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I gave birth! One week ago today. Second baby born in Spain. Miserable end to the pregnancy after being diagnosed with gestational diabetes and gestational hypertension and couldn't really control either very well even with insulin and labetalol. I also wound up switching hospitals at the very last second because I was disgusted with the treatment at the one I'd been going to -- awful bedside manners, wouldn't warn me before doing anything to me. The GBS swab a few weeks ago was incredibly painful, with no warning at all, and I told the nurse she should have told me before sticking the swab in my rear end. They didn't care. Also they wouldn't let me have my doula present, ostensibly because of Covid but I think they're just using it as an excuse to prohibit visitors/support people (as a nurse I can understand that, but as a patient it really sucks) because they were not doing fuckall else about Covid. Anyway this other hospital was allowing a second support person in labor and visitors after the fact and they also happened to be better trained at things like introducing themselves to patients and explaining/asking permission before doing things. Anyway, went in for an induction at 38 weeks on the dot. Started with Cervidil which didn't do anything (same thing happened with my first induction). I remember the cervical checks being unbearably painful last time, to the point where I kind of lost control of myself and couldn't breathe through them or do anything to cope, but turns out when you have someone doing them with a decent bedside manner and who cares to guide you through them they're totally tolerable. Went to sleep, no contractions, waited around the next morning to be taken down to the birthing room. Finally started Pitocin around 12:45 pm. Last induction I could not cope with the pain of Pit contractions at all and although I was sure I'd end up getting an epidural again, I really wanted to try alternative pain management first. Not sure why exactly but it felt important to me. So my doula got me on a birthing ball pretty quickly and I actually managed to breathe and move through the contractions for a good few hours. I started using nitrous too at some point -- very surprised they let me stay on the birthing ball while using, pretty sure in the States they'd make you bedbound for that -- which I also used last time to no relief whatsoever, and found that it really did take the edge off this time. I had some lovely high moments of clarity and navel gazing. "I can't believe almost half the world's population goes through this," I remember saying dreamily to my husband and doula at some point. Eventually the contractions got to be too much and I asked for the epidural. The anesthesiologist, like everyone who cared for me, was excellent and complied with my wishes of introducing themselves and talking me through what they were doing. I was a little disappointed in myself for how I coped with the epidural placement -- I know how important it is not to move a muscle, and I couldn't help but jump a little bit at the introduction of the local anesthetic and at some other point. But no harm done. I was at 4 or 5 cm before the epidural, and as I waited for it to kick in fully the contractions got to be really difficult to deal with. I started feeling them more in my rectum and was fully writhing and moaning with the pain each time. (Sidenote: my last induction was super fast, 8 hours from beginning Pitocin to baby out, and I only pushed two or three times. When I started feeling like I had to take the biggest poo poo in the world I thought no way it's time to push already, it's way too soon, I must just really have to poo poo. I kind of lost my mind a little bit yelling at my husband to get a bed pan. And then it turned out I was fully dilated and ready to push.) Okay but even with that history in mind there was no way I had just gone from 4-5 cm to fully dilated in what felt like 10 minutes, right?? (It turned out to be about a half hour.) My doula had stepped out to grab some coffee and we called the midwife, who checked me and found that I WAS FULLY DILATED. My husband called the doula back and she was incredulous. I don't think it's that the epidural relaxed me because I was still in intense pain pretty much that whole time, they had to give me extra lidocaine through the epidural to finally get some relief. I guess I just dilate insanely fast. The epidural finally started working, too well, I could not feel anything and had two rounds of ineffective pushing. I just couldn't sense my body at all. Then something clicked, suddenly. I think I remembered to just push like I was trying to poo poo or something, not sure, but all of a sudden I figured out where I was supposed to be applying my muscles and on the next contraction, the baby shot out like a greased loving pig. I remember my doula telling me to switch to panting breathing and I knew what that meant but couldn't believe it. The midwife apparently didn't have time to get her gloves on. Birth time was 7:45 pm, pretty much exactly 7 hours after starting Pit. I beat my 8 hour time of the first induction. They held up the baby and tried to pass him to me, I still had my hospital gown on and tried to receive him while also trying to get my gown off to do skin-to-skin. He was covered in so much vernix. He let out a few weak cries. I couldn't make sense of anything. I held him, but there was something wrong, they kept taking him back and I didn't know what was going on, finally got my gown off and held him skin-to-skin. "Hi baby," I kept saying, we didn't have a name yet. He gave a few weak cries and they took him away from me to the warmer and told me he needed some help with breathing. He had come out too fast to get compressed