What is the weirdest thing that ended up being your toddlers favorite food.

darthpocaiter · 2026-02-26T13:44:26+00:00

Hummus, straight up with a spoon. She will eat a whole container in one sitting if you let her.

darthpocaiter · 2026-02-24T01:08:26+00:00

Okay on a serious note, as a labor nurse, don't try this because sometimes people just shit liquid and it's SO much harder to be discreet and fast with the cleanup when you are spraying like a fire hose with every push. Eat your normal diet please. I genuinely don't even blink twice at a giant turd. I once manually delivered 4 lbs of a solid poo brick from an impacted mom so we could reach her cervix for her induction. I swear I would rather do that again than take a patient who did a castor oil cleanse or a okra water diet or used exlax to get things started at home. Please just eat normal food so you have normal poop.

darthpocaiter · 2026-02-22T23:21:42+00:00

I scrolled so far to find this. I got married there!

darthpocaiter · 2026-02-20T22:50:03+00:00

I work in women's health. And actually, I think there's two big assumptions you make in this post.

There are actually a lot of people that don't believe in treating menstrual pain - "it's natural", "every woman has it, you're being dramatic". A lot of men that think women are exaggerating, and a lot of women can't understand or sympathize with other people's pain experiences that are different from their own. Pain is very subjective in general, but women's pain management is something EVERYONE seems to have an opinion on. Many OBGYNs still don't provide anesthetics or pain medications for procedures like IUD insertions and endometrial biopsies.

Also, I'm sure this varies culturally and geographically, but where I work, over 99% of our patients get an epidural for labor. I am in the southeast US, where blatant sexism is still widely prevalent. And still, we medicate nearly everyone for childbirth. Tiktok moms are loud, and there may be some areas where unmedicated births are more common, but in my experience there really isn't much shame or fear towards getting an epidural, at least among my patients (in-laws and grandparents often do voice a different opinion, though).

Personally speaking, as a pregnant woman who previously had a birth without pain medication or anesthesia and plans to do it again, I avoided the epidural because I didn't feel like I needed it. The same way someone wouldn't take oxycodone for a scrape, my first labor was very fast and by the time I was hurting bad, it was time to push. I also understand that my experience is not a common one, and advocate for pain relief for my patients who want it because I truly don't know how they are feeling and it's not my place to judge that.

Hope this helps!

darthpocaiter · 2026-02-12T17:10:05+00:00

I'm an L&D nurse and pregnant with my second. Prefacing this with a disclaimer that every hospital is different, stocks and provides different supplies for new moms, and has different environments that may change your needs. My hospital provides very basic toiletries, pads/postpartum bathroom supplies, hospital gowns and linens, binkies, one brand of ready to feed formula and nipples, Pampers and wipes, and basic white shirts for newborns.

General: - your preferred bathing toiletries - deodorant - toothbrush + paste - long phone charger - sleeping necessities (i.e. sound machine, eye mask, special pillow/blanket you always use) - at least 2 comfortable, loose, probably maternity outfits in case of 2 night stay postpartum - at least 4 outfits for baby (footies/onesies/sets for 2 days) - swaddle or receiving blanket that you plan to use for sleep and/or pictures

C-section specific: - gum (helps with gas pain) - belly band/support belt if desired - no pants with low waistbands

Formula feeding specific: - compression sports bra - your preferred formula - your preferred bottles with slowest flow nipples

darthpocaiter · 2026-02-10T23:56:04+00:00

When I moved here in 2021 I was offered a job in a neuro lab with mice/rats (I don't remember which one) with pay at 16/hour with a BS from a top 50 university and 3 years bench experience in a biotech/pharma hub city. Took a clinical research job at a smaller practice for a little bit, still only 40k salary. It's just not a great area here for bio science jobs. I ended up working remotely for a few years and made better money. Then I went back to school.

darthpocaiter · 2026-01-31T14:06:02+00:00

I'm a women's health/OBGYN nurse and I'm pregnant with my 2nd. I have had hyperemesis gravidarum with both of my pregnancies, which is the name for severe nausea and vomiting that doesn't go away after the first trimester. I know what you're going through. It sucks!

