Hints for Fathers at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital

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Contents

Parking

Pick up and Drop off

The RPA side entrance is closest to the maternity sections of the hospital. Walk in, and the birth centre is to your right and the delivery wards to your left.

The entrance is at the end of a small culdersac intended for picking up and dropping off, and with a small number of twenty-minute parking spots, all of which will probably be taken with people who've probably been there for a lot longer than twenty minutes — apparently, it's a big hit with the obstetricians. Still, even if you can't park long enough to help your wife to the front desk, you can at least save her a walk from the next nearest car park, which is St John's.

St John's

If you're using the side entrance closest to the birth centre and delivery ward (RPA level 3), the best off-street parking appears to be the big dirt car park at St John's next door. You'll end up parking between the RPA and the oval used for helicopter landings.

If you're going to be coming and going over a few days, pull over at the booth and talk to the operator about getting a permit for a few days. The car park is usually around $4 an hour, and leaving your car overnight usually costs $18. A permit covering Thursday through Saturday inclusive just cost me $30, saving me a small fortune.

Across the Road

There's a coin-operated car park more or less opposite the front entrance to the hospital, just a little up hill from Emergency. It costs $5 a shot, and you better have $1 or $2 coins.

From this car park, your best bet is to walk in the front entrance and make your way to your intended destination through your hospital. You'll probably get lost the first few times, but that's half the fun.

On the Road

Legal

There are a few 2h and 4h parks. During peak hours, they'll be taken to a five minute walking distance. If you don't get back in time, you're almost guaranteed a ticket.

Illegal

You have no idea how big the fines will be. Just head for one of the car-parks.

Food

Hospital Food

The lowest level of culinary hell is the hospital food. Your partner might well claim that it doesn't matter as it's for just a few days. Congratulate her on her stoicism, then quietly arrange other food. See also: Why bother?

The lounge

There's a lounge somewhere nearby. In the morning, it's often used for breastfeeding classes, but the rest of the time you can wander in and make your partner a cuppa — if there's a cup (see Stash that cup! below). You can also sneakily make yourself a cuppa.

If you start making other visitors a cuppa, you'll get sprung and reminded that the food is for patients only. The moral of this story is, take other visitors to the Jacaranda Cafe downstairs to satisfy their hot beverage needs.

The lounge fridge

You can stash your own food in the fridge (excellent for any home cooking you've managed to get hold of). Just write your partner's name, bed number, and the date you put it in the fridge. It should get thrown out two days later, but you should check before discharge and clear out anything of yours.

There's also some yoghurt and other snacks in there for your partner but, whatever you do, don't eat anything from the fridge yourself. Anything there provided by the hospital is definitely for patients only, and if you eat it some starving-hungry mum is going to go without. Similarly, leave the biscuits alone.

Stash that cup!

With her first meal in the maternity ward, the new mum will get an insulated cup full of hot water. Once she's finished with it, hide it — the lounge often runs out, and you don't want that in your way when she's desperate for a cup of tea later on.

Where to hide the tray

If you put your tray on the floor, the hospital attendants responsible for food will get narky and pointedly remark on the carefully constructed Occupational Health and Safety regulations that forbid them picking it up. If it's in your way, take it to the lounge — there'll be one of those wheeled tray racks in there, probably hidden behind the door.

Jacaranda Cafe

The second lowest level of culinary hell is the Jacaranda Cafe on level 4. I tried the black bean beef yesterday. It wasn't bad; there wasn't much taste to it, but it was a veritable riot of flavour compared to the chicken Zoe was served. I might try the hot-dogs tomorrow. If in doubt, buy the cakes for her dessert. The real trick: the cafe closes at 1900 sharp. Blink, and you'll miss it. It opens at 0630, and breakfast ends at 1000. I haven't figured out the rest of the timing yet.

A wee tale

Earlier on Day 3, I wandered into the lounge and got caught a conversation about the hospital food. The mother was saying that the food wasn't so bad, especially for only a few days. So, I wheeled out the ol' levels of hell routine. I explained about the lowest level being hospital food, the next lowest being the cafe, and the third level...

Boston Market

"Boston Market," chorused the rest of the room in one of the spookiest displays of groupthink I've seen all year.

It's true: McHomeCooking is vastly superior to the the hospital food, and arguably better than the cafe food. You'll have to trek a fair way to get it, but it's open after 7pm. After Zoe woke up from her stitching gasfest, Bruce managed to score some roast lamb, vegetables, potato & gravy, pumpkin mash, and a reportedly tasty chicken and mayonnaise sandwich at eight or nineish.

Home Cooking

The best of all, of course, will be some home-cooked food. There's just one catch.

