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…

I’m cracking up at all the people who seem to be suggesting I’m after a double bed and room service. Just a bed without a gap between it and the wall. We’re going to be ‘cuddled up together’ anyway as they are screaming every 15mins if I put them in the cot and will only settle on me.

Just ask for the cot to be swapped for a bed. We don't particularly like parents sharing as it limits access to the child. But we will allow it if it's what you do at home. Or the child won't settle in the cot. Co sleeping with a small baby is an absolute no no though.

Half the time the child ends up in the parents camp bed though!

I bed shared in the single hospital bed with my one year old. She wouldn’t go in the cot at all so they swapped it for a hospital bed.

I had the stay with ds a couple of years ago and they had removed parent camp beds in the paediatric ward so you had to sleep sitting in a chair.

No. Years ago pardnts were not even allowed to stay overnight. People always want more and more from the NHS.

It’s amusing to see so many people “imagining” the set up and stating categorically what would and wouldn’t be allowed despite people who have done it saying the opposite.

In the hospital DD attends they always asked when she was small if we co-slept. As we did at that point they always gave her a bed instead of a cot.
The parent and child getting no sleep (and disturbing other kids on the ward) does absolutely fuck all to aid recovery. It’s hard enough to get decent sleep in hospital with the lights and noises without suddenly having a poorly child that’s used to BFing in the night or co-sleeping being stuck in a cot alone.

@Viviennemary I'm
A paediatric nurse and my mum is absolutely convinced that parents don't need to stay. 🤔🙄🙄

All we want is for parents and the child to be as comfortable as possible. We will try to accommodate as best we can within reason. We try as much as possible to keep the noise and lights down. (Except when there babies who have had cleft lip
And palate repairs, as no one gets any sleep!) but at the end of the day H Sarah's for hospital, not Hilton!

my son has been in and out of hospital and I've slept next to him on the fold out bed. he wouldn't settle on the cot/bed, crying constantly. not getting the sleep he desperately needed to aid his recovery and preventing a lot of the other children from sleeping too. I just brought him in with me. he was hooked up to a sats monitor anyway that would go off if his oxygen dropped below a certain amount.

however, I'm not sure it would be possible to have beds to facilitate this specifically..I just made do with what we had and made it work as best I could.

@PinkFluffyUnicornSlippers

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.

Yes the child is the priority- it would be traumatising for a child who is used to sharing a bed with his mother to suddenly be in a strange place and expected to sleep alone, especially one who is unwell...

My son just would not sleep in his cot or without touching me when he was a baby- we never ended up being admitted to hospital overnight but were close once when he was 10 months - how would it have served his interests to distress him by trying to place him in a strange cot out of his normal routine? Neither of us would have got any sleep that way.

Obviously there might be some circumstances/sorts of illness where there might be particular concerns/lots of wires etc, but I think what's best for the child will vary depending on the circumstances in each case.

Sharing a single bed would be fine. Doesn't mean demanding a double.

Two nights after I gave birth a midwife showed me how to safely bedshare at night to help me get some sleep- it's not always unsafe - depends on the circumstances.

@LittleSnakes

I bed shared in the single hospital bed with my one year old. She wouldn’t go in the cot at all so they swapped it for a hospital bed.

Yep I've done that too. DC was very ill and refusing to sleep so they put us both in a hospital bed.

"Be grateful you can stay"

I doubt paediatric wards could function now without parents staying.

At the point that my 1yo was in the cot, they had wires and oxygen and needed it tilted at quite a steep angle so there was no way that could be combined with bed sharing - but at the same time they were so weak and poorly that they just slept, and the fact that there wasn’t any crying to be in with me showed how ill they were. It was once they were on the mend that it became feasible and the staff encouraged it as part of recovery

The NHS is struggling. To expect a comfortable bed is not feasible and quite honestly boarding on selfish.

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I learned early on that the cots in paediatric wards have a weight limit of 20 stone…

Are we really setting the bar so low for care that parents shouldn’t be expecting to have a semi comfy place to try to grab a few hours sleep?

The new alder hey has sofa beds in each parents room. They aren’t they best but it’s someone to sleep and sit during the day

But you can't bed share as a nurse may need to attend to the child in the night, check their obs etc and they need to be in an accessible place to do that. Plus if the child is hooked up to a machine for their heart rate etc you can't bed share. X

When my 11 month old was in HDU after an op, the senior staff there got us a proper hospital bed so that we could share.

When we moved to the paediatric ward there was a junior nurse who was really snotty about bed sharing. She eventually agreed to let me put my mattress on the floor. The baby wouldn’t have slept a wink otherwise, never having seen a cot in his life before that admission!

Very common for parents just to get a chair.

Not ideal, but far from the highest priority in the NHS.

The solution is to vote for political parties who will fund the NHS properly.

He was attached to a monitor whilst we were sharing a hospital bed, why couldn’t he be?

My son was always hooked up to a monitor for his heart as that was where the problem was for him. He also had frequent obs. It didn't matter that I was in a single bed with him at all, it just made it less traumatic for him as I could cuddle him while they were doing blood pressure etc. I was lucky the nurses were lovely and understanding.

I took the argument as being less to do with parents demanding a comfy bed and more to do with making it less stressful for children who are used to bed sharing, particularly when ill.

Nope, try 6 months on an oncology ward! Beepers going constantly through the night as little ones wired up to drips of chemo/blood/platelets. Got barely any sleep but was grateful for my pull down bed.

Agree. Bed sharing is much more common than people think and the ability to do it safely should be accessible to everyone who asks. I think its very Trust dependant - its always worth asking how they can help.