Health visitor is a waste of time

[WhenSunnyGetsBlue]

A need a little rant.

I'm getting seriously wound up by my health visitor. I see absolutely no point in going to the appointments, she is completely incompetent.

The centre is a 40 minute walk away, so it takes a fair amount of effort to get there and back. It started when my daughter was 5 days old and I had to walk to the appointment with my stitches. I mean surely it's in the name Health 'visitor'.

At every appointment she has been useless with broken English. I find her incredibly patronising. She takes phonecalls during appointments, and is generally rude and judgy in my opinion.

I got a phonecall from her yesterday saying, "you've missed your appointment again" in a condescending voice. (For ref, the first appointment she cancelled, not me). I asked her what appointment. She hadn't notified me, no text, no letter. Nothing. She then said I had to attend an appointment today at 1pm (less than 24 h notice).

I know it's a little thing, but I really can't wait until we don't have to see her any more. What are other people's experiences? Am I being oversensitive? Anyway....I better wake my baby up from her nap to go this appointment now otherwise we will be in trouble for being late!

Mine was useless. Showed up knocking at my door 5 days in, without any warning. Except my baby was born at 24+2 and still firmly in the hospital incubator. Then I got a phone call demanding I present myself with my baby in HV centre 2 hours away from my home... IN AN HOUR'S TIME!!! Yeah, sure, let me just unbrake the incubator and pop the oxygen tanks on. Then I kept getting almost threatening letters about vaccinations, hearing tests etc to the tone of show up or else. No matter how many times the head NICU nurse called them to explain the situation, it was to no avail. Absolutely useless.

Another message in support of HVs.

They do a thankless job (as seen here). They are an essential component of safeguarding and protecting our most vulnerable children. They have had cut back after cut back and intolerable work conditions. Most HV teams are running around 50% vacancy.

Cut them some slack if an appointment didn't go well. This often reflects issues on the day with both sides of the HV/mum relationship.

Thank goodness so many of you are not struggling and the HV is a burden in your good life.

Fair enough, but to be honest, it was more the comment about feeding a breastfed baby less. There’s so much misinformation out there about breastfeeding that it’s better to be corrected three times than for somebody to see the incorrect advice. It’s not meant to be personal (genuinely.)

Just don’t go. I remember them telling me with my first that a newborn doing 12+ poos every day is normal. Never met a mum who thinks it is. Mentioned to the doctor at 4 months and cows milk dairy allergy was diagnosed. Honestly sometimes I think the HV is worse than nothing as often they are so keen to tell you everything about your baby is completely normal that you ignore your own instincts.

If she’s not helping you just don’t go!

@paperfarm Thank goodness so many of you are not struggling and the HV is a burden in your good life.

That is condescending and entirely uncalled for.

@FluentRubyDog That's mind-boggling! So sorry you had to experience that.

Thats awful they dont visit op

I really liked my assigned health visitors with both of my kids but they only did the scheduled visits at my home. I absolutely detested going to the weigh in clinics, even my counsellor told me to stop going with my first as it definitely contributed to my pnd/anxiety.
With my second, she laid out all the usual checks and then asked me if I felt I needed any additional visits which she'd arrange whenever I wanted them.
Seems really odd to make it seem like you have to go, you really don't and if it's causing you the stress it sounds like it is then I's be declining any more.
You can also ring up and ask for a different health visitor for any future checks. Think they send a letter out for a 9 to 12 months check and then a 2 year one but that may have changed now

@CorpusInterruptus that's exactly why I think HVs are important - to get the correct information across 🙂

This.

You do realise most health visitors are midwives who’ve carried out specialist training ?

My first one, 24 years ago now, came into my house without knocking, stinking like an ashtray, took one look at me sitting breastfeeding dd1 and said "you'll never feed a 10lb baby on your own, better get her on a bottle"!