through the birth canal, which helps to expel the gunk in the lungs from the womb. Unfortunately we missed the whole golden hour. I think I was in a bit of a shock. I don't remember everything that happened but they were going to take him to the NICU and then they decided not to. I couldn't take my eyes off the SpO2 monitor and was so anxious whenever it lost the signal and the oxygen reading dropped even though I knew it was likely just that the signal was bad. I didn't want him to go to NICU and then I was terrified that they weren't going to, it felt reassuring to have him be constantly monitored. A few things during those few hours that I do remember besides just the anxious watching the baby from across the room: seeing my placenta, which I had asked to see because I just think placentas are so loving cool, and I made my husband take a picture of it. They took the baby's cord blood to donate the stem cells, and I felt happy that we could do that. In accordance with my birth preferences they let the cord continue to pulsate for as long as possible before taking the blood from it. Also I had a second degree tear which they were repairing the whole time but I was barely cognizant of that. I tore exactly along the scar of the second degree tear I had last time. Eventually I got to hold my baby, and we were all brought up to postpartum. They kept the pulse ox monitor on his foot and I was glad of that. He had no further respiratory trouble thank goodness. And... that was the birth! The postpartum experience was another story. Baby was very jittery and aside from those few weak cries he gave at birth he didn't really cry the whole time we were in the hospital, even though he was getting his heel pricked every few hours for glucose tests. That was very concerning to me that he wasn't reactive to pain and never cried, and the jitters were quite severe. The pediatricians were concerned too and kept us in the hospital an extra day, doing lab work and an ultrasound of his fontanels. They would have kept us an additional day but I basically begged and pleaded. He was improving, his glucose levels were stable, his jitters became less pronounced each day, and I was losing my mind in the hospital environment. I missed our other son achingly and he was sick besides -- he got kicked out of daycare on our third hospital day for a fever and it was all just too much. The pediatrician finally conceded and let us go home the third night with a promise that we return for a checkup the next morning. I'm happy to report baby has learned to cry since then, but he seems to have a lovely, soothable temperament and only really cries when he's hungry. Despite that it's been rough. He is so beautiful and smells so good but breastfeeding is a nightmare and I've broken down more times than I care to admit. Also my parents AND my in-laws are staying in our small Barcelona apartment and I basically want to kill everyone except my husband and sons all the time. I am expending close to all of my energy trying to feed this baby, and trying not to be a raging rear end in a top hat to everyone around me, and am basically failing on both counts. But I guess all that is within the range of normal and hopefully we'll figure out the breastfeeding. My older son has been so, so sweet and also he is a giant, how was he ever the size of a newborn? Thanks for reading. edit: we think the jitters are probably due to psych meds I took through pregnancy for depression and anxiety. Wish I could've done it without them but it would not have been pretty. I have to believe that he would be worse off if I'd been unmedicated. But it still sucks. boquiabierta fucked around with this message at 16:10 on Nov 28, 2022 |
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Nov 28, 2022 12:29
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Thanks for the kind thoughts, folks. ... Aaaaand... I'm back. According to the calendar, this little bean is "7-weeks-3-days", and I got to see its heartbeat today.  Keeping my expectations super low, just wait and see, wait and see...
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Nov 28, 2022 14:47
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Congrats boquiabierta! Sounds like it was a wild ride. Great that you were able to switch hospitals, that first one sounds like hot garbage. Also congrats froglet! Hopefully all goes well. I'm reaching third trimester tomorrow, feels wild as hell. I've thought of myself as either 'mildly-pregnant' or 'medium-pregnant' til now (going to pregnancy yoga with a bunch of 37 weekers doesn't help) but now where moving to 'seriously-pregnant' era. Insomnia is getting real but thankfully I work from home so naps are fully on the table.
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Nov 28, 2022 15:42
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Mazal tov! I'm so happy for you!
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Nov 28, 2022 16:08
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boquiabierta posted:I was a little disappointed in myself for how I coped with the epidural placement -- I know how important it is not to move a muscle, and I couldn't help but jump a little bit at the introduction of the local anesthetic and at some other point. But no harm done. Congratulations! And thanks for the exposition. I just hope my wife (29 weeks pregnant) can do an epidural if she chooses. She has a light case of cerebral palsy and is very easily startled and sometimes twitchy. The obstetricians didn’t seem too concerned about delivery at all, since she mostly just has muscle stiffness in her legs and has an awkward gate. But still I hope the anesthesiologist can work with her condition. Probably they’ve done it on plenty of twitchy women before so I shouldn’t worry too much but still.
