Practice English Speaking&Listening with: From One Caregiver to Another

My name is Sabrina my son's name is Jackson Ray. He was born at 26 weeks and

we spent a total of five months in the NICU. To me self-care means just that,

taking care of yourself and being intentional about taking moments to make

sure that you are okay. It was important to exercise self-care in the NICU so

that I was healthy for my son. Someone told me that how I feel is projected

onto him. Self-care for me also helped me to stay positive, stay healthy and be

strong for him. I like photography so while I was in the NICU I would think

about concepts of pictures that I would take with my son once he got released. I

experimented with it a lot. For me it brought hope because I was preparing for

him to come home and it also was something that took the tension off of

everything that was happening in the NICU. My advice to parents who are

currently in the NICU is not to overlook self-care and not to feel guilty about

making self-care a priority. It wasn't until I was in month 3 that I ended up in

emergency because of being overly stressed and it made me realize that I

need to better take care of myself so that I could be there mentally and

present to take care of my son.

My name is Abhishek my son's name is Ayaan. He was born at 26 weeks and 6

days and we spent 98 days here in the NICU. The forms of self-care that I practiced

one was absolutely being there in the morning rounds so my wife and I would

try to make there early morning so I could listen to the doctors and interact

with them to talk about our son. Second one was at lunch time being able to go

for a walk or sit down and eat together just talk through our emotions and talk

through what we had understood for the day that was really important for us.

Being in the NICU one of the most important aspects of it was being able

to hold my son and let him know that I was there for him being calm and just

letting that emotion and the bonding happen it was really important for me.

My advice of dads specifically as men we are not always prone to talking about our

emotions we don't express ourselves but I think it's very important in a

situation like this if you really want to be there for your child you know talk

to someone whether it be a friend whether it be a loved one. Refocus and

unwind so that when you are with your child you are calm when you're

holding them and that sensation is going be important for the child.

My name is Kathy and my son Christopher was born at 27 weeks and two days. He spent 11 weeks

in the NICU combined at Mount Sinai Hospital and Credit Valley Hospital. It's

important to partake in forms of self-care because it's a big shift being

in the NICU. I'm a first-time mom and that in and of itself is pretty

stressful but being a NICU parent really amplifies that. For me, I practiced

different forms of self-care one that I really gravitated towards is finding a

way to connect with my old self again. I started taking myself out of the

hospital forcing myself to get out every day and I found a local coffee shop just

down the road called Jimmy's coffee where I would sit by the window grab a

coffee and a treat watch people sometimes get together

with family and friends and talk about anything but the NICU, just to give

my mental state a little bit of a break. My advice to parents would be listen to

what the hospital staff are telling you when they gently push you to grab lunch

go for a walk outside even take a nap if you can. Do not feel guilty about caring

for yourself. It is incredibly important that you do something for yourself each

and every day so that you can be your best to you.

My name is Marlene my son is

Asher he was born at 30 and 1 and we were here at Mount Sinai NICU for 57

days total in the NICUs was 68 days. As a parent if I don't take care of myself

I'm not gonna be any good to my child and that's basically what made me do it

because under other circumstances I might not have. It was an incredibly

tumultuous time so it was very hard to think straight and think clearly and do

logical things but the one thing I was terrified of was becoming sick and not

being able to be there for my baby, he was so young and I'm a single parent so

if I wasn't there no one was going to be there. I felt very much alone and so I

blogged and blogging allowed me to stay in communication with my community and

my family to update everybody all at once and also to receive back their

responses so that I knew that people were actively listening and inquiring

about his well-being in my well-being. My advice to parents in the NICU right now

would be number one to use all the resources available to you they're

amazing the social workers the nurses, the other piece I would say is be gentle

with yourself if there's something that you can't do that everyone is urging you to do

to take care of yourself sometimes you just can't so be

okay with that you're not able to do all the things you think you should do as a

NICU parent.