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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

child being sick on the train

61 replies

farewellfigure · 27/01/2014 14:28

We took DS to london on Sunday. There was a family sitting in the next seat, Mum, Dad and 2 DCs aged about 5 and 6. From their conversation we realised they were going to the NH museum... same as us... and we thought it was really funny.

The little girl said she had a tummy ache. The Dad said, 'Oh you'll be fine. I'm sure you won't be sick again' (wishful thinking). Anyway, eventually she started crying so the mum said she'd take her to the loo. We heard a lot more pained crying from the other end of the carriage then they came back and the mum said that the loos were locked. I can only imagine where the poor little girl had been sick. About half an hour later she started crying again so the mum took her back to wherever she'd been sick before. When they came back she was white and shaky and lolling all over the mum. We got to Victoria and off they trotted to the tube station.

AIBU in thinking that if you plan to go somewhere nice and your DD is ill, you postpone? If the mum or dad had woken up and been sick, would they have forced themselves out of bed, into the cold, and trudged round the museum having to stop to be sick every half an hour?

Hoists judgy pants. I know it's none of my business really. I was just a bit shocked.

OP posts:
PleaseJustLeaveYourBrotherAlon · 27/01/2014 15:13

If it was genuine illness yanbu, but I think it was probably travel sickness

GhostsInSnow · 27/01/2014 15:19

ginnybag maybe they didn't know she'd be travel sick? As a child of about 8 I was taken out for the day by my Uncle, Aunt and cousin, it was the first time I'd been on a train. I had never been travel sick in my life and I'd been on cars and planes but this was my first time on a train and I was really ill.

My main memory of that day is my bitch of an older cousin threatening me that if they had to go home early because of me she'd hurt me. In the end my Aunt called my Dad who drove a fair way to collect me because I'd felt so ill long after I got off the train. Even now trains make me ill.

ginnybag · 27/01/2014 15:27

Rufus - but you said it yourself - knowing now, you're ready for it.

OP says she saw this family for the whole journey, and the parent said she'd been ill at home.

Everyone's been caught out by their kid upchucking with no warning. It happens - unfortunately! Grin

Would you plan a trip now and not plan for that?

ginnybag · 27/01/2014 15:33

Honey - agreed, if it was the first time she'd been on a train. But that's not what the Dad said, and I'd already made that exception.

Of the three possibilities, the family are reasonable in none of them.

She's ill - they should be taking her home

She's known to be travel sick - they should be equipped for it, and they weren't.

She's NOT known to be travel sick (and this is possible!) - they should be taking her home because they CANNOT know for sure what the cause is until there's a repeat incident.

So, either the family are remiss in carrying on with a sick and potentially infectious child - something that gets screamed about on here all the time - or they are travelling with a child that they know will likely vomit everywhere and are making no effort to contain the mess and unpleasantness of that, at all, to the point where the child likely threw up in the corridor - twice.

TheDoctorsNewKidneys · 27/01/2014 15:38

If my parents had kept me at home due to travel sickness as a kid, I'd never have gone anywhere.

I always got sick on coaches and long car journeys. I'm not much better now as an adult, but I can "control" it more than I could as a little kid. I would interpret what the dad said as "you might have been sick on trains before, but hopefully you'll be okay this time."

They might have got on at your station, but maybe they got another train there, or they drove to the station and the little girl gets travel sick in cars? Motion sickness can last longer than the actual journey. If I feel carsick, it takes at least an hour afterwards for me to stop feeling sick, and although trains alone don't make me sick, being on one after a coach or car journey would probably make me feel horribly nauseous.

Juno77 · 27/01/2014 15:45

Oh my god OP...

You don't know how they got to the station. So you can't say she wasn't travel sick. Maybe the dad meant 'again' in reference to months ago when they were on a train? You don't know.

Maybe she is actually sick. Like long term sick. If that is the case, they still have to have days out. Imagine they just stayed in all the time.

Maybe they brought sick bags and used them all.
Maybe they didn't bring sick bags because they assumed they could use the toilet.

Pawprint · 27/01/2014 15:48

That would annoy me too, but then I have a bit of a phobia about people being sick and hate other people's kids, especially on trains

MothratheMighty · 27/01/2014 15:50

DS used to get horribly travel sick, until he was about 6, then he stopped and DD developed travel sickness when she was around 12. She grew out of it in her 20s. I always planned for it in various ways.
For both of them it was cars and buses, fine on trains and boats. About 5 minutes after they got off the transport, they were fine.
You don't know the family or the circumstances.

MinesAPintOfTea · 27/01/2014 15:52

I suffered a lot from travel sickness as a child still do on Pendalinos and we never took sick bags on trains. TBH you don't want to be sick into a bag if you can possibly avoid it because it will start leaking within a minute or two. Its an acceptable solution during aeroplane takeoff/landing or on the motorway but the rest of the time you're better off finding a toilet or stopping the car aiming for the gutter.

My dad always treated it as mind over matter. That made him a prat.

grumpyoldbat · 27/01/2014 15:58

I agree with ginnybag.

LaGuardia · 27/01/2014 16:02

I have travelled 5 hrs to London with 3 vomiting children. One got a Japanese tourist!

