What We Donate:

For the parents:

Having your baby in the NICU is a hard transition. It’s a disruption to the fairytale dream of parenthood you once imagined. A painful recovery and empty arms make normalcy seem scarce. So our goal is to provide a care bag for new parents that might help them find a small sense of sense of normalcy in a not-so-normal time of their lives. Around the holidays, we replace the gift bags with stockings to add a sense of holiday cheer.

Here is a list of items we love to include in these bags:

• small activity books for the parents (crosswords, word search, etc.)

• pocket journals for making notes for doctors

• pens

• travel size toiletries (particularly lotion from the dry hands from all the hand-washing, hand sanitizer, chapstick, toothbrush/toothpaste

• individually wrapped snacks (pop-tarts, mini donuts, granola bars, crackers, etc.)

• Kleenex

• books to read to babies

• refillable water bottles

For the NICU beds:

• crochet octopus (this gives the babies something to hold on to and helps prevent them from pulling out their tubes)

• fitted sheet for the beds

• milestone cards for the parents to use as photo props

NICU OCTOPUS

The NICU octopus is one of the items requested by the local NICU staff. These give the babies something other than their inserted tubes and attached wires to hang on to and hopefully prevents them from pulling those tubes out or detaching their wires. These octopus are single-use since they cannot be properly sanitized. Because of this, the octopus will be a constant need for our local NICU’s.

100% cotton yard is preferred.

If you or anyone you know can crochet here is a free pattern!