Our first month with a night nurse

Last spring we cared for a two-year-old named Eli, who came home from Levine Children's Hospital after four months in the PICU with a tracheostomy and an overnight ventilator. His parents, Jasmine and Andre, agreed to share how the first month went, in the hope it helps another family preparing for the same thing.

The first week

"We had both done our trach training and passed the emergency change," Jasmine said, "but at home it was just us, and every alarm made my heart stop." Night nursing was approved but not yet staffed for the first five nights, so the couple took turns staying awake. By the fourth night, Andre said, neither of them was safe to drive.

When the nurses started

Eli's primary night nurse, Keisha, had met him twice in the hospital before discharge. She worked four nights a week, with a second nurse covering the other three. "The first night she was there I slept seven hours straight," Jasmine said. "I didn't know how much that was going to change."

Within the month, Andre was back at work full time and Jasmine had started thinking about returning part time. Eli's nurses kept a shared log the family read every morning, and Keisha noticed a pattern of overnight desaturations that led to a ventilator setting change at his next pulmonology visit.

What they would tell another family

"Ask for nursing to start the night you come home, not a week later," Andre said. "And meet the nurses in the hospital if you can." We have since changed our process so that a pediatric case is not discharged home until night shifts are staffed. Read more about our pediatric private duty nursing or our trach care guide.