would have been enormously helpful, not just for the baby thing but because has autism and needs to have an idea about what will happen (as well as being 6 which I think generally means he needs to have an idea about what will happen).

Instead we just planned to be as flexible as we could, to allow for as much time as we could, just in case. The plan was not to be a bother to anyone. No special requests, requirements, no phoning people and getting anxious that the message gets through. (None of the staff knew about ds' autism, so key information quite clearly doesn't get through, let alone the logistics of bfing babies).

However, the baby needed feeding at the time that the nurse wanted us to go through to the ward to register us, so I took baby who had just started his feed, in order to finish it and free me up for the rest.

Sorry haven't read all 13 pages but couldn't the baby just this once have had an expressed bottle/cup of milk?

I personally would have left the baby at home with Aunt and snacks/ expressed milk, then you could have focussed properly on your son undergoing the operation.

I also don't get all the posters saying you can't schedule feeds with a bf baby? Huh? I did and managed to bf dd for a year thanks.

So YABU (of course)

No thebay, I have not complained about the nurse. I have asked the infant feeding coordinator what account has been taken of breastfed babies when communicating their sibling policy to day surgery patients, and explained the situation I found myself in.

I appear to have lost the ability to read, where does it say that the OP has complained?

You can't shedule feeds for a baby who is fed on demand.

I can't express, and ds can't drink from a bottle, and not very well from a cup.

Keep x-posting with OP!

OP, this is obviously a horribly hard time for your and your family and I'm glad all is well. A friend of mine went through a similar experience when her DS1 was 3yo and DS2 just 2mo. She never took DS2 to hospital with her and she or her DP alternated staying with their DS1 for over 6 weeks on and off (lots of complications, not my story to tell). She realised that DS1 was the priority and initially expressed but very quickly turned to formula for her DS2. She hated that but had no real choice.

Couldn't you have planned ahead and expressed for your DC2 so that they could have been looked after by your aunt without having to go to the hospital at all? I know that suddenly offering a baby a bottle doesn't work too well but in the situation you were in, if DC2 was really needing a feed then a bottle would have worked.

So yes, I do think YWBU but can understand that forethought doesn't always come into the decisions we make when life is suddenly really hard.

oh ffs.

a 7mo is fine without bf if they are with someone else.

if you start a feed it's an extremely bad idea to stop andhand the baby over.
to a baby who thinks their physical needid being met that would be actual torture.

watch me....

<gavel>

yanbu

She's said somewhere else she wants to 'win' this one, and then sent the email.

And has moaned about the nurse.

2+2 tends to make 4... Particularly given the ops tone.

YANBU at all. There needs to be a very good reason to separate a breastfeeding infant from its mother. "Space" is not a good enough reason (especially as a bfing baby doesn't take up any extra space).

There are jobsworths and awkward sods i the NHS as there are anywhere else. And threads like this always bring out the "You Must Obey" brigade as well. Common sense, however, easily points to you feeding your hungry baby as the cause of the least possible disturbance to all parties.

TSC you talked about "winning" first, OP merely referred to it in her subsequent posts. The only thing she wanted was to feed her hungry baby without compromising her other child. Which was very easy to accomplish and inconvenienced nobody.

Thankyou sauvignon I have has many sessions of complaints training.
As far as i am aware I have never received a complaint about my attitude or nursing care,thank goodness.
If the hospital had pre operative clinics in place alot of these issues would have been avoided,as OP could have explained her situation and solutions saught.
I have stated up thread that had I been the nurse involved then I would have handled differently.
I maintain however that had OP ,when reading the 'no siblings' rule,had emailed or rung the hospital explaining her situation,the problem would not have arisen.
Communication works both ways doesn't it.
Anyway,hopefully lessons have been learned on both sides.

Do you mean this post?

Add message | Report | Message poster StarlightMcKenzie Tue 05-Feb-13 16:32:17
I haven't won anything. Perhaps if I pointed the hospital to their very own baby friendly initiative I might 'win' a better service for bfing mothers in future.

Sounds reasonable to me!

God forbid paediatric wards should be a place where nurses are expected to think about special circumstances.

What would that lead to?

larks, this is a very good time for us. better than it has been in a long time.

But I still can't express anywhere near what ds requires for a feed.

I think a few people here have no idea of what happens in a day surgery at hospital.
My experience (of a few times) of that is that you are told very little, see very few people and when you do, they are very busy running from one end of the room to the other.
You have no idea at what time you will go to surgery. the time you get is the time you should be at the hospital, several people will be booked at the same time and will be going one after the other. You can be the first or the last, no way of knowing and no one will tell you when you arrive. What is assumed is that you (and whoever is coming with you) are ready for a long, long wait (A friend of mine waited a full day!). As for when you come out... I actually have been told that my DP would be better off ringing before coming to pick me up (which was just as well as I came out 2~3 hours later than planned).

In these circumstances, it's not about organizing yourself with a baby for one feed, it's about having an organization to cover one feed and your older child being seen straight away to actually spending the whole day in hospital.

Unfortunately, once there you can't do better than go with the flow (and that's what is expected from you). I know by experience that if you start interrupting the nurses with questions such as 'when is ds going into theatre?', 'how much do I have' etc... it's not going to go down well because well... the nurses are BUSY looking after patients and have little time to explain and answers questions like this (whihc to be fair will look unessential).

I also agree re the bfing policy of the hospital. Procedures like the ones about 'no sibling' should take that into account, esp within an NHS hospital.

TSC I can't remember the OP moaning about the nurse.
Actually I am sure she said that afterwards they had a good chat and were both quite friendly to each other....

I understood that the OP had an issue with the hospital blanket policy re siblings and bfing.

TBH, I didn't even have a problem with the policy and planned significantly to adhere to it (Mum came down from Cumbria to look after dd, Aunt came down from Lancashire to look after baby close by), until things went wrong, then I saw the problem with it.

And now i have a problem with the policy iyswim.

I hope the hospital changes its stance as a result of the OP's feedback, the issue probably hadn't occurred to them.
That's why patients' comments and feedback (good and bad) is so important.

Impressed dramatics have reached page 14!

7mos can have snacks and toys and singing from Aunts as distractions.

I would know, I've got one too!

blond, that's great. I hope you are really proud.

My ds can't sit up yet unaided.

blondie - okay, with your 7mo, try this tomorrow.

dc wakes up wants boov. you give boob but only for half a minute then put yourself away and hand the baby to a relative and leave the room.

then come back and tell me what happens.

