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Probably more an indication of how bougie our neighborhood has been getting but I swear half of the new parents group we joined had a snoo. We went with a mika micky bassinet because we thought the option of being able to dock it to the bed would be useful. Turns out just getting up and double-teaming the feeds (one handles wrangling the baby and a mid-feed change while the one with the boobs handles the feeding) was the best fit for us so we never used that feature. We were also paranoid about he cats exploring it if it was pressed up on the bed. Then mini-pony started making baby sleep sounds that were keeping us wide awake so he got rolled out into the hallway pretty quickly, then moved to his own room in a crib. Now he is an absolute champ night sleeper (10 hours straight through the night) and we're so incredibly glad he allowed us to evict his grunty butt from our bedroom. Now naps... naps are hell. I know that catnaps are "normal" for a 3.5 month old but gently caress could we use more than 25min off in a go and we would really appreciate it if he would get bored of his new trick of smashing toys into his face when he's tired (stimulating him to keep him awake, but he screams when you try to get him to do something else). He fights naps in the crib over half the time, doesn't like being worn, and it is almost always too hot here for a walk so we often end up putting him in the swing where we have to keep watch to make sure he stays in a safe position. We're kinda at our wits end over it and somewhat guiltily getting excited about upcoming daycare arrangements when we might, maybe, get a small amount of our sanity back. It is also really loving hard working from home while nap battles are happening, or any other thing really. I help out when mrs pony feels she needs to tap out but that means that 90% of the time when I see him during the day he's either screaming or at the minimum incredibly fussy and that has really worn me down.
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Sep 18, 2020 03:02
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Lead out in cuffs posted:I'm assuming you know about and are working with the 90-minute alertness cycle? Yes, but he usually pushes more like 2hrs or so before taking a catnap. He's definitely unhappy but really loves going from being near nodding off to working himself up by slamming things into his face, groaning like Tina from Bob's Burgers, or kicking like mad (which he's currently doing). We've tried putting him down earlier, later, and trying going by sleep cues (there were some but they've disappeared in the last two weeks) and nothing has helped. Reading through Ferber it looks like he's actually likely getting too much night sleep (he hit over 11 hours two nights ago) so we're cutting that back. We started last night and so far today has been better because he's much less fussy but still not great about getting enough nap time so his mood is deteriorating through the day. Hopefully it is just him taking a bit of time to adjust to the change. I think the things he's doing that overstimulate him are just a matter of him having a new thing he can do but not yet having the ability to figure out when is a good time to do the thing and when to stop. Maybe the novelty of being able to lick a blanket will wear off?
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Sep 19, 2020 22:04
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Tonton Macoute posted:I have a confession. I have came to dislike internet comments on parenting and relationship advice for dads, yet I cannot look away whenever something pops on the forums, Twitter or elsewhere. So much of it is "have u ever tried doing a dish" or "Did you know women do all the emotional labor?", even when it's not relevant to the issue brought up. FWIW I find a lot of the online “dad” spaces and advice collections frankly toxic. So much along the lines of “your partner punished a baby out so you better man up and about doing x, y, and z” where there is a focus on being stoic and powering through with very little discussion of emotional needs, challenges, and strategies for tackling them in a healthy manner. There’s no recognition that yeah you can totally take on an unfair amount of burden, and relatively little acknowledgment of the mental load that comes with “have to keep job, little person is depending on me now”. Like I get that there is a certain type of person who that type of appeal to their masculinity works well on but I can’t help but think that isn’t exactly the sort of person who’s going to be seeking out online advice for being a dad and it sure isn’t great to make that the focus. Then again I’m nonbinary so perhaps I’m a bit sensitive that sort of thing and not the best person to opine on such things 
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Sep 21, 2020 23:38
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I'll throw in two things that seem inconsequential but you have a very limited window for them so you don't want to gently caress them up. #1: Take photos post delivery of mom and baby. The first skin-to-skin period is magic. Take several photos several times and be sure to get both of them in the photos, a lot of people don't or get half of mom's head in the frame. #2: DO NOT SEND THOSE PHOTOS OR ANY ANNOUNCEMENTS OUT TO ANYONE WITHOUT YOUR SPOUSE'S APPROVAL. Almost every discussion of post delivery photos in moms groups is now filled with stories from moms who had a picture of their boob sent out to everyone they know because dad was excited and sent the first picture they took without showing them first.
