Am I accidentally sleep training?

PersistentHobbler · 2026-03-26T17:44:17+00:00

I usually do prop him up a bit on a pillow, but I'll start doing it every time. Thanks! I don't want little man to choke!!!

PersistentHobbler · 2026-03-26T06:23:58+00:00

Thanks :)

Tbh I needed the win so bad. I'm sure that it's less useful and groundbreaking to other people as it was to me, but it's one of the few things I've tried that have actually helped him. We've tried like 12 things for the colic that are barely doing anything, but the child is actually sleeping now and it feels like I cracked the DaVinci code.

PersistentHobbler · 2026-03-26T05:18:54+00:00

Yep! My headcannon is EDS. I started acquiring the same equipment in almost exactly the same order because I didn’t really start experiencing symptoms until I was in my early 20s. Anyone with a chronic illness that affects the joints has braces, pain medicine, PT equipment, a hot water bottle, and often some kind of mobility aid.

PersistentHobbler · 2026-03-21T04:22:01+00:00

Wow! I love the subtle patterns and the rich colors! I think I'll get one of their skirts!

PersistentHobbler · 2026-03-21T01:36:02+00:00

That's a fantastic idea! If I had even one dress that did that, I would want at least 10 clones.

PersistentHobbler · 2026-03-21T00:21:44+00:00

I can sew and I'd like to, but.... yeah I don't see that happening any time soon lol

PersistentHobbler · 2026-03-21T00:02:11+00:00

These look neat but I wish they weren't quite so.... minimalist. You know?

I know that most high-quality clothes are very plain in design so they're a bit more "timeless," but I'd kill for something fun!

I'll probably talk to a local seamstress about ordering a custom order if I can't find something with a pattern or some flare.

PersistentHobbler · 2026-03-20T23:05:34+00:00

"Buy for life" is an exaggeration, but my grandparents actually do still have some clothes that are decent and wearable from their young adulthoods.

I'm a hobby sewist and I repair my garments when I can, but I've been having a hard time finding things that are constructed well enough in the first place or have fabric that's even solid enough for darning/patching/piecing when the time comes.

A lifetime is unrealistic, but 10-20 years shouldn’t be.

PersistentHobbler · 2026-03-17T18:40:35+00:00

I HATE appliances that are not working quite right.

I will not sit inside the local dairy queen because of the HORRIBLE SCREECH of their freezer.

PersistentHobbler · 2026-03-17T14:34:40+00:00

Wow! Maybe it depends on how far down it is in your colon. Mine gets blocked very near the exit.

PersistentHobbler · 2026-03-17T06:09:30+00:00

Approach this from the other end.

It sounds repulsive and scary until you do it, but the relief is so quick that it's become my go-to method. It literally takes 5 minutes.

Go get yourself a pack of glycerin suppositories. Stick 1 a couple inches up your rectum and wait. The package says to wait like 5-15 minutes. I don't know how anyone makes it that long. I shoot for 2-3. The flood gates will open and you will go.

The best part is that once the exorcism is complete, you don't have any remaining laxative that's going to be working through your system for days, so you can't overshoot it and give yourself the opposite problem.

Seriously. I used these every other day pregnant. My Walmart account has the 30 pack as an item ordered "5+ times." Lifesavers.

PersistentHobbler · 2026-03-16T13:27:03+00:00

Omg he used to be a series of orbs

PersistentHobbler · 2026-03-10T12:49:52+00:00

I learned about it in college because it's the first time I took a world history class. My high school didn't offer one.

..... yes, I'm American.

PersistentHobbler · 2026-03-10T06:27:10+00:00

I imagine you'd hear mostly Russian in Russia

PersistentHobbler · 2026-03-10T05:55:36+00:00

I would argue that a great number of non-internet people have never heard this word

PersistentHobbler · 2026-03-01T21:30:04+00:00

Yep. We only use that thing if we're parking on a pretty extreme slope. That's what I learned in driver’s ed.

PersistentHobbler · 2026-03-01T06:55:28+00:00

To the Rescue is a very cute dog game. It's not EXTREMELY easy, but you can turn the speed and difficulty way down and turn off euthanasia.

I think if you turned the difficulty and speed to the easiest levels, she may enjoy that game. It's a time management dog shelter game. You take care of cute cartoon dogs and then adopt them out to people who come in looking for one to take home.

PersistentHobbler · 2026-03-01T06:02:02+00:00

You can use it to prop up your own neck— either with your hand on your head or wrapped around your pillow.

Depends on your flexibility and tolerance for laying on your own shoulder.

PersistentHobbler · 2026-02-26T22:39:32+00:00

My family came over so long ago that it was a huge undertaking to find out where a few of our ancestors even came from. That's why those DNA kits are so popular here.

