Yesterday we went to meet the lastest addition to the F clan for the very first time! He arrived on Monday and both he and Mum are very well although, this being Japan, they are still in the hospital. We arrived to find S in her (very, very nice) private room, but where was the baby? In the baby room, naturally. She took us for a viewing through the sound-proof window (visitors are not allowed to hold the babies until they are released from hospital):
He looked so tiny and adorable, snoozing away but squirming all the while. There were only two babies in the room, the other was a teeny weeny premie who was crying his little heart out. A nurse sat at a desk in the same room, but she never went to check on him or give him a cuddle. Actually, I was quite shocked by the set-up. There is no rooming-in. The babies are on a 4 hour schedule and the mums are summoned to feed them at fixed times. In between feed times, the babies stay in their bassinets in the baby room, while the mums rest or do their own thing. If the babies cry, they are just left to scream it out. Seems very harsh for little newborns. I don't get why the mums don't seem to want to be with their babies. When we asked how S was feeling, she sighed and said that she wasn't getting much sleep as the nurses come and wake her up for feeds round the clock - my heart bleeds!!
On the food front, Saturday was nice and easy as K had picked up some bargain sushi for his dinner:
All this for just 380 yen (just over £2)! For the children and myself, I made a simple bake with gnocchi, which was sooo nice I could have eaten the whole lot on my own, given half the chance:
Gnocchi bake with spinach and mozzerella
250g gnocchi
175ml pasta sauce (I used tomato and garlic)
1 ball of mozzerella, cut into chunks
50g fresh spinach
Cook the gnocchi and heat the pasta sauce, stirring in the spinach. Combine all the ingredients in a dish and bake at 190c for about 15 minutes. Mmmmmmmmm.
Seems almost horrifying the set up at the hospital--
ReplyDeleteYikes! The sushi reminds me of shopping every evening, I wait for the half price sticker (budgeting is smart) so I can spend more money on Manlos' hehe "joking"!
I am a huge fan of Gnocchi! Seriously! This looks fabulous actually!!!! Was it hard making the Gnocchi?
Don't you just love the Japanese hospitals! I can remember before my daughter was born they promised that I could have her in my room all the time etc., but when she was actually born the reality was very different! I had to go to a room every 4 hours to feed her (with all the other mothers), weigh her before feeding, weigh her afterwards and then if she hadn't drunk enough (according to their standards) I would have to bottle feed her too... unfortunately she was just never hungry at their stupid feeding times and I was bursting with milk, but they insisted she was still hungry. They wouldn't let me feed her for the first 24 hours and my husband couldn't touch her for the first 24 hours either. I wasn't allowed to feed her at night so woke up so full of milk I was squirting everywhere! All in all an experience I refused to repeat with my son. I found a much better hospital where they left me alone with him 24 hours a day and I went home after 3 days. Both born in Japan, but both completely different experiences! Some of their practices are unbelievable....
ReplyDelete