Rule #1

Never wake a sleeping baby!

Remember a few posts ago when I said I had "a mouthful" to say about some of the nurses here? Well I'm glad I waited to post about that, for two reasons: 1) You should never email, text or blog when you're furious about something. Give yourself time to cool off and really reflect on the situation, you might see it differently. 2) Now that we've been here for 3+ weeks, the good nursing experiences have totally outweighed the bad!

Our first week here was rough. We thought we'd be here for one night (hah!) and as the days slipped by our nerves were a little frayed. Obviously, Santi getting an awful staph infection in his blood from the cath or the numerous blood draws, infuriated us from the beginning. We had him home for 10 weeks and kept him perfectly healthy. We even had to deny friends and family the joy of meeting him to ensure he wouldn't be exposed to any illnesses. Then, we bring him here for a routine procedure and boom, 14 days of powerful IV antibiotics and an early Glenn!

So anyway, here are the things that really pissed us off: a nurse waking him up to bathe him at 2am, the same nurse waking him at 3am to weigh him and change his linens, waking him for vitals (do you see the theme here?), nurses poking him 3 or 4 times while trying to draw blood or put in an IV and finally the overall lack of respect for his need to sleep. People (doctors, nurses, housekeeping) are just loud, careless and oblivious that there is a sleeping baby in the room. This is something that still irritates me. Every time there is a shift change I have to ask the nurse not to wake him up for vitals. I understand they have a job to do, but they also have a baby that needs significant rest in order to recover.

To add to our frustration, the majority of his nurses are young ladies who do not have kids and have not been educated on the importance of sleep. They scoff at the idea of delaying their tasks to let him sleep and then they melt when he wakes up smiling and flirting with them. "Wow, he's such a happy baby," they'll say. "Do you know why?" I reply, "because you let him sleep!" There is nothing sweeter than a well rested baby! I can only hope they'll learn and be more respectful of their future patients.