As a parent, it is your job to monitor everything that happens with your child when they are in the hospital. Make sure there is an adult who is familiar with your child and your child’s needs during the entire time your child is in the hospital. When they take their child to things like x-rays, physical therapy, etc. You must be there with them at all times. If the well-meaning staff tells you that there is no reason for you to accompany your child, thank them and go anyway. They don’t know your child like you do.

The example of a mother:

“Three nurses came in to put my seven-year-old son on an IV. When they walked in, they started talking fast and completely ignored me as they began to circle him. Before I knew it, they were all putting on gloves and reaching for him. “Wait a minute!” I said as I picked him up as he started to panic. “Everybody out except one nurse” I demanded. They all looked at me like I was crazy, but they all left.

Andrew and I have an understanding that no one else understands. He knows that I will explain everything to him step by step and I won’t let them hold him down if he stays put. He knows that he can cry, scream, kick and do whatever he has to do, but he can’t move his arm. If he hadn’t been there they would have kept him and in doing so would have caused him to panic and undo everything he and I had worked on for the past 7 years.”

Some tips for when your child is in the hospital:

1. Do not ask staff for help with your own personal needs. Take care of your own food, drink and hygiene needs. Ask the staff where you can do these things and ask what the particular hospital policies are, but they are not there to take care of you, they are there to take care of your child.
2. Protect yourself and your child from additional hospital-acquired infections, especially at times like RSV season, which typically occurs during the winter months and is spread by respiratory particles or contact with contaminated objects, such as bathroom fixtures or even clothes. These types of things can even be transmitted by doctors and nurses using the same stethoscope and blood pressure cuffs on your child that they use on children who have things like RSV. Keep a hand rub bedside cleaner – use it yourself and offer it to professionals and staff before they touch your child.
3. Since both kids and hospitals tend to be sticky, keep a bowl of disposable antibacterial/antiviral wipes with you and clean the surfaces that need it most often: TV remotes, phones (including your own cell phone), doorknobs , control buttons for beds, toys and dolls.
4. Know your environment. At first, please read the rules and regulations posted in each room. Know where the nursing station, emergency exit, drinking water fountain, and public or visitor bathroom are (unless you can use a private bathroom). What services are there? Food delivered to parents, game room, toys, in room, DVD or internet access? What is the visitor policy? Locate the nurse call button, locate the phone and read the instructions, locate the lights and TV controls. Find out how the buttons on the bed and side rails work. These seem like small, simple steps, but each hospital has different ways of doing things, and you need to know what your hospital does and expects.
5. Know where you are going to sleep before night falls, and familiarize yourself with that piece of furniture.
6. Ask the nurse to tell you about each line and tube that is connected to your child to give oxygen, fluids, medications, blood, and liquid food; to collect for the laboratory or to evacuate stomach contents, urine, drainage, pus and air pockets. Each line must be clearly identified, so that fluids and medications do not go into the wrong tube.
7. Be vigilant when any substance is injected into a line. If you think someone is about to make a mistake, speak up immediately, but try to be attentive, not offensive. “Sorry to interrupt, but I thought that line was an arterial line, and they said not to put anything in.” Ask questions and don’t be afraid to speak up.
8. If a change in treatment or procedure is to be made, make sure you understand what it is and why. If the person performing the procedure doesn’t know you or doesn’t make sense to you, ASK.

“While my 7-year-old son was sick and in the hospital the nurse was having trouble taking his temperature accurately. She went in once and took him under her arm and got something close to normal. “That’s not right,” I said. “It’s at least 102” I said feeling the lower part of her stomach where the fever is.She looked at me as if I had lost her mind once more, but took it again, this time under her tongue.It showed 101. So she left. She came back a few minutes later. “I’m sorry,” she said. “The resident ordered her rectal temperature taken.” She said, embarrassed. “No, you won’t.” , ON A 7 YEAR OLD! NO So I asked what was the reason for this since at 7 it didn’t matter if it was 101 or 102.

“What difference does it make?” She said that she didn’t know, but that the doctor had ordered it. I told him to call the doctor to come and explain why they would give a 7 year old boy a rectal temperature. She seemed horrified.

She came back a few minutes later looking even more shaken and said, “The resident thought she was 7 months old.” Scary isn’t it?

9. Your child may be connected to monitors that keep up with signals from your child’s body. Most commonly, monitors measure heart and breathing rates, blood pressure (how hard the heart needs to work), and the oxygen supply in the blood. Make sure you know what the monitors are and what the normal numbers should be for your child.
10. Monitors cannot monitor everything, such as how your child feels, talks, behaves, or looks just before throwing up. They also can’t advertise that even though the numbers are within the “normal” range, like over an hour the oxygen saturation drops from 100 to 93, there is clearly something wrong, but the alarms don’t go off. To spot the trend, someone has to be watching the child. That’s what nurses used to do in the past: get to know their little patients and be alert to such changes. now it’s up to YOU.
11. If you think your child’s condition is getting worse, call a nurse.
12. Nurses appreciate gifts, but even better, give them real help. A positive attitude that assumes they know what they are doing and have your child’s best interests in mind. A note of praise to the nurse, with a copy to the supervisor and the head of the hospital, goes much further than chocolates. If you really want to bring a gift, most nursing staff appreciate fresh fruit even more than processed sweets.