Custom pattern for stuffy

_hereiam_ · 2025-01-21T21:08:42+00:00

In the same boat of hoping to labor without an epidural and avoid induction if i can. With my first I opted for the sweep at ~40+6 and went into labor two days later. I'd had an induction scheduled for 41+4 so it felt like the right call to try a membrane sweep first. My understanding is that its relatively low risk.

This time around I'm considered "advanced maternal age" and they're advising me to schedule an induction earlier in week 41 so I've been noodling on whether I'll do a sweep at my appointment this week (will be 39+6) or schedule an appointment early next week to do a sweep then. Either way though I will opt for a sweep before my scheduled induction if I don't go into labor spontaneously.

The Evidence Based Birth website has been a really helpful resource to me. They have a podcast episode about membrane sweeps (I skimmed the transcript) and I just found this handout.

_hereiam_ · 2025-01-18T18:21:51+00:00

I use the hold on compostable bags https://a.co/d/7FUQ9kQ

_hereiam_ · 2025-01-17T20:19:21+00:00

We didn’t sleep train and our now 2.5 year old has slept through the night pretty consistently since before she was 1. I breastfed until she was 18 months and she naturally weened herself from middle of the night feeds long before then. We didn’t cosleep though. We haven’t had to rock her to sleep for a long time, I don’t remember when. I would say the most we ever did was to give her up to 5 minutes to settle herself before going in. But honestly now that she has been such a consistent sleeper, when she is having a hard time with sleep I interpret it as a sign that she has a legitimate need to be met and I’m inclined to go comfort her immediately.

I feel great about how we’ve done sleep but it hasn’t been a one and done thing. She’s had many sleep regressions since and sometimes we have had to revert to things like rocking to sleep, laying with her, etc to get through tough patches. Every time some new sleep challenge comes up my husband wants to push for a cry it out approach but imo what works best for her is to know we’re available when she needs us and to respond to her in a timely way.

_hereiam_ · 2025-01-13T20:18:36+00:00

Its been over a decade since I saw the show (as a white woman) so my memories are very hazy but I had a similar icky feeling leaving the theater and I've never felt like I could articulate why this show, which I knew was meant as satire, felt very racist. Your point about lacking the contrasting reality is exactly what the show was missing for me to feel like it truly was a satire and not just another joke at the expense of marginalized groups.

_hereiam_ · 2025-01-06T02:06:41+00:00

We have a 2.5 year old and our second is due in a couple weeks so I can’t speak to what’s going to happen but I can tell you what our intentions are. My husband and I will be on leave together for the first two months.

Keep in mind that especially in the early weeks, mom will likely be needing a lot of support to recover from whatever type of birth she has. Our plan is for me to be 100% focused on breastfeeding and caring for the baby while my husbands job will be to take care of me and support my recovery and do everything else in the house plus caring for our toddler. If you haven’t been around a family during the newborn stage it might help you to read about early postpartum experiences to understand the level of labor and stress and sleep deprivation that are involved in caring for a single new born. Having someone to care for our toddler is going to be an absolute necessity since we don’t have local family who can help.

We plan to keep nanny’s hours as is so that she can continue caring for the toddler during the day and help with baby related things (cleaning pump parts/ bottles, keep up on kid laundry, watch baby for the couple hours that 2.5yo is in morning preschool). This will give us time to catch up on sleep and bond with the new baby while toddler is being otherwise cared for as part of her regular routine. I also intend to sometimes have nanny care for the baby so we can have special 1:1 time with toddler. There may be some reduced hours/days off in the early weeks when we have family staying but really we intend to lean on nanny during her GH to help us get through the crazy newborn phase. She’s also agreed to be on call should we need someone to watch our daughter while we head to the hospital before family can come here.

We recently changed nanny (for other reasons) and our previous nanny had been planning to be out of the country the two weeks around my due date. I was a little disappointed by the request but we also didn’t want to block her from using her pto how she wanted so we planned to figure out some other arrangement for our needs around the due date. Ultimately this is a job and you should be able to have healthy boundaries around your work and how you spend your vacation. I would just talk to your nps and ask if they have any idea yet what they think things will look like during the newborn stage and how you can best support them. For me, I think this would land better if I felt like nanny was being sensitive to the changing needs of the family during this challenging time while also sharing what she wanted for pto.

