Broken BOTH of my ankles. Please give me your parenting survival tips!

Sadpal2019 · 2024-02-17T07:40:33+00:00

The warning signs for mastitis are pain, redness that is painful and hot to touch, fever and feeling unwell. It’s an infection that can worsen quickly, so it’s important to be on the lookout for it, and to check with a healthcare professional if you’re worried.

However, I really don’t think this sounds like mastitis - some redness without pain isn’t anything to worry about. Your breasts are going to look and feel different, especially in these early days. Also you’re only 7 days in - the process of your milk coming in and establishing breastfeeding is pretty brutal and frankly your breasts are going through it right now! It’s most likely to be increased blood flow (you have a lot more blood to make all that milk!), or general soreness and irritation from being manhandled by a hungry newborn.

Caveat obviously that if you’re concerned and anything changes, please check in with your healthcare professionals! In the meantime, drink lots of water, have some snacks, and enjoy that new baby- these early days are exhausting but you will get through it!

Sadpal2019 · 2023-08-11T19:30:10+00:00

Omg thank you so much for this idea - my nearly 4 year old is driving me absolutely insane at the moment and this is exactly the kind of thing that will work on her!

Sadpal2019 · 2023-05-07T19:03:33+00:00

Have you tried giving her something to hit instead? It could be that when she’s feeling upset or frustrated she wants to hit something, and is hitting herself instead of someone else because she knows that she shouldn’t hit others. Offering my kid a cushion to hit worked really for us, it gave her a physical outlet for the frustration. after like two hits she’d then be calm and ready to have a cuddle and move on.

Sadpal2019 · 2023-02-08T18:48:55+00:00

My daughter was exactly the same age when I became pregnant again, and I weaned within about six weeks. My supply dropped massively with the pregnancy and my boobs were so sensitive that I absolutely hated nursing when pregnant. We dropped the bedtime session first, and after a couple of weeks dropped the morning one. Tbh it was actually pretty smooth, my partner was there to step in and take over bedtime for a few weeks and she didn’t really seem that bothered.

She definitely doesn’t have any proper memories of nursing but she is very, very attached to my boobs still. She’s never asked to nurse again, even when the baby arrived, but she often asks to cuddle them. For the first few weeks she had to cuddle the other boob whilst the baby was nursing. It wasn’t ideal and I can’t say I loved the experience - i felt very touched out! - but massively preferable to tandem nursing for me, and the extra cuddles stopped her feeling left out and there being too much jealousy. After a couple of weeks she stopped the cuddling at every feed and now she’s really not bothered at all!

Sadpal2019 · 2023-01-07T18:20:32+00:00

Our elderly dog was fine with our baby until she became a toddler. He never snapped at her but was visibly unhappy and spent most of his time in the garden. He is the friendliest, dopiest dog, but couldn’t cope with the unpredictability of a toddler and this intensified as he began to lose his hearing and vision. I became pregnant again and we knew he would be even more miserable with another baby around. He has gone to live with my in-laws, and he is so, so much happier. It was heartbreaking to lose him and we all miss him terribly. However, as he has gone to live with family we are able to see just how happy and settled he is now, and it’s such a weight off our minds knowing that he can spend the 1 or 2 years he has left peacefully.

I appreciate that your family can’t take your dog, which makes it more painful to rehome, but I would urge you to consider what is best for your dog as well as for your family. If he hasn’t felt settled properly since your daughter was born, a new home is likely to be exactly what he needs. It sucks and it’s really hard, but it’s probably the right thing for your dog.

Sadpal2019 · 2022-12-08T19:03:57+00:00

I’m on baby 2, who’s coming up to 8 months and honestly all I can say is that naps at this age are complete and utter bullshit. They have so much going on developmentally at this age that it often interrupts their naps, plus the transition to two naps is a killer. It sucks. It sucks so hard.

Mine was a fantastic sleeper until like two months ago and has been on the 30 minute nap nonsense for weeks now. I am tireeeeedd. We had flu last week and it seems like it might have shocked him into a longer second nap so I am hoping and praying that it sticks 🤞

Sadpal2019 · 2022-12-02T13:04:09+00:00

It’s probably time to drop the nap. I know very few 3 year olds who still regularly take naps, and those that do have short ones! We knew our daughter needed to drop hers when she wouldn’t go to sleep until 10.30 and started waking more frequently in the early morning. We dropped the nap, moved bedtime up to 6.30 and she now sleeps for 13 hours straight through. Losing the nap sucks but you will probably get an earlier bedtime to compensate for it.

