u/jnm199423

My daughter is about 2.75 and her little brother is about 4 months old. Shes always been a very needy and a bit naughty but overall a sweet kid. Since her brother was born she has understandably been struggling. We have been super patient with her and we do our best to not yell, etc. And if we do lose our cool we sit down and apologize. She has never been hit.

With that said — she has started hitting her little brother and in the past two days has bitten his hand twice hard enough to leave little tooth indent marks (luckily did not break skin). It’s often when she’s frustrated that I’m nursing him and not her, she will just randomly come up and start hitting him hard over and over.

He obviously starts screaming and I have to keep him safe and I’m alone all day with both kids so it can be really hard to give her the attention needed to calmly teach in these moments because I also need to attend to him. We try to redirect, model gentle touch and kissing (which she also does do! She’s very sweet to him most of the time), ask her to observe how it makes baby brother feel when she does this, set boundaries that we will leave if she hits again, etc. I feel like I’m trying all the things and just not getting through to her. She also has been refusing to get in her car seat maybe 50% of the time we go places and it will sometimes take 30 min and I end up having to force her. She even was defiant to her swim instructor last week which was super embarrassing, ugh. She’s usually only disobedient to people she’s close to.

Anyway, I’m sure there’s a lot I could be doing better and I’m hoping some of this is just a phase we have to ride out and im fine to suffer through the obstinance and even her hitting me but the hitting and biting is really unfair to my son :(

Anyone been through this? Tips? It doesn’t help
That her grandparents on both sides love to talk about how easy me and my husband were as kids lol I feel like they don’t love the way we parent

I constantly see on this app moms (and dads) feeling like they’re doing something wrong because they’re extended breastfeeding, feeding to sleep, cosleeping, insert some other high nurture parenting thing. And then tons of posts arguing about what spaces kids should or should not be allowed in (often literally public spaces that should be accessible for ALL like airplanes, restaurants, etc). Posts bitching about parents of literal infants not wanting to attend a destination wedding without their child, the list goes on and on. And then in real life there’s constantly running into places, restaurants etc that clearly aren’t interested in accommodating children (like no changing table
In a restroom at a casual restaurant lol my husband literally had to change my infant son on his lap tonight).

Anywayyy, I know I’m preaching to the choir. Just feeling sad for our emotionally stunted world tonight. I hope some day we will value all humans regardless of their age, size, and ability to contribute to society. It’s interesting to me that many of the things people say about children, they would NEVER say about elderly people or people with special needs. Why can’t children be treated with the same acceptance and respect?

Long story but basically at 37 weeks with my second baby I had a precipitous labor. That morning I had been evaluated at a regular prenatal appointment and we decided to schedule an induction for the following week due to baby being IUGR and blood pressure creeping up and less than 14 hours later my baby was born. Literally 2.5 hours before his birth I was at a church event.

Anyway, I ended up experiencing the fetal ejection reflex just as I was leaving for the hospital and had the baby on the bathroom floor at home and Called 911 who came and evaluated me and baby and took us to the hospital we had planned to deliver at 45 min away where our MFM and midwife worked.

Insurance (UHC) paid the allowable amount but the ambulance company is trying to charge an additional $1200 per person (me and my son) as that is beyond
UHC’s allowable amount/my coinsurance (which was only like $200 something - my remaining OOP max). Ambulance company refuses to budge on amount.

My UHC advocate recommended I appeal to UHC so I am writing a letter that basically outlines what happened, that I didn’t have a choice to choose an in network ambulance provider and lists out the risk factors for me and my son to reinforce it was medically necessary to call an ambulance. I’m including a ton of detail like my personal pregnancy risk factors, how small my son was at birth, the fact his blood sugar was low, etc.

Is there anything else I should be sure to include?

Basically the title. I just am shocked that so many people I let into my life and home, who got to meet my sweet boy and be cuddled by him, just don’t give a fuck about his loss or how much I am struggling with it. When I had my miscarriage last year people at least knew to kinda pretend to care but I feel like with dogs people just don’t even bother pretending.

There are exceptions, and people who have been wonderful, but wow - the silence and lack of care feels so loud.

