Hospital Nurseries

I wasn't quite sure where to post this, but I was just wondering, when you have a baby at a hospital, you have your room, and you have your baby in a little wheelie crib thingi next to you, right......? Okay so why is it that I remember as a child a room with all the babies in their cribs in the hospital, and a window where visitors can look through? Do hospital nurseries exist? Or am I just remembering american movies and we dont have these in Australia?

I am of the opinion that my baby should stay with me the entire time, and not be wheeled off to a nursery with other babies at all... What is the reason for having the babies away from their mothers?

Sorry if this question is ridiculous, I am just curious as to whether I am going to sound unreasonable refusing to have my baby away from my bedside....?

Can anyone enlighten me on this subject? Cheers.

Most hospitals now do rooming in with a baby which means they will be in a crib right alongside of you. The hospital nursery doesn't have a bit look 'n' see window anymore (probably used to back in years gone by), but they are there if you want to go and have a shower or something like that. At our hospital if you had a rough birth they don't mind taking the baby off you through the night so you can sleep, but they will wake you for feeds.

Love

Jenna was away from me the first night as I was confined to a bed. It was only from about 1am til 6am though, and I wouldn't have been able to do anything with her anyway. She had been put to the breast twice, and fed more colustrum, so she was fine.
The next night I actually requested she be put into the nursery - I dont know why, probably because I hadn't bonded with her all that much.
Anyway - the nurses/midwives on night shift did a great job with them all. I got up at about 1am to check on jenna for feeding, and there were abotu 3 nurses just cahnging all the babies and wrapping them all back up again. The music was blaring and they were all chatting away. I think they like the babies better than the mummies!
So I fed Jenna, then went back to bed once she had settled again. At about 5-6am I got up again and did the same thing.
This time as I'm in the family birthing unit, Jenna wont leave my side, but then I'm a lot more confident about having her there, and I hopefully wont be on a drip, a catheter, recovering from an epi etc.
It was pretty cool walking intothe nursery in the middle of the night - possibly one of my only good memories of the whole hosptial stay. Just felt all warm and fuzzy and nice :)

at the hospital where i had maddy they didnt have a nursery.... they told me they were going to induce me at 10pm, then i was in labour for another 12 1/2 hours so i was awake all day, all night and all through the next morning, yet the lady in the bed next to me had a c-sect and they took her baby so she could sleep because she had a "rough birth" and here i am, havent been asleep for like 30 hours and looking like a zombie! they wouldnt even take maddy while i had a shower!!! i had to wait until i got a visitor (chris or my mum). and also what i though was VERY RUDE is that the lady in the bed next to me had a very unsettled baby so the midwives took her bub so she could sleep and they asked me and maddy to leave the room for a few hours so if maddy woke she didnt disturb the lady next to me!!! i had to sit in a room with a lounge where other mums breastfeed, express and make bottles for 3 hours!

thanks guys... i never thought of needing to recover, or wanting to sleep thru the night!!!! hahaha first time mum with no idea what she's in for!

i just heard about the baby mix up at st vincents hospital and the mum breast feeding the wrong baby and i guess freaked out a bit!!

Emma, in both the hospitals I have had babies in (Darwin Private for Olivia and Calvary for Charlie and Lexie) they both had nurseries with the glass window thing.

I had a very similar

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all warm and fuzzy and nice

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experience to Fi......I loved the nursery staff and the fact that I could wheel my baby along there!

Olivia had a few temperature issues at birth and was in the nursery for the first few nights.....a midwife would come and get me through the night and we woudl try and get her to feed: it was nice to have the company and the support.....

With Charlie & Lexie, at Calvary, the nursery midwives are GORGEOUS and they offer to have your baby in the nursery whenever you want to try and get some sleep, and are more than happy to take the baby into the nursery so the new mum and DH can go off for an hour for a coffee.......I foudn this to be the nicest treat in the world, and REALLY appreciated it.

Like Fi said, radios blaring, bright lights, midwives yakking......with a row of snuggly fast asleep babies in their care.......

In relation to mistaking the identity of babies, I have read the horror stories. Just make sure your baby has its identity tags on wrist and foot. And usually a name sticker on the crib. And if you get your baby into its own clothes/own wrap straight way, it is another reassurrance for you that it is YOUR baby.......

When I had Joshua they took him into the nursery for the first night because of c/s so I couldn't get up to him anyway. After that though he was with me until I went home. I think I just showered when XDH came in and could be with him. This time though, I might wander down and have a look at the nursery cos I didn't do that and it sounds cute.

Yasin roomed in with me all the time but for the first 2 nights Imran was in the nursery so I could sleep better. I had a c-section with Imran so for the first 2 nights I couldn't pick him up. They just wheeled him in to me and handed him him over for his feeds and when I was done I buzzed and they took him away. I never bothered to check his id tags. I could have fed someones else's baby but just so long as she fed mine and we went home with the right ones I'm cool with that lol.

LMAO Dach - wont you dont know doesn't hurt you right?
Jenna had this pink starry wrap over her the whole time she was in hossy, and it was the only one like it (I stole it when I left......) so I was pretty sure each time I saw her that she was my baby ;)
Lucy - how funny that you felt the same way. It was almost like I was sneaking in on an old girls club when I fed Jenna at 1am that morning. It really was pretty nice - the ladies would have dropped everything to help a baby, but it took you forever to get something for yourself on night shift.