StarlightMcKenzie Thu 10-Jan-13 23:19:45
He just ate 3 AFTER fish, mushy peas and wedges of potato (which probably mostly went on the floor) and now has been bfing for 30mins.

He had one big pouch and two smaller ones.

Just so you all know this is the exclusively breastfed baby we are talking about. One who eats 3 Ella's kitchen pouches in ONE sitting.

Yeah. He'd have starved to death if deprived of his Mother's milk while she concentrated on her eldest child.

Um...OP. You posted very recently that your 7mo eats Ella's pouches three at a time, not to mention covering his rather varied solids diet in at least two other recent threads. What's this guff about the odd rice cake and pine needles?

X post with lurker

Op for your own sanity I think you need to step away. Not everyone feels you were being unreasonable but some are so completely against you they're not hearing your argument.

ROFL - yes I absolutely did!!

And I'm hoping it happens soon. I was reflecting on dd though. She flipping did. Eats nothing now though she is 4.

However slightly disturbed that you're checking up on me. Other threads do not make this thread as it stands, any less or any more than it is.

I wonder are your comments related to the informaiton on the thread, or some kind of personal issue!?

well in light of recent developments then you certainly are being unreasonable!

only on MN does EBF overule EVERYTHING, norovirus, screw that!
the need to EBF is sacrosanct.....

OP hope your DS is better

No, you clearly said 'DS' and spoke in the present tense about your then 6mo on the three Ella's pouches thread. I also pitched in on a thread where you discussed your DS's solids diet and remembered your name so I didn't check up apart from to cross-reference the link.

It's nothing personal. It just highlights the fact that you like a bit of a fuss, methinks, and don't mind embellishing your story as needed...?

And it's more than one of you? Good grief. What have I done to upset people in the past? I haven't been searching through threads on y'all?

Just for the record though, - should my ds be eating a roast dinner every day, or even not exist at all, the issue that I am posting about is still no less valid

There was no norovirus athe hospital, and the letter stated no siblings due to there not being SPACE!!

Yes Elpha, and I bloody hope it takes off like I hope, and follows dd, though I wish she'd eat even one right now.

Incidently, she's due for a grommets operation some time soon. I wonder if things will be the same?

Gosh, it's vitriolic on here tonight!

Op, ywnbu to ask to bring a baby which had begun a feed with you. When I was bf-ing, I physically couldn't have stopped a feed once I'd let down - I'd have been a fountain going up the corridor!

I can see other poster's points if there had been an infection on the ward or you had wanted to bring a large family of toddlers with you - but you were clearly told it was a space issue. This in itself is fair enough, and I expect the no sibling thing is to prevent hordes of toddlers charging about. But feeding a baby on your lap really isn't that obstructive, and you took the baby away straight after. I think you were very fair, and the hospital eventually did the right thing in letting you feed.

The nurse was probably trying to avoid other parents seeing you with a sibling and wanting theirs too.

You are absolutely right, the issue you have discussed does hold credence. But you have used the "exclusively" breastfed stance to your advantage when it clearly isn't true, why do you get to 'flout' the rules to suit you? What about people who really can't get childcare or their children truly are EBF? Because of selfish behaviour from people like you these rules may be even more strictly enforced in the future.

Why are people routing through old threads? Why?

Can't you cope with the information on THIS thread?

Are your arguments here so dire that you have to hunt around looking for an inconsistancy or two to discredit the poster because you can't discredit the argument?

You'll find inconsistancies. Plenty I expect. I post on MN for a variety of reasons like many. Sometimes to clarify a situation, sometimes to explore one. Sometimes I change details to remain anonymous, sometimes I post to let of steam, sometimes I post from a friends perspective in order to help them in rl. I do post lots though. Sometims I substitue their kids for mine for short hand.

None of that matters. What matters is there are some people with a real chip on their shoulder here.

I'm a bit scared of saying it, has this been hijacked by some because of the emotive subject of feeding choices?

I'm telling you my ds doesn't yet eat enough to no longer need milk.

I've said it many times on this thread.

I'm saying it again.

Even if he could, he would probably STILL need a good ole breastfeed in the morning as did my dd.

Step away star. They're not gonna listen!

Do Ella's not make a poridgey type pouch you baby could've had?

I don't know but it could've saved all the fuss.... Oh.

Have you got more than 2 Children?

No. I went looking because I seemed to recall that you rarely have positive interactions with the health service.

I am astounded at what you have been posting elsewhere about your "exclusively breast fed" DS diet.

If you had posted on here to say "My son had surgery and the hospital won't let breast fed babies in isn't that awful". I would probably have agreed with you.

However you made out that YOUR younger child would have suffered terribly as result of this policy had it been fully implemented.

I am therefore really quite taken aback by your own admission elsewhere on Mumsnet that he takes in a hell of a lot of calories from other substances and in fact would probably have been fine but a little grouchy if he had been left at home.

I remain upset for your older autistic DS who doesn't appear to have had your undivided attention today on what would have been a stressful day.

Your son(s). Your choices. However they aren't choices I understand.

People are rooting through old threads because they can. You're getting defensive because you've been shown to be stretching things - or is the Ella three pouch not you?

It's bollocks all to do with feeding choices, loads of people have said they bf/ebf - stop trying to imply everyone's against you because of formula feeding. Sheesh.

Accept that some people think you were in the wrong and forget about it.

"I'm telling you my ds doesn't yet eat enough to no longer need milk."

You wouldn't have had to stop breastfeeding though, just alter the way you'd usually do things for an hour or so.

'Oh, so you wanted to start a BFing bunfight!'

No I don't. But I'm wondering if some people do. If it isn't that they WHAT is it?

Yes, lurker. Spot on.

McNew. I have 3 children.

I have explaineed that lurker.

I seem to have to explain the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.

I was getting myself confused so just wanted to know

Stretching the truth

over and over and over and over and over and over and over ..........

I'm in two minds with this. On the one hand I am confused as DS2 has been an inpatient many, many times and I have never been told DS3 could not be there too. I've had a travel cot up before so he could have a sleep during the day or they would find a buggy for him.

On the other hand the atmosphere in day surgery wards is entirely different. It is very fast moving and if you are called you go immediately or you could miss the slot. For me on surgery days (and he has had many) I want to be able to focus solely on DS2. I have always gone down to theatre with him too and they are very strict there, even DH has to wait in the theatre waiting room. That has been standard procedure at the different hospitals we have been in with him.

Part of me still thinks though that one baby having a breast feed isn't worth the nurse even questioning it however.

