AIBU re: sending your newborn to the hospital nursery?

[coraltoes]

A good friend of mine has given birth in a private london hospital. I popped in yesterday to visit her, on what is was day 2 of her stay there post CS. I have to say what an amazing place it was, but i was left feeling a bit cold about something and wondered if I was wrong to?

She looked well rested, and I asked how the days and nights were going, as god knows newborns can be all over the place with their sleep and feeds. Her reply surprised me. She had been sending him to the nursery to sleep at night, from about 8pm with them bottle feeding him (she has chosen not to BF) through the night when he needs it. She did this from day 1.

Now, it is the kind of place that would help you in the night by your bed if you needed it, so she wouldnt have to make up bottles whilst struggling to walk with a scar etc. So I was a bit "hmmmmm" about not even letting your newborn sleep near you on his first night in the world, so you can get some sleep. If you had laboured for 2 nights i can see the appeal but her Csection was scheduled, and took place at the start of the day.

What do you guys make of it? Would you use the same service? Maybe i'm being a bit precious!

Your toddler has had the time to learn fear. There is masses of difference in emotional development between a newborn and even a baby of just a few weeks. Of course staying with mum is preferable, but staying with a well rested and relaxed mum is surely even better. One thing new borns can pick up on very effectively is negative emotions / stress in their mothers, and this can stress them out.

It isn't just in the mother's interests that time in the nursery can be a good thing. For some mums it isn't an option, or necessary, or even desired, but that doesn't make them any better mums. Which, by saying the idea is pretty shit, selfish, and other things mentioned in this thread, is implied.

Just FYI skin to skin is effective with the dad too, believe it or not. Worth knowing, if you're a stressed mum of a new born and need a break :)

To be clear, my opinion did not cover those whose babies need to be away, ill children, ill mothers etc. OP's circumstances did not seem to suggest this.

Sorry OP, I was unfair to call you jealous. But you did sound judgmental in your first post, sorry. Underneath it all there is a current of you thinking you'd do it better. Honestly, get cut open and then comment, please!!

See - controversial - but Im not sure I get on board with this 'it doesnt make you a better mother'. So no matter how you behave towards your child, whether you prioritize your needs or theirs, all mothering is equal...hmmmm

No, all mothering is not equal - that's a ridiculous conclusion to draw from my statement. But the health and well being of a new mother is as important as that of the baby. A mother who is made to or chooses to run herself ragged during the first few days through a misplaced notion of doing what is best for the baby is doing no-one any favours.

But surely you know as a mother of a newborn, a full night sleep is not on the menu? Being close to the mother is better for the baby.... Sure, its a balancing act - if you are suffering with severe PPD and lack of sleep exacerbates your symptoms then on balace a night in the nursery, although not optimal may be the best option. But in the OP's circumstances? Surely this is an extrapolation of 'happy mum= happy baby' argument? Well, no, actually. As a newborn being close to the mother is best. Yes, lack of sleep is utter torture but part of the deal surely....

why put up with utter torture if there is a night nanny available? I wouldn't

museliqueen, that doesn't allow for the effects of major surgery (or reflect that babies have two parents). Is it only PPD that entitles you to rest? I agree with whoever said upthread that a C-section is the only major surgery where people tell you to stop whining and get on with it: even after a very trivial laparoscopy I got better care and support than lots of women get after sections. It's not bad mothering to take account of your own needs.

And yes, it is utter torture, and if you can get out of it why not? No-one's going to give you a medal.

^yup, there are no medals at all in mothering. Shame really.

I'd get at the most a bronze if there were medals, deffo not gold. I didn't sacrifice myself enough

Agreed Downandoutnumbered - its a balancing act. And a CS is a major op (i speak from experience). Sure you have had a CS, and you are tired, im not trying to minimise that. But given all of the important stuff that is going on with the baby I think that keeping your baby close rather than sending it to the nursery is preferable. And I suspect that at a private London hospital, its more likely that a night bell may actually be answered...

What strikes me is that, so fearful of not being 'judgmental' its practically impossible to say x or y is best for a baby without being jumped on. I see it in the BF v FF debates. Its up to a mother to weigh up what to do in her circumstances, but that doesnt mean that a particular choice really is the best for the baby - even if the mother doesnt chose to do it. To sum up, OP YANBU

It might not be best for the baby, but it isn't going to damage it either, and it may well be best for the mother. It might actually help her to be a better mother over the next few weeks. I can't be the only mum who finds that they are a much better mother if they get a break regularly? And if there ever was a time where you needed a couple of hours sleep and rest, after pushing another human being out of your body/having major surgery, this would surely be it?

You could reverse your argument Easily - It may not be best for the mother, but it isnt going to damage her either and it may well be the best for the baby...

