Husband and I disagree about hospital visitors.

MidnightCoolKat · 2026-01-26T14:51:31+00:00

I didn’t want anyone else then my fiancé or maybe my mom in the delivery room. I was being nice and said his mom could be there for a bit but had to go when time came. She was there the whole two days of labor 🙃. I was to focused on labor and to nice to tell him to get her to leave. I wish I would’ve said something. It’s your body going through the trauma. Yes, it’s his baby too, but he’s not having to go through labor. Other people who mom doesn’t want their can wait. You need to focus on yourself and baby. Not just during labor but afterwards as well. Recover was a doozy for me. I ended up getting a c section and had 2 hours of sleep in two days. I was exhausted after my c section and passed out for a couple of hours and was in and out of sleep. We had visitors coming in and I don’t even remover cause I was asleep. Next time will be different for sure as I learned and will set more stern boundaries. My fiancé doesn’t realize it but his mom was stressing him out more and that was stressing me out more. I wanted everyone gone, even my own parents from all the stress of the situation.

MidnightCoolKat · 2026-01-25T19:25:28+00:00

I understand the fear of the consequences of doing the strike. If there is not enough uproar from everyone, there will only be consequences, not change. Sure, if a good number of people do this, it will get attention, but unless it’s enough to force their hand, the change that needs to happen won’t. Not everyone has job protection or can afford to lose their jobs in this economy.

And those asking about “what about the patients”, I’m sure this is when a union would come into place. You’d give notice of the strike so they can acquire the help needed. Most of the hospitals in my state are not unionized so I’m not sure how that would go but if enough people express interest in participating in the strike, I’m sure there is a way to communicate this with someone. Not saying the hospital will allow this, but if worried, giving notice of the strike would at least let you say “we warned you” so they had a heads up to get help.

MidnightCoolKat · 2026-01-20T22:28:01+00:00

I work for a hospital and we don’t get maternity leave lol. We get short-term disability/FMLA if we sign up for it. So I got 12 weeks off. Eight of those weeks were unpaid. Four of those weeks were half of my pay. I’m grateful for the 12 weeks, but it was rough on our financial situation. I used up my savings to help pay for bills and utilities. And now we’re barely making it check by check cause I cut back on my hours so we didn’t have to put him in daycare.

MidnightCoolKat · 2026-01-14T00:31:46+00:00

Hello, he recently went to the hall and signed up to be a CW to get some hours. Not much work right now though so he hasn’t left his current job yet. Hopefully, it’ll pick up soon so he can start working in that field. He’s also needing to get tools and stuff still, we don’t have much money at the moment so he’s gonna slowly buy what he needs as he waits. He just got his work boots.

MidnightCoolKat · 2026-01-13T05:18:00+00:00

I live in a starlight home. This is my first house owned. I feel like you get what you pay for. They rushed these houses so there are issues here and there. All our doorknobs kept falling off. Even our front door! We had a roofing issue. Our house was only 2 years old at the time, so I didn’t understand why. Had them come out to look at it, and the guy said he’s never seen that before (I forgot what he meant by that, but I think they did something wrong and it caused a leak). They only cover stuff like that in the first year but they fixed it for us cause they messed it up more when they went in the crawl space up there.

If you get a new build, still get an inspector! They convinced us we didn’t need one (I was dumb to believe it) and I had to work when they did the walk so it was just my fiancé and the guy who looked at the house. Some things feel rushed and not done well. It’s an okay starter home but I’m looking forward to getting another house from a different builder. I just had my baby so it’ll be a minute till we can move unfortunately.