Anyway, I'm off to bed because ds feeds every couple of hours or less during the night and it is much later than I often go to bed

(though feel free to find a thread where I posted at 1am to imply that I am lying)

night all........

It's kicking up an entitled fuss like this that gets people irritated with breastfeeding and breastfeeders.

Yes, I BF, but I really, really don't want people thinking I believe myself permitted rights over and above others as a result. Because I'm not and I don't.

YWBU, OP. Really, you were.

Really don't get why people are being so horrible - and bullying - to the OP. Some of the things that have been said to her are really nasty.

FWIW when my DD was 7mo she wouldn't eat ANYTHING (I tried and tried), she only drank EBM (she rejected any bottles from 7wks old and again I tried and tried), she refused bottles, cups, anything that basically wasn't my boob. It was a bloody nightmare and I hated it and I had to do it until she was 18mo - so not all bf babies at 7mo are capable of taking a bottle, drinking with a cup or eating a thing. Just because YOUR bf baby wasn't like the OPs doesn't mean she is lying.

And whoever said you can't drink while bf.... er - yes you can!

Oh, and if I'd left my DD when she was hungry - well, she was a screamer (still is) and would not only have distressed everyone else there, but would have distracted me too, no end. I can't concentrate on a thing when she's kicking off. I wish to god I had had an easy, pliable, patient baby but not all of them come like that (my DS, on the other hand...).

OP: YWNBU

Personally, if I was on a ward with one of my children, I couldn't give a rats left one about your personal circumstances...I do not want a 7 month old screaming and causing a fuss. Yabu to think your and your baby's rights override other people's purely because you bf. 7 months is old enough to distract for 10 minutes with a snack or toy...they won't come to any harm waiting. They don't need to bd on the ward.
You are not only bu but completely selfish. Be a grown up and make other arrangements next time.

I don't class a thread you started a few days ago surrounding the same situation as an ' old thread'

You asked WIBU? - well yes you were. When that was pointed out many times hours ago you could've simply stated that you'd had a very stressful day, were just glad DS's op went well & undoubtedly everyone would've said 'there, there' & that would've been the end of that.
Instead you, by your own admission, freely continue to post 'inconsistencies'
embellishments

But the baby wasn't making a fuss - it was feeding and left as soon as it had finished (with the aunt). And she wasn't 10 mins, she was an hour and a half.

birdsnotbees I am well aware that some 7mos won't take anything other than breast milk from the breast.

However, do you not think that the OPs other posts boasting about her 7mo consuming not one but three Ella's kitchen sachets AFTER he had had some other solids smacks ever so slightly of hypocrisy and totally undermines her argument.

I too am going to bed now.

Yanbu very bizarre policy. Ours recommends no sibling BUT makes allowances for bfed and 'babies in arms' have had to take littler ones numerous times including for pre op and minor day surgery etc and just not been a problem.

I notice how the NHS ward manages who says the op is nbu is ignored.

And to the poster who commented that the op shouldn't drink because she is bfeeding, that is crap you can still drink alcohol whilst bfeeding.

monntagdrinking wine or other alcohol even if a baby is ebf is fine.

Lurker She said that wasn't her bf baby but one of her other kids. But whatevs, seems that the OP can't say or do anything right - there's a whole load of people shouting her down saying she's BU not listening to what THEY have to say, but I don't really see many people even trying to see if from her point of view. Which is what I was trying to do, as having a nightmare 7mo is something I sadly have a lot of experience of.

Sorry, drinking alcohol whilst Bf'ing is not something I or any of my friends have ever done, didn't realise it was fine so stand corrected

After bf-ing for 18 sodding months (can you tell I didn't want to), I think I would have gone mad had I not been able to have the odd tipple...

Mon it may be fine to some but I refused to ever do it,ditto caffeine or even paracetamol.

Well its best not to get blade red! but yes you can still drink whilst you bfeed. There is some info on the time the alcohol takes to get out if your blood stream and it used to be recommended that you 'pump and dump' your milk, but that is not necessary

Well that's your choice polka and I was careful with caffeine but there is evidence to show some alcohol is fine and paracetamol and many prescription drugs etc. I bfed for over nine years, I would have gone insane if I couldn't have the odd drink, plus meds for eczema and also pnd.

5madthings: Yanbu very bizarre policy. Ours recommends no sibling BUT makes allowances for bfed and 'babies in arms' have had to take littler ones numerous times including for pre op and minor day surgery etc and just not been a problem. I notice how the NHS ward manages who says the op is nbu is ignored.
agreeing.

mn pack mentalityin evidence here tonight.

5mad I think it's the OPs tone and title "flouting the rules"
That has got some people's backs up.

Maybe it is something that needs to be addressed in the unit but OP could have approached staff pre the occasion instead of "flouting the rules"

'mentality in'. with a gap. i blame my right thumb.

Pmsl at MN deleting its own post for breaking talk guidelines

Polka - each to their own, though I always followed guidelines. Safety first and all that. Paracetamol is fine during pregnancy, when it can cross the placenta, so not really an issue. Mind you, I had no choice: I had a condition that my GP described as "exquisitely painful" (it was) and had to reject the nuclear-strength painkillers he wanted to give me on the grounds that I was bf-ing. Paracetamol came a very poor second... but were better than nothing, particularly when I couldn't sleep for the pain.

mrsbunny agree - it's all been rather nasty, feel for the OP.

Sometimes a BF baby can't be distracted, and NEEDS to feed. It's a fact. I'm sure op understands her own baby well enough to know when a bf is needed. You can't always substitute a bf for a solid snack, as b'fing is not just about food for a baby, it's comfort too.

It can be very distressing for a b'fing Mother to have to walk away from her crying baby knowing he/she needs a feed. That's not easy, especially in op's position when she was trying to look after her older DS too.

I really think it's typical that op has had a bashing here, as all threads that are about anything to do with b'fing end like this.

I really wish the attitude towards b'fing would change in this country, and that people would show some support for it.

I think it's discusting the way op has been treated on here She was trying to make the best of a difficult situation, and the hospital should have been more understanding, as should all those who have been nasty to her on here. No need for it.

I'm afraid I haven't read the entire thread, just the first and last pages but, from what I have read I think yes, YABU.

There is a no sibling rule for a reason, and it isn't to try to make life awkward for you. It is to prevent already sick children being exposed to further germs - the norovirus in particular at this time of year. Forgive me if I am wrong, but I assume your DS's operation was not an emergency operation but rather a routine one. Had your child been having an emergency life-saving operation due to being extremely sick you might view unnecessary extra germ infested children in a slightly different light.

