Screaming baby on children's ward

[Tomblibooz]

I'm on the children's ward tonight staying with my little one (who's currently fast asleep). Across the hall is a baby, I'd estimate to be around 4mo, left by themselves and has been screaming/crying for over an hour. The sort of wailing that it's making itself choke. It's heartbreaking to hear, and so I went for a wander to see what was going on and to offer to help.

Only 2 nurses on tonight, so short staffed. Baby's mum has gone home to pick up some things. Baby is left alone screaming in a cot, and has been for the hour basically.

I offered to go in and try and calm little one, even just sitting shushing or singing lullabies, but was told they couldn't allow it.

Aibu in thinking you'd prefer your little one to be looked after by a random mum, than be left alone screaming for over an hour on it's own?

I appreciate my hormones are all over the place just now and I'm on about night 3 of no sleep, so I may bu!

Yabu - people leave their own baby's to cry it out, baby was safe so no drama

Yanbu - for baby and everyone else's sake

Sometimes they have volunteers who come in and cuddle babies, you could always ask if someone is available.

For all of you saying to make a complaint, please please PLEASE realise that this type of scenario is EXACTLY why nurses are striking.

THIS ⬆

It's not just pay - it's understaffing and patient safety - and this shambolic apology for a govt is trying to turn the population against them

It's the GOVT'S fault that the NHS is in this situation.

Underfunding over 12+ years, money thrown away on unusable PPE and "Track and Trace" - why can't these BILLIONS be recovered? They were fraudulently obtained IMO and nothing was provided for all of that money.

Without proper funding and a shake up, more medical staff of all types will leave and go elsewhere and the staffing situation will get worse, not better.

You haven't got a clue. Lots of people with ill babies/children are struggling financially because they can't work and are on statutory sick or unpaid leave. Uber eats is not cheap. Fine if your baby is in for a couple of days. But any longer and it soon adds up.

@Alexandernevermind sometimes you have to go between patients to the meds rooms, nurses station whilst doing any of the mentioned tasks and get stopped by a parent doesn’t mean you can’t respond to a question etc. Even sitting at the desk might be because you are waiting for the doctor to call you back.

I’m glad to hear you were able to provide that support.

I think everyone has forgotten that there were only
2 nurses on shift with no mention of hcas. Most paeds wards are at least 16 beds and could go up to 30. That’s between 8-15 patients each. There is only so much 2 nurses can do to prioritise and that is done on medical need. They would have raised this at handover, it probably went to the trustwide safety briefing there is nothing as heart sinking as realising you are massively short staffed with a full ward. It’s impossible to provide the level of care that we all aspire to give and we’re trained to give.

@Alexandernevermind unless the nurses are with another patient who is arrest/peri arrest they will be “popping in” to check nappy/give feed if allowed/give a shush and a pat/rock but if the poor baby is distressed as is NBM/in pain/withdrawing/on some upsetting invasive medical equipment they are not going to settle with a quick shush - they might not settle even if held constantly. Unless it’s a very quiet shift there isn’t going to be a spare member of staff to sit with the baby all shift, and even then it’s possible that the baby will continue to cry.

sick upset kids cry. It’s horrid and goes through adults and we want to help. The staff will want to help but it’s possible that the only thing is going to help is making the child better. If the baby is screaming because they have meningeal irritation due to meningitis giving them a cuddle isn’t going to fix it. To make the child better the nurse needs to give them iv antibiotics which she needs to draw up correctly and give properly and IV fluids etx. Cuddling the crying baby rather than doing that might make you the adult feel better but it would kill the baby.

medicine isn’t always kind. Pulling parents away from their arresting child so you can give cpr, holding down toddlers so you can get a iv line in before they die of sepsis. Taking newborns from their mothers to put in glass boxes and stick tubes down their throats so they can breathe. Not feeding crying babies with bronch, amputating the leg of a child with bone cancer, none of these are nice, all of them require you to “switch off emotionally” to some degree because if you don’t the child is going to die.

I once was part of the resuscitation of preterm newborn twins it was overnight in a district general, so there was only one team for the resus. We were unable to resuscitate twin one. I was new and upset and wanted to continue to try and couldn’t bear to leave them lying there alone on the reausitare. As twin two was saved A very experienced nurse practitioner said “stop now, put it out your mind, we have another baby to save” and we did. We could have been “caring” and mum would have had two dead babies but instead we were cruel and Victorian and mum had a living child.

i am to give comfort and safe care at all times but on the increasing occasions where I have to choose between comfort or safe care I give safe care.

@SpecialK2023 we have facilities for parents to heat food and we give meal vouchers if they want to get it from the canteen. If a parent is really struggling, we will feed the parent at the ward managers discretion. We also have toiletries as well.

I wasn’t suggesting using Ubereats - I was saying there are delivery services similar that will be able to bring essentials in the absence of ANY other alternative. You wouldn’t be ordering a pack of nappies more than once so the cost of it “mounting up” isn’t really relevant.

