A Day in the Life of a Nursery Nurse

My name is Teresa Timberlake and I’ve been a nursery nurse/nursery practitioner in Portsmouth Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) for 24 years now.

Initially there were seven of us but now our group has expanded to 13 or 14. We mostly work in special care but can occasionally work in the high dependency unit (HDU). In special care we usually have 4 babies and in HDU 2 babies because they’re more intensive and usually on hourly feeds or IV fluids.

Our main role in special care is to facilitate, support and encourage the parents to look after their babies with breastfeeding, bottle feeding, bathing, and discharge preparation. We can teach parents infant resuscitation, advise on safe sleeping, how to make up milk feeds and carry out car seat tests. We also do most oral medications and teach the parents how to draw up and give them if they are going home on them.

We are also there for emotional support because having a baby on NICU is extremely difficult emotionally and some families find it hard and feel guilty as they can’t be on the unit all the time because they haven’t got transport or have other children at home. We have a parent councillor on the unit, and we can refer parents to agencies to help with other difficulties.

I still find my job extremely rewarding even after 24 years. It’s very interesting and it is an absolute privilege to work with the babies and families on their difficult journey and I get huge job satisfaction daily. I feel I’m very lucky to work with these tiny, very vulnerable babies and their parents on their neonatal journey.