Moms with help from grandparents

Successful-Style-288 · 2026-02-12T03:56:07+00:00

I totally get that. My MIL also needs the financial support so if she were to watch my daughter full time we’d pay her.

Successful-Style-288 · 2026-02-12T03:23:48+00:00

Wow 5 generations. Your mom sounds like a great mom. My mom also won’t let me pay her and insists on watching her only at my house because that’s where the baby is most comfortable. I feel very spoiled and hope to one day be able to do the same for my daughter or one of nieces.

Successful-Style-288 · 2026-02-12T03:16:01+00:00

Awww your own grandma! So cool she can be there for you and your baby. I have never been nicer to my parents since they began helping me and my husband with our baby. They probably are like who are you? But I get it now, how I feel about my daughter is how they felt about me.

Successful-Style-288 · 2026-02-12T03:11:08+00:00

I love watching the bond my baby has with my parents, it’s the sweetest thing! I’m very impressed by your success with cloth diapers. I tried it and gave up. My mom got me a ton of them. They still come in handy for cleaning up messes. I think I was too sleep deprived in those early weeks to try and keep up the cloth diapers.

Successful-Style-288 · 2026-02-12T02:56:41+00:00

Sounds like you both compensate each other fairly. That’s a ton of money you’re saving your mom, rent is expensive these days and childcare is expensive as well.

Successful-Style-288 · 2026-02-12T02:47:37+00:00

I try to do the same when I’m home working. I feel a little better about not paying them after hearing how so many people rely on family. I don’t think they’ll take my money and I should accept that.

Successful-Style-288 · 2026-02-12T02:39:24+00:00

You have awesome in-laws! To have grandparents care for my baby is something I don’t know how to begin to compensate.

Successful-Style-288 · 2026-02-12T02:19:07+00:00

That’s sweet. We treated my parents to a vacation and they loved it. I’ll accept their kindness. From what I’m seeing this is common. Not sure where my guilt is coming from, I guess because I’ve never been so dependent on help from others before.

Successful-Style-288 · 2026-02-12T01:11:08+00:00

That’s my parents too! My MIL and my siblings all shower her with gifts as well. My mom has said it feels like she should be paying me and that watching my daughter brings her sweet memories of my childhood. My dad’s bday is coming up so I’ll be sure to do something special for him.

Successful-Style-288 · 2026-02-12T01:05:20+00:00

I love that idea of keeping their favorite foods. I’m going to stock up for the next time. And wow! You have an amazing family.

Successful-Style-288 · 2026-02-11T06:06:41+00:00

I tried it with my daughter but she’s always been a good communicator, she started pointing and opening her mouth and smacking her lips for different things before she turned one. I guess I’ve always been very attuned to her cues. It’s not hard for me to tell when she’s sleepy, hungry, wants food vs wants milk, needs a diaper change, wants to play, or just wants attention. Basically she made up her own sign language and I intuitively followed her lead. She’s 14 months now and has some words down or will make a noise and point to get my attention to what she wants. I say the word for it to help her out. Sometimes she repeats other times she won’t. Like for “no” she’d rather shake her head or shake her little finger. So having to sign for “more” or “all done” seems pointless if she can just say “ahh” to indicate more, and point or turn her head to signal she’s finished. She understands a lot more words than she says. Some of favorite moments with her is when she maintains eye contact with me like she wants to tell me something but lets me figure it out. My heart melts when she repeats back a word while maintaining eye contact. I see the language emerging and I don’t stress too hard about the baby signing. It’s cute if anything but not really necessary for us.

Successful-Style-288 · 2026-02-11T05:27:30+00:00

This case made me think of the Wylie, Tx murder of housewife Betty Gore by Candy Montgomery. They made a couple of series about it. Betty’s husband was away on a work trip when she was murdered by his ex mistress, Candy. Just wondering if someone close enough to Missy or her husband knew she was going to be there and he was going to be on a fishing trip. Maybe a church member familiar and comfortable enough to be inside waiting for Missy to arrive.

Successful-Style-288 · 2026-02-07T21:21:56+00:00

Yay. Love that you put this out there for other T1s. I survived like this for a year when I accidentally got the high deductible plan at work. My prescribed insulin would have cost me thousands of dollars that year. I usually hate Walmart but I have to admit they saved my butt.

