My son's weight - health visitor doing my head in

narabanekeater

ive had this 3 times now. Im 5 foot and my haubby 5 foot 6 were not going to have massive children. Ive seen sadly due to 2 out of 3 of mine being poorly since birth lots of Hvs and ive only ever met one that spoke sence in all that time. One even said she doesnt have children but likes to sort out other peoples. My children have a healthy diet with fruit and veg and yes we also eat meat. Yes they tasted McDonalds as well. You know your child better than anyone. When Ds was born I knew something was wrong but was dismissed as being silly. I wasnt silly when the blue lighted him to hospital on a drip and feeding tube we stayed there for 2 weeks. I find the smile and nodd technique and get them out the house as quick as possible with a smile technique works wonders

j.e.j.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted wrote: »

most HVs are nothing more than a dimly remembered notion of a childless old bag who told you that everything you were doing was wrong and you would live to regret never listening to her wisdom?

:rotfl::rotfl:
:T

Ignore the woman, OP. Surely these boxes/grids are intended purely as a guideline?? I guess she has to be seen to be making recommendations or suchlike. If she really oversteps the mark you can make a complaint.

It's a pity these people don't poke their noses in more where it's really needed, like in cases of genuine neglect, etc instead of criticizing and worrying parents whose kids are doing fine!

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Person_one wrote: »

So's a health visitor's apparently.

They can't win really, when it comes out that children have been abused or neglected they are vilified for not picking it up and stopping it but when they try to ascertain whether children are doing ok or not they are resented for it and called some pretty nasty names by adult women who should know better (jojo!)

It certainly isn't good practice to ask a 6 year old 'isn't Mummy feeding you, then?'. It's inappropriate, it's a closed question, completely at odds with best practice and could cause a potentially abusive or vulnerable parent to disengage entirely from the system. Or a perfectly normal, caring one to refuse to have anything further to do with them.

A similar position would be to say to the child covered in bruises in front of their parent 'So who's beating you up then, Peter. Mummy or Mummy's boyfriend?' smiling as she says it.


Old bag isn't the most abusive thing I have ever heard someone described with. Unprofessional fool with no idea of the guidelines and procedures for identifying children at risk of neglect and interacting with the family would possibly be more appropriate here. But it took slightly longer to type.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Nicki wrote: »

Two of my kids are redheads, and at least one has been asked by a jovial professional whether mum has left them out in the rain and they've gone rusty. I didn't find that rib bustingly funny either

I didn't appreciate the 'you've got a changeling there'. Or 'breastfed babies are too thin, you should give them bottles every 4 hours and put them down to sleep on their fronts for the rest of the time'.

And my SIL didn't appreciate the 'my goodness, have you had your fingers in the electric sockets?' when her eldest's hair was being particularly afro in nature from another 'professional'.

Person_one

Jojo_the_Tightfisted wrote: »

It certainly isn't good practice to ask a 6 year old 'isn't Mummy feeding you, then?'. It's inappropriate, it's a closed question, completely at odds with best practice and could cause a potentially abusive or vulnerable parent to disengage entirely from the system. Or a perfectly normal, caring one to refuse to have anything further to do with them.

A similar position would be to say to the child covered in bruises in front of their parent 'So who's beating you up then, Peter. Mummy or Mummy's boyfriend?' smiling as she says it.


Old bag isn't the most abusive thing I have ever heard someone described with. Unprofessional fool with no idea of the guidelines and procedures for identifying children at risk of neglect and interacting with the family would possibly be more appropriate here. But it took slightly longer to type.

The idea that a childless woman can't possibly have anything to offer children or parents is pretty offensive and ignorant.

I agree her phrasing wasn't ideal, but to me it sounds more jokey than insulting, I've heard plenty of adults say that sort of thing to both children and other adults.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Person_one wrote: »

The idea that a childless woman can't possibly have anything to offer children or parents is pretty offensive and ignorant.

I agree her phrasing wasn't ideal, but to me it sounds more jokey than insulting, I've heard plenty of adults say that sort of thing to both children and other adults.

An unprofessional woman who, on top of her lack of understanding of good practice and appropriateness of behaviours, actually reduces the benefit of and respect for her entire profession and - note the 'and' - and cannot even empathise with the people she sees, well, that's worse than someone's damaged feelings on the internet.


You may well have heard it said to a lot of people. I don't know - perhaps you don't have children yourself - if that's the case, well, you won't have the experience of knowing just how devastating such a jokey comment can be to a vulnerable new mum, one who is at risk of being beaten up by her partner because 'even the health visitor says the kid can't be mine because it's ginger, you slag!', or the unsure, postnatally depressed woman who, after one visit, decides that as they are such a useless parent for wanting to cuddle their baby, they can't possibly see a doctor because the child will just be taken away for having a useless mother.

