to be really upset my baby probably won't be home for Christmas?

[SunOverStars]

DS was born 4 days ago - first baby. He was 8 weeks early, but each day up until today has been doing incredibly well. He is off all his monitors, out of incubator, in an open crib, but not eating well.

He is up to an ounce and a bit every 3 hours but all through NGT - he only had half out of a bottle after sucking for a solid hour.

I had really high hopes that he'd make it home soon, but the doctor came by and very dismissively said 'Nope, he's a boy. They take much longer. 2.5-4 weeks. Probably 4.' And then left

A family member close to me who had twins at 31 weeks (they were in hospital until near due date) said 'Get over yourself. He is doing much better than mine. We won't save a place for you at Christmas.'

AIBU to think she's a right cowbag and should be supporting me at this time?

Hey SunOverStars,

Congratulation on the birth of your DS.

Just to add another positive outcome, I had a 33 weeker born 11 days before Christmas. We were told to aim for his due date (end of Jan) for getting him home. We spent Christmas day with him in SCBU. It was as lovely as it could be - pressies from us, a gorgeous gift from the midwives by his cot, family visits etc.

We got him home on the 29th Dec a full month before his due date as it turned out. He suddenly seemed to turn a corner with feeding etc. One of the SCBU staff told us as we were leaving that they always advise parents to aim for the due date, but in reality it's often much quicker.

His first 'official' Christmas the following year was brilliant and felt much more special too.

I hope you get him home very soon.

monkeyfacegrace, my daughter was born 7 weeks early on 25th Nov three years ago - and we were also released on the evening of 19th Dec!

OP - he sounds as if he is doing well. Doctor was being a bit negative or may have wanted you to understand it won't be a week, but went about it the wrong way. Your relative is, indeed, a cowbag. It's not a competition and she of all people should understand what you are going through.

Like you we had just concluded a week before Christmas that DD would not be home. However, came in the next morning to find that she had apparently 'pulled out' her NGT overnight so we were to try without. This was quite unlikely as she had never shown any sign of noticing it, and coincidentally another 3 babies in the same room had allegedly done that the same night. Very oibviously the staff had a massive pre-Christmas clearout to get all that possibly could go home able to. Two days later we were home.

My friends whose babies weren't able to come home actually have very fond memories of a very special first christmas. The night staff had dressed all the babies up as Santa and taken photos secretly and done footprints to make cards for the parents from their children, each baby had a stocking and the parents actually enjoyed the company of the other parents experiencing same thing. Remember - this is an 'extra' Christmas you weren't expecting, you will still have another first Christmas next year doing the traditional thing.

Will be thinking of you and hope he gets the idea of sucking soon and is home quickly, whether before of after 25th - it's just one day.

Morning SoS.

I second the other poster who said about being there as much as much as you can to do feeds. If you are confident in your son's ability to take a whole bottle make sure you point it out to the staff. You might even 'encourage' him to pull it out and they may not put it back. My son pulled his out all the time and one day they just decided to leave it.

Your posts are bringing back so many memories. This is such an emotional time to have a baby in hospital. Will be thinking of you and your little family.

Yanbu. When I had ds in hosital for an op (aged 6 wks) they were always changing the discharge date, and I stopped getting excited about a particular day. Then, when I was resigned, the consultant suddenly chucked us out. Relative sounds insensitive, perhaps she didn't mean to.

So pleased you are taking photos. Congratulations on your new baby.

Doctors have to be cautious.

I have photos of ds looking like a tiny rat, a tiny tiny thing in an overgrown vest in an incubator, hooked up to tubes. He looked like a poster boy for a Blue Peter appeal. He is now a keen rugby player.

If he had to be in hospital at all in his childhood, I was glad it was when he was too young to remember it. It will all be fine.

Well,your relative sounds horrible.

But you know, this is all extra time with him in a way.

He should be having another 8wks in you, so why wouldn´t he still need those 8wks iyswim.

Mine was born 12wks early & was in for 8.

The minute you take him home, you´ll forget all of this.

YANBU, but as everyone else here has said, he's doing really well and he's in the best place for the time being.

In response to some of the other comments regarding lazy nursing staff:

As you may have noticed, NICU/SCBU's are busy places. There is a nationwide cot shortage so staff have no ulterior motive in keeping your baby any longer then necessary.

It is quite likely that your baby was bottle feeding very well in the day, because he was allowed to rest by being tube feed at night. Sleep is absolutely critical for premmies. The babies soon each a stage where they much prefer bottle feeds to tubes and so then they will be solely bottle fed and it is very rewarding for everyone when they get to that stage.

Please do not encourage your baby to pull out its NG tube. If the baby needs it, then it will only have to be repassed and that isn't the most pleasant of experiences.