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Nov 28, 2022 16:30
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Congrats boquiabierta! It's amazing how much having respectful care can change things. Also, congrats froglet! Fingers crossed for you. I'm at 9 weeks 1 day today, which is a little crazy. The time just flew by compared to #1; I assume it's some combination of getting pregnant much more quickly this time around and also having a toddler to wrangle. We had an ultrasound a few weeks ago because I was having some spotting/cramping (everything looked good, thankfully), but today is our first "official" midwife appointment. My husband gets to come to appointments this time around, too, which is nice since he couldn't before. They actually loosened the policy to allow one companion during ultrasounds literally the week after our anatomy scan for our daughter.
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Nov 28, 2022 16:38
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Wife would like something for indoor cardio for Christmas besides the treadmill. Any opinions on recumbent vs upright exercise bikes while pregnant? Something else?
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Dec 2, 2022 04:39
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I knew I was approaching the point where things would likely start to feel worse, and... Oof. Sadly, knowing something has not prepared me despite experiencing similar after the miscarriage (which for me was actually the most cruel/distressing bit about the experience). No throwing up or anything, just waves of nausea/general queasyness. While I know it's not that bad and, all things considered, a good sign... Oof. Making myself some lemon ginger tea now.
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Dec 2, 2022 09:35
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Lemon pastilles and little sips of sparkling water helped me a ton with nausea.
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Dec 2, 2022 13:32
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Last time I had good luck just snacking every few hours. This time I've been rocking the 25 mg of b6 with every meal plus taking one unisom over the course of the day--either split in half or just one whole pill at night to also help with the insomnia. I hope I actually get a second trimester energy boost this time around, I'll be starting a new job and could really use it.
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Dec 3, 2022 15:50
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Yeah my wife had luck with the more frequent snacks and sparkling water. I got her a bunch of lemon spindrift that she liked. The other help for her was moving her prenatal vitamin to the evening rather than the morning. Unfortunately for her it persisted well into her second trimester but it did taper off eventually.
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Dec 3, 2022 16:10
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For me being hungry made it worse but it was hard to eat because I was nauseous. Tricky. I got bags of those oyster crackers or whatever and would slowly snack on them, seemed to help a bit.
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Dec 3, 2022 17:10
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boquiabierta posted:He had come out too fast to get compressed through the birth canal, which helps to expel the gunk in the lungs from the womb. Unfortunately we missed the whole golden hour. This happened for my second baby too. He didn’t cry, they had to do a lot of suctioning, and he was on the CPAP in the room for a while, but he didn’t have to go to NICU thankfully. I was getting stitches in my vag the whole time and also missed the golden hour. My first delivery I ended up hemorrhaging, so I missed that golden hour too. It makes me a little sad, but it had to happen. FYI with the baby shooting out, I had a pretty significant rectocele and cystocele from absolutely wrecking my pelvic floor muscles from the probably too intense pushing. 18 months later and I’m finally getting pelvic floor therapy.
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Dec 4, 2022 18:26
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Tests for genetic nasties came back - all clear. Also... It's a boy (for now, at least!). 12 week scan next week, fingers crossed it goes well.
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Dec 22, 2022 15:13
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Congrats and good luck! It seems like we're on about the same timeline--I'll be at 13 weeks on Sunday. And with our NIPT it looks like we're having another girl (or at least AFAB baby). Don't get another scan until 20 weeks though, just a heartbeat check with the Doppler.
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Dec 23, 2022 03:03
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Thought I'd share here - spouse is at 24 weeks and a few days, but got admitted to the hospital on Friday afternoon with preeclampsia. Things are stable now with some BP meds and such, and the hopeful plan is that she gets to stay in the hospital for many weeks to improve the outcome for our child, hopefully for 10 weeks. Of course, we understand that things can change at any moment. Anyone got ideas for keeping positive and occupied in a hospital room for weeks?
