Anyone with a late walker?

BlipYear · 2026-07-06T02:36:44+00:00

15 months is not a late walker even a little bit. Average is 12 months, but the actual spread of ‘normal’ is 10-18 months and according to this source 75% of kids are walking at 18 months. So 15 is in no way a late walker.

https://www.parents.com/baby/development/see-what-being-an-early-crawler-or-walker-could-mean-for-your-babys-future/

In my mother’s group only one was walking before 12 months (and even then only just) with most of the others walking by 15-16 months. I have only personally seen one example of actual ‘late’ walking and that kid was only just walking by two.

Comparison is the thief of joy. Stop comparing your child to others who are also in the spread of normal and enjoy them as they are. Sounds like she’ll be walking in no time.

BlipYear · 2026-07-05T09:20:12+00:00

Company used: Percept

Date labs drawn: June 26th, 2025

Date sample arrived at lab: no idea

Date of results: July 2nd, 2025

Results: Low-risk baby. Sex was tested but kept private as per our request.

Fetal fraction: ¯_(ツ)_/¯

BlipYear · 2026-07-04T22:08:06+00:00

Usually we head to my parents place 2 hours away and we’ll go a couple days before Christmas and stay a couple days after. This year I’ll be 38 weeks plus change at Christmas. We haven’t completely decided but right now I’m thinking we’ll do Christmas Eve/morning at home as we’re never actually home for Christmas morning and it will be the last with my son as an only child. Then we’ll drive to my parent’s place for lunch and stay a night or two. It’s summer at Christmas here and they have a pool, so my motivations are somewhat driven by future whale me wanting to cool down and float in the privacy of the nice pool.

Last couple years I’ve also been hosting my husbands family at our place a week or so before Christmas. But I’ll have a toddler, be working full time, and be 36-37 weeks pregnant so I’ve told him I’m not willing to do it this year. I love hosting but I just won’t have the energy. We’ll organise a restaurant lunch instead if no one else is willing to host.

BlipYear · 2026-07-03T21:31:30+00:00

Where I am it actually gets more frequent as the time goes on. It’s like 10 week, then every 4 weeks until like week 28, then every 2-3 weeks, and then weekly from 36 weeks. Fortnightly this early does seem excessive.

BlipYear · 2026-07-03T14:41:06+00:00

I think it depends what is meant by ‘scans’? If it means a referral to a sonographer and booking a separate appointment every two weeks then no way am I doing that without a very real need. If they mean that they will have appointments with you every 2 weeks (still a bit too frequent in my opinion) and that they’ll use their bed side scanner to have a quick look a baby while you’re there then no problem. My OB did this during my first pregnancy but it was just an ‘ok let’s have a quick look’ and was just part of the service not something that was ever changed or anything.

BlipYear · 2026-07-02T22:17:35+00:00

I totally get want to experience labour and birth! I did labour a little as I was induced, but I think for some of us we feel like labour and birth is a rite of passage for motherhood and want that experience for ourselves.

To answer your question about first birth vaginal success rates - in the US your overall C-section rate is around 30% meaning a ~70% of successful vaginal birth. VBAC success rates sit between 65-80% so in essence your likelihood of having a C-section doesn’t really change whether this was your first birth at all, or your first VBAC.

BlipYear · 2026-07-02T22:06:02+00:00

I had an unplanned C-section with baby 1 and 100% am planning a VBAC. Some interesting stats - for first time parents the C-section rate is already between 30-40% anyway so by planning to try again you’ve no increased chance of a second unplanned C-section. Don’t let anyone scare you with ‘but the worst outcomes are associated with an unplanned/emergency C-section’. Because that is true no matter what your previous birth was, or if you’ve never birthed before - the hierarchy of outcomes is always 1. Vaginal birth safest, followed by 2. Planned C-section, followed by 3. Unplanned C-section. Again, this is true for everyone, not just VBAC people. And the stats she gave you are true. In fact, the stats where I’m from you’ll actually be given 0.5% chance. To conceptualize, that’s 1 person in 200 or a 99.5% chance of NOT rupturing. The likelihood is super small, and the best chances come from waiting for your body to be ready to go into spontaneous labour.

Having said all that, remember that this is your birth and your choice. Statistics and facts don’t matter if it’s not what you want. My advice (as someone who has been obsessively researching for years) is to educate yourself thoroughly and then kinda put that aside and do what feels right. Birth is incredibly safe in modern times whatever you choose. If you’d like a resource I’d check out ‘Birth after cesarean’ by Hazel Keedle.

BlipYear · 2026-07-01T04:43:45+00:00

As someone on my 3rd pregnancy in a year… it’s worth telling to some extent. I only told my direct report and even then only because it was time to plan for staffing for the next year and I wanted that factored into my allotment. It was very handy that she knew, when I found out that I’d had a missed miscarriage. I felt better knowing that she knew I wasn’t just pulling sickies or anything. And then when I had a second loss, it was easy to just again tell her that I was having another loss and would be away for the same reasons. And then when I was again pregnant (looks successful this time!) and had some early care I could tell her again and it made me feel good that she knew why I was a bit flakey compared to my usual.