I was actually under the understanding that according to UK a nursing mother and her child whilst sole breast fed are classed as a dyad and legally cannot be separated? Can't google it from here but if so they should have to make an exception for dyads.

Having had 4 b/fed babies, I think you did the best you could and tried very hard to work in with their rules. I don't see what else you could have done really!

YANBU. At all. Sleep well Star.

YANBU

If hospital had Unicef 'baby friendly' status, which all NHS hospitals should have or be working towards, then they would have been told not to implement policies which obstruct breastfeeding.

Contact PALS and ask to see the hospital's written policy on breastfeeding. It will have one.

I thought an EBF baby was a baby that only had breastmilk. Not a baby that ate rice cakes fishfingers mushy peas and goodness knows what else. What a silly and riduculous fuss about absolutely nothing. The baby isn't EBF.

Oh, and none of mine were even starting on weaning till over 7 months! Sorry to the who disagree but I think starlight did the best she could in the situation and starlight, do contact them about not being baby friendly, leaving a b/fed baby behind is as easy as leaving your left leg! Ridiculous!

A small baby who doesn't drink formula or drink from bottles needs to be near its mother.

That's all.

It's unreasonable to ask for an exclusively breastfed baby not to have access to its mother in the situation the OP describes - there was no risk to anyone's health, and it doesn't set a precedent for anyone except other mothers with exclusively breastfed babies.

I remember your previous posts Star (although they all seem to have been deleted now??) and lots come across as preachy about bf and rather entitled. You were unreasonable to flount the rules. Your baby is clearly not ebf if it's eating food. It seems you did it simply because you feel that you have some kind of breast given rights.

The baby isn't ebf so I think yabu

I think ywbu a bit as well.

When I went back to work, my ebf dd, from 5 months, practically stopped eating during the day. She would hardly touch her bottles of expressed milk. At 7 months, she would refuse them altogether and she really wasn't into solids until she was about a year old. So she would go practically all day without eating (although she certainly made up for it in the evenings, she would latch on as soon as I got home and just go for it for hours, including night feeds!). Anyway, no harm would come to your 7 month old if he didn't eat for a bit although obviously not much fun for anyone involved. But I don't think you can expect the hospital to be as accommodating to what is, essentially, a comfort rather than a necessity. It would be very different if your baby was a newborn.

But I also think the attacks on when/how you wean are ignorant and pretty unpleasant, my dd certainly wasn't 'weaned' at 7 months!!

My 6 month old wouldn't take bottles & i didn't express. he was fine in nursery for the odd occasion I was working.( they offered him water from a cup & I left a fromage frais & some pureed veg.Once they have been introduced to solids they are no longer exclusively breastfed!!! 7 months is not classed as a small baby surely?

Ladyindisguise - you asked what you do when one DC needs an operation, and you have another DC, and you are a Lone Parent.

You panic. You ask their father to look after their well child. when they say no, you panic some more after calling them every bastard under the sun. Then you phone around all of your friends until you can find someone who can help. If you have 3/4 DC's and are in that situation - you may well end up with a DC at each friend's house, PLUS the one in hospital.

Most LP's with 2+ DC's nightmare. The only thing more scary is needing to go into hospital for an operation yourself, as a LP!

Me too Imnot.. Very sad and tbh gives bf bad publicity.

Those of you who're being insulting to the OP - were you not aware that most hospitals would consider it poor practice to insist on a blanket application of a protocol without any consideration of its impact on exclusively breastfed babies? That's the whole point of 'baby friendly' accreditation.

No fabsmum, it appears all they are aware of is my name, and that was enough to throw insults.

I hope so Anyway as it might mean they don't actually feel so strongly against as they are pretending to.

What happened to the policy of not insulting poster, some of you ought to be ashamed

Ywnbu. I agree with fabsmum

Oh blimey starlight, what a shitstorm you have created!

I know you are thick skinned so I hope you will ignore the twits who have no comprehension of the situation.

In a nutshell YANBU. There are rules for a reason, however there are times when common sense comes into play- this was one of them. I hope ds feels ok today.

Fabsmum - hospitals can only help in individual circumstances if they know about them. But as the op decided she didn't need to inform them of her problem then how could they help?

And it has already been established that infact her son isn't exclusively breastfed at all

Yes, that's how I see it Ilike.
Having spent loads of time in those environments I really think that it was just a common sense decision that needed to be made. In fairness it was made so I'm not sure it warranted a complaint letter.

The baby isn't ebf though

If you were talking about a very young baby you would potentially have a point (although there are times when you have to let your partner do things so that you can feed). A 7 month old can be left for a bit - not ideal but no different to a formula fed baby who needs a bottle.

'And it has already been established that infact her son isn't exclusively breastfed at all'

No it hasn't. It has been repeatedly posted by you and one or two others, but that doesn't make it true.

My baby relies on milk for his sole source of nutrition and fluid. As he is over 6 months we have started offering him other things like rice cakes. However, the only evidence that he has consumed anything is that I have pine needles in his nappy.

However much you insist that having eating pine needles means the baby isn't ebf, it doesn't take away the FACT that a baby waking for his first bf of the morning cannot make do with a rice cake that he can't coordinate to actually eat much of, and no fluids.

'A 7 month old can be left for a bit'

Yes he can, which is why I brought my aunt to occupy him in the waiting room. However, he cannot wait for an unspecified amount of time after waking for a feed and being offered 2 sucks.

OFFS just let it GO now! You have one opinion, shared by small minority. Others do not. Regardless of what anyone says, you are not going to change your opinion that you were not unreasonable. So LET IT GO. Continuing the thread as you are is serving no good.

i don't understand why you started this thread op. you've asked 'aibu'. it's quite clear that you personally think you are not, so why is this discussion needed?

I don't think it is a small minority that share my opinion. It's just that the people who do not, keep coming back onto the thread with a different argument to try to prove their points, raking around on my old points to link to, repeating assumptions that have already been clarified and put straight.

The bullies are the noisiest yes, but not the majority.

Are we reading the same thread?

Look - you had a difficult experience and I sympathise with you that having in a child in hospital for anything is very unpleasant but you need to move on.

YABU

From the pages I have read I don't think most people do agree with you. You need to re-read your thread OP and just check

I support the OP. I'm guessing other people here haven't breastfed or haven't breastfed for very long. The hospital was being unreasonable and inflexible.