I am now regretting not checking in more often on the people who have lost pets before me. I think I didn’t want to know how hard it truly was before it happened to me and I feel like a lot of people are avoiding me and my grief right now for the same reason. So I get it. But it still sucks.

On a parenting thread I am on someone asked if they had had good experiences having their children adjusted at the chiropractor. I responded saying absolutely yes as that is the truth - chiropractic care was a crucial part of my pregnancies and breastfeeding journeys with my kids.

Anyway, someone claiming to me an MD responded saying chiropractic care is not tightly regulated like PT/OT and is not evidence based and while there are a few good chiropractors she would never refer a patient or loved one to a chiropractor but regularly does to PTs and OTs. She said PTs are medical professionals but chiropractors are not.

I’m a bit lost as my understanding was that chiropractors have both federal and state governing bodies? And have doctorate degrees? And are covered by insurance for a reason?

Am I misunderstanding something?

So I’ve been dealing with staph infections in any area with hair follicles since I was in 8th grade. My armpits and groin are where they pop up
Most often but I’ve had them on my scalp, in my nose, etc.

Once I got better about applying ointment at the first sign of irritation I stopped getting them as much and as an adult I usually only get like 1 a year now and I quickly put some mupirocin ointment on it and it goes away within a day or two. They typically only
Pop up in times of stress or illness now.

Well right now I’m 5 weeks postpartum and totally sleep deprived so my body is under a lot of stress and I’ve had 3 lumps pop up in the last week. The first two quickly went away with ointment like usual but the third in my armpit is not going away
And it hurts so bad 😭 I’m putting mupirocin on it around the clock and using hibicleanse in the shower but I feel like it’s getting more painful instead of less. I’ve been having to take ibuprofen twice a day to mange the pain. Is there anything else I can be doing? If I’m not seeing any improvement by tomorrow I’m gonna call the derm but I feel like it’ll take forever to get in with them 😭

Can someone just tell me it gets better? Lol

My almost 5 week old is tiny (IUGR baby born at 37 weeks at 5lb even) not quite 7lbs yet so I think that may be contributing to his frequent waking.

But right now even with cosleeping he only sleeps 2 hours MAX. And that’s a good stretch, it’s often only 60-90min (or less). Last night I made sure to do a good feed on both sides every time he woke to get longer stretches and that did help get us consistent 2 hours every time but it still wasn’t enough time to get me good sleep. I have a toddler who literally never sleeps (FML) an doesn’t have a nap, so I only have a 10 hour period at night to get my sleep in and I can only fit about 6 hours of sleep with the newborn in that time period (my husband is back at work so I’m alone with kids during the day)

Does it get better? Anyone’s kids start this way but improve? My daughter was never an amazing sleeper but damn she was better than this haha

Basically as the title says — this morning I woke up and my newborn had fallen asleep while breastfeeding (and so did I) and when I woke up he had rolled into his belly (I was still in cuddle curl position but he was super close to my body since he had completed the roll)

I obviously am going to try to avoid falling asleep while breastfeeding again to hopefully avoid this, but is there anything else I could do? The reason this happened is because he was refusing to fall asleep unless he was on my chest or latched. Anytime I tried to move him to his back he started squirming and crying 😭

He’s very little - only 3 weeks old and 6lbs so cosleeping in general at this age makes me really nervous but I was falling asleep on the recliner/couch nursing him bc he refuses his bassinet so I feel like I don’t know what to do🫠

So I coslept with my daughter but only for a little bit as a newborn then we switched to bassinet until she was maybe 5 months old then we went back to cosleeping and we still cosleep with her.

Anywayyy, I now have a baby who is almost 2 weeks old who was born at 5lb0oz at 37w0d. He was IUGR in the womb but had a great apgar score at birth and got to go home in 24 hours so he had no major complications, has regained birth weight etc. he’s just really small.

He also hates his bassinet lol my husband and I have been taking shifts but since I’m breastfeeding
I’m basically not sleeping. I keep falling asleep feeding him anyway and I feel like at this point it would be safer to intentionally cosleep vs attempting to stay awake and falling asleep in less safe positions or spots.

