To think paediatric ward should be better equipped for bed sharing?

[Franklepopper]

I’m in hospital with my poorly 1 year old. The care we’re getting is great but the parent bed is a narrow fold down affair with a gap between it and the wall.
AIBU to think that poorly children are likely to want to bedshare with their grownups and that the beds could have been thought about a bit more to make this possible?
I might be delusional but I have had 30min a sleep so far all night…

When I read things like this I am so grateful for our local hospital where the paediatric ward has parent beds built in the walls beside each patient bed. It doesn't much solve the problem of not being able to physically sleep with your child but the beds were quite comfortable and I spent time lying down and reading/ sleeping in the periods when DS was ok and not upset etc and was well out of the way of the nurses if I stayed there I'd have never for into a single bed with DS anyway so never really thought this was an option.

I am astonished that parents or carers can't stay in some hospitals. I did all the basic looking after of DS and he was 9years old. I helped him wash, go to the toilet, changed the sheets ( prompted by me in the five days he was in hospital) . The hospital were fantastic medically but they did none of the personal care for DS at all. They were too busy

Op I get it, with a bigger child you could sleep with them in their bed.

The issue is babies are in a cot which is higher than a standard cot.
I wouldn't swap for a bed for a baby so young as the cot helps to an extent when you go for a shower or to get stuff. No danger of them trying to climb out or fall the way they would from a bed.

Our local hospital has reclining chairs which are horrible, you stick to them if your top slides up and a crackly static blanket. 3 days of next to no sleep with a LO, hourly fights with an inhaler, and realising my DDad was dying at home to had the nurses concerned that I had depression and sent a HV out to visit me when I got home.

I am always amused by these threads were PP are adamant "No, never due to xyz" even when other posters relay they actual opposing experience

My ds had a heart condition (has had an op so no longer an issue) and we were in hospital a lot when he was little. They used to ask me if I wanted a full size bed so I could get in with him rather than the chair/bed and cot which I always appreciated. It might have been because we were on a shared ward and he would literally scream unless lying on me though!

@Scotabroad24

Yep there is. Where I live we aren't allowed to stay in paediatrics. Hope your ds is okay

This is incredibly rare. And the previous comment was snide.

@TomDaleysCardigan

I grew up in and out of hospital. Parents were never allowed to stay overnight with me

I had a handful of hospital stays as a child (70s and 80s) and also never had a parent stay overnight with me, and neither did anyone else on the wards I was on. I'm always a bit confused to see people on here talking about staying with their children in hospital, and wonder if this is a relatively new thing, or just something not done in the hospitals I was in when I was a child.

I think it relatively new but it is about what is considered best for the child in most cases. I’m always a bit confused about people thinking it’s so strange now based on their experiences decades ago - my elderly relative was in hospital for months and her parents weren’t allowed to visit at all for weeks on end, because it “upset the children”. We don’t consider that best practice any more either

It would be hard to whizz a double bed down the corridors to resus in an emergency ...

I’ve had to move furniture out the way in a resus situation before, it’s terrifying. Those seconds are precious.

If she is in a cot I'd just ask to move her to one of the beds for older children so as others have said you can share with them (with the sides up, stops you falling out). I did this for 3 nights when my son was about 3.

Be grateful you can stay

What a very strange attitude. Why shouldn't a parent be able to stay with their sick child? Why should she be grateful for the bare minimum? We are in a developed country in 2022. In this day and age in new hospitals, paeds wards should be built with the expectation that parents will stay and should be at the very least, comfortable. In my experience, it's the parents that do the majority of the care so a proper bed next to the child's bed would help significantly to ensure the parent is functioning. I think parents should be fed as well. It's near enough impossible to leave your child to get food for yourself from any local shops etc because the nurses are so stretched, when mine was about 3 and in a hospital 100 miles from home we had nobody to watch her while i could go get food. If i went while she was asleep, if she woke up she would have been scared and tried to pull her cannula out. Basically i just ate cereal bars for a few days. She was nil by mouth so i couldn't eat in front of her.

Or they could staff the wards properly so parents can get away to eat and rest.

@Moodycow78

Bed sharing isn't safe, especially with an ill child, I'd imagine they design the beds in order to prevent sharing. When my LOs have been in the nurses have been really strict about it

Of course it's bloody safe, especially in a hospital! For what it's worth i can see both sides. I've been in the hospital quite a few times with my son from age 9m to 18m and whilst they did support me bedsharing i was clearly the minority in asking for it and the bed was a tight squeeze. But we managed fine. After that it's a question of budget and space. Yes in theory they could store a couple of bigger beds but double beds are probably a bit unnecessary and anything in between requires a special sized mattress so is it worth it. And is it worth it if nobody really asks for it? Can they even accommodate it in storing and in the room? Quite a few things to consider.

It’s not hygienic, or practical, to bed share for the night in hospital.
Be grateful for the bed you have. Unfortunately, staying with a sick child isn’t about having a great night sleep as the parent- the rooms are geared towards the practicalities of looking after patients and having room and access to the patient.

If you accommodate parents with bed, you'll always get those people that insist on having both parents there, those who want meals too, those who bother the staff every other moment because they think their kid needs something, those who treat it like a hotel.

Meals aren’t provided for adults. There is a restaurant and café in the hospital for parents and staff. Only one parent is allowed to stay because there is nowhere to accommodate two parents.

