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I am losing my mind a bit, thanks to the great working conditions of the modern U.S. one of my pregnant wife's co-workers came in to work three days straight with what looked like flu, and only stopped coming in when the symptoms got bad enough that she saw a doctor who confirmed it was flu. My wife has the vaccine, but her immune system sucks even when it isn't shot from pregnancy and when she gets sick she gets hit HARD, and she's showing symptoms. Seeing the doctor later today, so hopefully we can get her on meds before things get bad, but I'm about as terrified as I've ever been in my life. Apologies that this is outside of usual parenting chat but as said I'm losing my mind and I don't have anywhere else to vent about how our horrible culture/medical situation is putting my wife and unborn daughter at risk.
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Feb 14, 2020 15:50
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| # ¿ May 12, 2024 05:17 |
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Good soup! posted:Found out we are having a girl, felt her move for the first time last week Congrats! Aa the dad of a two-month-old, my advice is to read whatever baby books you can to cut down on surprises (there will still be plenty). That's basic advice everyone will give you, so here's the real secret: as you read, remember all this advice is being dispensed by someone who only has to deal with individual kids for a few hours at a time and doesn't have to decipher why that child is screaming bloody murder at 2am in real time. So feel free to ignore anything that seems stupid - in my case, this was every book I read treating pacifiers like a gateway to alcoholism.
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Sep 21, 2020 11:39
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Good luck! It's gonna be a simultaneously exhausting and energizing few days. I gotta say, having a kid (mine is currently 6 months) is a huge motivator to stay active and push through the garbage dredge work parts of organizing. I don't care much about myself, but I'll die trying to make a better world for her if I have to.
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Jan 22, 2021 01:05
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My 6-month-old has latched onto four words when she babbles. The first three she hears all the time: Hi Hello [adorably butchered attempt at her own name] The fourth word is asscat. She heard me yell it at the cat once and it stuck. I couldn't be prouder; my wife is less thrilled.
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Jan 24, 2021 23:13
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A Switch + games that can be played in short chunks was a godsend during the first few months for me. I did so much grinding on Hyrule Warriors. Also dunno what books you read, but pretty much all the ones I looked at varied from "only use a pacifier in absolute emergencies" to "never use a pacifier just deal with it," both claiming that giving an infant a pacifier will lead to them still needing one even when they start attending preschool. At least for us this was bullshit, we gave her a pacifier whenever she was otherwise inconsolable for the first few months and were able to wean her off relatively painlessly when she was a bit older; now at six months she only wants it when she's being put down for a nap. e: All this is to say, do whatever you need to do to find reprieve from your screaming child. It's better for them and helps you be a better, calmer parent.
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Jan 25, 2021 15:10
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Good soup! posted:I normally swear by everything from Costco but their loving diapers suck rear end, what the gently caress, no matter how you wrap your baby these shits loving leak and lead to constant blowouts Opposite for me, got some fancy frou-frou diapers from family friends that sucked and leaked constantly and Kirkland have been great. I read that Huggies have better blowout protection and are otherwise identical tho so I may give them a shot.
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Mar 7, 2021 00:07
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Insanite posted:that is clearly dickbutt.
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Mar 10, 2021 03:50
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Communist-Socialist Parented Adventurers Movement
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Mar 20, 2021 00:57
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What the gently caress my 9-month-old went from "can kind of crawl, slowly" to "crawls faster than you can track her" to "cruising, also getting her first tooth because why not" in less than a week Babies are insane, they like need to chill a bit
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Apr 10, 2021 20:57
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U-DO Burger posted:one part of me is living vicariously through you and is really enjoying these happy posts of yours Thankfully there's training software to help prepare for when they start moving.
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Apr 19, 2021 22:14
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AxGrap posted:The new kid had her first doctor visit and we got cleared to not have to wake her up every 3 hours for feeding and that night she slept for 8 hours straight. I don't expect that to ever happen again, but lord it was a treat. My kid was almost the same way (just two nights of false starts at first, then 3 days of regression in the 7 months since) so may you be equally blessed, and if so don't tell your friends because they will despise you
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May 29, 2021 23:39
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My 10mo did that, then pointed at the cat and said it again, then just started staring into space saying "dadadadadada" etc. Beats my friend's kid who called both parents "cat" for months I suppose
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May 31, 2021 23:42
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Good soup! posted:A few more weeks and I'll be back in the office and my wife's parental leave will be at an end (12 weeks from that federal paid leave act + a ton of saved of vacation/sick time meant she was able to essentially take off half a year solely for the baby, that's pretty fuckin sweet), and then she heads to daycare Focus on the good stuff, like we had to put my daughter in a daycare and while it sucked at first, she learned to crawl in the first week of watching other babies and developed a bunch of other good habits just from being around actual professionals instead of her clueless parents. It's rough the first week or two, no doubt, but remind yourself that exposing your kid to new people is important and has real benefits. Mustached Demon posted:Ugly cry your way to work the first week you drop baby off this too
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Jun 3, 2021 22:12
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Mustached Demon posted:those little rice bits/wafers are for learning how to grab things and not much else imo My kids loves'em, to the point where you give her two puffs and she'll happily eat a bite or two of something she hates before realizing she's been bamboozled. No idea if the Gerber puffs are also contaminated by heavy metals (probably), but, uh: quote:There are no limits for arsenic in most other baby foods, nor are there any limits for other heavy metals in most foods marketed for babies and small children. Thank god she's being weaned and will be on to normal food soonish. My homemade sourdough is already her favorite thing, so I should probably focus on making more of that.
