can my friend make a formal complaint about her health visitor?

[fiffle]

My friend and i had our babies within a couple of weeks of each other, but she is bottle feeding and i am breast feeding. normally we take our babies to be weighed together but i was busy yesterday so she went without me.

Anyway, she has just rang me in floods of tears as the health visitor has apparently had a massive rant at her today, telling her she must stop giving her son a bottle when he wakes at night and even wrote as much in her child health record. (her son is almost 7 months old)

Well, he has now been awake for the last 2 hours really screaming for his bottle and getting himself into a bit of a state and my friend is in a state too. usually he sleeps from7pm til 12, has a bottle, then goes back to sleep til 7am, but my friend just didn't know what to do after what the health visitor said to her.

i have two sons but have never formula fed so i dont know if it's any different but with a breastfed baby you feed them when they are hungry, surely the same applies for a bottle fed baby?

personally i think what the health visitor has said is disgusting. i could understand her suggesting cutting down how much he feeds at night and slowly weaning off that way, but instead she has had a huge go at my friends and made her feel like she is a bad mother for feeding her baby at night.

for now i have told my friend to get her baby a bottle a ignore the health visitor, and have offered to go to the office with her tomorrow to make a complaint. i just want to know if anyone else has had a problem lie this?

 

[rory83coyotes]

Tell you friend to give a bottle. Mine is 12 months and still wakes 1 or 2 times a night. your health visitor is an idiot. If the baby is hungry feed them. And yes I would make a complaint. She might have gently suggested to try other methods to calm baby and slowly wean off of night feeding but no need to make her feel like a bad mother. Thats just rude and uncalled for. i wouldn't be going back. Aren't health visitors optional there? (i'm in the states- not really sure on that one)

 

[ProudArmyWife]

Wow how horrible. My first didn't drop her night feed till 10+ months. If your baby is hungry you feed it wether it's breast or bottle.

 

[fiffle]

i know it is horrible, i know the scheduled check ups are pretty much mandatory but the weigh-ins are pretty much just "turn up if you feel like it", my friend and i wont be going to that office again that's for sure! there's another weigh in at a different office on a wednesday we're going to take the boys too from now on.

i told my friend to put in a complaint, she phones the office and the manager apologized to her and said she'd have a word with the hv in question.

i just think it's disgusting that people who are supposed to offer help and advice can make someone feels like that while spouting so much drivel!