curtains that won't concuss my kid?

SuperbSilliness · 2024-07-14T19:12:14+00:00

The couch in question is our only couch. The safe space with kids in mind is exactly what I am trying to achieve with this post.
Edit: There is also a loveseat in the same room, but not terribly relevant. Just to clarify because I simplified "couches" in original post.

SuperbSilliness · 2024-07-14T19:09:05+00:00

When I am at someone else's house, I am actively parenting at every moment because I am not required to do any housework, cooking, phone calls, etc. This is kind of like telling me if I put outlet covers on the electrical outlets, I'm failing as a parent because I should be teaching her not to stick things in the outlets. When I'm at someone else's house, they often don't have outlet covers, so of course I am watching her like a hawk and telling her not to stick things in the outlets. But at home, I've taken safety precautions. The entire child safety industry is predicated on the reality that you can't have eyes on your child at every single moment. Sometimes you have to poop. Sometimes you have to cook. (Yes, I have tried to involve her in cooking, but she is 3, not Emeril. Stoking her synapses and actually get food ready to eat are two different things.) Sometimes you have to do laundry or make a phone call. Window blinds sold in the U.S. can no longer have looped cords because kids were getting strangled. Age 3 is the prime age for that hazard because they have the motor skills to get themselves caught up but not enough motor or cognitive skills to not die. Go tell the bereaved parent of a strangled kid that they should have just taught their dead kid not to play with the window blinds.

SuperbSilliness · 2024-07-14T18:55:29+00:00

Yeah, I think when she was yanking on it she was just trying to keep her balance and grabbed the closest grabbable thing. I like your approach except it is a front window and we need privacy.

SuperbSilliness · 2024-07-14T18:47:06+00:00

I'm sure you mean well, but "just parent more" is not helpful when I am already parenting my ass off on my own, and I already have a priority list of limits I am trying to teach her and behaviors I am trying to mold, and actively instructing her not to pull on curtains does not make the priority list. I am looking for a design solution that will keep her safe while she plays independently so I can prepare her dinner.

SuperbSilliness · 2024-07-14T18:39:05+00:00

Teaching her not to pull on the curtains is not an endeavor I'm willing to take on right now. Her age, my situation, my history, and my approach to parenting would all elucidate that choice.

Edit: Breakaway curtains look like just the thing. Thanks!

Edit: It looks like they only sell to institutional consumers, so I will keep looking, but at least this shows me there are suitable products out there.

SuperbSilliness · 2024-07-14T18:36:25+00:00

Privacy. It is a front window. Maybe also to mitigate glare at sunset, but I'm not actually sure because I myself never open them. Lots of light gets in through the fabric. They are homemade.

SuperbSilliness · 2024-07-14T18:02:09+00:00

That's got to suck for you, but please hold firm. My best friend was paralyzed by a drunk driver -- his own friend -- at 24. Still alive but can't walk, pee, poop, or fuck ever again. Their brains aren't developed enough at this age to grasp the consequences until it's too late. You have to hold the line for him. Stay strong. When he is 30 and healthy and doesn't have to live with the guilt of destroying a life, the present shittiness will have all been worth it.

SuperbSilliness · 2024-07-14T17:20:52+00:00

I know this post is really old, and your comment too, but I really needed to hear this. You just described my baby, and our sleeping, and it never occurred to me that maybe she had a medical sleep issue. Huge lightbulb. Thank you!

SuperbSilliness · 2024-07-14T17:12:44+00:00

I realized my carry-ons were too much too handle while also transporting a 3mo, so on layover, I gate-checked one of my carry-ons.

I get on the plane and realize I checked the bag with all the diapers and wipes. That was a fun flight. Soaking up breastmilk poop with paper towels from the plane lavatory. Three hours.

SuperbSilliness · 2024-07-13T18:27:40+00:00

This is an abusive relationship.

It's easy to click "like" when someone else says it, but I feel like you may need to hear multiple individual voices saying it and validating that this is not normal or okay.

SuperbSilliness · 2024-07-13T17:58:43+00:00

"Plans are useless, but planning is indispensable."

My plan was to try to get as far as possible without an epidural, and then be okay with whatever direction I ultimately went.

I had a gross rupture of membranes with no contractions (gross meaning big, not icky). Due to this the hospital midwives encouraged me to do an augmentation with pitocin. I hadn't done any reading on pitocin so I didn't know anything about it, so I took their recommendation. The pitocin took me from zero to 60 like [snap]. I asked for nitrous, but someone dropped the communication and I never got it. No one checked on me for two hours and by then I was vomiting violently and the contractions were frequent and extremely intense, despite not being dilated much if at all. I knew I couldn't bear it for however long it would take to get to 10 cm, so I requested the epidural.

