Reply to At what age would you leave your child alone in the hospital?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I have a 2 year old who has been hospitalized twice so far, and also had a stay in the NICU after she was born. For the NICU stay, there were no parent beds, so I went home after I was discharged, and came to visit at regular intervals during the day. She didn't really know if we weren't there, and there wasn't a ton we could do for her, as we could only hold her for short amounts of time. For the two stays as a toddler, either my husband or I was at her side 24/7. I was lucky that my job is relatively flexible so I could take PTO and make up some hours, but it was really hard and I thought often about how I had no idea what I would have done if I had an inflexible job and/or was a single parent. Having been through that, I could see leaving an older elementary kid who would be okay watching movies and might sleep on their own for periods of time, depending on how serious the situation was and how long the stay was.

Genuine question - how do those in difficult circumstances (for example, single parent with other kids, or parents with inflexible jobs) [b]make it work to leave an active, curious toddler in a hospital room alone even for short amounts of time? I have a ton of sympathy for them and know most wouldn't choose that, but I'm having trouble imagining how it would work. How to avoid the toddler pulling out IVs, sneaking out of the room, etc?[/b] I felt like I couldn't even leave to grab a glass of water in case she decided to jump out of bed and follow. [/quote]

I am another former pediatric nurse and we would put a toddler into a special crib called a "high climber". It has very tall sides and prevents the child from climbing out. IV's are splinted and taped heavily to prevent accidental dislodgement. I worked at JHH, and it was always taken into consideration when doing the daily assignment if a child's (especially a toddler's!) parent wasn't staying with them.  They would need much more care with feeding, diaper changes, safety, etc. All things a parent would take care of if there.[/quote]

My DS climbed out of one of those, FWIW.[/quote]

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