Coping with your little one when they are sick ?

it really pulls at the heart strings when they are sick, especially when they're very young and they can't communicate with you what's wrong or visa versa and you can't tell them that it will be okay.

of course the other thing is that (as first time parents at least) you automatically think the worst every time they get a sniffle.

the first time ours was sick, he was 3 months old and ended up with a very severe case of croup and spent 5 days on life support in temple street.

one of the first things i quickly learnt there was just how damn lucky we were to be able to take him home after a week. there's so many people in there who spend months and months with their babies living in the hospital with them who might never get to bring them home.

we know that we're likely to have to spend time in hospital now every year with recurrences of the croup too now, so that'll be a barrel of laughs, but again at least we know we'll be able to take him home again with us, when lots of people won't.

one of the hardest things about bringing him home was being so happy to be out of there and packing up our stuff on the ward to go home and seeing the faces of all the other parents there wishing they were us.

sorry, i know its a bit depressing, but something like that really does put things in perspective.

Supercell wrote: »

Thanks guys, he's much better today, still not 100% but on the mend
Vibe, yes putting it in perspective does help, I honestly don't know if I'd have the strength to deal with something more than the sniffles at this stage. I suppose at times like that we hopefully surprise ourselves as well as count on our partners, family and friends to pull us through.

Oh Supercell - bless you. You have the "fear" I'm afraid :mad: And it comes hand in hand with parenthood, don't want to soundn egative, but that's how it is. You never stop the worrying,ever.

Best cure? Have another, doesn't stop the fear, but certainly puts it on the backburner:)

We spent Saturday evening in Tallaght hospital with a sick 18-month-old (when I should have been watching the Leinster v Ulster Final). She was floppy and lethargic with a temperature that just kept getting higher througout the day (even with the use of Neurofen and Calpol).

By the time we got to the A&E she was whimpering and looking around. By the time the triage nurse got to her, the temperature was lower than our last measurement. By the time the doctor came around she was running around the childrens' dept stripped down to her nappy jumping in and out of the toys and climbing up on everything. As it turned out she has a tonsil infection so we think the staff believed us when we told them that she was really ill earlier. This is not the first time she's done this to us.

Bloody kids! They freak you out, make you out to be a liar and ruin your rugby! Who'd have them?

i think the worst thing is when you know they're suffering and they keep looking at you, but they're too young for you to explain it to them. you'd do anything to take it away from them if you could, but they just give you that "it hurts, why aren't you making it go away?" puzzled look and it breaks your heart every time.

Hannibal Smith wrote: »

I don't know how parents deal with it when they're in hospital. Imagine having to leave your child and come home!

you actually don't when they're really bad.

when our lad was in temple street ICU we stayed in parent accomodation next to the childrens ward. it's just like a hostel with camp beds and a sink with a communal kitchen, shower/toilets and washing/drying facilities.

you're inside the hospital itself so you just take it in turns sitting with the baby or trying to sleep and one of you will go out for food supplies etc. from time to time.

I have to say though, the ICU in Temple St. was amazing. they get one to one care 24/7 with the ICU nurses doing 12 hour shifts and handing over one to one to the next nurse.

they're all highly trained and very friendly and our little man got the best care possible, i can't praise them highly enough.

he was 3 days on full life support in an induced coma and then another 2 in the ICU with them weaning him off all the morpheine and paralytics etc. before they transferred him to the ward for 2 days observation before we could bring him home again.

croup isn't supposed to be all that bad and most kids shake it off after a few days, with the bad ones needing a trip to A&E for a go on the steroid inhaler there, so it took them a while to catch on how serious he was and we ended up in A&E 3 times over the course of a week before they finally decided it was more serious than normal and did the whole endoscope thing, at which point they decided it was serious enough to intubate him and transfer him to the ICU.

anyway, it took a while for him to get over it properly and we'll most likely have a trip to A&E every year (possibly more than once per year) during the october to march croup season if he gets it again, but you just have to get on with it and thank your lucky stars that it's not something worse, or permanent.

before all that happened i'd have said i'd have no idea how i would cope with a seriously sick baby, but when it happens you just have to get on with it and you do, for their sake as well as your own. as a parent you know in your heart that you'd die for them if it came to it, so a few trips to the hospital is nothing really.

Vibe - that sounds horrendous really must have been so awful!

Xzanti - I know I had to pay when I had to go back about an infected stitch in my section scar - the receptionist had the cheek to say - not to worry half is covered by ur insurance... Didn't help at time!!!