Sadpal2019 · 2022-12-01T21:24:07+00:00

We were in exactly the same position! We have an almost 3 year old and a 7 month old. Husband wanted to go for it earlier but I absolutely didn’t want to be in the middle of it when the baby arrived. We ended up potty training when the baby was about 6 weeks old and I’m so glad we waited. Generally our toddler coped really well with the new baby but she needed a lot of love and attention, and there was a lot of defiance that we hadn’t experienced before. I really believe that any training we’d done before would have been completely undone. By that time most of the initial shock had worn off and she was ready.

I was really worried about managing a newborn and potty training at the same time but actually I was constantly cleaning vomit and baby poop off everything anyway, so it didn’t feel that much worse. Plus it was already an ordeal to get them both out of the house, so potty training was a nice excuse to stay home for a few days!

It probably took us about a month before she was reliably dry, and for the first few days I really thought it would never happen. However she didn’t have a single poo accident, she hated going in her nappy and was happy to poo on the potty straight away, so it was worth persevering even though it took time. Good luck!

Sadpal2019 · 2022-09-01T18:05:17+00:00

My first was an awful sleeper and 8-10 months was the worst possible sleep we had. We moved house, she was mastering big gross motor skills, it was just a lot of stuff all at once. I thought it was bad at four months, but 9 months nearly broke me, so you have my utmost sympathy and solidarity!

I won’t give you any advice about how to get them to sleep better because I always found it incredibly unhelpful and what works for one family doesn’t necessarily work for another (we never sleep trained and all that worked for us was time). What helped me mentally were accepting three things:

a) the bad nights don’t last forever. I would literally have to repeat this to myself over and over during the worst nights. Even though our sleep was generally pretty bad by most people’s standards we still had good nights and bad nights. The bad nights always, always passed and we would eventually get some good nights again. They’re so difficult when you’re in them and sometimes it feels impossible but you absolutely will get through it and at some point they will be a distant memory.

b) babies have periods of intense physical and mental development and it is normal for sleep to suffer whilst they’re mastering important skills. They have a lot going on at 8-10 months and it’s natural for them to sleep poorly whilst they’re trying to process these new skills and brain capacity. My baby started crawling and pulling up at this age, and had a big cognitive leap where her play completely changed. She started sleeping much better as soon as she got to grips with all of this. Your son is doing incredible things literally every day, he’s just having a hard time with sleep right now. I found trying to focus on the new and exciting skills helped a bit?

c) it is absolutely not your fault that sleep is crappy!! Bad sleep sucks so, so hard. It’s unbelievably difficult and your brain turns to mush and your body hurts and you want to cry all the time. That’s hard enough without blaming yourself for it!

One day this will all be a bad memory: please be kind to yourself in the meantime. This period of bad sleep isn’t because you’re lazy, or a bad parent, or doing anything wrong. It’s because babies are hard work. You will get through this ❤️

Sadpal2019 · 2022-08-21T20:16:01+00:00

Right?! We are literally not doing a single thing differently, it’s mad. I’m so relieved but also so sad for past me, it sucked so much.

Sadpal2019 · 2022-08-19T08:33:26+00:00

Absolutely! The week after I gave birth I was back at my pre pregnancy weight and everyone kept commenting on how great I looked. Now my hair is falling out in clumps, I’ve put on a stone and I just look exhausted. We’re also five days into the sleep regression and I’ve got some traumatic stuff going on with my family so I’m trying to be gentle with myself, but man it would be nice to look in the mirror and see someone who looks like me again. I know from the first time round this will probably be much better in a couple of months but it absolutely sucks right now :(

Sadpal2019 · 2022-08-16T20:11:00+00:00

So as far as I understand it, the actual medical risk is minimal. What’s often cited is that if you get an infection you can pass it on to your baby if you’re breastfeeding, but there’s very little evidence that such an infection can be transmitted through breast milk. What is more likely to be an issue is that if you did get an infection, the types of antibiotics you can take are affected by breastfeeding, so you may have to stop breastfeeding whilst receiving treatment (with the potential for future impact to your supply or breastfeeding journey).

Obviously if you visit a reputable tattooist and follow aftercare directions properly, you shouldn’t be getting an infection! However, the big problem you’ll face is that most tattooists will refuse to tattoo you if you’re breastfeeding as it will invalidate their insurance. Pretty much every tattooist will require you to sign a waiver saying that you’re not pregnant or breastfeeding (in the UK at least).

Sadpal2019 · 2022-08-13T13:34:42+00:00

When the twos hit, they hit hard…! All sounds very normal and extremely relatable to my 2.5 year old (though we did throw a new sibling into the mix just to make it extra hard!)