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Sep 30, 2020 21:21
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Additionally if you don't have an epidural if things go sideways and they have to do an emergency cesarean they will very likely have to put the mom completely under. If the epidural is already in place they can (usually) just switch up the drugs moving through it so that mom can be awake during the operation and able to hold/nurse the baby as soon as the doctors make sure the baby doesn't need any additional intervention. I wanted to add that a lot of the help a dad can give will be when everyone is in the postpartum room. Mom will not only be recovering physically but can be going through emotional hell thanks to the abrupt change in hormones that comes from birth and losing the placenta. Even if you can't fix things, being a comforting voice saying "we can do this" when a surge of anxiety hits is huge.
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Oct 1, 2020 19:56
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Is there a record for "shortest time between enrolling in day care and getting sick" because we managed to pick up babby's first cold in two days. Which was promptly given to Mrs Pony because of course.
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Oct 11, 2020 14:59
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We've incorporated several of the "ten sentences over and over" books into nap routines, that helps us get in a good dose of reading every day and we hope to keep that routine going for as long as possible. What really gets me is how hard some of the stories hit me. I didn't expect to be fighting back tears every time Little Owl's mama tells him what happens when day comes but welp. I hope to be able to make it through Guess How Much I Love You by the time it is age appropriate. I can manage about five pages now, I'm not sure it is going to happen.
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Nov 5, 2020 04:42
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wizzardstaff posted:What is the worst book and why is it The Pokey Little Puppy? Excuse me may I introduce you to "Love You Forever" featuring breaking and entering and commando crawling by a mother unable to let her adult child sleep in his own house?
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Nov 19, 2020 05:25
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Levitate posted:Especially with the pandemic and everyone spending more time at home, it's completely reasonable to just.want.some.drat.time.alone. It is totally reasonable and so very important. Mrs Pony and I regularly ask the other if they want some "me time". We've done it from the time we moved in together and our relationship is so much better for it. These days it can be the other taking the kid on a walk around the neighborhood, taking the monitor with them to another room, or even just saying "put on your noise canceling headphones, I'll handle things for a half hour". It is especially important during peak teething days jfc gently caress teeth. I guess the main tips we (and my therapist) would give is whenever a person gets their me-time make sure you agree on a definite minimum length of time so they aren't on edge the whole time, and make it clear that things that must get done and basic self-care don't count unless the person wants to do it during their me-time. Working is not me-time. Doing the dishes isn't me-time. Taking a quick shower is not me-time (soaking with a bath bomb or standing in the shower for an extended time savoring the warm water tho... yeah that can count).
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Jan 2, 2021 16:06
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We plan which vacation we're gonna take when "spending two weeks at grandma and granddad's" is a viable thing. Ireland is the current leader.
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Jan 3, 2021 01:02
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For us raising a newborn has been one of the only things that has made Covid bearable, despite Covid making raising a newborn almost unbearable.
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Jan 3, 2021 02:28
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life is killing me posted:My son decided he would play with the brand-new, 100% full giant-rear end bottle or bubble bath we got him, and he promptly dropped it on the floor while I was using the potty in the other room, breaking the cap. It spilled about half a gallon of highly concentrated bubble bath around his potty and of course I have zero idea how to clean it up because as we all know, water causes more suds. If anyone has any ideas whatsoever I’m basically begging for it Water + agitation causes the suds. If you can rinse it without really scrubbing that will help. Alternatively use a defoamer. Commercial formulations will be with the carpet cleaning stuff at your local Home Depot or equivalent but white vinegar diluted 1:10 works pretty well as a substitute. If your bathroom smelling like a pickle jar for a few days is a deal breaker sprinkling salt over things instead of using vinegar will help as well, although it isn't nearly as effective.
