to expect a toddlers parent to stay overnight in hospital?

[wheresmytractor]

Last night I spent the night in hospital with my youngest son who is 16 months old. He has a possible chest infection, brochial wheeze and needed a nebuliser, inhaler, steroids, antibiotics and a nose tube with oxygen during the night.

Right next to us another toddler is brought in about 7pm. She was about the same age as my little one and had the same thing, except she actually sounded worse, a very croupy cough and quite distressed.

The nurse started to run through how the chair folds out to a bed so the mum could stay when she says "Oh, i'm not staying, i'm shattered" . She left 5 minutes later. This poor little girl howled and whinned ALL NIGHT. She would only settle a bit when she cried herself to sleep (only to wake not long after with her cough and needing her inhaler) and when a nurse cuddled her. I felt so so sorry for her. My little one needed lots of cuddles last night and I got only a little uncomfortable sleep, but I would not DREAM of leaving him there all night alone.

The mum waltzed in at 11am this morning, and I thought what a bloody cow for leaving her daughter distressed and alone and for placing that additional burden on the nurses.

So am I being unreasonable to think this?

Most hospitals would not allow that now.

I think that those who think there is no excuse ever and mothers who leave are evil should actually just think themselves very VERY lucky, as life is clearly easier for some than others.

And for the record I have seen mothers being told they are not allowed to stay under any circumstances in a neonatal surgery ward as they didn't have the space to facilitate sleeping parents ( they wouldn't budge unless the baby was critical).

Good point, they probably wouldn't allow that now.

I guess looking at it objectively the child was in safe hands and at that age, she wont remember or be traumatised for life by it. I don't understnad the 11am though.

A1980 - I could understand it.

I have 3 DS's - if one of them were in hospital, I'd have to get the first 2 DS's to school (or nursery depending on which one was in hospital) for 9am, then catch a bus (if it was guaranteed short stay then I supposed I could get a taxi at £20), then from the bus get up to the hospital. Would easily be close to 10.30 by the time I got there.

And if they let my DS's stay over night they'd have to miss school......which would't be great - especiallly not having them hanging around the hospital all day.

I just have my fingers crossed that if any of my DS's should end up in hospital overnight that it's when exH is around and answering his phone - otherwise I'll be right royally screwed. Could do up until bedtimes - but have absolutely no-one else to have them overnight.

My last post didn't relate to the OP, just me being defensive about my personal choices and circumstances.

I stupidly got really upset when thinking about this thread today, not for DS, but for the crap that we go through, and for the circumstances that mean I can't be there for him. It's shit really - once the brave face comes off. DS genuinely doesn't mind, but I really do :( (bloody premenstrual hormones sorry).

The woman in the OP didn't actually seem bothered which is wrong. So the OP is NBU.

I would probably not seem bothered it was me.......but once I'd got home I'd sob my heart out - I don't do public displays of upset (or anger) and only my close friends ever pick up on the real emotion (and it's taken them a couple of years to figure me out)

I used to work on a childrens ward, in a neurology childrens ward, a lot of the children on the side I worked were there for investigations into their epilepsy, they had constant video telemetry and constant eeg, they were then taken off their meds, so that their seizures could be recorded, knowing that their child would be in for a pretty rough, scary(and sometimes dangerous) time some parents still left, most did stay, but there was at least 1 child every night that was left, some were in for a weeks observation, it was so hard on nursing staff when the children were without parents, I remember 1 boy who was about 7, and had seizures every 10/15 mins through the whole night, he had to have someone with him at all times, his mum dropped him off on the monday and collected him on the friday

That is so sad taper..
Do social services get involved in cases like that?? Just curious.

I have spent c. 2 years in and out of hospital with my eldest daughter and it happens all the time and it really pissed me off as the parents used to just leave (and yes, because they were tired and 'didn't want to sleep on a noisy ward' FFS!!). I felt so so sorry for the babies and toddlers just left and the nurses simply did not have time to baby sit and I certainly wasn't going to babysit for these parents. They made me sick, selfish, ignorant people. There is NO excuse at all. I know of some amazing parents who struggled to be there night and day for their child (as they had others etc.) but who took their parenting seriously and did it properly.

I hope no one has a go at me for being so ranty about this but until you've slept in a ward with a sick child night after night after night listening to other people's children cry and create because their parents think the nhs is a baby sitting service you'll really never know how awful this is.

I have never left Ds without someone there but I dont for a second think that leaving them is always bad parenting. Often far from it.

It is impossible to know what is going on in somebodies life and what other things they are struggling with at that time. You dont know what the family set up is or if someone is completely alone with no other support for children.

If a child is in for a long time you have to get off the ward for your own sanity, to eat and to try to get some halfway decent sleep.

It's not always about seeing them as a babysitting serivice. For a lot of parents it is a last resort.

Riven, MrsD, other parents like you deserve awards. Terrible situation and I hope both your children have or do recover.

You and other posters are right. There should be a campaign and help for those in need.

My mother, in the 60s was run over. She had a breakdown a few years ago and one of the (many) things that came out through therapy was watching her parents leave the ward after visiting hours and not look back. I don't want to upset anyone who has to leave their children. I do think you are no help to anyone if you are honestly shattered and there are people who don't have anyone to ask for help with other children. I hope Im never in that situation.

