Quiet time (again!)

Specialties NICU

Published

Specializes in midwifery, NICU.

:welcome: Hi all, earlier in the year I posted a thread about how your units organise quiet time. got a great response and used that and other info and research i had gathered to fight for a change in our unit's policy. Previously, we had a quiet time in the day where every visitor INCLUDING parents was excluded! This thread I think I started around Feb, great news is that I have been allowed to change and trial for four months, allowing parents UNLIMITED access to their babies! Put loads of work into it, and fought for MONTHS!! now I can't quite believe it is happening. Put out a staff questionaire, you would not believe that some staff thought the purpose of quiet time was for staff handover!!!! Still, I got majority support in welcoming parents to spend the quiet hour with their baby, chuffed to bits with that!

What's still bothering me is the old school, who were up in arms, asking me " are we not having quiet time then if parents are here?" ?????????, felt like a lioness fighting her corner for her cubs at one ward meeting, all those who voted for excluding the parents must have been there, SMOKE was flowing from my ears! I feel that any chance to sabotage this and they will grab it! Anyhoo, to be positive, I am allowed this four month trial, happy with that for now, but my aim is to make it a sucess and carry it on. Only problem is---- I don't work seven days a week, and on my days on, I feel like the quiet time police!! Still chuffed though, I'm at least getting to try it out, which is a major breakthrough in our unit!!:lol2:

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Specializes in NICU, PICU, educator.

Good for you! We only have no visitors for report. We follow the other visiting hours for other visitor :) I hope this works out for you!

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Specializes in NICU, CVICU.

Our unit is open 20 hours a day. We only close for shift change from 6a-8a and from 6p-8p. We also close for surgeries on the unit, or if a baby is coding or obviously trying to die (fortunately, these don't happen too often).

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Specializes in NICU.

We only ask that parents step out for 1/2 hr twice a day so we can give report. Our manager has talked about not even asking that. The way our unit is set up there is no way to gine a confidential report with parents in the room. They could be as close as 2 ft away!!! I'm very concerned about this. Any suggestions?

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