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| My micropreemie's first experience with snow. Not so micro anymore. :) |
When Lil'C graduated from the NICU, we graduated as well. We became the parents of an "older" preemie. I believe it is one of those "with great power comes great responsibility" (yes, I'm a geek) kinna thing. I have knowledge that will make someone else's NICU journey easier, so it is my responsibility to do so and pay-it-forward. We had some who helped us in the beginning, a family who was in the Ronald McDonald house with us is the one who always pops into my head first. They're son just happened to be Lil'C's neighbour, so they gave us all the ins-and-outs of being NICU parents early on. They let us know when a nurse let him cry (we changed nurses) and when he went down on his O2 for a bit. They helped us learn what the various alarms were the first time we freaked out at the feeding tube finishing (you know you have done it!) and so on.
They are the reason I begain doing the NICU posts and created my
NICU page. It was all to pay-it-forward. I still like to find other ways to help other new NICU families and celebrate with other older NICU families.
Recently I have started checking out the #NICU, #Preemie and #Micropreemie hashtags on
Instagram.
I love leaving "happy comments" such as, how cute their baby (nose, hair, toes, whatever can be seen) is, especially on the micropreemies. I honestly look for something to complement their adorable little person on. I remember how upset it would make me to not be able to share my little guy with my family and friends in person. When I did share him online, I hated the "how sad", "it makes me wanna cry" etc. comments.
I remember quite vividly when our youth group took us to a local (to our NICU) concert to get us out for a bit. Lil' C was about a month or so old, and doing great! I, like any other mom of a newborn, was showing off his pictures. One of the kids (a middle schooler) loudly proclaimed "I can't look!! It's just so SAD! I wanna cry!" Honestly... I kinna wanted to smack her... I was thinking... "WHA??? this is my baby!! He is cute!" So I make sure I do what I can to give other moms "happy comments" because we get those other ones too often.
I also leave comments in preemie mom groups and give advice. Seriously, when my blog posts start to slack, that means I'm posting too often there :P My main one is the
What to Expect: Mom's of Preemies Group. The second is
Breastmilk for Preemies Facebook Page.
So, what do you do to support others?
So as you know I have two little geeklings: Lil'C and Lil'K. :)
One of our major parenting philosophies is to teach our children to longer need us. To make them self-sufficient. With Lil'C also having physical issues we find that even more important. We want him to be able to learn to do everything on his own and we push him to do so. We think that is part of why he is walking and doing all of the things he is now. So when we stumbled upon the Montessori Philosophy it fit right in "Teach them to do it themselves." With Montessori the activities/lessons/work are placed on trays to keep them organized and help the students learn to care for their workspace. Montessori also pushes natural materials from what I understand and have read thus far, which is where these trays differ from the philosophy, but I think they are pretty which follows the philosophy :P
Here is how they work..