YABU

You should have contacted them beforehand and clarified the situation.

Whether the baby is eating Ella's pouches or not, and whatever Starlight's personal situation or stance on BF may or may not be, the fact that a 'baby-friendly' hospital expected a mother to stop a BF and leave her baby with someone else on grounds of space is bloody ridiculous and needs to be raised with the management so that it doesn't happen again. A 7 mo old attached to a boob takes up less space than some people's handbags.

On those grounds alone the OP is NBU.

this thread is just getting more bizarre. op is bending the truth.

StarlightMcKenzie Thu 10-Jan-13 23:19:45 "He just ate 3 AFTER fish, mushy peas and wedges of potato (which probably mostly went on the floor) and now has been bfing for 30mins. He had one big pouch and two smaller ones"

Roopoo,

Contacted WHO exactly? Who is 'THEM'? How will I know that the message has got through to the person it needed to on the day? I doubt very much had I even got through the various 'hold' sections on the telephone that anyone would be interested.

And quite apart from anything, I had no intention of taking ds into the ward. It just happened and took me by surprise.

As has been clarified already in the thread btw.

You as well nipers. Your attempt at making your argument against according to the information on this thread is so poor you've had to go on a witch-hunt?

FYI, THAT information has also been clarified on the thread further down, if you had read it.

So why couldn't you leave baby DS with your aunt with toys and a snack while you dealt with hospitalised DS?

yawn

And the idea that a child of any age can be removed mid-suck to be handed to someone else is, quite frankly, laughable. A 7 mo old will be way more vocal than a newborn! Some people are very naïve.

Thank you Baron I have written to the Infant Feeding Specialist at the hospital about what happened.

It has already been said, but I'll repeat (as some posters like to jump in with assumptions rather than read), I have NOT made a complaint againt the nurse.

btw, how is your other ds?, you know, the one who had the op?

Yes exactly nipers Yawn. Bowlers why don't you read the thread? All the answers to your questions are there. Otherwise I'll just have to keep repeating myself and it is boring.

Do you care nipers? I think not.

She couldn't leave DS with her aunt because she had already started a feed. Try it sometime. Honestly, just try it........ Hell hath no fury!

Fair enough. Have read a lot of the thread but not all-will do so and come back later. I can't imagine what your answer to my question can be though that would indicate that wouldn't have been the ideal thing to do

It would probably have the same effect with a bottle-fed 7 month. Baby's starving and whinging, sees you prepare the bottle, kicks legs and arms, give him two sucks then take it away and walk out of the room with it.

Difference is you can leave the bottle with the baby's carer.

Why could your dp not go in with your son?

Contacted the ward?
My DS is under consultant care and every letter sent has a contact number on.
If I had any query over info received I would call to clarify.
Although you did not expect to feed you knew it was a possibility. You were sent the info stating no siblings so you should have called and clarified.

Hope your DS is ok.

Does anyone want to tell me the backstory/history here? How are you all accessing the OPs previous posts? I looked but they all seem to be deleted

DP not currently around sover

Roopoo, there was just the hospital number. When I got to the hospital, we got sent from one department to the next before we eventually got to the place ds was going to have his operation.

Hospital isn't something I do very often, but to clarify, no, I really didn't expect feeding baby on the ward to be a possibility, and after that initial feed that couldn't be interrupted, he didn't go on the ward again.

Sorry OP as still haven't covered all the posts I've yet to read but surely the question remains that whether baby DS was bottle or breast fed you should have take steps to ensure he could be dealt with in the short time you were obligated to pay attention to elder DS. If he was a newborn I could understand it but surely there are distractions you could use for an older baby

No, I'm curious. You (and some other posters) seem to think people's reactions to this thread is because of 'who you are', but I don't appear to know who the fuck you are.

Starlight says "I'll just have to keep repeating myself and it is boring"

1) I agree with you, it is boring
2) So WHY are you doing it?
3) What is the PURPOSE in this thread?

You asked if you were BU. Majority thought you were, minority thought you weren't. Perfectly fair. Yes, you don't have to agree with the majority, minorities have rights too as we saw last night in Parliament, but it serves no useful purpose in continuing and, taken with previous threads, does not put you in a great light.

Yes, it may have been an inconvenience or a nuisance but I think I'd have been more focused on my child who was about to undergo an operation quite honestly.

At times we all have to suck it up. Hospitals, like schools and workplaces, have timetables and rules and regulations for all sorts of reasons but generally for the common good. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one. Sometimes in society we just have to accept things even when we don't agree with them. How we respond to these occasions says a lot about ourselves. How you are responding on this thread says a lot about you.

I have to go out now so not ignoring you if you come back on that one

I'm the Devil Incarnate, clearly.

it's not a witchhunt, the op making adamant posts on this thread which previous posts/threads contradict.

YABU.If he was a young baby I could see it would be difficult but at 7 months old can't he have a sippy cup and bits of finger food.Or surely your other DC could have managed without you for a few minutes whilst you nipped to the waiting room.I can't be doing with these 'the rules don't apply to me' types.Oh and not agreeing with you does not make someone a bully!

Bowler It's all there. Read it when you come back perhaps.

The 'links' have been explained, but even if they had not been, they don't actually make any difference to the issue.

A demand bf baby, who eats roast dinners, cannot be expected to have their first feed of the morning interrupted, especially when the law and hospital policy protect that right.

Sorry to hear that. It must be tough being a single parent and I didn't realise that you were on your own.

OK, Starlight, I'll repeat myself too:

You got your answer to your original WIBU a long time ago. But you continue to 'protest'.

2) So WHY are you doing it?
3) What is the PURPOSE in this thread?

Not a witchhunt, am genuinely wondering.

I'm not on my own sovery. I just have a 'situation' and did not want to postpone my ds' operation as he couldn't access his Speech and Language therapy whilst he could not hear.

Catharsis from a stressful situation,
Opening of discussion of baby's rights and interested in general opinion of whether different rules should apply to 7 week olds and 7month olds.
Gathering ideas going forward about how things could be done better next time (dd has the same operation shortly)
Garnering an idea of what I might be able to do to improve things for people behind (i'e contact bfing specialist).
Challenge predjudices of people who share the views of the nurse.

And probably lots of other reasons that I'm not particularly aware of.

MN, on the whole, can be pretty pointless, and a way to occupy the time during the relentless and frequent feeds.

It's not a witch hunt OP, to call you on a rather large inconsistency to do with what you have said about your circumstances.

Your thread title and indeed the whole premise of your thread is to do with an EBF baby.

