Bloody useless Health Visitors

[twiglett]

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twiglett- the best way is not to make an issue of it. I took ds2 initially as he was losing weight (turned out he had an umbilical infeciton). Since then I've been to baby clinic once (he's 2 next month). I went to the check ups but otherwise not at all- no way was a I dragging an auti 3/4 year old to baby clinic. I've never been asked about it. I think its easy to slip into the background so don't worry.

what hv? Our clinic where we see our HV (as we do not get home visits) is a manic, small little room on the third floor of a horrid building in the worst part of town! The lifts are unreliable and we are not allowed to bring our pushchairs because they are a fire risk! The clinic is a 45 minute walk and I doubt I could carry my ds who weighs 26lbs!
When I went there when he was getting his first jabs they put the information 1. in the wrong place 2. missed out what batch numbers the jabs were and other information. My experience of the conveyor belt mentality of my clinic is so bad and my hv is so unhelpful I am paying for my son to not have the mmr there - he is having single jabs. I am really jelous of you guys with nice hv - as i feel I couldve used the support - but quite honestly I find this website better!!!

I personaly can't stand them! It was not so long ago that mine said she'd see my dd in six months time for her speech (i've posted this recently and some of you may remember!). I kid you not, my dd is the most articulate child, and she's only 2.8. I have no worries but since looked up speech and what "THEY" would be worried about at 3 years old! My dd got pulled up for less at 2.6 and i will NOT be entertaining H.V's again!Also like you lyndsey66 my H.V has not written batch numbers in her health book and when i questioned this got a load of tosh really!!!!

That's my opinion!

i agree.........hv are awful. they seem to hate everything I do, from owning cats to using terry nappies! I have now asked for no more assessments etc and said i would contact them if i had any problems I wanted help their help with, my children are probably on an at risk register as we speak! I agree that money spent on hv services should be spent on better things.

I needed a reference from my HV for Ofsted (starting childminding) I had moved to the area 1 Year ago with a 4 yo and had never seen her.....after 10 messages she rang back to say she had never met me and as my DD was now 5 I wasn't her problem.
Fortunatley Ofsted understood....but if it had been essential?

Thank god mine are wonderful! One of them made an appointment at our convenience, came round and showed us how to do baby massage and she left us a book she'd just bought on it, plus some information she'd printed from the internet for us. The other two have been really friendly, they certainly don't seem to have any issues with the cat or dog, despite DS being examined and dog hair found in his nappy Bad mummy! I've even had them give me a ring to see how I am when he was really really really horrendous at first.
Now my midwife....!!!!!

Sorry to interrupt the topic but I really need to know... Freddiecat... why will your HV refuse to use the new chickenpox vacine? I'm sorry, I have been told my DS suffer from vacinosis and I am very concerned with his next shots... His reactions to the vacines have been escalating with each shot and I am really worried about the next set...

Ours are not exactly proactive - got one visit just after I'd had dd2, with exhortations to 'visit baby clinic asap'(I asked why, rather alarmed that something was wrong, but it turned out to be just because HV likes you to). I don't go. I would, and would REALLY appreciate it, if I had any faith in the individuals I've seen but I haven't. Sadly.

Twigglet, i am someone to "watch" she turns up at my house without an appointment, did yours do that? I will avoid her at all costs now and definetly not treat her as a friend, and confide in her. It is becoming quite patronising, she woke me up one morning and said what does your son do when your asleep is he ok. He was asleep with me! I feel like i have to apologise if its a bit messy, but like with any guest it would be spotless if i knew they were coming. I know they've got to cover there backs, and make sure the "vulnerable" are "coping".I am an intelligent young women who knows that children under the sink playing with bleach is a bad parenting skill, it doesn't need to be pointed out

I am going to ask to see my records now,thanks for this thread and spurring me on, its situations like this that if something happens to your child they look at your file and say you've got munchausen's.

I hope your dh is having a good patch and everything is working out well for you now

I must admit I don't have any respect for the HVs I have. They might be of some help to first time mums but after that I think anyone could do their job - sorry - and most pple do it better than them (or the ones I know). I don't think they take your concerns seriously - they need to rememember each mum has their own very special problems and concerns - must come from seeing too many mums and babes day in day out. I had terrible feeding problems with my first boy and all the b* HV could offer me was a feeding diary. I was completely at my wits end....I've had no respect since then.

Sorry Bekki -- I should have just said "very inexperienced, ill-informed and inattentive," but that's so many words. I'm sure it wasn't you I met in the Medical Centre feeding her 7mo old son a chocolate bar, stating "He loves them!", then offering them to my son with "My Health Visitor says it's ok!" Can't fault this other mother for lack of generosity, but I don't believe for a moment the HV said that. And you're not one of the ladies I used to regularly see standing at the bus stop at 8am feeding her kid in pushchair crisps for breakfast, either. At least teenage moms have the excuse of inexperience. My mum and both grans were all teenage mothers (usually to twins, once conceived out of wedlock, too). My mother staunchly defended her decision to give me baby rice in a bottle at 3 weeks old, since it was "standard pediatric advice" in 1958 (9 years before I was born!) to start solids at 1 month old. I suspect it wasn't still "standard advice" in 1967, though.

I don't know zebra. My friend's mum claims to have fed hers on carnation milk (children now in early 30's). My aunt (children in 40's) was told to boil cows milk- all hers were fed on cows milk right from the beginning.

