A few months ago my DC got ill with croup, at the time we had had no experience with croup before and from our perspective at the time he seemed to be having trouble breathing properly and making a raspy sound when he did and was constantly unsettled, he was only 9 months old at the time. It started up from just seeming like a cough and a cold in the day and got much worse at night so we called 111, who called an ambulance for us and we didn't know if the paramedics would just tell us it's a bad cold or something and we had to just ride it out and keep giving him calpol, but they told us it was probably croup, and because he was so young they were going to take us to the nearest hospital.
This was at 1am in the morning, my husband had work the next day (he works on sites and gets picked up in a works van every day to be taking to a site along with his colleagues), he needed to be leaving for work at 6am the next morning. The paramedics told us to bring bottles for him as we might be there a few hours, then told us it would be best if I ride in the ambulance with him and my husband takes the car and follows us so we have means of getting back home. However my husband told them and me that he couldn't come as he had work the next day and he was half worried that we would be at the hospital so long he wouldn't be back on time to get picked up and also getting some sleep before the next day, now at the time this was all a very rushed situation and I had to just go along with it really, he said he would call his dad and ask him to drive us back from the hospital, I would just need to call him and let him know when we needed to leave, but I don't really get on with his dad so I just said I'd call my parents and ask if one of them could pick us up instead, I knew one of them definitely would be able to anyway. So at the hospital I was put in a waiting room with his car seat and his bag next to me on the floor and my 9 month old on my knee still breathing raspy, waiting to see the doctor, I was walking him round the waiting room for an hour at least then saw a nurse who gave him steroids then told me I would need to keep waiting to see one of the doctors, by this point it was almost 3am, and I thought I might be able to leave soon so I called my mum and just apologised for having to ask so early in the morning and asked if she was okay to pick us up, she said yes and asked if I wanted her to come now so u wasn't on my own, she said it was fine as she was awake anyway, so I said yes please and I'm glad I did as we were there another over two hours, my arms where aching from constantly walking him round, so I'm glad she came to take him for a little but also. So after the whole event and we were home and he started to get better and we were just putting it behind us thinking we would know better what to do next time and know what it was I could just drive him to hospital myself without calling an ambulance. But I kept thinking, and people kept saying to me that my husband should have gone too so I wasn't alone with a sick baby there, and if it meant him missing a day of work his boss should understand, and if it meant him still being able to go to work but he hadn't slept, he would be fine for one day, I sort of agree with them now but I'm not sure what to think of it?