premature baby in NICU mummy and daddy can help too.

Mummy and daddy can be involved in the care of a premature baby in the Nicu. Depending how poorly baby is doesn’t mean you cannot help at all or just to sit at the side and watch baby through the incubator and feeling lost like a spare part.Its much better for you if you take an active role as soon as possible. Not all the time will you be able to help but tell the nurses you want to do your part. If they don’t know you want to help they may just leave you at baby’s bedside but become involved even if its just  reading to baby a story singine a sotthing song so he or she can hear your voice or to touch a little finger or hand through the incubator. If mum is too poorly to take photos after baby is whisked off to the intensive care unit. Get dad or a nurse to do it for you baby pictures in the N.I.C.U when baby is settled and be aware some camera flashes can disturb  baby.

Any pictures you can get early on will help to create treasured baby memories from day one. keeping  a couple at home will help you when you are dischaged from hospital go and home for a while until the next timne you visit baby.Some parents are fortunate if a Nicu unit is close to home and some parentd find it difficult keeping up going back and forth to the hospital; all the time its tiring, draining and very stressful.

As baby as to stay behind until well enough to come home. Parents  may also be so frustrated that you cannot hold and cuddle your premature baby just yet.

First cuddles with baby in the NICU

Once you can ask the nursing staff what’s their policy on kangaroo care. Its where you can have skin to skin contact with your baby for up to an hour baby settles into a much deeper sleep on your chest and heart rates settles down too.Its a close relationship time that happens for short periods whilst baby is in the NICU. Baby is placed in direct skin to skin contact on your chest.It helps baby get a deper level of sleep and both you and baby feel closer to each other.Plus less stress for both you and baby.

 being  involved in the care of your early baby, as soon as the hospital staff say you can do. Not only will it help you bond with baby, but you will feel more in control in some of the care that you can give your ever so tiny baby.plus it  relieves some of the stress caused by a traumatic early birth.its quite upsetting at first seeing your little one connected to all the wires etc in the N.I.C.U. room.

 Don’t bottle up your feelings,and ask as many questions as you like even if you forget, nurses can give you good moral support when you need it as well as talking to other members of your family.You will feel a lot better by sharing your built up emotions with others.The whole experience of having a premature sized infant can leave you with feeling out of your depth.At one point you will be fit and ready for discharge but baby may have to stay behind.it can put a lot of burden on the family as you take frequent visit back and forth to the hospital each day.

Dad or a friend can buy a scrapbook to recored every milestone.A milestone is a daily step nearer to going home from the NICU.keep an Early Baby Diary.Record every moment good or bad.every milestone your baby reaches as it is one step further to you taking him/her Finally home.

Relieving some of the stresses of the NICU.

Talk to other mums on the ward.Connect with new friends or preemie babies on facebook You may be surprised, as well other new mums sharing their experience with you,and giving each other moral support, it also can be a way of generating new friends with mums of premature babies,which could even develop lifelong friendships between your premature children.