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Children's health

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Original poster

Would you leave your child on their own in hospital overnight?

129 replies

anchovies · 03/03/2009 17:04

Long term conditions aside, would you take your child to the hospital assessment unit, them get admitted and then you go home?

DS was admitted with pneumonia (he's now home and recovering other than having to go back for IV antibiotics) and I was surprised by the number of parents who went home and left their poorly children in hospital. The wards were massively understaffed but mainly due to the fact that nursing staff were all feeding, changing, bathing babies etc. One mum left her 8 month old dd who had had a convulsion at 4pm (no-one knew she'd gone) and came back at 11 am the next day. The staff had to give her her tea (discussing whether she was on solids), bath her, find her some pjs and nappies, get her to sleep, feed her breakfast etc. Her mum turned up and was complaining that she had been left watching cbeebies!

Found the whole thing very traumatic but maybe I'm missing something?

OP posts:

Are your children’s vaccines up to date?

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Elibean · 04/03/2009 09:42

She's absolutely, unarguably, wonderfully better, thanks, Saggars. And I can't thank you enough for telling me several times pre-op that she would be

It is lovely having a toddler who can breathe and eat!

DumbledoresGirl · 04/03/2009 09:48

OMG. My exclamation is because.....yes I could and have done so. Though in my defence my son was not 8 months old. He has been hospitalised overnight twice when he was 5 and 6 and on both occasions he had a night there on his own, and even on the very first night when my dh stayed with him, the parents slept in a hostel down the road to the hospital, not on the ward itself.

I did not realise I had done something so heinous.

OhYouBadBadKitten · 04/03/2009 10:05

Don't be daft DG! Nothing heinous about that at all, we all have different kids and different circumstances. Theres no 'one choice fits all' solution.

bronze · 04/03/2009 10:07

I wouldn't judge.
I've been in that position and ended up self discharging dd as I had to look after the others. Luckily for me it turned out ok but the guilt I felt was horrendous and I was in tears a lot (I'm not normally the crying type)

sarah293 · 04/03/2009 10:08

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

stealthsquiggle · 04/03/2009 10:14

It depends. Certainly not without a lot of discussion with the staff. I know someone who has 4 DC and associated complicated logistics, but one of her DSs has been in and out of hospital a lot and she has always managed to stay with him (I am in awe) - I think I would find it hard to leave DS (6) but can see circumstances where I might, briefly.

Mintyy · 04/03/2009 10:15

Do you know, I honestly and truly had no idea that leaving my 8 month old dd in hospital for 5 hours overnight would be so frowned upon. Am astonished actually.

giantkatestacks · 04/03/2009 10:20

I wouldnt leave an 8 month old - but agree with Riven - I remember being left as a 5 year old for grommets and then again as an 8 year old for something else - tonsils maybe and that was in a childrens hospital and there were no parents on the ward at all - so maybe times have changed but I would probably leave my 5 year old if he was going in for something routine. In fact I know I would.

An emergency admission is of course something very different.

muppetgirl · 04/03/2009 10:20

I was in hospital for a week when I was 5 and neither my mother or father stayed past visiting hours. My dad had to work and my mother had to look after my brothers.

I have 2 ds's 1, 5 and the other 15 months and I am currently prgt with ds 3. We have no family so I am a little unsure as to what we would do although I know what I would want to do...

EllieG · 04/03/2009 10:27

I think this thread has the potential for making people feel bad - as someone else said, there are loads of different circumstances and no right or wrong solution in this issue - it depends on the child and the situation. Is all very well for me saying would never leave DD, but if she was older (or much younger e.g. a newborn, who does not have the same level of awareness of mum and dad but just needs good adult care), or in for some time but not particularly 'ill', and had no one else to look after DSD I might do differently. I wouldn't want to, but you can't say what you would do for every situation. It all depends - I don't think anyone should feel bad at all, you can't make a blanket judgment on this one.

muppetgirl · 04/03/2009 10:37

oh and dh's sister was born with no swallow reflex so spent the firt year in hospital. MIL couldn't have possibly stayed as dh was 2 and needed looking after. She had to leave her dd from when she was weeks old. What else could she have done? SHe is Austrian and her family are all in Austria, her MIL had died and her FIL was a typical 'victorian dad' and couldn't have helped. She missed her fist crawl, sitting up etc and came into the ward one day to find her walking towards her. She is still guilty to this day...

EllieG · 04/03/2009 10:40

Oh that's so sad

muppetgirl · 04/03/2009 10:49

I know I don;t get on well with MIL but I do really feel for her for that situation. She's 64 so times were very different, there was no opportunity for her to have stayed and it was such a length of time... I can't imagine what it must have been like. She wanted to do dd's washing but was told she couldn't and her clothes often got lost and she would be wearing other children's clothes. MIL could really only stay for visiting hours so had to go up in the mroning then back in the afternoon. What a nightmare. She still talks about it now. (MIL)

eidsvold · 04/03/2009 10:55

I did it for one night when dd1 was about 11 weeks old. Given that she had just spent three weeks in hospital in London recovering from cardiac surgery and I had spent those three weeks with her barely leaving her bedside at times - I just wanted to go home and have a decent night's sleep ( I had had an emergency c-section and a very stressful 11 weeks post birth) ready to bring her home and to start caring for her at home again.

IwishIwasmoreorganised · 04/03/2009 10:56

DS2 has had 1 overnight stay recently and I stayed with him constantly (he was 8 months old).

