It can be hard to know what to bring to the NICU even if you know ahead of time that you will be having a NICU stay. We knew well before delivery that our son had a CHD diagnosis called HLHS that would require an extensive CVICU stay for his open heart surgery. This isn’t quite the same as being in the NICU because he was full term, but it’s still a newborn in the hospital who needs a ton of special care.
I didn’t do a whole lot of research before being thrown into the CVICU world to know what to pack for myself. Even though your NICU stay is about your baby, you as a mom need to be comfortable as well! I have an entirely separate post about what to bring to the NICU for the baby, but I want to focus on YOU! I know from experience things that you will be glad to have with you during that time.
Slippers
When you know you’re going to be at the hospital all day long I promise you won’t want to have your sneakers on the entire day. A lot of your day will be spent in the room with your child sitting around. While I was just in the room, I kept socks on, but if I went to the restroom or to fill my water bottle, I just slid into my slippers for the short walk down the hall. You also never know if your child’s room will feel warm or chilly that day, so having slippers that can easily slide on and off is helpful.
Water Bottle
This is a MUST. I don’t know how every CVICU/NICU/PICU looks obviously, but I would be surprised if they didn’t have a small room for parents to get water, coffee, and snacks. Our CVICU wing had at least two small rooms with an ice machine, water station, coffee station, and snacks. Again, you are spending A LOT of time there, and you don’t want to be spending money on multiple bottles of water a day.
Find your favorite water bottle and keep it filled at all times! It’s easy to forget to stay hydrated when watching over your sick child, and if you are breastfeeding or pumping in the NICU it is extremely important to stay hydrated.
Boppy/Nursing Pillow
Hopefully, you will spend a lot of time holding your baby, but it can still be tiring! A boppy or some sort of nursing pillow can be very helpful when you want to hold them for extended periods of time. In my experience, it was easier to hold my son with the boppy when he was hooked up to so many different things, even when he was intubated. Once he was extubated and not hooked up to as many lines I could hold him even longer, and then the pillow came in handy even more.
Pillow & Blanket
If I am staying anywhere besides my own house I am the type of person that wants my own pillow. If you plan on staying in your child’s room overnight (or even think you’ll want to lay down and take a nap during the day) you will appreciate having your own bedding. The hospital should provide you with sheets, blankets, and pillows, but those can be very scratchy and uncomfortable. Not to mention, the pillows look and feel like flattened pancakes most of the time. Consider one of these cozy options instead!
Snacks
You can always go down to the cafeteria to get food, but it’s a good idea to keep snacks on hand in your room that you know you like so that you’re not spending unnecessary money. Our room had surprisingly plenty of cabinet space to keep our items as well as a mini fridge. We would even cut up fruit and keep it in the fridge, buy small cases of pop and keep a few cans in the fridge, bring leftovers from home, and more. This helped us not have to eat out all the time.
Podcast or Audio Book
Find a new podcast or audio book to listen to! I suggest these options because it keeps your hands and eyes free. If you have a baby in the CVICU or a child in some type of ICU that wants to be held, you will want to do nothing but look at them. Hold them as long as you can – trust me – but it’s also okay to pass the time by listening to something.
Extra Long or Portable Charger
If you are at the hospital all day, chances are you will probably be scrolling through your phone a lot or staying in touch with loved ones to give them updates on your child. The battery life of your phone will probably go down a lot quicker than you think. Depending on your situation, outlets for your cell phone might be in very awkward spots (ours were). It’s best to have an extra long charger that you know will let you reach your phone while you are sitting down – or better yet, a portable phone charger. Then you can charge your phone right next to you and be able to use it at the same time! A portable phone charger would be useful outside of the hospital too, so maybe it’s time to invest in one!
Power Bank
What might be even more convenient for your charging purposes is a power bank. This takes away the need for an extra long charger and you can charge any of your USB powered electronics right beside you. We’ve always used these on trips or when the power goes out to be able to charge cell phones. A power bank would be a really convenient item to have on hand. They also hold a charge for a long time so no need to worry about charging your power bank all the time too!
Extra Toiletries
You will quickly realize, just like I did, that you do not want to unpack and repack all your toiletries every time you go back and forth from home to the hospital. Get duplicates of all your daily must-have toiletries. This would include things like toothbrush, toothpaste, face wash, moisturizer, deodorant, shampoo, conditioner, body wash, hair brush, and anything else you use daily or almost daily, and just leave them in your hospital room.
I put all mine in a travel toiletry bag (I love this one!) that I left hanging in the bathroom that was inside our room. On that same note, I also preferred to bring at least one bath towel with me from home in case I was going to shower. The towels the hospital will provide you look like they should be used on a toddler and are extremely thin.
Other random items that I would suggest because they might not apply to everyone:
Bottle Drying Rack
If you have a baby in the ICU that you are pumping for, you are going to want to wash your pump parts. It was suggested by our lactation consultant that we should be washing after every pumping session, because if any mold was detected in my milk they would have to throw out ALL of my milk they had saved up to that point. I was not about to let all the hard work be thrown out. The hospital probably has some type of small basin you can soak your parts in, and our hospital even provided dish soap. I bought a bottle drying rack that I knew would fit on our bathroom sink in the room as well as a bottle brush. You can read more about pumping for your child in the NICU here.
I used this one!
A Way to Keep Notes on Your Child’s Progress
If you have a child in the NICU/PICU/CVICU, there will be daily “rounds”, or they might refer to it as something else. A whole team of doctors will take a couple hours every day to talk specifically about each child on the floor one by one. They will be throwing around a lot of numbers, a lot of medical terms, names of medicines your child is on, and so forth. If you are up for it, you can stand and listen to rounds and ask questions. If you are also up for it, you might want to take notes (don’t be afraid to do this and ask questions!).
Somebody gifted us a lovely notebook with our child’s name on it, but I honestly just ended up keeping a notes section in my phone because I could type out what the doctors were saying and keep up a lot faster than I could when writing by hand. Then I had everything in one place, and when my husband or parents would ask for an update every day I could actually remember what to tell them.
I hope this list helps! Having a child in the ICU is hard, and just little things like these can make a difference. Feel free to leave a comment if you have any other suggestions for fellow ICU parents wondering what to bring to the NICU!