What a charming person you are, Ubik1

Original poster
farewellfigure · 27/01/2014 16:10

Thanks ginnybag. You put it better than I did. Either they should have been prepared, or they should have gone home. I was beginning to think I was in the wrong and was BU. But you've changed my mind again.

OK so the child might have been sick in the car on the way to the station, at which point, if she'd never been travel sick before, they should have turned the car around and gone home. Anyway, they must have had a pretty rough day if they'd had to keep finding a loo every half an hour, so it can't have been much fun for anyone really.

And they won't have run out of sick bags. It's only an hour's journey and they got on at the same station as us.

Hey ho. Like someone else said, there are plenty of other things to worry about. I just hope none of us have got the bug (if it was one). How selfish of me Smile

OP posts:
ginnybag · 27/01/2014 16:17

You're welcome, OP.

As I said, everyone's been caught out by kids upchucking when you're not expecting it. It happens - one of the rites of passage of parenthood, I suspect. But this was a little different, and I don't think you're out of line for being annoyed by their attitude and approach.

morethanpotatoprints · 27/01/2014 16:18

My dd also gets terrible travel sick, it makes it difficult as she needs to travel far and wide.
I too would hate to think that people would judge me for having taken her on public transport though.
However, I do medicate although it doesn't always work. We are always well prepared with recepticals and change of clothing.

CrohnicallyFarting · 27/01/2014 16:26

I think that's the thing though, potatoprints you are prepared with a receptacle and clothing. In the OP, if the being sick was out of the blue then you assume she is ill and go home, if you know she gets travel sick you should be prepared. After the first time the child was sick, the mum could have improvised- baby nappy sacks make a surprisingly good sick bag, maybe there was a mum with a young child on the train that they could have asked for one?

I am also emetophobic and find travelling on public transport difficult, I don't know what I'd do if I was faced with a puddle of sick on a train!

cory · 27/01/2014 18:49

if the mother went away somewhere for her to be sick when the loos were locked- how on earth do people know she wasn't cleverly improvising sick bags? the OP never saw the evidence, did she? perhaps she would have preferred her dd to be sick down the loo (as who wouldn't?) but coped perfectly well when that wasn't an option?

also possible that the dd became sick because she was anxious and worried about being sick; some children do react like that

dd used to do that, pretty unpredictable when she would have one of her anxious turns, still hard to predict but thankfully not vomiting any longer

when dd was sick (or started hyperventilating at a later age) we knew it was anxiety (because it showed) but we couldn't predict exactly what thing would trigger anxiety on any given occasion so short of keeping her permanently tucked up in bed it was difficult to do anything about it

EndoplasmicReticulum · 27/01/2014 19:32

I had to clean up vom on the train 5 minutes into a trip once. Yes I had bags.

"oh I'm always sick on the train miss".

Nice of your parents to warn me....

Fancyashandy · 27/01/2014 19:35

Suffered really badly from travel sickness as a child. I could have been sick in the car on the way to the station, then on the train - we always travelled with plastic bags. It was just something we had to delay wi or we wouldn't ever have gone anywhere.

Dancergirl · 27/01/2014 19:55

How do you know she was actually sick if you didn't see it? You said she tried to find the loos which were closed and assumed she'd just thrown up somewhere on the train. Maybe she wasnt actually sick at all...?

CrohnicallyFarting · 27/01/2014 20:00

Cory- I guess I figured mum hadn't improvised a sick bag because I would have expected her to produce it when the little girl said she felt sick the second time. Knowing how suddenly the urge to vomit comes on small children, I would have had the bag to hand as I walked her to the toilets.

I have to admit that I hadn't thought about the possibility of it being anxiety, but again I think I would have been prepared if that were the case. A bit like we have a child with epilepsy at school who sometimes wets himself during a seizure- so he/his mum carries spare clothes around just in case. He doesn't have a seizure that often, and doesn't wet himself every time, but as they know the possibility is there they like to be prepared.

CrohnicallyFarting · 27/01/2014 20:01

Dancer girl- didn't the mum say something about getting the girl something to take the taste away? Meaning she had actually been sick.

Thetallesttower · 27/01/2014 20:07

Everyone is saying just get on with it if your child's sick, otherwise you won't go everywhere, but my dd really doesn't want to go places if she's going to be travel sick for hours with a small amount of enjoyment in the middle. If it's a long journey, we give her pills and a bag/bowl, if its short it's windows open and driving very carefully.

It does put her off lots of traveling though, I don't blame her!

queenofthepirates · 27/01/2014 20:08

The assumption is that these parents were out on a jolly, would it be different if their destination was perhaps one of the London hospitals? Maybe this is an essential journey and they are being super calm for the kids despite possibly being knotted up inside.

I think judgy pants should be coming down based on the scant facts witnessed.

Dontletthemgetyoudown · 27/01/2014 20:11

The op said they had said the were visiting the natural history museum as were the op and her family. So not off to the hospital.

TheRealAmandaClarke · 27/01/2014 20:18

YAbu
It seems like they didn't realise she was I'll. They hadn't expected that she would be sick while they were out.
One vom in the morning might have been put down to excitement, or a rich meal/ dodgy milk on her cereal.
It sounds like it was a stressful journey for the whole family.