How confident are you in this parenting lark? Illness in particular

[PacificDogwod]

I tried to start a similar thread a year or two ago. In AIBU. And got my arse handed to me - fair enough.

But I cannot help myself as I think about this a fair bit and over and over again, but am unsure whether it's just me or a general change in society:

The vast majority of young children (say, under 10 years old) will have childhood illnesses, cough, colds, upset stomachs, chicken pox and the likes. How well prepared do you feel to parent your DCs though these episodes of what in the greater scheme of things are minor illnesses, but can be jolly miserable for ALL concerned? How confident are you that you can differentiate the 'miserable, but not dangerously ill' child from 'needs to be checked out' to 'I better call 999 now' situation?

Personally, I find unwell children quite scary - personally and professionally. The younger, the more scary, because the younger they are the more unstable their state can be and the quicker they can change (from good to bad, and from bad to good). It is always better to err on the side of caution, but I have experience of quite serious parental anxiety at the first cough or spike of temperature.
I wonder how our forebears felt about their unwell children? When they had less opportunity to have them checked out or do anything much about their symptoms? Where they as frightened?

I dunno.
Give me your perspective.

Yes, indeed

Maybe it's not a major problem, I clearly have a face that says "anxious first time mum" :)

To be honest when 90% of patients don't need to be seeing their gp I can understand some cynicism, no doubt I'd feel it too. It's just that for the small minority like me, you'd never know we exist. I simply do not access health services now unless a dire emergency. This is terrible to admit but I ended up in hospital a while back due to an infection when I should've just gone to gp and got antibiotics before it got out of hand.

We had NHS direct when mine were tiny. They helped us through many an oh shit what now moment, including whn DS2 pulled coffee all over himself - thankfully not freshly made and I didn't half bollock DH for leaving the kitchen gate open, before rounding the day off with my first ever migraine!

Similarly, they reassured me when 14 month old DS1 had started vomiting during a known norovirus outbreak and could only keep breast milk down.

Not as much confidence in the 111 - we were a pilot area for it and we did contact during this time after DS1 had stood on a nail. They actually made us an appointment at the nearest community hospital, and we were subsequently phoned by a HCP from there who subsequently phoned us back, gave us advice and told us what to look out for, if the injury turned out to be more severe than it looked.

I began to despair when, through early to mid, primary, the boys were puking every few weeks. It got to the point where i suspected i was nothing to do with school bugs and seemed too much even for DS1 who was spectacularly shit at hand washing. Spoke to a new, excited about everything GP about how it had gone on too long, who referred us to a paed who suggested food related migraines. oddly, I'd suspected them for DS2, but not him. We cut out the Cs for DS1, the puking stopped entirely. DS2 reached the age that DS1 started puking really badly and started puking badly himself. We cut out the Cs after his TA had observed that he'd been given a chocolate biscuit at school and gone really pale and quiet and haven't had one since!

I think for us, the confidence comes in being able to get back up when something looks a bit out of the ordinary. I'm a med school drop out, myself, so capable of looking stuff up, but sometimes, things do seem to be beyond the obvious - like the puking every few weeks.

I'm fairly confident. Not long before I found out I was pregnant with DC1 I changed jobs & had to do a pediatric first aid course as we sometimes had to work with children of all ages. This gave me a decent amount of knowledge & confidence before dc1 even came along.

She happened to be a very easy, healthy baby who didn't catch too much, teeth badly or have an issue with her immunisations.

Dc2 came along & was born prem & in a bad way, I worried more over him BUT he had an awful lot of appointments & once his reflux was dealt with was also a well child.

Dc3 & then 4 have been a bit more tricky but I'm at the point now where I'm confident in my parenting & instincts.

I've had to dial 999 3 times (for 2 children) each time it's been a genuine emergency, twice it's resulted in us being blue lighted. Once they were needed but due to twattish parking in our road the offending object had been swallowed by the time they arrived. We've gone in via the OOH route probably 5 times & been admitted each time.

So for someone who suffers with anxiety everywhere else this is one area I'm ok with. I'm a bloody nightmare when I'm pregnant though because the little buggers try & come far too soon

I'd say I'm pretty confident now (3dc later) in dealing with run of the mill childhood illnesses, however in the early days I remember feeling pretty anxious when it was obvious the Dc were coming down with something.

I don't think it was anxiety about the illness itself but about potentially making The Wrong Decision. How to tell when a high temp was just a high temp or a precursor to something sinister or whether to seek help if your child has been vomiting for 2 days. When is the right time to seek medical advice, that's what I used to wring my hands over.

On the other hand though I was quite averse to taking the dc to the GP for fear, I suppose, of being dismissed. Instinct is a wonderful thing actually but I do think you have to be very confident/sure of yourself to fight your corner in such an unfamiliar environment (GP surgery, a&be etc)

Eldest dc is a teenager so now my mind is turning to how would I deal with eating disorders, self harm, mental health issues...it seems you just about feel you have a handle on things then the next 'thing' comes along.

My DS has multiple severe allergies and asthma and we've had to administer the epipen and dial 999.

What freaked me out is the couple of times he has been really unwell and we've not recognised it. I was at the GP for my chest infection. DS wasn't well either, but I didn't think he was that bad. GP took one look at him and sent us to a&e. I thought we'd be sent home with a flea in our ear, but in triage they put him on oxygen immediately and rushed him through to a bed. He was in for a week and in the words of a doctor later they really "threw everything at him".

