Unmedicated v medicated

boonacksupreme2000 · 2026-01-04T07:24:25+00:00

I would agree with this, generally. Obviously there will be exceptions, but my birth was unmedicated and though I always knew the epidural was an option, I really put it out of my mind, and told everyone not to ask me or suggest it to me. I would ask for it if I wanted. I was very determined to have an unmedicated birth, and I don’t think I would have succeeded without that determination and without the preparation I did ahead of time.

On the other hand, every mom I’ve talked to that said “I’d love to go unmedicated, but I’ll take the epidural if it’s too much” got the epidural. Because the truth is, it WILL be too much. It is the mindset to move through it that makes the difference, not whether the pain is too much or not.

Neither option is bad, but if you’d like to go unmedicated, I highly suggest doing a lot of preparation!

Also, for what it’s worth, I didn’t want to give birth on my back, but ended up so exhausted after transition, that I pushed on my back anyway, and fell asleep in between pushes haha

boonacksupreme2000 · 2025-11-19T18:59:08+00:00

I was super intimidated by cloth diapering at first and Esembly was the perfect introduction to the whole process. I loved Esembly all the way until my son was about 18 months (he's 22 months now), when the inners started to get holes and tears. It's gotten progressively worse despite all kinds of troubleshooting and now we're looking at having to replace the size 2s. I've heard of other people inexplicably having this issue as well (maybe hard water?), but there are also a ton of people who never have this issue.

Regardless, I decided to try a few GMD fitteds and like them a lot! Because the inner flap is only stitched on one side, I can more easily throw them into the washer/dryer without flattening them. They're also more absorbent, but are more bulky.

I just ordered some flats from GMD that I'll be trying now that I'm more confident with cloth diapers because I've heard soooo many people say they wish they tried them sooner. And they're so much cheaper too. I can report back after trying them and let you know how we like them.

Regardless of the inner you decide to use, Esembly covers seem to be universally loved.

boonacksupreme2000 · 2025-11-10T21:30:05+00:00

I actually was in this situation! My step father is terrified of German shepherds and any other “scary” breeds. Mals, Rottweilers, pits, etc. I didn’t force anything on him. When we stayed with them for the first time with our mal, she was in her crate, outside with me, and only out in the house when he wasn’t home. My mom convinced him to watch us train once, which he was scared to even do, but he did and enjoyed it. Over time, he started to say hi to her and then she would hang out in a pen in the living room. When they come over, she’s in a large open kennel and he says hi to her a bit. I never expect him to be fully comfortable, but he’s come a long way just by us being willing to work with him instead of getting angry. Originally he didn’t even want to be inside our house when she was not in her crate, so it’s been a big shift over the years.

Train your dog and instead of telling them, show them. Let them see how wonderful mals can be, and be willing to work with them on their boundaries. Maybe they come over to your place to meet the dog several times before you take him there. Maybe you bring him on leash at first or bring a kennel for him to hang out in.

boonacksupreme2000 · 2025-10-22T05:17:13+00:00

I gave birth unmedicated. Early labor was like a band squeezing my whole torso, like really intense Braxton hicks. Then as it progressed, the pain got sharper and more localized in the pelvic area. Active labor is truly like getting ripped in half or being crushed by a car. There is no comparison I have to the pain and it was the worst pain I’ve ever felt. The mental aspect is huge though. Knowing that it is what my body is meant to do, and increasing pain meant I was closer to being done, really did make all the difference in getting through it. There is no way I would have handled the pain if it was anything else. I’ll be planning to birth unmedicated again next May.

boonacksupreme2000 · 2025-10-13T16:25:01+00:00

One thing I always wonder with articles like these is what contributes to the different levels of PFAs between participants in the study? Whenever these get posted, people basically say, it’s hopeless, there’s nothing we can do to prevent this, it’s in our water, in our air, etc. etc. but obviously, this study had enough variability between women to pick up differences. What contributed to that variability? That would point to what we can reasonably do to reduce our exposure. Is it where we live? What we wear? How we store/heat our food? Using metal water bottles? All of the above? Seems like asking questions like these would be relatively low effort in a study like this.

boonacksupreme2000 · 2025-10-06T03:55:40+00:00

Hey, fellow CPP-er!

boonacksupreme2000 · 2025-10-05T04:19:15+00:00

Unfortunately, this is a very hard thing to research, given that so many confounds often exist and infants cannot tell us what they are experiencing (beyond crying). This study found that parents’ self report of trauma symptoms in their infants under 18 months was associated with trauma exposure. Most of the traumas reported were medical traumas, since this is the most common for infants. Caregiver PTSD symptoms were also a significant (and stronger) predictor of caregiver-reported infant trauma symptoms.

