Hi ladies, got to say that my hv is really nice, and like him a lot.  He seems to have plenty of time for you and you can ask him anything.   When i was having trouble getting Josh to take his bottles he was great, and thanks to him i pushed my gp to see a peadiatrician, as it turns out he was diagnosed milk intolerent.  All the gp said was that babies do cry and are sick.  He didnt come out with the obvious answers like is the milk warm enough etc.

That was a good rant!! I agree, whenever I take lo to the clinic I always see a different hv, one kept calling her him!!! couldnt she see dd is a little girl! Last time I took lo to get weighed she had dropped down from the line she had been following, the hv sed "oh its cuz she active now" fair enough but my lo is not active! Shes 10 months and lazy lol, she wont crawl, she can stand im just waitin for her first steps, I told hv this and she just ignored me and sed again "its cuz shes active" anyways....... when I got home and looked at the red book she had got los weeks wrong, lo was 41 weeks and she put her down as 43 weeks so infact she hasnt dropped weight at all! gd job I checked!

i did not like mine either he was a cow. she kept saying that i was suffering from depression. hello!!! i had just had a baby and i was sorw from the c-section and i had had lack of sleep who would not be upset and to make it worse i had an in growing toe nail for 10 months cos they could not cut it out cos of the annathic (sorry can not spell that) who would not be upset and p***ed of. and i had me husband mum going on at me. thats bad enough if u no what i mean, and she kept coming round to look at my little boy he is fine good weight good hight eating loads wat more can i say. ahd she was telling me not to give in solids until he was 6 months. well he was 9oz every 2 hours i had to give him somethink else.

they look down at you all the time and then she would say is there ne fink else u want to talk about i was like no y should there be. and then all of sudden i had a miss call on my phone from the bloody hv asking me how i am doing. and i never phoned her back lol cos i am doing fine without her interfering all the time.

they r a waste of time and they all go by the book. like my little boy was above the line and they told me i should feed him less. but i should feed him what i want and what he needs. all babies are different and they all need different things. some babies are bigger some are smaller. its like ppl in this world all differed sizes and antionalites. so babies are the same they come in all different shapes and sizes.

and another things sorry to go on but why oh why oh why do they have the health clinic to go and get baby weighed in such a cold place. and also everytime we have been to get neo weighed he has always picked up somethink bad aint it!!!

I hate them too, they are so patronising! Neither of my girls have seen one since they were each 4 weeks old. If i have concerns they see a doctor. The doctor does their development checks too!!

Hi

You may have tried this already, but try warming the water up a bit, like we do with milk.  My lo hated water at first and i was getting really worried, so I tried warming it a bit, and it worked!!  xxx

Thanks for all the replies.

Feel a bit bad now, cos my HV seems like a really nice person, just really stoopid!!

And....she always says my babies name wrong, even though she asks me every time how to say it. Which just confirms my opinion above...

xx

I too loved my first health visitor she was very easy to talk to and very helpful when I had questions. However she has now gone on maternity leave so not sure who we will see now. My lo has her 8 months development check tomorrow, so guess we will find out then, fingers crossed for another good one can I get that lucky again? To the op you sound as if you are already doing the right things just keep trying to offer the water, my lo will only take little sips at a time so I just keep offering it. Follow your instincts because they seem to be doing you fine rather than the silly "help" you got from your hv.

ok ladies im no hv but i am a mother ive got 6 kids 13,12,11,7,5 and 7months now i didnt really listen to any of my hv and my opnain is go with ur gut feeling and ur baby at the end of the day ur with ur baby all the time u know whats best and if u do get stuck there is plenty of baby site with good advice from other mummys

i loved my first hv she was great could talk to her about anything and she had proper advice for me and even said not to worry with these baby books use you instincts. but i moved earlier this year and hate my new hv's. dont think my hv actually knows lo is with her! had problems with lo's feeding when she was 6 months, she was refusing bottles and health visitor said she needed a minimum of 22-24oz and to stop solids till she on this amount. i couldnt do this everytime she wasnt drinking enough milk she wouldnt know whether she coming or going poor thing. so i got really upset because lo was only having 14oz and refused anymore. so i spoke to someone on the Aptamil website, an online health expert and they said not to worry they only need 16oz from this age and dont worry if not taking that much as they can get top ups from yogurts, cheese and custard and try dropping babies bottles from 4-3 a day and see what happens. this worked a treat and she started drinking more. now she on 2 a day and im not as worried no more because she gets top ups from her food.