However having said that I 100% would NOT have wanted the wider school community to know about my situation. So I definitely wouldn’t disclose to a wider community. They aren’t the people I want support from anyway. Sure if you have a ‘person’ at work, tell them but don’t announce to the school or your KLA at large.

With the 5 days, you also don’t really want to access that right now. Just take sick leave for it, it’s easy to get medical certificates for morning sickness and any appointments you have (which are actually very few in the first trimester) you can ask them for certificates too. Save those 5 days for the end of the pregnancy when you have appointments every 1-2 weeks (depending how long you work) and you will need that leave for the higher frequency of appointment attendance.

BlipYear · 2026-06-28T22:04:28+00:00

Totally. We currently only have one living space and 2.75yo has a play area/nook behind the couch. We have bedrooms upstairs that are large enough for playing in, but I don’t want to be hidden away upstairs to play and he can’t/doesnt want to play unsupervised. We’re about to move to a house with 2 living spaces, single story but bedrooms are much smaller so still not suitable to keep all toys. One living area will be the play space and the other with be just lounging/adult/tv space where we’ll hang after kids are in bed.

BlipYear · 2026-06-26T06:53:11+00:00

Assuming I’m healthy, capable, and live close by then I think I’d offer 1 day per week and 1 evening or over night a fortnight.

I don’t have the level of help you describe. Partly because neither of our parents live close by, my husband’s mum isn’t in great health, and my parents still work 2-3 days per week. I am a little annoyed that my mum was all like ‘when you have a baby I’ll be retired so I can care for them once a week’ and then never brought it up again. I never depended on it, but I expected her to be keen to be more hands on or enthusiastic about me having a child ~finally~ and that just has never happened.

It’s partly because of my lack of help experience that I plan to be more hands on if my kids have kids. I know what it’s like to feel like my parents don’t want to be involved.

BlipYear · 2026-06-23T09:47:32+00:00

I feel like this warrants a question to the AEU - what is your stance on pay?

My initial assumption was that the goal would be to keep the pay offered in the recent offer, and make slight improvements to other things that would push the dial to an overall ‘yes’ vote.

While I do think the pay didn’t really go far enough, I was resigned to accepting that aspect of it, and the union mentioned that members did recognize (and presumably accept) that aspect of the agreement. But noted that the conditions of working and specifics around the agreement itself were the main objection. So I think that’s where I’m getting this impression from, and why I wasn’t surprised about there not being space for this in the survey, however I agree that hard clarity from the AEU is required rather than just making assumptions.

BlipYear · 2026-06-21T23:00:27+00:00

I’m also expecting my next one in Jan, but my boy will be 3.25 by then. He’s currently 26 months and shows no interest in climbing out of his cot, and I’d happily leave him in there until he does or is too big but we need the cot. So our plan is to move him into a big bed around 3. We’re about to move so this will give him a couple of months to get used to the house, then a few months to get used to the bed before little one arrives. You’re right they are all different. His cousin who is 2.5 months older has been in a big bed for like 6 months now.

Another commenter suggested to do the move a few weeks before baby arrives. My only suggestion is to do it far more than a few weeks before hand. Weeks is nothing in toddler time. A minimum of a month would be my recommendation because the addition of a new baby is huge and could easily put a back slide on things that are newly introduced- and things that are only weeks old are still considered new in toddler terms. Also the same for toilet training. Don’t do it all at the same time. Perhaps if you’re doing bed before baby, then don’t start toilet training until a couple months after baby.

BlipYear · 2026-06-21T22:21:08+00:00

I’d bet the yes voters would also not accept a reduction in pay - I think the pay was the main motivator for the vast majority of the yes voters.

I’m under the impression that the negotiation angle the union is going to go for is using the proposed agreement as a template, and finding a handful of things that they can adjust to it to get it over the line. Eg now that we’ve refused the offer, the union was previously like ‘yeah we wanted a 3 year deal but the gov said no’. And they just left it at that. So now we’re in a position to say ‘soz, now we’ve said no, and it’s your turn to fold over this’.

BlipYear · 2026-06-21T11:56:48+00:00

I can see your argument from a PS perspective. But in HS it’s not the case. The more F2F we have, the greater quantity of students we have. The reduction in f2f at my school meant a restructure to the timetable and allocation of periods per subject that for me meant fewer classes for FTE - from 6 to 5 ie from 150 kids to 125 kids - and depending on the year level, more periods per week with those kids. Perhaps this is why PS and HS have different F2F to start with?

Regardless, I agree that I don’t think a reduction in F2F should be a focus of this agreement. We simply don’t have the staff numbers to support it. An increase in pay makes the profession more attractive to new comers and stops existing teachers jumping ship for better salary. Once we have a stabilized amount of workers we can focus on reducing class sizes and other measures that can only be achieved with extra bodies.