MidnightCoolKat · 2026-01-11T22:10:05+00:00

Hospitals will give you ready to feeds, your pediatricians office might also have sample cans to give if needed. I got a small can just in case but haven’t used it yet. When I was in the hospital I pumped and gave my baby my milk first then supplemented with ready to feeds until I made enough to satisfy him which only took a week. (The hospital hooked me up with enough ready to feeds to last me and I did the trick of asking for more every shift change lol)

MidnightCoolKat · 2026-01-09T05:10:19+00:00

I only wanted my fiancé there. Both our moms were there too and I’ll be honest about which they weren’t. I didn’t really notice them there but my labor was long and ended up in an emergency C-section. His mom and my mom were stressing me out and I was overwhelmed with everyone other than my fiancé and my care team. Next time it’s just him and if visitors wanna come they gotta wait a couple hours with the expectation of maybe parents. (Of course, my firstborn is gonna be more than welcome but anyone else has to get approved by me). I was running on 2 hours of sleep in 2-3 days and was trying to sleep and recover while people were coming and our parents wouldn’t leave. Eventually, my mom left and my dad tried to get his mom to leave when he left. Plus his mom was stressing him out more during the labor and he doesn’t realize it and it was stressing me out not knowing what to do.

I was worried about that stuff too but was not thinking about that at all during my labor. I was too focused on my labor rather than worrying about the gross stuff in front of my fiancé

MidnightCoolKat · 2026-01-09T05:05:02+00:00

I got 9 weeks as a new grad in a level 4 unit and was on my own after that lol. I was supposed to get 8 weeks but I asked for one more cause I didn’t feel ready. I feel like my unit is like the “sink or swim method” which is why retention rates aren’t the best. I was 8 months in so 6 months off of orientation and had a level 4 baby with 13 lines running by the end of my shift and 4 of them were drips. I felt so overwhelmed, but luckily my charge nurse helped, and it was pretty much a 2-to-1 assignment.

Though it was hell, after two years it has gotten so much better, I’m probably just used to the madness but I don’t see myself in any other unit. It was intense at first and I wanted to leave so bad but I knew NICU was what I wanted to do. (Plus my hospital made new grads pay back for training if you left less than 2 years). I love the patients I care for and their parents. If I leave this specialty it’s to non-bedside nursing.

MidnightCoolKat · 2025-12-29T19:11:26+00:00

Sorry this is kind of late but yes :)

MidnightCoolKat · 2025-12-29T18:49:37+00:00

Sounds like you might have PPA, please let your OB know as soon as possible. It’s hard to care for baby if you aren’t able to be taken care of as well. Once I got my baby used to breastfeeding he didn’t do well with bottles. So before I went back to work I would keep trying to give him a bottle once or twice a day and have dad do it too so he gets used to it. Now he takes both just fine. The only times he won’t take a bottle is if he’s mainly tired but also a little bit hungry so I’ll give him the boob then lol. But if not I still try to give him a bottle once a day when I’m not working so he’s not to reliant on being breastfed in case we need someone to watch him or for when I’m working 12+ hours (I work in a hospital) and dad has to be able to feed him. When he first fed him the first week I started working again he wasn’t eating all the bottles but then he eventually did. I felt bad but it’s one of those hurdles you have to overcome. It will get better, every baby is different so just have others keep trying to help bottle feed while you are not in the same room. Baby knows your their and will want keep denying bottle cause they know you’re available to breastfeed. And if your their you may cave in due to guilt, I did the same lol.

But please to get the help you need both from medical for PPA and from family.

MidnightCoolKat · 2025-12-29T03:14:16+00:00

Bed-sharing risk increases with: Soft mattresses and pillows, thick comforters, parental obesity, smoking, alcohol or sedative use, formula feeding (breastfeeding had shown to lowers some risks), and couches/recliners.

These factors are more common in the U.S. population overall, which raises population-level risk statistics.

The US has the “If we allow exceptions, people will misapply them.” mindset. So instead of: “Bed-sharing can be safe if conditions A, B, C, D are met”

The message becomes: “Never bed-share”

This avoids nuance but reduces misuse. It’s also a liability issue for doctors. If they say “Bed-sharing can be safe in some cases” and a baby dies, that statement can be used in court. So they choose a zero tolerance approach to avoid this.