With that said, I also really am stressed about how tiny he is. I also would have to “sleep on latex” brand mattress that is medium firmness vs the firmest one as my husband got the medium for my daughter since she’s older and anyway that’s the bed I’d have to use as I don’t want to move my toddler right now for a variety of reasons I won’t get into.

As far as other precautions, I take it super seriously - hair tied, cropped t shirts so there’s no loose clothing, firm pillow with thin blanket at waist, baby on back with me in c-curl position etc. I guess the big things I’m worried about are his size/the fact he was a few weeks early, and the firmness of the mattress. I did test it today and he didn’t roll in toward me when I moved around so there’s that.

So baby was early term (37 weeks) and has a GNARLY tongue tie all the way to the tip of his tongue so he’s had some issues coordinating breastfeeding since day 1 but was able to latch still by some miracle. We had to introduce bottles due to blood sugar issues and difficulty gaining weight but have been trying to latch him first before offering the bottle at each feed.

Anyway, he was never amazing at the left side and now is pretty much not able to latch on that side at all. He will attempt - open his mouth root around and suck a few times and then fall off. We will do this for like 20 min before we both give up. He does the same on the right side but usually eventually is able to latch on correctly and nurse.

He just got his tongue and lip released Wednesday morning so I know he’s still trying to coordinate that some but I’m starting to get really discouraged :(

We’ve tried chiropractor, CST, osteopath and he definitely has some more tension on that side of his neck but even in football hold where he’s facing the same way he can’t get latched on that side so I’m not even sure what to do. We are also working with an IBCLC. She recommended the football hold and of course he managed to latch to that side for a couple min during our appt but hasn’t been able to since.

I know there’s milk on that side as I’m pumping and getting a couple 1-2oz at each feed from the left side alone. My daughter has nursed for 2.5 years and didn’t have issues with that side either.

Any ideas? Tips? Encouragement?

My first birth was a pitocin only induction at 37.5 weeks and was an awful experience. My body was not ready at all, and about 24 hours into pitocin they broke my water and I was getting 0 breaks between contractions. I was only 3cm but felt like I was minutes away from delivering a baby so I ended up getting an epidural, pushing on my back, tearing super painfully, the intervention works🫠

I felt so defeated after that birth and like there was no was I was cut out for natural birth, esp with an induction but I decided to shoot for it again this time.

When I found out I would need an induction at 37+5 due to IUGR and gestational hypertension I was devastated and already feeling defeated again. We did a membrane sweep 37+0 to get my cervix dilating going into induction and by 6pm that night I was feeling some semi regular contractions. I went to a church meeting until 8pm and was talking, snacking, etc. I decided to go home just to be a bit closer to the hospital to be safe but figured this was likely just cramping from the sweep and nothing more since I was so early gestationally. Around 9:30pm I took a hot bath with my daughter and that helped a lot but I was having to pause and breathe through contractions. Between them I was totally fine, chatting and texting. My doula felt like I should try to rest and go to sleep and recommended unisom. Shortly after I was getting pretty intense contractions that I was like writhing in pain through but even then in between I was totally fine which was confusing and so unlike pitocin for me. We finally called my doula around 10:30 and she listened to contractions on the phone and felt like it was worth while to go to triage as I was not coping well anymore and saying things like I needed an epidural if this was only the beginning of active labor. When I tried to walk around the contractions would not stop so I just laid there perfectly still lol

All the sudden I got the urge to poop, went poop, even had the wherewithal to ask my husband to leave so he didn’t see me pooping lol, was wiping, in pretty terrible pain and begging God to save me bc I was dreading the car ride to the hospital and then all the sudden I fall onto my knees in front of the toilet and amniotic fluid starts squirting out of me and I knew he was coming. I could feel him descend so fast out of nowhere and I super briefly felt the ring of fire and had this moment of oh shit he is coming. I was scared to push bc of tearing and the ring of fire sensation but didn’t even have time to process it bc a second later he just

Shot out of me! I ended up having an accidental home birth bc I had no idea that labor doesn’t feel that terrible until right before baby comes!

Obviously not my ideal situation LOL but I cannot get over how proud I am of myself!! I KNEW I wasn’t a giant wimp, just needed to prove it to myself I guess 🤣 this is such a high and I just want to brag to the world LOL