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Jan 20, 2021 03:43
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We decided to rent a hospital pump since our insurance provided one has gotten increasingly finicky about working correctly and we've been having issues with clogged ducts. Whoa, Nellie what a difference. Only have gone up to about 60% suction and drat I'm scared to think what 100% would do. And in a pinch I can use it for weight training.
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Jan 21, 2021 03:27
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Joey Steel posted:My wife swears by the Willow pumps. Mobile, battery powered, and reasonably good. It's no hospital pump, but she isn't chained to a wall socket either. One of the people in our (virtual) parent's group had the exact same complaints about the bags being crappy and it not being cool that they charge for reusable containers. She managed to get the company to send her the containers for free but I think that was mostly because she was an OB and was able to credibly drop "how am I supposed to recommend this to my patients?" The rental we have is an Ameda Platinum. It is nice that we can reuse all of the spare valves, flanges, and diaphragms that we had gotten for our insurance provided pump.
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Jan 21, 2021 18:43
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We have to laugh when our baby gets shots too. You can see the expression go from happy, to confusion, contemplation, then arrive at "i hate this!" shortly before the scream starts. Then I crunch his favorite crinkle toy and he's laser focused on how happy he is to try to stuff the entire thing into his mouth. He'll even start giggling because we're laughing.
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Jan 21, 2021 22:15
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remigious posted:Thanks guys. Luckily my husband is amazing and incredibly helpful, the main issue is at night since I have the boobs, I have to feed baby. My milk just came in so maybe I’ll try pumping to keep a bottle or two handy so husband can feed the baby and I won’t have to get up every time. Man it’s only been a few days and this has been such a wild ride! At the newborn newborn stage it is pretty much anything goes if it gets you through the day. Something we found helpful was to keep things night-like at night. Minimum of light, zero chitchat. It let us get back to sleep very quickly. People say to switch off but what we settled into was a tag team - both get up, person with boobs gets set up while the person without wrangles baby out of the swaddle, feed one side, person without handles diaper change between boobs, feed other side, person without puts baby back into swaddle and such while person with gets cleaned up. It wasn't fun but it worked and kept the load on each person low enough that they never really woke up all the way. Shifty Pony fucked around with this message at 01:55 on Jan 22, 2021 |
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Jan 22, 2021 01:05
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We have this video monitor and like it a lot. It does not connect to the internet in any way so there is no privacy risk, and the range is good (but not amazing). Battery life is decent and it can charge from any USB power source via an included usb cable. You can also turn off the screen and mute it without turning it off and let the indicator lights let tell you if there is any noises going on. I highly recommend turning the video off until you want to look because babies will wiggle like crazy and not wake up, which can stress you out needlessly.
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Jan 22, 2021 20:48
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I've yet to nick baby finger. I kinda press the nail against the front face of the lower blade of the Frida nail clippers and a few wiggles later it pops up on top and you can safely cut without catching any skin. It's like beheading a Hydra though. Every time you clip you somehow end up with two new sharp edges.
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Jan 23, 2021 04:30
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At day care 7.5 month old baby Pony sleeps for like 1 hour all day in two 30 minute naps and has like 4 hour wake windows. Comes home with "happy" and "active" on his sheet and the teacher says he just went went went all day. Comes home super happy then rapidly runs out of gas and goes down for a two hour nap, smiling the whole time. At home we can't get him from four to three naps in a day because he gets crazy fussy after being awake for 2:15 and practically falls asleep in place at 2:30. For his first and second naps we have to wake his butt up at 1:30 or else he'd just happily snooze for over two hours in a go. I'm not concerned or anything but I am extremely curious what the heck magic activities they are doing all day to keep him so engaged and happy (can't visit the classrooms now due to Covid precautions). Dude must be running on FOMO all day or something.