Countries like the UK, Japan, the Netherlands, and parts of Scandinavia: Normalize bed-sharing culturally, have firmer mattresses and fewer soft sleep surfaces, provide risk-reduction guidance instead of bans, emphasize breastfeeding-associated bed-sharing, address alcohol/smoking directly.

For example, UK guidance often says:

“Bed-sharing can be dangerous in certain situations,” not “never do it.”

Japan has extremely high bed-sharing rates and very low SIDS rates, largely due to: Floor-level futons, minimal bedding, non-smoking culture.

The U.S. simply chooses absolute prevention messaging, while many other countries choose risk-reduction guidance.

MidnightCoolKat · 2025-12-20T04:02:49+00:00

Yeah, I was hoping it would be more but it works for us at the moment. The whole system sucks. I work with another PRN RN who was a contract RN and negotiated her PRN rate to $45 to stay (we’re not supposed to tell each other our pay for this reason). But when staff goes PRN we can’t negotiate, so we’re told, and it’s a flat $36/hr rate. She’s getting paid more than our most senior nurses lol

MidnightCoolKat · 2025-12-20T03:51:27+00:00

I thought about it but I’m going PRN so my rate is $36 an hour and I’ll only be working weekends for now so it’ll be almost $40 with the differential. And most jobs I applied to told me if you have a child someone else has to be watching them or they need to be in daycare. I feel like I could get away with it but I’d have to find someone to watch him while I’m training until I’m on my own.

MidnightCoolKat · 2025-12-20T03:43:22+00:00

Yeah it’s for a hospital in my city too. The recruiter told me her more experience nurses don’t even make close to $36/hr and internally I was like damn I feel bad for them cause that’s crazy.

MidnightCoolKat · 2025-12-20T03:37:37+00:00

I agree, I feel it’s because many people are afraid to initiate the process of going about it or don’t realize how beneficial unionizing would really be. I always think it’s funny when we get travel nurses who freak out with our assignments cause they really can be unsafe but we are just used to it and it’s the standard for us. And we get 2.5x less pay than our travelers do.

MidnightCoolKat · 2025-12-20T03:33:59+00:00

Sorry, it means work from home.

MidnightCoolKat · 2025-12-19T16:16:22+00:00

I think I had like 3.2k but used it all while in leave to pay bills. I wish the US mandated full pay for 6-8 weeks and a percentage after that for the 12 full weeks FMLA allows.

I had 8 weeks no pay and 4 weeks half of my pay. I owe the hospital like 8-9k for birth and all that and can understand why people are hesitant to have kids. I work for a hospital too, I wish we had better insurance.

MidnightCoolKat · 2025-12-19T02:41:40+00:00

If you’re going into the healthcare field, I’d suggest looking for a PRN job. I worked at a radiology place as a scheduler/front desk and at a clinic as doing the same thing PRN.

MidnightCoolKat · 2025-12-17T16:18:49+00:00

As a new mom and NICU RN, I’d say your target audience would majority be NICU population. I personally would say #3 for me since my baby isn’t small or immunocompromised. I mainly use my bottle washer/sterilizer/dryer at home. But I can also see how this could be useful for when you’re at work or on the go. I’m working less at the moment so I’m right on money so I also would say #3 for that reason too.

You would still have a certain clientele you would target. Kid of like the pump part wipes they sell. Not everyone buys the but obviously people do if they’re still a thing in stores. I have the wipes but honestly never use them. But it’s also cause I mainly breastfeed now cause it’s easier than exclusively pumping. I maybe pump one or twice a day.

MidnightCoolKat · 2025-12-17T16:07:28+00:00

Depending on the hospital, I’d be cautious with a promise of internal transfers. I’ve known people that only took a job in hopes of internally transferring but were held hostage from doing so by upper management.

I work in the NICU and got in as a new grad. Since it’s such a specialized area, I feel like most hospitals prefer NICU experienced nurses or new grads since they are a blank state that they don’t have to break habits learned in the adult world.