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Jun 10, 2021 21:44
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Good soup! posted:ugh, gonna have to give my dad and his wife a call later regarding putting photos of the baby on social media Dunno if this is helpful, but my wife and I use the Family Album app which lets you restrict who has access to the photos. It's helpful with the boomer relatives crowd they can still comment on every upload and receive "I know! So CUTE!" responses ala Facebook, but only people you personally invite have access. Between the two of us we have enough family and close friends to hit critical mass and create enough activity that no one's felt the need to post anything publicly. It kind of spams you with ads to buy prints of the stuff you upload, but otherwise it's been pretty good.
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Aug 5, 2021 19:46
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Friends, I hope all your children look at you like my toddler looks at Goldfish crackers.Yadoppsi posted:My sister is giving birth for the first time soon and asked the family to get gifts to help with the upcoming baby instead of her or her husband. Books. You cannot have too many books. Little ones will get bored of one and become enthralled with another at random, so having lots of choices is key. High-contrast books are best for newborns, but it's not like the things go bad so even if you get a book that skews a little older those are helpful. Weirdly there's a board book for adults, Safe Baby Handling Tips, that my 17-mo daughter loves and has always loved. It's meant to be a joke but it's got high-contrast black-and-white images of babies, and kids don't seem to mind if the actual content is a baby inside an aquarium with a big "WRONG" next to it. Plus the included Wheel of Responsibility is actually helpful at times! A rare dual gift, if your sister is the kind of person who would find that kind of thing funny.
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Dec 13, 2021 20:07
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I wish I could keep my toddler out of daycare, but neither of us can afford to quit our jobs and my parents are still in "it's just the flu, let's eat out every night" mode even with several dead and crippled friends so they're worthless. Wife's parents are willing to help but live three hours away. We're looking for jobs that might let us move closer and praying. Friend's kid just caught it and they were told they don't have to quarantine (they are going to anyway, this made them crack ping HARD) and to send her back in person in 5 days. I pray for that vaccine, but hope is running thin.
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Dec 31, 2021 14:11
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When my toddler was just over a year old and barely starting to form words she took a bite of my friend's challah, looked at the room and said "This is good!" Fair enough, he is an ace baker and it was really good and she probably heard one of us say it a bit earlier. She never said it about my baking, but hey, it was a weird one-off. A few months later, getting better at using words but still limited vocabulary and one at a time, says "This is good!" about store-bought bread. Okay, sure, she's feeling out sentences, probably remembers that one from the first time. A bit insulting to my baking, but again, just a weird one-off. Now she's about 20 months, starting to work with basic 2 word sentences and she still hasn't said "This is good" for any of my loaves. She has yet to string more than two words together on any other topic, and she will repeat "Bread bread bread" and refuse to eat anything else after I bake, but I'm starting to feel slighted regardless. The clock is ticking. If she isn't moved to say "This is good" about my bread before she's regularly using coherent sentences anyway my ego will never recover. kecske posted:I passed on elden ring for that exact reason same 
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Feb 25, 2022 15:59
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Struensee posted:Event better, put her up for adoption I was gonna take this as an opportunity to improve my craft by perfecting my old staples and learning new recipes but this is a way better idea. Thanks!
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Feb 26, 2022 21:54
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Was just informed my 20-month-old had her first active shooter drill. I think I'm going to go lay down somewhere and not get up for a while.
