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Kids/Parenting: It’s fine, everything is fine.

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Posts

  • MichaelLCMichaelLC In what furnace was thy brain? ChicagoRegistered User regular
    Elvenshae wrote: »
    Googling baby questions is generally a bad idea because there’s a lot of hearsay and very dodgy sites out there.

    ... and also the tendency towards, "If you aren't doing [it] this exact way, your BABY WILL DIE IMMEDIATELY YOU PIECE OF SHIT PARENT!"

    No, GOD! JESUS CHRIST!!! DO IT [THIS] WAY!!!

    Yeah it's pretty crazy.

    Keep them happy, rested, safe, and fed, You too.

    When in doubt, just cycle through one of those. Sometimes none of them will work.

  • lonelyahavalonelyahava Call me Ahava ~~She/Her~~ Move to New ZealandRegistered User regular
    i think i picked up 'What to expect" for myself but that was basically it. I don't even think I really read it at all.

  • SummaryJudgmentSummaryJudgment Grab the hottest iron you can find, stride in the Tower’s front door Registered User regular
    edited November 2020
    As a dad: the chemistry doesn't kick in for everyone. That said, if folks want kids, that's a Big Ticket life item and they deserve not being led along, especially considering what a time-sensetive thing that is.

    SummaryJudgment on
    Some days Blue wonders why anyone ever bothered making numbers so small; other days she supposes even infinity needs to start somewhere.
  • CelestialBadgerCelestialBadger Registered User regular
    The best thing about the baby book I had was the illustrated list of rashes. That proved very useful.

  • wobblyheadedbobwobblyheadedbob Registered User regular
    I'm going to echo the What to Expect book and The Expectant Father.

    My wife and I also liked the What to Expect app. It has a neato development video we would watch every week so we knew what was happening in there.

  • BrodyBrody The Watch The First ShoreRegistered User regular
    Yeah. We didn't do any books until it was time to work on sleep training. We did have an app for tracking feeding/naps/diapers. Although part of that was that Sapling was always really small, so we wanted to have a really good idea of how much she was eating to worry over endlessly when visiting the pediatrician's.

    The main things to learn aren't anything a book is going to help with anyways, like how to change a diaper, how to swaddle a baby, or how to maintain any semblance of sanity after being awake for 60+ hours of the last 72 hours.

    "I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."

    The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson

    Steam: Korvalain
  • kimekime Queen of Blades Registered User regular
    Brody wrote: »
    Yeah. We didn't do any books until it was time to work on sleep training. We did have an app for tracking feeding/naps/diapers. Although part of that was that Sapling was always really small, so we wanted to have a really good idea of how much she was eating to worry over endlessly when visiting the pediatrician's.

    The main things to learn aren't anything a book is going to help with anyways, like how to change a diaper, how to swaddle a baby, or how to maintain any semblance of sanity after being awake for 60+ hours of the last 72 hours.

    With the first two there, we took a hospital class for that. It was.... actually really helpful! I'm not sure how long it would have taken me to figure some of the tricks out for that... Which are only tricks if you're new to babies but still.

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  • TaramoorTaramoor Storyteller Registered User regular
    edited November 2020
    MichaelLC wrote: »
    Elvenshae wrote: »
    Googling baby questions is generally a bad idea because there’s a lot of hearsay and very dodgy sites out there.

    ... and also the tendency towards, "If you aren't doing [it] this exact way, your BABY WILL DIE IMMEDIATELY YOU PIECE OF SHIT PARENT!"

    No, GOD! JESUS CHRIST!!! DO IT [THIS] WAY!!!

    Yeah it's pretty crazy.

    Keep them happy, rested, safe, and fed, You too.

    When in doubt, just cycle through one of those. Sometimes none of them will work.

    We got a lot of that about using formula. General response was “Fuck you, my wife isn’t a Martian, there’s three babies and two boobs!”

    Taramoor on
  • wobblyheadedbobwobblyheadedbob Registered User regular
    Taramoor wrote: »
    MichaelLC wrote: »
    Elvenshae wrote: »
    Googling baby questions is generally a bad idea because there’s a lot of hearsay and very dodgy sites out there.

    ... and also the tendency towards, "If you aren't doing [it] this exact way, your BABY WILL DIE IMMEDIATELY YOU PIECE OF SHIT PARENT!"

    No, GOD! JESUS CHRIST!!! DO IT [THIS] WAY!!!

    Yeah it's pretty crazy.

    Keep them happy, rested, safe, and fed, You too.

    When in doubt, just cycle through one of those. Sometimes none of them will work.

    We got a lot of that about using formula. General response was “Fuck you, my wife isn’t a Martian, there’s three babies and two boobs!”