Elsewhere on this site a couple of days ago you've talked about him heartily eating solids. What are we to do? Ignore that fact?

If you wanted a hypothetical discussion that's fine, but at least let posters know that's the situation. Otherwise it's annoying.

Anyway - IME you can get allot info out of staff at hospitals if you try. 'Can i send my son's Aunt in with him for now and sign the first set of consent forms in here while i quickly finish this feed? Then we can swap and i'm all yours' may have eased the situation at the very least.

So are the 'facts' in this thread actually true, or was it just to open a discussion about a bf baby's rights?

Soch I take it you've not read the thread either.

I'll probably leave it now, as new posters aren't reading the thread (probably because it is quite long) and making the same assumptions all over again. The answers are already written. I can't be faffed repeating yet again, as the answers have already been repeated quite a number of times.

'Can i send my son's Aunt in with him for now and sign the first set of consent forms in here while i quickly finish this feed? '

Fluffy, THAT is ALSO already covered in the thread. Nurse said aunt couldn't as she wasn;t next of kin.

I've read the whole thread, i was here last night.

Read the thread kinky It;s all there.

Bye

She couldn't go through with him because she wasn't next of kin?

Then you should have stopped the feed.

Before you ask, yes, i have breast fed 3 DCs.

Oh and bye.

It's not there at all. It's full of "maybe"s and "perhaps"s. All ambiguity and inconsistency.

You can't get all butthurt about people doubting you when you've admitted you use MN as a plaything.

Thanks for clarifying before you left, OP. I think we all know now.

Oh and i meant ask the nurse if YOU could sign the forms in the waiting room while you finished the feed and the Aunt went through with your DS for the first few minutes. Just to be clear.

Nefertarii - most people on MN know that Star's DS has Autism. She didn't explain it at the start because it is just part of everyday life for her. To you it might be a 'drip feed', to Star it is just pointing out WHY she had to go right into theatre. Because that IS unusual.

My DS2 had to have a tooth out under GA because his sensory issues through his Autism meant that the dentist couldn't do it (he tried twice). I was allowed to take my EBF, bottle refusing 7 month old onto the ward AND into the recovery area. The only place I couldn't take him was theatre.

I had issues with expressing, so that was out, and he is anaphylactic to dairy, so formula was out, and because I was ebf at the time, DS3 wasn't being prescribed a hypoallergenic milk replacement.

But I didn't have to ask. The nurse asked if he was bf, and that was that.

I think the hospital's policy is wrong in Star's case tbh. Star did everything possible by bringing her Aunt - but if a baby is truly demand fed, you don't 'time' feeds, you feed whenever they are hungry. And if a baby isn't used to waiting, it will cause that baby distress. Raising cortisol levels and altering the brain chemistry.

So please stop attacking Star for her feeding choices - she has made exactly the same choices that I have, and done her best.

And fwiw, I didn't wean DS3 until he was almost 8mo either, as he wasn't ready. The WHO guidelines are exclusive BF until 6mo, then slow weaning whilst continuing to bf until at least 2yo.

Star seriously,give it up. Your ds is not ebf. Give him an ellas kitchen pouch instead of milk if you absolutely could not wake him.
Btw what time were you at the hospital?

Just saying!

So could your Aunt or your Mum not have "bought you a couple of hours by bouncing him around"?

Star seriously "rights".

We're talking about a busy cash strapped hospital trying to get as many needy kids through dangerous anaesthetic procedures as quickly and safely as possible. The rights of those kids and what works best for doctors and nurses trump the need of your child 100 fold.They bend the rules for you then somebody else and then before you know it 10 mins as turned into 40 and some child has missed a much needed op.

As I said thousands of babies have to wait 10 minutes for a feed daily,multiples,babies in large families etc. They don't melt. A one off is neither here nor there particularly for such a large baby eating pouches and who is plenty old enough to have a bit of expressed milk in a cup if he really isn't capable of waiting 10 mins.What is the worse that can append-he cried for a couple of minutes ?

This is the biggest non thread I've seen in a looooooong time.

Well said sirzy!

There are rules for a reason, however there are times when common sense comes into play
Well i wish you'd used your common sense OP.
Your OP is a totally immature rant. Am afraid YABU

There is so much irrelevant crap on this thread it is unbelievable. Going to theatre is irrelevant, what the OP does on the school run is irrevelant, why she couldn't plan feeds to avoid being in this situation is irrelevant as is the precise timing of every moment of the visit.

The fact is a hungry baby got a couple of sucks for a feed and then had to be given to somebody else. Any baby who had been given the breast (or a bottle for that matter) and had it whisked away like that is going to go ape shit and disturb anybody in a fairly wide radius. A rice cake or any solid food isn't going to help, another drink won't work. You can't time bf that precisely that you could have anticipated the random arrival of a nurse and bf beforehand. If a baby didn't want to feed earlier it won't. You can't 'fix' a baby's feeds every time to your own timetable. I know I have tried. Sometimes it works, often it doesn't.

If the reason for the ban on siblings is space then I fail to see how a baby on a mother's lap is any more in the way than the mother who is sitting there without a baby. If the real problem is infection control then the hospital should have said and not tried to pretend it was something else. That makes no sense to me at all - surely people are more likely to take infection control seriously than lack of space and so are less likely to flout the rules. Smacks of covering up, like they don't want people to think they have infection control issues.

OP YANBU for wanting to continue the feed. YANBU to hoping that the nurse would understand that babies deprived of a feed after a few sucks would go ape shit or at least would have been accommodating without the attitude when the situation was explained. YANBU not to know exactly when people will be coming for you and how long every tiny part of the process would take. Hospitals are big, processes are complicated and lots of people are involved. If you had asked exactly what was happening and when I doubt you would have got an accurate answer or the same answer twice. Therefore YANBU to have tried but failed to have a plan in place.

I do think YWBU to complain to the hospital or make a big deal out of it though. It was an unfortuate set of circumstances and I think you should let it go unless you plan merely to share your experiences rather than have a pop at them.

I take comfort from SauvignonBlanc's posts that some hospitals wouldn't have let this situation occur in the first place.

<<Bangs head against a brick wall after reading the thread>>

The OP doesn't have a crystal ball. She obviously had to leave the house earlier than her baby normally has it's first feed, in order to be at the hospital on time.

She tried to bf her baby before leaving, but the baby wouldn't bf. There is no way you can 'force' a demand-fed bf baby to feed if they are not ready for a feed. They just won't feed. What was she supposed to do, shove her nipple in the baby's mouth, squeeze until milk came out, and hold the baby's nose until he swallowed FFS?!