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Dec 27, 2022 22:00
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Mr. Wiggles posted:Thought I'd share here - spouse is at 24 weeks and a few days, but got admitted to the hospital on Friday afternoon with preeclampsia. Things are stable now with some BP meds and such, and the hopeful plan is that she gets to stay in the hospital for many weeks to improve the outcome for our child, hopefully for 10 weeks. Of course, we understand that things can change at any moment. Anyone got ideas for keeping positive and occupied in a hospital room for weeks? Yikes. I'd say the big thing is to settle in and take over the room to make it feel comforting and safe if you know you're going to be there that long. Bring pictures and stuff from home, feel free to bring in your own lighting/pillow/top blanket. Be aggressive about asking which monitors are really really necessary to have on at all times and disconnect any of the ones that aren't needed. Turn down the brightness/turn off the monitors in the room. Ask to turn off any beeping sounds on equipment. They can see the data from any monitors at the stations outside of the room and there's usually not a good reason to enter beyond protocol. Constant interruptions and noise loving up sleep are imo the worst part of a hospital. You can tell the nurses to only enter if absolutely needed rather than just doing their checklist rounds regardless of the time of day. Leave a note on the outside of the room asking folks to only enter or knock if medically necessary.
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Dec 27, 2022 23:45
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That's very good advice. Thank you!
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Dec 28, 2022 02:45
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Learn where stuff is and go on walks around whenever possible, even if it's just to a cafeteria or around the maternity ward. If they don't want her walking, ask for a wheelchair. It makes a huge difference to just go see a slightly different series of walls. When I was laid up I wasn't able to shower or really bathe myself, so for me wet wipes and fancy face wipes that smelled nice were incredible. Good smells in general were really great, an easy way to make a space feel homey.
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Dec 28, 2022 02:57
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thunderdome winner
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Mr. Wiggles posted:That's very good advice. Thank you! poo poo, I'm so sorry. Yeah, tell the nurses and doctors to leave you the gently caress alone unless they absolutely need to bother you. The night our son was born, we had a loving IT moron come in at 0300 to change out a keyboard that the nurse had reported as non functional. I know they were just completing a ticket, but come the gently caress on. We hung a sign after that, and it cut down the visits by about 25%. For you folks, it should cut them down by 75%. Definitely get the monitors shut off or silenced, get a real bed or at least bedding, pillows, etc.
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Dec 28, 2022 05:29
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Yeah it varies, but often it's totally ok to tell them to gently caress right off
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Dec 28, 2022 14:28
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Had some good success with that today. Fewer interruptions, she got permission to wear her own clothes instead of the hospital gown, etc. Appreciate the advice thread! Neither of us is in the medical field so pretty new territory for us. Learning to self advocate has been a big thing. Like, the nurse comes in at night with "here's your Ambien" and we're both like "what?". Nurse says "it's on your chart since you have trouble sleeping", to which my spouse replies "I have trouble sleeping because of SINUSES. Let's stick with Benadryl ok?". Overall though things are looking better. BP is stable and all the labs are good. With luck she gets to be in the hospital for a couple of months at least before this baby comes. This Saturday will be 25 weeks, so it's gonna be a journey.
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Dec 29, 2022 00:28
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My wife has 8 weeks to go and experienced severe stomach cramps, which led to vomiting and diarrhea at 2 in the morning. It didn’t get better, but our Doppler said the baby was doing fine. Still, she went to the hospital where they ran a viral screen, took her vitals etc. negative for everything, and the likely cause was…dehydration? They said it was pretty common and dehydration can even lead to premature labor. 2.5 bags of fluids later and all is well. Just a heads up, as that was a lovely few hours.
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Dec 29, 2022 01:12
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I don't know if this is the correct thread, so if it's not, please point me there. My girlfriend of 7 years just got pregnant. She was on the pill, but hey, stuff happens. We found out late last week (Friday), and are estimating she's been pregnant for about 3 weeks at this point (her last period was towards the end of last month. First signs of something odd were around the 10th). The thing is we're undecided on whether to keep it or not, but we want to figure it out sooner rather than later for obvious reasons. We're in Buffalo, so all the everything was closed until today, so we spent the weekend stressing out. She finally was able to get ahold of her gyno today asking if she could get a consultation to figure out what to do and ask questions and they just pointed her at a different place. She called the other place and they said they won't even see her until 8 weeks so they can do an ultrasound(!), that they'll sell her the abortion pill for $500 now, but they won't do any counselling about it or let her see a doctor, and that if she wants more than that she has to call Planned Parenthood. So she called PP, and they said it would be 3 weeks(!!) until they could see her just to talk about options. Obviously, this is not exactly ideal because we have so many questions and we're just trying to figure this poo poo out while it's still "easy" to deal with. What options do we have for talking to a doctor about this stuff in the short term? She isn't comfortable with having an abortion past the point where it's medication, so we need to figure this stuff out ASAP. I honestly have no idea what we're gonna decide, but she's understandably terrified and I'm really uncomfortable with the idea of this being a "we ran out the clock" situation and not a "we came to an educated, mutual decision" situation.
