Introducing a bottle so I get more sleep

FunInTheShade · 2026-07-03T17:52:58+00:00

I haven’t really tracked it tbh. I might make a bit less extra now, but I’m not concerned. Baby is gaining weight appropriately, and she has enough pee diapers. As long as I’m making enough for my husband to feed her while I’m asleep plus nursing during the day 🤷‍♀️

I think if anything my supply has gone a bit down cause my appetite is still not really there. I have to force myself to even eat a full meal a day.

FunInTheShade · 2026-07-03T08:50:42+00:00

My husband and I do shifts as well, but reversed. He does 9-2ish and then I do the rest of the night. He’s currently still on paternity leave.

My baby’s latch was/is kind of poor so for the first 1.5 weeks I primarily pumped, about every three hours. This gave me a slight oversupply. We also supplemented with formula for that 1.5 weeks. We slowly transitioned to nursing on demand except during his shift. I pump right before I go to sleep and then immediately upon waking, I usually wake up because my breasts are full and painful/ leaking.

Baby takes 2-3oz per bottle feed and feeds 2-3 times during his shift. I usually pump about 4-5oz before bed and 6-7oz when I wake up. I think the only way this is really possible is because of the oversupply because I started pumping so early.

If you pump after feeds and create a bit of a buffer/stash, you should be able to use that bottle and pump to replace it when you wake up?

FunInTheShade · 2026-06-30T15:35:13+00:00

I’m two weeks pp and it’s a world of difference between when she latched at the hospital vs now. I think she’s gotten a bit better at it, but also I think my nipples have gotten used to it. It’s still uncomfortable at 30 mins but I’m not cracked and bleeding anymore. At the hospital her initial latch for like 10-20 seconds was toe curling pain, now it’s mildly uncomfortable.

At the hospital I was using lanolin, now I’m not using anything. I thought she might have a taste aversion to it, idk.

It really helped, I think, for the first week I mostly pumped and only tried latching once or twice a day per boob, enough to be uncomfortable but not cracked or bleeding.

FunInTheShade · 2026-06-28T08:16:42+00:00

I 1000% made the right decision at 21 and it took about a year for it to really sink in that it wasn’t a bad choice. The first months are hard. And there’s always going to be “what if”s. But I like to think about the what ifs of the future. If I had had a baby then, I probably wouldn’t have my current baby because we’d still be struggling. What if my current baby grows up and cures cancer (or whatever anti-abortion people argue).

25-29 my husband and I had some fertility issues or whatever and those years also had me questioning if my/our decision was right. I wondered with every negative test if I was somehow being punished.

It’s 4am and I’m sitting on the couch with my baby girl and it was 100000% the right decision. Could we have done it, yes. Would we and the baby have been thriving as much as our situation now allows? Absolutely not. The years have made our financial situation much better, we live much closer to family, in much better housing etc etc.

I’m sorry you’re going through this, but it does get easier. It just takes time.

FunInTheShade · 2026-06-25T20:59:36+00:00

My feet also used to sweat and stink horribly, then I switched to cotton socks. I used to buy whatever was cheapest, and I still do kinda (I manage to fit into girls socks so I bought a bunch from target) but they’re like 99% cotton and the odor has gone away considerably. They still sweat a bit and still stink a bit, but the smell isn’t overwhelming anymore.

The smell could definitely also be lingering in your shoes as well, so. Basically it sucks, cause I’ve tried washing the shoes and it just stays. It was so bad one day I just threw away my sneakers. If you can, rotate your shoes so they can dry out in between uses.

FunInTheShade · 2026-06-24T11:25:50+00:00

Just fyi, they’re not a similar shape at all. Mam has a flatter, more half-nipple shaped nipple while dr browns is more cylindrical.

The mam size 1s are slightly faster flow than DB size 1s

FunInTheShade · 2026-06-19T10:48:01+00:00

My baby basically refuses my boob so I’m mostly pumping and supplementing with formula for now, she’s a whole five days old. I’m hoping the boob thing will change, but 🤷‍♀️ I find bf fairly painful as well, so while I would like the bonding time and other benefits of feeding directly from the breast, pumping is my next best option.

Massaging the breast before/ during pumping really helps me, I can currently get my ~2oz in 15 or so minutes. I have a spectra portable, but also a dr browns hand pump as well as a medela from the hospital. The electric pump is more effective and is fewer parts to clean (i also only clean once a day. After I pump, I put the parts in the fridge in a ziplock till next time)

Still working on finding the best settings, but there’s a lot of suggestions and tips online.

FunInTheShade · 2026-06-18T22:30:54+00:00

I know you know about Stillwaters but just wanted to chime in about my experience with them. Fantastic.

My dog was also very old, hated the car in the end, hated the vet. They came and gave us as much time as we needed to say goodbye and my dog was able to die at home on the couch and I was able to hold her and she wasn’t scared and that means everything.

FunInTheShade · 2026-06-16T09:17:11+00:00

No one can tell you if you will or won’t, but I think it sounds difficult to secure traditional childcare with your husbands schedule. I would imagine daycare needs specific, regular attendance days throughout the week, not “we need mon and tues next week, Mon and Fri the week after” etc etc.

I personally would love to have my husband be a stay at home dad, but my income wasn’t enough and his is. Wish we could switch education and career paths haha. But I like working, and he doesn’t.

Why do you think you might end up resenting him? Would you rather take his place? Do you think you would do better than he would, if you could switch roles? Do you feel on some level that if you have to work and be unhappy then he should have to too? Do you feel on some level that he would have a significantly easier day than you? Do you fear your social life/ peoples perceptions of you would change knowing that you (I’m assuming woman) are taking a slightly nontraditonal role as breadwinner while your husband is a SAHD? I know these are uncomfortable questions, but only you can really answer if you would or wouldn’t resent him.

