Sweating the small stuff - being your child's health advocate

When it comes to the big things - saving lives, developing groundbreaking procedures, being free at point of use etc - the NHS is pretty brilliant. And as a user you take for granted that it will be, so used to it as we are. But as a parent whose child uses its services quite a lot compared to many, it's the small things that rile.

Take for example the coffee shop at Great Ormond Street Hospital that wouldn't give me a cup of hot water to warm a bottle in case I burnt myself despite having just sold me a cup of hot coffee. (I know, I could have warmed the bottle in the coffee. But it was my coffee, I wanted to drink it.)

Or the anaesthetist at this world famous children's hospital who suggested my daughter was grumpy one time as she was prepared for an operation. "She's not grumpy," I said grumpily, "she's exactly how you would be if you hadn't been allowed food or drink for hours." She may have been grumpy but I would have expected a doctor used to dealing with children, and parents, regularly to know that coming across as even slightly critical at a time when you are worried and vulnerable is a bad idea.

Like the nurse on a ward who called my daughter a chunky monkey when she was six months old. "She's not chunky, she's just right," I said. The nurse back-pedalled quickly saying she was just so used to dealing with premature or very sick babies that it was nice to have one who was normal size. I forgave her. She wasn't to know we'd had weight loss issues in my daughter's early life and that her putting on weight was both difficult and emotive.

I had to ring the same hospital this week to go through some details for a test we were having. Last time, I told the relevant department, we'd had a very difficult time, the mere application of cream causing huge distress and the insertion of a cannula so difficult that my daughter fought off four doctors and nurses and we had to abort the whole attempt. It was awful, but oh I was so proud of her.

I wanted to speak to someone about an action plan for this time and ensuring we have someone particularly good at finding veins in wriggly toddlers. Her answer? "We do this all day every day, we're all good at it." This wasn't the case last time so why would I believe it this time? But more to the point, this person can't have had her own children. Because if she had she'd have known that that answer doesn't cut it, because they might do it all day every day but not to my child they don't.

I remember comparing notes some time ago with a friend whose child has also had a lot of medical appointments. We are, she told me, their only advocate. We mustn't feel cowed or belittled or that questions are ever stupid. We mustn't be afraid to demand a different doctor or dispute a course of action or tell someone to stop a procedure. Because we are the only person in the world who will do this, regardless of the fuss it causes. And the parents, faced with the alien environment of the hospital in which the medical professionals work every day, can see past the conveyor belt of doing this all day every day and remember while it may be routine to the staff it is not routine to our child, who will be scared and discombobulated and maybe in pain.

There was an amazing documentary on television earlier this year about Great Ormond Street Hospital and the very difficult surgery, often experimental, carried out there. One of the doctors got it. He used to be a bit dismissive of parents worried about a general anaesthetic or a procedure that the hospital is used to doing, he said. But then his own son had a routine operation for an ingrowing toenail, and he had to take him for his general anaesthetic and hold him as he was put to sleep. And that is when he got it. That when it's your child it doesn't matter how routine something is, how the staff may do it all day every day, how well your child is in comparison to others. All that  matters is that they have the best possible care and are treated with dignity and respect and as if they are the only child in the world having this done. Like I said at the beginning, the small stuff. Except it's massive.

Tabby McTat

A friend bought us this book which took a while to grow on me but is becoming a firm favourite. But what I think is so brilliant about it is it features a lesbian couple and makes absolutely no mention of the fact they are lesbians, they just happen to be two women who live together and who the protagonist goes to live with. More of this please.

Plans for my second birth

There was funny moment during the birth of our daughter. At one point, still inside me, she was showing some signs of distress. (That wasn't the funny bit). The medical staff asked permission to carry out a test, which involves going inside you to take a sample of blood from the baby's head. (If the results had been bad, which they weren't, I would then have had an emergency c-section). I gave consent of course, and the staff looked relieved. "Doesn't everyone consent?" I asked, and they said no, that women like me (I think they meant middle class women) are sometimes reluctant and ask the staff to wait half an hour to see how things progress before carrying out the test. "NCT women" I cried out. For that is what we had been told in our NCT antenatal classes - that where an intervention was suggested we should ask for it to be put on hold for a while to make sure it is absolutely necessary.