    Got to find that total recall lady

  • CroakerBCCroakerBC TorontoRegistered User regular
    edited November 2020
    MichaelLC wrote: »
    Elvenshae wrote: »
    Googling baby questions is generally a bad idea because there’s a lot of hearsay and very dodgy sites out there.

    ... and also the tendency towards, "If you aren't doing [it] this exact way, your BABY WILL DIE IMMEDIATELY YOU PIECE OF SHIT PARENT!"

    No, GOD! JESUS CHRIST!!! DO IT [THIS] WAY!!!

    Yeah it's pretty crazy.

    Keep them happy, rested, safe, and fed, You too.

    When in doubt, just cycle through one of those. Sometimes none of them will work.

    Currently entering hour two of the frustrated howling hits medley, can confirm. Maybe he’s hot? Who can say. Really looking forward to when the boy can talk.

    But yes, we iterate through the full diaper/hungry/sleepy? checklist.

    People say do what works for you - I think as basic new parents in lockdown, we read a lot and talked to a lot of people, then decided what we would do.

    ETA: deployed the nuclear option of the pacifier. Sigh!

    CroakerBC on
  • AimAim Registered User regular
    Right now my near 7, near 5 and near 2 kids are jumping and screaming on my bed. My feelings for them are conflicted.

  • CorvusCorvus . VancouverRegistered User regular
    Man, if the pacifier works, use it. My first kid never would take it. Having much better luck spawn #2

    :so_raven:
  • Red RaevynRed Raevyn because I only take Bubble Baths Registered User regular
    My wife and I both really liked Ina May's Guide to Childbirth and Penny Simkin's The Birth Partner. What to Expect was worth having too, and frequently referenced. We've found referencing a book way better than the internet for the reasons others have mentioned.

    We felt the reading we came across on the outrageous misogyny and unjustified "man dr knows best" in the history of OB practice also worth reading - tl;dr for us there was whichever way you hope to have your child, do it with a qualified midwife if you can.

    As far as after the birth goes, we got a big fat tome called " The Baby Book: Everything You Need to Know About Your Baby from Birth to Age Two" co written by four pediatricians. They have their slant on a few things, but it's been really good overall.

  • CorvusCorvus . VancouverRegistered User regular
    Oh I think we used those two books as well.

    We used midwives instead of an obstetrician for our kids and it was great. For some of the pre and post birth care they came to our house! Don’t know how that works in the USA though. For our first kid we had a doula as well but we skipped it for number two.

    Also, I guess maybe there are medical costs to plan for for a birth for Americans?

    :so_raven:
  • Red RaevynRed Raevyn because I only take Bubble Baths Registered User regular
    Corvus wrote: »
    .

    Also, I guess maybe there are medical costs to plan for for a birth for Americans?
    Would have been $13,000 for a no real complications birth if we'd been paying for it.

    Also @CroakerBC dealing with the howling, insert fist bump emoji here

  • lonelyahavalonelyahava Call me Ahava ~~She/Her~~ Move to New ZealandRegistered User regular
    down here in nz i had a midwife that was 'my' midwife.
    then because of the gestational diabetes i also had a Clinic midwife who looked after me and an OB.

    And thank god for the OB. it was her decision to go for the induction at week 39. but she and I made the deal. 3 doses of magic contraction gel, totally 6mg, and if nothing was happening, then C-section. i was not going to go through a week long induced labour.

    As it turned out I got 4 doses of the gel (totaling 6mg), and then ended up with a C section. because my baby was nowhere near ready to come out and would have been perfectly content staying in for at least another week.

    My Midwife was a delight and we had 6 weeks o her visiting after the birth. but thank god for the OB listening to me.

    And really, that's my one bit of advice. listen to yourselves. you'll know your family better than anybody else.

  • kimekime Queen of Blades Registered User regular

    Yeah the hospital has a nice app we used where you can search for symptoms and they'll let you know what to do (most of which is just "rest, water, and monitor" :P ) and it's always a relief to read that even if you're pretty sure something isn't a big deal. Nice to know what warning signs to look out for too.

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  • BrodyBrody The Watch The First ShoreRegistered User regular
    Red Raevyn wrote: »
    Corvus wrote: »
    .

    Also, I guess maybe there are medical costs to plan for for a birth for Americans?
    Would have been $13,000 for a no real complications birth if we'd been paying for it.

    Also CroakerBC dealing with the howling, insert fist bump emoji here

    I think that was the initial bill for ours as well, not including the short NICU trip Sapling made for the first couple of hours.

    "I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."