That was the only time she was in my house, I phoned the next day and said I'd be in touch if I needed anything. Dh is a GP so he brought the baby scales from work home occasionally but it was pretty obvious she was growing fine.

Only this one isn’t, so yes it’s wonderful when they do and the complete opposite, quite possibly dangerous, when they give misinformation.

Probably a 40 minute walk to achieve not very much! I was perfectly happy to take my baby for a weigh in, but the clinic was in my road!

@CorpusInterruptus to be honest from the OPs description I can't quite tell what exactly the HV did wrong.
It sounded like a fairly ordinary appointment to me.

Sorry, I’ve confused matters, it was a previous poster that had said that. I was conflating my experience in the past with HVs, with the OP and then the additional posters comments. Not helpful of me!

Probably summoning OP to the appointment in the first place. I also thought that after the first visit at 11 days, it was just drop in at the clinic.

It's not mandatory. I tolerated a few visits with DD1 but once DD2 came along I had the first one and was honest and said I didn't find their input especially useful and it was ag to get to the appointments around the baby and toddler and our various groups. I assured them that if I needed them, I'd be sure to ring. They never bothered me again.

With respect that they must see terrible social cases that skew their oppinion...
But all HVs I met were dumb cows.
-One could not calculate that baby gained weight.
-One told me that baby should not gain weight in first two weeks and told me to schedule twice a wek weighting with a lecture on feeding.
-One asked me where would I keep second child in a three bedroom house.
-One told me in super condescending voice that I should be proud about my job although it is just small hobby job (I was leading major IT change for big company)
-One asked me to pay for her parking as it is residents only street
-One made drama as baby was left alone in mosses basket upstairs while I went to open door for her.
-And pls don't tell me all midwifes are great as one insisted I have preeclempsia five days after baby was born although I did not have one at any point dyring pregnancy or closelly monjtored at hospital.

For the next baby I will just tell them to go away. Useless

Mine came to my house once, put eight stickers in the cover of my sons red book, after seeing my next to me told me that co-sleeping is just as safe (ok, i didn’t ask but thanks?), fucked off after that (without weighting the baby as apparently the scale needed new batteries and she forgot to get them) and I never saw her again - my baby is now 17 months old. Truly useless and whenever I need help medical help for my little one it doesn’t even cross my mind to contact her.

I only saw mine when she did the home visit & the times I took ds to be weighed at the baby clinic. I stopped taking him to be weighed by the time he was 1 & then I only had contact for the progress check visits. She wasn't much use, said he had chicken pox when it was eczema, the advice she gave on weaning was crazy & when I wanted help when ds wasn't sleeping was totally useless.

Huh?? If someone isn't fluent in english you can't help that by 'listening differently'!

Honestly they’re a complete waste of time. First one was on FaceTime wanted to talk for over an hour… thankfully my mother was here to take care of my newborn. Asked very nosy questions like how big is my house, is it detached or semi, how many bedrooms what does my husband do for a living… can’t see how any of that is relevant tbh.
Second one told me off for tumble drying DC’s child’s and only putting him in cotton because it would not exfoliate his skin (I explained he had severe eczema).
However 3rd one was lovely, can’t remember what she said and wasn’t much point to it but she was a nice lady.
I think it’s pure potluck!

The actual HV that came to my home at 10 days for my first was quite good and helpful, but I stopped going after the first clinic.
It was also a 45 min walk away, and it wasn't an HV but an assistant or something similar. My son was 8 weeks and in the same 10 min she managed to get me through the 10 days checklist, whilst giving me tips on weaning, and telling that if I had questions there was a great website ("NHS.co.uk"). Absolutely useless.

We had no concern regarding his development so I declined every appointment since. And same for our second, if we have concerns we know how to reach out to them and that's what our HV care about really.

You don't have to see the HV. We never had appointments with the exception of the developmental check at about 8 months old. And 1 at about a week old where they came to us.
Otherwise it was just drop in weigh in clinics, which we went to on a random basis if had nothing else on.