I know they are doing a great job looking after my baby, but two of them really upset me today when I overheard them talking about me.
(This is probably a bit garbled as I am upset as I'm typing.)
OK, the background... I am breastfeeding my premature baby when I am in the hospital. I originally didn't want her to have bottles at all but the consensus from the nurses was that for premature babies having a bottle helps them to learn that they need to suck to get food and that the advice for term babies re. bottle/breast confusion isn't relevant, and that I would get her home a lot quicker if I agreed to the bottle.
So, I said OK, give her bottles at night when I'm not there at midnight and four. I plan to drop the bottles once she's home and I'm with her all the time. She is on a 4 hourly feed schedule in hospital, but when she's home I plan to feed on demand.
When she had bottles all night she was really tired during the daytime and didn't breastfeed as well, so I talked to the nurses again and we decided that she should ideally have alternate feeds of bottle and tube through the night until she grows a bit bigger and gets more energy. Or they could give her a bottle if she cries and won't settle and wants to suck something, but feed by a tube otherwise. I said basically I was happy for them to do what they thought best for her while I wasn't there.
The nurses change every day and night, so you get a different one looking after your baby each shift. Today I went in and a nurse asked me if I was going to bottle feed her. I said no, I just breastfeed her then we top up by tube when I'm there. We usually judge how well she has done then guesstimate how much top op up by from the amount she's due to have on her schedule.
I asked her about me going in to stay overnight as the nurse yesterday night said it might be a possibility this week and I should discuss it today. (They only have one room and you can only go in when it looks like your baby is getting ready to go home.) The nurse today said that it wouldn't be a possibility and that they never let babies home until they were at least two weeks older than mine. So, I was disappointed of course, but I said fine, I don't want to rush her if you think she's not ready, I'm not pushing for it, and that I only asked as the nurse yesterday told me to ask. She said the nurse yesterday was junior and had made a mistake.
Anyway, I went to express afterwards and two of the nurses on shift must have thought I couldn't hear them.
They said: "Why is that mum asking about staying over, WE tell her when she can stay over, SHE can't ask us to stay over, it is our decision." / "And look, she says one thing one day and another thing another day, she's so confused. She said yes bottles, no bottles, yes bottles. Why can't she make up her mind?" / "We'll have to get her to write something down and sign it" / "She doesn't know what she's doing" (then they laughed) / "Yes she is doing all the care in the daytime, but how do we know what she'd be like when she got home? She'd get stressed and her mum lives really far away so she'd have no-one to help her"
At this point I called out to them that I could hear everything they were saying and one came in to see me. I shouted at her, I was angry - I said I wasn't changing my mind every day about bottle feeding, I'm trying to follow their advice and she should read the notes properly about why things had changed day to day. Also, that I'm not a bloody idiot: I know that babies are hard work at night, AND I wasn't asking to stay over, a nurse yesterday had TOLD me to talk to them about it today! Argh.
Then one who had said earlier that she always remembered the babies names called my baby girl "he" then got her name wrong when I reminded her she was a girl. There are only 3 babies in there at the moment for heaven's sake.
Then I burst into tears and cried for ages.
All nurses on the shift came and apologised to me one by one (although in a way like - "you misunderstood what we were saying, we did know you could hear us really, we just meant you were confused because we had confused you, we weren't laughing, the babies were making a noise" .
I really am SO upset because I feel like they have spoilt it for me now.
Going in every day, it is so hard to have to leave your baby every night already but I was being positive and I had got on with all the nurses really well before, now I'm stressed about having a row with some of them and what they are saying about me when I'm not there! Will they tell their colleagues who I got on well with before and they'll all suddenly think I'm a "difficult mum"? Will they all treat me differently now? Why would one question today how I'd cope at night?! Do they think there's something wrong with how I am?
I don't think they won't look after her, but I have to talk to all of them and work with them and I feel like it has spoilt the good relationship I felt I had with the unit over the past 3 weeks so I'm just miserable.
Then on top of everything, tonight is the first night I couldn't stay in 'til late because my husband has had to work at the last minute this evening and I don't drive and I couldn't find anyone else to take me. What a shit day.
Meh, this was going to a be "did I overreact? am I being unreasonable?" question but has turned into just being miserable, but never mind.
I will probably feel better in the morning!