I guess babies are less whingy.....

*~Maddisons Mummy~* I would have been livid at that treatment!!!! good lord! you poor thing.

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It was almost like I was sneaking in on an old girls club

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Fi that is EXACTLY how I felt too! The night nursery staff at Calvary are all older "salt of the earth" midwives who just ADORE babies, and I found it all hilarious......also, one of them in particular (her name was Jeanie and if I didn't know better I swear she was an angel in disguise!) was FANTASTIC to me when I got all teary and hormonal and emotional one night......she was literally a saviour for me......just cuddled me and Lexie......it was JUST what I needed.......then she made me a cuppa and a piece of vegemite toast.

Corie sweets please don't take this the wrong way but having had both a C/S and a vag birth I can understand why they took the bubs with the C/S. Its major surgery and the drugs administered after make it quite difficult as well as the fact you have a massive scar across your belly. I agree you should have been treated better but I can still understand why a woman who's just had a c/s got slightly different treatment... And please don't yell at me LOL! But I still think they could have been nicer ;)

*hugs*
Cailin

Emma
here in canberra, one of the hospitals (Calvary) has a 'baby friendly policy' which means that the baby is with you no matter what happens. At another hospital they don't have that policy and if the mum needs a break the baby is looked after by one of the nurses for awhile.

It might be worth asking what your hospital's policy is.

I'm actually going to St V's for bubba in Feb. I've looked into the policy there and they actually prefer the baby to be with you in your room as the nursery is only "for sick babies". The mid doing my classes said the nursery is not a "well baby" nursery and it is more beneficial for bonding and first time mum education for the baby to be roomed with Mum. So I'm not sure how the mix up happened (although I intend to ask my mid tonight!). Try not to worry about it - it is a rareity.
I can recall when my sister was born the nursery had one of those windows (but that was almost 20 years ago!). I went and toured a hospital near me in Vic and they also had one of those windows in the nursery (but they had the curtains drawn). I think it depends on the hospital really...

MG :)

At the hossy i am going to it has the baby in room policy... But you can also take bubs to the nursery if you want a shower/sleep etc. I did that once with Zhai, only because i wanted to go for a shower, and DF wasnt coming in for a while.
Im sure you will not have any dramas but its worth checking out for your own peace of mind!!

At the Gold Coast Hospital, bubby stays with u in the room. But a nurse will take bubs away if its really unsettled & give u a chance to get some shut eye.
I always waited for DF to turn up so i could shower.

Its hard if ur sharing a room & all the babies wake up a diff times

I should add that at our hossy they only allowed the babies in the nursery at night time. During the day the nursery was the public washing/nappy change area (its a huge room) so during the day midwives were showing parents how to bathe them, change them etc.
I understand how lots of people wanted their babies next to them during the day, but to be honest it took me a long time (like 3-4w) to start bonding with Jenna, so I didn't have an issue with her being away from me. I didn't sleep so much, but I didn't feel the need to have her with me all the time.
I didn't actually bath her myself until she was about 3w old, so it was just what I was like. I expect this time it will be different, but for some people (me included) there wasn't this overwhelming neccessity for her to be in my sight at all times.

Yep at the hospital I went to the baby stays with you at all times. They do have a nursery but that is only for sick babies. However the first night Jonah was realyl unsettled and I had nearly collapsed in the shower so they took him down to the nurses station so I could get some sleep. Although this did jack really, I could still hear him PMSL. I remember though way back when they had in this same hospital the nursery with the window and all the babies were kept in there, I used to love to go down there when I was a kid and we were elsewhere in the hospital visiting someone, to look at the babies, gee how times have changed, thank goodness though I'd rather have my babies with me at all times.

I remember those nurseries to from when I was a kid when we used to visit new bubs in hospital :)
As others said pretty much all of them do rooming in now, but the hospital where I had Toby did have a nursery you could send them to after 11pm at night if you needed to get some sleep. Kinda pointless though because you still have to wake up to feed whether they're in the room or not!

They had rooming in at Selengor - when the Ob came to see me I was really tired as Lucas wouldn't settle and he said to ask the midwifes to take him if I wanted to get some sleep. When I pressed the call button, the midwife would show me how to settle him, she didn't even suggest taking him away. I was OK with that - I felt a bit guilty even considering sending him out:rolleyes:

Our hospital has both a special care nursery for babies with temp problems etc and a regular nursery. They even offer to look after bub while hubby and you go out for dinner before going home from hospital.

When I had DS he spent the first night in nursery as he had some breathing probs and I hated it. I couldn't sleep and I was just lying in there waiting for him to wake to feed, I wish I knew I could have gotten up and gone and seen him

Corie, how old was the lady next to you?

I was also 19 when I had my DS and the lady next to me was 40. I got treated like dirt and she was treated nice.

Her baby was also unsettled which meant I got no sleep :p.

But, one night my DS was in the nursery and I went to check on him and they were wheeling the baby from the lady next to me into a dark room because he wouldn't stop crying. So DS didn't go back to the nursery.