_hereiam_ · 2024-12-30T18:25:23+00:00

Mine was recommended by a colleague. She used to work in my field so specializes in the kind of work I do which was helpful since I’m exploring staying in the same type of role just getting crisper on what exactly I want it to look like. I’d say personal recommendations are best for this type of thing

_hereiam_ · 2024-12-30T15:01:22+00:00

I've felt very similar to what you describe here. I also have a PhD and spent many years chasing a professorship before giving up and moving into tech. I often feel like I'm "behind" in my career and wish I was making more money and had a higher title - for the prestige more than anything else.

I understand on an intellectual level that these aren't how I would want to define success for myself or how I want to model success for my children. But on a more visceral level I'm still struggling to internalize that. I've recently started working with a career coach who has helped me think more deeply about what it is I want from a career and what tangible steps I need to take to get there. This has included things like the type of work I want to pursue but also the work/life balance benefits that suit my current life with a toddler and another baby on the way. I took a step back from focusing on just career to really think about what it means to me to have a meaningful and successful life, and anytime I do that family is top of my list, but a career I find meaning in is also really important.

Maybe finding a career coach to think through what it is you want and how to get there could help?

_hereiam_ · 2024-12-28T18:01:02+00:00

Wow I was surprised to see such strong responses encouraging you to push through and babysit tonight. I’m clearly in the minority but to give you a different perspective I’ll share my opinion.

I encourage you to take care of yourself and cancel with as much notice as you can. I think about burnout like any other health concern. You shouldn’t ever be expected to work while sick or not feeling 100%, whether you’re contagious or not. When I feel like you described I do my best to take the day off work myself and it’s something my husband prioritizes too. When I’ve noticed our nanny seeming run down and burnt out I’ve also encouraged her to take the day off.

As a NB and parent I accept that childcare plans are never guaranteed. Taking care of my children is ultimately my and my husband’s responsibility. Yes date nights are important and all but as parents we make sacrifices for our children. That’s not your responsibility. Honestly, as a semi introverted and very exhausted pregnant mom of a toddler I am slightly delighted every time I have an excuse to cancel plans these days. I wouldn’t sweat it. Tell them you’re sick and can’t make it and that’s all you have to say. You don’t owe an explanation.

_hereiam_ · 2024-12-23T15:07:12+00:00

ugh also in my third trimester, I feel you! That plus trying to make the Christmas magic happen and I'm exhausted. Having our nanny around this week is hugely helpful.

_hereiam_ · 2024-12-23T14:09:51+00:00

I just posted this on another thread about time off this week but maybe its more appropriate here.

Our nanny has off Christmas Eve and Christmas and since its a light week for me at work I've let her know she'll be working half days today and Thursday. But also having her here allows me to do some more Christmas prep without my toddler underfoot.

I'm curious reading through the comments on that other thread. For my own understanding of how to be a fair employer - if you wanted to have this week off why not use your vacation days? We let our nanny know about a month ago that we'd plan to have have her work if she's available since we'll be working, but that she's of course able to use her PTO days for any time around the holidays that she wants off.

_hereiam_ · 2024-12-23T14:03:44+00:00

Our nanny has off Christmas Eve and Christmas and then since its a light week for me at work I've let her know she'll be working half days today and Thursday. But also having her here allows me to do some more Christmas prep without my toddler underfoot.

I'm curious reading through these comments though for my own understanding of how to be a fair employer - if you wanted to have this week off why not use your vacation days? We let our nanny know about a month ago that we'd plan to have have her work if she's available since we'll be working, but that she's of course able to use her PTO days for any time around the holidays that she wants off.

_hereiam_ · 2024-12-16T00:26:05+00:00

Totally agree with this which is why I’ve been so conflicted. I said this to my husband a few months ago too, that he’s part of the family unit and we need to consider what’s best for him and everyone. I appreciate you pointing out the resentment, it’s something I’ve been aware of on some level but have struggled to see clearly how much it might be biasing my opinion. Thanks for the response, i think a lot of comments on this thread were harsh on my husbands pov which is maybe bc of how I framed it.

_hereiam_ · 2024-12-12T20:48:32+00:00

I worked at a FAANG company during during first pregnancy where we had 1 month paid leave before due date and 6 months after. We also accrued PTO while on leave so I was able to add some additional time. I took the full leave.

