Would be happy with this message regarding bump to head

[mammamummym]

Just received this from our childminder. Do you think it's a suitable response to a bumped head?

Hi. Pedro has tripped and bumped his head on the bookcase. He’s got a right little mark. He’s fine and I’ll keep an extra eye on him but obviously with it being a head bump I needed to let you know xx

perfectly appropriate message. What is now required is for you to look at the nhs 111 guidelines for monitoring after a head injury and then take action if anything is amiss. You are in for a long long 18 years of parenting if you think every bump to the head requires a doctor.

Parenting involves a lot of common sense and self care (or diy care) for children. All my paediatrician and a&e consultant friends despair of the absence of common sense in many parents …

The childminder has absolutely done the right thing. I've worked in an infant school and we had to ask the office to ring and let the parents know of EVERY head injury - even if there was no visible bump or red mark!
It's up to the parent then whether they trusted us to keep an eye on the child, or whether they wanted to come and check the child for themselves 🤷🏻‍♀️

We always let parents know about a head injury, we also usually see the accident to know how bad it is. Anything we are concerned about we will ask parents to collect immediately. Anything we are not worried will be an emergency we give them the option of collecting or us monitoring. Mainly we don't want parents panicking at usual pick up time because they haven't been told earlier.

Yes of course, she’s letting you know he’s tripped and bumped himself and that she’ll monitor him.

being a registered childminder she’ll have a first aid kit. Prob provided a cold compress and filled in an accident form, the message is just to initially inform you.

Monitoring after a head injury is actually fairly basic stuff, check pupils etc. unless it is a massively out of the normal bump.

DD has had concussion twice, first time a bucket landed on her head, she was sick once, disoriented and not right. Checked over sent home with concussion and told to monitor her.

second time she fell badly down the stairs, went to doctors checked and was told the signs to go to A&E, she hit one (sick three times turns out concussion gave her motion sickness) and got a CT scan all clear.

that is the only times in many head bumps (including steri strips of an eyebrow together) ever needed to go and both times she showed clear signs of concussion

Sometimes I post sensible stuff. Sometimes my blood boils with the crap that people write and I just respond in ‘peak Mumsnet’ style. I apologise.

That’s your call to make it necessary. I’d call the childminder and ask for further details, check my child wasn’t showing any signs of concussion. That’s why she’s messaged you so you can make that call as parent. Collect early and observe is best in my opinion

Totally fine. I've probably had over 50 similar messages from my son's childminder/ nursery/ school over the years

Were you expecting the message to be more formally worded?

My son has a lot of accidents, it's nice you've been notified immediately, I'm often just handed a slip of paper at the end of the day with a lump on his head

A couple weeks ago he had a hole in his trousers and a cut on his knee under it ...... No one had noticed anything other than him being unregulated so your childminder is clearly on the ball

Would you take Pedro to be checked out for a small bump? Or would you keep an eye on him?

Ha ha be prepared - 3 kids in and can guarantee I’ll get one call a week from nursery / school about a bump !

If you are going to schlep up to A & e for every bump he has you are going to spend most of his childhood there. If he is more sleepy , looses consciousness or throws up , that is the time to consider it .

Kids bump their heads all of the time, if people got them checked out every time we’d need a dedicated hospital in each town!

I’d say she assessed the situation/injury as minor and let you know which is what I would expect for my children.

Its a bump, if every single kid was taken to hospital for a bump there would be no teachers in DS school.

We don't even get told until collection (I assume we would in something 'serious' that required hospital etc...).

My DS got stabbed in the eye, (not the eyeball but the fleshy part of the eye socket) and has a scar, just came out of pre-school with a little note to say he had an accident with the play-doh knife. That was last year and he is perfectly fine. He has walked into doors and all sorts given he has balance issues, happens just as much at home or the park or anywhere else.

There's not always an emergancy crisis over every little thing or someone to blame and they have a dozen other kids too look after so can't just 'over causiously' take a perfectly fine kid to A&E.

Yes I would be fine, not sure what else you would expect 🤷🏼‍♀️

'It's a right little mark' is more colloquial than what we get from the nursery or school but exactly the same message and detail.. what's your issue in particular? They have to let you know but a bump on the head can be anything - if you're worried about this, you're going to constantly be in A&E with these messages once they start school - we get them every other day!

Poor Pedro, I hope he’s alright.

If I took mine to hospital every time they bumped their heads I’d have never been home. My eldest had an incident as a baby he was fine, then his dad bumped his head on the door frame when he was on his shoulders the eejit he felt very bad about that, baby got lots of cuddles and we observed for a period of time to make sure he was ok. I think ds1 has a hard head, he’s 22 now so seems ok.

my second son however if it wasn’t one thing it was another, he just about knocked himself out on w metal pole near the bikes, the teacher has no idea how he did it, he had a huge egg on his head bless him, he was also fine. He was hit on the head with a baseball in pe too once, was nasty but was ok, is 18 now so survived, he did split the back of his head open once tonnes of blood and he did need a bit of glue to close it. Prob plenty more incidents.

my third son seems to be less accident prone as I don’t think he’s really bumped his head significantly - although sometimes I wonder. Son number 4 needs wrapped in bloody bubble wrap, started with jamming himself behind a bookcase at playgroup and has got progressively worse as he’s got older. He’s ok though just a bit clumsy at times, similar to ds2. I’ve watched them, made sure they are alert, not vomiting etc kept them quiet for a few days if it’s a bad one and then moved on. Kids do do this stuff the list of red flags above is great. child minder let you know, she’ll keep an eye on him but it’s up to you if you want to pick up and take to hospital. You’ll no doubt sit for hours get checked out, maybe some observation and then go home.

Yes fine, I get these messages weekly for one of my kids from the school. Lol.

Totally fine. They don't scan every kid, baby and adult with a head injury. And don't necessarily keep in for obs.
The would usually send home with head injury advice ie if drowsy, unwell, vomiting go to a&e

> unless it is a massively out of the normal bump.

Yeeeeees - though small kids seem to sport terrifyingly huge bumps when they bang their heads - i think the responses wrt behaviour/sleepy/dizziness etc are correct wrt when you should do something other than hug.

(cm response perfectly OK.)

Yes, the decision is yours to make. The head bump information is so hat, if the child becomes unwell later on, you know what to do. The childminder is following standard procedure.

You are nuts! What would you expect? I've heard of instances where the concerned carer/minder/owner says the parent must collect their child immediately in case there's a serious underlying injury which may need investigation.

She’s just saying it looks worse than it is. That it’s a superficial mark not a head injury.

Do you live in the U.K.? With a child like mine I’d have to move in to A&E