New(ish) and future parents tips/tricks thread

Toxxyc said:
Ey man, yeah we're not alone, thankfully! He's in the NICU because he struggled to get his saturation up after birth. He was born from a gestational diabetes mother with a c-section. He swallowed water at birth, struggled to get it all out and then picked up an infection. He's been in there for just over a week now (16:00 today marks 8 days). He simply isn't coming off the oxygen. We was born at 38 weeks, according to our measurements, although the pead now thinks he might have been closer to 37 weeks at the time. There hasn't been a need for CPAP or ventilator yet, but he's on his 3rd course of antibiotics now. They took him off oxygen again yesterday morning and he coped well until late this morning when he desaturated again.

His avg saturation is around 93% now, if I have to guess, but it keeps dropping from time to time. He does recover, but sometimes it takes too long and it's nerve-wrecking experience when that happens. He also had a mild case of jaundice (which I'm not too worried about).

Right now we're there as much as possible. My wife breastfeeds when she's there, and pumps for nighttime feeds when she's not. There's not a shortage of milk yet, so that's good news. We're trying the Kangaroo thing but the pead also said that it's more helpful in preemies, and for him it'll just be comfort, so we just hold him while we're there.

Oh, he also has sinus issues, so that worsens the saturation issue, and he also has apnea, so we have to get a monitor for him (already ordered).

PS I know it's not our fault, but my dudes, it's hard coping with this. I'm struggling to eat, I barely sleep and when I do sleep I dream so vividly I'm awake every half hour. Emotionally I'm a wreck - I just take a look at one of his pictures and I have to choke back tears, even in the office. I can only imagine what my wife's going through - on top of her hormones and everything being all over the place right now.
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It's not going to be easy, parenting never is, you'll worry about every little thing and you won't stop worrying. Thoug you do need to keep your strength up for the little guy he's going to need his dad soon. Hold in there and just keep visiting him as much as possible, talk to him remind him to be strong, you also be strong.
 
scudsucker said:
Intelligent parents have a thermos flask of hot water set up so there is no kettle boiling. And previously measured amounts of formula, in a container or already in the bottles. These two things make night feeds a lot easier.

If you've not grasped these simple steps, I doubt you've done a night feed.
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Yes once you've gotten into the groove of it, but the first few nights you don't. Towards the end I could do a production line run of formula, but in the beginning it was a massive learning curve. Second time around I can hopefully put that knowledge into action again.
 
Must work in shifts.

Father = 6 - 12
Mother = 12 - 6

Mother is still awake and will help father with the 6- 12 shift.
Mother 12- 6 all alone , father fast asleep.:sleep:

Win for father. ;);)
 
Lupus said:
Yes once you've gotten into the groove of it, but the first few nights you don't. Towards the end I could do a production line run of formula, but in the beginning it was a massive learning curve. Second time around I can hopefully put that knowledge into action again.
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Not only that, you can do it while practically still sleeping. And my son didn't drink old milk, or milk that wasn't made with freshly boiled water, took me a while to figure that one out.
 
Toxxyc said:
Ey man, yeah we're not alone, thankfully! He's in the NICU because he struggled to get his saturation up after birth. He was born from a gestational diabetes mother with a c-section. He swallowed water at birth, struggled to get it all out and then picked up an infection. He's been in there for just over a week now (16:00 today marks 8 days). He simply isn't coming off the oxygen. We was born at 38 weeks, according to our measurements, although the pead now thinks he might have been closer to 37 weeks at the time. There hasn't been a need for CPAP or ventilator yet, but he's on his 3rd course of antibiotics now. They took him off oxygen again yesterday morning and he coped well until late this morning when he desaturated again.

His avg saturation is around 93% now, if I have to guess, but it keeps dropping from time to time. He does recover, but sometimes it takes too long and it's nerve-wrecking experience when that happens. He also had a mild case of jaundice (which I'm not too worried about).

Right now we're there as much as possible. My wife breastfeeds when she's there, and pumps for nighttime feeds when she's not. There's not a shortage of milk yet, so that's good news. We're trying the Kangaroo thing but the pead also said that it's more helpful in preemies, and for him it'll just be comfort, so we just hold him while we're there.

Oh, he also has sinus issues, so that worsens the saturation issue, and he also has apnea, so we have to get a monitor for him (already ordered).

PS I know it's not our fault, but my dudes, it's hard coping with this. I'm struggling to eat, I barely sleep and when I do sleep I dream so vividly I'm awake every half hour. Emotionally I'm a wreck - I just take a look at one of his pictures and I have to choke back tears, even in the office. I can only imagine what my wife's going through - on top of her hormones and everything being all over the place right now.

