Something for a NICU family?

[xokell2]

My cousin's son was just born with a coarctation of his aorta and is expected to be in the children's hospital for 3-4 weeks with surgery. I want to do something thoughtful for them but I'm at a loss for what someone in that situation would really appreciate. Any ideas?

[w2w]

Food is always appreciated, as well as gift cards to restaurants that are close to the hospital. A nice blanket (with his name on it) to cover the isolette would be nice, too, although maybe he isn't in an isolette since it sounds like he wasn't pre-term. Baby clothes with no feet and snaps not zippers so the monitoring equipment leads can be pulled through). The #1 thing I liked when my child was in the NICU was food - I didn't remember to eat ever and I was too tired to cook, so it was super nice to have someone bring food to our house and stick it in the fridge.

Hope he is doing great and able to go home soon!

[CloudBee]

I think the poster above has good ideas.

If you want to include a gift as well, I love this child sized bracelet. It's sterling silver and says "Hope for Heart Defects". I got one for a friend whose son went through open heart surgery as an infant, and he wears it daily and is 3 now. (I have one, too.)

There's also a survivor bracelet. I often wear mine together. My mom and sister wear the hope versions, and have the lapel pins, too.

chdfamilies.org/products.html (Scroll down)

[ijack]

food. do they have other kids at all? If so babysitting for them while she visits the hospital is always welcome. for me the best stuff was things I could grab on the way to the hospital - a friend sent me a care package with powerbars in it. Granted not the yummiest thing ever, but she knew me well enough to know that I wasn't sitting down and eating meals at home. gc to restaurants near the hospital or for gas are also great.

[w2w]

One more thing I thought of that would have been awesome (but not really a gift) - organizing some sort of family information system. I received so many phone calls from family members - it was super overwhelming, and the last thing I wanted to do was explain my child's precarious status 50 different times. I ended up just not answering the phone because it was just too uh to deal with at that time. It would have been great if someone had been the person to handle the distribution of information.

[dumbledore826]

Ditto food. When LO was in the NICU I would have not been capable of making food myself. We had people prepare/bring us pretty much every meal. My BFF even made a munch of muffins and we could just grab as we ran out.
Are there other kids? Babysitting would be great.
Are they religious? BFF got a symbol that represents being watched over by God for our LO. It was definitely appreciated. She also organized people to pray for him.
Another ditto to organizing a phone chain. Not only did I not want to repeat it, but cell phones were not allowed in the NICU.
Is she pumping for LO? If they don't already have, an extra hat or 2 for LO would be great. I rotated my LO's hats because having one he'd worn helped me when I was pumping.

Did they know about this issue prior to their son's birth? If so, and they knew there would be a NICU stay, they probably toured prior to birth and have a good understanding of what will happen. I can't imagine it makes it any easier though. Just support them. Ask them what they need, do not push them to talk if they aren't interested. And do not indicate they are spending too much or too little time there.

[jessnpaul]

I'll also echo the food option. DS was in the NICU for 8.5 weeks (and has since spent almost 2 additional weeks in the peds ward) and prepared food was really the best so I didn't have to think about it!

I also had friends offer to run errands for me which was a nice gesture, although I never took any of them up on it. But it's a nice thing to offer if you can!