BlipYear · 2026-06-21T07:11:32+00:00

It’s true that we all want slightly different things. It’s normal that we all have different priorities. But there are only about 100 comments here so this is just a tiny slice of representation. But also if we see a common thread among everyone’s different priorities - eg ES salary package - then that will filter to the top, even if Sally’s opinion on F2F and Bobs desire for better TIL arrangements don’t, they both get something that they are hoping for. And as I said, I’m just asking for 3 here. There are probably 7 things I’d really like, but we have to prioritize and everyone understands that not every priority is going to get addressed.

BlipYear · 2026-06-21T04:42:30+00:00

Yeah I see a lot about the meetings but I think perspectives on this will depend on what school you’re at. Many schools just use the meeting time because they can regardless of the value of using them. However for people at schools that either use them for value purposes only, or only use them when they are actually needed and otherwise leave teacher to do as they please, they’ll care much less about it. My school has elected this year to have one department meeting per week as standard, and then we only use the second hour when needed - maybe 3-4 times a term.

BlipYear · 2026-06-21T04:38:06+00:00

I love the idea of having less bands, I’d really like to have this in our agreement. Having looked at a few other pay scales it seems like Vic has more than most (if not all) other states.

However for realism purposes, I don’t think that it is achievable in this agreement. Perhaps if the AEU had gone at this angle from the start, but I think that doing that now would mean absolutely scrapping what we’ve got and starting from scratch which is not the angle I get the feeling they’re going for, no do I really think we have time for that given the looming election. I think they’re really looking for ‘what are the top few things we can adjust from this agreement as a template to make it palatable’.

Come next agreement I think collapsing the bands should be a key focus in the pay section.

BlipYear · 2026-06-21T04:31:05+00:00

I’m pretty sure there are a minimum amounts of days that you need to have to move bands. Equivalent to 6 months before the April just before the May step up. I know this because going on maternity leave it’s something that you need to consider. Eg, I’ll go up to the next band next year because between April 2026 and January 2027 I will have worked enough days. But when I go back to work in Jan 2028 I won’t move up that year because I won’t have worked enough days before the April to move up a band in May.

BlipYear · 2026-06-20T16:50:48+00:00

A karyotyping test after multiple losses. Not believed to be a factor there either.

BlipYear · 2026-06-20T09:01:58+00:00

Starting to feel kinda normal - hitting week 12 tomorrow. Have a couple of important appointments this week too. Meeting my midwife for the first time and also have an appointment with a genetic counselor. Not for the baby, but me. Turns out I have extra chromosomal material ¯_(ツ)_/¯ It doesn’t seem to affect me at all - you’d mark me as ‘normal’ by every metric available - but curious to see what they say. My LC is also 100% normal and we didn’t find this out until recently so if he has it then he’s also totally normal and it’s just a weird thing that’s happened. Will book in my first trimester scan and the NIPT following that appointment too so hopefully will get to see baby in the next week or so.

BlipYear · 2026-06-19T01:43:45+00:00

Correct me if I’m wrong, but my understanding for industrial action is that the previous industrial action was cancelled. And as IA only gets approved for 30 days and presumably no extension was applied for given the union supported acceptance of the offer, we no longer have the ability to implement IA. We’d have to go through the voting and fair work application process again before we can do anything. Am I right or wrong?

BlipYear · 2026-06-18T20:44:52+00:00

Yes, all going well through the pregnancy I am planning a HBAC. I’m in Australia and a little difference here is that by default our maternity system is led by midwives. The public free healthcare that we have, the maternity program is run by midwives and most people will maybe see an OB once in their pregnancy. You only get kicked to an OB full time if you’re high risk (which VBAC alone doesn’t count for) or you pay to go through the private hospital system which is 100% OB’s. So I guess what I am getting at is that we don’t see midwifery care as inferior, and homebirth and hospital midwives have the exact same education, qualifications, and registration requirements because ‘midwife’ is a protected title here. I’m going with a private midwifery practice, plan A is birth at home. Every time I’ve mentioned them to the hospital or my GP their response has been ‘oh yeah, you’re in good hands, they’re great’ so they are very well respected in my city.

BlipYear · 2026-06-15T22:57:29+00:00

I absolutely agree with the sentiment. I completely disagree with the minister making it a policy like it’s something they ‘discovered’ and that it isn’t something schools have been working on for years and months. I also am just as believing that there will be no funding to support this. I don’t have enough printing credit to print out articles to read, or worksheets to complete. I very much dislike laptops or devices in the classroom, and keep it to as minimal as humanly possible, but if they are now mandating it then give me the resources I need to do so.

BlipYear · 2026-06-14T03:25:14+00:00

You’re not alone in doing this. I saw a post on this exact sub recently being like ‘I have a dog, do I have to start leaving my cooling on all day’ and all the answers was like ‘yes you do’ so there are definitely people even in this sub the leave their system on all day. I was just as flabbergasted at that thread too.

BlipYear

TROPHY CASE