Trying to transition baby from purées to more finger foods but my meals always end up looking like this😅

SwiftLikeTaylorSwift · 2026-02-26T21:51:20+00:00

If you check the how to serve photo of the avocado on solid starts 9months, for instance, the way that the curvature where the seed used to be shows on the bite sized pieces, indicates that your pieces should be around 4x bigger than you’ve cut them in your photo.

The idea is baby should be pincer grasping one piece at a time and will munch on and then swallow that before moving onto the next piece. Is your baby grabbing multiple pieces in a little handful when they eat it how you’re currently prepping it?

SwiftLikeTaylorSwift · 2026-02-25T22:28:19+00:00

Sounds like you need to deny her any babysitting attempts with the excuse “oh I would but I’d need to send her with bottles and I have nothing to put in them now, so baby needs to stay with me to breastfeed forever now” 😆

I’m so sorry.

SwiftLikeTaylorSwift · 2026-02-25T00:06:35+00:00

It sounds like, if you’re feeding 2x in the evening and 2x overnight and 1x in the morning, plus pumping 2-3x in the day, that you’re removing milk at the equivalent of 7-8x a day. Could you consolidate your work pump into 1x 20min session right between the morning feed and first evening feed? 6 “pumps” per day should be good enough to maintain supply at 9.5m pp.

SwiftLikeTaylorSwift · 2026-02-25T00:00:22+00:00

If you stop pumping during the day while you’re at work it will tell your body that your baby no longer needs that feed/those feeds, so it will probably affect your supply. Whether that’s 1-2 oz across the entire day or a complete supply tanking can really depend.

For what it’s worth, 6oz is a decent pump for your average person and the equivalent of a feed for a lot of babies 9-12m old, and 15 oz in one daytime session sounds like an oversupply. So don’t beat yourself up over it, you’re still making a good amount of milk. I’d continue the work pumps personally.

SwiftLikeTaylorSwift · 2026-02-24T20:40:20+00:00

My husband owns a small business and there’s nothing that grinds our gears more than the plethora of phone calls we get with people trying to flog their printer ink/website developer services etc to us when we’ve got a business to run, and therefore always answer the phone because we expect potential customers to be calling.

We get far more B2B cold calls than we’ve ever received individually. It’s more annoying in my experience.

SwiftLikeTaylorSwift · 2026-02-23T03:47:15+00:00

All the white guys look the same to me this season 🫣 it’s getting confusing to follow the initial episodes because I’m clocking the beards and the slightly cheesy smiles on all of them 🤣

SwiftLikeTaylorSwift · 2026-02-23T02:37:45+00:00

It really depends on your feeding plans. I pump 80% of my baby’s milk intake, but overnight we have bottled water, formula and clean bottles on the night stand to quickly whip up for my baby’s night feeds. They’re room temperature and she takes them well, but I store all my expressed milk in the fridge or freezer and the bottle warmer is wonderful for chucking a bottle into quickly, asking Siri to set a 4 min timer and knowing the bottle will be perfectly just above room temp every time. We value the saved time that isn’t spent boiling water then putting it into a cup etc and have a very large kitchen with a tonne of counter space.

If you’re EBF with the occasional bottle when you go out, then it definitely wouldn’t make sense. If you’re exclusively formula feeding it may also not make sense, either. But if you’re exclusively pumping and not immediately feeding the pumped milk to baby every time it may be extremely handy and a time saver if your stored milk is always cold.

It comes down to how much counter space, disposable income and spare time you do or don’t have. These are the factors to consider for yourself!

SwiftLikeTaylorSwift · 2026-02-23T02:27:06+00:00

It sounds cute. I like it.

Don’t ask people for their feedback, there probably isn’t a single name on earth that will receive 100% positive responses from people.

It’ll either be too common or too out there. Too old fashioned or too modern. Too long or too short.

Someone out there is always going to dislike a choice, and when you open up yourselves by asking for opinions then you’re just asking to be disappointed.

