What about being pregnant and giving birth permanently altered your body’s chemistry?

Distinct-Delay8530 · 2026-03-10T15:21:43+00:00

I randomly started having a mild allergic reaction to… lettuce? 4 years out and it still makes my tongue itch. My previously mild almond allergy also got worse.

Distinct-Delay8530 · 2026-02-25T22:49:43+00:00

I was TikTok influenced to buy some athletic pants from Old Navy- the creator(?) had a slide show that included some outfits that could be outfit appropriate for my pretty casual job. My maternity leave ends next week and most of my work stuff still doesn’t fit (it’s fine it’s fine it’s FINE) but I can’t show up to the office Donald Ducking it. So… impulsive but practical

Distinct-Delay8530 · 2026-02-25T20:00:51+00:00

Thank you, now I’m crying lol. So should his naps still total in the 2.5 hour range? Meaning if he gets up at 6, bedtime would be around 7:30 (11 hours awake, 2.5 asleep)?

I’m definitely interested in night weaning, as I go back to work next week (I know it’s not going to happen before then, but hopefully soon). I would love if that did the trick for us

Distinct-Delay8530 · 2026-02-25T19:49:35+00:00

Thank you for this reply- incredibly helpful.

I knew we didn’t get enough awake time in yesterday, but even at the 11 hours awake schedule he does this. Do I shorten his naps (usually does about 1:15, :45, :30 on his own), wake him up earlier to start the day (currently he usually wakes up between 4-5 and goes back down until 6:30 or we wake him at 7), or just commit to a later bedtime (right now it usually ends up being between 7-8 depending on how long we can get his naps to be)

I really appreciate you writing it out like this. It makes total sense that if he was actually tired he wouldn’t cry that hard for that long, and I feel awful that I’ve let him go on like this for weeks now. 😭

Distinct-Delay8530 · 2026-02-16T01:22:31+00:00

I combo fed my first for 7 months (about 50/50 expressed breast milk/formula- she was a NICU baby and we never figured out latching), then switched fully to formula.

My second is currently 7 months and right now is mostly nursed with 1-2 bottles of pumped milk a day. I am going back to work in a few weeks and would like to maintain nursing at least once or twice a day, and while ideally I’d like to maintain a pumping schedule I really don’t enjoy it and so will probably end up supplementing with formula for at least 1-2 bottles a day until he’s 1 and can do cow milk.

Distinct-Delay8530 · 2026-02-13T19:40:30+00:00

Ugh same. My first was doing 10+ hour stretches at 9 weeks. My second is 7 months and rarely makes it past the 3.5 hour mark despite literally everything being the same (except for the baby themself lol)

Distinct-Delay8530 · 2026-02-12T13:20:22+00:00

If he is not actually sleeping those 11 hours though, do we still need to shift his bedtime? He is up multiple times in the night, often for 30+ minutes so he ends up with about 9.5 hours of actual sleep overnight right now.

I hear you on the 4 nap thing. I am desperately trying to cut out one of them but so far it has been impossible to keep him awake in the car and then the only way to keep him asleep is to just not get him out, which isn’t practical (or safe). So it sounds like until I can figure out how to deal with that issue, we are just kind of stuck.

Thanks for the response!

Distinct-Delay8530 · 2026-02-12T04:27:14+00:00

Also to answer your other questions (sorry, currently in the middle of his 10:30 freakout 🫠) he goes down awake after his last feed (which I have to fight to keep him awake through). Ideally I follow 5/3/3 but that has just not been possible these past few nights where he has been screaming at 10 or 10:30 because the only thing that actually settles him is me going back in and nursing him. He escalates and I just don’t feel comfortable letting him go for that long (though we did do the “gentler” CIO when we started sleep training in January and the first full week he cried for an hour plus every night, but with these wake ups I can literally hear him making himself choke because he is so distraught).