Yet of all the women I know who have taken NCT classes, in my group and in others, only a small minority had the natural complication-free births that you are led to expect in these classes, with problems ranging from breech babies to waters breaking without contractions to forceps to excessive bleeding to emergency c-sections to severe tearing. And for many of us, this was a shock, because the kind of birth that the NCT tries to promote, the type where women have as little pain relief as possible and as few medical interventions as they can and sit mewing on a bouncy ball throughout dilation, exists for very few women. Yet the emphasis on this kind of birth sets up the majority of women who don't experience this, to feel like failures.

We're expecting number two towards the end of the year, and I've been thinking about my last birth and my next one. In some ways, my approach will be no different. I took all medical interventions last time - from an epidural to all the monitoring offered, and I would do the same again. But this time there will be one main difference - I will feel no guilt for doing so. 

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With my journalist hat on I am running a course on how to get ideas for www.journalism.co.uk. It's 6.00pm-9.00pm at Friends House in Euston. London. It's £95 which means if you sell just one article off the back of it then it will more than pay for itself. Book here...

None of his business

When an animal poos on mole's head he sets about trying to find out who did it, analysing poo from other animals on the way before finding the culprit, and pooing on his head in revenge. It's funny, rude and has a rather dubious moral - in other word, it's perfect!

The Story of the Little Mole Who Knew it Was None of His Business by Werner Holzwarth and Wolf Erlbruch

Rainbow rice

I made rainbow rice. What's not to like about running your hands through coloured rice and pouring it from container to container again and again and again. My 18 month old loves it, even though it smells a bit of vinegar. And I feel rather smug about making something she loves playing with - like a proper parent - even if the cost of the rice and the food colouring and the container means it is one of her more expensive toys. Oh, and it goes everywhere. But that's what hoovers are for right?

To make it you get rice and liquid food colouring and shake it together in a sealed bag or box with a splosh of white vinegar to set the colour. Some websites say you can just let it dry but it still stank of vinegar so I baked it in the oven for about half an hour and that muted the smell. It took ages - I did this four times for four colours. Still, it looks pretty.

Related post: Where dreams come true

What to pack in your hospital bag

I wrote some advice to a friend whose baby is due soon, about what to take in her hospital bag, and she said I should put it on the blog for others to see too. So here it is, tidied up a bit. It's gleaned from antenatal class advice, friends, websites and personal experience. 

• Food. Lots of it, for both you and your partner. It needs to be food that doesn't need to go in the fridge and isn't smelly. Crisps, biscuits, non smelly sandwiches, that kind of thing. Before I gave birth to my daughter a friend gave me great advice - if cereal bars aren't your thing in normal life then they won't be your thing in labour or after either. Take food that you like.
• Drinks - but not fruity ones because you are likely to throw up in labour and throwing up acidic drinks is not pleasant, as you may remember from your malibu and pineapple days.
• Toothpaste and toothbrush for both you and your partner - in case the food you eat, or post nap breath, is smellier than you think it will be.
• Camera and battery charger and phone and phone charger, obviously.
• Socks - because even though hospitals are very warm your feet always get cold.
• A pillow - because hospitals never have enough, or comfortable, pillows
• Flip flops - because they are funny about you walking around barefoot, plus you may want to shower in them
• Bendy straws - that way your partner can give you a drink whatever position you may be in at the time, be it on all fours giving birth or lying down breastfeeding.
• Flannels - at least one to put on your forehead as a cold compress during birth and one to put on your bits as a warm compress for the first post birth wees.
• Money - you need it for food, for card to get tv access and for lots of other things I can't remember now but know we needed.
• A proper big fluffy bath towel so you can have a shower. And shower gel and shampoo etc. 
• Any beauty products you might want before being photographed or receiving visitors. No need of course, but if you usually dye your top lip every few days or pluck your eyebrows daily or whatever, you might want to do the same if you're in hospital for a few days.
• Bottles and ready made formula - received wisdom is if you have it to hand then you won't persevere with breastfeeding. Patronising bollocks. If you decide that is best for you and your baby then that is best for your baby. Hospitals provide it while you're in hospital but you might not want to ask each time you need it. You'll find various advice on sterilising but next time I suspect I'll go the warm soapy water and a bottle brush route. 
• Wet wipes. You'll be told to change your baby's nappy using cotton wool and water. But a friend from my antenatal classes who was having her second child told me, quite rightly I suspect, that no one uses cotton wool for their second baby so why put yourself through it for your first. 
• Sudocrem and/or vaseline for nappy changes - early poos are sticky and horrid and this will help you protect and clean the bum.
• Many more maternity pads than you think you'll need. There's lots of blood and wee and other fluids, and that's just from you. 
• Comfy big knickers you can treat as disposable (because of the blood and fluids etc) - better than paper knickers in my opinion. 
• Magazine type reading - if you have an epidural it might get a bit boring (in a good way). You might want something to do.
• Lots of clothes for you and the baby - more then you think as it gets weed on and pooed on and sicked on and bled on.
• Pen and paper - your brain really is a bit mushy for those first days (make that weeks, no make that months) and you might want to write down any questions you have for midwives or doctors in case you forget them later, or medication details etc.
• Spare carrier bags for rubbish and dirty clothes etc.