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Jan 28, 2021 17:24
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Benagain posted:I know that this isn't where you're coming from and you're in no way trying to imply this, I just like repeating this. LABOR ISN'T FREE. All value and breast milk is ultimately the result of labor and effort. Yeah add up all the hours that Mrs pony has been stuck with the baby on her plus pumping and multiply by her hourly rate at work and formula is probably an order of magnitude cheaper. Hell just the time I spend helping with pumping + cleaning pump parts is easily $50 per day.
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Feb 6, 2021 03:33
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5:45 pm at dinner: "oh wow what an appetite, he is so excited to be eating all of his eggs!" 8:50 pm after he woke up very unexpectedly: "oh god there is egg vomit everywhere, I'll get the bath going if you swap the sheets!" I guess a 9 month old doesn't know when to stop when they really like the taste of something? 
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Feb 27, 2021 05:40
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Crazyweasel posted:Is this his first time eating eggs? The timing (3 hr between eating and vomiting) is giving me PTSD when our guy had eggs. Turns out he has FPIES, basically a gastro allergic reaction to eggs that makes him vomit a lot almost exactly 3 hrs after he eats them! We are going to try again once he is closer to 2 y/o, as kids almost always grow out of it... No he's had them multiple times with no issues. He's just started being really loving excited about food and I think his digestive system hadn't caught up with how much he wants to eat. The day before for lunch he absolutely destroyed some beans and rice only to have some obvious discomfort two hours later when the reality of eating so many beans caught up to him. It seems to be getting better now, we are pacing him and putting our finger foods to make him work for it.
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Mar 2, 2021 05:44
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life is killing me posted:Can say more another time if someone else doesn’t cover that other stuff but, you probably should have started looking months ago. Get yourself on a waitlist for any daycares you like that don’t have slots open for your kiddo so you have options when one calls and has an opening. We had a big wake up call when we realized we waited way too long to start checking out daycares and we had to go back to work and we were freaking the gently caress out. We got lucky, and I don’t know the current state so maybe it’s not like late 2018 when we looked. Around here at least Covid has completely eliminated wait lists at almost every daycare. A nearby one went from "Thank you for your interest, register as soon as the pregnancy test shows positive and you might be able to get your yet-to-be-conceived next kid in" to "Tuesday start good? Please?!" That said the most important part of picking a day care by far is touring it which shouldn't be possible right now. That is, if one lets you tour it and walk into the care rooms right now it probably isn't one you want. If you can do a virtual tour or FaceTime tour or something what you want to look for is the place being organized, well maintained, laid out so the staff can keep an eye on kids, plenty of staff so that they don't get overwhelmed (there will be a state minimum ratio for any age range, know it so you won't be impressed by the daycare trying to pass off meeting the legal minimum as a great thing), and kids being interacted with. That last one is unfortunately something you can't see in an after hours tour or some photos, we nixed one daycare from our list that had fantastic facilities and ratios but the kids we saw there just weren't getting any real meaningful back and forth - they were just kinda there. And a word of warning: when your kid goes to daycare expect to be mildly to moderately sick for months straight.
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Mar 6, 2021 05:24
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Crazyweasel posted:Is this his first time eating eggs? The timing (3 hr between eating and vomiting) is giving me PTSD when our guy had eggs. Turns out he has FPIES, basically a gastro allergic reaction to eggs that makes him vomit a lot almost exactly 3 hrs after he eats them! We are going to try again once he is closer to 2 y/o, as kids almost always grow out of it... Old re-quote: I know I said he's had them multiple times without issue before (which was true) but now the last two times he's had eggs everything came back up a couple hours later. So looks like no more eggs for baby until we figure out what's up.