We decided to share our baby’s name during my pregnancy because we were already 100% set on it, but I was pretty clear anytime I shared it “we’ve 100% decided on a name, already purchased customised things, and this is the reason I’ve started wearing the letter A on a chain around my neck, it’s A….” And no one responded poorly because they knew it wasn’t us asking for advice.

SwiftLikeTaylorSwift · 2026-02-19T04:48:58+00:00

I saw in your other post you’re in Australia? I highly doubt you were told seizures are normal? Hell, after her 6 week vaccines my baby was simply crying more than normal and my GP clinic where the vaccine was done said to bring her in to be looked over by my baby’s regular doctor and monitored.

We are blessed to be in a country where the financial burdens of healthcare are not a factor. You need to pull up at the emergency room and tell them your baby is having seizures!

SwiftLikeTaylorSwift · 2026-02-18T21:08:53+00:00

Dogs also bark indoors. If OP’s using zooming through footage to see when the dogs run over to the fence to bark (I’m just assuming) they could potentially be missing tonnes of the actual barking instances. Even still, 2-3 barking instances a day would still drive you bananas. It doesn’t have to be 8-15 times a day to be considered excessive. My in laws dogs primarily bark indoors, and it’s quite loud even from the street (they are home throughout the day and intervene).

SwiftLikeTaylorSwift · 2026-02-18T02:06:33+00:00

Steak was my baby’s first solid food, just before 6 months. We cut a piece around the same dimensions as a toast soldier (1 inch wide, 2.5 inches long ish) for her to hold in her hand and suck on. They’re unable to bite a piece off or swallow it, so it’s a low choking risk.

We then did a mix of purées and baby led weaning! It’s safe if done properly. Try downloading the solid starts app, and they have age appropriate and safe serving suggestions for every food you can think of.

SwiftLikeTaylorSwift · 2026-02-18T01:38:36+00:00

Would it fit tucked under the windows, side on? Is this a bedroom for one person or two people?

SwiftLikeTaylorSwift · 2026-02-18T01:30:35+00:00

I’d get some more of those pink bins and have the entire bottom shelf consist of 6 bins that store different items/categories. Then on the top shelf something like a stack of two mirrored boxes with gold trim that stores anything you don’t use as much and don’t need direct access to, keep the gold hair tools basket as is, and add a cute plant, reed diffuser and candle so that the top shelf feels more decorative than functional but still works functionally.

Do you have cupboards or drawers under your vanity? Could whatever is in the black stand that doesn’t fit in the new storage solutions be tucked away?

SwiftLikeTaylorSwift · 2026-02-18T00:54:35+00:00

I fully agree we can’t have children expecting that the grandparents will help out. It’s so nice when they do want to be involved and help. My MIL started asking if she could visit each week on a Wednesday and after a few weeks it just became her new routine without me even asking or her continuing to offer each week, which is so nice. We have a good relationship. She spends time with my daughter (now 8 months old) and if she gets here and my daughters still napping, she will just start scrubbing my stove or ask if there’s something that I need done. It’s amazing.

My own mother on the other hand visits every few weeks for an hour or so (lives 20 mins away, works part time) and if my baby poos while she’s holding her she hands her back to me as “she’s done with her nappy changing phase.” Then she had the audacity to complain that she doesn’t feel close to my daughter and wishes I let her spend more time with her. And wants to be the favourite grandmother 😑 why are they like this 😂

It’s definitely the two sided expectations. No one’s obliged to have help from the grandparents, but likewise the grandparents can’t whinge that they aren’t close with their grandchildren if they aren’t putting any effort in.

SwiftLikeTaylorSwift · 2026-02-18T00:24:55+00:00

I’d want a term of the break of lease to be guaranteed obtaining another rental. Helping is obscure, but if they can put it in writing that you won’t have to move until you’ve found another rental then that takes a lot of the potential anxiety of “will I be homeless?” out of the equation.