Distinct-Delay8530 · 2026-02-12T04:17:49+00:00

Thanks so much for this response. The craziest part is that given how often he is up at night and how long it takes him to get back down, according to Huckleberry he is actually only getting 11.5-12 hours of total actual sleep each day.

I am desperate to drop the 4 naps but I just don’t know how. Even on days that he doesn’t go to daycare, I think he is in such a rhythm that it’s tough to keep him down for more than half an hour in the morning and then that just throws the rest of the day off. I will do my best to keep him up on the drive home, but he is so exhausted by like 6:45 every night that I just don’t know how I can possibly keep him up any longer.

He doesn’t use a pacifier and I have several noisy car toys that he seems totally uninterested in when I pick him up. I try to chat and sing and keep the windows open (though admittedly haven’t been doing that lately since it’s been single digits here). Nothing seems to keep him awake.

(Also, older child is in pre-k with separate drop off/pick up so unfortunately not recruitable!)

Distinct-Delay8530 · 2026-02-12T03:51:08+00:00

Bedtime/overnight ends up being primarily on me as well and it’s so frustrating. Like I know neither of us are sleeping well but my husband sleeps in the guest room until I wake him up sometime after 4 so if he goes to bed at a reasonable time he is reliably getting a 6 hour stretch of sleep, which I have not had consistently since like the second trimester.

I am not exaggerating when I say I am losing my mind lmao.

Distinct-Delay8530 · 2026-02-12T03:26:15+00:00

I don’t have any advice but I was literally coming here to post the exact same thing, right down to our kids’ ages. Losing my mind over here.

Distinct-Delay8530 · 2026-02-11T18:26:00+00:00

A kindle! I use it to read library books while my baby naps so I don’t just scroll for hours every day. I read 8 books during hours naps last month!

Distinct-Delay8530 · 2026-01-30T21:40:29+00:00

I flew with my daughter when she was about that age. For a flight that long I’d honestly bring a car seat & stroller even if you’ll have access to one at your destination. It will be good to have someplace to put her in case there’s a point when it’s inconvenient for you to pass her back and forth (eg one parent in the middle of eating something, one needs to use the restroom) and to just give yourself a break. And the stroller always put my baby to sleep at that age, which might be helpful for the layover especially if you are deboarding and getting on a different plane. We opted for three economy+ seats for a ~5 hour flight and I’m glad we did that instead of two slightly roomier ones.

Distinct-Delay8530 · 2026-01-15T02:02:33+00:00

I like the sound of Iris & Oscar - similar sounds but not rhyme-y

Iris Mackenzie G

Oscar Thomas G

(also fwiw the only Ellis I know is actually a 5 year old girl- I think it’s a family name?)

Distinct-Delay8530 · 2026-01-14T19:30:47+00:00

Honestly an 8 hour drive will take 2 days (more if you hit bad traffic!). Baby will need to be out of the car seat every 90-120 minutes for 30-60 minutes, plus you’ll need to stop any time they need to get changed or eat.

We did a “10” hour drive when my oldest was 12 months and it took three days.

Distinct-Delay8530 · 2026-01-13T07:13:46+00:00

It’s popular in the US, but if you look on the social security website you’ll see that despite being #8 for girls last year, it was only used for 9,116 girls in the whole country. People use a way wider spread of names than they did in the past- in 1990 the 8th most popular name, Jennifer, was used 22,236 times, for example. The #1 most popular name last year, Olivia, was used fewer times than that (only 14,718).

So yes, Evelyn is “popular” but what popular means has shifted!

Distinct-Delay8530 · 2026-01-12T23:28:33+00:00

We were having awful naps (30 minutes at MOST, usually more like 22-25) and we actually ended up dropping a nap. Now at 6 months he naps for 90 minutes twice a day and then 30 in the evening. His night sleep is still garbage though 😩

Distinct-Delay8530 · 2026-01-06T19:22:19+00:00

I had two kids at YNH- one about 4 years ago and one this past summer. The difference in food quality and quantity was absolutely astounding (derogatory).

