Baby Friendly

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Looking for ways to motivate night staff for BFHI. Nights do not get as much exposure so wondering if anyone has used anything that works? We have many night nurses who dont buy in and we are in the process of designantion...What works for changing culture?

Any ideas helpful.

We still have nurses that encourage mom to sleep so baby can go to the nursery. We still have nurses taking baby out of the room for procedures, and giving pacifiers...

How to get them to encourage rooming in and skin to skin.???

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Specializes in Nurse Leader specializing in Labor & Delivery.

When the baby goes to the nursery, who is responsible for watching it?

If you have a designated nursery nurse, then I would suggest getting rid of that and changing to couplet. Make the nursery "procedure only".

Pacifiers, get rid of them. Make it policy that if parents want their baby to have a pacifier, they need to bring it.

When trying to get BFHI designation, most places need to implement some pretty drastic and department wide changes.

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Specializes in OB.

Get a lactation consultant available on night shift! This is one of my pet peeves. The middle of the night is when most new moms have melt downs. It's difficult to comply with the "baby friendly" initiatives when mom is sobbing,exhausted and you have less staff than day shift.

Also, having a respite nursery may be the only thing that keeps mom from saying that she is "just going to bottle feed" when an hour's rest may be all she needs.

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Specializes in Community, OB, Nursery.
Get a lactation consultant available on night shift! This is one of my pet peeves. The middle of the night is when most new moms have melt downs. It's difficult to comply with the "baby friendly" initiatives when mom is sobbing,exhausted and you have less staff than day shift.

Also, having a respite nursery may be the only thing that keeps mom from saying that she is "just going to bottle feed" when an hour's rest may be all she needs.

Yes, yes, yes. A thousand times yes.

And max of 3 couplets. Very hard to teach and support breastfeeding with more than that. Four is doable from a task standpoint, but nobody will get much BF support.

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Specializes in OB.

Another thought to add here: Have you asked YOUR night shift staff what difficulties they find in complying with "Baby Friendly" iniatives? If so, what are their replies?

People are much more likely to comply with changing guidelines if they have some input into the creation of them. They are more resistant to regulations handed down from above without consideration of the particular needs/challenges of that unit.

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