u/Initial-Pangolin2174

My baby shower is next week, and we are collecting RSVPs. Due to the amount of kids in our families, we decided to not have kids at the shower. There would be 24 children invited with 57 adults. I was clear on the invites that it was adults only, even stated it on the registry and had the online RVSPs set up to allow only who was invited to come.

Well, my cousin has one child, who is almost 9, she asked if she could come. We don’t see her very much and I haven’t seen her since my wedding 2 years ago. I would love to see them more but no one has made plans to make it happen, she even got married 2 weekends ago and didn’t invite any of us. However, she is the perfect age for a shower and it is just one.. my husband’s half sister has 3 kids that span from 6 to 17, so giving an age-range of appropriate ages to come to the shower seems really rude so we decided to just not invite any kids.

I’m really torn on inviting my cousins child, but I know I shouldn’t be.

I’m trying to tell my mom that I want a shower and something to eat before visitors at the hospital, when I’m in the recovery room after giving birth (literally just the grandparents), and my mom says sometimes they don’t let you shower right away. What is it really like after you give birth?

I’m 26w pregnant and my pump arrived! What do moms do? Do we turn it on, make sure it works now? What do I do with this thing before baby comes?

There’s a brand, athletic brewing that has *almost* alcohol free beer, less than .5% in a can. One wheat wouldn’t hurt the baby, right? I’m 23 weeks and everything has been healthy so far with the baby-I avoid drinking beer obviously but it sounded so good. Can I give myself permission to have just one!

I have littermates, and they are about to turn 5 years old! They have never been separated and have always eaten their food side-by-side. I tried separating them to eat and they got so worried about being separated that they didn’t care about eating. They now have Petlibro bowls with chip on their collar, for a variety of reasons, the main one now being one cat has prescription dry food for her allergies. We give them both dry food at breakfast and dinner, and give them wet food at lunch.

My sensitive stomach cat loves her routines, and any deviation is really hard for her. She gets stressed out if her wet food looks different than her sisters. Problem is, her stomach can’t handle any of the wet food we’ve tried to give her. Even the z/d sensitive stomach wet food she throws up right after.

So long winded way of asking—Anyone have sensitive tummy cat food ideas? I’m out here about to make them wet food in my kitchen.

I’m just imagining me with a painful sore bitty parts being expected to put my pain aside for people to hold the most important thing in my life and want to throw up and want to be selfish in my post-partum and focus on my recovery over hosting others.

But idk, what’s normal post-partum? How painful is it really?

I’m wanting to try to whiten my teeth while wearing Invisalign. I want to do this near the end of time wearing them(so they’re white when I take them off), and finding it difficult to know where that time is. It’s looking like I might be done at the end of July. I don’t really know how long it takes to whiten my teeth either!

I am not close with my mil, she has boundary stomped and complained the whole time about not getting her way on things. While we shared the news we were expecting with her a little late in the first trimester, my SIL shared with her the next day they were also expecting a month after us. My mil has complained about every one of her other son/wifes pregnancies, this time saying it’s too soon and she cant celebrate everyone at once this year. She is thrilled to encounter being a grandma again. We celebrated our nieces birthday today and I asked my SIL if she complains about us to her, and then spilled the tea on my SIL about our MIL. Probably not the greatest idea but I’m tired of keeping it to myself and shouldn’t have to. It’s not fair to her.

Edited to add: I shared more of my experiences with my SIL, the complaining about not being part of our private vows, and worry about my marriage license being signed wrong (because what?!)

Well, I had a miscarriage last fall so I’m fully aware this could end up being a cat room 😅 but I know what I want and probably have some “independent girl“ trauma but know that no ones buying this stuff for me anyway. I’m 18w and have the crib, stroller, high chair, changing table, and dresser organized and washed as I gather items. I mainly thrift and deal shop—I found the stroller new from someone who buys pallets and resells for less expensive. I’m very excited for this stage of my life and have been planning since last year. I created my registry last fall and have been editing, buying, and tweaking off it since last fall also. There’s maybe two “wanted” items over $100 left to buy.

When I talk to my pregnant friends, it’s kind of a toss up on who’s prepared and who isn’t. My two closer friends have not prepared or started a registry at all, and my another friend of mine was almost fully stocked before the shower. I’m feeling unsure how normal it is to be prepared—I know excitement usually leads me to uber planning mode also.

I know I’ve made a lot of posts in this sub lately. I have not been doing great this week tbh. But what you do in this scenario?

While I am *technically* due October 18, Everyone believes me to be due November 1. That was a smart idea at the time.

However I am now deep in shower planning season and stuck in a conundrum on whether even have a shower or to just throw hands up and have a nesting party.

Ideally, the shower would make sense to be mid to late August. My close cousin and good friend are also pregnant and due around the same time. We have a close friend getting married at the end of August also.

My mom does NOT want to host my shower before my cousins “to not steal her thunder”

But even IF my due date was nov 1, a shower late September is too late in the season IMHO. We have already been through my nephew coming 3 weeks early last fall.

Below is the lineup of weekends and how little choice I really have.

Early August: husbands family reunion
August 16: bachelor party for friend (so that leaves my husband out completely)
August 23: open weekend
August 28: friends wedding up north
August 30 cousins baby shower
September 6:Labor day (which I guess is not a preferred weekend)
September 12: co-family baseball game (planned before we knew I was pregnant)
September 20: friends baby shower

At this point, either I’ll be a grumpy mom or my mom will be grumpy.

How do you nicely say “stop buying baby crap we’re trying to not have a house filled with crap. Sometimes less is more” to in-laws whose love language is buying cutesy clothes and toys for every stage of their life?

TW I….am struggling today. No one gets it. It hit me today, but it’s been coming for a while. I had a 12 week MC last fall. It was more traumatic than I thought it was for me. I’m now 17 weeks with a new pregnancy, and everything looks great. I have an anterior placenta so I can’t feel anything, I’m mildly terrified of losing this child so I don’t want to know the gender until it feels “real” and I can feel the baby. I barely have a bump and my mom and mil are obsessed with my pregnancy and forget important things I’ve done lately (I spoke at my Alma Mater for graduation last week) and I’m terrified of losing my identity to this child. So, a lot. I hate being the center of attention. I just want my husband and I’s family to grow.

Anyone else in the feels? Just me? Great.

I’m not opening gifts and they’ll be about 35ish people there with littles.

Theyll be food and some games.

Games for sure:
Pass the prize
Onesie decorating
Guess the baby food
The baby name game:using couples name, come up with as many names as possible for baby

We’ll probably do a diaper/wipe raffle too! Is that enough? I’m thinking yes but second guessing it since no gift unwrapping.