The Mom Crowd

Last Friday, my 18 month old daughter had her cleft palate repaired and we stayed two nights in the hospital.  Due to various medical issues with my children, I’ve spent my share of nights sleeping on pull-out hospital beds and have learned that staying in the hospital is probably one of the most uncomfortable places to stay.  I have written an article to help parents prepare for their child’s surgery and now have decided that parents also need some encouragement on finding ways to be more comfortable during their hospital stay with their child.  Simple things, like knowing how to silence the iv machine alarm can really make a big difference during your child’s stay.  I’ve also stopped being afraid of bothering the nurses when my child or I need something.

Here are 10 ways to make your hospital stay a little more comfortable:

1. Go home to shower and get a couple hour nap or break if possible.  Allow a friend or family member to stay with your child while they are resting while you go home and recuperate a little.
2. Learn how to silence the alarms on those machines.  Once you’ve paged your nurse that their iv pole bag is empty, there is no need for you to endure the loud, annoying beeping that accompanies the empty iv pole bag.
3. Bring a portable DVD player with headphones and rent a good chick flick.
4. Don’t be afraid to ask your nurse for things you need (like a rocker, extra pillows, to start the coffee maker in the family kitchen, etc…) and more importantly, keep asking until you get it!
5. If you think your child needs pain medicine, then communicate that to your nurse.  I have felt at times like I sounded like I was overly drug-seeking for pain medicine for my child, but staying ahead of the pain after surgery can be the difference of being slightly uncomfortable and completely miserable during your hospital stay.  If the pain medicine is not working, ask your nurse to page your doctor to see if there is something else you can try.
6. Make friends with your child’s roommate.  Conversations with other parents can really help the time to go by quicker.
7. If you’re not happy with your nurse, ask to speak to the charge nurse to share your concerns.
8. On the flip side, make sure you let the charge nurse know when you have a fantastic nurse!  We had the best nurses we’ve ever had this past weekend and was sure to let the charge nurse know what fantastic nurses we had this weekend and named them to her.
9. Don’t feel the need to get up when the nurse comes in your room in the middle of the night to check vital signs or mess with the iv pole.  If your child does not need you to tend to her, keep getting as much sleep as you can!
10. Ask questions about the care your child is receiving.  Learn the dosages of your child’s medication and/or special precautions that should be taken with your child while recovering in the hospital. We have had a couple of incidences with improper dosages and medications with our children which were caught because I was aware of their medication.

What are some ways you have become more comfortable during your child’s hospital stay?

I am late getting my post up today, because I spent 18 hours traveling by car with my husband, 2 year old daughter, and 4 month old boy. We came home to San Antonio after visiting Dawn and her family in Hunstville, AL last night. I hadn’t seen her in person in 11 eleven years. Our families had a great couple of days hanging out together.  On the drive there we drove to Memphis from San Antonio and spent the night. Then continued the last 4 hours after a visit to the Memphis Zoo the next day. My kids were champs throughout the entire trip.

Here is how we handled traveling with 2 kids under the age of two.

Both of my kids are still in diapers and I think this helped the potty situation. It was easy to pull over and change diapers or just do it whenever we stopped for food.

Driving most of the way in one day, spending the night, and traveling a short distance the next day worked for us.  The morning after a day of driving we went to the zoo to wear out my daughter. We got back in the car, ate lunch, and she slept most of the 4 hour drive.  On the way back we didn’t spend the night, but we spent an hour and a half in New Orleans to give us a break from the road and the car seats. While the New Orleans stop added to our overall traveling time, it was worth it to eat some yummy beignets and stretch our legs before the last haul home.

I brought plenty off of snacks and toys for Annabelle. One of my favorite traveling toys are the Crayola Color Wonder No Mess Markers and coloring pad. My daughter can color to her heart’s delight without coloring the car or herself.

We borrowed a DVD player from friends and had plenty of Dora DVDs. We waited as long as we could on both trips before we even let her see the player in the car. Once the player is on no other toy will do. Also, for my daughter she doesn’t fall asleep watching TV. Both times she watched about 4 hours of Dora straight and never fell asleep once even though she was incredibly tired.

To get my daughter to nap I wouldn’t give her anything else to eat or play with. She would sit there bored until she finally decided to close her eyes and sleep.

As we were traveling we didn’t stick to a lot of rules with Annabelle. We did try to get to her to nap, but other than that we did whatever that would keep her comfortable and happy.  Although, after the first day I think I let her eat too many sweets on the drive while watching Dora. She was incredibly hyper our first evening in Memphis running up and down the hotel hallway and jumping on the bed.

