Being drove insane on the postnatal ward

[TrappedWindArse]

I gave birth yesterday via section, had a nasty hemmorage and am now stuck on the postnatal ward with a very lethargic and jaundice DS. I haven't slept properly in days. 20 mins here and there. I'm fucked.

There's a seemingly pleasant couple in the bay opposite me with their own newborn who is quite difficult to settle, so they do have my sympathy.

The problem is the dad has adopted a method of trying to sooth the baby by making that noise you make when you're trying to beckon a cat "click click pspspsps click click pspspsps"

Obviously it doesn't work, but that doesn't deter him.

Now imagine that on loop constantly, alongside not instead of, the poor grizzly newborn. All night long. Into the morning, then afternoon.

"Click click pspspspspspsps"

Another lady on the ward kindly introduced the mum to white noise on YouTube. It helps the baby a little, hurrah, mum is very thankful, but the dad is still doing that bloody cat noise.

WIBU to strangle him and cite temporary insanity due to hormones and extreme provocation? or at the very least ask him to bloody stop it

9 years on I still remember the hell that was the post natal ward. The woman next to me kept her big light on all night despite me asking her to put her small light on. Her husband was almost as annoying as the bloke you're describing op by talking really loudly to their baby, almost as if he was showing off how great he was. He also wanted to use the toilet on the ward by banging on the door when I was in there trying to clean myself up. I hated him!

Hope you get home soon op and enjoy the newborn cuddles. Congratulations 👶

With one of mine I had to stay in a week as he was premature . It was hell - plastic sheets on the bed, stifling hot , you had to get your own clean sheets if you wanted any and he was under UV lights so the poor other Mums were blasted with that day and night .

I begged to be let home from postnatal. It was during covid so zero visitors the whole time. At home I'd have the help of my DH. I heard the midwives discussing it at the shift handover. "Wigglerose is desperate to go home."

That's sounds nicer than the mums who wouldn't pick up their newborns for fear of spoiling them 💔

Family in the cubicle next to me 2am bought her husband her mammy her granny her grandad her dad was with the car there was a random child or two wandering around they all insisted on staying and laughing celebrating the baby's birth the midwife came over and said be quiet there are lots of mothers and babies in here they rubbished her then a lady whose attitude screamed matron stormed over and in a furious whisper we all heard told them to leave at once or she was calling security and they would not be allowed to return three tried saying they needed to stay because the wife spoke very little English husband said he wasn't leaving his wife matron lady said our staff speak all languages leave now (man mutter) I SAID NOW they left they didn't return en masse again turns out she spoke wonderful English when her family were gone

@ElinoristhenewEnid

Reading these posts I am so grateful that when I had my dcs over 30 years ago fathers were not allowed to stay on the ward.

I was in hospital for a week with both my dcs but visiting was restricted to 3.30-5pm for any visitors and 7-8 pm fathers only. Other than those times mums were left in peace!

Brilliant wasn't it?

And the enforced afternoon nap.

@AveryGoodlay

Postnatal wards are he'll. There was a baby on one of mine who sounded like a cat when they cried!

Completely off-topic but "cri-du-chat" or cat-cry syndrome is a real genetic disorder. Wonder of that's what that little one had.

Also I am so very glad that the hospital I gave birth had individual en suite rooms on the postnatal ward.

@ancientgran

Oh enemas and dry shaving were other horrors I'd forgotten about.

Yes. It's amazing how fast a 9-month pregnant woman can move when necessary...

Oh my, I feel for you OP. I was in that particular hell four years ago, waiting for DS to be born after waters broke prematurely then in for another week because he was jaundiced and underweight. I thought I'd lose my mind. There was the young mum opposite who had enough family issues to fill a Jeremy Kyle show and who demanded late night snacks from the nurses, the woman next to me who had an 11pm night night chat with her husband then snored all night, and of course the 4 hourly BP checks. And of course a baby that needed feeding! I fantasised about murder a lot that week. With DD I was scared to leave hospital, with DS I practically sprinted (as fast as my section scar would let me) out the door!

They did say if I had to wait for longer there might be a single room available. The woman next to me (not the annoying one) had a severely jaundiced baby and after she had a meltdown, they got her her own room.

Good luck, I hope you are out of there very soon.

The partner of the woman opposite me called one of the midwives a bitch. Can’t believe she didn’t get him chucked out TBH. She was coming out of the my cubicle and nearly tripped over one of their other kids who were playing on the floor and she asked them to move back into their mums cubicle. They also had loud rows multiple times a day. The woman in the bed next to me spent most of the day discussing how she was going to get someone (baby’s dad?) stabbed!! I felt sorry for her at first as her baby was quite poorly and in NICU but sympathy wained somewhat after the stabbing discussion. Thank fuck I only had to stay one night!

This really is terrifying and some people should not be having babies. These men sound horrific- banging on doors, disturbing others. Awful.
I had my first on a midwife unit and it was bliss. Second was on a ward where another woman and me were desperate to leave when morning came - woman opposite was swearing at baby and partner and had no clothes for the baby, woman in corner had a partner who was awful. Can't imagine how bad it would be if they could've stayed all night.

I had 2 nights in the high dependency unit after EMCS. The unit was a room on the labour ward. I listened to other mums giving birth for 48 bloody hours , it was like some form of torture. I went batshit at the midwife in the middle of the second night and begged to be sent home…..I got moved to the post labour ward for 3 more nights. You do have my sympathy OP

Poor OP.

I can still remember the name of the baby of the woman opposite me when I had DS because she called every single person she knew to ask if they thought it went with her surname (it was a common name that made another well known place name in combination with her surname - think Alexandra Pallis, but not that).

That was 22 years ago.