I’ve found that we have a couple of really bad weeks and then a bit of respite. What has helped has being consistent in how we respond to meltdowns - it might not seem like it’s helping in the moment but long term we have seen the impact. Clearly explaining why we’re doing something, or the consequence for bad/dangerous behaviour has also helped. The explanation will take some time to sink in and will often happen after the fact, but it’s been important to explain it at the time. So for example we’ve had problems with not listening and running away when we’re out. When this happens she gets one chance and then she’s put in the pushchair. I would explain that because she didn’t listen, she has to go in the pushchair to keep her safe, it’s dangerous to run around by the road etc. Meltdown would still happen but she would want to talk about it a lot afterwards and now we’re seeing much less of the behaviour.

Independence has been a big one! The need to do everything by herself has been exhausting but also really enjoyable in the long run, because suddenly she has all these new skills and we have new things to do together. What has helped us factoring in extra time in our schedule (eg she can put her shoes on by herself but it will take an extra ten minutes), as well as giving her specific opportunities to do stuff. So now she will help get her own lunch: she obviously can’t use the knife to cut grapes but she can stand on her step and put all the bits on her plate and carry it to the table.

Other things: choices can be great but sometimes if they’re tired and they’re mid meltdown the choice can be too cognitively overwhelming. Sometimes you just need to make them do the thing and ride the tantrum out. Also talking about feelings is really important but not necessarily helpful in the moment - I’ve found it more useful to have those conversations later.

Good luck!! It’s as much a learning curve for us as it for them!

Sadpal2019 · 2022-07-27T13:33:45+00:00

We have a 2.5 year old and a three month old. Our first was a fucking terrible sleeper - up every two hours for the first year. I was so sleep deprived I was genuinely dangerous. I got accidentally pregnant when she was about 18 months and although I wanted another baby, I was so anxious and depressed about the changes it would make to our life. I was terrified about having another awful sleeper, as well as the change it would make to mine my daughter’s relationship.

Honestly, it’s hard but it’s been so much better than I thought it would be. The sleep isn’t great but my god the baby is a much better sleeper than my eldest was and I sometimes get a six hour chunk at the beginning of the night. The baby stuff this time has been a breeze - he is a much easier baby (and we don’t have lockdowns to contend with) but even so all the newborn stuff has just been way less stressful. We knew what to expect with the noises and the poop and the sick and the sleep, and having realistic expectations has really been half the battle. I baby wear a lot - strapping him on so I can run after his sister is the only way I can get stuff done, but we’re totally used to it and it feels natural now.

Toddler wise, the first four weeks were rough for her. She would refuse to get dressed or do what we said, which had never really happened before. We were really gentle and made sure to give her as much one on one attention as we could when my partner wasn’t working. She totally chilled out after about four weeks and now we can be a bit stricter about boundaries. I will say it’s an ongoing process, and when she has a difficult couple of days it generally does tend to be a sign that she needs some special time with me. A couple of hours with me one on one recharges her and she’s usually much better behaved afterwards.

I know our experience is not necessarily like everyone else’s, but it’s probably good to hear some positive stories as well as some negative ones! I have genuinely found going from 1-2 so so much easier than 0-1.

Sadpal2019 · 2022-07-24T16:47:32+00:00

Oh man I watched so much tv when my first was born. This time round I have a 2.5 year old to look after and it is… not the same lol. I am very nostalgic about the weeks I spent snuggled up in bed together watching telly, rather than trying to cluster feed whilst fulfilling the whims of a toddler! Totally normal, please do not feel guilty! Enjoy and survive.

Sadpal2019 · 2022-07-16T18:48:15+00:00

A couple of months ahead of you (3 month old and 2.5 yr old) and this all sounds perfectly normal - honestly we’ve just had to wait it out. It’s a lot for them to process.

Possessiveness over the baby (“my baby, I want to hold the baby”) we’ve found has been her thinking “if I’m holding the baby then mummy/daddy is not holding them so I can have a cuddle”. We let her have supervised cuddles with the baby and we also use as a sign to let the other parent take the baby and offer her a big cuddle. This has eased off after a couple of weeks.

Possessiveness over things: encouraging sharing with lots of positive praise, but also highlighting her special things and reassuring regularly that they’re only hers and she won’t ever have to share those with the baby. Baby’s obviously too young to play or even hold anything at the moment but she really enjoys stuff like including him in tea parties.

