DH and toddler sickness

[AugustBlues]

Hi,

I need some advice how to talk to DH regarding our toddler’s sickness's because honestly I feel like I’m gonna loose my sh* soon!
So we have an almost 4 year old who’s in nursery. As all kids he gets sick pretty often but it’s nothing serious- just coughs and colds and that’s pretty much it. The most serious thing he had was tonsillitis back in April when he had an antibiotics for that.
So what do you do when you kid get sick? Obviously depends. Spend a few days home, give them medicine if necessary, have a rest.
DH things every cold and cough requires a GP visit. Like every single one. I can’t even count how many times we had an argument about this - DC get a smallest cough and DH goes “ ok tomorrow morning call a GP.” And he’s dead serious.
I tried to explain to him a million times that kids get sick and will get sick. He doesn’t listen. If I try to show him some online articles about this - he doesn’t care. It’s like talking to a wall. And he blames me that I don’t take him to the doctor for the smallest things.
3 or so months ago we got the appointment with paediatrician because he was so sure something is wrong with DC.
So they took blood, checked his ears, took X-ray of his chest - everything was fine. Came home with the explanations that that’s how kids are basically and sometimes they get cold after cold because last one is not properly finished yet and they already catch something else. He was happy for a while. DC catch the next cough and he’s panicking all over again. Sometimes I feel that he almost wants for DC to be seriously sick and so that doctors find something so he say to my face - see I told you!!
But seriously I don’t know how to talk to him anymore, how to explain to him that that’s normal, that’s how kids are. He wouldn’t listen like at all.

Firstly I think I read somewhere that kids get 12 viruses on average in their first 12 months. DD was never well when she started preschool.

Is he making and keeping all the GP appointments? Or is he trying to direct you to do it?

Hope this link works or just Google 'when to worry leaflet NHS'

www.crossleystreetsurgery.co.uk/images/pdf/When-Should-I-Worry-Booklet.pdf

I had to show my own mum this when she would go on and on about me taking my daughter to the doctors because of cough and cold symptoms. I gave in one day and the doctor I seen actually gave me this leaflet as she just had another cold (which I knew).

If he wants the child to see a dr he can phone and take

I think it’s called Healthier Together but it may help to point him in the direction of that each time DC is ill so he can see what they advise depending on symptoms. It sounds like he has quite bad anxiety about DC health so maybe should seek help with that. Difficult though if he doesn’t see an issue.

He’s telling me to make the appointment. If i try to have the conversation that this particular time it doesn’t require GP
visit, at least for now, he gets angry at me, or physically, just feeling me that I don’t care about our son, that he’s really sick.
We have been together twice and both times DC was checked and GP said the same - kids will get sick! But he doesn’t seem to accept it or understand, I don’t know. I really sounds like some bad health anxiety.

Is he anxious about anything else? Is it him or you taking your son for the appointments? I would try to engage in the why of his anxiety - what is making him anxious when DS has a snotty nose? What is he concerned may be going on?

Most of the time a cough/cold/fever is a virus and nothing more, the GP isn’t going to do anything!

*not physically angry meant to say.

Just saw your update, the first boundary I’d draw here is if he is that concerned he can take him to the doctors as you don’t think it’s worthwhile and he does.

Maybe get him to read “the boy who cried wolf” to your child as a bedtime story and see if it resonates ….

GP call for his health anxiety.

Get him to make the appointments with a GP. and take DS. Loads of private GP appointments too.

He takes dc to gp if he worried
Do gp gets the idea who is anxious and hopefully addreses

I think his reaction to your child getting sick is very over the top. Not only is it a waste of resources making appointments every time he has a cough or sniffle, but also your child will end up growing up and catastrophising every small ailment and their peers will soon get sick of that. I've seen it happen.
Your husband needs to get a control of his anxiety before it starts impacting your child.
Obviously if you're ever really concerned about your child at any time the best course of action is always getting medical advice, always. But like you say, in nursery they pick up things constantly and not every bout of sickness needs medical intervention.
Clearly your husband's anxiety comes from a place of fear, completely understandable. But he has to learn to recognise when it's anxiety, or genuine parental gut instinct that something is wrong.
Try talking to him outside of a situation of when your child is sick, and raise your concerns. Maybe your husband should see his GP over his anxiety, possibly CBT would help him to rationalise his thought process in these times of worry.
He clearly loves and cares for his child very much, but sometimes as parents we have to do the difficult work internally, for the best interest of our children.

