To refuse to speak to health visitor..

[Vickyyyy]

I know this is a controversial subject to begin with but I am prepared to be flamed if it happens

I suffer health issues. I am in a massive amount of pain a lot of the time, for hours and hours at a time. I am on strong pain meds to help but even the likes of oxycodone don't take it away completely. I had an operation a few months back to try and fix this pain and unfortunately the operation went wrong leaving me in more pain than ever before. I do struggle and am prepared to admit this. I can push myself to do things through the pain..doing so make me a LOT more ill later in the day though. My partner is pretty much my fulltime carer right now. The pain is at its worst on a nighttime, especially if I have pushed myself through the day, and it is as of yet undiagnosed, though my physio appointments start next month which should hopefully shine a bit of light on what the actual issue is...Anyway...

Last week, the health visitor appeared out of nowhere, as she always does, no phonecall to say she is coming or anything...and usually around 9/10am when sometimes I am still sorting kids breakfast, bath, dressed routine. Seemingly no reason for visit except for weighing (nearly) 2 year old. Fine. 10 mins and she goes. Everything seems fine. Asks where Dh is, I explain that his mother has taken ill and he is helping her in her home for a few hours.

The next day another unarranged visit. Kids have just went off it, sitting room looks like a bomb has hit it as every toy is on the floor. Yes, maybe I should have better control of my kids and make them sit quietly, but I will NEVER be that mum. I prefer them to have fun, they don't behave like this out of the house, and really, what harm does it do if they go wild for an hour or so? Anyway, health visitor comes in and immediately starts ranting about 'home conditions' that she noticed on her visit the day before. When pressed, it seems the issue was a knife on the kitchen bench, medication on the bench and another bench that had a tea stain on it. And some rubbish outside. I agree there should not have been a knife (was used for cutting up fruit..I don't like 2 year old having whole pears and such so I cut them) or medication (had taken it an hour or so prior to visit, was not my strong medication but I guess thats not the point) out on the bench...but the kids don't go in the kitchen alone so I don't see it as a massive issue or anything. The rubbish..I am awaiting the council collection of, its things like our old cot and cooker (replaced recently) and packaging that the new ones came in. Despite paying 20 quid for collection, apparently the first available date for pickup is 27th may...

So, this health visitor proceeds to spend half an hour telling me pretty much how useless I am. I have gone over what she said and no I am not overreacting. 'You are not the only person with 2 young kids' 'other people manage to watch toddlers and clean at the same time, why can't you' and such. This is after she already knows my health issues make a lot of things a huge problem for me at the moment. Told me Dh should not be spending so much time with his (ill) mother if I need help at home and its 'clear' I am not coping with the kids when hes not here. This horrific visit ended on the note of her saying if I don't follow her checklist exactly, she may have to call child protection! For the sake of a bit of mess..really? I will always favour letting the kids have fun over obsessive cleaning. I will always favour actually playing with the kids over doing a few dishes right now that could be left until the kdis are asleep...is this..unusual? I always thought this would be how most saw things.

So I was slightly hysterical at this point but trying to keep it together so as not to scare the kids. I told DH when he returned home and he said that he would deal with it next time she comes. But I don't want to see her at all anymore. I have seen a very cruel side of her. I am not proposing cutting off contact with the kids, as hubby is willing to deal with further 'appointments' (and he says there will be appointments, not unannounced visits as it has been for months). I just don't want to be there when she is. I am worried I may get a 'black mark' and be marked as a problem or something due to me unwillingness to be made to feel like dirt on the bottom of someones shoe. I don't know what I expect out of this thread tbh..its just good to get it all out. I don't understand whats gone wrong, she has been lovely at all other visits (though hubby was there for others, last week he spent a lot of time with him mother who is ill). I don't know if she was just having a bad day, if she really does think I am a shit mum, if she is bullying me for fun or something..if shes trying to motivate me top get better, which would be lovely if it was that easy...or what

(Checklist is things like clean kitchen completely. Get rid of rubbish outside and that, easy to follow and already done but thats not the point.)

I agree my experience does colour my judgement but I 'm not hearing overwhelming support for the hv service either.

I still don't understand why hvs aren't obliged to provide clarity about their scope and to let women know what their role is and that it is optional.