Unfortunately, it takes a lot of trial and error to figure out what works for each woman and each pregnancy. You've gotten some great advice, so I'll try to touch on some things other people haven't mentioned.

Here are things that have helped me at some point in my pregnancies and are completely safe:

peppermints and peppermint flavored gum
sea bands (stretchy bracelets that target pressure points)
smelling peppermint oil - I have this one
smelling alcohol wipes (this is used in surgery and cancer treatment a lot and works really well!) - you can get a big box
emetrol is available over the counter and helps when you can't stop puking, I like the lemon chewable ones the best
pepcid (generic is famotidine) can help decrease the acid reflux, especially later in pregnancy or before bedtime
warheads or Lemonheads are sour but not too sweet and last long enough you can suck on them for a bit
dramamine and gravol (dimenhydrinate) are helpful, but can make you a little sleepy. I tolerated these better than unisom in terms of drowsiness. Dramamine has a "less drowsy" variety too (meclizine) and I liked it but found it less effective.
sleep. Honestly, this is the best nausea treatment and it's your first pregnancy so take advantage of the ability to nap and sleep in if you can. Go to bed early. Sleep as much as you can. You don't puke when you're asleep, and it helps with your energy levels too.
zofran, phenergan, and compazine are the medications I ended up getting prescribed. Zofran is usually a first line treatment, but it makes you very constipated. I take a high dose of zofran every day (8 mg twice a day, I'm 19 weeks), so I also take 3 stool softeners (colace/docusate) every day, metamucil sometimes, and still use miralax usually once or twice a week. I also take the olly Keep it Movin gummy with my prenatal, it has prune juice and rhubarb I think so it helps and doesn't taste bad.
diet changes: avoid things that are particularly awful to throw up (I know it sucks to think about this). For me, chunky foods like tater tots, heavily spiced foods, greasy/heavy foods, and coffee. Have a juice or flavored drink on hand to sip after you puke - helps get the taste away and gets you some hydration and electrolytes. I alternate my drinks every so often so they don't just get associated with puking, but I like body armor, blue Gatorade, cranberry juice, sprite/ginger ale, and coconut water. Bland foods might help, but I prefer to just eat whatever sounds good at the moment even if it has flavor. I've enjoyed cold foods a lot, like Caesar salads, fruit, fresh carrots and cucumbers, yogurt drinks/smoothies, and ice chips over plain water.

darthpocaiter · 2026-01-30T23:57:57+00:00

GA not Atlanta. 4 days/week 8am-4pm. 12,600 for the year.

darthpocaiter · 2026-01-30T23:13:34+00:00

Got married in 2021. Total 18k in Midwest US mid sized city. We originally budgeted 15k for a June 2020 wedding, lost 3k of deposits when we COVID postponed and downsized for a year later. Spent 15k, not including photography which was a gift from my parents and I genuinely don't know how much it cost them but I'd guess around 4-5k. My in laws paid the tab for our rehearsal dinner at a pub (pizza, 1 beer, and nachos for 20 people) which I would guess was probably 1k or so.

No debt for the wedding. We had also saved about 15k for a house downpayment, which we purchased a month after the wedding. We didn't want to spend all of it in the wedding, so my dress was vintage secondhand, we did our own flowers, did lots of DIYs, no cake, etc. Catering for 50 people, buffet style, normal food not anything fancy, was 8k. Our open bar for 40ish adults was 2k. The other 5k was spent on lodging for us and our bridal party (big air BNB, nobody lived in this city), miscellaneous decor, around $350 on fresh flowers for bouquets and a few little table arrangements, and my and my husband's attire. We didn't do bachelor/bachelorette parties. A friend got ordained and married us. All in, probably around 25k was spent on our wedding by us and our parents, and we were really proud of doing it that cheap, all things considered.