OK so if he wants medical care for your son and you don't, he can get medical care.

The anger needs to be dealt with separately. At a neutral time, you need to talk about it with him. I'd say something like, "can we talk? <wait> Do you have time now? <wait> It's about your anger. <wait> It's possible he will be able to express what's happening when he's calmer.

If not, "when you get angry at me, because we don't agree, you are trying to force your feelings onto me. It isn't acceptable and next time it happens I will be walking away from you until you can speak without anger. I care about X, we just disagree on the course of action. I think you need to seek help for your health anxiety. In the meantime, I won't be taking your feelings on and I need you to manage your anger. Completely."

It's interesting how socialisation allows men to act out their anxiety, OCD, ADHD, autism, MH, depression and other needs as anger. Onto other people often, and often their partners. This is not acceptable.

Thank you everyone for the answers!
One of the worst times was couple of months ago when DC had a usually cold and bit of a raised temperature, not even a fever, just a bit hot.
DH went to check on him as it was around 11pm, touched his forehead and started to panic that we need to take him to the A and E. Until I realised what was happening he was already getting dressed and putting his shoes on ready to drive. I was so confused as to what was happening .He just said that DC is burning and we need to go to the hospital. By some Gods miracle I managed to talk him out of that but he wouldn’t let me sleep until I called 111. So I did. They pretty much said nothing, as you would expect. Next morning made the GP appointment, left with some
Paracetamol and DC was absolutely fine in the next few days.
I don’t know if it’s health anxiety or he doesn’t trust me, he needs a health professional to confirm they everything is fine. Because he wouldn’t talk to me about it. He blames me that it’s my fault he’s sick and I don’t do anything.

This is good advice. Sensible and empathic.

I don’t agree with those saying he needs to take DC to the GP himself. He’s going to pass on his issues to the kids if he takes them for every single sniffle and is always looking for something to be wrong. You don’t want DC panicking he’s seriously ill because he has a runny nose, and that’ll be the result if Dad keeps this up. He needs to see the GP himself for his anxiety and until he can get help and be rational I’d want him to stay out of any health related decisions for the kids.

Well for starters, he can make the bloody appointments rather than telling you to do it.

OP I think you've got a serious problem on your hands here. Is he like this with his own health too?

I would book HIM a GP appointment and attend it with him. He needs help for this, your poor DS is going to end up with it too at this rate.

Presumably this comes from his own childhood. Was there a death in the family or were his own parents hypochondriacs?

He needs to sort himself out as this will end up causing problems for your child.

The reasons it's important he makes the appointments himself are these:

He will then be the one the GP flags as an issue.
He will have the consequences of his own actions and is therefore more likely to seek help.
He will be informed by OP that this is his issue, not hers, and she won't be joining him in his delusion.
He will hear the GP say over and over that there isn't an issue.

Rescuing people from the consequences of their issues is a bad idea.

He wouldn’t let you sleep? Very controlling. Why on earth didn’t you tell him to call 111 himself if he was so concerned? Check your son’s temp and give calpol in the first instance. Honestly I think you need to stop enabling this nonsense! This level of anxiety over a cold isn’t normal - the irony is HE needs to go to the GP!

It’s absolutely not about rescuing him from the consequences of his issues. It’s that the poor child shouldn’t be used as a tool to get him to sort his issues. It’s completely inappropriate that an otherwise healthy child with a mild cold gets dragged to the GP over and over (presumably missing nursery to facilitate this?) as some kind of learning experience for Dad. And the child risks learning that this is normal.

The only one that should be going to the GP is Dad. On his own. And he should stay out of medical decisions for his DC until he’s better and has his anxiety under control because his current behaviour really does have the potential to be damaging.