babies havent read the manual they dont know what they supposed to be doing. i follow my babies need not there jargon!! xx

My HV is a waste of time too. I'm sorry if there are any hv's on here but in my experience they get all their info out of a government prepared script. They seem to have no advice of their own experiences, just what they read in a book. I don't bother with them. If I am concerned I take my grils to see a doctor. The last time I saw my HV was with dd1 (apart from booking in with dd2 - non optional unfortunately) I was concerned that she was so skinny and not a big eater, her advice was to feed her more?????? Really cos I didn't know you had to that.....

Anyhoo that was the last I saw of her.....thank goodness!!! I look at this way, as long as their ribs aren't showing, they sleep well at night, have ooddles of energy during the day, they will eat/drink something and they have plenty of the right kind of nappies there isn't much to worry about.

Have fun at your signing classes xxx

mine made me cry and then thought i had postnatal depression and started asking me loads of questions. silly woman 

I totally agree!! What a silly woman.... What a stupid thing to say about the water/milk thing!!! Aren't you supposed to be teaching your baby good habits by offering water at meal times?!!! Otherwise they going to be drinking milk with their meals all their lives!!!! The idea of water is to hydrate... the idea of milk is to supply nutrition and calories. What a dope. I say persevere with the water and may be try different cups/beakers if haven't already? If lo is still struggling to have a poo, take to docs and request some lactulose which is completely harmless. It was great for my lo when I was having same probs and now she drinks enough water but just have to offer it reglarly throughout the day.. she only takes a few sips a time Hth xxxxx

Ps. I think baby signing is a great idea Go for it x

I totally agree!! What a silly woman.... What a stupid thing to say about the water/milk thing!!! Aren't you supposed to be teaching your baby good habits by offering water at meal times?!!! Otherwise they going to be drinking milk with their meals all their lives!!!! The idea of water is to hydrate... the idea of milk is to supply nutrition and calories. What a dope. I say persevere with the water and may be try different cups/beakers if haven't already? If lo is still struggling to have a poo, take to docs and request some lactulose which is completely harmless. It was great for my lo when I was having same probs and now she drinks enough water but just have to offer it reglarly throughout the day.. she only takes a few sips a time Hth xxxxx

Ps. I think baby signing is a great idea Go for it x

I couldnt stand any of my health visitors either!!! i never felt comfortable asking asking questions as they seemed so stupid...

i have twins and one would say " god how do u cope!!" and "how is ur scar?" even though i dodnt have a c section!! and "i guess ur mum helps a lot" well no actually its just me and my husband!! why all the stupid questions!!

then when they come out the hospital one hv would say thomas had jaundice then the next hv  would say no thomas hasnt got it lucas has...i am a first time mum and i was soo worried!! i also had an infection in my stitches i knew smth was worng..the first hv said "oh thats normal" but then the next one a week later said "why du leave it so long its got worse now!!"

i never found any of them helpful at all, just a pain in the ass

my rant over too!!

Was speaking to my health visitor today cos Im worried by baby is not drinking enough and her stools are really hard. She suggested I give her milk in a cup instead of a bottle. Right then. And hows that gonna help? She does drink from a cup already but tends to drink more from a bottle so changing things will just make her drink less. So HV was like 'oh yes, I see your point'.

Then she asks why I give her water at mealtimes instead of milk. I said cos she drinks all the milk and fills herself up, then wont eat the food. I thought at 8 months food is quite important? She was like ' oh yes, I see your point'.

Then thirdly, I told her I was taking baby to babysign classes and she thought this was unnecessary as 'baby should start to talk at about 14 months' so I shouldnt worry about it. Hello? thats the point of babysign, so that they can communicate what they need before they start to talk.

Im a first time mum and dont really know too much about babies, but some of it is just common sense. Think my HV should learn some!

Rant over.