If you've been cooking up a storm at home and stocking your recently-bought freezer for what you've been assured is a difficult time in the first couple of weeks at home, you're going to find it incredibly hard to actually eat any of it until you get home. "That," your hibernating mammalian hind-brain will say, "is food we hoarded for winter, and it's not winter."

I thoroughly recommend asking other people to bring in their home-cooked food, and eating that. Anything that'll microwave will do nicely.

King St

If your cooking — and that of your friends — isn't that great, there are several billion excellent restaurants in King St, only a short walk or drive away. I can thoroughly recommend takeaway from Thailand restaurant, one of around twenty Thai restaurants on King St, and one of the closest to the hospital.

Why bother?

Your partner is going to be spending a lot of time a foreign environment. It's carefully designed to be blandly inoffensive, hence the food and decor, but the lack of anything interesting to stimulate the senses will slowly grind her down.

Along the same lines, hand the baby to the first trustworthy visitors you get and wheel your partner to the deck of the Jacaranda Cafe on level 4 so she can get some fresh air.

Visiting Hours

Official visiting hours are 0900 to 1100, and 1400 to 2000. Your visiting hours are slightly longer — 0800 through to 2200, though you'll have to keep a pretty damn low profile during the 1100 to 1400 sleep time if your partner is in a dual-occupancy room.

If your partner is in a single-occupancy room, there'll be a funny looking lounge chair with a single bed concealed in it, and you can stay overnight. You won't get much sleep, but there's so much you can do to help her during this stay I urge you to stick around if you can.

See also: Self Help, regardless of what kind of room she's in.

Noise

Single Rooms
Earplugs
The telly in the lounge
Other peoples' guests
Your guests
Doors closing
A loud bell ringing noise roaming up and down the corridors at around about 8pm

Self Help

The NSW public health system is pretty lean, and there aren't always enough staff to offer the service you'd like. That's frustrating if you're in a hotel, but downright gut-wrenching if your baby is screaming hungry and your partner can't feed without staff assistance and you've been waiting for what seems like a long year. So, there are two excellent reasons for you to do as much as you can yourself:

You'll get quicker service on what you can do, and
Everyone (you included) will get quicker service on what you can't do, because you'll have freed up that little extra bit of staff time.

As an extra sweetener,
Staff are nicer to people who're doing their best to help themselves.

Get Your Bearings

If you want something, you'll probably want it quickly. Sleep-deprivation will guarantee that you'll run out of something at some point, so when you arrive, wander around and see how many of the following you can find. Ask someone to point you to any that you miss.

The changing room, with its baths, changing mats, laundry baskets, and a wardrobe with spare nappies and baby clothes;
The lounge, which has a fridge, sink, hot water dispenser, ice machine, table, chairs, and (depending on where you are in the hospital) maybe a balcony to sit on;
The nearest laundry cart parking spot, which will have a slightly different line of merchandise than the changing room cupboard;
The place where they park the breast pumps;
The bottle-washing room;
The visitors' toilet; and
The Jacaranda Cafe.

Nappies, Towels, and Other Laundry Matters

They're always running out of laundry — particularly, it seems, towels. Stash one spare — but only one spare — of each item in the shelf in the bottom of your crib, so you can change it if it gets dirty. When you use it, hunt down another.

Items you'll need at hand are: towels, nappies (have two spares of these), singlets, tiny baby gowns, swaddling cloths, crib sheets, and crib blankets (I prefer the cell blankets to the terry-towelling ones).

Not all items are available at all locations, which is why you want to know where both the laundry cart and the changing room are. With the laundry cart, dig around — it wasn't until day five that I realised that my favourite square swaddling cloths had been there all along hidden behind the crib blankets.

Pumping Breast Milk: The Machine

You'll particularly need your independence if your partner gets damaged nipples and needs to resort to pumping milk for feeding purposes. A breast takes no time at all to get ready, formula a few minutes, but pumping can take twenty or thirty minutes plus preparation time to get together. That's a long time to listen to a screaming baby, and I'd wager it's a long time to be a screaming baby.

The moment you're handed your Milton jar and given the news, ask where the pumps are kept and where the washing station is so you're not depending on someone answering a buzzer to get started.

Feeding Procedure

After a few tries, I ended up with this procedure. You might well to be able to improve on it, but it's a better starting point than not knowing anything at all:

The moment the baby stirs, or you expect based on experience s/he will stir, head off and grab the pump.
Fetch the bottle, funnel, tube, and valve out of the Milton jar, and assemble it.
Calm the baby whilst your partner pumps. She'll probably be doing five minutes left, right, left again, and right again.
When the pumping stops, detach the bottle from the funnel assembly and