Last week we got 3 new volunteers! (woohooo!!!) That means there are now 8 of us volunteers. Wow what a difference 3 people can make. It feels like so many people are here and its so nice! But with all this extra help that means we now start night shift. (duh duh duh...) Oh night shift, I had never done it but I had heard many not so awesome things about it.
As the weekend approached we all were anxious about out night shift. Mine happened to be on Sunday night. I can't say I was exactly excited about it but I cant say I wasn't dreading it either. I was excited for a new adventure.
Night shift is exactly as is sounds. You get to work at the orphanage all night long. You get the afternoon before and morning after shifts off though which are nice. So I got Saturday afternoon off. I spent the time sleeping as much as I could to prepare for the night ahead of me. At 5:40pm we get in the car to go to the orphanage, picking up the afternoon shift workers and dropping us night shift workers off. You have one other person with you during night shift.
When we got there my partner, Ashley, went to uno and I stayed in tres with about 5 kids that were still awake. They were all cozy and clean in their pajamas waiting to go to bed. They were in the playroom watching a movie. As soon as I sat down on the mat they all came up and wanted to sit on my lap. We have rules that we aren't supposed to really hold the kids because they cant get used to always being held. But at this moment I didn't really care. I opened up my lap and arms and let them all cuddle with me. One of the many moment I wish I had more arms and laps. We sat there and watched for about 30 more minutes and then they finally had to join the rest of the kids in bed. They happily grabbed their bottles and I lifted them into their cribs.
I then went and joined Ashley in uno. It was about 6:45 pm by this time. We just hung out in uno until 9:30 pm. Making bottles, feeding babies, changing diapers and talking. Ashley is one of the new girls so it was fun talking and getting to know her. At 9:30 we went and woke up all the tres kids and changed their diapers. Some then got medicine, and then they all got another bottle with mysterious drink and went back to sleep. Then we went and woke up all the dos kids and did the same thing. Changed diapers, some got medicine, and they all got bottles and went back to sleep. By this time it was about 10pm; Ashleys turn to sleep.
There are 2 shifts, 10pm-2am and 2am-6am. I volunteered to take the first shift so Ashley slept first. We set up a bed in the dos playroom. Just a mattress with sheets and blankets. She went to sleep and I went back to uno. We did have one worker with us but she went into the nurses office and slept on the bed in there the whole time. So from 10pm-2am it was just me, 5 babies under the age of one month and 2 cute three month olds. Staying up until 2am would have been easy peasy about 3 months ago. But now that my body is exhausted by 9pm here in Ecuador this was no easy task. I brought books, and snacks, and things to try and help me stay awake. The minutes ticked by but with 7 babies in the room there was no time to think about being tired.
It was very interesting being in the orphanage at night. By interesting I mean pretty scary. haha. I'm kind of a big baby so every noise I heard I thought someone with a gun was breaking in. The orphanage isn't in the best parts of the city and knowing I was the only one awake in the building plus I had all these babies and about 25 other kids sleeping I was taking care of I just prayed nothing bad would happen. And of course nothing did. Everything was just fine and 2am came pretty fast. I then went and woke Ashley up and tried to get some sleep myself. Before I knew it it was 6am and Ashley was waking me up. I then went into uno and we took care of the babies until we waited for the morning shift girls to come and our ride home.
Whew, we survived our 13 hour shift at the orphanage. We got the morning shift, 5 hours, off to sleep and recuperate and then it was back to work that afternoon.
When we got there my partner, Ashley, went to uno and I stayed in tres with about 5 kids that were still awake. They were all cozy and clean in their pajamas waiting to go to bed. They were in the playroom watching a movie. As soon as I sat down on the mat they all came up and wanted to sit on my lap. We have rules that we aren't supposed to really hold the kids because they cant get used to always being held. But at this moment I didn't really care. I opened up my lap and arms and let them all cuddle with me. One of the many moment I wish I had more arms and laps. We sat there and watched for about 30 more minutes and then they finally had to join the rest of the kids in bed. They happily grabbed their bottles and I lifted them into their cribs.
I then went and joined Ashley in uno. It was about 6:45 pm by this time. We just hung out in uno until 9:30 pm. Making bottles, feeding babies, changing diapers and talking. Ashley is one of the new girls so it was fun talking and getting to know her. At 9:30 we went and woke up all the tres kids and changed their diapers. Some then got medicine, and then they all got another bottle with mysterious drink and went back to sleep. Then we went and woke up all the dos kids and did the same thing. Changed diapers, some got medicine, and they all got bottles and went back to sleep. By this time it was about 10pm; Ashleys turn to sleep.
There are 2 shifts, 10pm-2am and 2am-6am. I volunteered to take the first shift so Ashley slept first. We set up a bed in the dos playroom. Just a mattress with sheets and blankets. She went to sleep and I went back to uno. We did have one worker with us but she went into the nurses office and slept on the bed in there the whole time. So from 10pm-2am it was just me, 5 babies under the age of one month and 2 cute three month olds. Staying up until 2am would have been easy peasy about 3 months ago. But now that my body is exhausted by 9pm here in Ecuador this was no easy task. I brought books, and snacks, and things to try and help me stay awake. The minutes ticked by but with 7 babies in the room there was no time to think about being tired.
It was very interesting being in the orphanage at night. By interesting I mean pretty scary. haha. I'm kind of a big baby so every noise I heard I thought someone with a gun was breaking in. The orphanage isn't in the best parts of the city and knowing I was the only one awake in the building plus I had all these babies and about 25 other kids sleeping I was taking care of I just prayed nothing bad would happen. And of course nothing did. Everything was just fine and 2am came pretty fast. I then went and woke Ashley up and tried to get some sleep myself. Before I knew it it was 6am and Ashley was waking me up. I then went into uno and we took care of the babies until we waited for the morning shift girls to come and our ride home.
Whew, we survived our 13 hour shift at the orphanage. We got the morning shift, 5 hours, off to sleep and recuperate and then it was back to work that afternoon.
so did the babies ever wake up? what did you have to do if they woke up and started crying?
ReplyDeletealso, that is so sad about how you're not supposed to hold the kids too much....i'm sure they are just craving the affection!
yeah they wake up about every 2 hours to eat if not sooner. and with 7 babies all on different schedules i was pretty busy the whole time. they really only cry if they are hungry or need changed so if they woke up it was one of those.
Deleteyeah it is so sad. and probably harder on us volunteers then it is the kids! haha. but we definitely sneak in some love when the workers aren't looking.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete