The thing to remember is that the SCN staff are going to be focussed on the baby. Not you, not the family unit as a whole, not ensuring that you and your baby bond appropriately.
It sucks, and I don't know that there's a way to change the system. But it does help to go in knowing that's the way it's going to be. I didn't know at all and had only about 7 hours between waters breaking and Sam arriving so I had no time to prepare myself physically or mentally for what we were about to face.
If your baby's in an open crib and you want to hold them - DO SO! Don't let the nurses tell you that you can't. If they start on about monitors and stuff, insist they help you around them. We were allowed to have Sam in my room for breif periods when he wasn't on monitors, and I really wish I'd done it more often, rather than only when we had visitors (they did insist that he wasn't picked up and handed around to visitors though, which is understandable).
We did have some initial bonding issues, but I feel that came mainly out of him being an IVF baby, rather than being a prem baby and the initial separation. The inability to breastfeed certainly had an impact there as well. We have certainly overcome them now and all is well. Sam is happy, healthy, thriving... he's gone from being barely on the 3rd percentile for weight at birth (I was just impressed he was on the charts at all!) to now being on the 75th at nearly 9 months old.
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