The note on our phone

Kept on a phone, updated when anything changed. Her current weight. Every medicine with the dose and how often.

We were asked for all of it, by several different people, every time we went anywhere. Having it written down meant we weren't doing arithmetic about gestational age while a nurse waited, and it meant both of us gave the same answer.

This was our hardest stretch. Ari was gaining weight, feeding well and passing stool, and was being kept on the basis of a bloated tummy with an explanation that kept changing. We found ourselves asking why they were keeping her at all, which is where frustration takes you and is the wrong question.

The right questions, which we eventually wrote down and asked calmly, were these. Why specifically are you keeping her. Is this precaution or is there something you've seen.

Questions when they keep her in

There was a point where the explanation we were given did not match the baby in front of us, and we asked a baby's doctor from outside the hospital to come and look at her.

Nobody objected. It is a normal thing to do and it is not an accusation. What made it work was doing it in writing and doing it politely — a short message explaining the situation, what we had been told, and asking for an assessment.

Ask the discharge questions before discharge day. We asked what we should be watching for, what would bring us back, what the follow-up was and who was arranging it, who to ring out of hours, and what the medicines were and for how long.

Asked on the day, in the rush of leaving, you get half answers and a feeling of being pushed out of a door. Asked two days earlier, you get real ones and time to think of the next question.

Before you go home

A small thing that helped more than it should have: deciding in advance which of us would ask the questions.

Two frightened parents both talking at a doctor produces a worse conversation than one asking and one holding the baby and listening. We swapped depending on who was holding it together better that day. The one listening often caught what the one asking missed.

Call your doctor immediately if

Blue or grey, a pause or struggle to breathe, or a floppy baby you cannot wake — call your local emergency number now.

  • Laboured breathing, grunting, pauses in her breathing, or she goes pale, grey or blue
  • She's floppy, very hard to wake, or her cry is nothing like her usual one
  • A rash that doesn't fade when pressed under a glass
  • A temperature of 38°C or above under three months