How much did/do you "use" your HV?

[chicagomum]

With dd (now 4) I took her to had the midwife visit after tthe birth and then the HV, I continued to see the HV regularly at the clinic to be weighed etc. until she was about 4-5months With ds however the home visits were less frequent and I took him to be weighed twice. Apart from that I have never seen them or discussed anything with them. I was just wondering if this is common or do most of you utilise them more?

who?

With DS1 I saw her for the first couple of weeks & then called her back when he had bad colic. Other than that I took him to clinic to be weighed quite regually, because he was my first & that was what I thought you should do & for his check ups.
With DS2, my HV visited quite a bit, as I had PND. However, the weigh ups at clinic were very rare - infact I think he has only been weighed while having his check ups & jabs!

Not really, was sent a letter to remind me of DS MMR, 2yr check....

Not really, was sent a letter to remind me about DSs MMR, 2yr check....

With the first one I saw her every week because she was also a breastfeeding counsellor and ran a bf clinic. Without her, I wouldn't have bf DS.

With the second one, never after the first few days. Don't know who she is. But whenever one of my kids has an accident and been taken to A&E, someone who claims to be my HV phones me to remind me that she's there, with the full weight of the hostile state behind her. Great addition to my life.

Sorry not very helpful. I met her when she came over, once in the clinic when DS was few weeks old. Twice more when I decided there might be a problem and needed refferals. Then again for 1 yr check. Haven't been back since. I was put off by hearing them talk to other mothers during weigh ins, and hearing all the old cliches coming out.

TBH my HV, though perfectly nice, is a bit wishy washy, and I learned early on that she wasn't going to be much help. At least she isn't a hindrance though.

Don't contact them at all. One came to the house shortly after the birth, then another the next week. They rang a few times to remind me about going to their clinic, but I only went once to show willing and to complete their PND questionnaire. They haven't rung since then. I do the weighing myself.

Haven't seen her for months and really glad I haven't. She was useless and scared the s**t out of me the few times I saw her after the birth. Enough things to worry about as it is.

I used to take ds1 to be weighed fairly regularly. I soon found out though that the HV wasn't particularly useful when I had real concerns about ds1's development. With ds2 I rarely bothered with going to the baby clinic. The last time the HV saw him was for his 8mth development check. Ds2 is now 3yrs old. Despite being informed that both boys are autistic the HV still sends us checklists of "What your child should now be able to do." Pointless really.

I think with yur first baby you tend to go to the clinics more often than with your second. My mum never liked HV's and I think it rubbed off on me, dont get me wrong some of them can be nice and helpful but I preferred to ask my mums advice if I needed any as she had bought up 3children and we all turned out ok .

The last time I saw a HV was last year when I took DS2 to be weighed. I only did that because they started a clinic after the mother and toddler group and I thought it would be good to have him weighed. He was almost 2 and hadnt been weighed for about 6 months . At the time DS2 hardly spoke and the HV decided to make a big deal of it in front of the other mums, saying i should be encouraging him more etc, she also tried to lecture me on healthy eating even though we all eat healthy anyway and DS2 was his ideal weight/size. I very politely told her to stop interfering and havent been back since.

Not at all. Mine was crap - have friends who considered theirs to be more like a mum though, which was to me.

Who needs HV's when you have MN?
Ineffective kiddie police, designed to scare the crap out of first time mums. I only saw mine at the jab clinic and they have given up ringing me, thank the lord.I am sure they are very nice people, but what is the point of them????