Ever forgotten to feed a baby?

[jennylee321]

I've never done this but it is the theme of all work dreams I have ever had lol. Anyone have an interesting NICU dreams/nightmares?

[prmenrs, RN]

Most of my nightmares involve blank charts 1/2 hour before change of shift. I retired 16 years ago, and I'm still having them.

[NICUmiiki, DNP, NP]

I had a nightmare that involved me forgetting to feed a baby the whole shift. Scariest nightmare ever...

[RN4BABES]

I dream that as well. It actually happened about 25 years ago where I used to work- the baby was overlooked on the assignment and not until 4 hours into the shift when the baby was crying did anyone realize it was not assigned to anyone. Luckily it was a near term baby that had stable sugars .... but still. Yikes.

[MamaBear15]

Glad I'm not the only one. Doesn't happen as much as it did when I was a new grad, but it was a frequent nightmare. I've received babies that had a full syringe hooked up and never started. Discovered when I did my assessment. Fortunately, the glucose was good!

[AnnieOaklyRN, BSN, RN, EMT-P]

yes! 10 hours into my shift I finally remembered to feed her! She was vented and I was so busy with my other baby I didn't even think of feeding her, and maybe I assumed other nurses were picking up the slack. I felt sooo bad, her sugar was 42! I had to file a safety report and thought I was going to be fired!

Just kidding, I don't even work in a NICU. :) I dream of working in a NICU... Lucky for you guys who already do.

Annie

[llg, PhD, RN]

When I worked in the NICU, my standard nightmare was finding out very near the end of a shift that I had been assigned a baby that I didn't know about. The baby had gone the whole shift without anybody looking at it! I think that is a pretty standard nightmare for NICU nurses.

I also dreamed once that a very little one that I was caring for (with lots of tubes and wires) had managed to crawl out of her incubator porthole and was dangling there like a marionette. That one was kind'a creepy.

[adventure_rn, MSN, NP]

llg said:

I also dreamed once that a very little one that I was caring for (with lots of tubes and wires) had managed to crawl out of her incubator porthole and was dangling there like a marionette. That one was kind'a creepy.

llg--I've heard of that literally happening to a baby on my last unit! The stuff nightmares are made of (along with someone ripping off a baby's ear while overzealously tearing off the tape from an ETT).

My weirdest NICU dream (which I've shared on AN before) is that I'm wearing one of those baby evacuation vests with all the pockets, and I'm running through the jungle like Rambo in my escape vest with like ten babies, and all the while the Philips monitor and Hugs tags alarms are going off, and I just keep thinking, "Something is not right, the jungle is not a good place for a preemie to be."

[fulitarn, BSN, RN]

I once had a dream I was taking care of a kid with osteogenesis imperfect, I was going through everything making sure he was comfortable and protected. Then I said, I need to surround him with a circle of salt, and I ran to the breakroom and found some salt. As I was pouring a circle of salt around him I said, "wait, that's not for OI, that's zombies. But I guess if he has OI he doesn't need problems with zombies too."

[walkingrock, ADN]

:nurse:

[walkingrock, ADN]

Hilarious!! Jungle/Rambo one!

[walkingrock, ADN]

I've had the dream about a patient not being assigned to anyone for a whole shift and we discover it at the end of the shift! My worst nightmare (work related) was that I wasn't working but giving my dad a tour of my unit, got to the ECMO room and there was a patient in there with no nurse and no perfusionist!