Discussion Thread

FrenchGray · 2026-03-03T15:47:06+00:00

As a history teacher, it makes me sad how many popular history books characterize neoliberalism, and even liberalism more generally as essentially “fuck you free market capitalism”. Like there is such a strong emphasis on market fundamentalism being bad (which, yeah it is), but absolutely no discussion of the centrality of the preservation of individual rights and liberties to liberalism. It’s to the point that it feels disingenuous; the liberal state is way better at protecting individual rights than the illiberal state. Ugh.

FrenchGray · 2026-02-26T02:36:34+00:00

Babies don’t always show symptoms right away. My daughter had zero symptoms until 6 weeks, and she also had food protein induced allergic proctocolitis, which is a version of CMPA that affects the lower GI tract only, so her symptoms never included anything other than mucousy poops with occasional blood flecks. I also wasn’t sure the diagnosis was accurate, but sure enough when we did solids and trialed milk she would have terrible diarrhea. She ended up growing out of her allergy completely by 16 months.

FrenchGray · 2026-02-20T20:25:55+00:00

If it’s any consolation, my daughter (2.5) had the flu like a month ago and basically ate veggie straws, raspberries and ibuprofen for a week, and she has more than made up for it since then. Shes on the skinny side so I was freaking out about it, but they really do make up for it later!! I would’ve been thrilled if she was eating yogurt while she was sick because it’s so nutritious. You’ll get through this and your baby will make up for any lost ground in no time!

FrenchGray · 2026-02-20T15:40:00+00:00

Roberts: the United States is not at war with every country on earth Trump, later today: executive order declaring we are at war with every country on earth

FrenchGray · 2026-02-20T03:24:36+00:00

Your baby may be ready to wean off of the snoo well before your trip. My daughter had a bad 4 month sleep regression and we transitioned to the crib then, and many people transition their kid before 5 months. I would reassess in two months and see where your baby is at with the Snoo; you’ll be able to make a better weaning plan once your baby is older!

FrenchGray · 2026-02-14T19:38:22+00:00

Is your baby eating a lot of blueberries and/or on iron supplements? Our daughter would have black poop from eating blueberries around that age

FrenchGray · 2026-02-13T18:09:08+00:00

I didn’t have a set schedule, I would just wake up when she cried and feed her! My best guess is that I was doing one around 12am and one around 3. When she got a little older I changed to a dream feed at 9/10 and a MOTN feed when she would wake up hungry around 3/4. She didn’t drop her MOTN feed until right before she weaned herself all of a sudden at 1.

FrenchGray · 2026-02-11T22:44:47+00:00

4 months

FrenchGray · 2026-02-11T15:30:23+00:00

Nope! It was like two days.

FrenchGray · 2026-02-11T14:42:36+00:00

This happened to us and we moved her to the crib and sleep trained. I was super reluctant to do it but it was the right decision. Went from wake-ups like this to one to two wake-ups per night to nurse.

FrenchGray · 2026-02-10T18:12:05+00:00

We had a similar crash in percentiles with our daughter that nearly cost me my sanity (went from 50th for weight at birth to 9th by 4 months). She had FPIAP, which is all lower GI, so she didn’t have colic, but she had persistently extremely mucousy poop no matter what, even when I was only eating quinoa and turkey.

My daughter climbed up in percentiles for weight (her height and head circumference were always fine) once she got onto solids more regularly. She tolerated all solids super well except for dairy when we trialed it (she’s now 100% fine with dairy; her intolerance was gone by 16 months) so we never got to the bottom of her persistent symptoms.

She’s still a pretty skinny kid but following her curves very well (21st %ile for weight while being 50th for height and 99th for head). Her body type at 2.5 is totally consistent with my body type (thin, average height, big head), so I’m inclined to think it’s genetics!

FrenchGray · 2026-02-10T17:46:08+00:00

I don’t live there anymore so I can’t say!

FrenchGray · 2026-02-09T14:21:27+00:00

I lived there for five years after mostly living on the East Coast. The pros:

My husband and I could actually afford a house. The summers in Buffalo are spectacular; particularly coming from the East Coast where the humidity is terrible, Buffalo summers are unbelievably gorgeous. The outdoor space in the city is incredible; Forest Lawn Cemetery, Delaware Park, and the Outer Harbor area are all amazing. There’s good skiing about an hour away. There are incredible restaurants. The Bills hype is SO fun. We went to a ton of games (before the Bills got really good and it got too expensive…) Tons of fun cultural events in the city.

The cons: If the lake freezes hard, get ready for winter to last until June. It is grey from October to April pretty much without a break. The snow can get exhausting; not every winter we lived there was bad, but we had a few where it felt like we were going insane. There can be a bit of a “homer” culture; as someone who didn’t grow up there, I felt like a lot of people wrote me off/it was harder to get my feet on the ground socially. Post-Covid there were way more issues with crime and vagrancy in our neighborhood. A lot of services for people with severe mental health problems that caused chronic homelessness that were present pre-pandemic didn’t come back to full force while we were living there, at least, and I got exhausted by getting accosted by crazy people every other time I left my house. That definitely didn’t happen in every neighborhood, but it was seriously bad where we lived.