I'm always a bit confused to see people on here talking about staying with their children in hospital, and wonder if this is a relatively new thing, or just something not done in the hospitals I was in when I was a child

I suspect the ratio of nurses per number of children is a lot lower these days. As a veteran of many, many stays in our local children’s hospital, and on first name terms with all of the nurses on the ENT ward I can tell you that they prefer it if parents stay because it is a lot easier for them. When you have a ward full of very small children they wouldn’t be able to cope with meal times without parents to help feed their children. Visits to the toilet or just comforting a distraught child just can’t be done on a ward which might have 18 children and 3 or 4 nurses.

Wow. I don’t think there are paediatric wards (not nicus) where parents can’t stay?

Not wanting to do a 'four Yorkshiremen' but from when I was 2 until a teenager, in the 70s; I had multiple surgeries and not only could my mother not stay overnight, she wasn't allowed to come with me to surgery, visit outside visiting hours or comfort me if I was screaming and visiting hours weren't quite ready. I am so pleased things have changed

@Franklepopper

I’m in hospital with my poorly 1 year old. The care we’re getting is great but the parent bed is a narrow fold down affair with a gap between it and the wall. AIBU to think that poorly children are likely to want to bedshare with their grownups and that the beds could have been thought about a bit more to make this possible? I might be delusional but I have had 30min a sleep so far all night…

What you are describing does seem a bit rubbish. I'd expect a normal full size bed with the sides that go up. As someone has said - anything bigger wouldn't be realistic whizzing through the corridor and swapping beds in the room can be tricky if an emergency happens.

Outside of the NICU / PICU environment I have never known a parent / carer of a paediatric patient be unable to stay with them overnight. It is actively encouraged and paediatric health professionals are well aware of how beneficial it is to have the comforting presence of a loved one with a sick child. The issue here is not whether parents can stay with the child, or even that parents have a bed / reclining chair (again very standard in every hospital I have worked in). This is purely a question of whether parents can bed-share with their sick child. Of course there are nuances and exceptions in certain circumstances but in general it is discouraged and for very valid reasons. Not unreasonable at all to find this challenging as a parent, but the rules / trend of discouraging it has a firm rationale behind it.

The “just be grateful that *” comments are so pointless. It’s time we stop being grateful for the NHS and start demanding more funding and better standards for staff and patients. Absolutely parents should be able to stay comfortably with their very ill children.

@RichTeaRichTea

I think it relatively new but it is about what is considered best for the child in most cases. I’m always a bit confused about people thinking it’s so strange now based on their experiences decades ago - my elderly relative was in hospital for months and her parents weren’t allowed to visit at all for weeks on end, because it “upset the children”. We don’t consider that best practice any more either

I don't think it's strange that it's allowed now, it just makes me wonder if it wasn't allowed back then or if my parents were just a bit shit and didn't want to stay with me.

If OP couldn’t stay the staff would really have their work cut out now wouldn’t they?! OP you absolutely should be made comfortable whilst bed sharing in hospital and what about breastfeeding mothers?

Last time DD was in as a day patient were signs everywhere asking parents not to sit on the side of the bed, we were only allowed to sit in a chair next to the bed. I imagine they would have had kittens if a parent had actually got onto the bed! Luckily DD was small enough and not attached to anything so I could put her in my lap in the chair I was allowed on.

I’m bemused by the people saying that it’s not hygienic. They’re 1. They are touching me almost all of the time. I am covered in their snot when they are poorly, they stick their hands in my mouth when they breastfeed. How is sharing a bed ‘unhygienic’?

I hope you (and baby) actually got some sleep in the end Frankel

Yabu. It's a nice idea but not really practical. I've stayed in hospital a lot with my dc in the last 15 years and I've seen the facilities for parents change a lot for the better. When I first stayed in 2008 I got a bed and food because I was breastfeeding but all other parents who stayed had to sleep in a chair. I actually breastfed dc2 for longer than I would have because of this rule. In 2013 we were promoted to the specialist children's hospital where there were fold down beds for parents but no food and the nearest (tiny) shop was 3 floors down or you could get costa or a boots meal deal thing from the adult hospital next door. I stocked up when ds2 was in theatre with enough to last me until he was off the monitors and I could wheel him down to the shop in his pram.

In 2015 we were back in the local hospital and they had just got a limited number of pull out beds. Unfortunately for me mum's of babies/toddlers rightly took priority over me and my 9 year old so I was in the chair all night. Thankfully he was old enough to be left for 20 minutes 3 times a day so I could go to the shop and get food. In 2021 I wasn't allowed in at all due to covid restrictions (dh brought him into a and e so he had to stay rather than tag teaming like we usually do). Then this year there was beds for all visiting parents (although still only 1 parent allowed per child) and all food provided. There were signs up saying this was because they were trying to discourage parents from going off the ward to get food and mixing with people in the shops/cafe etc. Although lots of parents were taking their child off for a walk and meeting up with the other parent, siblings, grandparents, aunties etc in the date to get round the only one visitor rule.

Over the decades it has been different. When ds now 27 was in with croup I slept on a blanket on the floor.
Ds 13 I had a bed and dh had a chair.
Sorry your dc is poorly op.

At the end of the day, your child is the priority not you. The staff need to get to him easily and may not be able to do so if you’re cuddled up together. Plus it’ll create a lot more work if the staff have to separate double sheets from singles. You’re going to have to put up with it I’m afraid and be grateful you can stay. I couldn’t stay when my son was poorly for three days and he was only two.