Dads staying overnight on children’s ward

[IWantAShitzu]

We are regular inpatients at our local children’s hospital due to my sons rare condition (over 60 nights spent in 6 months)

usually we end up in the same ward, which is great as the staff all know him very well and he gets great care, we usually have a side room closer to the nurses station as he can be quite high risk so they like him being near them.

most recent admission the hospital was packed and there was no space on our normal ward so we were sent to a different one, and put in a four bed room - absolutely fine these things can’t be helped.

usually when our stays are longer I stay with our boy during the week while my husband works and sorts out our other three children, and then we swap out at the weekend.

when we were on this different ward, there were no privacy curtains. I was told they had been taken down for cleaning and got damaged, there weren’t any replacements available apparently.

Apart from a couple of worrying times of viral toddlers trying to touch my baby who is very vulnerable it wasn’t too bad although I felt quite exposed sleeping in such an open space with strangers but we all got along well and it was fine.

my question is - would you have felt comfortable if you were on this open ward and I had swapped out with my husband on the weekend as we normally do? I decided to stay, as I didn’t want my husband and the other mums feeling awkward, but I was annoyed that we were put in that position, it’s exhausting being in the hospital and I didn’t see my other children for a week.

was I unreasonable to stay instead of my husband?

hope you never travel on an overnight flight.

When my DS was in hospital recently we did alternate nights each as we weren’t getting any sleep in hospital and hadn’t had any for a few days before when he’d been poorly. He was there because he was looking after our son, he wasn’t paying attention to anyone else there.

Hey OP 👋..
Sorry to hear your baby is sick , hard going for you & your family x …

I wouldn’t mind at all, dad being on the ward with his sick baby , I’m sure no one would…
Wishing you well ..x

We spent about three years turn taking on who sleeps on the camp bed in a children's ward. This never occurred to either of us as an issue. One dad was once a bit of a fog horn snorer and once there was a phantom farter on the ward.... and apart from that completely uneventful stays. Everyone just got on with it.

This is it, I would feel uncomfortable about it but accept that it's my issue and would not voice or show my discomfort about it

I couldn’t care less which parent stays with their child as long as they are quiet! So many families seem to think a family gathering is appropriate at 22:00!

Dh stayed with ds2 a few years ago when he was 12, nearly 13. He would have been really scared on his own. I stayed with ds4 aged 11 last month, I couldn't have left him either.

At our local hospital they have a 4 bed bay for the teenagers. At the big children's hospital they have an adolescent ward for children aged 11+ although ds4 was on a general surgical ward.

We spent just over 2 months in GOSH with my grandson , he was in the cardiac ITU for a while and then went to the 'normal' cardiac ward . I alternated with my dd and sil , I wouldn't have cared who I was sleeping near , I was just so relieved he was getting better. The worry was horrific, we nearly lost him, We were all just parents/grandparents with very unwell children, we celebrated everyone's improvements and consoled each other when things weren't going so well. We were 'lucky' in that we had our own room . Grandson has had subsequent stays in our local hospital and dads have stayed with their children ,I did the night shift to give my dd a break and get some proper sleep at home. I wasn't in the least bit worried who else was with their child, my sole focus was on my grandson.

That must be really awkward for adolescents to have random parents sleeping in the same room as you. Especially the opposite sex.

I think ideally for adolescents if they do need someone to stay they should have their own rooms

When our child was in hospital my husband stayed with them as I have medical issues & needed to be able to get proper meals, meds & sleep. I went in to see them every day. There was another Dad in the room too staying 24/7 as he was the only parent that had adequate english language skills to talk to & understand the medical staff. Nobody there was even slightly concerned at there being Dads staying there & if I had been staying it wouldn't have bothered me having that other Dad in the room

No I’d let him stay next time for sure, sending love to you all x

It was strongly encouraged for a parent to stay both times we were there with older dc. I have only occasionally seen children in hospital without at least one parent there all the time and that includes teenagers. And I've been in hospital with dc a lot. Tbh by the time my dc was well enough to care who else was sleeping in the bay, they were well enough to go home, although I appreciate that teenagers there for different reasons would think differently. I find that the children's wards we have been on have mostly been bays of 4 or 6 beds, with a small number of single rooms for infectious or oncology patients.

Male relatives of patients are no more likely to be sex fiends than the male members of staff are but the assumption that they are affects people, children and vulnerable adults alike, who need their male carer with them to stop them experiencing trauma in hospital. Hell, there's nothing to say any female member of the public or worker isn't a perv either.

It's a very rare wrong un who would try to touch up or otherwise bother anyone in a set up with other people constantly coming and going even if they were a potential threat to anyone.