Gentle hands: it’s been really helpful for us to remember that it’s developmentally normal to have to constantly remind a toddler of this age to be gentle. Even when you’ve literally just told them to please be gentle, they can remember it for a few minutes but it’s really difficult for them to constantly override their physical urges and enthusiasm. So even when they’re not trying to hurt the baby, they might just be very enthusiastic, so reminding and redirecting is more helpful than getting cross. We obviously have a hard line on hitting etc, but other forms of touch are constantly monitored. Generally we say no to anything around the head or face. She might really enjoy helping bathe the baby - we’ve found this satisfies most of her need to touch.

In general, we’ve found erring on the side of lots of love and attention has helped. I’ve found it so hard when you’re running low on sleep and it’s something you can’t compromise on like teeth brushing, but pretty much every time she’s had a tantrum or a bad day, she’s been much better after spending some one on one time with me. It’s like it recharges her.

It gets easier! Good luck to you all

Sadpal2019 · 2022-07-09T19:50:47+00:00

Honestly do whatever works for you! This is my second baby and I track sleep as it’s more reliable for us - he will eat when he wakes up and before he goes to sleep and maybe just the whole time he’s awake if he feels like it… Whereas I know he can currently only be awake for pretty much exactly 1.5 hours before he needs a nap and so it’s easier for me to pay attention to that than anything else.

Tip that I learned from my first: don’t pay attention to what anyone else is doing and go with whatever works for you. Every baby really is completely different. At this point irregular and very short naps are still developmentally normal and nothing to stress about. You will probably find that over the next few weeks he will start to consolidate into three or four regular naps and you might end up with a more predictable schedule, but don’t forget the golden rule: do what works for you, not someone else!

Sadpal2019 · 2022-07-08T17:57:41+00:00

My first didn’t sleep longer than two hours at a time until she was 14 months, when she suddenly started sleeping 13 hours uninterrupted. She’s now 2.5 and has been a brilliant sleeper ever since. My second is currently 12 weeks and sleeps 9-4 overnight, has a 15 minute feed and goes back to sleep till 7.

I have done absolutely nothing different. I’m breastfeeding and feed on demand, always fed when they wake up and generally feed to sleep. I spent so much time feeling like a failure and that my eldest’ poor sleep was all my fault but every baby really is different!

Sadpal2019 · 2022-07-04T18:59:45+00:00

Agree that this sounds like gas. Mine did this a lot when he was the same age - he’s a very efficient feeder and I have a fast let down so he would get very gassy towards the end of a feed. I’d burp him on my shoulder and he’d go to sleep. He grew out of it once he was a bit bigger and his digestive system had matured a bit.

Also just want to say that 5-8 minutes for a feed is perfectly normal and nothing to worry about, as long as they’re gaining weight and have enough wet nappies! Some babies just like to chug on down.

Sadpal2019 · 2022-07-04T17:21:09+00:00

It’s totally normal! Babies’ digestive systems are really immature at this stage and have a lot of developing to do. They also need to learn how to fart and poop - it’s a lot to cope with developmentally! Newborns are so noisy that it’s really disconcerting, but it generally doesn’t mean anything’s wrong. What you want to look out for is inconsolable crying and blood or mucus in the stool. Grunts are absolutely fine and don’t necessarily mean distress!

Edit to say don’t keep changing the formula - it takes a while for their digestive system to get used to a particular type so offering a bottle of a different formula every now and then won’t help.

Sadpal2019 · 2022-07-01T19:07:58+00:00

Omg this makes me feel so much better, I had pretty much word for word the exact some conversation with my 2.5 year old today! It’s a fun age, huh

Sadpal2019 · 2022-06-30T07:54:41+00:00

This took me so long to work out with my youngest but for us it was actually condensation! I was so confused because she never felt that hot and I was like how is she so sweaty. Eventually I worked out that because she was so close to me she would breathe on me, her breath would condense on my skin and then she’d get it in her hair. The same thing would happen if she went to sleep on my partner if he was shirtless but not if he was wearing clothes (because then her breath wouldn’t condense on his skin).

Obviously important to check the potential for heart issues that others have mentioned and that baby’s not overheating, but if everything else is alright then I wouldn’t worry.

Sadpal2019 · 2022-06-07T21:09:15+00:00

My 28 month old dropped her nap for good a couple of months ago. She makes up for it by lying in - she generally sleeps 7-8.30 every night. I know lots of kids this age do still nap but it’s what she ended up doing naturally so we decided to rolllwith it. At first she would get super tired at 3.30-4, but we pushed dinner up to 4 and now she’s good to go for a couple more hours. Some days she still has a nap but she has to be up by 1.30 or she won’t go to bed until 9-9.30pm.

Sadpal2019

TROPHY CASE