What do SAHMs do for hospital appointments?

[Itsherbirthday]

Wondering this as am eight months pregnant so I feel as if I’m on first name terms with my hospital at the moment! But children aren’t allowed into scans or other appointments. I can understand why, but I just wonder what you do if you don’t have an alternative? For instance, I have an appointment in a few weeks on a day I don’t work, DH will have to have our toddler but what if he couldn’t, or I was a single parent?

This is all good for emergencies but which friend sits around and/or organises childcare for her own kids to look after yours for the billion routine appointments? Do your friends not work?

I’m not a lone parent but I always worked full time since my kid was tiny. I wholeheartedly agree. I never had the opportunity to make a network of people to rely on; because I was never there at drop off/pick ups/ couldn’t do toddler groups etc.

It wasn’t until I was on mat leave with my second kid that I started to get to know people at my eldest school. Now, I know quite a few of the other mums - they are mostly all SAHPs and already built hood connections for things like childcare years ago; so it was hard to get involved!

I imagine in an emergency that they’d have to give some leeway to that rule

That doesn't make any sense at all. Let's say an individual is admitted in an emergency for an appendectomy. The hospital can't say "oh, well. It's an emergency. W'll just whip up some childcare for you."

My understanding is that the person would either need to arrange child care themselves or the child would be taken into temporary foster care.

Write a complaint about that they prevent you from accessing their services since you have a a young dependant and are discriminating against women and then transfer your care to another hospital if possible.
Or just bring the kids in, absolutely most people do it. Not everyone has grandparents or self employed freewheeling partners at their disposal.
Ignore suggestions about friends- they aren't going to be making alternative work and childcare arrangements for themselves and taking annual leave and finding someone to do their own pick ups and drop offs while they look after your kids (how many???) on a routine basis.

And don't get any strangers off websites etc, not that it work anyway with baby or toddler being distressed by being left with strangers.
Bring the kid(s) in and/or complain and change hospital.

What do you consider 'backwater'?
And it's child HATRED to not allow a patients child in at a scan?

Yeah, exactly, many women put it off. Women's health stops being a priority and access to healthcare becomes limited once she's a mother. How does this fit in with the NHS constitution.

When I was a SAHM I had a network of other SAHM friends that I could call on. And vice versa.
Plus my family are local.

They do what working parents do and have someone else look after their child either paid childcare, partner or family, friend ir they take them with them

I’m a SAHM. Yup, the majority of my friends don’t work either. I built a network through toddler group, music classes etc. Most of my friends at that point either didn’t work, were part time (and happy to do stuff on days off) or actually were retired folk I’d met because for example they were running a church toddler group. We all helped each other. I had a friend’s child two afternoons a week for months because she had hospital appointments, she helped me out with other things. I wasn’t “sitting around” but taking two toddlers to soft play instead of one, or taking a preschooler to the park with my baby or whatever wasn’t a massive deal.

I've always taken my other children with me. I can only assume that different hospitals must have different rules as it's never been a problem. I wouldn't have been able to go to any appointments or scans if not.

That really isn't a funny story. A toddler playing with a sharps box is incredibly dangerous. This is exactly why children should not attend medical appointments. You know if a medical person gets a sharps injury they have to go immediately to hospital and are even offered prophylaxis for HIV? Do you realise how easy it is to stick your hand in the top of an unsealed sharps box?

They manage, because they have to.

I don’t understand why there are so many questions like this one. When I was a SAHM (and when I went back to work) I had a group of mums I could call on. We met through a local Parents Group and we would help each other out, even having each other’s children to stay if necessary. I get the impression that modern mums are often quite lonely and wonder why.

Wow do you think friends should use their annual leave to cover childcare for the OP? I would never expect anyone to do that, it's definitely DH that should!

Well for me it didn’t help that all our local children’s groups closed during covid and not a single one has reopened.

Thankfully I already had a group of friends in the village, but I can see why many new mums in this area are lonely.

From working in gynae for five years, I'd say they bring the kids with them regardless.

It's a really bad idea, but the department reasoning was that as this could be the only appointment they attended throughout pregnancy, the risk of toddlers rampaging through the department unsupervised or driving a toy car over mummy's leg as she's being told bad news outweighed the harm that could be experienced from sending her away.

We adopted. One of the things there was emphasis on was having a support network, both emotional and physical. We had to show we could make relationships and ask for help.

I think many people these days (maybe because of phones / screens?) just aren't so used to pushing themselves to ask and give favours. People have 200 facebook friends and yet can't ask someone to mind their 2yo while they have a hospital appointment.

Covid shutting down networking for new mums has also certainly had a big impact too.

@TeenDivided but your support network isn’t only going to be available when you want them to be. As I’ve said, perhaps if I was a SAHM it would be different but as it is while I have plenty of friends, all work! No one is going to take a day of annual leave to care for someone else’s child as a routine appointment. Emergencies are a bit different.

I've recently gone back to work but was a sahm for 6 years. My dh would happily take the day off or an hour or so off if I needed to have an appointment (not just hospital but hair, dentist, coffee with a friend) or failing that my inlaws are quite close and retired so always happy to help.

It is different as a SAHM.

As a SAHM you have to make the opportunities for your little one to socialise, so you take them to parks, playgroups etc. You chat to other SAHMs, you arrange playdates etc. If you don't you and your child would get very lonely.

So when the time comes for a hospital appointment or similar, you hopefully do know someone who can help out.

Part time working probably gives you the worst of both worlds in that respect. You don't need to go out and socialise because you and your DC get that the rest of the week, but then you don't have the social networks for childcare if needed on your non-working days.

Everyone has legal right to time off for emergency care for dependents. So you'd get unpaid time off for emergency childcare or child's medical appointment

Well, I’ve been part time for two years now and in parks, toddler groups … still not sure I know anyone who would be available - people do work, even if pt !

still I’ve probably been looking at my phone too much.

And I know that sounds more irritable than I probably meant it to, it was meant in a jokey tone but it didn’t translate well! But in all seriousness, while I do strongly believe that you should make friends when you can it also isn’t always as simple as make some friends and then they will be at your beck and call forevermore - in fact that’s the way to LOSE friends!

Toddlers rampaging around a hospital is the absolute last resort because it endangers everyone.

When I was in Labour with my twins and very high risk the midwife had to leave me alone as 2 very small children ran into the room, chase each other round and knocked stuff over.
I was alone and very frightened as I knew how high the risks were. My own DH hadn’t made it in yet as he was waiting for someone to arrive to mind our DD.
By the time the midwife came back minus the toddlers I had progressed a lot and they suddenly had to move me and get 12 medical professionals into the room.

It had been an extraordinarily busy night on the Labour ward and I found out later through a colleague’s sister who was a midwife that a mother in labour had been dropped in by her husband with 4 preschoolers. He went to “park the car” and never came back.