To ask the most ill you’ve been looking after a baby alone? I feel like I’m in hell!

[qccbsp]

I feel horrendous. Home with a one year old. I actually don’t know how I will survive the day. Literally nobody to help.

2 DDs under 2, I had food poisioning and DH was away on a work trip. Ended up making them a den on the bathroom floor, brought a mini fridge onto the landing with drinks and snacks for them, and I lay on the floor playing with them whilst also sicking into a washing up bowl. That lasted for a good 48 hours, then I was able to set them up in our bedroom while I was in the en suite. The Ipad and TV were my saviours, and the fact that they could sleep anywhere.

You will get through it, please don't be afraid to call 999 or 111 if you are seriously ill, your baby will come with you and you'll get help. I hear too often that parents don't call 999 because they think their child will be taken away/left at home!

November 2009, DH out at work, I had norovirus, with a four month old, plus older siblings aged nine and ten who did what they could to help. Vomiting, diarrhoea and coughing, shivering and shaking. Baby spent most of that time in one of those electric swinging chairs, only being lifted out for feeding and nappy changes. Not an experience I ever wish to repeat!

Covid pneumonia, in the first wave. DH was out and it came on really quickly (I’d been ok when he left, just a bit fluey). I felt so dreadful, I just lay on the bed with DS2, shut the door so he couldn’t get out/fall down the stairs, and passed out. I have seriously never felt so ill. I was delirious and faint. I’ve never been so unwell before or since, I seriously thought I might die of sepsis.

After a few hours, I managed to ring DH to come home (took me ages to get the strength to turn over in bed and pick up my phone from the floor), and he kicked up an absolutely massive fuss about coming home. He caught it himself a week or so later (probably off me) and I did feel a bit of “I told you I was ill”.

I looked after DS alone with severe migraines on countless occasions and it was horrific. Probably the worst time was norovirus though - DH and I had it first and were tag-teaming for the bathroom all night, and then one-year-old DS started with it the next morning and only wanted me and Biblical quantities of breastmilk, none of which stayed down, so DH took himself off to bed (to be fair, he was really poorly) and I fed and puked and boil-washed and puked and fed and waited for death. DS was right as ninepence by mid-afternoon but I was ill for weeks.

Hope you manage to get some rest and feel better soon, bless you :(

When DS was 8 months I had a horrific sore throat and a flare up of an autoimmune skin condition that made me look like I had a very nasty case of chicken pox. It was awful. I begged DH to take the first day off because I felt so ill I couldn't take care of the baby myself. Thereafter I was just miserable for two weeks. I couldn't talk or sing to DS which was sad but I remember a few days him looking at me with the same adoration he had before I started looking like a leper and that gave me a boost.

Not my own child, but I was once babysitting my DNephew when the worst of worst period cramps came on me. I mean doubled over wanting to scream pain.

He was only a few months and teething, so he was very upset. I remember having to bounce him up and down the hallway, holding a singing butterfly all the while cursing my own body. The butterfly almost seemed mocking with its huge smile and demonic giggle.

Fun times.

Sending sympathy OP. Please look after yourself, and don't feel bad that you might just have to put your baby into the cot and let them cry if necessary. As long as they are safe, warm, fed and changed - don't worry about anything else.

I've been through this. I wasn't on my own but my husband was working abroad for several months and I didn't have family nearby. I had awful flu (the sort where you think you're dying which takes 2 weeks to get over) on 2 occasions - I was so run down and tired. On one occasion I remember the doc coming over and having to give me an injection in my backside - God, that was humiliating and I can't remember why!

Also, getting about my 30th stomach bug and someone called to find me sitting on the floor next to my baby with a basin. They started making 'ooh - is number 2 on the way? ' type comments which was infuriating because it wasn't pregnancy sickness (was trying to conceive having had 2 miscarriages at the time) and they just wouldn't accept I was just ill with a bug. Not a good day.

It was tough on many occasions, but it will pass. Please just ensure your baby is safe and do the best you can to rest - maybe beside the cot? And when you're better, treat yourself in some way - you'll deserve it. Lots of liquids.