To take my toddler to my growth scan? No childcare.

If I was you I would use ‘bubble’ or ‘care.com’ - find a sitter who you like the look of (and who has all the relevant CRB checks and references) explain the situation - ask if she will meet you at the park near the hospital to play for a bit and then accompany you to the scan and play quietly with your daughter in the waiting area while you have your scan. You can have your daughters usual snacks / screen time / whatever

All you can do is ask more for help. What about parents of friends of your older child? Neighbours? Is anyone from her nursery on day off that day and want to make extra cash?

Inappropriate.

You had 9 months to sort child care. A young child witnessing a vaginal birth is so inappropriate and possibly traumatic.

Once again, there are many posters who have failed at reading comprehension.

The hospital has rules. They have them for a reason. The reason is to make their jobs easier. Breaking the rules doesn’t make their jobs impossible.

Yes, you should do everything you can to find childcare. Taking the child with you should not be Plan A or even Plan B. But shit happens. Taking the child with you might be Plan D or Plan E.

You can’t take a toddler.
Yes, you can. They might, understandably, get shitty about. They might even refuse to let you attend your appointment at which point you pull out a pen and piece of paper and write down their names. Then you can explain fully at your next appointment who has endangered the healthcare of you and your unborn child.
The people measuring your baby can’t do their job with a toddler around
Yes, they can. The child just needs to under control either sitting quietly on their own or safely sitting in a pram. A child’s presence doesn’t prevent them doing their job, a child’s bad behaviour might.
you might hear the worst
Yes. It is actually highly unlikely but I have been in that position. It is tough. I wouldn’t want to be in that position with a child. But then again, I might not actually have a choice about that.
other women being told they have lost their much wanted baby deserve to not have a toddler around
I’ve been that woman. Toddlers didn’t bother me. Pregnant women did. I’m sorry,I know it was irrational but I hated pregnant women when I was miscarrying. And the pregnant nurse at the IVF clinic - she was lovely but I fucking hated seeing her there. I understand the clinic couldn’t fire her for being pregnant but I, in my irrational mind, I wish they had.
Surely you have some mum friends who could watch your toddler for an hour, either at their house or could come to the hospital with you?
Yes, I do. But not many. And I could understand if babysitting my child for an hour wasn’t as important as their own medical appointments, meetings, or holidays, or anything else in their life really. In fact, I count 3 people - one has a very busy life with her family and grandchildren and emergency work, the other is lovely but seriously flakey, and the third is suffering from serious PND and PTSD whilst struggling to look after a 6 month old high needs baby.
A retired neighbour?
None of my neighbours are retired, we all work. I might be able to find someone working from home but I really don’t know anyone well enough to ask. The people with young children have recently moved and the teacher next door would be at school, teaching.
I get it, I’ve no family living anywhere nearby but I’ve also heard the worst at an ultrasound and that experience is not helped by those thinking it’s a nice jolly day out for all the family.
I completely agree. But we have to accept that sometimes childcare just isn’t available.
PS - while I’ve taken all these comments from one post, I’m not taking a pop at you, I promise. You just summarised everything really well in one post.

Ffs, to those saying its not fair on others who may have lost a baby. There are toddlers in the waiting room. My partner came to all my scan appointments, sitting with our first baby in the waiting room, whilst I had my scans.

Obviously you aren't allowed a baby or toddler in the actual scan room. Its a serious job, the sonographer cannot risk any slight distraction from a baby/toddler/child, meaning they could miss something incredibly important.

Wow this is one of the worst threads in a while for people totally ignoring the opening post from OP or thinking it's normal to go through interviews, references, recommendations, supervised sessions days ahead and all the safeguarding checks, just for the sake of a scan, which they are being unfairly strict about the toddler situation, as many people HAVE taken toddlers with them.

Christ alive, OP, some people are very much do as I say, not as I'd do.

I'm not sure how you managed to interpret that from my comments?

She was told no by one member of staff, the same member of staff that told her that she couldn't cancel her appointment, which we both know is not true. Some hospitals may let exceptions, so it might not be an outright no. Sometimes you just have to speak to the right people. We don't actually know if this is a policy set in stone or not but even if so, it doesn't mean that exceptions cannot be made. In my last pregnancy, after a meeting with the Head of Midwifery, lots of things were put in place for me (due to my particular circumstances), that were not inline with their policies, but they were fantastic and put my own individual care plan in place.

