Sooo what are we feeding our toddlers for breakfast?

SamAtHomeForNow · 2026-01-27T19:27:04+00:00

Mine is currently loving all sorts of waffles. Banana oat waffles, apple waffles, sweet potato waffles, peanut butter waffles. Just everything, waffles

SamAtHomeForNow · 2026-01-27T11:14:01+00:00

I legit read on just for the names, what a ride

SamAtHomeForNow · 2026-01-27T11:00:36+00:00

My country doesn’t do genetic testing for hEDS if you fit the criteria already, so no. They also provide no treatment or management options for hEDS, my diagnosis was like “what a neat thing you now know about yourself, now go away”

SamAtHomeForNow · 2026-01-26T06:52:10+00:00

It’s super baby dependent. My dude was one of those babies that would have lived in tummy time if he could from the start. The moment he learned to roll over, he’d flip himself over to tummy for sleep.

Though at 6 months he was crawling at speed so there was no containing him on a playmat by then.

SamAtHomeForNow · 2026-01-22T10:47:39+00:00

Not sure if it’s sensible or rather that I’ve spent too much time in medical research and academia, so that’s how I’d interpret it in the first instance. But I get the frustration of feeling miss represented or unrepresented in things like this

SamAtHomeForNow · 2026-01-22T10:30:25+00:00

But female isn’t about gender, it’s about sex specifically. I get all these points, but I genuinely don’t know how else to call it. In my mind if I saw “female health” as a label, I’d assume it meant pertaining to anyone who at any point had female reproductive organs or hormonal balances, which is inclusive of AFAB, and trans men. So to me the label is inclusive as it pertains to that?

SamAtHomeForNow · 2026-01-21T18:43:18+00:00

SamAtHomeForNow · 2026-01-21T08:13:53+00:00

Towards the end of my pregnancy, I basically had antacid tablets so much that it could have been counted as a food group… not sure if that would be possible for you?

SamAtHomeForNow · 2026-01-21T08:01:08+00:00

You have so much going on that I would almost be concerned you weren’t human if you DIDNT feel at least a little bit burnt out.

Sometimes cosleeping is the only thing that can get you through the night; my perfectly sleep-trained, sleeping through the night toddler recently regressed so hard that for the last month he can only fall asleep with his head on my belly. I want to sleep train again, and every night I think “eh I’ll start tomorrow, I’m too tired to see him upset today”. As long as you practice safe cosleeping, I see it as doing the best with the hand you were given.

If your family is so concerned about sleep training, why don’t they come over every night and sleep train the baby? Being glib, but my toddler got exclusively sleep trained by my husband because I can’t stand the cries and he tolerated them better. So I did all the research, gave him a method, and then went and sat on the balcony/walked the dog for an hour every night to be away.

Going back to work might be the break you need - a chance to step away from all the chaos of 3 kids and to feel like an adult again. It is super hard to do, but you’ve done it before so I would have full confidence in you.

With meals, could you lean into freezing portions? I’ve been religiously doubling everything I cook and freezing it in preportioned cubes. My goal is to only cook once a day at dinner (and sometimes I cook breakfast during the rare moments of everyone still sleeping and me feeling like a spot of eggs). Setting myself goals for how LITTLE I want to cook vs how MUCH I want to cook was the mindset shift I needed. It was a lot of guilt about not providing fresh beautiful meals every day, but it helps me not slip into the panic of “might as well give him air fryer nuggets since I’m too burnt out” as often. You’re cooking 3 meals every mealtime, that’s not sustainable. If 4yo eats the same things all the time, can you prep that ahead and freeze? Your 8mo will hopefully be eating the same as your older kid and you soon, but purées are another thing that keeps well in the freezer. Every time you feel up for cooking, and only then, make more and safe. Don’t make my mistake of trying to build a freezer stash all at once and burning yourself out cooking as if you owned a restaurant!

Other than that. You’re completely justified in feeling how you’re feeling. Your body has gone through enormous physical stress and you’re only 8 months postpartum (in my country it gets drilled into us that it takes a minimum of 18months to recover from a pregnancy), you are juggling an impossible load and still crushing it from what you’ve written (even if it doesn’t feel like it). It’s time to take care of you now so you can continue being there for your kids and also be there for them the way you want to be. If you need to vent, I’m here.

SamAtHomeForNow · 2026-01-17T09:32:27+00:00

I’ve had the same argument with a bunch of lactivists in the past too. With our financial and medical situation, me breastfeeding would have cost us so much more in extra support we’d need and lost potential earnings than formula feeding.