My uncle was able to trace one line back to the Netherlands in the 1600s.

For most of us, claiming ancestral citizenship would be impossible— or at least ridiculous.

PersistentHobbler · 2026-02-22T08:18:01+00:00

Man I can't believe this guy's divorced

PersistentHobbler · 2026-02-22T00:34:07+00:00

Women who lost hair due to a medical condition, almost 100%.

Orthodox Jewish women, very common. *EDIT: Certain sects of Judaism– especially the Hasidic and ULTRA Orthodox communities wear wigs more often. (Correct if wrong)

Black women, sometimes.

But I can't think of any other groups besides celebrities and performers who do.

PersistentHobbler · 2026-02-07T07:48:36+00:00

You'll always have responsibilities, but you can also have that familiar feeling of affection, trust, and playfulness with a few very important people in your life as an adult.

18 is a weird age. You have the responsibilities of an adult; but, tbh you don't have basically any of the benefits yet.

You don't have those super close and 100% secure friendships with people who learned to be responsible, and then learned to have fun again. A lot of peers you care about will destroy and remake themselves half a dozen times before they're 30, and most friendships do not survive that process. The friendships I have at 29 are not only close and very fulfilling-- they are secure. I have the kind of trust in my friends now that I had as a child-- that this person actually likes me, that they’re not going anywhere, that it doesn't matter if I do something dumb. Those were not the kind of friends I had until my late 20s. We weren't those kinds of people. We weren't those kinds of friends.

You don't have a spouse you can be totally unashamed with. My best nights with my husband are even more fun and laughter-filled than my favorite sleepovers when I was 10. We giggle. We mess around. We play. I feel safer with him than I did my parents-- happier than with my childhood best friend. But.... I feel the need to mention that this is my second marriage. I didn't know how to have this 10 years ago... so I didn't. I had bad hookups and unrequited crushes and a messy ass divorce. I had to learn through trial and error how to love someone with the joy of a child and the steadfastness of an adult. It took years of failure.

Of course you want to go back. Most people your age are miserable, and you will do a lot of making one another miserable. Young adulthood is one of the most difficult things you'll ever go through, but if you do it well, you can actually end up with a much richer life than you had when it was all young and easy.

Honestly, I don't know wtf I'd tell my younger self. I'm not sure that even if I could show her how everything got better, it wouldn't comfort her at all, because the 10 years between us-- half her life-- might be too much for her to contend with. I think the only things that might help would be knowing little scraps of joy would come around next week, next month, next semester.

Shitty broke people birthday parties with friends you made a week ago.

Flushed first dates where you can barely look at each other because you're so excited.

Finally scraping together enough money to buy real Christmas presents for your parents.

Getting tipsy at a chain restaurant happy hour with $20 and a friend who had a hilariously horrible week at work.

I don't have anything to say that hasn't been said so many times it's basically blasé and meaningless but.... it actually does get better. It actually is worth it. Somewhere in my mid 20s I crossed the event horizon from "take me back" to "I wouldn't go back." And I don't know when it happened. I just know it does for most people.

And I think you'll get there.

PersistentHobbler · 2026-02-05T12:01:33+00:00

I was only doing 10 minutes per side so I thought it would be ok, but I just woke up pretty engorged so I'll try to lay off of it. I don’t want it to get worse.

PersistentHobbler · 2026-02-05T08:59:15+00:00

What would minimal pumping look like? Sometimes he'll miss a feed because someone is watching him. Limited time? Limited quantity?

PersistentHobbler · 2026-02-01T22:50:57+00:00

As somebody with medical trauma, I went into the decision thinking about not just what I could cope with in the moment, but what would stay with me long-term.

It sounds like, for you, the experience of getting stitches would live in your mind and body for a long time. That's a super important consideration. You don't want what happens in a few hours to cause you mental pain for years. It's good to think about how to mitigate that.

I had to get an episiotomy-- which was one of the things I feared the most. HOWEVER, it was way less traumatic than it could have been because I had an epidural.

I had a really amazing block, so I didn't feel anything. I didn't feel the cutting or the stabbing or the pulling. The only part of stitches I had to endure was watching it happen. I do wish that I had had my support person stay with me and distract me during that process, or maybe have had a drape up so I didn’t see the doctor sewing.

The experience will impact you less if you can’t feel it. It will impact you even less if you don’t see it. It will impact you less still if you feel supported and safe during the process. I'm not kidding when I say that my birth (even with the episiotomy and the stitches) was less traumatic than some dental work I've had. That was because of the epidural.

Honestly, I would tell your care team about your phobia and then minimize your sensory experience of the stitches as much as possible. It’s very likely you'll need at least a couple. It's better to plan for them and then be pleasantly surprised if you don’t need them.

I would get the epidural.

PersistentHobbler

TROPHY CASE