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Dec 29, 2022 01:58
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So, having had an early term miscarriage where I took the pill to get rid of the bits... You sometimes still need a D&C even if you've taken the pill. It took me two rounds of the medication to get it clear on the ultrasound, and even then I had some retained that came out in a sudden and alarming fashion a few weeks later. If she doesn't want to keep the baby and doesn't want to risk a D&C, then she's going to want to just take that $500 pill asap. I am so very, very not a doctor tho. In terms of counseling regarding having a kid... That's hard to find cause everybody has an agenda it seems... Does she want to have kids? Do you want to have kids? Is that a goal for you guys or a deal breaker? When you think about being a parent, is there any excitement or contentment in among the abject terror?
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Dec 29, 2022 02:07
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Chernobyl Princess posted:So, having had an early term miscarriage where I took the pill to get rid of the bits... You sometimes still need a D&C even if you've taken the pill. It took me two rounds of the medication to get it clear on the ultrasound, and even then I had some retained that came out in a sudden and alarming fashion a few weeks later. If she doesn't want to keep the baby and doesn't want to risk a D&C, then she's going to want to just take that $500 pill asap. I am so very, very not a doctor tho. She's definitely worried about the doctor having an agenda or whatever. Her relationship with abortion is complicated because she grew up in a very religious, pro-life family (and so did I, but less so than her) and she totally changed her views on the subject after she went off to college but still has some difficulty with the subject and it scares her in a kind of abstract way, I think. The questions we want the answers to are much more practical, though. She's 32 and terrified of being "too old" to have kids. I think she wants some reassurance that if we terminate, it's not going to be her giving up her last chance or whatever. We have been having fairly regular talks about whether we want kids and I told her I still wasn't sure until pretty recently (this year) when I finally said I want kids (okay, kid, singular), but I want to wait a bit more. She and I are on the same page there (at least she said she was), and now is just a really bad time, practically. We're both looking for new jobs, we don't have much savings now due to a bunch of emergencies that came up this year, and honestly, we were partying in Miami and getting drunk as gently caress and smoking weed around the time she got pregnant, so there's that too. Now that she's pregnant, I still feel like I want to have a kid, but now is just a terrible time for it and I want to punt a couple years so we can stop living like idiot college kids and have a game plan for this poo poo (and also save up money and rearrange our household expenses - we have 3 cars, none of which are good for a baby because I'm stupid). I think she's more excited than I am because she's always been the "gently caress it Dude, let's go bowling" one and I'm the "we should finance our IRA's..." one. Edit: Also, it's kind of stupid and E/N, but I want to go into parenthood all-in, you know? I want to be 100% committed to doing it and going in eyes open instead of it being a sucker punch surprise, even if practically it doesn't make a difference. Double Edit: Is there a tele-health service we can use to at least get a doctor to answer our medical questions? KillHour fucked around with this message at 02:23 on Dec 29, 2022 |
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Dec 29, 2022 02:19
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KillHour posted:She's 32 and terrified of being "too old" to have kids. 36 is where fertility begins going down but it's not really until 39 when it starts dropping off fast. PShe can get blood tests and other diagnostics to figure out her fertility level. Assuming no issues sounds like you guys have at least six more years to do family planning. There's rarely ever a perfect time to have kids though. And 9 months is a long time to get your poo poo together. We bought a house and moved before ours arrived Probably why they're not doing any diagnostic stuff is the pregnancy has a roughly 1/5 chance of.... Solving the decision for you. After 8 weeks most of the important stuff develops and you know if it's a viable pregnancy. Babies at 8 weeks are barely a kidney bean thing and there's not much to diagnose 32 is absolutely not too old to have kids but it's probably got her wheels spinning about what the next move is. Good luck there's no wrong decision
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Dec 29, 2022 02:30
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Can you just go to her GP for some of this? It might not be as good as a gyno or ob but it sounds like you don't have many options and are desperate. I know I'd want to talk to someone, we had our first kid when my wife was 35 and I was worried about how long it would take conceive, and it being a geriatric pregnancy and just a bunch of stuff that was making it statistically more difficult because our ages. Your gf isn't too far away from that if she's 32 and I'd want answers to my questions.
