Like the set of parents we have right now, their baby is in the ICU room, lines etc , but will be a short term stay, compared to the 24 week, now 30 week tiny in the next bed space. These parents come in, are so loud..bring the 4 yr old sibling from haades, who I swear, flashed his eyes at me red, when Iasked him to sit on his behind and stop jumping and touching stuff!! Anyhow, today, my wee tiny is out for kangaroo care with her mammy, all nice and quiet, after 3 days of being unwell, and this family come in and totally spoil the quality of the cuddles for the mammy and baby who needed it so! They are an obnoxious family, gentle hints dont work, and their noisy behaviour had an effect on the really sick preemie who needed time out with her mother.
How do you guys handle such loud families...(apart from tripping up the "damien" boy, so they HAVE to leave to visit the emergency room???) (am only kidding about tripping him up btw..well, I THINK I am!)
I never feel like this about families, Ilove the kiddos that visit, but this family are so disrespectful of whats happening around them, I'm going :devil: every time they come in. Any tips on tactfulness guys????
We would ask parents to leave the unit, or part of it, if there was a major problem w/another baby. If necessary, the charge nurse, NM, or security can be called.
The info sheet the parents get specifically states that we can do that, or not permit admittance to the unit. If the baby is "portable", we can bring them from the scrub-up area into the family room, then bring the baby to them. That's actually helpful--one less baby!
I don't think there is anything that drives me more absolutely NUTS than a family like that, that comes in and looks all around at the different babies ..... all curious, asking questions about the other babies. I want to say "you're here to see YOUR baby, this isn't a circus show!"
I'm ok with that when it happens when their baby is initially admitted, because I understand it is an unusual thing to see a 500 gram baby with all sorts of machines hooked up to them, but after I explain the privacy rules that's it. Don't come in day after day and stop and stare at little sick babies and ask questions. How many times do I have to tell you that it is none of your business?? Part of my usual speech to new parents is that we ask them and any visitors they bring in to stay at their baby's bedside and that they are not permitted to look at or ask about other babies. MOST families understand that.
I'll never forget this one family who had a pretty short, uneventful stay. At the time, I was caring for a sick baby on HFOV, pressors, etc. Every day they would stop at his warmer and make comments about how sick he looked, how terrible it was, etc., despite me telling them not to. After he passed away, I heard the dad ask one of my coworkers if alot of babies die in NICU. He then commented, "well, since I've been here, I haven't seen any." I know he was just hoping someone would say "oh, yeah, that little guy in the front died yesterday." These people were so obnoxious. I also overheard the grandfather say to the mother, "you hear how hard she's hitting that baby? That's how hard they all hit the babies here." I was burping a big, FT baby next to them.
Oh, I reallllllly have a hard time with those kind of families. As a charge nurse I always stick up for my staff and luckily our unit manager sticks up for me, she is under the agreement that we are an ICU and there are rules to be abided by.
We have our visitation rules and the parents have to read and sign them to show that they were gone over. For sibling they have to let us know when they are coming with big bro or sis and we tell them if that is a good time or not. We also reserve the right to toss them out if they are evil and our visits are limited to 30 minutes once a day. We do bend the rules for the older (like 10 and over) ones that are very good and just want to be with mom and baby, we let them stay.
As for loud families we just tell them they have to tone it down, there are sicker kids than theirs and if they don't comply we tell them they have to end their visit.
The best is when the parent doesn't have their band or a photo ID and they were told several times that it didn't matter if someone at the desk knows them or not, they aren't getting in without ID because with the 100 plus of us there are, we don't know every single one of them. They get nasty and we just say, it is for your baby's safety and walk away. We get lots of complaints on that one. And I love the excused they have...oh it must have just fell off (you tried this one with me yesterday), I left my ID at home because I don't have my purse, we just moved and I can't find my ID. If a parent truly doesn't have photo ID we take their picture and post it at the bedside so we know them, but most of them can produce it at the desk if you tell them enough times that no ticky no visity '
I just don't get how there are that many people that think that rules don't apply to them!
Specializes in Level II & III NICU, Mother-Baby Unit.
We thankfully have a great manager who will quickly come to the aid of the nurses after we have tried all we can do (reviewing visiting policy, subtle hints, not-so-subtle hints, etc.) and she totally takes care of things! She has a wonderful way of not making any parents upset either...amazing! This is especially improtant to her because "patient satisfaction surveys" are a big part of her evaluation as well as our units and our yearly raises are partially based on patient satisfaction.
We thankfully have a great manager who will quickly come to the aid of the nurses after we have tried all we can do (reviewing visiting policy, subtle hints, not-so-subtle hints, etc.) and she totally takes care of things! She has a wonderful way of not making any parents upset either...amazing! This is especially improtant to her because "patient satisfaction surveys" are a big part of her evaluation as well as our units and our yearly raises are partially based on patient satisfaction.
Oh how I wish that was the case in my unit! We have a manager who is ONLY concerned with her survey result, no matter what the cost. She kind of lets parents walk all over us. We had an incident with a set of drug-addicted parents who were not happy about something one day, and the dad was threatening the nurses. One of our nurses called security and our nurse manager was not too happy about it for some reason. I'm sorry, but if I feel physically threatened by a parent, I really don't care what they have to say about me on their patient satisfaction survery!
