Maria R Turner, BSN, RN, CCRN

Our unit did not use restraints on any patients, and we were quite successful. We had a little 4 or 5-year-old patient who had been very sick, and his mom couldn’t be there with him all the time. There was one particular day he was very upset and kept trying to get out of bed. All he wanted was his mom. He was not stable enough to get out of bed, so I sat in the bed with him and read him a book and played games with him so he didn’t try to get out and hurt himself. Eventually he fell asleep snuggled against me. As a nurse, there are days when we don’t get to spend as much time with our patients, so I made time for my patients who needed it. It makes all the difference in their world.