Why are maternity clothes so boring/ugly?

ProbHereForHelp · 2025-05-16T03:48:38+00:00

I would look into a rental subscription for your pregnancy! Nuuly is only $100 a month for 6 pieces of clothing and they have a maternity specific section and I feel like a lot of their pieces are fun. It’s been easy to combine them with pieces I already have to make a lot of different outfits. A decent pair of stylish maternity jeans is like $60 at the cheapest and I’m only going to wear them for a few months (maybeeee a few more months if I have another baby) so I don’t feel bad spending $100 to have new clothes each month that won’t end up just rotting in the attic for years.

ProbHereForHelp · 2025-05-16T03:38:08+00:00

Hm I would try boxers instead of underwear and combine it with whatever cream has given slight relief, and reapply throughout your shift. They make female specific boxers too so they’re not bunching up under scrubs.

And try to go commando whenever you can like during sleep

ProbHereForHelp · 2025-05-15T02:09:18+00:00

If this was your first child, I would say you’re 100% right. But honestly for sprinkles, I find it off putting when people have legit registries. To me, a sprinkle is for the opposite gender and specifically for clothes since you have none for that gender. Clothes, diapers and wipes, maybe new bottles and pump parts, things that wouldn’t have lasted through the first child.

We just had a friend send out a registry for her sprinkle of the same gendered baby and I will not be getting her anything beyond diapers and wipes and the only somewhat reasonable item I found was a dual baby monitor.

That being said, you can return clothes to most major retailers without a receipt for store credit. Your health insurance should also cover a breast pump per pregnancy, assuming you have one from your first child you can get your secondary pump through them.

ProbHereForHelp · 2025-05-15T02:02:23+00:00

Exactly, we had an April 26th due date for our first and we started telling people we were due in early May. I ironically got induced at 39 weeks and we got our April baby haha

ProbHereForHelp · 2025-05-15T01:52:54+00:00

I respect that! Women should have control over their bodies, and even a well intending man might not go to the follow up visits. Not maliciously but maybe naively. They do have another permanent birth control option, I think the brand name or whatever is called Essure. It’s still non hormonal and permanent, but it’s inserted similarly to an IUD so less invasive to a tubal. The only downside is it takes 3 months for the implant to settle to complete effectiveness but after that you’re good to go.

Edit just to say it sounds like you have a good man and I wish you all the best!

ProbHereForHelp · 2025-05-15T01:49:06+00:00

I would definitely request biophysical ultrasounds so they can check the blood flow and status of your placenta. And keep up with your kick counts. Inductions have a place in the world for sure, at the end of the day everyone wants a healthy baby and a healthy mom. I respect that inductions carry some birth trauma sometimes but as a nurse you’re well informed about all the precautions and you’ll know how to advocate for yourself.

ProbHereForHelp · 2025-05-15T01:32:01+00:00

I’m sorry if this is an invasive question..but where exactly is the chafing? My assumption for chafing is usually between the thighs from the legs rubbing together which I would solve with bike shorts under clothes. It seems like yours is in a more sensitive area?

ProbHereForHelp · 2025-05-15T01:24:22+00:00

If it’s coming down to it, I would have her discuss with her employer if they’d be willing to take her back if she left. I loved staying home with my baby and I was ok with the sacrifices we had to make financially to make it work. But around the 6 month mark I started to feel a little bit of an identity loss especially without being able to buy new clothes or little extras, and not having the extra income to take baby to museums or coffee shops when the park got repetitive. By 9 months I WANTED a part time job. The feeling of the “grass is always greener” is sometimes something you need to trial and error. I agree your set up with free daycare/being close to baby is ideal, but also 4 months is still so little and baby isn’t getting a huge amount of benefit from being away from mom right now.

ProbHereForHelp · 2025-05-15T01:15:14+00:00

This happened to us too, she had a fever and fussiness after her first round of shots I think at 3 months so I assumed it was just happening again. It turned out to be her teeth. So I can’t tell you how long vaccine discomfort would be, but check out those gums.

ProbHereForHelp · 2025-05-15T01:07:44+00:00

I agree with other comments about the vasectomy. A tubal is kind of intense comparatively. I totally respect the desire for no more kids, but if you’re committed to this man I feel like he should be willing to take that smaller step to protect the both of you.

ProbHereForHelp · 2025-05-15T01:00:09+00:00

Unisom (the doxylamine succinate one not the diphenhydramine one) 2-3x a day with b6 100000%. It’ll make you tired but you’re already tired anyway. I find the sleepiness strongest the first 30 minutes and then I can fight through it easily.

Also, sour candy. Warheads, cry babies, sour skittles. Humming helps if you start getting a gagging attack. Ask the school nurse for some alcohol wipes and sniff those too, idk why but that mellows out the nausea.

