@ninkies We were an hour and a half away from our first nicu with our 27.4 weeker. We knew it was going to be a long haul and neither of us had any maternity/paternity leave other than pfml, which we wanted to save for further in her journey. We both went back to work part time after the first 2 weeks. We would go up together every tues/Thurs/and one weekend day. We would usually stay a few hours and then make the 2 hr (traffic) journey home. It was the best we could do at the time and it worked for us. It also gave us a little mental break on the days off. When she moved to a closer nicu once she got big enough, that was 30 mins away so we were able to go every day. We only had a dog then and we felt so bad leaving her, I can't imagine with a toddler at home. There's no wrong way of making it through! Our now almost 2 year old doesn't hold it against us and is the happiest kid.
@ninkies Thankfully we live 10 minutes away, so me and my wife have been taking turns, shes there most of the day and im with our 9 and 5 year olds most of the day. When its bedtime she comes and stays with the boys and i go to the NICU and stay late as i can and then go home and she wakes me up around 8 to take her and thats been our routine for the last couple of days. I say do whatever works for you so you wont be stressed thats the most important part.
@ninkies I was extremely fortunate to live 15 minutes from our nicu and have an extended maternity leave so I went for about 4 to 5ish hours 7 days a week for 10 weeks. The first 2 weeks i was there 8 hours a day. I felt extremely guilty if I wasn't there even if I had a doctor's appointment or something.
When I went back to work if I got off early enough I would go for 2.5-3 hours in the evenings but usually just on my days off. My boyfriend didn't go nearly as much as me. Once his 1 week paternity leave ran out he only went on his days off and usually on 2 of the 3 days because of how demanding his job is and how the hospital affected him mentally.
@ninkies I go everyday from 5-9. Then it's bath and bedtime. When she was first born and my husband had mono he was off work I was going twice a day and it burnt me out!
@ninkies I lived an hour away, it was my first baby. You couldn't have paid me to leave, my family had to force me to go down to the cafeteria. I lived there for 5 days, no regrets.
But I would imagine If It was My second or if she was there longer than 5 days I would've had to leave. But I would've stayed there every weekend.
@ninkies We lived 30 min away without traffic and had 28+5 twins and spent 3-5 hours. The longer days were just what it could take to handle both sets of cares. We had a puppy at home (great timing) and I was still physically exhausted from a traumatic labor and pumping. With the babies sleeping most of the time, I didn’t feel bad only visiting once a day for several hours.
You need to care for yourself as well in this process.
@ninkies thanks for this post, i was wondering the same thing. i travel an hour each way to visit our babies and usually stay for a couple of hours. we have kids at home so anything longer is too exhausting when factoring in regular pumping/everything else. take care of yourself and your family
