What to do when your baby is sick...

Saturday was a very scary night for me as River was very sick.

I had a sore throat and the start of a cold for a couple of days before and on Saturday morning River woke up very late and very grumpy. When I say woke up, he didn't really, he was just crying in his sleep because his nappy needed changing. I struggled to get him to wake up and he was very grumpy and crying a lot - not like his usual happy self. He hardly took his feed and went straight back to sleep.

This routine carried on all day and by about 6:30pm Carl and I were very worried as he was struggling to wake up and couldn't open his eyes properly. He seemed to be getting worse so I took his temperature, (as I had been doing all day), and it had had gone up from 36.4 to 37.5. 30 minutes later he felt even hotter and so I took it again and it was 38. We put him in the bath to wake him up and cool him down and I immediately phone the NHS Direct who put me straight through to a doctor. The out of hours GP aksed me to bring him straight in.

The bath worked and he woke up and was a lot more responsive than he had been all day and his temperature started to drop. I got him dressed and I made my way over to the hospital with him, but by the time I got there the doctor had left so we went to the A&E at the Childrens Hospital.

They were brilliant and I only had to wiat 20 minutes or so to be seen by the triage nurse. Then instead of making me wait they sent me straight through to a bed in the A&E unit and admitted River to stay overnight to be monitored.

As it was so busy we had to wait in the A&E until 2am for a bed on the ward but the nurses were amazing. I hadn't brought anything with me in my rush and they provided me with nappies, spare baby clothes and when I got to the ward a toothbrush, toothpaste and saline solution for my contact lenses.

River spent most of the night sleeping or breastfeeding and after a dose of Calpol his temperature was back to normal. I, on the other hand was absolutely wrecked! I was also sick and after being up for around 36 hours with him was so tired and run down, I felt terrible!!

We are both much better today, River is over his virus, mine is still hanging around but paracetemol are helping me! I think the most valuable thing I learned this weekend was not to take chances and I'm so glad I phoned the NHS without hesitating. It's always better to be safe than sorry and you should never feel like you may be wasting someone's time. That's what the professionals are there for!