The Parenting Thread • Page 171

This was the most stressful part for me. That first like month is really the scariest, I slept like shit and not even because she didn’t sleep good, but because I kept waking myself up to check on her. It’ll get easier, you’re doing everything right, and just know how uncommon SIDS actually is. And when doing everything you’re doing right (sleeping in same room, baby on their back, etc) it reduces those insanely low odds even more.

 

What have been y'all's best methods for waking yourself up/being deliriously tired when you need to take care of the baby in the middle of the night? How do you stop yourself from dozing off? Lol

 

Honestly that was the hardest part of our first and likely will be the hardest part for our second as well. I sleep so deeply and never found a good solution aside from taking shifts (I’m a morning person and my wife isn’t so that worked out well enough). It still definitely put some strain on our relationship though. Obviously that can be harder or easier depending on whether you’re doing breastfeeding/pumping/formula.

 

our first night home our cat decided to jump in the bassinet with holly and i nearly had a hear attack

 

Our cats were very respectful of Elliot’s bassinet, but they’ve both been jumping in Lily’s since we’ve had it set up. We’ll see how things go once we’re home and there’s a baby in it.

 

I’m not gonna lie I would say my only true failure with our first was waking up and waking up immediately. My wife would need help and I was just very slow to get up and projected my tiredness. Where’s I took that deserved criticism and somehow pulled off getting up at the drop of a dime with our second. lol my wife said I was noticeably better at handling a baby during the night for our second.

 

My cat wanted and still wants nothing to do with Felix thankfully

I felt like I had a superpower the first few months, especially when I was on leave, because I’ve been such an awful sleeper my whole life that I can function pretty easily on 2-3 hours a night as long as I can find a solid 5 hours at some point during the week, so I was able to insist my wife get a ton of sleep when she wasn’t feeding.

That said, my problem is that when I sleep I sleep hard, so it takes me a bit to react to cries. His cries would work their way into my dreams before they registered as something to react to, and by the time I woke up my wife would already be holding him since she wakes up on a dime lol

 

I barely remember what it was like as the beginning, and that was just a couple years ago

 

Yeah, especially with my first, that period was just a blur. I have one memory of getting a snack out of the fridge in the middle of the night but other than that, don't remember anything.

 

Our first night home was wild. We couldn’t sleep for obvious reasons and then it was also the same night TJ Lane (school shooter from our area) escaped prison and there was a manhunt going on for hours upon hours all over national TV until the morning so we were just glued to the television.

Outside of that, the first two weeks were an absolute blur.

 

anyone have tips for stopping them from tearing their face up? my guy is 6 weeks and is constantly catching his face with his nails. we literally trimmed them last night. then today i put him down for 1 minute to heat up a bottle and came back to blood on his cheek. it doesn’t really seem to bother him but it obviously looks rough and i’m super afraid of him getting an infection or something. i also started crying when it happened this morning lmao.

 

My 7 m/o still has this issue, she’s a thumb sucker which does not help. My oldest had this too. They sell little gloves, or you can just put socks over the hands. Some onesies have those sleeve covers that extend over the hands. Hope those can help. Good luck.

 

For us, constant scratches were just a fact of life. Our son was particularly bad and we tried the gloves on him but he would always get them off and keep scratching. His lower back was constantly ripped to shit and it sucked but we just put antibacterial cream and moisturizing lotion on and got through it. He's 5 now and still has scars on his back from it.

 

our kid didn't nurse when she was little. when she was hungry, we all were awake. so when she woke in the middle of the night, my wife pumped and I gave our daughter a bottle. we were each other's strength in those waking hours lol

 

That was our first too. And he had bad reflux so it would take like an hour for him to drink a bottle. Seems to be going better (fingers crossed) this time though.

 

Does anyone have experience with their umbilical cord sample coming back with like...alarmingly low oxygen levels? Jess's tests all checked out prior to birth and Emmett's oxygen was fine after birth, but we just got results via MyChart and they show low SO2 levels of 53 with normal levels being like 92-96. No one called us to review the results, so now we're mortified that he might have brain damage or something.

 

While I have no experience there, definitely feels like something to message or call the pediatrician about in the morning

 

Hellooo. Long time listener, first time caller in this thread. My son is 9 and was invited to his first sleepover this weekend, but is freaking out because he doesn't know what to do since he's still a bedwetter. I told him I'd support him if he decides to stay home or if he decides to go. I'm friendly enough with the host mom where I could tell her about his "needs" at night and kinda coordinate with her, but [son] is understandably embarrassed and doesn't even want her to know. I totally get the fear and stress of being singled out even if it is on the downlow. Plus boys can be monsters and the protector in me doesn't want him to face any potential humiliation. That being said, I do want to support him any way I can if he does decide to go. I've presented three options:

1. Go to the sleepover, I'll talk to the mom and give her a heads up, hope for the best.
2. Don't go to the sleepover - use me as an excuse, pretend i'm super strict, whatever you gotta do, kid.
3. Go to the sleepover but don't sleepover - I'll just pick you up late.

Anyway, just wanted to vent because it's causing some stress in our home and the last thing I ever want is to see my lil guy stressed out about something he can't control.

 

I was going to suggest what you had in option 3, i've heard it called a sleep "under" before. They get to go and hang out with the friends all night and then when it's time to go to bed you pick them up and take them home. And then maybe in the morning drop them back off so they can continue hanging out and they don't really miss anything, plus get a better night sleep in their own bed

 

For sure. That's the route I'd like to take, but we'll see if we're on the same page. But hey, it's a great opportunity for a lesson in decision making and thinking about the different outcomes!

 

last night there were gunshots a few blocks from our house. It was weird because it actually sounded like someone was knocking on our back door. Our daughter was still awake and heard it from her room and said 'dada come get me from my room!' over the monitor. She thought it was fireworks.

We actually didn't know they were gunshots until someone else reported it on the Ring camera network app we have. Now my wife wants to move when our lease is up in June. My sister has lived in San Antonio for 12 years and said this was a safe area before we moved in. It is right by a historic neighborhood with huge nice houses, but also a few blocks away from a main thoroughfare that is less than safe.

Trying not to overreact, but do I really want to live in a place where my child gets scared of gunshots?

 

That was a big part of us leaving Austin (among other things), we would hear frequent arguments and gunshots and it was terrifying having kids in that situation

 

that was part of our consideration for moving too

 

My sons dad lives in Tampa and because of what you are talking about is why he lives with me full time in New England. I always get nervous when he goes down to visit.

 

just had a few days with the kid at home with Hand Foot & Mouth. He wasn't really affected at all, didn't change his mood or actually seem sick, just couldn't go to school, so it was a few rowdy days at home, mostly inside because of rain.

in the last 6 months he's had HFM twice, covid, the flu, pnemonia and a few general colds/coughs. Daycare really isn't for the faint of heart