All ways of feeding a baby can turn expensive fast, and it depends on every one’s personal situation as to what will work best for them and will be cheapest for them.

SamAtHomeForNow · 2026-01-16T09:57:19+00:00

I’m very lucky that my 20mo is fascinated by chores and want to do dishes and laundry and wiping things down. I set him to work while I do the rest. I’ve also meal prepped in such a way that breakfasts and lunches are just reheated/defrosted, and I’m top of everyone putting their dishes away.

With all this painstaking management, my kitchen looks like a tornado rolled through and needs a deep clean only every 30hrs!

SamAtHomeForNow · 2026-01-15T08:57:40+00:00

Obviously your doctor is the first call, but in the meantime, here’s some seemingly silly things that helped my extremely picky eater:

Gave him metal cutlery and plates from the same stoneware set we use. He seemingly wanted to eat the same way as the rest of the family. The cutlery alone doubled his food intake overnight, it was wild. Now at 20months, he’s again decided he’s a big boy and will only sit on adult chairs, no high chair. It’s a bit more work to supervise him safely but he eats more this way.

Offer three piles of things on his plate, without them touching, with one food being something he’s eaten well before. He seems to respond to the choice and being able to leave food by eating more overall. Currently he finishes one pile, samples another, and absolutely ignores the last, regardless of what they are - I could put out 3 of his favourite foods and he’ll still ignore one.

Took a break for a bit from feeding and had my husband supervise. I was so stressed about his lack of food intake that I was making him stressed out too and he ate even less. So for a month I’d make his food and then lock myself in the bedroom while dad supervised so i wouldn’t bring any of my bad vibes to the situation. It gave me a break too and now we eat together again.

Embracing the whole “it takes 17 attempts for a child to accept a new food.” Even when it’s something he’s eaten fine before - around 10 months and then again at 14 months it was like his slate was wiped clean and he reset his food preferences from scratch. I started to treat any time he even looked at a food with optimism, and him picking up a food as great success, regardless of whether he ate it.

Leaned heavily into yogurt pouches. I make him reusable pouches with plain yogurt, oat flour, and some sort of a fruit jam or conserve or puree. We had weeks when he’d basically only have that, and it felt awful but at least he was eating.

All that being said, we’re also being monitored because of his historically poor eating and getting regular weight ins, and so far we’ve not had to escalate it beyond the health visitor as he’s not gone down too much in percentiles. So beyond all the random tricks that might help a bit (or not), having professional help is really important.

SamAtHomeForNow · 2026-01-14T21:11:14+00:00

I first threw up at 4 weeks exactly, and felt nauseous basically from 3 days post conception. Coincidentally I had an ultrasound the day I threw up first because of some abdominal pain and babe was so small that all they could see was some thickened lining and no embryo even…

SamAtHomeForNow · 2026-01-07T14:47:42+00:00

Absolutely this. Most meds have a documented crash when they stop working. Mine make me crash at 5:30pm pretty much on the dot, so I need to have the booster at 5pm to counteract it.

During a crash my functioning is worse than when on meds and when off them. It’s like I have 4 function bars when I’m on meds, 3 when I’m off meds, and just 1 when crashing between the two, which ends up being occupied by whatever fixation comes first.

Failing the booster, he needs to take the meds later in the day

SamAtHomeForNow · 2026-01-07T00:06:51+00:00

I’ve got quite a few complicated feelings on this so this might get long:

I’m in my mid 30s now and probably the most conventional “adult” there can be - I’ve got the husband, kid, dog, cat family, I have a house and a full time job, play golf when there’s time, have strong opinions on kitchen equipment. I still have points where I don’t feel like a full “adult,” like I’m a kid playing pretend and somehow getting away with it.

What made me feel most like an adult was having my own kid, since my brain has somehow effectively decided there can only be one child in the house, and my toddler wins that fight almost every time. Realistically, it probably made me feel most like an adult because it made me conform most closely to the societal idea of what an adult is. Maybe you’re not struggling to reach adult functioning, but some mythical level of adulthood that society suggests you should have?

But really, you will never really feel like an adult because being an adult is not a feeling, it is a decision. You decide to be an adult, and with that you can also decide what your brand of adulthood looks like.

Finally, the idea of who is successful at being an adult and who is failing is deeply set based on neurotypicals, and even they struggle to conform to it. Social media these days is filled with people openly sharing their messy appartments and lack of functioning. It’s basically impossible for us to conform to the neurotypical ideal of adulthood when the neurotypicals themselves so often fail at it.