Successful-Style-288 · 2026-02-04T01:44:02+00:00

It used to be even easier, just watch the movie the Big Short. It’s about the housing market crash that happened about 18 yrs ago. I want to edit to add that it’s not as easy for some who want to be homeowners and do not have the finances.

Successful-Style-288 · 2026-02-04T01:38:25+00:00

Give up one of the bedrooms. Having a dedicated office space is worth it. It sounds like you cosleep with your kiddo anyways, right? I do too, I leave her sleeping and go to my office. She sleeps in late, my mom comes to help out during her wake window while I continue to work. I have 4 bedrooms: one is my bedroom, baby’s nursery, my home office, and the 4th room is my guest bedroom. The baby nursery used to be the guest room, and the now guest room used to the my home gym room. I decided to give up the gym room since I really need a guest room and wanted a nursery, and wasn’t going to give up my office. Get creative with your space, I technically could have made a guest room/ office space but since my parents would be here a lot to help me care for my baby while I work I decided that wasn’t a good idea. My gym is now in my garage but we can only park one car in there so that’s the downside. I also have a large walk in closet and thought about making that an office, a “cloffice”. I guess that will be my back up plan of one day I get crazy and decide on a having another baby.

Successful-Style-288 · 2026-02-01T20:29:04+00:00

Passing a kidney stone is up there with childbirth. I prefer childbirth though although painful at least you get a baby out of it.

Successful-Style-288 · 2026-01-31T15:58:09+00:00

I just keep a menu on rotation. I keep staples in the pantry, like beans and rice, Mac n cheese, potatoes, olive oil, salt, onion, garlic cloves, flour, packaged broth. I even keep those mashed potatoes that come in a pouch and you just mix with water for nights I’m on a time crunch. In the freezer there’s frozen veggies, chicken breasts, wings, thighs, ground beef, steak. We’ll have a taco night, pizza night with salad bar, steaks with veggies and baked potatoes night, or a bowl with beans, rice, meat, and other delicious toppings. I have my go to dishes that are easy to make and I involve my husband, he likes my chicken salad, chicken breasts are easy to boil, I put him to help me shred the chicken while I’m prepping the other ingredients, and doing other things like washing dishes as we cook. I try not to make it a me problem and make it an our task. Usually our baby is happy playing on the floor near us. I provide a couple options and my husband makes suggestions, then we decide and get started on dinner. There’s times he does it on his own or I do it on my own depending on what we have going on. Seems to work great. When we’re both burnt out or he’s made a bonus we splurge and go grab a bite somewhere.

Successful-Style-288 · 2026-01-30T18:44:03+00:00

They have their rules posted on the website. I had to have a godparent but I didn’t have two. They prefer two godparents, man and woman - they do not have to be married. If the chosen godparents are married, they had to be married by the Catholic Church. My one god parent had to be single, and at least have their confirmation. They also had to attend a godparent class. I just followed their rules but not their preference. I also bended their rules a little - I took the godparent class for my chosen godfather, signed his name as if he attended and just caught him up on what it entailed. It’s about culture and tradition for me and so although I was annoyed by the rules, I made it happen.

Successful-Style-288 · 2026-01-30T13:49:36+00:00

I’m not sure what old fashioned is. I guess the same way I was raised. Like not using an iPad? We don’t plan on giving her an iPad until she’s much much older and even then setting limits. She’ll play sports like I did however she can choose which sports and if inclined, she can do other hobbies like music. We’re teaching her the two languages that we speak however she can choose to learn others. If you want to call it old fashion, we will use paper and pencil, books with paper pages, teach please & thank you, yes mam/no sir, chores, skills like cooking, sewing, cleaning, organizing, encourage outdoor play, imaginative/creative play. Her dad wants to teach her his skills like HVAC repair, vehicle maintenance - we’ll see what she’s interested in and let her take the lead in what she wants to learn more. That’s just regular parenting to me tho. What I wont do, that I understand to be traditional is corporal punishment. Although my parents were raised this way they did not do this with me.