My 4 Month Old Boy

My baby boy, Roman, is 4 months old and he had a harder time dealing with car than my 2 year old. He is still breastfed so I would have to get him out to feed him, but there wasn’t anywhere to lay him down and really let him stretch. Sometimes we would have to get him out of the car seat and just hold him for a while to calm him down. He did sleep a lot on the trip and didn’t cry a lot until the last leg home, when he was just done with being in a car seat.  Even though he was with us, we both missed each other.

Overall, my kids are champs and did great being in their carseats for extended periods of time. We drove a rented Tahoe and I think this also made the drove more comfortable for them as well. I hope my story will help you if you are planning to do a road trip with your kids!

Have you done a long road trip with your kids this summer? How did it go for you? What did you do?

Sponsor Saturdays is a new feature on The Mom Crowd. Each Saturday we will be highlighting one of our six sponsors.

* Read through to the end for a special 20% off discount code for readers of The Mom Crowd!

Baby Cakes is a long time sponsor of The Mom Crowd. Sara, the owner, is a mom to 3 children. When she was shopping with 2 small children and one on the way she realized that hopping from store to store was no longer a convenient option for her. So Sara created an online store with all her favorite products so moms would not have to leave their home to shop for baby items and gifts.

Baby Cakes features many baby products for bath time, bed time, meal time, and for your nursery. The store also features apparel for kids and moms. There is also an accessories section for moms that contains agendas that will make the lives of moms a little more organized.

I asked Sara what is her favorite product. She loves the California Baby bath & skin care products. Sara said, “I love that they are organic and they all smell so good.  My kids are fans of the bubble bath….it comes with a bubble wand. ”

Finally, as a mother of 3 children I asked Sara what her advice is  for new moms.

My advice to new mothers……..don’t be afraid to ask for help or accept help when offered. When my first child was born, I thought if I asked for help it meant that I was not doing a good job. I wanted to everything by myself, which I soon realized was not good for me or the baby.

I agree! We certainly to need to ask for help when we need it. We are being good moms by asking for help!

If you need a gift or a treat for yourself, check out Baby Cakes!

Discount Code

Sara has graciously offered the readers of The Mom Crowd a 20% discount off entire purchase (not gift cards).  Just enter “momcrowd” in the promotional code field to use the discount.

For me, one really fun thing about having a daughter is fixing her hair in cute ways.    By the time her second birthday arrived, it was finally long enough for some styling action.  Here are some of my favorite hairstyles:

1. 

Classic pigtails.  They’re much longer now. 

2. 

The “Jo from The Facts of Life” ponytail.

3. 

Pigtail braids.

4. 

What Lucy and I have dubbed “The Boingies”.  (They go “boing boing”.)  These are pigtails that are pulled through almost all the way and turned into little poofs.

5. 

Leaving it down.  This is Lucy’s favorite.  She always asks if it’s too hot outside.  If it’s not, she asks to leave her hair down.

What are your favorite ways to fix your little girl’s hair?

Every kid goes through the rite of passage of losing their baby teeth and growing into their adult teeth.  They also go through that awkward phase of having big and little teeth cluttering their mouths.  My oldest discovered his first loose tooth today and I find myself thinking back on my own childhood.  

My mom made a tooth fairy pillow for me.  I remember her doing all the needlepoint and sewing the pillow together.  She kept it all these years and gave it to me last year anticipating that I may want to use it for my own children as they go through this particular rite of passage.  Seeing the pillow brought back memories of falling asleep excited that I would wake up with the tooth gone from the pocket in the pillow and that it would be replaced with some money.  I don’t remember exactly how much money I got back then but I do remember pulling out a few quarters from the pocket.   I remember that I tried as hard as possible to will myself to wake up and wait for the tooth fairy to come.   I thought she might be as pretty as tinkerbell and I wanted to get a glimpse. 

I know that some parents pretend that the tooth fairy is real and make the tooth fairy exchange a lot of fun for the kids.  We’ve never gone down this road before so I am currently figuring out how I want to approach the tooth fairy mystery.  I’ve read that some parents forego giving money to their kids and instead give crayons, pencils, or some other treat.  

Possible Choices:

• Money
• Special Coins (Like a dollar coin, half-dollar, Sacagawea)
• Crayons
• Stickers
• Pencils
• Candy–sort of ironic since you really have to start paying attention to teeth cleaning!
• Dentil Floss–although I doubt that would be as appreciated as money

After doing some research, I found that there are several websites where you can buy a special tooth fairy boxes, banks, books, pillows, and baby tooth memory albums. (You have to check out that last link!!) I had no idea there were so many products that parents can purchase!  I even found a website that has sample letters you can leave your child from the tooth fairy that encourages him/her to keep doing such a great job brushing his/her teeth because she loves collecting nice shiny teeth.  

What fun memories do you have of the tooth fairy as you grew up? What traditions do you have with your children?  Are you going to pass on the tooth fairy tradition?  Tell me what you thought about that baby tooth memory album!

**photo courtesy of sappymoosetree