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Dec 29, 2022 02:32
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Hadlock posted:36 is where fertility begins going down but it's not really until 39 when it starts dropping off fast. PShe can get blood tests and other diagnostics to figure out her fertility level. Assuming no issues sounds like you guys have at least six more years to do family planning. There's rarely ever a perfect time to have kids though. And 9 months is a long time to get your poo poo together. We bought a house and moved before ours arrived Yeah, to clarify, we weren't asking to go in to do diagnostic stuff. We were asking to go in to talk about fertility and family planning and honestly, to have someone who isn't a big dumb gorilla man explain to her what having an abortion actually is like, since her mental image of it is still the church propaganda of torturing little babies by ripping their arms off. I've been through it with an ex, so I know a bit about it, but I don't think me mansplaining it to her is going to make her feel much better about the process. I'm way less terrified about it than I was this weekend. I know it won't be horrible or anything and part of me is kind of excited. But there was some stuff in the pipeline that I can't talk about in public that this is gonna derail and that makes it super inconvenient for us. nesbit37 posted:Can you just go to her GP for some of this? It might not be as good as a gyno or ob but it sounds like you don't have many options and are desperate. I know I'd want to talk to someone, we had our first kid when my wife was 35 and I was worried about how long it would take conceive, and it being a geriatric pregnancy and just a bunch of stuff that was making it statistically more difficult because our ages. Your gf isn't too far away from that if she's 32 and I'd want answers to my questions. Yeah, I can have her ask.
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Dec 29, 2022 02:36
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I checked online and I was able to book an appointment for tomorrow with their online booking app. Thanks, random phone person 
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Dec 29, 2022 02:48
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KillHour posted:Double Edit: Is there a tele-health service we can use to at least get a doctor to answer our medical questions? Sounds like you have this sorted, but if you want some words from a real doctor right but, both Doctor on Demand, or Teledoc are good options
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Dec 29, 2022 02:51
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We didn't make the appointment because it was confusing as to what it actually was - it only gave us the option to schedule an abortion, not a consultation, and none of the options on the website looked right so we'll call again tomorrow. Thanks for the rec's. Edit: We really are in all the same threads drat KillHour fucked around with this message at 03:15 on Dec 29, 2022 |
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Dec 29, 2022 03:10
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So we're expecting in April and trying to figure out what the hell we actually need. Of course it seems like everyone on the Internet either explicitly wants to sell you stuff, or is being quietly paid to talk about how great Product X is, so it's kind of hard to tell what's worth getting and what's not. Any thoughts are appreciated:
If there's an Inspect Your Gadgets thread about baby gear that I should've posted in instead, my bad! I'm the oldest of 4 and I remember my mom always kept things pretty drat minimal: cloth diapers (just a square of absorbent cloth folded and pinned, nothing fitted), hand-washing bottles, no bassinet, no baby monitor, no stroller. I'm a soft and lazy man, so I'll probably want more conveniences, but I also think there's a lot of stuff out there you don't really need.
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Dec 29, 2022 03:50
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My wife's due in Feb. so we're not too far off from you two. For baby monitors, my wife just got a dumb baby monitor (vtech). So no video, just audio and it's a radio signal so no internet snooping. I'm not clear on how secure it actually is if someone parked outside and looked for the signal. They claim it's encrypted but who really knows.