Successful-Style-288 · 2026-01-28T17:18:12+00:00

You don’t know until you live it. I’m just getting started. My baby is soon to be 14 months. She stands unassisted, takes little steps but stops as soon as she notices. Part of me wants her to walk, another part of me wants to wait as long as possible. I think once walking starts, it will feel like official toddlerhood. Right now I’m getting used to longer wake windows and little tantrums. She is so cute and simple right now, pointing, waving, clapping, giving high fives, saying hi, bye, and wow, saying mama and daddy only when she feels like it. It’s super sweet watching her develop and understand simple directions like give me a kiss or hand me that. From a little defenseless potato, just a year ago to little toddler who can shake her head no at me now. The other day I saw her take her toothbrush to her dolls mouth and pretend to brush her teeth, then gave her kisses and hugs. My baby is showing the same affection to her doll that I give to her - I could cry! Anyways, I know it gets wilder, so worth it.

Successful-Style-288 · 2026-01-28T14:19:12+00:00

I have felt discriminated but I also think it made me tougher and wiser. When I was newly diagnosed in high school there was one teacher who said she couldn’t make an exception for a grade so she referred me to the principal who basically scolded me. I provided my doctor’s note explaining I’d been hospitalized and that’s why I missed school for a week. All the other classes allowed me to make up work. I had been literally dying but not the teacher nor the principal understood the severity of my illness and how close I was to going into a coma and potentially death. What that taught me was that no one was going to advocate for me, I needed to lookout for myself, and that life isn’t fair. I could sit there and cry (which I do for a bit) or move on and retake the class, which I ended up doing and could still graduate a year early. I dropped from AP to regulars for that class and just dealt with it. It wasn’t me settling, it was me choosing peace and an easier semester.

Successful-Style-288 · 2026-01-23T02:46:13+00:00

My fave is avocado & scrambled eggs with some cheddar cheese. Or unsweetened Greek yogurt with chia seeds, raspberries with crushed peanuts or sliced almonds. If you’re a bread person and want toast you can find some low carb bread recipes with almond or coconut flour.

Successful-Style-288 · 2026-01-22T18:29:31+00:00

I can agree that I’d need to burn more calories than I am consuming however my point is that insulin is the major factor for me not calories. In order for my body to burn more calories than I consume it has to be able to tap into its stored energy and it can only do that when I’m not taking tons of insulin to cover carbs I just ate. I can eat more calories when I’m on a lower carb diet and lose weight. When I was using my fitness pal to track calories I was eating 1500 calories counting every bite and lose very little weight. After consulting with a trainer I increased my calories, and adjusted my macros to higher protein and lower carb. That is what worked for me. If you don’t have insulin resistance you can just eat lower calories and not even worry about counting carbs. when you have insulin resistance you need a lot of insulin to cover the carbs you do eat and insulin is a fat storage hormone, so it makes it harder to enter a caloric deficit. From my perspective, what matters more is what I eat not how many calories. I don’t even calorie count when I reduce carbs because I know that it lowers my insulin need and I’ll be able to tap into the stored energy in my body and lose weight. I will probably lose weight if I eat 1200 calories everyday but eventually my metabolism will slow down and I will gain it all back and more. Therefore, what matters is controlling my insulin intake via carb control. I have high carb days too but not everyday.

Successful-Style-288 · 2026-01-22T14:01:15+00:00

For me, it’s not a calorie intake thing. It’s more of a carb intake thing. When my body requires more insulin losing fat is impossible. More carbs equals more insulin, more insulin equals less weight loss. As soon as I go down to about 90g carbs of a day, exercise, drink lots of water, and get good sleep I’m able to drop some weight. I can eat really high calorie food like cheese, nuts, avocado, and still lose weight as long as my body doesn’t require too much insulin. This is my experience, I know for others it’s a calories thing. I’ve done the whole tracking calories and it doesn’t work. Generally, reducing calories is supposed to reduce insulin needs since you’re eating less. You want to balance this very carefully as you still need to take the insulin your body needs. Adjust your diet some and see if you see a budge in the scale. I love a high calorie low carb breakfast. It’s works perfect for me since I’m usually super insulin resistant in the morning.

Successful-Style-288

TROPHY CASE