A TikTok influencer who's known for her content about the day-to-day realities of a career in nursing, has gone viral after sharing her reaction to a dad of a new baby taking diapers from the hospital. TikToker, @mikiraiofficial reposted a clip of the dad in which he can be seen taking the diapers stored in his child's hospital bassinet and saying, "nobody's gonna know," along with her own reaction.
"You know that's like, illegal, right?" Miki says in her TikTok video, which she captioned, "literally illegal." But, there's more to the story. It turns out that Miki was just having a bit of fun and taking baby supplies home from the hospital after your newborn is born isn't illegal at all — it's not even frowned upon.
Miki revealed an interesting fact in the video.
After faux scolding the dad featured in the video, Miki, who has 2.4 million followers on TikTok, revealed some interesting and useful insider information that literally every parent should know.
"Just kidding, I'm not a Karen. Hope I didn't trigger you," Miki says in the video which she originally posted in 2021, and has since garnered 1.5 million likes.
Miki's tip has been a bit of a revelation for some parents.
According to Miki, if you've just had a baby, you should totally take home any supplies left in your room when it's time to head home from the hospital with your new bundle of joy.
"I'm a nurse, and I'm here to tell you that we have to throw away everything after you leave, so you might as well take it home," she said. Basically, someone will definitely know if you take baby supplies home from your hospital room, but no one actually cares.
Not every nurse will let new parents in on this "secret."
We ourselves were fortunate to have a sweet nurse tell us the same after we had our first child. She literally told us to take everything from the bassinet and anything that was in the cabinets in our rooms.
That included items for baby and mom, like diapers, wipes, receiving blankets, nipple cream, pads, lidocaine, disposable underwear, and more. It was super helpful to us as young, first-time parents with very little extra income. Nurses are the best! But, not every nurse automatically divulges this info, so if you're expecting a little one, rest assured, it's OK to take baby supplies home from the hospital.
Some parents reported that they also had nurses instruct them to take stuff from their hospital rooms.
Several commenters on Miki's video shared our hospital experience and reported in the comments that they, too, were instructed by nurses to take the supplies.
"Didnt know this my daughter was born last month. The nurse was like yea empty it for us ," wrote one commenter.
"When we brought our twins home the nurses bagged it all up for us! We were so thankful!," wrote another new parent.
Some nurses even chimed in.
A few of Miki's fellow hospital workers have even chimed in on her TikTok revelation.
"Generally if we can't wipe it down with disinfectants, it's probably disposable and will get thrown away," wrote one nurse commenter. "Take that stuff." comments.
"Take it," agreed another person. "We really do have to throw the stuff away. Diapers, wipes, formula, the combs, the nose suction etc. we throw it ALL away."
"I work as a janitor at a hospital and we throw away EVERYTHING so have at it," commented another TikToker.
But some parents were genuinely surprised.
"Wait can we really take everything ?????" wondered another person. "So if we asks you guys for it will you just let us?"
"I didn’t even know we could do that didn’t even look if there was [drawers] under the baby’s bed ," one person wrote.
It's OK, the hospital stay after giving birth for the first time can feel like a blur. But next time, you'll know!