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Dec 29, 2022 06:16
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Pham Nuwen posted:So we're expecting in April and trying to figure out what the hell we actually need. Of course it seems like everyone on the Internet either explicitly wants to sell you stuff, or is being quietly paid to talk about how great Product X is, so it's kind of hard to tell what's worth getting and what's not. Any thoughts are appreciated: Bassinet vs crib - It's going to come down to personal preference, the size of your room, and how long you plan to keep the baby in the room with you (from memory 12-24 months is ideal but I know lots of people bail the heck out at 6). We got a convertible cot-to-toddler-bed and it was frankly gigantic for a newborn, and first wouldn't sleep unless I was holding them from 6 months onwards so it was barely used anyway. Even though we still have the cot in storage we're getting a bassinet for 2nd - it'll fit our current room better and, as mentioned, wasted effort for the first. Travel systems - I didn't for the first because I went the thrifty convertible carseat and a nice pram that sort of changed shape and flipped around to age-up. But I've really really really thought about it for the second. The first few months are a bit of a shitshow of sleeping/notsleeping. Something to research personally is that they are, apparently, slightly less ranked for safety in crash tests but I dunno if that was specific to the brand I was looking at or across the board - we're in Australia so the brands tend to be more limited. I've just discovered our old pram and carseat is covered in mould from the lovely storage cage in our old apartment and I'm one load of washing away from making the leap. My only advice on baby bags is to choose it like you'd choose a designer handbag because you'll be carting that mother fucker with you everywhere for at least 3 years. You want it to suit you. Also the nice thing about the sewn-in bottle-compartments is that they are typically lined with cooling/waterproof material. Even if you aren't bottle feeding, the water bottles and sippy cups in your very near future will always find a way to tip over or leak when it's least convenient for you. Don't know much about bottles or cloth diapers or monitors, but the point of the specific purpose bottle/boon grass racks is that you'll be putting sterilised baby bottles and etc on them. A regular dish rack could be covered in other gunk / you can't wash as readily, but the bottle/grass rack you can also chuck in the dishwasher/steriliser/boiling pot to nuke them clean as needed. Some electric steam sterilisers include a drying cycle (or otherwise tell you how long they stay clean after the cycle finishes) using the rack built into the machine - so if you're planning to get one of those you could potentially skip the rack. G-Spot Run fucked around with this message at 08:25 on Dec 29, 2022 |
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Dec 29, 2022 08:22
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We've been super happy with our combo car seat/stroller, the Doona ones look fancy as hell but we went with a cheaper Graco set. With diaper bags, it really depends on what you already have on hand and what you're looking for. I got a diaper backpack and I love it, but I didn't own any backpacks with a decent number of compartments/pockets. For me, the most important part is keeping a lot of stuff immediately accessible without having to dig through the bag at all; I can instantly pull out a phone, wallet, keys, mask, binkie, etc. We hate IoT sorta stuff, so we picked up the Hubble Nursery View Pro and it's been pretty solid. No wifi, it's just a camera with a paired handheld screen thing
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Dec 29, 2022 08:23
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Pham Nuwen posted:Bassinet vs crib. Bassinet seems like a short-term thing but I guess it's nice to have the newborn right at the bedside? Yeah, bassinets are great because you can get a few and toss them around the house and just store baby wherever. There are a million free/cheap ones on nextdoor. Cribs also tend to be deeper I imagine it would be a bit hell on the back. Pham Nuwen posted:I see a lot of stuff about cloth diapers in the first page of the thread, are those still generally considered worth the fuss? We went with a compostable diaper service, which seemed to be the least wasteful of the options. The cloth ones seemed like a ton of extra work because you need to scrape the poo before washing. You'll literally have 5-8 diapers a day for a while. Most cloth diapers also hold more moisture against the skin, which can make diaper rash worse. Pham Nuwen posted:Diaper bags: I looked at some in the baby store and wasn't convinced they offer a lot over a regular backpack, except that they have things sewn in specifically to hold bottles I'm okay with them but yeah, they're just backpacks or side-slings with extra specialty pockets. Pham Nuwen posted:speaking of bottles, what's the deal with those bottle drying things that look like a patch of green grass, and why not just use a rack? Everything is smaller and there are a million tiny bits to wash. Most racks just lose the bottle/pump parts in the slats. The grass/tree rack are good.
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Dec 29, 2022 08:28
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Regarding the car seat/stroller thing, for #1 we had one of the infant bucket seats that just docks onto a base you leave in the car (you can also install it without the base if needed), so we could leave her in that. A lot of strollers will be compatible with that sort of seat, either natively if you have the same brand for both or via an adapter. So for example we used a Chicco KeyFit 30 car seat and the mockingbird single to double stroller with an adapter for the car seat, and we'll be doing the same thing for #2.
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Dec 29, 2022 16:53
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KillHour posted:
Just a point of reference: my wife was 38 when she got pregnant with our son, 39 when he was born. Uterine fibroid surgery 2 years prior. Caught COVID at 8 weeks. Kid is happy and healthy and so is she. They don't even call it a geriatric pregnancy until 35 around here these days.
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Dec 29, 2022 19:03
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It's that 35 mark she's worried about. My "ideal" timeframe is ~2 years from now which would put the second half of the pregnancy in 35. I know it's arbitrary, but the delineation scares her.
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Dec 29, 2022 19:07
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