SunOverStars - your baby also needs his energy for other things like growing. It's probably a good thing that he doesn't do longer than 15 minutes on the bottle.

Insensitive comment from your relative but you need to take stock.You have a beautiful son who despite being born premature is doing well. This Christmas maybe spent in hospital but next year won't be as you will be with your son. There will be plenty of parents on that ward who won't be so fortunate.

GAG- I am well aware of the nursing shortage and the fact that most nurses are doing a brilliant job in difficult circumstances. But it is a fact that a SCBU nurse looking after four babies hasn't got time to spend 40 mins on each of their feeds. And that a newborn baby is not likely to take a full bottle within a time limit at fixed intervals. So it may be that mum finds he can actually manage the feeds at his own pace, and put on weight.

And the tube passing isn't pleasant, but in the grand scheme of things it's not too bad. My son regularly pulled his out, once four times on a single shift. Maybe I didn't express it well but I just mean that SoS will know her own baby and what he is capable of best. No mum is going to put her child through unpleasant procedures without good reason.

Congratulations on your lovely boy xx

Bit different, but when DS1 was in hospital as a baby, a thoughtless SHO in A&E told me he would be out in ten days. I clung to that, and had a mini breakdown when, on day 9, a consultant said no, who told you that, he's here for at least 6 weeks. Better to err on the side of caution IMO. In the end we were out after 4 weeks.

Congratulations
you are not being unreasonable what helped me was to keep remembering that this doesn't go on for ever and soon you will be taking your lovely new baby home.
It is really hard though having a new baby unwell in hospital, your posts are bringing back unpleasant memories too here though I perhaps should point out that it might not be all lovely in hospital.
I think I have a wee bit of PTSD about my ds first Christmas after nearly 3 months in hospital it was hideous, firstly I'd wanted him to wear something special and had left it out but it turned out to be the one and only time a nurse dressed him and she stuck a dirty old vest on which looked a bit strange, it couldn't really be changed because of all the tubes/lines (and I know isn't important in the grand scheme of things) but as I walked in and saw what she had done she came in and said

'I tried giving some of the EBM you left but oh no he wasn't having any of that, he really didn't like it so I gave a bottle of formula and he lapped it up he really loves that stuff'

queue me muttering to dh all day (even if he did love it she didn't need to say it like that)

finally they had some food for us which was great but the same nurse came up as soon as it was put out and clearly she wanted to get everyone moving along so she grabbed a jug of soup and poured it ALL over everyones meals

(didn't really matter because the food wasn't cooked anyway!)

I've gone all sad now sorry to hijack your thread but I did just want to say it might not be all santa photos etc etc

Congratulations!

I think you are absolutely NBUR at all- you have just had a baby in non ideal circumstances so you are perfectly entitled to feel a bit upset, vulnerable and sad.

None of those things mean that you do not know how lucky you are and posters who are suggesting that you do not are being incredibly unfair to you.

I don't have any experience of this situation but I would say Christmas is still 3 weeks away but don't give up hope - think positive. Mind yourself and be kind to yourself.

My DS is one week old today and he is an absolute dote-so from one new mum to another I wish you lots of cuddles and special times with your new son.

B xx

When DD was in hospital (also born 8 weeks early), one day a consultant came round and said we'd probably be in for another 3 weeks, the next day they decided she could come home the day after!

Hopefully you will be home for Xmas, but if not, it shouldn't be long after.

Also, I don't want to offend you in the slightest, but 4 days after birth, and a premature birth, your hormones are probably all going totally mad so maybe your relative didn't mean to come across so nasty when she was talking to you. If you see what I mean, you might be a tiny bit over-sensitive. But perfectly understandably!

Look after yourself as well as your new baby, buy some nice hand cream because that gel in the wards will really dry out your hands in this cold weather! x

SunOverStars, sorry, I recently changed name and hadn't set up the new profile, its all there now though. The one thing I didn't mention was that ds was only 3lb 7oz born, so is tiny in the first pic.

I had DS2 2 weeks ago at 32+5 as I had sudden severe pre-eclampsia. He weighed 3lb 8oz so a bit smaller than your DS. It is literally only the last couple of days that he has been taking anything much from a bottle but last night and today (have been at hospital since 10 this morning) he has taken all his feeds by bottle and they are talking about him possibly coming home at the weekend.

2 weeks ago the thought that he would be home for christmas just wasn't possible so I resigned myself to me,DH and DS1 (who is nearly 6) spending christmas in NICU but he has surprised us all. Of course it could all go wrong again before the weekend but maybe this will give you some hope that when they decide to do things it can happen very very quickly.

Huge congratulations on his birth and be gentle on yourself.

glass he is lovely and looks very similar to DS in his pic

Congrats iheart and fabulous news!

