20m got hold of my paracetamol tablets

[Beehappy100]

Hi Mums
my 20m old got hold of my paracetamol tablets while I was serving out dinner. Spag Bol.
basically I was on day 2 of a migraine and had been taking paracetamol, I wasn’t feeling on the ball and actually was really unwell. As a single parent I had no choice but to carry on. Was just a simple lax of concentration due to me being unwell that he managed to get hold of them. I am a single mum so just me and him in the house.
so he was only in the living room alone for about 4 mins while I was in kitchen . In this time he opened up the packet, managed to pop open the foil casing and when I came in he was holding a tablet in his hand chewing and sucking on it.
so around half the 500mg tablet was gone (ingested by him I assume ).
so as soon as I saw what happened I more or less straight away called a taxi to my local hospital to get some advice and get him checked over ASAP. I thought that would be more effective than calling 111. Common sense told me he hadn’t had chance to eat more than that half the tablet but still I wanted to get him checked over as that would still be over the dosage for his age group according to the calpol bottle .

so I went to the local a and e department and they weren’t really concerned as they said paracetamol overdose is extremely uncommon in children , (the taste of the medicine is strong and not nice so they just don’t tend to eat it) . Plus they reassured me the packet looked old, I had been taking the tablets myself so really unlikely he had ingested much. To be honest as soon as they told me that and put my mind at rest I knew he wasn’t in danger. They offered a blood test to check his blood levels but that has to be done 4 hours after the paracetamol was ingested . So he had the blood test done to be on the safe side .
worrying thing is they also said they would be referring it to social services as a safeguarding issue. They said it was routine and they have to do it as he had swallowed something . So I agreed to the referral (I know it looks bad if you don’t agree).
so I got a call a couple of days later (day before yesterday ) off a social worker. Missed the call . Tried to ring her back all afternoon but couldn’t get through to them or any other departments.

so obviously I know they will want a chat on the phone but I want to know other peoples opinions about what will happen next, if anything . Reason being I suffer from anxiety and if they decide they want to do a welfare check to the house this is really going to do my head in. I want to ask what chance do you think that they will be okay with a phone call or will they want to take it further in person?

and if they do say they want to do a home visit. Am I within my legal rights to decline it? I understand they would need a warrant to get in to the house legally from what I have googled. I don’t want to sound over the top but I have never had any involvement with social services before and I don’t intend to if I can help it as I have heard a lot of negative stories . I don’t wish to feel like I’m being monitored and it’s going to really upset me if they ask to come round ....
as my child is nearly 2 the health visitor will be coming round soon anyway ....

I don't think very much will happen next.

My absolutely loving and wonderful mother had some very brief social service intervention after I ended up in A&E a few times in quick succession. I was just going through a bit of a clumsy phase and all incidents were genuine accidents, but the amount/frequency triggered a referral.
Think they came round, had a quick chat, saw I was very well loved and cared for and that was about that.
I would imagine it's pretty similar now.

Social services arent allways a bad thing like people portray them to be. Your more than likely just get a phonecall talking to you about how medicines need to be stored out of reach and discussing possible solutions for your home and asked if you need any support.

When my first was just 6 months old my partner attemted suicide, a week later social services rang me and asked how we were doing as a family and offered parenting support, to which i said was not needed, they closed our case that day and ive not heard from them again. What annoyed me the most was they called my child the wrong name.

I think it's standard procedure to report to SS and that they will most likely only want a chat on the phone. After all, you immediately noticed and went to A&E, it's not like you'd give him the packet to play with.

That said, if they do want to come round, you'd be better off cooperating than insisting they have a warrant etc. IMO anyway.

you would look worse by refusing their visit.
you need to reassure them that you have a better system in place for keeping hazardous substances out of reach and sight of a child.
were you aware that you had left them accessible in the living room.
it is unlikely that social services will be difficult; they have too much to deal with, more serious cases.
but you cannot opt out of having any dealings with them.
a safeguarding referral has been made.
try to keep your phone with you and respond promptly to them. listen and take advice.
it's good that they check.
all the best.

