u/kikihippiex

Hey all I’m hoping someone can provide general advice regarding my situation. I live and work in NZ, in 2025 I never stepped foot in the US. I have a CPA friend in the US who does my taxes. Now I was under the impression that the FEIE can almost completely reduce your AGI to $0. I make less than 60k USD after taxes. However I do have a rental property and investment funds in the USA. My AGI wound up being 66k. This doesn’t seem right. I’ve asked my accountant about it and they explained that the FEIE and FTC didn’t fully cover everything. My rental property doesn’t make that much money and we were able to write off multiple expenses.

Is anyone else in a similar situation that can advise or does this make sense? Sorry if I’ve left out any critical information. Happy to provide more.

My baby is 17weeks old and I feel like we’ve hit a 4m sleep regression. I’m not sure what to do. I haven’t formally sleep trained her. My biggest issue is that I’m visiting my family for 8 weeks and we’re all over the place with visiting family, friends, driving places, I live overseas (jet lag), etc and feel like I’m not at home to implement a true schedule. I also don’t have my stuff and feel out of sorts. Anyway:

In the last week LO has been consistently waking at 530am. She was previously waking between 7-730. Bedtime is 7-730( routine: bath, white noise, sleep outfit/sack, etc). I’m trying to cap daytime sleep to 3.5-4hrs. Naps vary from 45m-2hrs. Recently she has been fighting the last nap very hard which is a sign to me she might want to drop it? We’ve also had false start times at bedtime.

I’m at a loss of what to do. I’m trying to follow some sleep schedule but find it gets thrown off when she doesn’t nap for 1-1.5hrs even if I try to rescue her. Last night was a mess and now I’m confused by everything on the internet. I just want some sleep

Edit: she is waking constantly for a feed at 3-330 and then wakes again at 530.

My MIL is mom to only child (boy) which amplifies things. We just had a baby who is only 8 weeks old. MIL has always been kind of odd with me. In many ways I sense competition with me and there have been frequent odd comments made to me since we started dating. MIL has never made much of an effort to get to know me deeply. She asks superficial questions but nothing meaningful and when I have shared things about myself she either doesn’t pay attention or doesn’t remember. I’m finding that we’re not close and that has now directly impacted how I feel with her and our baby. During pregnancy she was completely crazy on buying things and had a meltdown when we said no hospital visitors. They then said they’re moving to our city and that sent me for a loop. I completely pulled back on interactions with in laws during that time because they stressed me out so badly.

Now baby is here and MIL has been extremely respectful. Lots of comments like “we just want to help” (and they have) or “we will do whatever you want”. However…actions and words are different. I constantly am battling offers to leave baby alone with them. I don’t want to. I’m not ready. My baby is exclusively breast fed. My husband and I have communicated all of this multiple times and they keep pressuring. The more they ask the more I want to keep baby away. I acknowledge that a large component of this is that I don’t trust or feel close to my in laws because there’s been little effort to get to know me in the last 7 years. Now that I’ve had a baby I almost feel like they’re kissing my ass for access to her?

I want to get closer to in laws because 1. I want my child to have a relationship with them because grandparent relationships are wonderful 2. I love and respect my husband- I will nurture this relationship because they love each other even if I’m not fully included that whatever, they haven’t done anything horrible. 3. I want to trust them with her because eventually I will want a break! Just not right now.

I just don’t know how to get closer. I have a wall up and don’t know how to bring it down. Does anyone else have experience with this?

And before anyone comments: we have put boundaries in place. My husband is incredible and extremely supportive. He backs me when his mom makes weird comments. A lot of this is unfortunately the nature of being married to an only child and his mom leaning hard into “boy mom territory”

TLDR: in laws annoy me even though they haven’t really done anything inherently terrible. Trying to get close but not sure how.