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Preemies
what makes a good nicu nurse
i'm doing a blog post on this topic and would like some of your experiences.
what are things that you liked, disliked that they did? what did they do to go the extra mile? did you have any nurses you requested not to have ever again, if so what did they do?
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Re: what makes a good nicu nurse
LIKE: A nurse that takes the time to talk to you and educate you on what is going on w/ your LO. Is professional, but still knows how to keep the situation "light" i.e. a joke here & there, acts like a friend/ family member
DISLIKE: Attitude of superiority, snippy, treats you like you don't know how to handle LO, especially after you're a NICU veteran (been there over 30 days).
I don't have a lot of time but here are a few:
LIKE:
-knowledgeable and educates you without making you feel dumb :-)
-talks to you, asks you how you are doing, smiles when sees you
-encourages you to play "mommy", lets you dress baby, asks if you would like to take temperature, etc.
DISLIKES:
-We had a nurse where everything was an emergency and she was stressed. Not good for us.
This exactly. We still keep in touch with a few of B&E's nurses because they were that wonderful, but some of them, well - i actually told the charge nurse one day that a certain nurse was never to be assigned to my children again. Most were in between. The only traits I'd have to add for great nurses are patience (with the parents AND the children) and compassion. I have found that these things are innate - either you have it or you don't and there's no faking it.
Well for me right now it is how supportive they are towards my breastfeeding relationships with the twins. I have one nurse that could care less about me trying to put the babies to the breast to practice, even if they are showing signs that they will try. She also barely lets me hold them. I get that they need to rest and grow but if they get held for 1 hour out of 24 then I doubt that is hurting them and in fact they need to know their mommy is there and to have snuggles! Okay, now I am getting upset again! I think she is their nurse again today, too
The other nurses are very supportive and encouraging and they stick around to make sure I am doing things right and that the babies are latching correctly, etc. They also make sure I get to hold the babies for an appropriate amount of time!
Brady Phoenix, 8.29.09
Claire Zoe, 10.26.10
Positives:
*Give updates without you asking and explain things to you
*Take time to get to know you/your lo (one nurse remembered us talking about our dog, encouraged us to take home several of DS's nicu blankets for the dog, and the next day has a onesie with puppy prints on it on DS)
*Assist/check on bf'ing
*Give advice, not instructions, based on other nicu mom's experiences
*Remind/tell moms that it is OK to go home and rest!!
Negative:
*The opposite of the above
*Tell you to stop looking at LOs chart (we did this because she wasn't giving us any info - and its my baby, i can look at his chart all i want...makes me wonder what she wrote!)
positives:
taking time to console him when he was upset.
Getting to know us
Asking our opinion about Robbie ("is this normal?" "What's his favorite position?" "Does he like to be snuggled this way")
Explaining what they're doing, tests, procedures.
Inviting us to do anything possible (diaper changes, temps, feedings)
Encouraging BFing
Smiling at us and the baby
negatives:
Being rough with the kids, not taking time to be soothing when doing things like diaper changes or temp taking that upsets them.
ignoring our concerns
not giving him a chance to recover from an episode and just cranking up the oxygen.
constant negativity and frowning
Ignoring requests w/o explanation.
The one nurse I had banned from Robbie was a total downer. One of those things where everything seemed like a chore. At one point I asked to have his sticky tab that held his cannula on replaced. she just kept putting it off and kept putting it off and kept putting it off. I asked several times. Finally at shift change, the next nurse did it (right after I asked, of course) and it turned out he had a huge skin infection under it. All those hours, this thing was eating into his face and she was ignoring me. I could have strangled her.
The only nurse I truly lost my temper with was the one who called me at home and didn't right away say "everything is okay" then when Is aid "IS HE OKAY?" acted like I was insane to be worried. she was calling to tell me she was putting an IV in for sugery that I hadn't approved yet. I told her to wait because I was on my way into the hospital and wanted to discuss some things with the doctor before I consented. She kept pushing and pushing saying it had to be done RIGHT THEN. I finally snapped that we weren't on HER schedule and she was just going to have to deal with it. It was longer than that, but we had words anyway. But basically, feeling like I had no control at all was my biggest things.
There were nurses who always made me feel like I was part of the team, and there were nurses who made me feel like the enemy.
My Blog
Positives
Negatives
There was only one NICU nurse I didn't care for, but it was just a personality thing and nothing big enough that I requested to not have her again. The best nurses took time to explain things to us and you could tell they truly cared about the babies they were working with.
Our 2 favorite nurses (weekend and weekday) were the 2 that made me feel like they loved Ryan almost as much as I did. Since I could not be there all of the time, it was nice to feel like the person caring for him would do as good of a job as I would have. They also did all of the things mentioned before like let me do cares, bathe him, support my bfing (our weekend one was awesome at this!!!), one nurse read to him at night when I wasn't there, give advice, explained things, let me call anytime with out acting annoyed at all, showed me all x-rays and blood gas results, and so on.
We didn't have any nurses we did not like, even though we had favorites, but there was one nurse in training following his normal daytime nurse that we were not happy with. She was very loud and not careful. Ryan was super sensitive to noise, (so much so that there was a sign on his crib and his door was always shut) but she would bang things around and make such a racket. His o2 levels always dropped when she was doing his cares.
ditto triciajoy.
We've had excellent nurses and one or two marginal ones.
good qualities include:
asking you about your baby's habits/preferences
encouraging you to participate in care
breaking down medical information
bad characteristics include:
not introducing themselves (ugh)
insisting on doing things that parents can and want to do (change diapers, blankets, etc.)
not following feeding instructions
I asked that one nurse not be reassigned when she refused to use my fresh milk because she had "already defrosted some."
Rowen Alexander born 10 weeks early 1/28/07
www.4wquestions.blogspot.com
We had a few nurses who were amazing. They would explain everything to us but also realized we were not stupid. They encouraged my baby and spent time with her. They left us alone with her and encouraged our participation in everything.
We had one nurse who told us not to follow the doctors orders because they were "unusual". We were told we could feed ad lib, so I said I would watch for hunger cues and BF when DD was hungry. She told me I should really stick to the 4 hour feeding schedule because she was too young. That is NOT what the doctor said. She also always would do diaper changes and temp readings and things I was there to do. I would have to ask to do things.