If you've had a child in the hospital for several weeks/months...

[MomRN]

Someone I know (not close) has a child in the hospital long-term. The little girl (7) suffered severe burns on 60% of her body. It is expected she will be in the hospital for about 2 months.

I have sent a gift and card for the little girl, but would like to send a care package for her parents. They have housing provided by the hospital (hometown is about 1.5 hours away).

If you have spent a significant amount of time as a visitor in the hospital, especially with a child, what would have been helpful?

(If you would like to send her a card or follow her story, you can request the group "Pray for Carmen Schleppy" on facebook)

 

[mysevendwarfs]

One of the nicest things a friend brought us was a small fruit basket. It was so nice to have something healthy nearby and not just junk from the vending machines. It was also wonderful when someone would bring by take-out or something besides hospital fare. Since it sounds like you don't live nearby maybe a gift certificate to a restaurant or local coffee place. There are sometimes places that will even deliver to the hospital depending on where they live. If you are making your own care package I would include stuff like microve popcorn, mints, granola bars, new magazines, crossword, gum, special tea bags (our hospital had fresh coffee, but it was hard to find a nice cup of tea), and other treats. As this is for the parents it will probably be okay, but remember that their child may not be able to eat any of it due to dietary restrictions.

The best gift we had was just knowing people were praying for our little girl. I just loved hearing from people on her carepage and by e-mail (phone calls were hard to return). It gave me great comfort and hope. I will pray for Carmen.

 

[maroo]

Someone I know (not close) has a child in the hospital long-term. The little girl (7) suffered severe burns on 60% of her body. It is expected she will be in the hospital for about 2 months.

I have sent a gift and card for the little girl, but would like to send a care package for her parents. They have housing provided by the hospital (hometown is about 1.5 hours away).

If you have spent a significant amount of time as a visitor in the hospital, especially with a child, what would have been helpful?

(If you would like to send her a card or follow her story, you can request the group "Pray for Carmen Schleppy" on facebook)

Bless her heart! What a horrible thing to go through!

We always appreciated snack type foods, cokes, a cooler to store stuff in, someone to do a load of laundry for us, cards, phone calls, visits to the hospital and gift cards to the local restaurant that may be in the hospital. We have a McD's and Subway in ours and those gift cards helped, because eating out all the time got so expensive. It was also cool when someone would call and say that they will pick up a meal from anywhere and bring it to us. We also enjoyed left overs from holiday type meals or other big meals that they had a lot of food left over.

Also helping at their home - mow the lawn, get the mail, take care of pets, etc...

The main thing, though, that my friend said was to not forget about them when they get home. They thrive off the visits, cards and such while they are in the hospital, but then they get home for the hard part of rehab and people tend to just fall off the map - so I would say keep calling them even at home and see if there is anything you can bring them to lighten the load.

 

[LockShockBarrel]

My cousin has spent literally years over time in the hospital (various issues, then colostomy, then 3 organ transplant, then rejection, then 5 organ transplant, then complications) All the suggestions so far are good. Its just a lot of time waiting...so stuff to take up the time is nice. Books/magazine/puzzle books are good, but can get boring. Consider a pack of cards or a few inexpensive boardgames (not big complicated ones, stuff like checkers or even the travel editions of some games, Target has a good selection) Games would be nice because then the kid would be involved too you know? I also agree on food gift cards or snack stuff that wouldn't normally be found in a hospital. Even a gift card to a nice restaurant that the parents could once the kid is out of the hospital.

 

[daisyduck123]

Yes, she spent Thanksgiving, Xmas, & New Year's in there. (as did I). While in there, she received dozens of gifts and DH & I did receive one we greatly appreciated....

A woman I work with sent us a card & enclosed a set of hospital parking stickers. You can buy parking stickers for $5.00 each....DH & I were doing that every week. Loved it! I was wishing I had more!

One other thing....I wish someone, anyone, would have done something for DD's younger brother (12yo) who was stuck home alone a lot of the time while DH & I were at the hospital. I was often wishing that friends would just stop by, pick him up, & take him to dinner or something. Finally, one time, I Facebooked a friend & asked her if the next time her family was doing something, anything, would they mind swinging by the house & picking up DS.

 

[Singledad]

I literally grew up in the hospital due to my older sister. I once spent a solid 3 months sleeping on a pullout bed in her hospital room. Depending on how long they have been there already, simple things like soap and a shampoo you like.. lotion, clean clothes (as in, someone stopping by and dropping new stuff off, grabbing the dirty stuff to be cleaned... etc.)

outside of the food issues everyone has stated, the thing I remember the most missing is the smells of the outside world. that is why I was saying soap and shampoo that they like. you get sick of the smell of a hospital.

I also second supporting any other kids of the family. can't tell you how many times people would visit and I would barely get a hello.

 

[Mickey'snewestfan]

I agree with the clean clothes suggestion. I'm a single mom, so it's a little different, but the second time my child was in the hospital for an extended period, we came in through the ER. My child had thrown up on me, and I was in those clothes for 3 days straight. People came to visit, but no one thought to ask me what I needed. You could offer to do their laundry, or if they're far away, simply send them a gift of a few soft T-shirts and pyjama bottoms (and clean underwear if you know them well enough!).

The other thing I'd do is to do the leg work of figuring out how to get a decent meal to them. I can almost guarantee that if you send them $ and tell them to buy themselves dinner, they won't, but if you figure out a local restaurant and have something delivered to the hospital so they can eat as a family, they will appreciate it.

Finally, if they're local, I'd offer to pick up a load of library books, and rotate them. Libraries have videos and audiobooks too.

 

[Swmr359]

My brother spent about 2 months in the hospital when we were teens. The best things were food and videos. People were always dropping off meals and one family let me borrow a tv and a bunch a movies. The movies were great, helped me distract my mind from thinking scary thoughts.

Does the little girl have any siblings? If she does make sure you include something for them, siblings feel forgotten sometimes (and then feel guilty about it)

Oh another really nice thing...after spending all day at the hospital we came home to a clean house. You said you weren't close, so this might be something you can't do, but maybe an idea for someone else.

 

[MomRN]

Thank you for all the suggestions. There are several I would not have thought of.... great ideas!

 

[SueM in MN]

There are some rally good suggestions here. In fact, every time I thought of something to post, when I looked at the latest post, someone had beat me to it.
One thing I thought of that I don't think has been mentioned is a travel coffee cup ( and some tea bags if they are tea drinkers) and a small bottle of dishwashing liquid to clean it. You can get coffee in the hospital, but it just doesn't taste the same out of styrofoam cups. And, if they have real china cups, they don't have lids so the stuff doesn't stay warm.

 

[dntd]

My DD was in the hospital for 6 weeks for a broken leg. That was truly unexpected. What we enjoyed was gift cards/meals for my DH at home with the other kids. Small things for DD to entertain herself with, cross words and word search books. I was able to leave the hospital when she was sleeping at night many other parents would leave whenever though I never felt good about that but we lived almost an hour away so I had no back up babysitters. I bought food for the week as food was really expensive. I lived on a cot and would have loved a warm blanket and slippers.

 

[buffettgirl]

also, think of things that are going undone at home - their lawn, pool, service on their cars etc. Offer to do those things. Offer to check their mail or garbage etc.

something else, many large hospitals often have various services in their lobbies like hair and nails etc. Maybe get mom a gift cert to the nail salon for a nice pedicure so she can take a break. Or offer to sit with the child for an hour so mom can escape. I know we were only hospitalized for 5 days but honestly, there were times when I just NEEDED to have a break.