To sack off the Health Visitor?

[SukiTakeItOffAgain]

My DD2 has had a really rough start in life and it's been very difficult for us all, and my HV has quite frankly been crap.

Contact at the beginning (when things were really touch and go and we were living away from home at a hospital) was very sporadic - I think she rang three times in three months. When DD finally got discharged it took the HV several days to visit us. We've had loads of issues with feeding which she wasn't particularly helpful with and in fact made me feel like it was all my fault that DD was such a bad feeder.

DD is now 6mo and I haven't had any contact from my HV for about 6 weeks. She sends an assistant round (who is a nursery nurse but not a HV iyswim) but we just chat, it doesn't really get me anywhere. Invariably I end up in tears about something (we have had and are having a really bad time) but the HV never contacts me and it must get back to her about all the problems! The nursery nurse will always make comments about my DD's development which only make me worry, and then having dropped some massive bombshell about eye contact or whatever she will just vanish into the night leaving me to fret!! She always says she will get the HV to ring me but the HV never does. It feels like the HV just ticks a box that says "seen!" and moves on.

The last time the NN came I managed to engineer it so she doesn't visit again (because frankly it's not helping me) and she said I have to take DD to see them every 2 weeks to be weighed. I don't intend to do this and I don't want to see either of them again because it just makes a bad situation even worse. AIBU and what happens if I don't take her and they don't hear from me? I've got so that I don't want to answer the phone in case it might be them. I stubbornly don't want them to know anything about us!!

DD is regularly in touch with hospital paediatricians who are pleased with how she's developing considering what she's been through, and it's this that has made me think I should just cut the HV team out. She also gets weighed at hospital or I can take her to doctors if need be where there is a scale for anyone to use, and just record it myself. I don't know what the rule is about having baby weighed but with DD1 it seemed to stop at a few months old although she was healthy whereas DD2 is only just on the chart.

Loads of info there sorry didn't want to dripfeed.

This situation sounds similar to what I had with my ds. Mine was utter shit. Never saw or heard from her again after I refused to accept her advice and insisted we got refered to hospital to check ds weight issues and rule out any underlying problems. If you are not happy request a different one?
Mine has been great second time round but I really needed extra support first time round which was not there.
Ds is 5 now and went from not being on the chart to just about 25th centile. That is no thanks to her.

I took DS1 to weigh-in clinic twice, and have never taken DS2. I have no issue with our HVs, I know where they are if I need them. DS1 is monitored by the dieticians every 6m. DS2 gives me no cause for concern, and I weigh on digital scales at home to satisfy my curiosity. I take them to the routine development appointments (6w, 9m and requested the 2 1/2 yr for DS1 as he's a reluctant talker)

It sounds like like your needs are being met elsewhere and regular contact with the HV team is not of benefit to you, and declining their services is reasonable.

Fut show me where I slagged HVs off and I'll apologise.

As we move around a lot (forces family) we have had lots of different health visitors and I have never had a rubbish one. I have a child with special needs and although she is under hospital care I still see my health visitor. Often without my daughter even here because I value her advice and she is now a friend of the family. It's such a shame yours is so rubbish and I was wondering if you could perhaps request to see someone else? If you really don't want to then bin them off by all means. There are lots of fantastic Heath visitors out there though and of course if you do have any problems in the future you can always ring up and request a visit, with a different one maybe.