I doubt they'll be very interested. Just explain to them what you have said here, if they want to have a look around then let them then they'll be out your hair.

My then 9 yr old took an extra swig of Calpol as he had a headache-( I’d told him to put bottle back in cupboard after dosing him)
I phonedGP who advised going
Straight to Casualty and an emetic was given within 40 mins of ingestion.

Strangely, his bloods showed no paracetamol at all, Despite my giving 2 teaspoonsful.
( Maybe as he’d eaten two bananas prior)
The hospital were pretty fierce with me, as they should be, but no social services were involved.

Hi I work for social services. In our authority this would be triaged by the safeguarding team and someone would either give you a call or possibly come round for a visit and talk about medicine safety. But as other people have said you took him straight to a&e and that's what ss want you to do would be more of a concern if you hadn't. It wouldn't be a case of you being continually monitored for this one event so I wouldn't worry too much. Contrary to popular belief social workers are usually fairly nice people who want to help people and don't want to intrude on people's lives unnecessarily

I had a similar visit years ago. The SW said that what they were checking for was at the level of ‘were there sufficient beds for the household vs had I left a crack pipe on the side and was the place plastered in dog/cat shit.’

if the above points were ok, then fine. Because there were plenty of families with no beds, crack smoking and dogshit all over, so they were keen to get back to supporting them and leave us in peace.

I had a similar hospital referral to SS after DS1 broke his arm at 10m (I'd been knocked off my bike by a loose alsatian on our local racecourse cycle track, with DS in his bike seat on the back). It's really unusual for kids that age to have that sort of break because they're not walking, so it was done as a routine safeguarding measure. The social worker came, had a quick chat with me, looked at the bike, his helmet and my scraped arm, and closed the case. Not heard anything from them in over a decade. She genuinely just wanted to check everything was ok.

Don't worry OP it will be fine. They have to check. My lovely parents have SS visits after I broke my arm three times in a year. Diagnosed as dispraxic years later!

My then-3yo DD1 chugged half a bottle of Calpol one Christmas Eve - we're still not entirely sure how she got it open, but I came in to find her sticky all over and very proud that she'd done her own medicine. We obviously went straight to A&E where we were told that it was almost certainly absolutely fine and to just not give her any more paracetamol based medicine for the next 24hrs. Dr told us we may get a follow up from SS - we never did 🤷🏼‍♀️ So I wouldn't worry too much :)

Oh OP, don't panic! I had the exact same thing happen to my child....same age, same scenario, except that this was 8 years ago. I rang 111 and was advised that a child would need far more than half a tablet before they would be concerned. More like 3 if I remember rightly. They taste nasty, like you say, so they would normally not just continue to eat them! They said that social services would be informed and they were. When I spoke to them they were fine and just wanted to check the circumstances of what happened. It's just general safeguarding. It was all okay and nothing has happened like it since and there has been no follow up since then. Don't beat yourself up, we all make mistakes as parents and the main thing is that we learn from it and move on x

That’s so different to what happened to my 9 yr old!
The GP said with paracetamol one can never be too careful , and as I wasn’t sure of the exact amount of Calpol Son had swallowed, to go straight to A&E.
They took it seriously enough to give an emetic , and blood tests .

Parecetamol they said can be risky for liver damage days later.
It was very horrible for DS and of course me, as hospital staff said “ Haven’t you taught your child about the dangers of medicines?”

Of course I had!- But he still swigged a bit.

I'm a sw and my son fell down the stairs at 13 months (not walking yet which was probably lucky as he slid down on his front rather than a fall), we called and ambulance as we didnt see what happened and i was worried incase he banged his head. we got a call from a sw a few days later to make sure we had appropriate stairgates (we did but accidentally left up) and that was that. I think the health visitor called as well as she had an alert we had been to a and e.

Better to be safe than sorry, try not to worry.