Is that seriously what you are all saying?!

<<Feels like I have entered an alternate MN universe>>

She did what she could - she left her 4yo DD AT HOME with her mum. She brought her Aunt who lives quite a way away to look after the baby.

She obviously didn't go there WITH the intention of taking the baby on the ward, or she wouldn't have bothered to arrange for her Aunt to look after him in the waiting room.

They were waiting a while in the waiting room, baby woke up and wanted to be fed. So the OP started feeding. The nurse chose that particular moment to call them into the ward to start the paperwork. Sod's law in action.

How many stories have there been on MN about people having to answer the door to the postman or whoever, with a baby stick to their boob? Loads.

So the OP asked if either they could wait till she had finished feeding (told no due to it delaying the op meaning that her DS would lose his 'spot' in theatre), so the general assumption would surely be that if baby is bf and has already started the feed, baby goes with mum until feed is finished and then be taken off the ward.

I can't see what else the OP could possibly have done. She couldn't have done any more, and obviously this hospital ISN'T as bf friendly as it wishes to be if it's going for some award or something about being the most bf friendly hospital in London.

And of they ARE going for that award, then why is it wrong for the OP to email them to let them know that actually, one of their policies ISN'T bf friendly, which gives them an opportunity to make a change to the 'rules' that are not bf friendly.

I can't see the issue with that, tbh. And I think the personal digs aimed at Star are out of order tbh.

Incidentally, the hospital did say no!

Email, by all means, but the nurse was surely following her own agenda, which encompasses the confort and safety and schedule of ALL kids on the ward!

Or merry op could have handed the baby over for 10 minutes soooooo uttterly not an issue.

We're talking a one off 10 minutes folks,if any baby has never had to wait for 5/10 minutes by the time he is 7 months he is one pampered baby.

Yes, hardly going to scar the baby for life!

No merry people are not saying that. They are saying that she could have left her baby for a few minutes. Yes they might have screamed, but her aunt was there to deal with that, even if it meant going outside with the baby so no one else was disturbed.

Why should "most people" know her DS has autism?

MerrymouthyCow - I agree

And to those who say why couldn't she hand the baby over for 10 minutes - how did she know it would be 10 minutes? It could have been 10 minutes but it could have been a lot longer than that.

As I just said , there is a world of difference between leaving a fussy baby who needs a feed but can wait and one who has already started a feed and is forced to stop after a couple of sucks. The later leads to a whole new level of crying. Better not to have started it than to have started and then forced to stop.

If you have a young baby or toddler, try giving them a drink of milk, letting them have two sips, then take it away and see their reaction.

My DS3 is 2yo now, and due to his severe allergies, his diet is 80% amino acid based hypoallergenic milk replacement. He is STILL demand fed. And I can tell you now that if I tried this with him, he would go utterly APESHIT.

I would have done EXACTLY the same as Star in this situation. As a previous poster said, a bf mother and their baby are classed as a dyad, which means that they cannot be separated. In UK law. So I wouldn't have 'assumed' that the rules applied to a bf baby under a year old.

The 'dyad' thing is the same reason that a bf baby under a year old will not be separated from their Mother even for access to their father if the parents are separated.

If even a Family Court refused to put a court order in place for contact without me present until DS3 was 12mo, why on earth would I 'assume' that anywhere else would separate a bf baby under a year from it's main food source?

The 'other' food eaten is irrelevant - the baby is bf, and under a year old. Ergo, the baby stays with me as it's food source.

If Star is wrong, then so am I!

<<Shrug>>

And no, I wouldn't have thought to inform the hospital beforehand - to me, it is just common sense that you can't separate a demand fed bf baby from it's Mother while they are under a year old, so it genuinely wouldn't have occurred to me.

In 15 years, having 4 DC's, all demand bf, three of those DC's having SN's, physical disabilities and medical needs warranting many, MANY hospital visits, day ops, inpatient treatments, have my local hospital EVER had any issue about me bringing a younger, bf sibling along with me.

So it just wouldn't cross my mind that I would NEED to phone ahead about something like this!

Really couldn't give a stuff Big,it's a one off.If op is that worried her baby would melt experiencing a broken feed for the first time op should have fed said baby an hour earlier followed by a pouch,no baby I know would have needed anything after that amount of food for a very long time or op could have expressed some milk into a cup.Either way it's a non thread.

And that's MY take on this.

Some people have waaaaaaay too much time on their hands.

Couthy I'm with you on this. Apart from informing them before hand. Its quite reasonable to assume that dept may not have known she had a bf baby.

Hopefully, the situation will not occur again to someone else with a younger child, if the OP's feedback is listened to.

lanofsoapandglory hit the nail on the head!

How odd. I've never seen that before. How does one go about getting every single thing ever posted 'withdrawn'?

Glad to see some others on here sticking up for star, this has gotten totally out of hand with people inventing things. Mumsnet at its best!

The only inventing that's been going on is star's description of her 'exclusively' breastfed DS's diet either on this thread or here, here or possibly here where poor DS, who tolerates nothing but breastmilk, rice cakes and pine needles suddenly becomes a 'hungry little muncher' who could easily eat three meals a day plus snacks, yet is 'starving' for boob and will spontaneously combust without it, mysteriously as soon as breastfeeding him might break a rule that OP wants to override. I guess the diet reverts to pine needles as soon as mum wants to bulldoze home a breastfeeding point so she can prove how anti-BFing The System REALLY is. Pointlessly.

Hence her request to get her posts deleted, methinks. She doesn't like being caught with her pants on fire.

PS Also a breastfeeder here who does not want to be tarred with the brush of star's bizarre, bizarre form of lactivism.

Maybe that's what'll get put in place of this thread once it gets deleted

Actually, star said she was referring to another 7mth old (but confusingly used the wrong tense, gender and decade)
I can see why people were confused. THIS current baby eats milk and pine needles, the erm 7mth old baby she recently referred to that ate all before it etc is not I repeat NOT the same 7mth old she means now.

<applies brain bleach liberally>

Blimey. Mountain meet molehill.

When the DC reached what I termed the Brezelphase, I was delighted cause it meant I could fling a brezel or one of those fruit drinks into a bag and be much more flexible.

Assuming that it might be a bit awkward at the hospital to judge when I'd be needed, I'd have taken something as an emergency ration.