In the hospital wards I've been in (UK) there's been members of family staying with patients and the curtains are kept shut anyway. It's a terribly unhealthy society that views all men as sex offenders who are just waiting to start touching people just because they're in the same room.

I believe hospitals use this fear within women in particular to make sure family members get turfed out so don't bother them by asking for stuff and questioning whatever neglect, trauma or mistreatment their relative is recieving. Nobody give a shiny shit how much extra trauma the isolation brings to the actual vulnerable patients.

Hospital PR reps make this big song and dance in the media about letting carers stay or have open access via a Carer's Passport or cooperate with John's Campaign but try to actually take advantage of it to protect your relative's mental and physical health and just wait for the fight every time the shift changes and the incumbent ward manager/nurse with a stuck up her arse tries to evict the patient's carer.

Paranoia about "pervert men" is leaving patients with very serious PTSD.

In my experience there's no privacy anyway - the night staff open the curtains to do obs and leave them open and on one ward (where son was a regular) the ward housekeeper would go round about 7am flinging all the curtains open and kicking the camp beds if parents hadn't got up! I just learned pretty quickly to change in the loo and to sleep in something that offered decent coverage and wouldn't ride up!

All of the older children on the 3 different wards my son was on had a parent stay over. Even the one revising for her GCSE's.

Side rooms on the 3 wards were for patients that needed to be isolated and very limited.

I’m with you OP, in a situation like that you just want a little privacy so you can control that section of space and feel like you can relax a bit without being on show all the time. I found it very uncomfortable after a recent operation being in the recovery room and having men there. I was coming round from a general anaesthetic and my hospital gown was coming down a bit and there was a man opposite me just staring at me the whole time. You’re there with your kid who is sick, you don’t want to be having to worry about anything else.

Could you find a way to put up some kind of screen/curtain until the hospital ones return? Even if it’s just a few large bed sheets? It won’t look pretty but perhaps that will prompt staff to get those curtains back up asap? I’m assuming this is on the NHS. It’s unacceptable at the end of the day not to have spare curtains, they need to get on it. You sound like a very nice, reasonable person, but you might have to kick up a bit of a fuss to get things sorted. Hope it does soon! And on behalf of those mums out there like myself who would not have been comfortable with a man sleeping in the same ward as them and their sick child without curtains, thank you.

But on a children's ward it's not about the mum's ,it's about the children
they are the patients
What if the father is a,single parent should his child have to suffer so you don't have to feel uncomfortable?

It's a shame that people revert to making it about sexual offences when fundamental discomfort and modesty are completely normal experiences that there's absolutely no reason to invalidate. Almost everyone here acknowledges that it's just one of those situations where it's the set-up that isn't great and not the people. It's possible for more than one thing to be true at a time.

Good grief. If ever there was a situation where we should just class everyone as people then this is it. No normal person in that situation is interested in anything other than the health and well being of their own child first and everyone elses second.

Husbands have as much right as any woman to be in there with their own child.

Very often the nurses want the curtains kept open. This enables them to see 👀 what's happening on a ward.

It really wouldn't surprise me if the ward has deliberately removed the curtains to avoid arguments. So they really wouldn't be happy if someone starts hanging sheets up.

To the outside world I appeared fine with sleeping on the same ward as the Dad, ie I did it without saying anything.
If I was to sleep on a kids ward again I have leggings & a long night shirt to wear.

@Needspaceforlego we’d never get rid of the curtains for that reason. Although it would save trouble! We wouldn’t use the bed space if there were no curtains.

Isn’t that the truth!!!! We had a family of a child in for minor elective surgery and had 9 people waiting outside. It was ridiculous.

Exactly. Nobody wants to be there - every parent there is worrying about their child.

Getting funny about fathers being in hospital to support their children is alarmingly close to saying "caring for children is women's work".

But not everyone is a "normal person" are they, that's the whole point. Plus not wanting to sleep in the same room as random men doesn't suddenly mean you think they're about to assault you, it's just about modesty.

As everyone has said if people feel uncomfortable they wouldn't say or do anything about it, but that doesn't stop them feeling uncomfortable.

I don't think anyone is saying only Mums should stay or caring for children is womans work.

Those who have said anything have mentioned just not feeling comfortable sleeping in the same room as a random man. But it's a sort of tough shit situation. I'm sure some men would feel equally awkward.

Sleeping on a reclining not very flat stick to it vinyl chair isn't exactly a great sleeping experience. Add in poor choice of sleeping attire, wanting to get my bra off, but not wanting Mr Dad to see the girls swinging around 😳😱 You know you probably going to have to get up during the night too with LO.

It's just dignity and modesty.
But it's a get over it sort of situation.