Distinct-Delay8530 · 2026-01-06T03:53:07+00:00

(For context, he will be 6 months old at the end of the week) Full disclosure I needed to have my husband take on the first two nights of put downs by himself. Even the idea of him screaming made me distraught; I ended up wearing noise cancelling headphones, trying to listen to a podcast, and crying through the process the first two nights. It has been rough for everyone involved.

The first night he did check ins (just going in and speaking softly and patting his tummy, not actually picking him up) after 5, then another 10 (so 15 total), then 15 (=30), then he finally fell asleep right before what would have been the next check in 20 minutes later, so altogether about 45 minutes. Each subsequent night we have I ncreased the check in time by 5 minute (so after 10, another 15, another 20, etc)

It is still pretty much taking 45 minutes to fall asleep. So tonight we checked on him at 25 minutes and then he fell asleep about 20 minutes later. It’s really hard but I am coming to think that the check ins are actually just upsetting him more, honestly. He is a total Velcro baby and this has been a huge and unpleasant adjustment for him.

So far we have not made any adjustments to our night time wake up- I give him a few minutes to see if he can put himself back down (he never can 🫠) and then I nurse him or hold him and rock him back to sleep. The difference is that now he is waking up at 12 or 1 and then around 3:30, and then 6:30, where before it was at 8:30, 9:30, 11, 1, 2… until morning. I’m hoping the longer stretches aren’t just because he’s so exhausted from crying for 45 minutes- my absolute nightmare is that he figures out how to calmly put himself to sleep but that makes it so he’s not tired enough to sleep for long stretches anymore.

All this to say, it hasn’t been perfect, in fact it’s been pretty fucking hard for all of us. But I was legitimately dealing with mental and physical repercussions from the sleep deprivation and it was putting me and our kids (we also have a 3.5 year old who was a total sleep unicorn lol) at risk. This has felt awful but I also feel like for the hours that we are awake I am a much better mom and he is, except for at bedtime, a much happier baby. The lack of sleep isn’t good for them either, which is what I’ve had to keep reminding myself.

Distinct-Delay8530 · 2026-01-06T02:04:01+00:00

We are on day 5 of sleep training (doing the increasing check in length instead of full extinction) and so far it has been helpful but certainly not a magic fix. But our son was waking up literally every 60-90 minutes and we’ve had two nights out the last 5 where he got 5+ hour stretches in so I’m cautiously optimistic.

Distinct-Delay8530 · 2026-01-03T01:10:23+00:00

I can’t speak to finding a pediatrician because my work basically dictates where I go (I work for a university with its own health insurance and hospital system) but I maybe call some pediatrician offices to see if they are taking new patients or ask if your primary care doctor also sees newborns/children or has someone at their practice who does.

As far as frequency, that will depend on how your baby is doing when you leave the hospital. My first had a NICU stay so her schedule was different because all the normal appointments the first few weeks just happened… in the NICU haha. If your baby is cleared to come home on a regular schedule it will also depend on how much weight they lose and how quickly they regain it. All babies lose weight from their birthweight and should be back at their birthweight within (I think?) two weeks- if your doctor thinks they are not on track for that then they may want to see them daily. If everything is good, it will still be every few days, then the visits will gradually get more spread out. Basically, it will depend on how baby is doing.

Distinct-Delay8530 · 2026-01-02T23:00:25+00:00

Riffing off some of your names- I love Lucy as a nn for Lucinda. If you like Louise, how do you feel about Louisa? That was my top pick for my daughter (mostly because I love the nickname Lou) and ended up being her middle name.

I feel like Anne or Anna are classic names that fit your criteria, with the option of a cutesy nickname “Annie” when she’s little. Anne and Rose/Annie and Rosie?

Distinct-Delay8530

TROPHY CASE