u/swagalicioussteph

Husband and I decided I should stay home because we do not trust daycares or strangers to take care of our baby. She is about 3 months now. We believe one of us should be the primary caretaker. I have been trying to clean today but every time I get up my baby starts crying. Even if she’s in the basinet sleeping on her own. As soon as I get up from bed or couch she starts crying. I play a YouTube vid to start my cleaning and it doesn’t even last a minute when I hear WAHHHHH. How do y’all do it? My husband suggested I baby wear for some things and yes some things can be done while baby wearing but what about cooking and cleaning with chemicals???? He doesn’t expect me to cook or clean. He just wants me and baby to be happy and safe but I do not like seeing a messy house and cooking when he’s here takes time away from us spending time together.

So I have a daughter, she is 2 months and she is my world! My cousin and I were having a conversation about gender roles. I told her how my big brother didn’t do shit at home but I was always cleaning and was told how dirty I am all the time. She lives in a home with 3 female and 1 male. The 1 male is her brother. She was talking about her, her sister and her mom clean all the time. I was like what about your brother? She was like honestly he doesn’t do anything. And I was like yeah that’s so infuriating to me how our moms let the boys get away with everything because cleaning and cooking is seen as a girls job. And she’s like to be honest though if I had a boy I would spoil him and if I had a girl I would give IT away. She said she’s such a boy mom and doesn’t like girls. That piss me off so much and I told her how offensive that is and she shouldn’t be saying stuff like that. My cousin is 35 and childless and I honestly hope it stays that way. I hope she never has a daughter and even less a son and daughter because that little girl would see how unloved she is. Nothing wrong with gender preference but when you mistreat the other gender, that’s trash behavior.

We had South Park in the background. It was an episode where Butters pretends to be a girl to steal the fortune teller at a girls slumber party. The girls were mean to Marjorine and called her ugly and all that. I sort of jokingly told my husband that’s why I think I’m ugly (it was a joke because girls didn’t call me ugly but I think I’m ugly). He looks at me with a genuine look in his face and says “I think you’re really pretty”. Guys I almost cried. He’s the only person that makes me feel good about myself.

Ok so, I don’t want to die just like most people. I didn’t think much about death until my daughter was born. Now all I can think is that one day she will die and it’s hard for me to accept and I’ve been thinking about death recently. Now that she’s born, my grandma is a great grandma and my mom is a grandma which makes me realize how much older they have gotten. Every time I see anyone I’m like damn that person is going to die one day and I can’t stop thinking about how everyone is going to die even my daughter. I keep thinking why did I have a baby if she’s just going to die one day. I keep thinking one day will be the last day I see my daughter, my husband, my family… My husband said it’s normal to feel this type of way after having a baby. I told him if it gets worse I’m going to talk to him because I might need professional help.

So my baby hasn’t been gaining enough weight, I went to a lactation consultant appointment and she confirmed I make enough milk. My baby drank 3 oz in 10 minutes. She said the problem she sees is reflux since my baby is spitting up a lot after eating and to make an appointment with the baby’s doctor. I went in today. The doctor suggested cutting out milk products from my diet and to pump and bottle feed to slow down her eating. My plan was to breastfeed and rarely bottle feed but oh well if that will help my baby then it’s ok. I got a pump through my insurance the like hand held ones that have bottles attached to them. I always occasionally pump but I want to see if I can do something to pump more efficiently. I have larger boobs and flat nipples. Also during my breastfeeding journey I learned that milk changes based on baby’s need and your body does this by examining the baby’s saliva. Do I need to occasionally breastfeed so my body reads my baby’s saliva if so how often?

I am 9 weeks and 2 days postpartum and I’m finally taking my first bath! I love baths so much. Instead of a regular shower I would usually take a bath lol. I feel so so happy. That’s all, that’s the post.

Today my daughter had her 2 month appointment. The pediatrician said that she is not at the expected weight but that she’s not underweight she should’ve just weight a bit more. She said she was born at 6 lbs 14 oz making her a 50th percentile baby but now she’s at 9 lbs 4 oz making her a 15th percentile baby and she should be in the 50th percentile since that is the percentile she was born at. She said she should be closer to 10 lbs. I went over her eating habits and she explained that I’ve been doing on demand mostly instead of timing feeds. I explained that during the day she usually eats every 2 hours and at night she has been sleeping longer stretches so I let her sleep. Last night she actually slept from 11:30-4:30 without waking up! She told me to feed baby every 3 hours and wake her up l when she’s sleeping. I explained that baby also spits up a lot of milk sometimes it looks like an ounce of milk. I explained that she uses me as a pacifier and NEVER unlatches, I always have to unlatch. She thinks that maybe instead of not eating enough maybe baby is eating too much so then she throws up and doesn’t get those needed calories. It was a bit discouraging as I have been told that feeding on demand is ok so I switched from timing it to on demand and now my fear of her not gaining weight came true. I’ve gone to 2 milk transfer appointments but it’s been at least a month since the last one and she did good on both so I know I have enough milk, plus when I pump it’s a lot and she spits up like an ounce sometimes. I set up an appointment for one month for a weigh in and we’re going to go from there. It’s also upsetting since baby has been doing better at sleeping through the night and now I might have to wake her up anyways. I do not know the purpose of this post is but I don’t have anyone to share with (besides husband) lol.