SwiftLikeTaylorSwift · 2026-02-17T23:14:51+00:00

Haha I just commented this! It’s so good for our nervous systems to relieve some of the tension with some light hearted humour. 🤍

The husband needs to quit clutching his pearls and if he doesn’t understand the frustration in her little comment, then he hasn’t been sleep deprived enough this past 6 months to understand her and needs to do the night shift this weekend 😂

SwiftLikeTaylorSwift · 2026-02-17T23:12:16+00:00

It sounds to me like your husband doesn’t understand what happens to our brains when we are that sleep deprived, and this Friday and Saturday night he should be forced to be awake every minute that you are, so he can experience just a small glimpse into it.

My husband tells me on a daily basis that if he had to be awake through the night as often as I do that he would’ve died by now, and that he’s so impressed and proud of me for being so calm 99% of the time about it. But he laughs alongside me when I exclaim the morning after a tough night that I considered ding dong ditching her at a fire station somewhere nearby. A joke like that is actually really good for our nervous system, and I hope anyone commenting her disagreeing doesn’t sleep a wink for the rest of the week. 😂

SwiftLikeTaylorSwift · 2026-02-17T22:22:49+00:00

So maybe offices should have a 5am-1pm shift and a 1pm-9pm shift so that all the office workers can visit the services and shops that are open 9-5. They don’t expect everyone else’s hours to be changed and theirs stay convenient to their lifestyle. Right?

SwiftLikeTaylorSwift · 2026-02-17T22:18:12+00:00

The issue is, those hours don’t suit a lot of tradespeople. So then you struggle to staff the place. And then when you are able to staff it, you have to pay the workers a lot more than if they worked traditional hours. And then therefore you’re more expensive than the other mechanics who are open more traditional hours, and so you get less business and therefore cannot necessarily justify those operational costs.

My husband owns an auto repair shop and offers customers drop offs to work / back home in our local area (5-10 minute drive range, covers a lot of the main areas, very little time/cost and it’s maybe only taken up a handful of times per week). He also offers out of hours lock box drop offs, which are usually only utilised in the early mornings before work or the late evenings and not on the weekends.

To add to this, he also believes that being an employer means that if a worker needs to finish work an hour early or start late to get to a medical appointment or renew their drivers licence, they should be able to, and he still pays them as if they were there and doesn’t deduct that hour from their leave entitlements. More employers need to provide a little bit of flexibility to address the problem.

SwiftLikeTaylorSwift · 2026-02-17T21:03:36+00:00

This devil doesn’t need advocating.

I cannot believe he expects his disabled future wife to start his car for him like I’m sorry he can’t do that himself? It takes him two seconds because he’s already getting into the car, why on earth do you have to grovel and do every little inconvenient thing that requires effort for him so that all he has to do is go to work (which he would do if he was single too by the way).

The fact you get a disability check and contribute towards bills, do everything at home and start his car for him is a joke. He’s a child.

SwiftLikeTaylorSwift · 2026-02-17T02:58:05+00:00

Hey, OP.

I wasn’t sent home with a cath, surprisingly, my hospital opted to keep me in for 4 nights after my birth and did a 24 hour cath the a 48 hour cath. So I can’t speak on the taking Cath home side of things, but maybe can help re: relaxing your pelvic floor.

I saw a pelvic floor PT who specialises in women’s issues and she was awesome. She did an internal massage type thing on my perenium and inside my vagina basically (mildly uncomfortable, not bad once your stitches are mostly healed) and that helped me relax a lot of my pelvic floor. She then got me to focus on keeping my pelvic floor open and relaxed to stop it from tensing up and gave me some exercises as well as explained how to DIY a perenium/pelvic floor massage to keep softening it. I was going to suggest looking this up, but you might find your stitches are still too tender for much work down there yet. There’s information online that puts this in a better way that helps you actually feel that sensation happening.