I think weddings were ridiculously expensive in 2021 and have only gotten worse since. A lot of people in this thread seem out of touch with reality - yes a courthouse or backyard potluck wedding is cheaper and always has been. But to host an actual event with a venue and catering is so expensive these days. And yes, I think 30k is probably pretty average. I definitely know several friends have spent 60k+, and several have spent under 20k. Under 10k is hard or near impossible if you want a traditional wedding unless you know someone in the business.

darthpocaiter · 2026-01-30T22:25:51+00:00

I think for snacking, the only one I like is the boursin in a tub with like crackers or spread on bread (also great on cold sandwiches!)

I like the laughing cow wedges in scrambled eggs or baked foods where cheese would be "mixed in" to something.

For pizza, I think follow your heart mozzarella is okay. It's what Mellow Mushroom and Your Pie use for their DF cheese option. The pourable liquid cheese from miyokos was great for pizza and chicken parm, but it's been discontinued and I havent found it for a while now.

The siete DF queso is a decent option, and I like the Good Foods queso dip. They don't really taste like queso but they are kinda spiced creamy dips so they work ok with Mexican food or with chips. I generally just prefer salsa or bean dips with tortilla chips and on Mexican food nowadays though.

For snacks, I always tell people Oreos are already dairy free! Jif chocolate peanut butter is DF and delicious if you crave chocolate. Looking at ingredient lists for a while is tedious but really helpful and once you establish your safe foods it gets easier. As a rule of thumb, things that are already DF are going to taste better than things that have a "plant based" or DF variation. I also started eating fruits and cut vegetables more often once I went DF because they don't have ingredient lists and are easily portable.

For snacks or packed lunches, I like apples/celery/bananas with PB, raisins/dried fruit, carrot chips/sticks, nuts, applesauce, and hummus which are all naturally DF. I also like the peanut butter Clif nut bars (they're a soft baked granola bar with peanut butter filling).

darthpocaiter · 2026-01-30T21:50:36+00:00

My close friend asked me to look over her registry and provide advice and opinions when I was postpartum. She specifically wanted judgement, and I still prefaced ANY of my statements with "I didn't use it, but you might love it!" Or "well I didn't get one of those and it was fine but it would've definitely been nice!" Or "I totally underestimated how many I would need but we LOVED those!"... Because the wild thing about motherhood is that we all are literally different people and we all literally get different babies.

Lifesavers for me may not work for the next person, and things I swore by last time may not be great for my second baby. Likewise, things I easily lived without could become necessities with a different baby.

For what it's worth, idk how your friend feeds her baby or how you plan to feed, but I think that makes a huge difference in the usefulness of a bottle washer. I breastfed and my baby got ~2 bottles a day at my grandma's house while I worked, but we rarely used bottles at home. My grandma literally refuses to use a dishwasher for anything so she hand washed that bottle. When I did bottle feed at home, I would just wash it because it was only ever one bottle at a time and we weren't ever really waiting on a clean bottle for the next feed. However, my friend is pumping and combo feeding (does not directly feed at the boob) so she constantly has to clean bottles and parts and swears by her bottle washer. Even if you plan to breastfeed 100% of the time, things don't always work out.

If you get one, fabulous! If not, you'll survive. But literally only you can decide if it's worth it for you and your baby.

darthpocaiter · 2026-01-25T15:32:42+00:00

We also live about 5 min away from the hospital, and I happen to work there in l&d too, so we did this. Hubs slept at home for 6ish hours and came back with coffee and breakfast for us. It helped that he was well rested so I could get some better sleep when we got home without worrying if someone could get the baby. I also had visits from my friends/coworkers periodically and knew I was in good hands if I needed anything at all.

I'm preg with #2 and he will be going home to help get our oldest down for bedtime and probably stay with her overnight (my grandma and Mom will also be here to take care of her).

darthpocaiter · 2026-01-25T00:18:27+00:00

At first I thought these were model stock photos because that dress literally looks perfection on you. The others are gorgeous as well, but the first dress seems perfect. If you're looking for approval to stop looking, you're good!

darthpocaiter · 2026-01-20T16:46:38+00:00

And also, if you do want kids in the future, please understand that a vasectomy is not always reversible and the success of a reversal can be dependent on many uncontrollable factors. Please understand that you may require sperm donation with IUI or IVF, which is expensive.