Luckily DH was able to take ds1 to school and work from home that day otherwise I may have had no choice but to leave ds2. I wouldn't have been happy to leave him though, like the op says, the nurses are so busy anyway that they don't have the time to spend with babies tending to their every need.

WilfSell · 04/03/2009 10:58

No I would not. But if I were a single parent with more than one child and no other support, I'm not sure what I would do.

eidsvold · 04/03/2009 11:03

Now I have read the rest of the thread. I was discharged 5 days post c-section and dd1 stayed in for another 16 days. I went home each night - there was no facility for an overnight stay - she was in ICU then SCBU and even then - I only overnighted the night before they were going to discharge her so I could feed her ( via ng tube) and adminster her meds etc throughout the night.

I used to go up in the morning when dh went to work and then went home after lunch for a rest and then came back mid afternoon with dh and then we went home late at night. Always calling before we went to bed and as soon as we woke up - even in the middle of the night at times.

Since then dd1 has had two minor ops and dh stayed overnight as I was feeding dd2 and then dd3 at the time.

Wispabarsareback · 04/03/2009 11:04

My DD2 (now 18 months) has been in hospital a few times in her little life. DH and I have taken turns to stay with her and to be at home with DD1.

But we did leave her overnight once when she was about 5 months old, on the cardiac ward - she was in for observation. I went home at about 9pm when she was sound asleep and came back the following morning at 7am - I did it at the urging of the nurses, who told me very persuasively how important it was for me to get a good night's sleep, and assured me they would look after her very well. When I arrived back on the ward, DD2 was being cuddled by 'her' nurse and was happy and settled.

But there was a judgey-pants mother at the bed opposite, who told me she 'couldn't believe' I'd left DD, and what if she'd woken up and needed me. I felt guilty for, ooh, about 15 seconds. Children are different, family situations are different - best not to judge.

eidsvold · 04/03/2009 11:07

Wispa - I came across a lot of mothers ( when dd1 was having cardiac surgery) who had other children to care for and who had to leave children to the care of the nursing staff in fact in some ways I was the odd one out being there as I was. However we also lived a distance outside of London and dd1 was in for three weeks.

Original poster

anchovies · 04/03/2009 11:33

Some awful situations here, sorry if I sounded like I was being judgemental of all parents who leave their children because I completely understand how it can be unavoidable. The situation I was talking about (the 8 month old whose mum left without telling the nurses) was almost certainly different, the mum hung around all morning, waited til she got a bed on the ward then literally disappeared 5 minutes later leaving her with no overnight things, not even a nappy, not returning until the next day where she commented on the fact her baby was "dressed like a tramp" (in hospital spare clothes) and "left in front of the telly all morning". At that point she announced she needed a brew and disappeared off again (minus baby) and didn't come back for another 15 minutes. She didn't say a word to her baby or even get her out of the pushchair. At that point we left so I didn't see what happened next.

So sorry if I didn't seem appreciative of other people's difficult circumstances, I think I was just shocked (and probably a bit emotional!) after our horrible hospital stay!

OP posts:

PinkTulips · 04/03/2009 11:40

when i was in scbu with my son i was heartbroken at the amount of babies who were on their own.

it was one thing when it was the premmmies who were there for weeks/months and who's parents came in to see them daily but there were babies who were days or hours old and in the whole 5 days that i camped out in the ward no-one came to see them

one couple came in to se their baby dressed up to the nines and then sat there looking bored for 20 mins... showed no reaction at all when baby was screaming, just continued to talk to each other while the overworked nurse changed his nappy.

another baby was admitted form the maternity ward, the scbu nurse sent the student nurse to the ward to ask the mother something (he was in a cubicle so i have no idea what) and the student came back with a face like this a few minutes later to say mom had been discharged and gone home..... she hadn't even come in to see the baby before leaving

i know people have lives to go back to but fgs... i had 2 very young children left behind at home with a father who'd never had them for more than a couple of hours by himself and who can't cook or use the washing machine,(by god he learned quick though ) and who haad to miss work which we couldn't afford for him to miss to stay with them and i couldn't even contemplate the thought of leaving him.... i had no choice on nights 4 and 5 as they discharged me and had no parental accomodation available but i stayed til midnight and was back in at the crack of dawn having driven 1/2 hour to my parents for a few hours sleep interrupted by pumping milk for him at 4am. of the 8 babies in scbu that week i was the only parent constantly there for my baby... granted 2 of those were long term patients who's parents were in and out as much as possible but the other babies were basically just abandoned by their parents.

obviously what i did was unusual as the nurses and doctors were surprised (although the nurses were hugely supportive)

Wispabarsareback · 04/03/2009 11:45

Pinktulips that sounds most odd.

TheNatty · 04/03/2009 11:46

oh a tricky one because you dont know the circumstances. like others have said she could have another child/sick relative/disabled family member to care for and she went with the lesser evil.

bit odd to moan about cbeebies tho..

idobelieveinfairies · 04/03/2009 11:53

I left my DS when he was 11 on a childrens ward overnight..he was on intravenous anti-biotics for a blocked salivary gland, he was fine, wanted me to go, and enjoyed himself in there.

I stayed with DD who was 3 she was admitted for de-hydration.....i never thought for a minute about leaving her, she was scared and ill. There was no way i could leave a young child in a strange place like that..even though the nurses were brill and lovely!

electra · 04/03/2009 11:59

No way! You never know what they will be given while you're away for a start...

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