Or the experience of being a battered woman who is asked in front of her abuser 'why's he given you a slap this time?' as a joke - gets battered some more for showing him up/grassing him up - and then doesn't go back to seek help when she finally has enough.


Perhaps someone telling you how to deal with animals who has never had an animal of their own or looked after one themselves, but had read a bunch of books about them would be a more appropriate analogy?

Or perhaps, as I know you feel very strongly about this, that someone told you that all you need to do to get rid of your asthma is eat more vegetables and throw away your inhaler because they have trained in the weird Russian breathing techniques that say asthma is all in the head and all you need to do is let yourself be starved of oxygen and it will miraculously fix itself?



The health visitor should be a vital resource for every woman with a child. Unfortunately, due to such people as the one the OP has had to endure, who essentially say 'you're rubbish, you are', they are people who are, like fundamentalist earth mothers who say 'well, you must organically rear your own alpacas in the back garden and stop poisoning your precious infant with that vile medicine for their chest infection' and fag smoking 'stick some vodka in the baby's bottle if you want some kip'

gingin_2

I am lucky in that my 60ish year old mum was a Health Visitor. Her motto has always been "Mum knows best". I don't think she's ever stuck her nose into how my children are developing, just been a good Granny and made them lots of home cooked food like me - and my daughter is also a slip of a thing. I am afraid I gave up going to the health visitor once they were past the small baby stage, partly because I don't like these percentile chart things but mostly because I trust my own instincts.

shays_mum

Wish i had a health visitor who bothered about my DD weight & height. She is 9 1/2 & wears only 24kg!! noone is bothered that you can see her ribs not the GP or the non existent health visitor service which stopped when she was 1
But then she does have EDS3 & this i think could be a factor - interestingly she was born over 9lbs & 68cm so was at the top end of the range.
Problem is if you don't get seen, you worry, if you do get seen then they can be seen as a pain!. Either way we should be grateful that there are still these community services available within the NHS - way things are going, these will most probably be cut soon........

Person_one

Jojo_the_Tightfisted wrote: »

An unprofessional woman who, on top of her lack of understanding of good practice and appropriateness of behaviours, actually reduces the benefit of and respect for her entire profession and - note the 'and' - and cannot even empathise with the people she sees, well, that's worse than someone's damaged feelings on the internet.


You may well have heard it said to a lot of people. I don't know - perhaps you don't have children yourself - if that's the case, well, you won't have the experience of knowing just how devastating such a jokey comment can be to a vulnerable new mum, one who is at risk of being beaten up by her partner because 'even the health visitor says the kid can't be mine because it's ginger, you slag!', or the unsure, postnatally depressed woman who, after one visit, decides that as they are such a useless parent for wanting to cuddle their baby, they can't possibly see a doctor because the child will just be taken away for having a useless mother.

Or the experience of being a battered woman who is asked in front of her abuser 'why's he given you a slap this time?' as a joke - gets battered some more for showing him up/grassing him up - and then doesn't go back to seek help when she finally has enough.


Perhaps someone telling you how to deal with animals who has never had an animal of their own or looked after one themselves, but had read a bunch of books about them would be a more appropriate analogy?

Or perhaps, as I know you feel very strongly about this, that someone told you that all you need to do to get rid of your asthma is eat more vegetables and throw away your inhaler because they have trained in the weird Russian breathing techniques that say asthma is all in the head and all you need to do is let yourself be starved of oxygen and it will miraculously fix itself?



The health visitor should be a vital resource for every woman with a child. Unfortunately, due to such people as the one the OP has had to endure, who essentially say 'you're rubbish, you are', they are people who are, like fundamentalist earth mothers who say 'well, you must organically rear your own alpacas in the back garden and stop poisoning your precious infant with that vile medicine for their chest infection' and fag smoking 'stick some vodka in the baby's bottle if you want some kip'

I'm more than happy to take advice on asthma from nurses and doctors who don't have it themselves but who are qualified to deal with it.

This particular health visitor may not be the best, but I stand by my idea that people without children can have valuable knowledge and training in dealing with them.

After all, plenty of parents are terrible at it, there's no magic guide to raising perfect children that gets delivered with the placenta. If terrible parents can exist I'm sure helpful knowledgeable non parents can too. After all, being a parent only gives you experiences of parenting your own specific children, and there are billions of others out there!



(I'd also like to add that you have no idea whether this woman has children or not but have made a complete assumption.)

neverdespairgirl

I have no idea whether this particular HV has children or not.