I pad for a side ward when I had DS2.

@MarieIVanArkleStinks

Unfortunately women absolutely hated it, campaigned to change it, petitioned, and we received 100s of letters a week about it.

Are they quite mad?

They're in hospital such a short while as a rule (I had an EMCS so was in longer), surely they can manage without partners between visits for a few hours. Fellow patients are recovering from a nasty procedure and major trauma to their bodies. They are the ones should be put first, and I well understood that meant not having my partner at my beck and call 24/7.

They mostly centred around how we were denying dads the bonding opportunity of when they were newborns, it was sexist to only allow one gender of parent to visit the baby, we were isolating mums in a vulnerable time, they’d rather their partners help with personal care like showering after a section than staff…

Trying to enforce it was a nightmare too. My role means I’m usually the most senior person on shift. I frequently had men get in my face and say they weren’t leaving and they’d like to see me try and make them. Unfortunately for them, although little old pregnant me might not be able to make them move, I can call security and they’ll do the heavy lifting for me. Although one man did manage to throw one of those clinical waste bins at me before they arrived…

Anyway. Now we’re back to visiting as it was pre-covid so at least I don’t have to deal with aggressive men refusing to leave. Now I just get called to deal with snoring men who walk around the ward at night in their underpants

Oh and to all the posters asking about why you now often can’t pay for side rooms… most hospitals are using them to isolate women with covid in

I'd speak to the staff and ask them to remind people staying to keep it down. You've had a haemorrhage and are dealing with after birth effects and all the rest of it and a newborn. Alternatively blame it on hormones and leather him. 🙊

I was stuck in a side room with my first for 11 days. Now you'd think it'd be fine in a side room. No. It was numbered the same as another room on the other side of the ward so I permanently had the other woman's guests bursting in- once when I was in the shower post catheter removal, I thought it was the midwife asking how I was but couldn't hear properly so said for her to come in. Nope, it was bed 1's sister AND her husband, parts of me falling out in the shower and they took what felt like a lifetime to leave. It was right next to the nurses station so night times were hellish as they had absolutely no volume control at all- a particular low was them having races on office chairs outside my room all night. There was no WiFi or TV anywhere to be found so I spent days staring at a wall, they either forgot to feed us or when they did it was like a comedy sketch (husband was served a pea once as a portion). I ended up getting my mum to bring me pain relief in as getting them to actually give me some was like waiting for planets to align. They didn't know or later handover that my baby had been rushed over to scbu (literally grabbed by the registrar and legged it) so all night long different staff members kept coming in to do her obs and then querying why I was "irrationally upset".

I discharged myself 18 hours after my second section with number 2 and refused point blank to go to hospital with number 3.

Sympathies OP. Postnatal is absolutely hellish. I hope you and baby are out of there as soon as you possibly can be and I hope the other people stfu! X

Ha, ha. UANBU! You have reminded me that after each lonely night trying to settle baby after me section the DP of the lady next door would come in and stick the football on (this was June) Make attempting the odd hour of sleep fun.

Hope you and baby feel better soon op

@Mybalconyiscracking

This has brought back memories. I was in a ward at 3 in the morning, with a newborn crying and crying. I felt so sorry for the poor Mum, until she said “ I’m not picking you up, I’m not going to spoil you”

I said “Pick that fucking child up now!”
.. silence!

I often wonder what became of that poor child?

I had the same, except it was a very young mum, and her own mother said "They do say not to give in to them" or something like that. They were both sitting there looking at this poor baby getting more and more distraught. I thought about that baby a lot after I left.

Postnatal ward is horrific. I was put with a lovely lady whose dd had the LOUDEST SCREAM I have ever heard, it wasn't even like a baby, a poor woman who didn't stop sobbing for 2 days, I have no idea why, and worst of all a nosey Parker who wouldn't leave anyone alone and wanted to tell me her life story whilst I was trying, unsuccessfully, to establish breastfeeding twins. Worst 2 days of my life.

That made me laugh. I had my first in a very busy inner city hospital, when I'd had the baby and was stitched up they had nowhere to put me, no beds on the ward until someone was discharged and they needed the delivery room so I was wheeled into a linen cupboard. So there was me and baby all tucked up in a linen cupboard. One up on a broom cupboard.

I think a linen cupboard sounds like heaven in comparison to a post natal ward!

Bloody hell. I've just googled the child who was born at the same time as my DS and I think I've found her on social media. Age looks right anyway. And the demographic...

I feel your pain. When I was in having one of my children the woman opposite just kept chanting at her baby, all. night. long. It didn’t calm her baby and kept everyone awake. It’s was hideous.

Having been the mother through covid who was left alone while my baby was in NICU on oxygen personally I would have found having my husband or someone there to support me invaluable. Instead I had to here other woman's babies cry through walls while I was alone.

Yes some hospital visitors are t**ts but that doesn't mean all should he banned.

Get someone to FaceTime and say 'are they still making that daft noise?' 😂

@Theunamedcat

Family in the cubicle next to me 2am bought her husband her mammy her granny her grandad her dad was with the car there was a random child or two wandering around they all insisted on staying and laughing celebrating the baby's birth the midwife came over and said be quiet there are lots of mothers and babies in here they rubbished her then a lady whose attitude screamed matron stormed over and in a furious whisper we all heard told them to leave at once or she was calling security and they would not be allowed to return three tried saying they needed to stay because the wife spoke very little English husband said he wasn't leaving his wife matron lady said our staff speak all languages leave now (man mutter) I SAID NOW they left they didn't return en masse again turns out she spoke wonderful English when her family were gone

It’s absolutely absurd that a hospital would allow any visitors in to disrupt the sleep of patients at 2am.

What sort of a world are we living in where this is allowed?