Agreed EasilyBored. The question with parenting is not "are you doing this stage perfectly?" but "are you doing the best job you can over the long haul?". It may not be the best for the baby in the long run if you half-kill yourself trying to do what's absolutely "best" at any given stage - if you don't rest and recover at the beginning that may contribute to PND later, which will affect the bond with the baby for months.

museliqueen, you say very glibly that it isn't going to damage the mother either - but actually I seriously thought about killing myself at one stage out of sheer sleep deprivation. I certainly went to bed hoping I would never wake up. I think it would have been quite damaging both to me and my baby if I'd done it. So I got a night nanny for a week when he was 9 months: it may not have been "best" for DS in the short term but it made all the difference to me in the longer term.

Sleep deprivation can be very damaging. Would it be best for the baby if a mother who was utterly and totally exhausted from labour, birth and lack of sleep dropped her baby? Or fell asleep feeding it and smothered it? Not to mention that lack of sleep could lengthen her recovery period after the birth. There is a reason sleep deprivation is used in torture.

When I had my babies 25 and 22 years ago, in a normal nhs hospital you weren't allowed to have the babies beside your bed at night time. They all had to go into the night nursery, if your were bf the nurse would come and get you. I had c.sections with both of them and was in hospital for 7 days as was the standard practice in those days. I bottle fed them both so the nurse fed them at night so I could get some much needed sleep. They certainly didn't/haven't suffered any long lasting bonding problems due to this!!!!!

Down - in those circumstances - no. Obviously (as Ive said) PND/ feeling suicidal obviously the balance tips. Im talking normal sleep deprivation. Not ill babies, mental illess etc. In most circumstances, for most babies, it will be better to stay with the mother.

The point is that I wasn't mentally ill, I was just utterly shattered (witness that as soon as I did get some sleep I was fine). Different women have different breaking points and it's perfectly reasonable to take preventative action to protect yourself before you actually reach the stage of being ill or suicidal. As I aid before, there are no medals.

Wasnt suggesting there was. Was expressing an opinion that I think still holds: In the normal course of events, mostnewborn babies are better with mother than in a nursery overnight.

YABU. I thought this happened everywhere. I'm sure the rest helps you cope better.

I was the only mum on my ward of 4 breast feeding, the MWs wanted to take DS to give him a bottle feed in nursery during the night. I refused but TBH I didn't really sleep and was a bit hazy so they could've taken him for a while while I was asleep.

Under normal circumstances a baby needs to be held, cuddled and feed by it's mother in the early days. Dads can play a part to supporting the mum in her new role and helping with some of the rocking and pacifying.

All this send to the nursery sounds quite selfish.

lagoonhaze, in a perfect world, women who'd just given birth would have their every need catered for and would just be able to rest and feed and cuddle the baby. The miserable reality for a lot of my friends has been that after major surgery you get sod-all help with anything and your partner gets sent home and told he can't come back before 9 next morning (so much for dad "helping"). But we don't criticise the stupid arrangements, we blame everything on women for not being superhuman.

Mental illness occurs when it is triggered by things. Sometimes this is a chemical process, but often it is biopyschosocial, by which I mean it is caused by multiple factors.

Sleep deprivation affects all three of them, the biology of the body, the psychology of the individual and the socialogical factors in their life can all in turn become triggers for a mental illness. Ignoring them all repeatedly to care for a baby is not the best idea unless you have very good coping techniques and lots of support.

For me sleep deprivation caused a paranoid episode, verging on psychosis, and it took a long time and a lot of medication to get that back under control. Lack of sleep is now one of my recognised triggers for poor mental health.

Different people cope differently, you cannot sweep aside women suffering the side effects of sleep deprivation and say we must knuckle down, it's our job as mothers, and also excuse women who have issues with mental health, because often one leads to the other.

Our capacities for coping with different things differ, and as a mother I was the kind who valued the opportunity to rest as well as my baby be cared for because for me, that method best gave us what we both needed most at that time. What was important to me, after establishing breastfeeding and lots of skin to skin time, was protecting my mental and physical health, so that I could continue to care for my baby the best I could and leave hospital in good health.

I don't have a problem with anyone else having different priorities to me, or different approaches even to solve the same problem, but I don't accept anyone telling me I did it the wrong way, when actually I did what felt was optimal co-caring for me and my DD.

Mother and child is a relationship, both of their well being is important in raising a child well, sub-standard care for mother can result in mother giving sub-standard care to child, and I firmly believed that I had a duty to myself and my child to care for us both through this.

As a disabled person also, I recognise that when I don't look after myself, I end up less able to care for my children, and whilst burning as a martyr might keep my children warm for a while, when the fire goes out, they'll be cold AND alone, metaphorically speaking, so I had to learn to say - actually I'm ill/not coping/deathly tired and I need some HELP thanks. Obviously some people may be in a similar situation and breeze along fine and need nobody, but that doesn't invalidate the fact that some people won't.