Today he moved up to Room 4 (the room right before discharging home) and he had 2 feeds from bottle, 2 mixed half tube / half bottle, and 2 in tube.

His nurse from Room 1 - where he was from birth til today - said she thinks he will be home much sooner than doctor said.

Sun, he sounds like he is doing very very well, congratulations. I have a friend who's just had a 7wk preemie, so am anxious for you as well.

All my best wishes for you all x

I'm another one who can post a happy tale of an early baby doing well! We were in NICU then SCBU with my DD, born at 31+3 and 2lb 8oz.

We weren't there for Christmas, but Father's Day. The staff were amazing and made a huge fuss. The babies all had cards for their daddies with a photo and a footprint and they were all dressed in best clothes.

Your son will feed when he's ready & come home when he's ready. If you are there on Christmas Day, it will be very special indeed and there will be loads of photos and memories.

SunOverStars,

That is great news ! Welll done your little fella.

Here's to a happy and sleep deprived Christmas !

SunOverStars, that's excellent news! I posted in your other thread re getting home times, but also wanted to say that though your relative was awful and insensitive I can also see where she might have been coming from, in that without playing NICU top-trumps, the comparisons to your own experience can be hard.

For eg in our last week in SCBU there was a woman there whose baby was born at 34 weeks who was complaining bitterly about how hard it was to still be in hospital after 10 days. For us who'd been to hell and back not knowing if DS would make it at all, and had been in hospital 9 weeks by that point, it was a bit hard to take, especially as it didn't at that point look as if we'd be home any time soon (as it turns out in the end we were both headed home on the same day, a week later!). I can think of various other insensitive things that friends have said about their newborn DCs that have made me want to burst into tears. Not saying that you were insensitive, but just that some people bear pretty deep scars from their child's time in NICU even if they are apparently 'through' to the other side.

However, I do know really that it's meaningless to make comparisons, so your relative should certainly have had the sensitivity and maturity to keep her mouth shut!

Fabulous news SunOverStars. Fingers crossed for Christmas.

I have been thinking about your relative and her insensitive comment. A friend of mine recently had a baby at term, a big healthy baby. But she didn't have a pleasant birth experience. And all my friends are talking about it saying what a shame for her. But I can't feel any sympathy for her. And I find it hard to be pleased for people when they have healthy full term babies. I know that's awful and I'm not proud.

But I was thinking, maybe the relative is thinking you or your baby haven't had as hard a time as she and her baby had, so she's just finding it hard to be there for you.

Not sure if that makes much sense, but I just mean maybe she's still dealing with her own issues and so didn't mean to be a cow...

Oh that's good, Sun. They change so fast from day to day at this stage, I don't think there is a lot of point in anyone making predictions. But I know how much a negative comment from some passing medical person can affect you!

Ds2 was born at 32 weeks on the 12th Dec (3yrs ago), weighing 4lbs9. I went in on the 23rd to stay overnight in the "mum&baby" room. He was still tube-fed but well enough that I could have his cot in with me in that room. The nurses all got worried that I thought I was taking him home the next day, and I had to reassure them that I just wanted the chance to sleep next to my baby, and to sit and cuddle him for as long as I liked without worrying about my lift home.

Anyway, that night ds2 decided to latch on and feed, for the first time. He glugged away for ages, it was gorgeous. And then had another bf at the next feed. I didn't try to wake him for the next one, thought he'd be too knackered. But he had a feed in the morning too, I still remember his blissed-out face. Blimey, it's 3 years ago and my boobs are aching just from thinking about it!

Anyhow, the docs decided we could go home that day, Christmas Eve (with ds2's tube in). Admittedly, part of their reasoning was that he was the third baby I'd breastfed and tubefed, but still. It does happen!

That was the best Christmas present. I spend the day on the sofa cuddling my teeny baby and watching the Christmas chaos, it was great.

Sorry to go on, fond memories of what was essentially a horrendously difficult time. Hang in there, it will get better.

There's still a long time between now and christmas (in baby time!) both my children started off in scbu and as some other posters said, one minute I was traipsing down to scabu from my ward, then out of the blue they were with me..... can you imagine christmas next year? what a great age, you'll be trying to keep him from playing with the tree decorations, and chewing wrapping paper...

My little one was 7 weeks early and we kept getting told not to expect him home before his due date. He weighed 4.9 lbs. In the end, we got him home after just 2 weeks. They were happy for him to come home once he went 48 hours without tube feeds. Fingers crossed your little one will be home with you for Xmas x

Hi Sun

Just wondering how you, DP and DS are, hope all is well and am keeping my fingers crossed that ds is feeding properly now

Take care xx