Plus three more bits of advice:

• Make sure you know how to work the car seat in advance. You do not want to be having an argument in the hospital car park as you prepare to take the hospital home for the first time.
• Have a thermos flask ready at home, and any likely visitors primed to have one too. My hospital served lukewarm tea and wouldn't give me any hot water for hot squash despite me having a sore throat. My husband and my mum however kept a steady rotation of hot water coming in thermos flasks.
• Pack your bag as if you are staying for one or two nights, but have another bag packed at home with clothes for you and the baby in case you are in for longer. That way your partner doesn't have to guess what you want bringing in, they can just pick up your ready packed bag and bring it to you.

Hope this helps - feel free to add other suggestions in the comments below. 

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With my journalist hat on I am running a course on how to get ideas for www.journalism.co.uk. It's 6.00pm-9.00pm at Friends House in Euston. London. It's £95 which means if you sell just one article off the back of it then it will more than pay for itself. Book here...

The schools question

Our daughter is just one and a half, so you might think it's a little bit early to worry about this, but all anyone ever seems to want to talk about is schools. I've lost count of the number of people who have asked us if we'll move house (possibly, but not to be near a good school) or if we'll find faith (no way, and even if we did we both believe schools should not be faith based).

Then there are the people you meet at the park, or signing sessions, or through the other parent and child networks, who assume you'll feel the same way. "London is so vibrant," they say, by which they mean multi-cultural, "and when we didn't have kids we really loved going to the theatre and eating food from different cultures, but now we have children our priorities have changed and we want to be somewhere quieter," by which they mean whiter and more middle-class. 

Fine, I don't want small minded racists living near me anyway (or for that matter, non racist people who think a small market town is the height of excitement), though it is particularly galling if you've earmarked them as a potential friend because they too allow their child an occasional biscuit and have heard of Ed Miliband. 

But what isn't fine is that some people seem to think you are practically abusing your children by choosing to stay in London. In Haringey no less, home of riots and child abuse and 160 languages. 

I'd been warned that as your children grow older, the things that drive you and your friends apart are not the differences over demand feeding and routine, sleep training and co-sleeping, each to their own on those, but ideological differences over education, and insinuations that you don't want the best for your child - that you will sacrifice their future on the alter of your own pompous misguided left wing values. 

As if we don't all want the best for our children. I want the best for my child. I want the best for all the children who will be in her local school with her, when it is her time to go to school. And I believe the best way to get the best for them all is to have a comprehensive education for all our children, not just for those who have to go to the shit schools (because that, my friends, is not comprehensive). 

One person I know pointed me to a bit of research she had come across that suggested middle-class parents don't mind their kids going to 'bog-standard comprehensives' because they feel it teaches them a lesson about how to get on with all kinds of people, even those from ethnic minorities, even those who are poor. I'm offended by this. I do not want my daughter to benefit because they are poor for fuck's sake, I want them not to be poor, and above all not to be poorly educated. 

What we'll have to teach her at home I guess, because there won't be any of them at the school she is likely to go to, is how to deal with the holier-than-thou smugness of the kind of people who think we'll be doing the wrong thing by her, by not choosing where to live by catchment area.