    The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson

    Steam: Korvalain
  • CorvusCorvus . VancouverRegistered User regular
    Red Raevyn wrote: »
    Corvus wrote: »
    .

    Also, I guess maybe there are medical costs to plan for for a birth for Americans?
    Would have been $13,000 for a no real complications birth if we'd been paying for it.

    Also @CroakerBC dealing with the howling, insert fist bump emoji here

    Jesus. So insurance covers it?

    :so_raven:
  • amethystoakamethystoak Registered User regular
    Corvus wrote: »
    Red Raevyn wrote: »
    Corvus wrote: »
    .

    Also, I guess maybe there are medical costs to plan for for a birth for Americans?
    Would have been $13,000 for a no real complications birth if we'd been paying for it.

    Also @CroakerBC dealing with the howling, insert fist bump emoji here

    Jesus. So insurance covers it?

    Our insurance has an out-of-pocket maximum each year (something around $2400-$3200-ish, iirc). The out-of-pocket maximum is per person so we owed about double that because they also charged us for our newborn's care while in the hospital. But also, we're a single-income family and qualified for financial assistance, so that helped.

  • HappylilElfHappylilElf Registered User regular
    Corvus wrote: »
    Red Raevyn wrote: »
    Corvus wrote: »
    .

    Also, I guess maybe there are medical costs to plan for for a birth for Americans?
    Would have been $13,000 for a no real complications birth if we'd been paying for it.

    Also @CroakerBC dealing with the howling, insert fist bump emoji here

    Jesus. So insurance covers it?

    Our insurance has an out-of-pocket maximum each year (something around $2400-$3200-ish, iirc). The out-of-pocket maximum is per person so we owed about double that because they also charged us for our newborn's care while in the hospital. But also, we're a single-income family and qualified for financial assistance, so that helped.

    Yay insurance in the US!
    (my insurance is a fucking HSA which is where you save up your own money and hope the insurance company does tell you to go fuck yourself when it comes to coverage because there's no way your HSA has enough funds to cover anything even remotely serious)

  • schussschuss Registered User regular
    There's also the weird thing with your first where you switch from one person out of pocket max to family and they start billing the baby as a separate entity. By weird I mean bullshit

  • CroakerBCCroakerBC TorontoRegistered User regular
    edited November 2020
    I have never been more grateful to have been in the UK/Canada over the course of this year. Pandemic pregnancy aside, can’t imagine doing this and paying for it out-of-pocket too.

    In later news, tiny child is now sleeping deeply, with butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-mouth face. Six weeks seems a bit early, but we have to sort out what’s up with him and his sleep cycle I think. Angry shouting 22:00-midnight, then crashing out 03:00 to whenever probably isn’t sustainable (or fair on his poor mum, who gets the 21:00-03:00 shift with him, in prep for my going back to work).

    Any tips? He really is too young to sleep train, just not sure what gets up his butt at that time of day.

    CroakerBC on
  • AntinumericAntinumeric Registered User regular
    There's nothing quite like picking up your two week old child, who is crying and wailing with effort, and picking them up and cuddling them so gravity can help them poop as they don't quite know how.

    Truly the magic of parenthood.

    @CroakerBC I don't know, mine does the same but it's mostly wind at this stage. I'm praying it gets better over the coming week as I'm back to work after that. :S

    In this moment, I am euphoric. Not because of any phony god’s blessing. But because, I am enlightened by my intelligence.
  • quovadis13quovadis13 Registered User regular
    At that age, you are still kind of completely at their mercy, you don’t really have much control. Try to keep them on a good schedule during the day and they will slowly figure out the nighttime thing.

    Do remember that everything is a phase and they will eventually sort these things out. It won’t last forever.

  • BrodyBrody The Watch The First ShoreRegistered User regular
    CroakerBC wrote: »
    I have never been more grateful to have been in the UK/Canada over the course of this year. Pandemic pregnancy aside, can’t imagine doing this and paying for it out-of-pocket too.

    In later news, tiny child is now sleeping deeply, with butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-mouth face. Six weeks seems a bit early, but we have to sort out what’s up with him and his sleep cycle I think. Angry shouting 22:00-midnight, then crashing out 03:00 to whenever probably isn’t sustainable (or fair on his poor mum, who gets the 21:00-03:00 shift with him, in prep for my going back to work).

    Any tips? He really is too young to sleep train, just not sure what gets up his butt at that time of day.

    Even if you don't plan on using the Ferber sleep training method, the book does a lot of talking about sleeping patterns of babies and toddlers. Basically, you are in for a roller coaster while your kid finished basic human programming for the first ~3 months.
    schuss wrote: »
    There's also the weird thing with your first where you switch from one person out of pocket max to family and they start billing the baby as a separate entity. By weird I mean bullshit

    First, I don't want this to come off as defending the complete bullshit that is the US healthcare system, but technically Sapling was being billed separately because she was in the NICU. She didn't get charged for the delivery itself.