The charge nurses and our nurse manager do stick up for us, they're awesome in those situations! But I have seen some cases in which some of the parents are extremely manipulative and pretty much tell the docs/NNPs what to do! I always feel like just telling the parents they should just take their baby home then, since they know what's best and we're obviously just getting in their way.
We have no hesitation in calling security and we do so if there is any question about it. We've also called the city police department when one of the parents was hitting his older child and threatening the nurses. Parents know we have no tolerance for that sort of thing and they have no problem in throwing them out.
I have mixed feelings about the patient satisfaction surveys.
I don't think there is anything that drives me more absolutely NUTS than a family like that, that comes in and looks all around at the different babies ..... all curious, asking questions about the other babies. I want to say "you're here to see YOUR baby, this isn't a circus show!"
That drives me nuts as well. I can understand a glance but some families will stare or try to this close __ to another baby to have a look, I had one even ask to watch another baby's hands on. The other week we had a pretty sick baby just admited, the family came in and was starting at another baby talking about how adorable he was (I mean really if your baby is sick and you are seeing him for the first time why in the world would you care about someone else's baby to begin with?).
That drives me nuts as well. I can understand a glance but some families will stare or try to this close __ to another baby to have a look, I had one even ask to watch another baby's hands on. The other week we had a pretty sick baby just admited, the family came in and was starting at another baby talking about how adorable he was (I mean really if your baby is sick and you are seeing him for the first time why in the world would you care about someone else's baby to begin with?).
That's called denial!!! It's not really about someone else's baby, but having your baby in the NICU can be seen as a "reproductive failure"--or @ least a threat. They can feel guilty, esp mom; dad can feel an attack on his "macho". (this can have a heavy cultural component) Then there's comparison--is your baby as sick, more sick, less sick than the others?
Like the set of parents we have right now, their baby is in the ICU room, lines etc , but will be a short term stay, compared to the 24 week, now 30 week tiny in the next bed space. These parents come in, are so loud..bring the 4 yr old sibling from haades, who I swear, flashed his eyes at me red, when Iasked him to sit on his behind and stop jumping and touching stuff!! Anyhow, today, my wee tiny is out for kangaroo care with her mammy, all nice and quiet, after 3 days of being unwell, and this family come in and totally spoil the quality of the cuddles for the mammy and baby who needed it so! They are an obnoxious family, gentle hints dont work, and their noisy behaviour had an effect on the really sick preemie who needed time out with her mother.
How do you guys handle such loud families...(apart from tripping up the "damien" boy, so they HAVE to leave to visit the emergency room???) (am only kidding about tripping him up btw..well, I THINK I am!)
I never feel like this about families, Ilove the kiddos that visit, but this family are so disrespectful of whats happening around them, I'm going :devil: every time they come in. Any tips on tactfulness guys????
Why can't you tell them it is mandatory to be quiet in the NICU? Trust me...I know how people can be. They have NO SENSE. They just shout and are so loud and have no respect for those around them. Sure they act offended when you tell them to shut up, but it gets the job done.
We allow sibling visitation in our NICU, starting at the ager of 2 1/2. Visiting is strictly controlled, especially for the younger siblings. We also have a very large box of supplies that was put together by the nurses, called, simply, "Things for siblings of babies to do". We have coloring books, crayons, markers, stickers, extra paper for them to scribble on, etc. We ask them if they'd like to make something for their little brother or sister.
If children are disruptive, we call the Coordinator, and the family is asked to leave. We are a huge unit, average census is 80. We limit visitors to the bedside to 2 at a time.
We have a sibling visitation checklist, and guidelines for the parents. If the guidelines aren't followed, they are asked to leave. And yes, we have had situations where we have involved our social worker, security, and the shift Supervisor to escort a disruptive family out of the unit. We have also had parents who have threatened staff, and this is not tolerated by our hospital. They may be banned from coming to the unit unless escorted by one of our security officers.
Why can't you tell them it is mandatory to be quiet in the NICU?
Because then they complain to the big bosses, and you get a talking to about how "we promote Family-Centered Care here". Trust me, if you worked on a unit like this, you'd understand how some of us are too cowed to tell a family ANYTHING. The few rules we DO have (and there aren't many) aren't enforced at all, and if you try you're a "mean nurse" and not Family-Centered. All that happens is you get fired from that baby (oh, darn, such a punishment) and the same behavior continues.
we often have problems like this, mainly families of turkish/south european origin (not meant in a racist way) Sometimes it feels that the nurses are the ventilation point for the fear and fustration.
our policy is, if they disturb the other parents or the general atmosphere, we speak to them alone about it and try to come to an arrangement. if this doesnt work, we limit the visitors to 2 at a time, and then mainly for kangaroo care. people are quieter and more restrained when its there own baby
(am only kidding about tripping him up btw..well, I THINK I am!)
prmenrs, RN
4,565 Posts
We would ask parents to leave the unit, or part of it, if there was a major problem w/another baby. If necessary, the charge nurse, NM, or security can be called.
The info sheet the parents get specifically states that we can do that, or not permit admittance to the unit. If the baby is "portable", we can bring them from the scrub-up area into the family room, then bring the baby to them. That's actually helpful--one less baby!