My Non Cuddly Boy

We were allowed to hold Joshua twice a day. I would hold him for 45 minutes to an hour in the morning and Brian would hold him for 30 to 45 minutes in the evenings. Most preemies will breath better when they are held by their parents and can have their oxygen turned down. Joshua would usually need to have his oxygen turned up. If we held him too long he would de-sat his oxygen. Sometimes holding him would be stressful, but we kept it up so we could bond with him.

One day I had held Joshua for about 45 minutes and the nurse came by and said she needed to go somewhere for 10-15 minutes and asked me if I wanted to put him back in the bed now, or when she came back. I told her I would wait until until she came back. 15 minutes went by and she wasn't back. Another 15 minutes went by and I started looking outside for another nurse to put Joshua back (we weren't allowed to stand up or move with the babies when they had IVs in them) After another 15 minutes I was able to grab a neonatalogist who put Joshua back.

That night when Brian came to hold Joshua, Joshua fell apart. A preemie doesn't fall apart like a normal baby does by screaming, they do it by breathing poorly. So after a few minutes we asked the nurse to put him back. She said he needed a bath that night and asked if we wanted to help. We did of course and proceeded to help give him a cotton ball bath (more on bathes later) He still was acting really tired, so we were trying to hurry. My parents stopped by to see Joshua not realizing that we would be there. We had to ask them to leave because Joshua was so stressed out.

The next couple of days we were very careful with Joshua and would only hold him for about 30 minutes at a time. Even after he got older and could handle the stress of being held better, we would still have to be sure to leave when we were done holding him, because having us in the room would make Joshua unable to sleep. When he came home he slept in his own room, but once or twice he woke up in the morning and we tried to put him in bed with us. He never could sleep in bed with us. He would get all wound up and want to play with us. Once in South Carolina Joshua woke up and I brought him to bed with Brian and me. Joshua started to cry and wouldn't settle down until I put him back in his pack n play where he quickly went back to sleep. We have let him sleep in his own bed since then.