But you won't get any help if you don't ask around. That's for sure.
A lot of mums I know woukd be happy to help out.

That’s lovely, but sadly the attitude on mumsnet is usually reluctance to help if it any way disrupts any minor plans and/or you don’t really want to, and emphasis on personal ‘boundaries’ being priority. Then you get posters on these types of threads pondering why someone can’t just ask a friend or neighbour.

nhs appointments don't allow other kids but I have seen mums come in with their kids at the Whittington and there is a bit of performance tutting from staff and then kids allowed in.
our toddler went to our private scans and the private sonographer was able to do their job and measure growth with a toddler in the room.

I can't understand why it's such a big deal to take a toddler at a hospital appointment... I would also not want to fibd a babysitter on a app. Hope all works out I the end.

When I was in this situation I asked in our local childcare FB group and found a woman who does babysitting on the side (works full time in a nursery). I paid for her to come round early to meet my son and within half an hour they were playing a game and I went off to the appointment with him cheerily waving goodbye. He had just turned three at the time.

Does sound pretty perfect! I meant in a hospital situation though, I thought it wouldn’t be allowed.

Don't you know any of the other parents at the nursery? Even if you don't know them very well, if they're in the same room as your toddler then the children will know each other so that would ease your mind.

It's early days yet, but it really will be a help if you at least have some numbers of people you can call in an emergency. With 2 children and a husband who maybe can't easily take time off just knowing you can call a neighbour to step in would be helpful.

I don’t really get the big deal. I’ve taken mine and just kept her strapped in the pushchair with plenty of snacks. They ask you not to at my trust too but do seem to understand that’s not always possible and have always been fine with it on the day

Totally agree with this.

My midwife used to meet me at the hospital to sit with my toddler while I had my scans. Unfortunately I was there every 2-4 weeks in the second half of my pregnancy.
Couldn't thank her enough for that!

He is away with work for a week so not so easy to take " a couple of hours " off. Or did you not read the post?

And if the husband gets a disciplinary/loses his job for taking unauthorised absence, how do you expect him to look after HIS baby with no income?

I wish people would stop making it sound like childcare is so easy.

Why the fuck do they have this high horse about children at scans anyway? I've taken my toddlers to midwife appointments, smear tests, normal GP appointments, dentist appointments, consultant appointments in pregnancy, vaccinations, blood tests, everything. I'm not doing it because I think it's a jolly day out, but because I'm their carer. It's always been allowed. Why are sonographers suddenly rendered unable to do their job by the presence of a toddler when I've lain in the dentist chair literally with one on my lap and they've handled it fine?

Haven't read all.of the comments but you seem to be getting a very hard time. For what it's worth I took my pretty newborn baby in a pram for some kind of ultrasound scan. I can't for the life or me remember what it was or why I had no one to come with me but the Nurse was epic and was literally rocking the pram with one hand whilst speaking to me and doing the scan. I wish I'd had the presence of mind to get her name and thank her through other channels, although she'd probably have got into trouble for breaching protocols. She totally got it though. The hospital/centre may or may not facilitate it but you've done what you can by turning up. Sorry,I forgot to check how old your child is before I posted, but if they'll sit still with a bag of snacks for a little bit you'll hopefully be fine and you'll get someone who realises that life doesn't always go as you'd like it to. I guess there is always a risk that the growth scan shows am issue and then you've got that to manage that as well as a young child, so I can see the concern from that point of view but what can you do really? Hope it goes well for you.

You can’t take children to growth scans. They’ll send OP home.

Anyway she was told no by the hospital.
Rules are only to be followed if we like them?

Every child minder in my area is fully booked so that's not always an answer.

Midwife appointments' rules are as far as I understand different from doctor appointments' rules.
They were with my 3 pregnancies.

We got permission to bring our oldest to docyors' appointments in my last pregnancy. The midwives were always happy to let her join.

The consultants were NO WAY until they realised she was 16 yo and her future plan was to become a midwife. It was writen in my file she could atttend with my husband. Not on her own.
She did become a midwife - and loves her job.