DS very distressed today... I feel awful

[Lethal]

Can anyone tell me if their children ever get a rash on their face when they've been crying? The reason I ask is that I left ds at a child-minding centre today while I did my shopping (the childcare centre is part of the shopping complex). He has been there several times before and has always been happy enough to go there, have never had any problems before with it.

Today I was gone for an hour and a quarter and when I went back to pick ds up, the woman told me that ds had been crying for about 10-15 minutes and was quite distressed. When I looked at him, he was crying and his face was all blotchy with he had a kind of rash across his forehead. I asked her what had happened, and she told me that 'ds had gotten bored, she asked him not to do something and he kept doing it, so she told him off and he started crying and asking for mummy.' I asked her if she had tried to contact me on my mobile, and she said she had tried but couldn't get through. After leaving the shopping centre I realised that she could've paged me over the loudspeaker, but didn't for some reason. I suppose I am just concerned about exactly how distressed he was and how long he'd been crying, to cause a rash to appear on his face. Has anyone experienced this before? I really feel awful for not getting back there as soon as he became upset.

How old is your son lethal? My ds still cries for about 10mins when he gets dropped off for nursery and he has been going there for 7 months now. I think quite alot of kids do cry for a while at these kind of places. My kids go blotchy too when they have a good cry. I wouldnt worry - its just one of those things kids do.

dd gets a rash around her eyes when she has cried more than a few minutes. I was in a class the other day, with her in a creche next door and I could hear intermittent crying although not necessarily always her. She was brought to me after about 40 minutes and I found out afterwards she had already been crying but sat on someone's lap at least 20 minutes before this. She doesn't cry at all at playgroup.

DS2s eyebrows and eyes go all red and his face gets blotchy if he's been crying for more than a couple of minutes. I don't think it's anything to worry about TBH.

Ds (14mths) gets the same after about 5/10 mins of really yelling. He goes very pale, his eyes go red and he gets lots of red blotches across his forehead. He so rarely cries anyway that it's always a bit distressing to see him like that - like he's about to spontaneously combust.

Lethal - if your son was told off the combination of angry crying would have been enough to get him so worked up. Tears have a sedative effect anyway so crying would have calmed him down in the end...(well that's what I keep telling myself ). Hope he's happier now.

Soupdragon - ds looks exactly like that when he cries too - as if he's wearing red goggles. poor baby.
I wouldn't worry about it Leathal - it's just one of those things. Not sure why she didn't page you though - the only time I left ds at one of those creches he was upset too and I had to abandon my trolley mid-aisle to collect him. Maybe she thought he was calming down?

Blotchy chest here- especially ds1- ds2 is more red al over. I get a blotchy chest when I've been crying as well!

Thanks for your replies. I'm not overly concerned anymore, except that I've never seen him like that at home... ever. If he does cry it's usually over quite quickly, so I'm not used to seeing him like that.

It's always hard when you're not there to see what actually happened, & you only have their word for it. I told a friend about it this afternoon and she said ds must've been pretty distressed to break out in a rash, which is why I was feeling bad about it. Anyway it seems to be quite common from your replies, so I won't worry about it anymore. Thanks again.

Ds gets a red rash on his forehead after a few mins of 'full-strength' crying. I've been phoned at work 3 times so far by nursery staff who thought he was ill. By the time I get there he's playing happily and the rash has gone.
(Last time this happened was the day we moved house so we ended up with a toddler to look after and a van-load of stuff to unpack)
My advice is to warn anyone you leave him with that he does this, and unless there's other signs of illness, it can be ignored (obviously they need to stop him crying)

Thank you bluebear. Now that I think about it, the rash on his forehead looked a bit like welts, and for a minute I thought he'd had an allergic reaction to something, so I can understand people thinking they're ill.

Poor little thing... I still feel sorry for him, but at least I'll be aware of it in future.