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Mar 30, 2022 15:07
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The Silent Scourge posted:So I just gotta vent on this and its tangental to the learning chat, but we're looking for a house with a 1 year old. That alone is stressful as gently caress and while I am out of town for work my inlaws ambushed my wife about the schools in the area we are looking at. I wouldn't worry too much, because while there are definitely "good" schools and "bad" schools it doesn't 100% correlate with income and can even change on a dime. My wife teaches at one of the top private 10 high schools in our state, and when she started three years ago it was worthy of that recognition. Then two years ago (right around when our daughter was born!) they got a new head of school who believes "No child should fail, and if they do it's the teachers fault" at a school where a 75 is considered failing. Cue my wife returning from maternity leave to what is essentially a whole other school. Parents can and will get grades dropped from kids' records if they're not high enough (anything less than a B is fair game no matter how badly the child is doing in general). Kids have successfully petitioned the head of school, who should have no business setting curriculum, to pressure teachers into canceling tests they didn't feel like taking, multiple times in my wife's department alone. I lost count of how many times my wife or her colleagues have been told to doctor student's grades because it may affect their acceptance to a college where they're only being courted as an athlete. The parents are rich and conservative in general, so you bet your rear end critical race theory is being used as a cudgel against the liberal arts departments. It also looks like an Ivy League, but the actual equipment they have inside is older than what my mediocre early aughts high school used. They can get away with it because the kids are rich enough that they all have their own top-of-the-line laptops and whatever else they need, but the reason is presumably because any upgrades would eat into the administrators' bonuses, and boy howdy do they have administrators. It's gotten bad enough that my wife's students complain to her about it. It's even gotten bad enough that my wife's students want her to quit, straight up told her the other day "You deserve better." This all sounds lovely and negative, and it is because I'm venting, but the moral is you can't pay for a good school. This school's tests are off the charts because every kid has a private tutor and every class is designed to game the tests. I once covered a school on the education beat that had awful test scores because it was bussing in all the special needs kids the surrounding towns were kicking out of their programs. They were being punished for doing something good. tl;dr There are good private schools. There are good public schools. It's hard to control for either. All you can do is support your kids.
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Apr 27, 2022 15:24
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unlimited shrimp posted:You're playing the odds -- Peer group is one of the most absolutely fundamental influencers in your child's development. Poverty* is what it is. There will be fewer pro-social, academics-oriented children in a school with an impoverished or transient population, and so it will be harder for your kid to make friends with them. This thread can have a giant derail about how there are shitheads in wealthier schools too, and that's right, but we all know which sorts of shithead behaviors are tolerated or rewarded and which sorts are punished and life-ruining in our actually-existing society. Not calling you out or anything, but I have to point out that a major problem with private schools isn't shithead kids of shithead parents, it's that the same controls public schools have in place to keep the poor in their place exist there too. They have ways to ensure that the hardworking kids who earned scholarships and took on debt don't get access to the same opportunities as the wealthy kids both indirectly (since everyone is automatically considered preppy the social circles break down around wealth rather than academics, and if you're from the town with the lovely public schools your friendship prospects suffer accordingly) and directly (letting support structures put in place for the scholarship kids wither by underfunding them). Again, plenty of public schools are absolute trash fires that should be avoided if you have the opportunity, but just because you jumped social rank to a private school doesn't mean you're being let into the club. My wife had these and similar lessons beaten into her over two decades of attending a private school then teaching at other private schools. After all that she still considers going to one for high school one of the best choices she ever made! It has its benefits! But it's a deeply personal decision that's impacted by your personality, where you live, how you learn, etc. In summary please don't take advice from an internet stranger whose name is literally Huge Fuckin' Idiot. Do your own research and then do what you think is best without killing yourself over it. Thank you for listening.
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Apr 27, 2022 17:16
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My toddler loves watching me exercise with my Ring Fit to the point that she'll grab it and bring it to me at random points during the day and get upset when she's told no. Wonder how much that's messing with her budding perception of what video games are and conflating screen time with active time. On the bright side now she likes doing mini-squats and has surprisingly good form for a 2 year old.
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May 12, 2022 14:40
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| # ¿ May 12, 2024 05:17 |
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So my wife just took a job at a school outside Philly. The pay is lower than what she makes now and we need to find a new place to rent 2 hours from where we live now in the next month, but the workplace atmosphere is better than her current place and there's one absolutely enormous benefit: our toddler gets a free ride at the school from age 3 through high school graduation. This is pretty much 90% why she's taking job, and I'm torn. On one hand, I feel a bit gently caress you, got mine about it; I've been advocating public schools since before my daughter was born and I hate to contribute to their further erosion. On the other hand, the school is actually more diverse than the public school she'd be going to if we stayed put (it's just 50% white, which is shocking for an old, fairly high-end private school in a suburb, but also one of the reasons it interested my wife in the first place), the area is closer to my wife's family (who have already been helping more than my family despite my family living less than a half hour away) and at the end of the day I feel like the public system is collapsing whether my daughter goes to it or not and I want to do right by my kid. My wife would be tied to the job but it means we wouldn't be tied to our rental, so we could move around if necessary without upending all my daughter's friendships and whatnot. The decision has already been made so I'm not looking for advice or anything. Guess I'm just curious what a bunch of internet strangers would have done in the same position.
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Jun 17, 2022 16:50
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