Our newborn twin daughters were back in the hospital due to RSV. They’re doing well and so time to share my tips for dads on how to survive a hospital stay.

First, before going on, this is comedic with some truth. This video is primarily a stress release for me and I don’t mean to make light of the seriousness of the hospitalization of little ones. Take me with a grain of salt and then read much better tips for NICU stays. First stop should be Kathryn Whitaker’s index and the posts she links to from there.

Frankly, the experience is still too fresh for me not to make a half-joke out of it. Compared to Kathryn and Luke’s 44-day NICU stay, his complications, continued medical issues, etc, the twins are a cakewalk. They were only feeder/growers with relatively easy issues. Even the RSV hospitalization this weekend was kinda pointless–a little oxygen and a lot of everyone being careful. Eventually, I’ll write a serious post with some (more) serious recommendations. I admit this is me trying to play off their stay. Until then, accept this bit of quasi-comedy like you would the Daily Show, the Colbert Report or anything in that genre: true enough but framed for comedy; not as an exhaustive source of info or even focusing on what is important of the truth.

We were only in the NICU for 11 days. The twins’ RSV stay was only 24 hours. O and MC on separate admissions were in for 4 or 5 days combined (ignoring everyone’s normal postpartum time). That’s nothing compared to what some families go through, but still sucks. No one should have accrued almost three weeks worth of hospital time for their kiddos.

In reality, with all of these tips, the overarching message is the same as my Dads in Delivery post: be the chief advocate for your child through direct awareness of their immediate medical situation and as much awareness as possible of the broader “system”. Knowledge is power, so gain that knowledge and use the power that comes with it as necessary for the benefit of your family.