I don't think GPs should provide an hv service but if I had concerns about my baby's wellbeing, and for mine these were: Chronic asthma, repeated ear infections, an umbilical hernia. All those conditions needed specialist referral. All the hv could have done was refer me to my gp because an hv can't refer on to a consultant and can't prescribe.

I did not need an hv to make decisions about immunisation but I did expect my hv, any hv, to be able to facilitate access to evidence based research on which to base my decision. Which was to immunise when the autism link was rampant. My hv when asked for information, read me the department of health leaflet! I didn't need it read aloud and the information in it wasn't referenced.

Perhaps some mothers do need to be told to clean their baby's bottom but I didn't and it wasn't rocket science to work out that I was an older new mother in a stable relationship, with no financial difficulties. It would have been nice if a young woman in her 20s had not treated me as though I was a moron.

One way to get rid of an interfering HV is to tell them you are working 9-5. I moved house when my son was 1 and the HV in the new area phoned me to say she wanted to visit. I left a message for her saying I worked full-time so she'd need to come out of hours and never heard from her again. I suppose she probably thought that ds must be in childcare so there shouldn't be any issues (or they'd be picked up), though that was an assumption in itself as he might have been with dh or another relative.

I don't like the idea of people coming to the house and judging your housekeeping standards. I'm also glad my son's infant school didn't do the home visit thing - it's very intrusive and just about finding out if you are a nice middle class family with lots of books.

sock I'm not sure what your point is? My point is that the children who need safeguarding from intentional abuse are the very children who would refuse involvement with HV, so there's not much point having the HV doing their box ticking exercises with parents who do care enough about their children to bother with the HV.

children of parents who would refuse involvement

I've had 3 children and the HV I have met in both areas I have lived have been fantastic. Especially so in helping diagnose cows milk intolerance. Giving me ideas to overcome speech delay, providing postnatal classes to new mums and coming to visit me with my 3rd just to check I was ok (history of depression meant I was on the list to keep an eye on). Ok they are never going to know all the answers, probably because babies can't tell you what's wrong but they can suggest things to try.

With my last one it was a bit like being told how to suck eggs, but I appreciated that someone gave a damn. I don't have any support except my DH who works 9-5. I knew that if I had struggled post birth the HV would have been there to help me.

My only criticism is I wish all HV could have proper training regarding breast feeding. Some are better than others.

My point is nothing other than the vast majority of SCR's feature children who have significant contact with none opt out safeguarding services.

When I first qualified we used to do a lot of low level support,information and advice and practical help we also had family support workers whose role was practical stuff. Nowadays childrens services no longer have that ability so it's all gone to childrens centers and HV's.

It's a interesting way of getting support to people who do not meet the current fairly high bar for cp assistance but do need help. It's not even really a bad way of doing it.

What is not great is when that help is not needed or delivered in a way that people find intimidating or if that help is shit.

Sadly a lot of people do not feel that they can not use childrens centers due to stigma or the center themselves not considering them their target group and a lot of these people will have no clue what support is out there HV's can be incredibly useful to those people

My HVs have all been lovely - and utterly useless. Whoever said the bit about a "reasonably competent adult" not needing one was spot on.

First one missed by baby's as yet undiagnosed congenital heart defect. Not that she could have been expected to diagnose. But my tears, begging her to re-count my baby's fast breathing (100 times a minute) and her heart rate of 250 (really) WA fobbed off with me imagining things. I couldn't face seeng her after that although did enjoy the ward sister telling me about her scathing phone call to her once we were admitted to hugh dependency. (All is ok now).

Or the last HV who giggled she didn't know much about reflux and cow's milk protein allergy after weeks of suffering. (I have a great GP). She even stated "I have lots of patients with that. I should really read up on it"

I have countless similar arguments. I feel their visits are utterly pointless.

I will never trust a HV again. I smile and nod when they visit. If I have any concerns, I go to my GP

With HVs you do it their way or you're fucked!
OP if she's offering you really good advice with speech delay see if it's worth changing her otherwise ask for a different one !