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Mar 7, 2021 21:14
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Somehow my kid only poops on Saturday. All week long no poops, but Saturday is an all-day dookathon. It is strange because he's home doing the same stuff some of the week too but nope Saturday is the day for poop. At least it is spread out throughout the day instead of one massive diaper-blowing event. Also have him egg this morning on advice of the doctor, about half a teaspoon. Unlike the previous times he had absolutely no reaction to it that we can tell.
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Mar 13, 2021 23:26
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Any suggestions for a 10 month old who has seemingly developed a taste for mom-flesh? I can hang with him for hours without incident but the instant Mrs Pony sits down next to him he urgently commando crawls over to her and gets ready to give her legs a good cronch. We've tried redirecting him with little luck. She'll get up and move away (with minimal fuss) but we feel bad leaving him to play in the play-fenced area of the living room without someone hanging out with him (although he doesn't seem to mind at all). Best I can figure is he knows that she means food and he's getting confused, but that doesn't help much.
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Mar 27, 2021 04:07
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It is distinct from colic from what I understand. It is just a weird phase that a lot (but not all!) babies go through around 5-11wks where over a few weeks they cry more and more for no discernible reason then gradually cry less and less. People start to panic because it seems like their baby is getting worse and worse despite them doing everything right, and it hits right as sleep deprivation is starting to get to absolutely critical levels. Like all things baby it of course has to be given a cute name and branded to sell poo poo.
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Mar 27, 2021 16:10
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Blinkz0rz posted:
I'm part of the latter group. We don't even send each other cards for birthdays or holidays. No active dislike or anything but growing up she got much more attention and resources because her likes strongly overlapped with my dad's so it was easy for him to indulge them and she would often get into not great positions which required my parents to help out. No real shared interests to bond over. There's no biological law that says siblings have to be bestest buddies.
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Mar 29, 2021 16:47
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Joey Steel posted:So, Ferber sleep training works for sleeping 7-8 hours at night at a stretch. Does anyone let the kid fuss for a few minutes if they wake up after 15-20 minutes into their nap? I'm thinking about trying it, since a full REM cycle is like 45ish, and he could just sleep for that long at a go, he might be a little better by the end of the day. Worked a treat for us. We didn't try and push it too hard, if he woke up mid-nap we'd do the progressive waiting but not more than the nap would have been if it went a full sleep cycle. So a wake up at 20mins meant at most two ten minute waits since after that you're at 40 minutes and the nap would be done anyway.
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Apr 3, 2021 01:35
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I regret getting the changing table with slats behind the changing platform because they are astonishingly good handholds for a baby that wants to flip over onto their tummy.
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Apr 7, 2021 20:34
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Mine absolutely wrecked some gochujang glazed meatballs and loves roasted Brussels sprouts with balsamic vinegar. PerniciousKnid posted:My infant ate lots of stuff that she grew out of, now post-toddler she's starting to eat more variety again. Our pediatrician has harped on exposing the baby to as much variety as possible so that when the inevitable toddler contraction in what they will eat occurs it will still be a decent range of stuff. We'll see if it pays off, Mrs Pony is a pediatric dietitian and is always fighting to try and keep from obsessing over the food he gets since she's primed to do it since that's what she does all day and she's primed for worry there. So far the only thing he hates is steamed cauliflower, which I can't fault him for since I hate it too. He's all about roasted veggies though.
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Apr 8, 2021 04:20
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For those that breastfed/pumped what's the weaning schedule look like? Everything online just says "oh it's a personal choice" and doesn't really give a good idea of timelines. Mini Pony is coming up on 11 months and we would like to have him to be totally weaned to bottles by his 1st birthday, as well as having completely stopped pumping by then. Currently when he's at daycare he is BF in the morning, gets three bottles 7oz during the day, and then gets BF in the evening (in addition to three meals a day). Non daycare days he is BF only. I was thinking that it would be easiest to first make every day a daycare day with 3 bottles, then ~5 days later switch the evening BF for a bottle, finally switching the morning one over a week later. During that time we'd be gradually reducing pumping. We have about 800oz frozen but we have no real idea how long that will last because we don't know how much he eats in the morning and evening. I suspect it isn't much because the morning feed is about 30 mins after a pumping session (plus he chows down on breakfast) and he's pretty lackadaisical about the evening feed. The goal is to get him over the 1 year mark before running out since then we can go straight to cow's milk.
