Working as a guy in neonatal ?

2nd semester ADN male student here -

I did neonatal clinicals last week, and much to my surprise, I actually rather enjoyed it. In fact, I found myself actually going out of my way to ask my instructor if I could do XYZ, etc. And I haven't really been doing that in any of the other clinicals - at least not with the same extent of desire.

Granted, I did have a few awkward moments during feeding and diaper changes. I have no kids of my own, so naturally I had to bum help from the female students who've had kids in my group.

But the thing I noticed is that it's so much easier to do your assessments in neonatal - I guess mainly because you don't have to bother with the distraction of making small talk with your patient. I know that's probably a very non-professional, non-nurse-like way to look at it, but it really did make assessment much, much easier for me. Plus, I found that I enjoyed being able to switch from one infant to another so easily, as they were all in cribs close together in one room. (Obviously with adults being in separate rooms throughout the hallway, you don't have that luxury).

So these may be all the wrong reasons for wanting to do it, but I'm thinking I may want to pursue neonatal. However, I have to admit that even I find the notion of a straight male working in neonatal to be kind of weird. I guess it's one thing merely to be a male nurse, but it seems another thing altogether to try to take on such an obviously "maternal" role.

What do you guys think? Any male neonatal nurses out there?