Is it normal for parents to supervise a child in hospital with an eating disorder?

[OwlBeThere]

Hi,
im new to this group, but not MN as a whole. My 15 year old daughter has recently been admitted to my local hospital due to her ED. The hospitals have said that someone needs to stay with her at all times due to her purging etc when left alone, but they are saying we need to do this as parents. We have 3 other children at home and jobs. I’m currently on leave but this stay looks like it may be several weeks at least, is this the norm?! How did others cope with life outside of the hospital?
obviously I want what is best for my daughter and in an ideal world I would stay as long as it takes, but I’m so stressed about my other children (they are all younger than my daughter) and my job.
any help/advice would be so great, thanks!

I'm sorry you are going through this, it's very hard.
We are a couple of weeks out of a few weeks stay. I stayed with her the entire time, supervised meals accompanied her to the toilet and ensure she wasn't using calories pacing. It was the most exhausting mentally destroying few weeks.
I had to take unpaid leave from work, I'm still off now and my husband had to fill the gaps at home. I have other children to and it was the hardest being away from them when I never have before. But I also couldn't leave her in hosptial. There were other children on the ward that didn't have parents with them all the time, especially older teens.
I don't have all the answers but I hope you get things sorted in time, I really do feel for you how stressful this is. And it comes after a really stressful build up to going into hospital.
I was really well supported on here by some really lovely people xx

Thank you for your reply, I’m just absolutely shell shocked at the moment. I don’t want to leave her either, I just don’t know how we’re going to manage this.

No it is not right but I often had to.

Eventually the consultant said she needed meal supervision because she was pouring her meal replacement away when unsupervised and she lost weight in hospital . Even when sectioned and one- to-one nursing she managed to purge.

You can’t be expected to be there for every meal. Sometimes it is important to look after yourself and the rest of your family and take the opportunity while she is in hospital and safe. It is hard but I have seen some patients find the horror of being in hospital helps bolster their motivation to begin to eat again.

Thank you. I can only do my best and hope for the best. ❤️

We would get an RMN to come and 1:1 them. Parents can’t be expected to supervise all the time. It’s too much. Having said that the agency RMN’s we’ve had are as useful as a chocolate tea pot.

I am old but had an ED when I was young. Yes somebody does need to be with your daughter for the whole time. I was not ill enough to be hospitalised but I know all about how devious people can be to avoid eating. Do you have any relations that you could trust to take a stint either at the hospital or at home with your other children? My husband and I did the daytime shift when one of our grandchildren was in hospital with a very bad chest infection.
I wish you and your daughter well.

I’m really sorry this is happening to your family.

The hospital stay is hard enough without other children and a job.

I was very surprised that the hospital were surprised when I said it was a struggle for someone to be there all of the time.

As someone else said, lots of other children were unsupervised but they wouldn’t allow ED children to be. You will hopefully find in time they will let you leave for an hour or so.

This will all seem daunting and impossible at the moment. Are the staff on the ward supporting you and are an ED team involved. They should be supervising at least one meal a day.

Have they told you it will be several weeks or like me did you go down a google hole?

Others on here have very recent experience so please keep talking. We know how hard this is and we know right now it seems impossible, but you will get through this.

Not really, my dad is around, but he’s old. I have friends who will help with the childcare so that’s less of an issue, my job is the main worry. I’ve spoken ti my line manager who is spectacularly unhelpful, but will wait to see wha the big bosses think.

They said it’s likely to be at least 2 weeks as they’d like her to restore 7lbs before they’ll let her home and at the moment she’s still losing.

How are you doing @OwlBeThere

I just saw someone mention inpatient on another thread and it reminded me of you. I hope you’re ok and home?