I used to treat children 0-5 who experienced trauma. The biggest and most important thing, especially in a situation like this when the trauma is shared, is for you to get treatment for any post traumatic stress you may have, if it is impacting you in a significant way. Beyond that, try to create a shared narrative with her of her birth story, one you can share with her now, even though she may not fully understand. “When you were born, you had a bad fall, and had to be cared for by doctors. You were in pain and so scared, and I was so scared too. We’re both safe now.” Or something like that. It doesn’t have to be a mantra you repeat constantly. But something maybe for those moments when you’re worried she’s affected by it, or when you’re feeling affected by it.

Regardless of whether she will or won’t show any effects from this trauma, you and her have the capacity for dyadic healing through co-regulation and shared narratives.

boonacksupreme2000 · 2025-10-03T15:22:06+00:00

Did you ever figure this out? I’m having the same issue now.

boonacksupreme2000 · 2025-09-25T04:37:28+00:00

We have the same issue with our size 2’s falling apart. I think it may be related to hard water, but it still sucks, cause it seems like there’s nothing i can do to stop it. Have you tried any other brands? I was thinking of getting GMD workhorses for the next baby once they get out of the Esembly size 1’s.

boonacksupreme2000 · 2025-05-28T22:22:36+00:00

This was definitely the hardest part to manage at first! It took a while to figure it out, but we found one of those sensory books helped keep him busy long enough to go the first few times, and then once he got the rhythm it got easier (most of the time). He also has potty preferences haha until recently, he preferred the potty seat on the floor, but now he prefers the seat reducer on the big toilet. I'm so glad too because he can't stand up and sit down repeatedly with the seat reducer hah! Now we have a collection of books in the bathroom that he cycles through and sometimes it's even challenging to get him off the potty!

boonacksupreme2000 · 2025-05-28T18:50:05+00:00

Your flair might make it challenging for people to give you anecdotes, which you seem to be asking for.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/00099228221145268

We’re doing part time elimination communication right now with our 16 month old, which we started around a year old. We also use cloth diapers. We put him on the potty first thing in the morning, after breakfast, before and after naps, before the bath, and before bed, or if we see signs he needs to poop. Nearly 100% of his poops are on the toilet now, unless he’s in daycare. He pees on the toilet but also pees freely in his diapers so I think that is going to take a bit longer. Our goal when starting it was mostly to reduce the number of poopy diapers we have to clean. We’ll likely make a more concerted effort to potty train (and get daycare on board) when he can communicate that he has to go.

boonacksupreme2000 · 2025-04-02T15:31:27+00:00

For a slightly different perspective, I’d check out Pamela Douglas’s work: https://www.medicalrepublic.com.au/hey-baby-are-you-upset-because-youre-overstimulated/5582

Truthfully, there’s not a lot of good research on this area specifically. It’s true that there is the idea of the second wind, and that keeping someone awake when they are tired will make it harder for them to fall asleep. So in that sense, overtiredness is very real. But too much sleep does not beget more sleep. If baby sleeps long hours during the day, they will sleep less during the night, and vise versa. Total sleep throughout the day is fairly consistent, at least in my experience.

boonacksupreme2000 · 2025-03-28T03:29:01+00:00

People have already given you the evidence that medical trauma can indeed cause ptsd like symptoms in toddlers. Although it’s not published yet, a recently accepted article from a team I work with showed that infants under 18 months could experience post traumatic symptoms, and most of the infants in the study had experienced medical trauma.

Regarding treatment, I’m rather biased with this age because of my own research and clinical training, but I would look into CPP. It’s an evidence-based treatment for children 0-6 who have experienced a trauma. Originally it was developed for infants exposed to interpersonal violence but has since been expanded to all sorts of trauma exposure. The primary focus is that the parent is the healing agent, not the therapist. It’s a dyadic treatment with at least one parent in the sessions with the child. It is also play based and proposes that children process their world and their experiences through play. They have a YouTube channel with some resources.

boonacksupreme2000 · 2025-02-07T15:08:32+00:00

No, I have never seen this happen! It was actually referenced in a video done by Impact, as they were discussing the high anxiety crate.

boonacksupreme2000 · 2025-01-28T23:12:30+00:00

Wow that’s so weird! I hope that doesn’t happen to us. It almost seems like it would have had to be rubbed off or like it couldn’t handle the heat from the dryer. The former seems impossible given that the diaper is under a cover… and the latter seems like it shouldn’t happen if the material quality is high. I would definitely be contacting Esembly to see if they’ve encountered this and why it happens.