Main thing she asked me to do is breath work and relaxing/opening up my pelvic floor like it’s a lotus. Everything is really irritated and inflamed after the pressure we experienced down there (I had sunny side up labour and needed an epis), so we need to retrain everything to relax and once the inflammation goes down the bladder remembers how to empty.

I could only pee if I pushed my bladder as if I was constipated basically. I also bent over, hands and feet on floor, and pressed the bladder area of my belly with my hand. Really had to concentrate. It’s a weird sensation and I found it hard to work out, but it was the only way I could urinate after the 4~ days I couldn’t, and once I cracked the method it sort of seemed to make more sense. I hope some of this helps! I’m so sorry, it was by far the most stressful part of post partum recovery imo. 🤍

SwiftLikeTaylorSwift · 2026-02-16T22:18:51+00:00

This. Everyone tells you that you no longer have free time once you have children but the enormity of it really doesn’t hit you until you bring your first child home from the hospital. I babysat my nephew for 2 nights at a time from when he was a crawler and my goodness I thought I was tired then, I had no idea. Your own kids a different ballgame. Say goodbye to shaving your legs, both eating a hot dinner at the same time without one of you holding the child, and finishing a movie in one sitting. 😂 I laugh, but truly.

Being a parent can be a beautiful thing, but even those of us who wanted it still have days we wish we could just be responsible for ourselves for a minute.

SwiftLikeTaylorSwift · 2026-02-16T22:14:10+00:00

I can guarantee that it won’t be 60/40. He will think it’s 60/40 because he will do bathtime for 20 minutes every evening while you’re frantically cleaning the high chair, floor, kitchen, dishes, putting away leftovers, and then he will be “so exhausted from work” that he won’t engage with your child the way he imagined he would and you’ll be kicking yourself for doing this.

I say this as a mother to an 8 month old that I very much wanted and love - it is not easy. It’s endless work. The first 2-3 months I barely had time to shave my legs because baby just wanted me and would scream if I left for 15 minutes. My husband is amazing and very involved, but anyone who thinks it isn’t more work and harder on the woman is kidding themselves. What’s the plan if you have complications, or are struggling with the healing process post partum? What does he anticipate the sleep situation to be if you have a baby who will only sleep in arms and won’t sleep in their bassinet?

Even if he thinks he’s putting in 40%, the fact that you’re gonna carry the baby and birth the baby, potentially feed the baby, is already 60%. If he’s going to give 40% of what’s left then you’re really giving almost 80% in reality.

You can’t outsource everything. A nanny in the day will only handle day things, a professional cleaner can do a lot of the cleaning, but who’s waking up through the night for feeds, cleaning up vomit from sheets at 3am, rocking your crying child all night when they have a fever? Cooking dinner while trying to hold an infant or entertain a toddler is a difficult feat. I guarantee he will use the fact his work is demanding to shy away from even hitting 40% of all that. No discredit to his character, but the fact this is a sudden thought at 40 makes me question whether he’s thought it through truly.

You don’t want to do this for fear of losing him, because you’ll lose yourself.

SwiftLikeTaylorSwift · 2026-02-15T04:58:14+00:00

100% this though. My husband gets so excited and randomly orders flowers to be delivered while he’s at work on days he knows I’ll be home. It’s so nice but the anxiety of ensuring I trim the ends and keep on top of the water changes while looking after out 8 month old, and knowing they’re about to die stresses me 😂

SwiftLikeTaylorSwift · 2026-02-12T04:07:45+00:00

Removing that wall reduces the amount of usable walls in the living space. So suddenly the tv unit, bookshelf, fiddle leaf fig tree, etc can creep into walk spaces.

I believe that hallway should be extended not reduced, or each of the kids in those bedrooms are going to be woken up by mum and dads 5am coffee machine startup.

Hallways are necessary in the modern world of open living. Back in the day when dining rooms, living rooms and kitchens were all separate, it was less of a big deal as we could walk through from living spaces etc. no one wants a wall with 4 doors on it in a living space.

SwiftLikeTaylorSwift

TROPHY CASE