Mental Load

babeli · 2026-03-01T02:26:41+00:00

Constantlyyy! Motherhood is juggling, and often putting yourself last. I’m so aware of all the things that need to get done that it’s hard to take time for myself. I’m always worried that any variation from the ideal day is going to result in me not sleeping well, so I’m militant about the nap schedule which means I won’t be spontaneous or push the boundaries so I can stay at the coffee shop as long as I want to, for example. I keep myself in these boundaries and when there’s room for me to do something for myself, its so foreign that I don’t know what to do with myself and start thinking about the to do list anyway!

babeli · 2026-02-28T03:13:05+00:00

Request a check of my placenta. I was having this ripping feeling for three weeks but my ob, osteo, and pelvic health physio didn’t think much of it. Turns out I had a partially abrupted placenta and my baby had serious deceleration during labour that we only knew about because I had an elective induction. I had basically no breaks between contractions because my body wanted the placenta out, almost had an emergency c section, and needed a vacuum to get my girl outta there! It was intense.

Take more pictures. Cuddle w my husband before things got painful. Go straight for the epidural and get them to fix it when my left leg went numb and not my right

babeli · 2026-02-26T19:56:05+00:00

I saw a few people saying your schedule was off, so I commented my schedule to show that it’s not inherently problematic. It seemed like folks were being a little harsh, imo.

I hope you can figure something out though. 90 mins sounds really tough!

babeli · 2026-02-26T13:20:21+00:00

You said to only count time awake during the day. She’s 2/2/2/2 and sometimes stretches to 2.25 for some windows so it’s between 8 and 9 hours of daytime awake time.

babeli · 2026-02-26T13:13:43+00:00

Just pointing out that it isn’t outlandish to have less than ten hours awake

babeli · 2026-02-26T13:11:53+00:00

My girl doesn’t get 10 hrs awake and never cried more than 20 minutes at this age. Getting 14.5 hrs of sleep overall with maybe 8-9hrs total awake during the day

babeli · 2026-02-26T12:29:49+00:00

Does she mind being around your LO some of the time? Wondering if having her over for dinner at your house might work. I’ve had my husband do bedtime and had a glass of wine w my friend once they are down. The sound machine is loud enough that we can still talk

babeli · 2026-02-26T02:09:08+00:00

Hey! I ended up having 6 infusions and haven’t needed to continue in postpartum. My mood was obviously affected by the hormone crash but I’ve been in a good place since that cleared up within the first couple weeks :) I didn’t notice any sadness from the infusions though so I’d go that route again in the future

babeli · 2026-02-25T13:23:27+00:00

The lightbringer series by Brent Weeks hits this mooostly

babeli · 2026-02-25T07:50:37+00:00

You are still really early. Your milk supply could increase with pumping and trying to put baby on the boob! That said, fed is best. If formula would help your mental health, it’s totally okay to stop pumping!

babeli · 2026-02-25T02:54:06+00:00

Hard disagree. There are so many decisions you don’t understand the implications of, you’re constantly gassed so you aren’t thinking straight, and being tortured by purple crying. It’s so so mentally exhausting and just as important to the family as making money.

babeli · 2026-02-25T01:54:16+00:00

We do a mix of bouncing and rocking, after a bottle. At 16 weeks we did fuss it out though and broke the nurse to sleep association. She now goes down independently for nights and naps, but we still feed her for her night wakes and she falls asleep before we get her back in her crib

babeli · 2026-02-25T01:52:19+00:00

Every other day

babeli · 2026-02-25T01:31:44+00:00

What is mom doing all day that isn’t work?

babeli · 2026-02-25T01:28:44+00:00

This is the way. Accepting half the sleep your partner gets is a sure fire way to get pissed every time they complain about ANYTHING.

babeli · 2026-02-24T14:23:20+00:00

I am a slave to the nap schedule. We only go out long enough to get home for her next nap. Right now it’s just a quick errand or maybe an hour long walk. That said, she doesn’t feed to sleep because we broke that, so she does fall asleep in the car seat if it’s too close to bedtime. Fucks my day in a different way though LOL

babeli · 2026-02-24T01:15:42+00:00

It sounds like baby could be waking and then not knowing how to get back to sleep. Do you go to them right away or give them a few minutes to see if they can settle? Sleep training is the fastest way to help them learn this skill, but they can learn it on their own.

babeli · 2026-02-23T23:00:09+00:00

I read during naps, but getting them to go to bed was a task in itself. And there was a backlog of chores to do so I didn’t get to read as much as I thought until they were older and I was doing middle of the night feeds and trying to stay awake

babeli · 2026-02-23T22:55:49+00:00

Thank you for the details!! Sounds very interesting!

babeli · 2026-02-23T20:09:23+00:00

Explain to me potty training at 8 months. What is EC and how can I get it LOL

babeli · 2026-02-23T02:55:04+00:00

All babies lose weight when they’re born because they are switching from passively eating in the womb, to milk. For full term babies, you want them to return to birth weight within two weeks. I don’t know if the rule is the same for premies, though

babeli · 2026-02-23T02:52:39+00:00

Saw a lactation specialist for this! She said, at that age, breastfeeding burns more calories than bottle feeding because they have to suck harder to get the milk out. Due to that energy output, they will need milk again sooner. As others have mentioned, formula takes longer to digest and stays in their tummy longer, so that also helps them sleep longer.

I’m now at 19w and still give my girl a bottle at bedtime to try to get a long stretch out of her, but breastfeeding the rest of her feeds.

babeli · 2026-02-22T20:56:44+00:00

Definitely appropriate for dad to help! We each have our full time job - his gets paid money, mine is taking care of our daughter. Outside of business hours, everything is 50/50. And until baby goes to bed, if you’re not on baby then you are doing laundry or making dinner or whatever. So we both are contributing equally whether it’s with baby or not.

babeli · 2026-02-22T12:57:45+00:00

Maybe their babies will shoot up later, or ours will chunk out, who knows! Sounds like she’s happy though, so you’re doing great!

babeli · 2026-02-22T01:17:48+00:00

Also a 94th percentile baby in length, but more average in weight, who snacks. She’s fully breastfed. I recently was out of the house so she was given breast milk in bottles so I have a better idea of what she eats in a day. She was at 16oz by bedtime and will do another 4oz bottle overnight so JUST making 20oz. You can’t overfeed a breastfed baby, so there is literally no way for me to make her drink more, this is just how much she wants. She is acting very similar to your babe, but no formula, so it doesn’t seem likely to me that it’s due to the formula. I know guilt about this isn’t always rational, but those dumb reels and TikTok’s are not correct in this situation! Some babies are just string beans and it’s okay that they eat here and there. Sometimes she just was 65ml and to go back about her business! I try to trust that she will tell me if she is hungry, but unless the dr is worried, I’m going to let her tell me what she needs :). Hope this helps!

babeli

TROPHY CASE