EDIT: Oh, about his saturation, when they took him off first time it spent most of it's time under 90 - so not good. On LIGHT O2 (like 25%), his saturation is at 98~100 all the time, so this is that last stretch, but that's the last bit of stretching we're having so much difficulty with right now.
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If he's not on full blown oxygen, you should be fine, also big difference between a full term birth and pre-term when it comes to lungs. It doesn't sound like there were formation issues, just a bad case of pneumonia which possible the mother had a weakened immune system from battling something and he wasn't fully protected. But, it also just happens, you can never know, kids get sick. They will wean him off and he's not far if he is able to sustain borderline 90. Below 85 is a big concern and sub 80 beginning deprivation. Our son was ready to come home and then caught a bought of infection, delayed us by two weeks and we felt terrible and stressed the whole time. Try to not watch the machine or listen to the alarms, I'm sure any NICU parent knows what I mean.

Also apnea doesn't have anything to do with the lungs, its the reflex of the brain to continue breathing and at times they just stop. You can get a basic angelcare monitor with pad for about R1k I think, those things are very very sensitive and the NICU won't let you take him home without having tested it. Also, please keep in mind in this day and age of loadshedding, the monitors generally have a battery backup, THAT IS CRITICAL for a apnea prone child. Have they given him steroids for his lungs?
 
He's still off everything as of now (no O2, no IV, not even plain air). He didn't get any steroids, pead says he's hanging in there so she doesn't want to go that route if it's not needed. The pead did say though that wife will have to look at steroids during the next pregnancy, if she gets the gest diabetes again, just to be on the safe side.

Wife is with him now, and she says he's on around 95 SpO2 now, so that's fantastic. And yeah, the monitor we're getting is called a Snuza Hero. It clips onto the baby's diaper, and not to the cot, so it's fully portable and doesn't depend on the baby lying on it to work (also meaning it won't go nuts if the baby just rolls off the little pad for whatever reason). It also has a vibrating feature which triggers a waking in the baby if he stops breathing, meaning it solves most apnea issues without even letting you know. They're not even that expensive - I ordered mine for R849 + a spare battery earlier today. We have a normal Angelcare baby monitor for the sound and other things, if needed.
 
Sounds like he's coming out of it. Soon you will be losing your hair like the rest of us............
 
Keep a box of tissues in every room you frequent. You never know what's going to come out of where, at what time, and might have to wipe something away quickly.
 
Sething else we found out by trial and error. Bum rash can be caused by multiple things.

We found our son would get bum rash due to something in most wet wipes. We cycled through all of them until we found a specific brand that worked. Has had zero rash since then while keeping everything else the same.

Its about finding what combination of things works for your baby.
 
aapkop said:
Must work in shifts.

Father = 6 - 12
Mother = 12 - 6

Mother is still awake and will help father with the 6- 12 shift.
Mother 12- 6 all alone , father fast asleep.:sleep:

Win for father. ;);)
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We do shifts, but it starts when we go to bed. My wife sleeps like a rock, so we sleep in the same room at first, then I comfort the little one every time he wakes up and put him back to sleep. Around 1-2 he gets hungry and I change diaper and hand over to wife, and go sleep in spare bedroom. That way we each at least get a good 4 hours sleep, along with a bad few hours. Makes the world of a difference.
 
HeftyCrab said:
We do shifts, but it starts when we go to bed. My wife sleeps like a rock, so we sleep in the same room at first, then I comfort the little one every time he wakes up and put him back to sleep. Around 1-2 he gets hungry and I change diaper and hand over to wife, and go sleep in spare bedroom. That way we each at least get a good 4 hours sleep, along with a bad few hours. Makes the world of a difference.
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Sounds hectic. :eek:
 
HeftyCrab said:
Oh thats a normal night. Not even a bad night.

Its something people never tell you about getting a baby. How bad it can really get. After a few years they seem to forget how bad it can truly get.
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Also the reason I got the snip just after number 2. I don't want to go through all of that again.
 
HeftyCrab said:
Oh thats a normal night. Not even a bad night.

Its something people never tell you about getting a baby. How bad it can really get. After a few years they seem to forget how bad it can truly get.
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Yap, no. My wife won't survive this.... I will be grumpy all the time... and no more hobbies and toys.
 
I struggle a lot with sleeping anyway and used to getting woken up by doggie wanting to pee so at least that won't be too much for me to handle.

The SO is going to struggle since she falls asleep as soon as her head hits the pillow and sleeps like a rock.
 
Don't think name brands are better.

If something doesn't work try something else. every baby different. 2 nephews couldn't use name brand nappies, caused severe rash.

Entry level product of brand is sufficient unless not working. e.g Pampers and Nan range.

Don't use bum cream with pampers.

Give your child the best of your time not your wallet.

Breath

new borns, eat, burp, crap, sleep. if they crying its one of those. If still crying its ok.

monitor fevers but don't panic. ponstan is your friend when they a bit older. when very young tepid water wipe downs.
 
For expecting parents - find out where you can join a "free pregnancy club" type thing. For instance, Dischem has a specific loyalty card (with the expectation of some purchases - R600 or something if I remember correctly), after which you get handed a free nappy bag and bunch of stuff. Discovery Vitality give a very nice hamper. There are more out there.
 
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