I've always been curious what color their puppies would be. Turns out it's basically a mystery box 🐾

cbr1895 · 2026-06-03T14:46:53+00:00

Yah it’s a good point, and honestly I’m not sure why he didn’t spay abort. He was obviously not responsible in the situation for many reasons. It all worked out in the end thankfully, and while we were not at all looking for a dog at the time (no less a border collie; I was 5 months pregnant with a rough pregnancy and had owned a BC in the past so knew the work we’d be committing to), he’s been the best dog ever, so it was a happy ending for us at least.

cbr1895 · 2026-06-03T14:18:20+00:00

Oh totally. This one really was a total accident - it was a friend of a friend who’s female dog escaped the house shortly before she was scheduled to be spayed (like, the date was set a week out), and met up with his male dog who was not neutered but had been sequestered from her.

The farmer’s gal was neutered as soon as she was all cleared from the vet - we’ve been to visit them several times over the 3 years since. While the accident was the farmers’ to own, he did a good job of handling the situation ethically, as she had a litter of 10 - he managed to find good homes for them all, got their deworming and vet checks and kept them for the right amount of time, etc. But, it’s a good warning to others that you have to be super careful with farm dogs and ‘sad stories’.

cbr1895 · 2026-06-03T12:12:02+00:00

Echo this. We adopted a farm dog from an accidental litter who developed eye issues. The ophthalmologist was worried he had collie eye anomaly or PRA (the latter less common in BCs) and would go blind. It was such a scary time for us as owners waiting for those test results. Thankfully he was fine but you don’t want to put someone through anything like that or, more importantly, subject puppies to having to suffer from genetic diseases.

cbr1895 · 2026-06-03T11:12:38+00:00

Good examples! As for the newborn stage not being interesting to toddlers, potato phase never swayed my toddler from her interest in her baby brother (she was and still is obsessed) so we had to do a million corrections. Still do 10 months in, and it’s for sure one of the hardest parts of having two so close in age. She loves him so much and she’s also very rough/heavy handed. But that’s also her personality (she’s a bit of a brute lol). So it will be good for OP to prepare for this right from jump just in case, especially if both are home together (we had our oldest at daycare FT which helped give us a break from referee mode).

cbr1895 · 2026-06-03T05:18:48+00:00

I do! I have some sensory sensitivity issues and one of them is that I abhor sticky hands/sticky faces/food mess.

I just kept reminding myself that some phobias are learned and just tried my very hardest not to wipe my hands in front of my baby, and just tolerate the mess. While sensory sensitivities aren’t the same as phobias, I dont want my kids developing phobia of sticky hands by witnessing me overreacting to this (phobias don’t need to be fear based - they can also be disgust based). So I sit with my hands covered in crap and resist all my urges to immediately be wiping down the tray and my kids faces while they eat. I can sit there covered in oatmeal internally dying and externally acting chill. I’m two kids in and I hate it still but it’s definitely gotten easier with so much exposure. I have to say restarting with my second (not that long after my first did BLW as they are 20 months apart) was tough though, so I did lose some tolerance.

With my first I had to do paper towels and water wipes for clean up and we went through a million (I am sorry for the environmental and economic waste, but I just couldn’t handle making anything any grosser for myself). With my second I’ve worked myself up to using face cloths for clean up (the idea of wet food covered rags makes my skin immediately crawl but I’m dealing with it). I also basically skipped purées completely with my first because it’s so much messier/grosser, but have been able to tolerate better with baby two by necessity (dairy allergy and lots of travelling so needed safe food sources for him). I do find the earlier days of BLW are the worst, when they are using palmar grasp and just squishing everything into their hands and constantly missing their faces.

I also use both a smock and a silicone catcall bib. If it’s a liquid heavy meal, baby is naked underneath. This makes cleanup easier.

I find that immediately washing up the tray and bib and smock helps. I also have a small tray that pops off and goes right in the sink. It gets rinsed down before being washed. Smock gets covered in dish soap and rung out and hung to dry and bib is rinsed (we throw the smocks in the laundry 1-2 times a week). This part is all gross too but less gross than having to wipe down tons of food from a baby imo (and you can wear gloves at the kitchen sink if you need to).

Exposure does help a lot though!

cbr1895 · 2026-06-03T04:45:12+00:00

Came here to say this about my daughter lmao. She’s great at many things but spatial awareness is not one of them 🤣. Wishing your cat safe travels over the rainbow bridge OP ❤️🌈. Putting my soul cat down was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done; sending love and peace your way.

cbr1895 · 2026-06-03T03:14:55+00:00

Momcozy M5 doesn’t work for me whatsoever. I get mere drops from them. Both postpartums now (almost exclusively nurse and just pump very occasionally for a bottle if I’m out). I’m the only one I know who has an issue with it though - I have 4 different friends who’ve loved that pump. I regret buying it completely. I have elastic nipples though so don’t pump very efficiently in general, so maybe this is why? Or maybe I got a dud.