Same with his first anaphylactic reaction, I thought it would be dramatic and obvious, but it really wasn't. He was just quiet and a bit lethargic because his blood pressure was dropping.

That probably doesn't help you OP, sorry!

I have health anxiety with regards to my kids. I am pretty sure what it stems from :

1. My cousin / best friend / basically like a sister to me dropping dead aged 6.
2. Ds having silent pneumonia when he was 4 and me knowing and nobody listening.

Weirdly though I can deal with some things like when ds needed an operation I didn't worry at all. Or if they hurt themselves I don't panic.

Tbh it's mainly vomiting (because I just freak about the germs and everyone getting ill) and also uncontrollable temperatures. I'm kind of ok with everything else.

I find looking after sick children easy. But to be fair, my kids are hardly ever ill and don't seem to get coughs or colds, never had d&v, so I do have limited experience. I had a couple of things at nursery, but none st school.
If they have a very minor sniffle, I send them to school, always. But I myself always go to work.
Chicken pox was ok. Ds1 had a number of febrile convulsions, and I found that very frightening. But I don't think that's what you are referring to.

In the past, when young, I've dosed them up with calpol as much as possible, and they recover really quickly.

So no need for ambulances etc. When they have had accidents, like ds2 fell off the wooden trail thing at school, and blood was pouring, I was very calm, drove him to a& e and HR had to have a stitch. Those kind of things don't bother me, I don't know why, I don't have any medical training, but I always see it as not great, but not terminal, and assume he'll be fine.

Is that what you were referring to? Like a calmness rather than frantic anxiety and panic?

Yes, I find most mothers, in RL and MN, anxious and neurotic. And yes I wonder where this has come from, because I think it's worse that what it was a generation ago.

Dd1 now 20odd used to get viral rash it looked like meningitis the glass test would come up and off we would go to a & e I hatwd when she was ill it was very very. Stressful

pacific are you not a GP?

Pacific - I don't know why the vomiting freaks me out so much. That first time was like the exorcist though, I'd never seen anything like it before and it shocked me to the core! I didn't know babies puked like that, there was SO much and it was relentless.

She has been sick in the car since and I am getting better at dealing with it, but it hasn't been anything like it was that first time.

I like to be in control, so when things are out of my control it can really stress me out. High temps worry me greatly.

General parenting doesn't really bother me, I don't worry about it. Illness worries me and being able to keep my DD safe.

I wonder whether some of the anxieties are actually paradoxically stem from the fact that modern medicine can do so much, so we think it can or should solve everything?
Or life in many ways being so predictable and controllable that the uncertainty of illness scares us??

I may just be overthinking this

I don't just mean worrying about our kids' health (I think we all do to some extent), but yes, the blind panic, the fretting, the fearing the worst. It must be exhausting tbh.

Yes, MrsJayy

Oh gawd, look at the grammar in my first sentence!
Need more

'..whether some of the anxieties paradoxically actually stem from...

As far as the rest of parenting goes, I don't really worry about it yet, when she's bigger I probably will. At the moment, when she's well, she's generally a cheerful, curious kid. Right now, my main worries are illness and whether she's eating properly.

The English-speaking paediatrician I've found is really dismissive and abrupt but until my German is better I feel stuck with him. DD seems a bit better today so will wait to see abrupt doctor tomorrow.

Given your profession, I would presume you would be able to tell whether your child needed medical assistance or not lol.
The rest of us? Not so much....

Ha! Objectivity goes out the window when it comes to your own, that is well recognised.
And is why my DCs have their own GPs and I don't treat them.

Well there you have it in a nutshell. 'Objectivity goes out the window'.

I have been blessed that in 22 years of parenting so far my kids have had nothing worse than a cold.
My parents coped with me having experimental heart surgery in the early 1970s. How I don't know.
How people coped in times past I don't know. Religious belief must have played a part. My grandad lost his sister when she was 3 and he was 10 to measles. His mum had a breakdown afterwards.

I sit totally on the 'laid back' side and use the 'watch and wait' approach with my 2 DD'a very often. DD1 struggles a bit with her chest and gets wheezy with a cold, and DD2 is prone to ear infections, but we've experienced enough with both that I generally know when they need to be seen by a GP. I struggle when I see people in groups I'm in taking their child to the GP with a cold, but keep my mouth shut.
However when DD2 was 9 days old I developed what I knew mastitis. It was late on Friday night, the only appt the out of hours GP could offer me was 1am Saturday morning in the city centre (would have had to drive myself and take BF-inhaler DD2), so I declined, took some paracetamol and thought I'd see someone the next day. By 10am I was severely septic and taken to hospital in an ambulance. I now have a fear of sepsis in myself and my children.

'Objectivity goes out the window'.

Yes, but was that different 100 years ago?

I have DT's that were born very prem and are on oxygen at home. They get a special vaccine through the winter months to try and protect them from bronchiolitis and we have open access onto Paediatrics (ie no need to go to A&E etc).

I try not to be a neurotic FTM but it's quite difficult when your children spent the first 4 months of their lives in the neonatal unit! And the fact that a simple cold could put them back on ventilation in PICU etc.

Yes, sepsis is frightening.
Glad you are here to tell the tale, Goofy

Mermaid, yes, quite.

Don't know about 100 years ago. I wasn't around then.
But seriously, I think people had to rely on qwackery a bit more back then. Also, families weren't as insular as they are now, so you could pop around to Mary of the 20 children next door for a second opinion I guess.