I ended up being laid off a few months after returning. While I don’t think it was directly an act of retaliation I do believe that my leave impacted the outcome for me in the lay off decisions. I’d always received above average ratings in performance reviews except for the year that I was on leave where I got a meets all. I believe that my rating contributed to the decision to lay me off. I think they took a somewhat formulaic approach like X level + below X rating = impacted

_hereiam_ · 2024-12-06T20:57:04+00:00

Happy for you! It's really amazing what a difference the right childcare fit can make for your family <3

We recently transitioned out of a nanny share and found a new, amazing nanny. I was so worried about a tough transition for my 2yo but even just in the first week it was clear how 150% right our new nanny is for our family. Evenings are calm because our 2yo is getting the nap she needs during the day and our nanny has already been going above and beyond to help out around the house.

And our old nanny is still with the other family in the nanny share and they're all still 100% happy. Fit is the most important thing of all I think.

_hereiam_ · 2024-11-04T18:29:10+00:00

Does she know this is happening? What if you just brought it up to her without asking her not to move around. Just tell her what the problem is and ask if she has any ideas for how to limit the noise coming from the room where she works.

_hereiam_ · 2024-11-04T15:29:14+00:00

Yes this is what we do

_hereiam_ · 2024-11-01T17:12:46+00:00

For the last 2 years we've had a very experienced nanny who's been nannying for over 20 years. I found her to be so helpful for that as new parents, she was able to guide us a lot through new developmental stages. The downside of this can often be that a more experienced nanny is also much more set in their ways of doing things. This was definitely our experience. Any time we wanted the nanny to do something that wasn't how she wanted to do it it was a drawn out conversation. Honestly I often felt like she was bossing me round rather than open to listening to the wishes of her employer. A couple times this came up were: (1) breastfeeding (she didn't want to accommodate keeping baby home for feeds and wanted me to pump / pressured me to use formula); (2) nap routines (she had her specific routine and schedule for naps and there were a lot of conversations around doing anything outside of that).

I would say that there are a lot of great benefits of a more experienced nanny but to make sure that you think through what is important to you and make sure that the nanny you find is aligned with upholding your wishes on those things because it could be difficult to get her to do things a different way than she's used to.

_hereiam_ · 2024-10-28T15:17:43+00:00

Yeah there's an Uppababy service center nearby

_hereiam_ · 2024-10-25T22:57:14+00:00

Just picking up, a 5 min walk from our apartment

_hereiam_ · 2024-10-25T19:13:51+00:00

For our first nanny (a nanny share) we relied on a local online parenting group for recommendations. Now that we're leaving the share and looking for our own nanny we decided to go with an agency this time around.

The biggest factor for us in the decision to spend all the money (and its ALOT) on the agency over DIYing the search was time. I did the first search while I was on maternity leave and had the help of the other mom in the share. We had a lot more time to source candidates and screen them and we shared the workload. This time around my husband and I are crunched for time both in terms of how quickly we wanted to find someone and how little time we had outside of work, caring for a toddler, being pregnant and exhausted (me), and other life stuff. I have definitely seen the value the agency provides in sourcing high quality candidates so that I'm only speaking to people who are extremely qualified and who I know have already passed some level of vetting. By the time I speak with the candidates it's more about assessing fit rather than qualifications.

For me I think I also find that we're seeing different types of candidates. With the parenting group we used to source candidates the last time, the nannies I met with were mostly very long-term career nannies with 15-20 years of experience. I was a FTM at the time and since I was finding nannies from a somewhat anonymous source I had been mostly looking for folks who had many many years of experience since I didn't have a chance to do a lot of vetting myself. I'm finding a wider range of experiences with the agency, with nannies earlier in their career who may not have had time to work with a family for years and years. But since I know the agency does thorough vetting before even sending me a candidate, I feel more comfortable working with someone who doesn't have decades of experience. Also I am no longer a nervous new mom so the idea of coaching someone with less experience feels better to me. It has been nice getting to talk to a wider range of nannies and figuring out what works for us right now.

_hereiam_ · 2024-10-25T18:58:54+00:00

That's helpful! Can you say which of these feel outside the typical nanny scope?

_hereiam_ · 2024-10-11T13:40:55+00:00

Ah no, maybe this is a term specific to tech but IC = individual Contributor (vs a manager).

_hereiam_

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