This isn't a witch hunt. Star was bending facts to suit her enraged story - not sure why. Maybe she likes to be a bit of a fusspot.

bloody hell every single message withdrawn paranoid much OP

Your surprised with the roasting she's had here?

HelenMumsnet's too busy with David to delete the ones I've linked above. I'm sure she'll get round to it. He's a considerate lover <boak>

<applies more brain bleach>

uppermid, the only person inventing things was starlight herself with her ebc dbf mushy pea ellas kitchen pouch eatingbaby.

<snatches brain bleach from Phil>

Please don't use the word 'roasted' when I'm trying to get the image of DC and naked HelenMN out of my head

Mme

I'm still BFing. Do you want me to see where I can go and get ejected from while feeding then get ENRAGED about it? You could live vicariously <benevolent>

Elph you are so kind
<gets cumfy and awaits vicarious roasting>

I didn't think MNHQ deleted entire posting history just because a poster changed her mind?

My thoughts Tantrums

So you can get all your past posts withdrawn? Really?

OP didn't want everyone to agree with her, she wanted a bun fight and got one.

It's all very odd.

It feels very goady. It wasn't even defensive, just aggressive and trying to provoke.

Why Wips? Wot you said, then, eh? <hovers threateningly over search function>

But seriously, wouldn't a NC just have been easier? Especially for poor old HelenMumsnet having to drag herself out from under David to do all that deleting?

Quite crash

Her posts always have the same kind of theme to them it's true. Angry at the healthcare professionals.

Elphaba I just snorted my wine everywhere

So can we all do that then?
I mean getting all past posts withdrawn?
Because I've made some very painful grammar and spelling mistakes in the past which I was unable to edit.
I've also posted when I've been pissed, and looked the next day and thought
Please MN, can you make them all disappear?

I am very confused.
Who has had their posts withdrawn?
I can see all of the OP's
Can't I?......<weirded out>

try doing an advanced search

I did advanced search MrsDeVere.
Where are you still seeing the posts?

I am old. And hard of thinking. Anyone care to explain to me what's going on on this thread? Because I've read it twice and I still don't get it.

Well I must have read this thread very differently then.

She said that the sibling rule was about space not infection, several people ignored this and went on about how selfish she was and she could have made all the other children ill

She also said several times that she had not complained about the nurse, in fact they ended up getting on

She had plans in place but these fell through and ended up having to feed the baby for a short time on the ward

She explained that other threads where she talked about weaned babies were other children, not this baby.

I'm not sure what exactly she's done in the last to deserve this treatment but it seemed to me to be very harsh and unnecessary. People checking old posts etc - wtf is that all about?

I've seen other people post about their bf baby and how when the ex / mil / dm / whoever wants to have the baby for any length of time, they are supported and told that they shouldn't be separated from the baby as they are bf, why is this any different?

Yes leaving a baby for a short while when they're hungry is not going to kill them, but the baby had already started to feed, it's highly unlikely that anything would have soothed that baby other than its mum feeding it, is that so difficult to understand.

Maybe this is a poster who has had difficulties in the past with healthcare organisations but that doesn't mean she was looking for trouble but several posters admitted that they judged what had happened purely on her name. Not on.

No wonder she's had her posts deleted. How do you know she's not had a really shit time of it for whatever reason, she's come on here looking for support and gets nothing but grief. If you had a problem with her, report her, don't start a witch hunt.

That's from another thing before, I think. Not as a response to this thread.

I don't get it either.

Thinking about Helenmumsnet getting fruity with David Cmaeron has really made me

Didn't advance search her.
I remember her prev threads.
I don't know anything about this baby.
I don't know about her son being autistic.
do know that she spends a lot of time locked in combat with drs, nurses, teachers, social services.
I also know (from being in hospital,repeatedly, with my baby) the rules are there for everyone and (usually) for a reason.
Part of her ire (and I a sure part of the 'support' she got was due to the fact the baby was EBF.) which is the bit that people called her on. Can't you see that?

uppermid - "She explained that other threads where she talked about weaned babies were other children, not this baby"

really?, are you sure about that?? because that explanation sounded like a big load of bollocks to me!

point is, the op bent the truth about a lot of things, meaning many on this thread take the whole scenario with a pinch of salt.

You had my sympathy until the "bring DS up in 10 minutes" bit, then sorry but you lost it and I can't understand why anyone thinks that suggestion is ok.

I reckon helenmumsnet really is busy.......

There's a cracking thread about the OP wanting to breastfeed in a public pool now you mention it.

Link please!

now i am as i can see all of OP's previous posts, including all the Ella's kitchen gubbins.

cant believe this thread is still going. OP your baby isnt EBF, <recent thread 'what did your baby eat today'>

So was this another 7 month old baby masquerading as your baby? or your baby from several years ago....? <time travelling baby>

StarlightMcKenzie Mon 28-Jan-13 20:45:23
7 month old

Lots of breastfeeding.

Large piece of yellow pepper (not sure how much was eaten)
Ellas kitchen pouch
Banana
spagetti bolognese (not sure how much was eaten either, baby played with it mainly and spread it around high chair - what a mess)
yoghurt (spread around high chair and mixed in with bolognese)

Am rarely moved to post but I think the OP was not BU and I can't understand why there's been so many unpleasant posts directed at the op.

your Aunt could have pacified him with a banana and a yoghurt

sorry but we have caught you bang to rights here

uh oh - deletions have started

<scared>

Oh i remember the thread about the op wanting to feed her dc at side of pool. Was it the same person?!

I have looked at the other thread and it is quite clear that the elder child could have been put first and the aunt could have been given some easily transported food and a drink.

That's a lot of deleting!!

Um. MNHQ - Would it not be better to just delete the whole thread?

May I suggest as a deletion message.

Thread deleted because we spilt one of those fruity pouch things on it. Whoops.

Except bfeeding isnt just about nutrition! the baby had just woken and went back to sleep after the feed so it was about comfort as well as nutrition. At 7mths even a baby on solids will STILL and should be getting most of its nutrition from bmilk. And it will be a huge source of comfort.

sauvignon who is a ward manager has posted and said she in NBU.

I have been in similar situation a few times and they have akways allowed 'babes in arms' and bfed babies.

That is the best H.Q response I have ever read.

Although it has made me feel queasy.

Op was the breastfeeding at the pool one?
I remember that,
I'd also like to know wtf is going on, please MNHQ, can you come on and explain.

Helen
I luffs you lots and you are marvellous and clever and all that, but please for the love of GOD don't make me think of you getting jiggy with Dave

And that is the best cross-post