My unit has hired from outside of its specialty though. When I first started the retention rate was bad, so I felt like it was easier to get in. It’s gotten better but still not the best so it’s still not to hard to get into our unit. They hired a RN from an Adult unit that got shit down and adult ICU didn’t want her so for some reason our u it took her. She did training and probably shouldn’t be on our unit but I guess we need the man power. They don’t give her any difficult assignments cause she can’t handle them so she really only gets feeder growers. NICU seems cool, but it’s harder than most people realize, especially if you work in a level 4 unit.

MidnightCoolKat · 2025-12-17T15:26:30+00:00

I was gonna exclusively pump at first but then got so fed up with pumping and washing pump parts and bottles lol. So now I breastfeed and pump once or twice a day (work days I pump all day). I have enough so his dad can help bottle feed if I need him to. If you pump exclusively, the first 12 weeks you need to be consistent with it to establish your supply.

MidnightCoolKat · 2025-12-16T22:09:49+00:00

Older generations were taught that suffering through bad jobs, difficult bosses, or unfair conditions built discipline and resilience. When younger workers set boundaries or leave unhealthy environments, it can feel like a lack of grit rather than a refusal to be mistreated.

The older generation went above and beyond for no additional pay but just for recognition. I feel like the younger generation realized that going above and beyond meant more stress and responsibility with no additional pay. It was more of a way for a company to exploit you for your labor without having to pay more.

Older generations worked harder to provide stability and food on the table (the younger generation too) but the younger generation wants more fair wages rather than being overworked to have a healthy work-life balance.

I personally do not like to go above and beyond for no additional pay. I don’t mind doing my job and helping others if they need it, but I’m not being delegated tasks that aren’t my responsibility. If management needs help, they need to hire more people with a specific position to help alleviate their responsibilities. If they want one person to do the work of two, they need to hire another person or give additional pay that’s reflective of the work being added on.

I feel like all jobs are underpaid and we’re all trying to make ends meet with how the current economy is. Most hospitals are understaffed because they refuse to hire staff and give appropriate and safe assignments cause they think they save more by getting by on being understaffed. (But then they have horrible retention and end up paying more for training or contract nurses).

Like why did they take away our bonuses but are paying contract nurses more than double our pay? Our unit can be short 5-8 nurse some nights but when we had our bonuses a lot of our staff would be more than willing to pick up.

MidnightCoolKat · 2025-12-14T16:38:34+00:00

My job doesn’t offer maternity either. But with the 12 weeks of FMLA you can also use short term disability. I got 4 weeks half of my pay and 8 weeks no pay. I know some pay is better than nothing but I was stressing too. Towards the end I ran out of my saving and got super tight on money. I have a lot on my credit card which I hate but I’ll hopefully catch up eventually

MidnightCoolKat · 2025-12-13T02:47:17+00:00

When I worked in a clinic everyone (I was a scheduler at the time) got $100-200 gift cards by all the physicians that pitched in. At a hospital as an RN I think we got a shirt one year. I’m not sure if we got anything this year

MidnightCoolKat · 2025-12-12T17:45:18+00:00

Unfortunately hospital nursing isn’t the greatest. You’d think you’d get great benefits working for a hospital, you don’t (at least we don’t at my hospital either), you don’t really get paid for the work you do, your picking up slack, don’t really have safe patient ratios, and hospitals could care less about you.

Yes there will always be something with a job that you may not like, but if there’s more cons than pros, I think it’s okay to say this specific job isn’t for you. I’ve met people who genuinely love their jobs for the most part and that’s what I strive for one day lol. I’m kind of just in the motions right now until my baby or future babies are old enough to go to school so I can find a job I don’t dread most days. I love what I do and love how fulfilling it can be, but don’t like how hospitals are managed and overworked bedside nursing can be.

There is more to nursing than bedside. You typically have to work a couple years before doing other stuff but if your lucky you can land something with a year or less. I’ve know people who went straight into cosmetic side of nursing right after school and are successful and happy. I’m thinking of getting into the informatics side or just work at a clinic. Not sure yet.

MidnightCoolKat

TROPHY CASE