I agree with you about HV's having a useful role though. I always wondered what they did, but when I really needed help they were very good- much better at referring on that GP's etc.

Carnation Milk cans still had instructions for baby feeding when I had ds1 in 1975, Jimjams!! Ds1 was started on rice (by SIL, grrr) at 6wks. I followed standard HV advice of the day and by 6mths ds1 was on three meals a day. We'd dispensed with bottles and formula by then and he used an ordinary cup, drinking boiled cowsmilk mixed with a teaspoon or two of sugar. It sounds incredible to think of it now, utterly astonishing. She was a rubbish HV and fortunately left the profession to go and breed horses in Suffolk. I hope she was nicer to the horses than she was to people!

I have to accompany dh to the sluglet's development checks because the HV's can't get to grips with the concept of a father as the major childcarer. They persist in addressing their questions to me and ignoring anything he says.

my HV is obsessed with weighing babies - apparently I have to take ds in (or have her come here) every week until he is 8 weeks old. I skived today's weigh-in - ds, who is 3 weeks old today, is feeding, pooing and weeing plenty and outgrowing 0-3 clothes. Still feel a bit like a bad parent though... I'm all for weighing babies who have a problem, but ds is evidently prefectly healthy.

slug, do they just ask sluglet if you're not there/??

probably

Two health visitors at my surgery, good cop/bad cop. Good cop was brill when I was struggling with b/feeding, really encouraging, changed baby for me when I was in floods of tears, put me in touch with b/f counsellor, alway says lovely things about my ds and tells me what great mum I am (probably not that great but good to hear all the same). Bad cop contradicts good cop's advice and tells me not to come to baby clinic as often as good cop says! But even good cop doesn't live up to Dept of Health guidance on weaning...

This seems like the best place to ask this: can anyone tell me what to expect when the HV comes to see me and dd (ooh, first time I've typed that!) later this week? Dd will be less than 3 weeks old, ds is 6years old. Actually, I don't particularly want to see her since A) I am fine, thanks and have had quite enough going on in the last 2 weeks what with midwives visiting daily for 10 days, hordes of relatives descending and various school concerts/plays/parties etc to attend and B)She may be fab but my past experience of a HV wasn't great (her: mango is fattening. Me: no it's not) so I'll be surprised if she is and since I don't want dd weighed every week and don't really feel I need any advice or help atm I'm not sure what the point is really. If I do need help I'll happily ask for it (here or there). I also know she'll ask me about contraception (assume it's on their tick list) and I strongly feel this is something between me, dp and possibly my GP, not a HV I've never met. I feel that, for me anyway, this question at less than 3 weeks after giving birth is patronising and irrelevant. I am perfectly capable of sorting this out myself thanks. She also didn't inspire confidence by asking me if she could come this week AND next! Err, it's the week of Christmas, don't you think I might be busy? And what makes you think I need 2 visits within 7 days? Any suggestions and comments welcome. Twiglett, your experience sounds awful, I am sorry.

My HV has been brilliant, very laid back and has the attitude that I've been there/done that, she's only doing the visits because she has to. This is the same HV I had for DD1 and DS - I hated her then and used to avoid seeing her. We had our last home visit from her last week to discuss weaning, but even she admitted that there wasn't much that she could tell me due to recent changes in advice. We won't be seeing her again until dd2's 7/9 month check.

On her first visit she went through the Child Health Record, filling in the blanks.

On the second visit she did the new fangled hearing test, this failed so she had to come back a week later.

The fourth visit was just a general check up and weighing, I think this one only happened because I wasn't able to drive due to CS.

At last weeks visit I asked for dd2 to be weighed because she was being sick after each bottle. This was just to reassure me that she was gaining weight, even though my common sense was telling me that she was.

www mine came for dd2's first visit and just filled in the red book details, reminded me of all the safety stuff (! with dd1, aged 3 rampaging round..) and even wrote in dd1's book "excellent language skills" (they don't do the age 2 and a half checkup any more unless you have problems, so I suppose that's it!) and was generally much nicer than she had been first time round. I tended to pre-empt most of her questions anyway. good luck, maybe you could pop some mince pies in the oven and shoo her out after 10 mins saying you've got a lot on...

www - I had an HV come and see me a few times after my cs and I found that if had clothes on, was brisk, made conversation about anything other than baby and generally seemed 'in charge' in my home I didn't get any crap at all from them. We just had a chat about how lovely ds was, a quick weigh - which I didn't mind and didn't get any grief over and I don't think they dared ask me about contraception, if I remember rightly. They also checked the scar and stitches which I thought was appropriate. I can be pretty gung-ho when I want to be (surprise,eh ) and it seems to put the whole encounter on a more equal footing.

Mine didn't ask me about contraception (unlike darling midwife - who said sorry, of course she had to mention it, and we both giggled - and the doctor who looked embarrassed at mentioning such things to a lady). Do you think she thought I was too much of an old bag?

MI, I definitely don't think she thought you were too much of an old hag, you gorgeous young thing, you Aloha, thanks, you're right, I'll be bright and breezy and confident and hope she gets the message. I'm totally happy to have dd weighed, I just won't be going every week this time round. Bundle and Ailsa, thanks too - I'd forgotten about the red book, might dig out ds's actually and see how long it was til he got to dd's birth weight (IIRC it was about 5 weeks!). OK, I will treat it like a business meeting and I'm sure she won't dare to patronise me. Thanks!