I'm a health visitor

[HurricaneLane]

So you can AMA?

But as we seem to get such a bad reputation I'm thinking of starting a blog or a social media account to try and show that we are helpful, want to help and really aren't offering what people alot of the time think of us?

Can I ask if you would find this helpful, and whether a blog or social account would be better?

This! Thank you for doing the training and yes we try our very best

I'd love to know why so many HVs advise parents to transfer children to nurseries when they attend childminder settings. Can you shed any light please?

I personally don't, my children have attended both.

However, I'd say it likely depends on your area and the public health agenda, another big topic at the forefront is readiness for school.

Now, I'm not saying children who go to childminders aren't ready for school, it's that they are smaller settings and often a home from home (my opinion, I don't live in an area where school readiness is a huge concern.) so in those areas where it is a concern it might be health visitors have to talk about nursery's in relation to readiness for school due to that counties public health agenda priority. So even if a child is school ready, I wonder if they have to mention it to all families

Often, it's forgotten that for alot of families childminders are often more affordable

Is it normal for a HV to ask a new mum to dropper underwear and show them her post natal pad/bleeding?

What training do you have about children self weaning from breastfeeding?

Is there an age you begin to encourage stopping breastfeeding? My HV said i should reduce BF from 8 months.

*drop her

My daughter is 19 months and her 1 year old review was cancelled due to covid issues 🤨 "please contact us with any concerns"
My son turned 5 last week his 2 year old was cancelled due to covid restrictions. As a result I didn't get a chance to discuss whether or not I should be concerned about his hearing. He can hear but he mishears a lot like open the drawer and he will open the door .. everyone around me says he's probably just a boy not listening properly and could be the case but it might not be. Anyway after dd was born hv came out for her and agreed ds should probably be referred for a hearing test to be sure. We are now 18 months into waiting for that test.
Do you get training on picky eating/ when it's something more? I got told my ds would eventually eat if I made sure there weren't other options. I said he hadnt eaten the dinner at crèche in a full year not one bite (other than plain rice and bread which he eats at home) again suggested he's probably just stubborn. I tried cutting out all snacks only having the 1 same dinner option the only result was he lost weight. he's on a waiting list for a dietitian and on gp advice now give him what he will eat (he eats weetabix milk bread etc but no meat or sauces) I really believe it's sensory more than anything. Dd is the opposite and eats everywhere and anything so I now don't think it's my fault he doesn't eat but the implication was there.
I do like my hv when I see her and I feel for her that she is overstretched. While I know I have her phone number and could call there's also the feeling that the things I have niggly worries about aren't big enough to warrant the phone call (I work in sen and know there's so many with much bigger worries and issues than us but occasionally it would be nice to have a non partial sounding board even a phone call)

I think some health visitors the midwife never leaves, some for financial and personal love keep midwifery shifts so if she was concerned I think you'd have that chat buy not that invasive... unless asked.

We do get training on self weaning and our infant feeding teams are a great source of support. We have to talk about reducing feeds during weaning but not in terms of stopping feed

Please ring her, we really do like to keep up with our families and like hearing from you.

See if you can chase up the hearing, it shouldn't be that long.

Picky eating yes, we get training and we have all sorts of resources, honestly give her a call. It's what we are for

@HurricaneLane thank you, I'll chase the hearing up again. I did try in January but apparently they are still delayed because of covid and there's currently an 89 week waiting list so he will hopefully get an appointment in may. Originally I was told it was 12 month waiting list for under 5s .🙈

I think that would be great.
I used to be so anxious about my health visitor coming as I used to only hear bad things. But I absolutely love mine! She's great, gives amazing advice, and I genuinely look forward to her visits!

I have a lovely HV now, nice, knowledgable and non-nonsense, the first I’ve seen in person with DD 2.5. The HV I ‘saw’ when she was younger was remotely. I used inverted commas as she didn’t like the camera being on her so turned it off for most of the review.

Apologies if this has been asked already in some form but yo you think that was the right thing to do, move everything virtually during covid times & close children’s centres, particularly the pre-1 year check time, even though community midwife support remained in person?

Absolutely think things shouldn't have been all online the problem was alot of us were redeployed as we are nurses with those clinical skills.

However, we had never experienced what we had been through so I think decisions made at the time were made thinking of the right thing to which in hindsight weren't but we were all on untrodden ground

I see you’ve mentioned school readiness a few times.. I know a lot of people in the home ed community find health visitors uninformed or judgmental about home education. Are you aware that nursery / school aren’t compulsory, and how do you react to families who opt out of the mainstream?
Also, my question upthread may have got lost, but do you have male health visitors on your team? And are there options for mums who don’t feel comfortable with that / would prefer to see a female?

@HurricaneLane thank you for the thread, really interesting to read. My question is - do you have any training in relation to children with visual impairments?

Absolutely, I think it needs to be discussed more about home education etc. I think in a way because of the 15/30 hours thing its assumed in a way everyone takes this- the 'normal' except its not and we need to be respectful of parents choices. Home educating families, I am in awe of tbh! However, it's back to the public health agenda again of the local areas you see, and school readiness is on that and unfortunately the evidence has shown that readiness for school and education is at a higher level in the children who attend such setting but in my honest opinion- that's not the case with some families I meet.

Ah yes, I'm so sorry that was such a great question. We need male health visitors we would love that, we haven't actually ever been asked for one in our team by a family but are aware of it happening. Male health visitors would be brilliant!

We have some training of the normal development of vision and some visual impairments but not enough to assess, we have enough training to suspect, talk, signpost and support.

Opting out, absolutely that parents choice. We may try and discuss it further, but ulitimately parents choice. Discuss, document and support whilst being respectful.

Thank you @HurricaneLane

But childminders do exactly the same as nurseries including school readiness it's part of our Ofsted Inspection which is exactly the same inspectors working to the same standards. School readiness is self care, toileting, sitting for stories in groups, seeking other adults for support, separating from the main carer.....all things we do for some reason it's assumed we work on our own so can't do these things. My children will meet up with 20 plus children several times a week...I have 26 sitting for story and singing, we eat in groups of 10 or so twice weekly, they line up in pairs to go wash hands, can put on coats and normally do zips by 3, recognise and often write their own names....so many HVs say oh they are meeting all milestone doing really well now they need a nursery.....parents follow the advice then a term later pull them out because the child is board or going backwards with nursery not stretching them. We do 2 year reports that are not read it's sole destroying.... Do HVs get training in types of settings and what we all do?

I agree with you and think that's amazing. Maybe, somehow we need to raise that profile of what you all do. I know we definitely look at our 2 year reviews, I wish I had the answer but unfortunately I don't on this one but what I can do is have some looking around in what we do to find out more to improve our practice.

It would be fantastic if it could happen and be so helpful to the children particularly those needing early help who are taken out of settings that have already identified a need and working on it to be put back into the we need to assess first cycle.

I can't sleep so I was looking into this.
I saw some good resources from PACEY with a guide for Hvs, we have them as support on our portal

I was wondering what you thought of the 2017 childcare make the right choice campaign? Very old I know but as I enjoy looking into things I had a look.

What is your favourite outdated / incorrect / dangerous piece of advice you like to dish out? 😉

Definitely that holding and cuddling a baby will spoil it😉

And let a baby cry 😉

Total tosh, love how we have changed and still are changing to a more responsive style!

Fan here of Sarah Ockwell Smith

I find history fascinating, this always amazes me