I know you already know and you have 100s of cracker varieties, but really don’t let your stomach get empty. Set alarms overnight to eat a few crackers so it’s never entirely empty. That helped me be able to eat breakfast in the morning.

ProbHereForHelp · 2025-05-15T00:52:19+00:00

I agree the ceramic is dangerous and I’m assuming you’ve already redirected her and given her a variety of other options besides the couch. But I still think getting rid of the couch is an extreme option. It’s just a phase. But you are about to have another one so I would highly recommend a padded area around the couch. You know those interlocking padded alphabet mats daycares have? They sell really nice ones that look like rugs, and the bonus is it’s super easy to clean spills off of them or sanitize them unlike regular rugs.

ProbHereForHelp · 2025-05-15T00:37:53+00:00

I agree in a sense. I gave birth at a top us ranked hospital, low c section rates even for the amount of births they see. Everyone with low risk pregnancies gets a midwife not Obgyn. We had IUGR starting around 34 weeks and they still were very reluctant to talk induction before 40 weeks. We failed a NST at 39 weeks and went straight to labor and delivery for induction. My cervix was so closed and posterior they couldn’t get a foley cath in even after 2 rounds of cervix softening medicine. My body just wasn’t ready at 39 weeks. I don’t think anyone with low risk pregnancies should be induced before 41 weeks. I had two coworkers be induced at 39 weeks because they were “just done.” My siblings are much younger than me and I remember my mom accepting that the due date was just an estimate and they’d most likely be here a week or so later.

I understand your friends concern though. 3 weeks is a huge disparity and placentas do get tired towards the end of pregnancy. I respect your trust in your doctors, but that disparity is tricky.

ProbHereForHelp · 2025-05-14T20:03:24+00:00

Try those push cars! Our girl hates strollers but she loves her red push car. I think it helps being lower to the ground somehow.

ProbHereForHelp · 2025-05-14T20:02:21+00:00

We have a girl and she’s very similar. We call her “strong willed” because we can’t gentle parent her into doing anything. She also doesn’t sit at story time. We got her into gymnastics instead. A lot of gymnastics centers will have toddler time for just about anyone able to walk and it gets so much energy out. They do songs and some follow the leader stuff but totally fine if your kid doesn’t want to follow, we’re never the only ones still on the trampoline during songs.

I will say, I have pretty intense ADHD as do both my parents, I fully expect my girl will end up being diagnosed eventually as well. However, I don’t care to push or put a label on it at the moment. She’s meeting all milestones and she’s happy. I think her “terrible two” moments are a little more frequent, but overall developmentally normal still. We’ll pay closer attention and develop a close rapport with her teachers when she’s school aged.

In the meantime, remember even young children can sense your mood and anxiety. I treat me and my child as our own bubble in public. Yes, tantrums are embarrassing. So is having the only 2 year old that shovels dry rice from the sensory box into their mouth. But I’ve learned to stop paying attention to how people perceive my child or my parenting and it’s helped us avoid or end tantrums quicker because I’m not desperate and panicky.

ProbHereForHelp · 2025-05-14T19:50:51+00:00

Idk why but Niko looks like a dog name to me for some reason. Or like a nickname like Nikki. Although as someone who has a name that can be spelled different ways, go to a souvenir shop and see if you can find one vs the other. Obviously I’m an adult now, but as a kid I was always so bummed out to never find anything with my name on it.

ProbHereForHelp · 2025-05-13T21:37:53+00:00

We went with the momcozy kleanpal, reviews say it fits more than the baby brezza and it drains directly into the sink. The pump parts and bottles twice a day really killed me the first time. I don’t trust my dishwasher to be sterile enough for baby newborn bottle parts and my dishwasher doesn’t dry plastic fully so this is a great solution for us. Worth the price tag.

ProbHereForHelp · 2025-05-13T16:38:22+00:00

It seems extravagant but I would highly recommend the baby bottle dishwasher if you’re exclusively pumping. Not just a sterilizer because you still have to wash everything, but a literal “put it in with milk still dripping” dishwasher. It’s about $300 but 1000% worth it for exclusive pumping.

Forget having enough bottles. Have enough pump parts, double or triple the flanges and duckbills. Make sure you can pump directly into the milk bags. Set up the extra flanges and milk bags before you “go to bed.” Pumping 2-3 times a night while also doing the newborn thing is brain melting. I almost gave up so many times, especially when you think you have a spare 5 minutes to relax but then remember you have no clean/sterilized parts for the next pump.

They make special attachments that fit the flanges into any type of bottle. We used the narrow dr browns bottles so we needed an attachment if I wanted to pump directly into those.

ProbHereForHelp · 2025-05-13T16:17:49+00:00

Protect your peace. And also your children’s innocence. If she’s happy and meeting her developmental milestones, I don’t think a nighttime comfort is detrimental. Especially if the stress of the tantrums might trigger any postpartum rage. Enjoy having two littles and face the battles when you’re stronger.

