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]

Aug 6, 2018 by llg, PhD, RN

llg has 40 years experience as a PhD, RN and specializes in Nursing Professional Development.

639 Likes; 13,085 Posts; 58,214 Profile Views

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.

This did happen to a baby in our unit: I turned around, and here's this little thing who had wriggled off the mattress, and was stuck against the plexiglass, hanging on for dear life to his/her ET tube. One of the very rare occasions I actually gave out w/a little scream. It was hard getting the hood open w/o losing the kiddo completely, but, we won out, and didn't even extubate him/her in the process.

Back in the 70's we had an open warmer w/metal sides and a foot--no head of the bed. We used a monitor similar to Fetal Heart monitors--it put out reams of paper recordings, so they rigged up a basket to catch the output. One of my colleagues was walking past a bed, heard a rustling sound, and found the baby--in the metal basket. Even w/the head of the bed up, baby manage to travel up and over.

It may seem like we were awfully careless w/our patients, but, I had a 40 year career, so...

[llg, PhD, RN]

To the people who responded to post from a year ago about neonates dangling outside of incubators ... Oh my! I didn't know which of the "like" emoticons to choose for those real life examples.

??

[Nunya, BSN]

On 8/6/2018 at 10:54 AM, llg said:

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.

I had the portholes open while I was zeroing the scale and putting the chux on it. Scale was directly perpendicular to the isolette, I didn't have to walk to put the baby on it. I turned back to get the baby and she had scooted herself down and had one leg dangling out the porthole. Scared the you-know- what out of me!! I did learn to keep the portholes closed unless my hands were through them though ?