I was in hospital when I was about 16 (around 10 years ago) and in the childrens ward. There were children in there longish term with broken legs, those who were sick, recovering from ops etc. I will never forget the girl next to me who screamed and screamed through the night in agony. The nurses basically told her to stop making a fuss. Both parents left her though I don't know if they had good reasons or not. What struck me was the shit quality food though. Chicken nuggests, chips, beans. Just enough for an 8 year old. No where near enough for a healthy 16 year old.

In case of the op I'm fully pulling on my judgy pants and with my hands on my hips saying "OP YANBU". The woman would surely have said if she had to leave for any other reason than being tired.

I actually find it really upsetting when people say 'I wouldn't leave my premature baby' as you actually don't have a choice - or you don't in my local hospital.

There is nowhere for you to stay. When ds2 was in nicu and very poorly - I was discharged after 3 days post c-section and then came back each day to do his care, sit next to his incubator, stroke his hand through the small hole as he wasn't allowed out of his incubator.

I was then up every 3 hours in the night at home pumping whilst thinking about him - I seriously feel really sad that people think I wanted to do that. And that somehow I should have stayed - although where goodness knows as there was no room on post-natal and absolutely no room in the tiny room he was in in the NICU.

I was allowed to go back in to the small flat attached just before he was discharged in order to get bf established.

I have a relative who had a baby born 6 weeks early and we were having a conversation about staying in hospital (as I had done with my daughter) and my relative said she didn't stay in one night with her daughter as she wanted to be in her comfy bed at home and enjoy some time off with her husband. The hospital also had beds for her available right next to her baby so if she wanted to she could have stayed (I appreciate this isn't always the case). She said when she went in to see her baby during the day that all the other mums looked really tired.

With you there Traceybath.
It broke my sister and her dps hearts to have to leave their son - their firstborn night after night for seven weeks.
If they couldve stayed they would have done.

Girls - luckily DS2 was only in nicu for 8 days but I met lots of people who had babies there for a long time and they were inspirational in how they coped to be honest.

Of course the woman mentioned in the OP does ssound very heartless and I do feel sorry for her child.

But do people not see if it's not possible to stay with new born, it may also not be possible to stay with an older child, but for different reasons?

SIL is a single mum, living 400 miles from her nearest relative. When DN was in hospital for a few months, I wonder what people thought when when she left...

I do know that when she took a taxi home to have a shower after not washing for a week, she was called back before she even got through the front door.

all I can say is that in the 6 weeks I lived in hospital with DS (which as I said was bloody awful - but still nothing like what many other posters like Riven and Mrs De Vere are going/ have been through) I met many families who struggled day in and day out to look after their DC, and be there for them. I only saw one baby, in PICU, who seemed to be left on his own for very long periods of time, and when I did see the parents they looked very young, teenagers. Perhaps they just couldn't cope.

It is exhausting on the ward and very hard to get any sleep at all - other babies cry, often it feels like as soon as you get your child to sleep a nurse then comes in to do an ob and wakes them up...and it is a very stressful and difficult experience. My DS was a little baby so I could leave him for short periods with Granny or DH to comfort him - if he was ill now, as a toddler, I am sure he would want me all the time, and it would be even harder.

Children need their parents in hospital, when I was in myself at 5 with a burst appendix I remember feeling that I was ok, as long as my mum was there, which she was most of the time, though not all of it. But in general I think everyone needs to concentrate more on helping families going through this type of stuff, not on judging situations they haven't experienced. I am sure there are some crap parents out there, but the vast majority I am sure try their best, and are humans, with needs to eat and sleep and wash - and sometimes, perhaps, just cry or let off steam in some other way out of sight of their DC.

Reading these is making me realise just how good my hospital is. As well as the free meals I got for BFing, I noticed that parents were allowed to use the showers etc too. It's a very welcoming place.

Our kids ward has showers for the parents and a great parents room where you can use the microwave/toaster/kettle when you like. They provide tea coffee and bread but have a fridge for everything else. I just assumed that was pretty much standard for all hospitals? obviously not though!

My sister had to take her son in to hospital one Saturday afternoon and he was admitted. Next to her was a couple of young ladies (teenagers?) with the toddler of one of them who had been admitted for observation after a suspected asthma attack, discussing their clubbing plans for the evening. They then left the child and went home. My sister strongly suspected the asthma attack conveniently coincided with the lack of a babysitter.

We were allowed to shower on the ward - just difficult to find the time sometimes as you feel you need to be with your child the whole time, and then when they go to sleep it is generally just when the doctors are expected to come round, and you don't want to miss them, etc..Or you are worried about a monitor going off and no-one responding.

This thread is really making stuff come back to me. I met one lady with 10 week old triplets. One of them had been born with a serious birth defect and had only spent a week or so at home, the other two were fortunately healthy. But still, 10 weeks old.
She had been living in hospital with them most of that time, and trying to express enough milk for the sick one. I didn't see much of the father. The healthy two stayed in with her and the sick one, sometimes. I asked her one morning if she had had any sleep and she said 'oh, I think about an hour, maybe.' She did go home at one point to rest - albeit with the other two newborns - and the little sick baby sat in a bouncy chair and cried a lot by itself. The nurses fed it and (maybe?) changed it but didn't do much else. They would have said they were busy, but I think on that ward they could have done more, and some compassion fatigue had set in. We did meet some excellent staff elsewhere, but not on that ward.

When DS was in at 8 weeks when he started to be bottle fed (he was fed via NG tube for 5 days) and at one point I zonked out so much the staff came in to change him and do his feed for me rather than wake me up, I woke just as they were settling him back to sleep! :)