    "I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."

    The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson

    Steam: Korvalain
  • wobblyheadedbobwobblyheadedbob Registered User regular
    Oh, my wife and I also took a baby CPR class. Good chance it saved our baby's life last night. She almost choked on a quarter of a grape.

  • schussschuss Registered User regular
    Brody wrote: »
    CroakerBC wrote: »
    I have never been more grateful to have been in the UK/Canada over the course of this year. Pandemic pregnancy aside, can’t imagine doing this and paying for it out-of-pocket too.

    In later news, tiny child is now sleeping deeply, with butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-mouth face. Six weeks seems a bit early, but we have to sort out what’s up with him and his sleep cycle I think. Angry shouting 22:00-midnight, then crashing out 03:00 to whenever probably isn’t sustainable (or fair on his poor mum, who gets the 21:00-03:00 shift with him, in prep for my going back to work).

    Any tips? He really is too young to sleep train, just not sure what gets up his butt at that time of day.

    Even if you don't plan on using the Ferber sleep training method, the book does a lot of talking about sleeping patterns of babies and toddlers. Basically, you are in for a roller coaster while your kid finished basic human programming for the first ~3 months.
    schuss wrote: »
    There's also the weird thing with your first where you switch from one person out of pocket max to family and they start billing the baby as a separate entity. By weird I mean bullshit

    First, I don't want this to come off as defending the complete bullshit that is the US healthcare system, but technically Sapling was being billed separately because she was in the NICU. She didn't get charged for the delivery itself.

    In our case we had a bunch of bill sorting that was just obnoxious because depending on which provider was touching they billed as just mom or mom and baby, with a lot of duplication thrown in we had to deal with because the insurance company was too lazy to double-check on that instance.

  • CarpyCarpy Registered User regular
    Kaiser was a pretty painless experience for our last birth, $500 flat fee covered everything. We ended up with a week long stay and emergency c-section and it was all covered. On the other hand Getting Kaiser to accept Kaiser's paperwork inorder to enroll baby on our plan was hell. I ended up having to take PTO so I could walk from office to office to get people to call enrollment and figure out what the hell they actually needed.

    Of course none of it was as easy as our first on TRICARE but can't get that socialized healthcare anymore.

    Daylight savings ending has been rough on our 18 month old. They were always on an earlier schedule (wake up 6:30, dinner 5:30, bed between 6:30-7) but now they're just absolutely melting down at 5:20, like can't even finish dinner and everything makes them mad. They sign that they're done, I take them out of the chair and all they want is back into the chair, you go to put them back in the chair and they freak out and won't get in. We're trying to hold the line, move snack time and naps later in the day, but evenings are miserable right now.

  • CorvusCorvus . VancouverRegistered User regular
    quovadis13 wrote: »
    At that age, you are still kind of completely at their mercy, you don’t really have much control. Try to keep them on a good schedule during the day and they will slowly figure out the nighttime thing.

    Do remember that everything is a phase and they will eventually sort these things out. It won’t last forever.

    Another way to look at it is, if you feel like everything is figured out, that's your sign that things are about to change. :rotate:

    I believe this process goes on for about 25 years.

    :so_raven:
  • CauldCauld Registered User regular
    CroakerBC wrote: »
    MichaelLC wrote: »
    Elvenshae wrote: »
    Googling baby questions is generally a bad idea because there’s a lot of hearsay and very dodgy sites out there.

    ... and also the tendency towards, "If you aren't doing [it] this exact way, your BABY WILL DIE IMMEDIATELY YOU PIECE OF SHIT PARENT!"

    No, GOD! JESUS CHRIST!!! DO IT [THIS] WAY!!!

    Yeah it's pretty crazy.

    Keep them happy, rested, safe, and fed, You too.

    When in doubt, just cycle through one of those. Sometimes none of them will work.

    Currently entering hour two of the frustrated howling hits medley, can confirm. Maybe he’s hot? Who can say. Really looking forward to when the boy can talk.

    But yes, we iterate through the full diaper/hungry/sleepy? checklist.

    People say do what works for you - I think as basic new parents in lockdown, we read a lot and talked to a lot of people, then decided what we would do.

    ETA: deployed the nuclear option of the pacifier. Sigh!

    Unfortunately being able to talk doesn't always help with this. Sometimes my kid will tell us why he's screaming, but it doesn't always help. And often the real reason is just that he's tired or hungry and not that his blocks fell over like he says.