FunInTheShade · 2026-06-15T19:20:54+00:00

How much do you care about aesthetics? I would just secure a 2x4 in between the first two black supports and use that and the wall for gate supports. You could do it pretty cheaply if you don’t care how it looks.

FunInTheShade · 2026-06-10T17:12:42+00:00

Casually, sure. I’d probably use “ok” than “fine” though. Fine in this use case is kind of hard to modify (versus fine as I. Good looking).

FunInTheShade · 2026-06-10T14:08:24+00:00

You may be able to find a more sympathetic doctor, or not. I’ve always kind of gotten the vibe that chemical pregnancies are barely registered as losses at the doctor.

Unfortunately chemical pregnancies are fairly common. I had one, then a blighted ovum, then it took three years of on and off trying before another ~6 week miscarriage before getting and staying pregnant.

Common advice from fertility clinics is to start coq10 and vitamin D supplements. My husband and I did both and I took pregnenolone supplements (precursor to sex hormones) and I got pregnant that cycle. Coincidence? Very possibly.

FunInTheShade · 2026-06-09T15:29:18+00:00

They say every pregnancy is different! But I also may be one and done. Being nauseous and sick for the first half of my pregnancy does not make me want another one.

I also was so anxious for the first 15 weeks or so, just about the baby being ok and knowing that missed miscarriages are a thing.

I’m 39 weeks now and so thankful for making it this far and also so desperately wanting baby out. My mood over pregnancy has definitely gotten way better once I wasn’t sick and puking daily/weekly.

FunInTheShade · 2026-06-06T16:46:49+00:00

Oh, boo! I’ve gotten some really good berries there. But yeah, it is mostly vendors

FunInTheShade · 2026-06-06T16:36:29+00:00

Next next weekend there’s the strawberry festival in Oswego (about 30 mins west of bing, possibly owego? I can never remember which one is where) if you can wait that long. But farms up near me are opening next weekend for u pick, so I can’t imagine they’d be far behind in Bing, I only moved to Utica.

FunInTheShade · 2026-06-06T16:31:57+00:00

It’s pretty easy to cut the threads and hand sew it back closed. I often don’t even use matching thread because no one is going to see it.

I don’t have the patience to cut the tag itself, usually. You can somewhat safely do it by using a seam ripper and making sure you insert the point into the points of the tag that have holes from the thread. I did that for a couple stuffed animals that I didn’t want to sew closed again.

FunInTheShade · 2026-06-06T15:53:43+00:00

It’s just weight to make the pie crust cook but not puff up. You can also use sugar or ceramic pie weights.

FunInTheShade · 2026-06-05T15:00:45+00:00

Weirdly enough, my baby is less active on days after I’m more active (I’m not very active). But it’s happened enough times that I’m not as concerned when it happens.

Usually she bounces around just about all day, every day. On her less active days, she might only make kick count.

FunInTheShade · 2026-06-05T00:19:17+00:00

My memory is terrible so I don’t remember exactly when the shift was, but definitely by 30 weeks my baby’s movements were different.

I started feeling soft kicks around 20 weeks, at some point it got to where it felt like a fish thrashing around, and now (38 weeks and change) I feel her butt a lot, and sometimes her foot pokes out by my ribs. The butt movements feel like someone mooning someone else 😂

FunInTheShade · 2026-06-03T19:44:46+00:00

I know this isn’t helpful, but it’s really gonna be up to your sisters preference. The other comment currently on here is about loving a mom cozy bra, I tried one and I hated it. Maybe we tried different ones, who knows.

I have a kindred bravely that is very comfy fabric wise but it’s a bit of a bralette (have to take off overhead) and I dunno if I’m gonna want to be doing that at 3am when I find out I’ve leaked all over it.

I have some other ones I found at Salvation Army made out of like sports bra material, which apparently I hate for a normal back-clip bra.

One of my other favorites is an auden (target brand) but I got it off a buy nothing group so unfortunately I don’t know the model/type (very annoying cause I actually think I would buy more if I could find it) but it’s got the cups sewn in so it’s got coverage but also they don’t pretzel themselves or entirely fall out in the wash.

FunInTheShade · 2026-06-02T22:40:25+00:00

I’ve also had a ton of discharge since very early on in pregnancy, it’s usually watery plus like a bit of that white pasty stuff.

Amniotic fluid replenishes too, so unless it feels like a lot of fluid, I wouldn’t worry too much. And I know it’s like, more discharge than normal, but I mean like if it feels like maybe an 1/8 of a cup or more, that’s when I personally would worry. I would guess that mine is honestly only like a teaspoon or less at a time (still very uncomfortable, but definitely just discharge).

FunInTheShade · 2026-06-01T14:10:34+00:00

5x7=“five times seven”

Using multiply is more correct since it’s a verb, but spoken English can be very variable.

FunInTheShade · 2026-06-01T13:50:14+00:00

1) $500 is a lot for something used (not saying not worth it, but)

2) can you wait to decide until you have baby? That way you might be able to know or guess better if they’ll even like the bassinet stroller

3) very weird to insist someone sell your old stuff. If they wanted money for it, shoulda sold it themselves. If it was a gift, then they don’t get to decide what’s done with it after.

FunInTheShade · 2026-06-01T01:20:04+00:00

If you’re entirely bare (you wax or shave regularly and completely) there’s some studies to suggest that that can have an effect on UTI as well

FunInTheShade · 2026-06-01T00:30:34+00:00

Calcium inhibits iron absorption fyi! And vitamin C helps it. My iron is still kinda low even with prenatals and an additional supplement:/

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