u/citizennil00

I read the Solid Starts Book and I understand that the idea is to try to give iron rich foods starting at 6 months because their natural iron stores start depleting. But I can't quite wrap my head around how exactly I'm supposed to get iron in her belly besides trying cereal?

Does sucking on meat count?

Do I have to cook her steaks every night? We are not very big steak people...

People post about meatballs but I can't imagine giving her a meatball... I feel like she's gonna end up with a huge hunk of it in her mouth.

My baby woke up with a cough on Monday. She hasn't had a fever and has been generally happy and healthy otherwise. This cough has been making it's way through her system and it gradually started sounding worse over the last couple days, but I was assured by the ped triage phone line that part of the course of a virus is that it will move from a nasal congestion/post nasal drip cough, to a chest cough as she fights it off and as long as she didn't develop a fever or trouble breathing it was fine to just continue home care. They also seemed very happy to know that she was breastfed and told me how it would help her fight off this cold.

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Well, I'm a little crazy and I've been letting her sneeze and cough all over me so that I know my body was producing antibodies to pass along. Yesterday I woke up with a little congestion, so I feel pretty confident that I've officially been exposed to whatever germs I needed.

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She always wakes up around 2am in her crib and I move her into bed with me. But the last few days she's been waking up coughing once she comes into bed with me and she's been snoring and having trouble feeding while laying down like we usually do.

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Last night when I brought her into bed... No additional wake ups! And she fed while she slept like usual!

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I know the cough won't be magically gone today, but I feel like we're on the upswing! I think it definitely helped to expose myself to her germs! Keep my little one in your prayers and hopefully she beats this bug quickly!

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Our bodies are amazing and I'm so glad I stuck with it even when it was hard, because making medicine from my boobs is unreal. 😂

I've read that bone broth is a great food to incorporate early to help with establishing gut biome, but I'm at a loss at how to incorporate it.

Are you just giving your babies straight soup? I feel like pasta is a heavy starch and sort of negates the purpose, plus it feels like a huge mess waiting to happen lol

Are you adding it to oats like a savory porridge?

I go back to work on Monday and I found a new job which I'm really excited for, but there is a part of me that is nervous about establishing a pumping routine in an entirely new environment.

As far as I can tell, this company actually seems really accommodating. They've confirmed they have a "mother's lounge" on site for pumping moms which is a great start. They have two days of pretty detailed orientation lined up and I know I'm going to miss some of it due to pumping. I let HR know in advance and they really didn't give me any push back, just said "I'm sure we can accommodate so you don't miss anything crucial"

I have wearables and I'm comfortable having them on in public, but I don't want to set the precedent that I won't be taking my breaks, so I haven't mentioned it. I just know they do waves of hiring, so it's not like the orientation is just for me. There will be an entire cohort starting at the same time as me, so it's not like they can just wait for me to be finished.

I'm a little nervous about everything I will have in tow when I arrive: pumps, cooler, thermos, plus a laptop bag for the equipment they're issuing. My plan is to get there a little early to hopefully give myself some time to get settled so I don't walk into a room full of people with all these bags on me.

From what I've learned so far, they seem very new mom friendly. This job will require me to travel and their recruiter was explaining they have a benefit for new moms where you can actually sign up to ship your pumped milk home to avoid taking it on a plane. Idk how it all works / if I'll use it, but that just feels like a good indicator around their idea of dealing with pumping moms.

I'm a little sad that I'm not feeling 100% with my body right now, but I've basically bought a whole new work wardrobe, gotten my hair done, and I'm getting my nails and eyebrows done on Friday. I figured these are the things in my control right now.

Overall, this job is worlds better than my previous job (on paper anyway), but at my old job I was very friendly with my female boss and had my own office so I know pumping would have been very easy there. I think it's just the fear of the unknown coupled with the transition of returning to work that has me a little uneasy. I'm typically not a very nervous person and I love meeting new people!

My baby is 5 months and I've cherished every moment home with her, but I'm also ready to return to a schedule/routine and talk to adults during the day. I'm sure I'll be a little rusty, but I think starting a new job might actually be good because I'll inevitably be easing into work rather than going back and having a major project put on me immediately.

I guess I just need some help hyping myself up. I want to be excited but there's a tinge of guilt I can't shake as well as feeling a little nervous about needing accommodations right out of the gate. Kind words or stories of great return to work experiences welcomed! Also any tips on navigating being firm (but friendly) about establishing pumping breaks?

My baby has been pretty much exclusively nursed since birth. She's taken a handful of bottles when we left her with a caretaker for a few hours. I've been working on bottles for the last two weeks and we've found one that works pretty well and she's starting to get the hang of it. She's 4m 1w. Tonight we put her in the high chair while we were eating (just trying to get her used to sitting in it) and her bottle had a little less than an ounce left. I put it on her tray just to see what she would do and she picked it up and started sucking. She just didn't understand she needed to tilt it backwards. Seeing her do this makes me wonder if she'd take to a straw up ? She'll be 5 months when I return to work and I'm reading Solid Starts to guide us in BLW. They recommend trying a straw around 6 months with food.

My questions are:

1. did you try a straw cup before 6 months? How did it go?

2. Do you think the type of activity I described would support that she might be able to use one?

3. did your baby still nurse if they transitioned to a straw cup early? I'd like to still be able to nurse her when I'm home.

I get my hair highlighted every 6 months and I'm due. I always get my hair done in May & November. I purposely put a lot of time between treatments to attempt to preserve my hair.

My roots are horrible. I've been shedding more than normal, but not experiencing crazy hair loss. Would you do it? I'm about to start a new job in June and they're taking my professional headshot on day 2 of orientation and I really don't want to have these roots memorialized.

I'm 4m pp and baby has been pretty much exclusively on the breast. I'm going back to work in a month and will be away from baby for about 10 hrs a day, so I will switch to pumping while I'm there and hope to continue on the breast as well in the mornings, evenings, and weekends.

I'm curious how long you were able to keep your baby on exclusively breastmilk while maintaining a similar schedule.

My morning pump has been slowing down and I was getting a little sad. I checked out some recommendations on this group and bought a lansinoh hand pump and tried it this morning. Started great, but I plateaued again at 2 oz and was feeling a little frustrated. My one nipple has also been on the cusp between a 19 and a 21. I've been using a 21 for the last almost 4 months and I originally thought your size could only go up.. and it's definitely not a 24. Then I remembered reading on here that your size can actually DECREASE, so on a whim I changed it to a 19 to see if it made a difference and OH BOY! I've never seen it come out so fast! I pumped another 3 oz in like 3 minutes.

I just wanted to post something specifically about your flange size decreasing because I read it deeeeep in a comment. There may be someone like me looking for advice who needs to hear this, so I'm bringing this tip back to the top of the feed!