Wow beau you are very bitter. And tell me what you do that makes you the expert on the most up to date evidence based parenting advice? As I can assure you we don't have access to any such training and education and don't keep up to date with such knowledge for our own good/interest. Yes we are utterly useless and just tell everyone to go to the GP. You sound ridiculous tbh and need to get help to get over what happened instead of tarring a whole profession with the same offensive brush

Just a quick update...so yeah, after seemingly resolving our issues, everything broke down yet again with me and HV. Same thing again pretty much, pick pick picking..NEVER dangerous stuff, I have to add. The final straw was her moaning that DDs bed had no sheets on. When said sheets and quilt cover were IN the washer, being washed at the time. I lost it a little and asked her if she would prefer I never wash the bedding and that if thats what she wanted she could walk out right now because I am not leaving the kids in dirty sheets (well, tbh not dirty, but I have a slight obsession with washing them every 2 days anyway :p ) just to please her. Next visit I refused point blank to let her in. DH answered next visit and confirmed she would not be visiting anymore.

She put in safeguarding recommendation thing. Social turned up for 2 on the spot visits where they have found NO issues at all. Have been extremely helpful and supportive. Though officially I don't think they are allowed to agree that my HV was useless, they have pretty much implied they agree...they confirmed that she has in the referal made out my daughters speech issues are a lot worse than they actually are (luckily I have a copy of latest speech therapy/paed reports that confirm I am right so it is not a case of my opinion V her opinion) and that other claims seem to be exaggerated. Have given me details of how to apply to get all records she ever entered about me AND how to complain officially. They now have my contact details and we have a 'support worker' who is absolutely lovely. When I was talking through my issues she understood everything, she had 3 under 5s 10 years back and she agrees with me that it is impossible to keep a pristine house and such and she is also of the opinion that IF everything was perfect all of the time then she would be worried as that would indicate kids don't play with toys, or do normal 'kid' stuff. I have chosen to keep having visits from her (yes, I was given the choice..as they found nothing of concern so its nto a case of them HAVING to keep coming back) as I do feel actual support and advice may help me. This was a couple of weeks back now and I received both a letter and a phonecall on Friday ASKING if she can come round on Monday...which is obviously fine.

My first HV was lovely also. She had 2 kids close in age too. I do think it should maybe be a requirement of the job to have actual experience in having children yourself. I have only ever had issues with the 'professionals' who do not have their own children. I suspect maybe because its very different to how you think it may be from reading about them in books or whatever or looking after one for a few hours...no amount of 'training' is the same as actually doing it yourself, until I had kids I didn't understand silly things like why parents didn't/couldn't stop their child screaming on a bus and that for gods sake lol. I'm sorry if this opinion comes across badly, I'm sure a lot of people without their own kids do the job well...just from my experience this has not been the case.

Anyway, situation now totally resolved and happy outcome in the end :)

I'm so pleased, what a great update and good luck in your future. You come across as fab parents and I'm so glad you stuck to your guns

Sucks business but at least you got a lovely support worker from the nightmare

Do you feel like you need extra help or support? She could make referrals on to other agencies based on her visits if you wanted.
If you feel that your coping fine say that you have no concerns about your child's weight (if you don't and that's the purpose of the visits)

I don't feel I need extra support as such, however it being there if I did need it at any point is useful IMO. Speech therapy and such don't think they need to be involved though recommended that when schools break up we go to some singing groups and such to keep her on track. Weight has never been an issue. I do not really have any concerns about DDs speech, I do know she is a bit behind, that much is obvious as she is 3..however DHs child from a previous relationship also had a speech delay and DH did himself as a child too...not sure if its one of those things that run in the family or whatever but he has dealt with it all before too and said with his other son, speech therapy made no difference and pretty much one day when he was 4 he started talking in sentences out of nowhere. DS is coming on brilliantly in all stages of development so I don't feel it is anything that could have been avoided if I had done anything differently or anything as I have brought both up exactly the same. Seems to just be one of those things.

You change bed sheets every 2 days?! WHY?!

You change bed sheets every 2 days?! WHY?!

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My mother says this too. She says its unnecessary to do it more than once a fortnight unless one of the kids pees the bed or something :S

I always did this for myself and the habit has transferred to the kids tbh. There is no real reason for it besides I love the feel of clean new sheets on my own bed. As such, if I'm doing it for myself I do it for them. They probably don't appreciate it like I do but meh. Its no extra work or anything really

I change the sheets really frequently too; it's so nice having clean sheets!

No extra work? It's 7x the washing, not to mention the cost!