I breastfeed my baby like 99% of the time so I don’t have much frozen milk. I only ever really need frozen milk if I’m out or someone is babysitting for me while I do some errands so I don’t have that big of a stash. I was so tired so I wanted to nap and I told him to wake me up if baby is hungry. I woke up from my nap and saw he had a bottle. I was like omg did you defrost a bag of milk? And he’s like yeah I wanted to let you sleep. I was like ok but I don’t have that much frozen milk and I could’ve fed her, I’m literally at home. He’s like well if you want a bigger stash you can just pump more. You can do it every 2 hours you just choose not too. This pmo because even the few times I do pump, it’s so much work, he acts like it’s easy to just pump more. Also, she didn’t finish the bottle and he has it out of the fridge. I was like omg when did you give her the bottle. Luckily it was less than an hour old so I put it in the fridge to use for later. 🤦🏽‍♀️

Today we went to the park with his family so I took one bag of frozen milk in case we needed it. We didn’t use it. I went to shower and told him to use that bag to feed the baby if she got hungry while I was showering. I came out and he said he fed her the milk but it was just a little bit. And I was like omg you’re talking about the milk I put in the fridge that was not enough to store. I told him to use the milk we didn’t use at the park. He told me he thawed a whole new bag from the freezer and didn’t know I had packed one for the park and thought I told him to use the milk in the fridge but since it wasn’t enough he thawed a bag of milk. It honestly upset me so bad because now I have to feed her that unused bag and have to pump even more today and I have one less bag. I usually breastfeed at home unless we have unused milk from when we go out. 🥲

My baby is 4 weeks and 4 days old. When I pump, I currently store the milk 2 oz at a time so when she does take a bottle, she only drinks 2 oz since this is the minimum she needs right now. I’ve never had an issue of her being hungry for more than 2 oz when bottle fed. I breastfeed her 99% of the time but bottles help if I need just a tiny bit more sleep or if I let family members “borrow” her so I’m not there to feed her. I’m just wondering when she’ll need minimum 3 oz? I want to start storing appropriate amounts of milk so she eats enough when she takes bottle.

My baby is now 9 days old and I’m exclusively breastfeeding her. Right now her pediatrician put her on an every 2:30 hours schedule for feeding (unless hungry before then) and will lmk at next appointment if this could be changed. My baby latches and sucks but only for like 5-10 minutes and then she falls asleep. Then she wakes up less than 30 minutes later showing hunger cues. My goal is 20 minutes each side (at least that’s what I’ve been told by a breastfeeding counselor) but it’d been hard and it’s frustrating me a lot. I’m worried she’s not eating enough but she’s pooping and peeing regularly. A nurse from the hospital I delivered at came yesterday and weighed her and she’d almost back at her birth weight. She told me that everything looks good and even looked at me feeding her and she said she could hear her drinking the milk and she even felt her belly and said her belly feels full. She said everything looks fine but I don’t feel like it’s fine. Especially when she has those 5-10 minutes sessions then sleeps. Sometimes I’m able to get a longer feed then hand her off to someone to take care of her while I nap. do my best to feed her for at least 20 minutes but she won’t stay awake to finish feeding. I’ve tried taking her clothes off and skin to skin but that doesn’t seem to work sometimes. It’s driving me crazy because I’m like cool nap time but then it gets interrupted with the person caring for her telling me that she’s showing hunger cues. Thursday night/ Friday morning, it was really hard. I was super sleep deprived and I was by myself in taking care of her since husband had work on Friday. I kept trying to feed her but she kept falling asleep then waking up she’s hungry and I just could not. I had to wake husband up for help and he helped me. I felt so bad since he had to work but he assured me it’s fine. He saw how tired and frustrated I was so he got some of my frozen breast milk and gave it to her in a bottle. When I woke up I saw the bottle and was upset since it’s recommended to not give breastfed babies bottles or pacifier for the first 4-6 weeks but then I stopped being upset since I felt like it’s my fault and it’s more important that she eats and I get my sleep. The hospital gave me a pamphlet of a breastfeeding help location that they have so I’m thinking of going there.

My brother and grandma came to visit me and my newborn baby. When they were leaving my grandma excitedly told me they were going to announce him as an elder the next day. I did not say “congratulations” or anything like that. All I said was “ok” and my brother just laughed. I didn’t want to congratulate him on something that’s not really with a congratulations for. LOL

So my mom called me today and said she can no longer support and doesn’t want to have contact with me. I’m 22F and have been moved out for a year now living with my fiancé. She said that I crossed the line because we decided to give our baby godparents. We are not baptizing the baby and not raising her up in any religion, it was more of a symbolic thing that my partner wanted to do for our baby and I said sure. I didn’t think it would be that big of a deal for a JW especially since I explained it’s not even for a religious reason. She said “I supported you dating out of JW and living together before marriage and having a baby out of wedlock because I thought you would return but that this is too much and it crosses a line”. She said she won’t have a relationship with me unless I change my opinion. She also said she was upset that I dismiss her every time she talks about Jehovah. I was really sad and angry, I thought I would be a lucky one that would be able to keep my family despite being out of the religion but no apparently godparents is just too much. She thinks that we are becoming catholic because of his family and that I only want support from his family but I said this is not a religious thing at all and I’m actually going to both sides for support not just his side. She ended the convo with “I hope you’re happy with your new family”. I was also really upset because I’m about to be 9 months in the next few days and high stress can cause early labor so I just don’t know why she couldn’t at the minimum wait another month to tell me this. Today is the first day with this news but I’m going to be trying best to be calm for the baby as I want her to be safe. I cried a lot and my partner supported me and was there for me and he even cried with me. It’s going to take getting used to but I won’t change my opinion just because she’s shunning me.