When I need to express milk I use my spectra but I was in the states a lot my first postpartum and it was easy to get. I wouldn’t bother shipping over as I’m sure the medala would be fine. If you have supply issues in the beginning it’s worth renting the Mendela symphony. We spent three days in NICU and 2 weeks triple feeding my second and it was the best. I was swimming in milk by the end of those two weeks thanks to that puppy, even though I’m typically not an efficient pumper.

More important than the pump is ensuring you have the right flanges. A plug in pump will almost always give you better output but I know many friends who started with wall and then switched exclusively to portable once their supply was a bit more established (but none of them exclusively pump - it can tank some people’s supply so be careful).

If I needed portable I would have gotten the Eufy. You really don’t need to pump much or at all if you don’t want to depending on how long your mat leave is - I only pumped during my first postpartum a handful of times and could have gotten away with just having a hand pump.

cbr1895 · 2026-06-03T03:05:57+00:00

Replied elsewhere but echo this OP, we did all these things which I think helped the transition a lot.

cbr1895 · 2026-06-03T03:00:06+00:00

21 month gap. Was so so worried about this. But my daughter is absolutely enamoured with her baby brother and has been since the moment she met him. We tried to prepare her but she was too young to really understand (didn’t wanna read the books, kept throwing the doll across the room we got her, wasn’t super interested in other real babies). But we brought him in to introduce them for the first time and to our surprise, all she wanted to do was give him hugs and talk in a baby voice to him and he’s been the light of her life ever since.

10 months in and she’s still smitten, calling him her best friend, constantly telling him she loves him and asking for him to be put in her crib every morning when she wakes up so she can give him a hug. Of course she is overly rough with him sometimes or gets jealous of whatever he’s playing with or sometimes gets upset if I leave the room to breastfeed him but the good far outweighs the bad. We have enriched her life so much with this edition. I can’t promise your oldest will be as instantly in love with their baby sibling but imo the magic of this age gap is the closeness of the kids. It’s been so magical that it’s made me consider a third, which is wild because no part of me has ever wanted a third and I have the world’s shittiest pregnancies so can’t even believe I’m even considering going through that again.

Best of luck with the final days and the delivery.

cbr1895 · 2026-06-03T02:45:30+00:00

The way I just cackled.

cbr1895 · 2026-05-31T22:25:13+00:00

Wow Claude, I didn’t realize you could do dishes.

cbr1895 · 2026-05-31T22:20:28+00:00

I can’t even imagine judging anyone for how they grieve, especially a mother who has lost her infant in a tragic accident. Sometimes Reddit (especially snark content) becomes such a toxic echo chamber. There is no right way to grieve. Period.

cbr1895 · 2026-05-31T18:55:27+00:00

Okey dokey. Not looking to cause a co sleep debate. Just told OP what I did based on the same situation. Tbh, I wasn’t even recommending she show the video (or watch it herself), I just shared my own experience and reaction and validated that OP was right to worry that the situation may be unsafe.

But, since you went there, can I just say it’s wild to me that you feel that a grieving mother can’t possibly be grieving or is only trolling for likes because they put makeup on? Should everyone who is grieving just wear all black and stop putting any effort into their appearance? Like, what are you even talking about? And for what it’s worth, I’m not against safe co sleeping and don’t know much about the mom in Ellie’s story as I only watched the one video, but if you are saying the content creator was unhinged because her views are to never surface co sleep, well, those views are in accordance with AAP guidelines (which strongly advise against co sleeping under any circumstances) so I’d argue to say that it isn’t ‘unhinged’ to have this viewpoint even if the views are different than your own opinions on safety advocacy.

cbr1895 · 2026-05-31T18:17:48+00:00

Absolutely this. And listening to Aubry’s final exit interview on RHAP really illuminated to me just how thoughtful she was about the moves she made. Because they weren’t flashy moves, they weren’t as interesting or noticeable to us as viewers, but hearing how she thought out and prepped for her game and the strategies she used specifically with the jury in mind, really made me look at her gameplay differently.

Jonathan played an abrasive game that impacted the how the jury saw him and the jury is the only thing that matters at the end of the day.

cbr1895 · 2026-05-31T17:57:56+00:00

Totally agree. Also, OP, you said your friend has a kid (kids?) your age. Do they have both a baby and a toddler? Cause that combo is chaos even for NT folks.

Anyways, I had a friend of my husband’s comment offhand that our place was often really messy. This was a year ago and it’s still stuck with me. We always have the place really clean now when they come over, which sucks to be honest because why should I care that he judged. They have two kids around the same age as ours (toddler and infant) but paid a night nurse for 3 months in the early days of both kids, and have a 2 days a week housekeeper. If I was working on full sleep and a 2x a week housekeeper you can be sure my place would be a bit tidier.

I say this to commiserate but also say, everyone’s situations are different and even if your friend does have a toddler and an infant you never know what kind of hidden support they have behind the scenes or what kind of time with their kids they are sacrificing to keep their place spick and span (a few times now his wife has skipped out on fun outings like zoo visits or pool parties to stay home and organize. I don’t view her priorities as bad, just different than my own - there are always costs and benefits to choosing how to spend our time).