The NHS can’t be expected to alleviate the cost of having a sick child. Thats life. There are funds if that really becomes an issue but IMO parents should be and should expect to be primarily responsible for their own children. The financial burden of having kids is present whether or not they are ill.

Most people have somebody who can run errands for them.

Honestly the hyperbole. In my, admittedly limited experience, the staff will help you as much as they possibly can - but have to balance that as some parents will take the mick. Like the PlayStations that keep sprouting legs and walking themselves out the door!

I had leaky boobs and they found some breast pads. It might not always be ideal and I’m sure there’s times when they really can’t help in the way a parent wants but generally you’re taken care of.

Also awful of them to just leave the baby, they must be completely heartless

Stop it, stop the fucking blame game on the nursing staff of TWO in a ward of children, why is the immediate jump that they’re heartless? Why not that they literally don’t have time?
Babies cry and scream and sometimes they can be easily soothed, sometimes they cry for absolutely no reason or they just want to be held. Which is all well and good if you have the time and ability to do that but otherwise, sometimes, there is no other choice.

And why blame the mother? You do realise that life doesn’t always go to plan and sometimes you’re popping to the doctors with absolutely nothing on you because you’ll be home in half an hour and the next thing you’re in the hospital with the clothes on your back and fuck all else so you think oh, my kid will be asleep at midnight because she never ever wakes up, I’ll dash home then…then again. That doesn’t go to plan. and I’m sure she doesn’t need to be guilted with being told what happened when she left.

I have worked as an emergency nanny going to one set of children whilst the parent is in hospital with the other, if I wasn’t able to be there then the parent would have no choice but to leave the child in hospital to care for the others as they have no other option around them. This is not an unusual situation, this is a hard part of life.

Instead of sitting around bitching that the mother should have done better or that the staff have let the child down just be fucking grateful you have never had to make the decision to leave your child in hospital, be grateful you have a support system around you that means you can call on people to help and just fucking be more understanding

While in hospital after the birth of my second child the nurses and midwives were so understaffed the care was dreadful through no fault of their own. They actively encouraged me to put a huge complaint in as they said if no one speaks up nothing will change! No one got in trouble!

@SpecialK2023 the financial burden is significantly increased when you have a child in hospital.
Canteen/vending machines/hospital shops are more expensive than normal shops and if you are on a tight budget and just done your food shop you might not have much more spare.
Also you might not be able to work and have no income coming in. It can take a while for any benefits to come through

What do you think the hospital would provide? She might have needed food, nappies, clothes, medication for herself.

if medication for herself fair enough. But the other examples I’d be surprised if ward couldn't have provided nappies/water and a snack from a corridor vending machine.

@Qazwsxefv
*
i am to give comfort and safe care at all times but on the increasing occasions where I have to choose between comfort or safe care I give safe care.*

Exactly what I was trying to say! But you said it much better.
No one on my ward ignores a baby because we don't care. We absolutely do!

Going back to the thread - how are the nurses supposed to help that?

Im happy to accept that in some instances (like being removed for DV) you have NOBODY but I struggle with the notion that the majority don’t have any people to call on to bring a bag of essentials.

Saved = delivered
am =aim

I'd love the job as HCA to help with babies and things. I can't work full-time anymore due to having a child with complex needs. I've been looking but not many HCA roles to apply for. My Mum has been a nurse in the NHS for 40 years. She persuaded me not to do the same. I'm so sorry you are in that position. My son has been admitted countless times. I've seen with my own eyes how bad it is. I want to let you know there are people out there who support the strikes. I am feel it would b we wrong for nurses not to be stand up and fight. You don't need to o accept this. Xx

When my mum was in hospital last year, the nurses were so busy , the ladies all on the ward had to help each other to the toilet etc.

She said the staffing was awful and at one point, a load of Drs came up to one lady, shut her curtain and told her there and then with no preamble, that there was nothing more they could do for her, she was being sent home and then just walked away. They didn't wait for her DD to be there with her or move her to a private room or anything. My mum proper cried when she told me that.

So now the 2 understaffed nurses have to buy parents snacks from vending machines every day? What if the baby is going to be in for a week? The mum is going to need food, clothes and a shower!

@SpecialK2023 It it sounds like the majority of patients were settled and attended to but there was 1 parent on the ward who had to leave.

Not talking about the majority - we're talking about this particular mum.

Just because lots of people have friends who can bring things in or plenty of money for ubereats, doesn't mean that some parents need to briefly leave their babies to look after themselves or their other children.

My in laws just had their baby around that age in hospital and they weren’t able to leave the baby without a parent due to nursing shortages. To do changeover meant that they had to have someone else to come and sit with their other child as they couldn’t be left alone even for an hour.

I’ve acknowledged some people might - so what’s your point?

@Toddlerteaplease

thank you

we do care as you know We’re not remaining in this terrible system because we don’t care but because we care so much we’re still trying despite the poor pay and conditions (although I feel like a traitor saying this because I’m no longer in paediatrics but have switched to adults)