Share your Kangaroo Care Story

We got to Kangaroo Care for the first time when Riley was three weeks old (after she had recovered from her PDA Ligation surgery). The first day was my turn, then Rick's turn after that. I remember being SO scared and discovering that the weight of her blankets was more than the weight of "her". I also remember watching the monitors so closely to make sure she was doing okay. It was the first time I really felt like her mama. It was an experience I will never forget. I was doing something that no one else could do for her.

The picture is of Rick with Riley. I can tell it's him because hopefully my chest doesn't have hair on it. HAHA.

Kangaroo care is great! I remember when Kimmie finally became stable enough to do "skin-to-skin" as it was called in our NICU.

She snuggled into my chest and then squirmed around, and squirmed around and squirmed around. She only lasted about 30 minutes before they had to put her back in the isolette because she was wasting too much energy with the squirming. But that 30 minutes was amazing!

A few days later they let her Daddy do skin-to-skin with her and she snuggled in and slept happily for over an hour! I was sooo jealous!

We continued to have the same results her entire NICU stay - her sleeping peacefully on her daddy's chest and squirming around on mine. The only thing they could think was that she could smell my milk and just couldn't keep still. It was still so wonderful though, considering we could barely touch her for the first month of her life.

Awwww, these pictures are PRECIOUS!!

How beautiful! I love skin to skin. It is the best feeling in the world! That's a great picture.

My son Jace was born at 24 weeks, he is now 30 weeks. He is still getting fed through a feeding tube and he is on bubble CPAP. We are only able to do kangaroo care on the weekends because of our work schedules, feeding schedules and NICU schedule.

He loves being held! We do it during his feedings. I hold on Saturdays and my husband will hold on Sundays, although I think we will switch days because my husband likes to sleep in on Sundays, LOL.

I did have an opportunity to hold yesterday (Wed.). That was very nice. Although, for the fist 30 min or so his pulse ox was reading that his oxygen was in the 70's and 80's. His nurse tried everything to get him to raise his oxygen. The last thing she did was change the pulse ox. That was it, thank goodness. I was able to hold him for the next 2 hours. It was the best feeling in the world!

Kangaroo care was the best experience while in the NICU. Sadly I do not have any pictures . We were lucky and were able to do kangaroo care with Maddie on her third day in the NICU once she was off the glucose IV. She would rest on me and we would sleep in the chair for an hour long stretch at a time. unfortunately daddy wasn't able to do as much with him being at work. I believe Kangaroo care helped Maddie come home 3 weeks before her original dute date.