u/Legitimate_Peach_438

5th grade teacher at a 5-8 middle school, with block scheduling, 70 min/block. We’ve had countless issues with bathroom messes and incidents this year. Three weeks left in the year and admin decided to make a change. Previously one student/ class is allowed to sign out to the bathroom at a time. Starting tomorrow, every teacher, every block, must take their entire class on a ~10 bathroom break. And no longer allowed to go during class unless it’s a “true emergency”. This means each student will spend about ~40 minutes of group bathroom breaks each day. Plus they have the opportunity to go at lunch.

I teach ELA and my curriculum is impossible to finish. I came back from maternity leave 3 day ago to find the sub way behind. I stripped out everything fun to just the bare bones to finish the school year. I don’t have a better solution, but this one is stupid, and I feel like we’re being punished by taking away much needed class time. Counting down the days.

Our first daughter has a million rhyming and alliterative cutesy nicknames, but stuck on very many coming naturally with our second
Daughter. We regularly use-

Ella Bella
Ella Bella Boo
Elly Belly

Any other good ones out there?

I am combo feeding, and my 12 week old is normally fine with formula but sometimes, and usually in the evening, she ONLY wants to nurse. She screams as if being tortured if she doesn’t get it. My husband insists on trying to give her a bottle and gets very frustrated that she won’t take it from him. He’s upset that he can’t calm her the way that he could our first daughter (slightly preferred him and preferred formula). I try to take her and he snaps that he’s not done trying and will tell me to stop hovering. He’ll take her to another room. She screams and cries until he finally gives up and lets me take her. I have the same conversation with him almost daily. It’s not your fault that you can’t give her what she wants.

He prides himself on being capable, so I think it’s an ego hit that he can’t settle her. I guess I don’t really need advice because the solution is simple. Just give me my crying baby. Just needed to rant.

Unless my 11 week old is absolutely starving she often does this- latches for a second then unlatches and turns her head as if deeply interested in something. I’ve stopped watching tv or having sound on my phone during feeds. She does this in a dark, quiet room too. She’s a busy body for sure, but I don’t understand why she does this when she clearly wants to eat. The back and forth between nipple and staring into the abyss goes on for several minutes.

Asking because what we’re doing is currently working, however, I go back to working full time in a week, and I don’t know how I’m going to survive.

Currently husband: sleeps in a separate room with the toddler monitor and takes the first newborn shift (whenever he decides to go to bed- 2:30 am). Toddler occasionally wakes up some nights and wants something then goes right back to sleep. Our baby does not consistently wake up during first shift. For a few weeks last month, she was sleeping 8+ hours consecutively. Now it’s a couple times a week. Husband wakes up at 6:30 to get ready for work (from home) and takes the toddler to daycare at 7.

Currently me: I take the rest of the night with the baby. She sleeps in a room with just me. I try to get to bed as early as I can. Once I breastfeed/get her down for the night, I pump and tidy up the house. I’m usually starving from nursing and need to eat. It’s usually about 10:00 til I’m in bed. The baby usually wakes up between 3 and 4 am and takes 1-2 hours to get back to sleep. I get up with our toddler at 6:45 to get her ready for daycare, then if I’m lucky, go back to sleep until the baby wakes up.

I think it’s fair that I’m the only one who gets interrupted sleep regularly while I’m on maternity leave, but I am a teacher going back to work next week, and I’m so exhausted now, I can’t imagine how I’m going to manage rowdy 10 year olds with the lack of good sleep. I will need to wake up around 5:30 or earlier to be able to get myself ready and nurse and pump. So whenever the baby gets up during my shift is probably when I’ll be awake for the day.

Would you make changes if you were in this situation?

My big orange boy is very sweet but he HATES having his nails trimmed. It is not safe for us l to do it and I haven’t attempted in years. He’s almost impossible to hold and he bites and scratches. Unfortunately we had to trim a nail last night when I discovered it was growing into his paw (none of the rest are long, just sharp). We tried wrapping him in a towel but he thrashed and screamed. Ultimately my husband was able to trim it, but cat screamed and threw him backwards and he almost hurt his back. My cat reacted as if we cut off his paw. We didn’t even get near the quick.

Any tips for next time? We have another cat who just whimpers and squirms a little when we trim her claws, so it don’t think we’re being too rough.

My daughter is nine weeks old and she received formula from day one. I’ve been giving her one bottle of breastmilk a day, plus breast-feeding based on convenience throughout the day, but usually only about 30 minutes a day. She’s taken both just fine. For the past two days, however she suddenly had a strong preference to the breast, spitting out bottles, being inconsolable until she gets the breast. It’s currently 7 PM and she’s been cluster feeding since 4 AM. It’s been rough.

Has this happened to anyone else? And was it temporary? I don’t mind breast-feeding more often, however, my maternity ends in less than three weeks, and I’m worried about how hard that’s going to be for her if she’s only getting the bottle during the day.