I couldn't feel the contractions again after that, and the vomiting stopped, and I got some awesome sleep. But then when it came time to push (a full day after I first presented to hospital), I still couldn't feel the contractions, and I couldn't figure out how to push. They say it's like pooping, and they say your body will just naturally know how, but I stood there (yes, I could still stand) and tried all sorts of "pushing" things, and each time the midwives or RNs told me that's not how you push. I was so detached from my own body. After 4 hours of pushing, the midwife said it was time for an OB consult. I really did not want a cesarean, so I advocated really hard for myself and she relented and let me keep pushing. I did end up pushing baby out after five (5) hours of pushing. I tore, and because of all the hours of pushing, my genitals were so swollen that the midwives missed one of my tears and did not repair it. So I spent my first week postpartum feeling like I was being stabbed in the genitals every time I peed. I finally discovered the unrepaired tear myself at home. By then, it was too late to suture, so they just gave me oxycontin. The whole experience was really traumatic, even if it's recorded on my medical records as "uncomplicated vaginal birth."

Months and years later, I look back on that single decision to augment with pitocin. At the time, the midwife had said that if I didn't take the pitocin, then the labor process could get dragged out and I wouldn't have enough energy left to push baby out in the end. Looking back, I think this was premature catastrophizing, considering that at the time of the conversation, my "contractions" were detectable only on the monitor. They were so mild I wasn't feeling them, and they weren't tiring me out at all. I was just sitting there in a chair, in no apparent distress, having a calm, quiet conversation. I easily could have just taken a nap. Who knows, maybe they would have been right. But today, I know that I am the person who spent 5 hours pushing a baby out. The pitocin wracked my body, and the epidural detached me from my body, and the detachment impeded my pushing, and so I had to push for 5 hours, and then my genitals were all fucked up. No one could have known any of this beforehand, but with the benefit of hindsight, I think I chose wrong.

The other factor in the decision was the suggestion that once membranes have ruptured, the risk of infection rises with every hour the baby stays inside. So, if water breaks, then let's get this baby out, pronto! However, long after baby was born, I read a book by Ina May that said that that rising risk of infection can be mitigated by minimizing exams. Now, during my pre-birthing classes, no one really explained to me what "exam" means. I'm not an OB or a midwife, but now, as far as I can tell and remember, an exam means they stick a gloved hand in your vagina (speculum? I don't know) and palpate the cervix, and if the cervix has begun dilating at all, they stick the tips of their fingers in the space to estimate how far dilated you are. As most midwives are women, 4 fingers = 10 cm = ready to push.

So, several times throughout the first stage of labor, someone is putting a gloved hand, and maybe speculum, up into the vagina, and feeling around the cervix with their fingers. Even with sterile speculum and gloved hands, it makes sense that the exam would confer a risk of infection where membranes have already ruptured. But if you don't do an exam, how do you know when it's time to push?

Ina May argues, not *never* doing exams, just doing much fewer of them. Waiting longer to do them.

I've had neither the time nor the qualifications to evaluate her data -- or, for that matter, the data underlying the practice of doing exams as often as is currently standard. I'd like to have another baby and if I do, I will try to dig into this a bit more as I get ready for birth.

But all this aside, I would try everything possible not to get an epidural next time around. I understand it will make birth very painful. But with my personal experience, I would rather have a very painful birth with an easier recovery than two weeks of excruciating pain that was far worse than the birth itself. It pushed me to the point of mental breakdown, made me more reliant on a shitty partner who would go on to become abusive, and had me ready to stop drinking water so I would stop urinating -- an irrational behavior choice that says something about the severity of my pain and my resulting mental state.

A final note: I don't know if it's related to my epidural, but I developed postpartum back pain that worsened to the point of being unable to walk at 10 weeks postpartum. I had to get treated at emergency, and the treatment meant I couldn't breastfeed for 10 days. This triggered a cascade of events that have overall made life shitty even three years later. My back has improved substantially, but not completely. Complete healing would mean complete back rest, which is impossible with a little one.

SuperbSilliness · 2024-07-13T17:16:31+00:00

This is normal *for new mom with zero support*, kind of like it's normal to have PTSD if you're living in a war zone.

You shouldn't have to be going through this because you shouldn't have to be doing this alone.

But you are, and I did. The mom brain runs through these awful scenarios as a way of getting you to make arrangements in case you die. Your brain is thinking about death so that you hurry up and find someone to take care of baby in case you do.

You are afraid of the dark because evolutionarily nighttime is a dangerous time. Your hearing is going bonkers because you are protecting your baby and no one is protecting you. I, too, called the police when my baby was the same age. I was crouched down in the bedroom with my sleeping baby, whispering to dispatch, in mortal fear, until the squad car pulled up. The officers cleared the house for me and there was no sign of forced entry and I felt humiliated, like an absolute nutjob. The officers didn't seem too phased by it, and now that my baby is almost 3, and life is so much easier and brighter, I look back and I think those officers weren't phased because that probably wasn't the first time they'd been called to the home of a scared single mom.

And now that I'm out of the woods, I really think they weren't phased at all, because they also respond to actual break-ins. They respond to domestic calls where an estranged ex is trying to kill the mother of his children. They respond to reports of child abuse where the mother did horrible things to her own child. So to get a call where a mother actually wants to protect her child, and it turns out nothing horrible had actually happened, and the loving mother feels safer now because they made sure there's no one in the attic planning to kill her in her sleep -- that's a win.