    I'm in the pro pacifier boat. No real reason not to use it imo.

  • kimekime Queen of Blades Registered User regular
    Also talking doesn't necessarily mean "telling the truth"

    Kids live in their own little reality even after they learn to talk....

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  • CorvusCorvus . VancouverRegistered User regular
    Kids that talk will also sometimes not know or deny what the problem the is. My four year old will deny that a meltdown is because he's hungry, but be totally fine after having a snack.

    :so_raven:
  • DisruptedCapitalistDisruptedCapitalist I swear! Registered User regular
    edited November 2020
    I have the Mayo Clinic Complete Book of Pregnancy and Baby's First Year serving as a very effective monitor stand. It has served in that role for nearly 12 years. Just beneath it is Freer and Perdue's Second Edition of Civil Procedure: Cases, Materials, and Questions.

    DisruptedCapitalist on
    "Simple, real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time." -Mustrum Ridcully in Terry Pratchett's Hogfather p. 142 (HarperPrism 1996)
  • SummaryJudgmentSummaryJudgment Grab the hottest iron you can find, stride in the Tower’s front door Registered User regular
    I have the Mayo Clinic Complete Book of Pregnancy and Baby's First Year serving as a very effective monitor stand. It has server in that role for nearly 12 years. Just beneath it is Freer and Perdue's Second Edition of Civil Procedure: Cases, Materials, and Questions.

    *high five* I had a CivPro book as a monitor stand for years

    I think a 1L Contracts book and a...Family Law, iirc, book were the second and third layers in the stand

    Some days Blue wonders why anyone ever bothered making numbers so small; other days she supposes even infinity needs to start somewhere.
  • CorvusCorvus . VancouverRegistered User regular
    Corvus wrote: »
    Red Raevyn wrote: »
    Corvus wrote: »
    .

    Also, I guess maybe there are medical costs to plan for for a birth for Americans?
    Would have been $13,000 for a no real complications birth if we'd been paying for it.

    Also @CroakerBC dealing with the howling, insert fist bump emoji here

    Jesus. So insurance covers it?

    Our insurance has an out-of-pocket maximum each year (something around $2400-$3200-ish, iirc). The out-of-pocket maximum is per person so we owed about double that because they also charged us for our newborn's care while in the hospital. But also, we're a single-income family and qualified for financial assistance, so that helped.

    Brutal. For our recent kid, we paid nothing, even hospital parking fees have been cancelled for the pandemic. I paid $27 for our birth certificate to the vital stats branch of government.

    :so_raven:
  • ShadowfireShadowfire Vermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered User regular
    edited November 2020
    Corvus wrote: »
    Red Raevyn wrote: »
    Corvus wrote: »
    .

    Also, I guess maybe there are medical costs to plan for for a birth for Americans?
    Would have been $13,000 for a no real complications birth if we'd been paying for it.

    Also @CroakerBC dealing with the howling, insert fist bump emoji here

    Jesus. So insurance covers it?

    Our insurance has an out-of-pocket maximum each year (something around $2400-$3200-ish, iirc). The out-of-pocket maximum is per person so we owed about double that because they also charged us for our newborn's care while in the hospital. But also, we're a single-income family and qualified for financial assistance, so that helped.

    Yay insurance in the US!
    (my insurance is a fucking HSA which is where you save up your own money and hope the insurance company does tell you to go fuck yourself when it comes to coverage because there's no way your HSA has enough funds to cover anything even remotely serious)

    My HSA has an out of pocket maximum that we meet pretty easily every year. I mean, my wife's medication is only like $60k per dose!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgv7U3GYlDY

    Shadowfire on
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  • MulysaSemproniusMulysaSempronius but also susie nyRegistered User regular
    My 4-year-old has taken to being stubborn, and what he says goes, so talking isn't always so great, yeaah....


    My husband's union insurance took care of pretty much everything when my two youngest were born. We never got anything other than "explanation of benefits" letters. I.. wasn't actually expecting that. Back when I was a wee lass who got my first personal insurance, I had an unexpected hospital visit. I thought the $500 deductible was BS... little did I know just how great that was. Later in life I hit a $5,000 deductible twice because I was in the hospital in December, and had bills that came in in January.
    Government officials with great healthcare really have no idea just how bad it can be.

    If that's all there is my friends, then let's keep dancing
  • KakodaimonosKakodaimonos Code fondler Helping the 1% get richerRegistered User regular
    Since our school district has realized that they can't trust any of the parents around here to not properly social distance, they're shutting down any in-person learning for the week after Thanksgiving so there's a lower rate of asymptomatic cases.

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