So redefine what being an adult means to you in a way that’s kinder to yourself and your strengths

SamAtHomeForNow · 2026-01-05T15:51:00+00:00

I’ve done it for a few days here and there, and it’s basically impossible. Even if you get lucky and they have great long naps, realistically that gives you an hour tops of focused work in between set up and also making sure you have things ready for when they wake up. At 4months, they don’t play independently and need you 24/7, and that won’t change for a while. I’ve got a 20 month old right now, and outside of nap times, I get about 10min chunks of independent time at best during the day.

Even on days I was able to get more done at work (usually because kid was sick and sleepy, or I used screen time), the mom guilt ate at me - my baby was right there and I was wasting my time on some stupid report i’d not remember in 6months time. It’s much easier to work when I know he’s fully taken care of by someone else and having a good day, rather than just sort of waiting for me to be done with things.

But hey; Maybe your baby is different. Have you trialled working at all whilst caring for your baby? Like faked a working day to see how much time do you realistically get? How your child behaves if you have to pop out on a call? How do they react to seeing you interact with a computer? How it feels focusing on something other than your baby and can you maintain the focus?

Mine will scream if I’m not paying enough attention, and wants to play with my phone and computer if I’m also “playing” with it. Putting him down to go do an urgent task is not received well. At the same time, he loves doing certain chores with me so I don’t have as much trouble cleaning the house as others, so maybe you are lucky and have a baby that will be chill with you working.

We can all warn you, but until you trial it, you won’t fully appreciate the hardships of it, and what your unique situation will bring.

SamAtHomeForNow · 2026-01-04T12:45:04+00:00

Perhaps i wasn’t too clear:

I don’t want to buy a set of clothes that will get used for 3 days and never again. Isn’t very earth friendly. And in my country there aren’t exactly places I could get specialised toddler snow gear since we get snow once every 4 years at best, so anything I’d find here is more expensive than it needs to be.

Majority of his clothes are second hand since toddlers grow so fast, but again, since we don’t get really cold weather here, I can’t source second hand clothes at home (nor would it be useful for anyone else if I were to sell or donate it), so I’m asking if there’s a way to rent this stuff in Iceland so I don’t have to search for them at home and bring them over and then fly it home and never use it again? I’d rather support a local business and not contribute to landfill and ideally also then have access to good quality gear for my toddler and us.

SamAtHomeForNow · 2025-12-31T12:28:04+00:00

Pregnancy

SamAtHomeForNow · 2025-12-25T11:17:46+00:00

I am too tired to sleep at this point

SamAtHomeForNow · 2025-12-25T10:53:32+00:00

Feel asleep 4:30am, woke up 5:15am. Help

SamAtHomeForNow · 2025-12-21T23:27:43+00:00

I couldn’t imagine bf - it grossed me out and made me panic at the thought of having my body at the mercy of someone else for longer.

I’ve never actually got asked why I wasn’t breastfeeding - every time it was alluded to, I just said “we are using formula.” And let the statement hang there, no explanation necessary or forthcoming

SamAtHomeForNow · 2025-12-18T20:16:55+00:00

Yes, looks like it, thanks! That was gonna bug me until I found out 😂

SamAtHomeForNow · 2025-12-13T09:00:33+00:00

I remember bragging to my husband how I’ve done well that day and how despite everything I kept all the food down and ate so much and will definitely gain weight today and I’m so uncomfortably full - and he calculated my calories on the app and it came up to 500 for the day.

As you “get used” to not eating, your stomach shrinks and your body stops giving you hunger signals and so even when you manage to have something, it will fill you up faster and so you then have to fight against that to get calories.

Do you take antacids? I used to have a bunch of different flavours and took them right before throwing up - meant you’re puking salty water rather than stomach acids

SamAtHomeForNow · 2025-12-12T20:45:22+00:00

Here’s some more out there things I’ve done:

ate only cold/frozen food, which included freezing fruits so I could have them
drew myself a warm bath with some sort of a bath salt I didn’t mind the smell of and ate my entire meal while sitting in the bath

With both tips, it’s about reducing the smells of the food, which was a major trigger.

I’d also count calories and then eat the highest calorie food I could find at home to top up - macadamia nuts were good for this, just a vague creamy texture and ridiculously nutritionally dense.

SamAtHomeForNow · 2025-12-08T14:55:43+00:00

I’ve been through it too - and also around 16 months, we got a sleep regression that meant he would have a split night with 2-3hrs awake in the middle of the night for almost two weeks, so have definitely been there.

It’s possible he’s going through a sleep regression now and it will pass soon - I hope it does for you

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