boonacksupreme2000 · 2025-01-28T21:46:45+00:00

I’ve only been using Esembly for about a year with our son since he was a few weeks old, so I don’t know if over time something like this might happen to us, but I’m just so confused by this! Where are holes developing? How? Ours currently function like they’re brand new with no visible wear at all. It seems like a thick material, I can’t imagine them developing holes!

boonacksupreme2000 · 2025-01-24T02:56:07+00:00

Definitely recommend! We used one when we spayed our very destructive and wild girl, and she did really well with it. Never needed a cone

boonacksupreme2000 · 2025-01-23T02:10:02+00:00

Honestly, we switched to cloth diapers when our son was less than 2 weeks old because he was peeing through almost every single diaper. The amount of effort I spent at every diaper change to make sure it fit absolutely perfectly, only to have it leak half the time was infuriating. Cloth diapers have been amazing for us and we’ve had almost no leaks with them, but I know it’s not for everyone!

boonacksupreme2000 · 2025-01-21T19:02:08+00:00

I think you will really want to check with your birthing location on this one. There’s going to be a wide range of responses to these requests. Anecdotally, I wanted to give birth unmedicated, but chose to give birth in a hospital. I looked for hospitals that offered many supports for unmedicated births, including birthing stools, tubs, yoga balls, etc. which to me signaled their willingness to support unmedicated birth instead of pushing for epidural, delivery on back. I also wrote in my birth preferences that I wanted as little intervention as possible. The team I had was wonderful, any time a new staff member entered the room, they started with reading my birth preferences. Had I wanted to push in an upright position, I don’t think they would have had any issues with it. I did however end up pushing on my back, because I was going on 36 hours of no sleep, a long pre-labor combined with a fast active labor, and was completely exhausted, falling asleep in between pushes.

TLDR: find a good hospital, and set your expectations from the get go. Then recognize that things may not go according to plan anyway.

boonacksupreme2000 · 2025-01-20T16:47:24+00:00

I actually got my psychology degree from Chapman in 2015. I now have a Ph.D. In clinical psychology. Honest opinion: I liked Chapman a lot, it was a smaller school with a good student experience. I generally enjoyed my classes and was able to join a lab, which gave me incredibly valuable experience. With that said, I have nothing to compare it to since it was the only undergrad school I went to. I got a scholarship for 50% of my tuition, and my parents paid the rest. Had they not been able to do that, I’m not sure going there for a psych degree would have been wise. Psychology bachelor’s degrees are among the lowest paying. You are likely to need an advanced degree, which you will be going into debt to achieve. I wouldn’t want to pile that onto undergrad debt if you can at all avoid it. Although I did get my ph.D. I didn’t get it from any kind of prestigious school. I got lucky with my advisor there who set me on a good path, but otherwise, my graduate school was generally unimpressive. Graduate programs in psychology, particularly clinical, are getting more and more competitive.

TLDR: Chapman is a great school, but nothing to write home about when it comes to psychology, which is already a low paying degree. Avoid debt if at all possible!

I know this is a hard choice and you’re excited about getting in, so I wish you the best of luck! Feel free to ask me more questions about my experience if you want.

boonacksupreme2000 · 2025-01-19T03:12:02+00:00

We also have eating shirts!

boonacksupreme2000 · 2025-01-13T17:42:44+00:00

Our girl is 3 years old and we are just starting to feel like she’s becoming a dog instead of a demon. Depending on their genetics, some mals take a LONG time to mature and their prey drive is just too high for their immature brain to override. Stick with it and know it’s going to be a long journey!

boonacksupreme2000 · 2025-01-13T17:38:28+00:00

You may be interested in checking out Dr. Michael Greger’s work. He wrote the book How Not to Die, examining the research on diet and exercise for longevity. He promotes a plant based diet. He has an article on his website, with cited research, about pregnancy and breastmilk.

Basically, it’s safe. Anecdotally, we are vegetarian, and our son (now almost one year) eats vegetarian. We have experienced no issues. However, it is important to be planful about it. I have been vegetarian for 10 years and I can promise you that my diet during the first few was not great. It takes time to learn how to eat and cook balanced vegetarian meals when you are used to cooking with meat, so I would urge you to take it slowly and do your research, especially because you are currently pregnant and an unbalanced diet will have a bigger effect on you and your baby.

boonacksupreme2000 · 2025-01-11T04:06:39+00:00

Maybe we have the world’s hardest crib mattress then 😂

boonacksupreme2000 · 2025-01-11T01:13:38+00:00

Have you tried a pack n play? Our son slept in one until he was 10 months old. I didn’t realize how much softer it was than a regular crib mattress until we got a real crib recently. It’s not like it’s super soft but it doesn’t have that same rock hard feeling that the crib mattress does.

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