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Apr 17, 2021 19:48
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Hippie Hedgehog posted:I didn't quite get the "go straight to cow's milk" part. You said you're weaning him off the bottle, right? Sorry my brain isn't exactly firing on all cylinders at the moment. Getting him off the breast is the most important goal but dropping the bottle entirely will come either at the same time or immediately after. We've already got him drinking water from a small cup during meals and he is rapidly increasing the amount of solid food he eats. It's really hard to shift mentally from "breast milk is a primary food" to "milk is just a drink".
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Apr 17, 2021 22:35
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Still vividly remember us laying in bed as the baby was grunting in the bassinet, both of us trying not to make a noise in the hope that this time the sleep cycles wouldn't get interrupted only for the grunting to stop and be followed by the sound of a nearly empty ketchup bottle being squeezed out HARD. How do babies fit so much poop in them? And at such high pressure?
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Apr 27, 2021 15:39
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I'm not convinced that our kid knows how to roll front to back even at 11 months. Somehow he's made it all the way to pulling himself up to standing without ever, to my knowledge, intentionally going from his belly to his back. He's done it a few times by accident but every time he's just completely in shock about what happened and flips right back over. Once while going to sleep he was so vigorous about rolling over from back to front that he overshot and did a 360 onto his back again, and he was so so so very pissed about that. Whatever, seems to be working for him I guess.
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Apr 30, 2021 17:54
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gently caress that's a hard situation. This is definitely the time to pull on every single resource and friendship you have. Third-ing a lawyer if you can swing it, not just to protect yourself financially but also because it lets you offload having to worry about that side of things.
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May 2, 2021 16:11
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Baby proofing gripe - I just *love* how baby electronics manufacturers cover their products in warnings to hide cords and make sure they are out of reach from kids, then stick these fuckers on the end of them, preventing you from pushing furniture up flush with the wall to keep small hands away from the cord:
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May 2, 2021 16:19
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redreader posted:Our son got into my wife's nail polish and my wife sorted it out because it was her turn to do early kids this morning. I was quite impressed with how he'd only got it on himself, until she pointed out that there's a patch on the carpet and it's impossible to get out. I'm sure the landlord will be fine with it. Don't worry, there are numerous guides for getting polish out of carpet. The important things are to avoid acetone based removers and to test each method in an inconspicuous spot like the corner of a closet. Non-acetone remover, rubbing alcohol, and hairspray are some options. Unless it was a gel polish in which case you might be screwed.
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May 2, 2021 21:12
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I'm less concerned about the plugs getting unplugged (since the tip straps keep the furniture in place) and more concerned about a hand reaching back there and pulling up enough cable to get wrapped around a limb or neck. If I can get my hand down there there no way a toddler can't. Also not being able to push the furniture up against the wall makes for a very enticing "insert toys here" slot. I'll have to get some short flush-plug extension cables and plug the stuff in underneath the furniture. It's just annoying.
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May 3, 2021 15:03
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| # ¿ Apr 26, 2024 00:28 |
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wizzardstaff posted:I can vouch for Huckleberry, but don’t bother with the paid features like a customized nap schedule based on your baby’s personalized data. That kind of thing only really makes sense if you’re sleep-deprived and desperate for something that will solve all your problems for just $15. (It’s me, I was that desperate.) Huckleberry is making the entirety of the "sweet spot" nap prediction a paid feature now. I guess they didn't get enough uptake on their other attempts to make money. IMO while it isn't anything super special, just repackaged wake windows, it is totally worth the $2.50/month they want to not have to do that mental math constantly.
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May 6, 2021 12:29
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