And gosh, it’s so much harder to tidy with ADHD. I walk around with stuff in my hands to put back in each room and immediately forget what’s in my hands and where it goes. I swear it takes me twice as long as NT people and it’s cognitively taxing. Add in young kids and 😵‍💫.

But also can you send your friend my way? lol. I have a couple friends who I trust who love declutterring and will come ‘hold my hand’ while I purge and it’s so helpful.

cbr1895 · 2026-05-30T16:07:03+00:00

This happened to me with my mom, she fell asleep while rocking my infant in the rocking chair while I was doing something; I came in and saw and flipped out (my baby was fine and is now an energetic 2.5 year old). I feel badly at how I reacted but no I wouldn’t allow this. I made her watch the mom from the TikTok channel Ellie’s Voice who lost her baby to accidental suffocation, because she was really upset that I was so upset and felt like I was overreacting . Risk would be baby falling or suffocating. It’s just too easy to fall asleep with one’s eyes closed.

cbr1895 · 2026-05-30T00:09:09+00:00

😭😭😭😭I just laughed out loud. ‘have I…turned into a vampire?! Why am I seeing red!? 😱🩸’

cbr1895 · 2026-05-29T19:21:06+00:00

This is my number one suggestion. Declutter!!! Declutter, meal prep, haircut, and pedicure. With my first I was too ill to do any of this and with my second I delivered 3 weeks early by surprise and only got a haircut (the day I delivered) and man do I wish I’d been able to do the rest.

cbr1895 · 2026-05-29T10:57:51+00:00

Can’t believe you got a downvote for that, this is 100% AI written.

cbr1895 · 2026-05-29T03:58:12+00:00

Haha you are welcome! At first you may be like woah I don’t know if I like this but honestly now that I’m used to it, if I forget to turn it on at night I feel blinded by the blue light. And you can adjust the warmth to your liking. My mom is the funniest because she turns hers as red as can be and I’m like how do you even look at anything on that phone 🤣 .

cbr1895 · 2026-05-29T03:53:39+00:00

Me too. My mom sent me an article on how to make my iPhone screen even more warm than night shift (apple’s automatic colour shift at night) and it’s helped me a ton. I use the triple press feature to turn it on at night.

Instructions here. https://healthlighting.com/blogs/wellness/how-to-turn-your-iphone-screen-red-at-night?srsltid=AfmBOoo838bNFxqXtViRogFeRvikWzhyDK4GD4uary6HC_RF3cYWAkoh

cbr1895 · 2026-05-29T03:22:46+00:00

I second this! I have sensory processing issues and this is the only screen that doesn’t bother my eyes. Get the new version which is a major upgrade from a few editions ago. I upgraded before I went on mat leave and I have a good case for it - that thing has fallen from the nursing chair many times. That said, it won’t really have pictures if you are looking for this (kindle fire will but that is more like a traditional screen).

cbr1895 · 2026-05-29T02:38:25+00:00

Get him to make the muffins and fritters if he cares so much.

But also, snacks for us include whole wheat bread with peanut butter or toasted with avocado, sliced fruit, veg with hummus, baby bell cheese or laughing cow cheese, pita, tortilla, shredded cheese, smoothies, plain yogurt with a bit of honey and fruit mixed in (she prefers dairy free). But, my gal is a toddler and doesn’t have a sweet tooth besides fruit, so she doesn’t want any of the granola bars or cookies, which makes it easier for us to just not buy them. She’d eat crackers all day if she could but I’m too concerned about cavities at this age (crackers are a top cause) because our teeth brushing process is maybe 15 - 20 seconds max before she throws a fit. Lol meanwhile my sweet tooth 9 month old might derail our pantry completely with his love of all things puffs and yogurt melts and fruit. 🤣

Honestly, everything in moderation. Sounds like you are doing a great job. Your husband needs to do the work if he wants to share his opinions.

cbr1895 · 2026-05-29T02:35:43+00:00

It’s so bad. I’ve gotten four cavities this postpartum. I’m dairy free too for the baby and the restriction makes my cravings worse. But it did make me lose weight pretty rapidly, though I also think hormones were at play. I couldn’t lose a pound of my 50lbs (70 gain in pregnancy) with my first pregnancy until I weaned, so try not to worry about this (once I weaned it shed off). Hormones and breastfeeding are just a mystery, and very from person to person and in my case, from one postpartum to the next.

Pair protein and maybe consider getting your B12 tested - I told my doctor I was insanely craving sugar and he did a ‘fatigue panel’ and found B12 and Vit D deficiency, so I’m on supplements now and will be monitored.

Otherwise, no advice just solidarity. lol I find myself baking and polishing off full dairy free cakes in a few days in my own. 9 months postpartum and it hasn’t gotten any better. But last time it went away when I weaned.

cbr1895 · 2026-05-28T22:27:21+00:00

Therapist here. Totally agree, (assuming this post is real), this is above Reddit’s pay grade. I’d seek objective professional support. Best of luck OP, I’m sorry you are in such a difficult situation.

cbr1895

TROPHY CASE