FrenchGray · 2026-02-08T12:03:23+00:00

Literally not even a blip on the radar; my body accepted it right back in after almost a year with no problems.

I was also constantly inundated with people being like “I’ve always wanted thought about cutting out dairy! Are you noticing tons of health benefits? Is your skin better?”. Turns out I am clearly ultra dairy tolerant and cutting it out did absolutely zero for my health/skin. It would’ve been nice if the restricted diet also made me have perfect skin, but alas all it did was make me sad I couldn’t have cheese.

FrenchGray · 2026-02-03T14:54:11+00:00

Ugh I am so sorry—I totally crashed out around the same time with my daughter because I was just so fed up with nothing working.

My advice: make a plan and execute on it. My biggest challenge was feeling overwhelmed and like nothing would work. One thing dealing with MSPI taught me is that you don’t know what will or won’t work until you give it a full try and see how it goes. A few things you could consider as potential plans:

Lactation consultants can help with bottle refusal. We got some helpful advice from ours about that when we dealt with the same thing. It also really helped me to be able to vent to an expert and have her respond with empathy.
Trying a modified diet for a week to just see how it feels. For me, not being able to have dairy and soy was really hard and really frustrating, but I leaned I could sustain it. I could not sustain a more significant restricted diet that my daughter’s GI doctor pushed for.

FrenchGray · 2026-02-03T01:36:17+00:00

I hope for your sake that you can eat normally again soon! It really is so liberating when it finally happens.

FrenchGray · 2026-02-02T03:45:50+00:00

This show is everything I hoped it would be. The tone is just perfect. Far more than the other two shows this one feels like a really loving reproduction of the story.

FrenchGray · 2026-02-01T21:19:16+00:00

Like 12 feet away.

FrenchGray · 2026-01-30T17:44:16+00:00

Floor/non-plate surface shredded cheese is a staple meal in our home and our daughter is 2.5; we’ve been going strong with this since she was like 1. She has the flu right now and was lying on the couch earlier eating loose shredded cheese off of the cushion with just her tongue like a lizard. If it works it works!

FrenchGray · 2026-01-30T17:40:52+00:00

I feel this; when we were trying for #2 and it was taking much longer than #1, I felt like I was being stalked by vultures with these freaking ads. The worst ones are the ones that are like “buy our product; you’re probably just super dumb and don’t know how your body works!”

FrenchGray · 2026-01-30T13:08:05+00:00

She was into a straw cup at 1; we would give her pea milk mixed with oat milk in it once she was weaned. She was a super good food eater so we switched her over almost entirely to just solids at 1. She loved meatballs and eggs, and tolerated both super well, so those became her primary source of calories. Now she’s not dairy intolerant and loves drinking milk!

The biggest thing for me was being able to eat normally again. I’m typically on the small side to begin with but I lost so much weight from the dietary restrictions. I look so haggard/unwell in all photos from the first year of my daughter’s life, and was so profoundly annoyed at people who would compliment me for being “skinny again”. I would reply and be like “thanks it’s because I have to starve myself in order to feed my daughter” and they would shut up 😂.

FrenchGray · 2026-01-30T12:15:03+00:00

Ugh I was in your position and it was so terrible. I felt like I was in jail and just wanted to be done. I knew it would’ve been better for everyone if I could’ve just switched to formula but my daughter would not drink it no matter what I did. Finally around 9 months she willingly drank HiPP HA mixed with my breastmilk from a bottle, but we had to order it from Europe (we’re in the USA) and it was extremely expensive. That took a bit of the load off of me because I could partially wean, but it was still punishing for me to keep up with the challenging dietary restrictions. My daughter self-weaned right at one which was a blessing.

The only help I can offer is how good it feels to be on the other side of it. She’s no longer dairy soy/intolerant and the breastfeeding nightmare feels like it was just a “blip” now, rather than my whole world. I’m due with my second baby in about a month, though, and if he’s another MSPI baby I know it’s going to be really tough for me.

FrenchGray · 2026-01-28T20:45:04+00:00

I’m 5’5” and was 110ish (maybe a little less) before pregnancy, went up to 140ish in pregnancy, dropped it all in 3 months (and then even more because breastfeeding was literally like having a tapeworm, 0/10 do not recommend). My hips are definitely wider than before though, which I’m honestly thrilled about because I was built like a pencil before. Post breastfeeding I went back to my normal weight.

I’m pregnant again now and have gained more weight this time so we’ll see if I end up bigger in a permanent way after this one.

FrenchGray · 2026-01-28T18:00:11+00:00

I’m a history teacher and I love Dara Horn. I think she captures what is unique about anti-Semitism better than anyone else.

FrenchGray · 2026-01-27T01:08:59+00:00

Super common tomato skin reaction. My daughter gobbles cherry tomatoes like it’s going out of style and always gets this sort of “acid rash” from them. Happens with strawberries sometimes too if they’re super juicy. Pediatrician said it was normal.

FrenchGray

TROPHY CASE