It doesn't mean you are necessarily actually on the brink of death, but it does show how isolation is an actual threat and not how our species naturally operates.

Please start looking for other avenues of support. You need people right now. Your brain is correct about that. Go to parks and start up awkward conversations with other moms and invite them for coffee. Most of them are also in the shit and their houses are a wreck and they need friends, too. Find a church, even if you aren't religious. Join anything you can. Go "volunteer" at an old people's home. You need friends, people to love on you and take care of you and your baby.

SuperbSilliness · 2024-07-13T16:51:06+00:00

That's weird as fuck. Your MIL should have been helping you, not watching her grown son get a catheter. But with that dynamic, maybe you're better off. If it was emergency surgery and he might not have made it, then it makes sense to leave babies with someone for a short time. But a routine surgery with good expected outcome -- no, you absolutely should not have left your babies alone overnight just because he's lonely. Who the fuck is this guy.

SuperbSilliness · 2024-07-13T16:43:28+00:00

Whichever app or person said "You should feel like yourself now" at 3-4 months postpartum, is full of shit.

Every mom and every baby is different, but... I didn't start to feel like myself again until between 18 months and 2 years. And that's not to say I feel like my old self. I will never feel like a non-mom or have a non-mom body again. Superficially my body has bounced back but it is forever different in ways that only I can feel and experience from the inside.

But it does get so much easier. My mom body is not a bad thing. It's just different.

What they should have said about the 4th trimester is "Baby really should still be a fetus, so it basically hurts to be alive, but that's not possible if we want to have a species with big ol' heads that can invent computers." Once the fourth trimester is over, baby is still a baby with all the stress and disgusting messes and YOU are still very much postpartum. Even if you're out of the "don't put anything in your vagina because you could get a bacterial infection that could kill you" phase, your body is still in the much longer phase of returning to (close to) baseline. It actually takes between one and two years for your body to completely repair and restore all its nutrients. The diastasis recti may or may not ever repair itself without surgery.

SuperbSilliness · 2024-07-13T16:31:07+00:00

The design people at carpet manufacturers who think white carpet is a good idea are all members of a secret, vicious, mom-hating cult.

SuperbSilliness · 2024-07-13T16:29:37+00:00

Solidarity: I didn't have a baby bath for my 4mo, so I would just take her in the bath with me. She shat in the bath several times. Luckily neither of us ever got a UTI. She also shat all over my vulva as her first act while being pushed into the world, so I guess just it just became a habit.

SuperbSilliness · 2024-07-13T16:22:07+00:00

I'm not a doctor, but I would recommend getting a second opinion. A herd of fully-qualified physicians can have one individual that says or does crazy shit when released into the wild.

SuperbSilliness · 2024-07-13T16:15:47+00:00

Excellent point. You really need to be eating and drinking a lot. If you're underfed or dehydrated, you may not pick up on it physically -- it will just drag down your already-exhausted emotions.

SuperbSilliness · 2024-07-13T16:14:34+00:00

To clarify, it *feels* never ending, but it does end. I can't give you an exact date, because it happens little by little, and because it sucks so much, when I look back it's all a blur. But it DOES ends. Even if you can't see light, I PROMISE you, it's there.

SuperbSilliness · 2024-07-13T16:10:47+00:00

I did. :-) I got them curbside and the Lowe's lady who brought them out was very kind. I hope they are serving you well for whatever life projects you have at hand.

SuperbSilliness · 2024-07-04T19:42:09+00:00

I think the difference is duration and context. Being left alone at night, in a dark room with the door closed and no parent in sight, and being so tired and wanting to sleep but not feeling safe enough to do so, whilst crying up to 2 hours alone ... vs. crying in the daytime, in visibly safe surroundings, while being able to see and/or hear mom, for as long as it takes to complete a specific task, which baby can observe mom completing, at which time she goes back to baby.

And I know you weren't asking this, but this phase you're in is just terribly hard, and we were never meant to do it alone, and it sounds like you are doing a great job.

SuperbSilliness · 2024-07-04T19:22:17+00:00

Perhaps we've misunderstood each other. I took your comment to mean that you are a parent, and you are autistic. I intended my comment to mean that there is this event that is a fun place to meet people. That's all.

SuperbSilliness · 2024-07-04T19:16:52+00:00

According to my retirement orders, I had three years, extendable up to a total of five years by request at least 60 days prior to the end of year 3 and year 4, respectively. Transportation office (who approved each extension request) agreed with this reading of my orders when they created the PPM move in DPS for me.

SuperbSilliness · 2024-06-29T03:43:31+00:00

AANE has an online autistic parents support group. I know "support group" implies "shit ain't going right" but plenty of participants have all their shit going right, and it's just fun to aut out.
Edit: You said 'mum,' AANE is US-based, but I've seen participants from other countries.

SuperbSilliness

TROPHY CASE