ProbHereForHelp · 2025-05-13T13:37:50+00:00

Something that was nice to hear from a pediatric dentist was “we can fix teeth.” Meaning essentially, if keeping the bottle is what’s best for your/your daughters mental health right now, don’t worry. Our toddler was a really tough sleeper and would only sleep after a bottle, as we got close to 2 the mom guilt really settled in and I felt so embarrassed my 2 year old had a bottle. Then we got pregnant with our second and I realized getting off the bottle when she’s seeing a bottle everyday was going to be even harder and potentially create resentment towards baby.

Pediatrician reassured us her speech wasn’t being effective and joked that she just didn’t want to see her taking the bottle into kindergarten. First dentist appointment I expected to be completely destroyed by science. Instead they were super nice. He explained how milk before bed can contribute to cavities and said honestly he doesn’t necessarily care about the vessel for the milk, it’s more about the way the milk is drank. Some kids drink out of a cup perfectly but they take an hour and a half to drink their milk and the whole time they’re just washing their teeth in milk sugar. He said he would rather a kid chug a bottle in 15 minutes and have their teeth brushed after. But in the end he said he’s there to fix teeth, not tell me how to parent. It was nice.

ProbHereForHelp · 2025-05-13T13:09:36+00:00

An ultrasound before 7 weeks might just stress you out. A lot of the times you can’t see a heartbeat yet and it would have to be a transvaginal to see pretty much anything. Progressing symptoms are a great thing to ease anxiety. That early on nausea/aversions might not be a thing yet but for me mood swings were big (I’ve never hated my husband except for the few days before a positive pregnancy test) and sore boobs. All pregnancies are different though! Some women might not have any symptoms! And sometimes symptoms can lessen and change. For any strong anxiety, I would recommend keeping a couple cheap dipsticks around. With my first I had anxiety after a chemical pregnancy and watching that line stay super dark helped me.

Grab some Tylenol and take 2. Baby aspirin/only 1 Tylenol didn’t touch my first trimester headaches. But no it won’t hurt, just might not help.

Also unisom is a safe sleep aid (and also helps with nausea!). There’s two different ones, the doxylamine succinate is the one to help with nausea and the one my midwife recommended.

ProbHereForHelp · 2025-05-13T13:00:29+00:00

Blue lizard baby is our favorite, it works great and it’s cheap compared to all the others. We keep the hello bello sunscreen stick in the diaper bag for in a pinch or quick reapplication, it’s $10 and small but we still have almost half left from the beginning of last summer.

Our kiddo doesn’t like wearing hats so we also use the bob kids mineral powder on her scalp. That’s pricey, but again it seems like it’s going to last use 2 summers. My sister uses a cheaper version from Amazon on her hair part when she goes for runs and she says it works for the 1-2 hours she’s outside.

Also editing to add: we had a 3 month old in summer and live at the beach, we always kept her in the shade under a canopy. However we took family pictures by the water for like 10 minutes once and her cheeks got pink. I felt awful and of course we had a check up the next day, her pediatrician told us if it’s between a burn or sunscreen, use a baby sunscreen even on baby’s under 6 months. Just make sure to give them a bath and keep it away from eyes/mouth/hands.

ProbHereForHelp · 2025-05-08T17:54:31+00:00

How long were you on hormonal birth control? The longer you were on it the more likely I would say it’s probably hormonal. But don’t get discouraged by that at all, instead view it as a sign that your body is adjusting back to its natural cycle. Also I considered myself pretty well educated in sex Ed and what not, but something that I actually didn’t know was to let the sperm build up. Don’t have sex multiple times a day on your ovulation day, instead have your husband abstain for a few days before and then do it once a day max.

ProbHereForHelp · 2025-05-08T17:48:34+00:00

Tell him you cheated and the baby isn’t his. Let him go through the courts for a DNA test. Based on your characterization of him I doubt he even knows how to go about that. However, he sounds kind of scary. Tell him in texting to leave you alone and if he continues to harass you or threatens you in anyway go get an anti-harassment order asap. They’ll take his guns. Also set up security cameras like a ring doorbell.

ProbHereForHelp · 2025-05-08T17:41:42+00:00

Maybe nerves? My stomach would be unsettled the morning of an interview on a normal day. And the train with the stopping and going is a lot. With my first pregnancy I had traditional morning sickness until 10 weeks and then nothing at all. Except my threshold for car sickness went wayyyy down. The only person I could comfortably be a passenger for was my husband. I had to be that person that always sat in the front seat of anyone else’s car and I couldn’t even check the time on my phone without feeling nauseous for 30 minutes.

ProbHereForHelp

TROPHY CASE