How NOT to raise a baby 101

Unfortunately for Kristal and I, the Doctors at the hospital request that we stay in the hospital for 48hrs. Thanks to Kate's early arrival, Kristal had missed out on her Group B Strep swab (a routine test normally done at ~36 weeks into a pregnancy - its rare that women have it, and even more rare that it will be passed to the child during birth). As a result, it is policy to keep the patients for 48hrs to see if they develop it.

Anyways, our first night we were in this 3-bed room without any neighbors which was fine and well. Our second night we did have a neighbor. From what we could here/deduce, the woman had also given birth early, but we assume a bit earlier than us as her milk had not come in yet. This wasn't a big deal as the nurses had set up a machine that gave baby formula via a slow drip (it is important for newborns (or anyone) to eat after all).

During the course of the night, her child proceeded to cry all... night... long... On top of that, they proceeded to leave their fairly bright lights on the majority of the night as well (which didn't help us sleep either). In fact, there was a few times that Kate would start crying, we're pretty sure because she heard the other baby crying.

In the morning, after getting next to no sleep, the nurses began doing their morning rounds. If you or your significant other has given birth lately, you know they require you to record when you do feedings and diaper changes (as well as their contents). In the morning, we heard her asking the nurse why her child hadn't required a diaper change all day. The nurse took a look at her log and it appeared her last feeding was recorded at 12:30am (it was about 6:30am at this point). So she asks her, have you fed your baby since this 12:30 feeding? To which she replies "No". Kristal and I overhearing this both dropped our jaws both in shock (that someone would do that) and anger (cause of lack of sleep). It was at this point the nurse began to lean into the woman and "inform" her that babies need to eat every 2-3 hours and should have eaten at least twice in that 6 hour time period. The fact that they had set up a formula drip for her also seemed to aggravate her. We were also very surprised that her mother (who had been there the whole time), who said she was a mother of four, didn't seem to pick up on that either. During a late-night bathroom trip, Kristal had also noticed via a hole in her curtain that she was sleeping with a pillow over her head. So not only was she not feeding her baby, she was ignoring it.

The piece that surprised us the most was that she said she had gone to prenatal classes. How do you go to those and NOT know you have feed a baby? I'm not an expert by any means, but even before prenatal classes (which everyone having a baby should take by the way), I knew that you have to feed a baby often.

So please, care for, and feed your baby!