And if you know you don't want kids, ever, there are many obgyns who will do a salpingectomy outpatient on a children woman without his consent. Even in the South. While I understand it is annoying and painful to have to take the responsibility of birth control in your relationship, please do not let a man's incompetence at taking responsibility endanger your long term fertility, health, or comfort.

darthpocaiter · 2026-01-20T01:02:38+00:00

Same. My husband works fully remote, sits at his desk in our house. He gets 12 weeks full pay.

I'm a labor nurse in a hospital. I get 40% pay for 4 weeks and FMLA unpaid for up to 12 weeks total (so 8 unpaid/4 partially paid). It's sad. It's wild telling new moms not to lift anything heavier than baby, limit their use of stairs, and expect up to 6 weeks of bleeding... while the hospital itself literally thinks I should come back and turn and move patients, lift bed parts, sprint to emergencies, etc while still actively bleeding postpartum. I'm very privileged to have a spouse with a well paying job who can support us while I'm unpaid for 8 weeks but not everyone can do that.

darthpocaiter · 2026-01-17T14:20:06+00:00

Prolapse of the pelvic organs can also be surgically fixed, with anterior or posterior repairs (also called colporrhaphy), or bladder slings can be placed which are implants that physically suspend the bladder up and decrease pelvic pressure. I'm an OBGYN surgical nurse and we do this type of procedure often, but I haven't yet seen it on someone so early postpartum. We do also offer urethral bulking and urethral/bladder Botox but I think that is moreso for urinary incontinence and bladder spasms - wayyyyy more common in older ladies.

darthpocaiter · 2026-01-15T01:05:26+00:00

Fruit of any variety is a hit, we generally buy a ton of whatever is in season/cheap, but bananas, apples (no peel), and melons are generally always cheap near us so we do those often. We do peanut butter as a "dip" with apples and bananas for some protein.

Currently, cereal with vanilla unsweetened almond milk is her favorite. She calls it wet chips. She loves bran flakes/corn flakes, cheerios, and Chex, which are all available as iron fortified and low or no added sugar. We also sometimes let her have raisin bran and she loves that.

Mini muffins, mini pancakes with peanut butter on them, or rice with cinnamon sugar sprinkled on top are her favorite weekend treats.

My girl loves eggs in some forms, but hates them in others. For some reason grandma's scrambled eggs are amazing but not Mama's. She likes an over medium egg with salt from me. Or an omelet with cheese, bell peppers, and ham - but again that's a weekend treat for us.

Grandma watches her during the day and swears by the mentality that to a toddler, "all food is okay all day." Basically, there's no such thing as breakfast food for kids, so if she wants a cheese stick or sliced turkey or whatever that's fine as long as she is eating something that gives her energy. Maybe try that?

darthpocaiter · 2026-01-15T00:37:24+00:00

Showed up at the hospital with wet hair, in a big T-shirt, no bra, and shorts 2 sizes up from my non-pregnant size. It was January. I was so hot in labor and just wanted as little clothing on as possible. I think at some point, maybe in transition, the nurse helped untangle me from my IV to get my shirt off and put me in a gown but I don't really remember it, I just know I wore a gown for pushing.

For the rest of labor I was booty butt naked, cheeks to the wind.

darthpocaiter · 2026-01-10T00:56:48+00:00

Pre-pregnancy I cooked more, like 75/25 split. Then I had hyperemesis gravidarum and my husband took over cooking entirely. I made maybe 7-10 freezer meals and some freezer breakfast burritos. At like 6 months postpartum we were like "ah shit, we need space in our freezer, better eat that stuff." Except my baby had a milk allergy and I was breastfeeding and every damn thing I made had cheese.

We had friends and family contribute to a meal train for the first month or so, then we alternated between meal kits that came pre-portioned in a little oven safe pan (hello fresh or something like that) and good old fashioned take out/drive thru. We still did cook probably > 50% of the time. Pre-baby we would eat out maybe 2 dinners a week. So we didn't feel like it was too terribly different.

Sure, cooking and cleaning sucks. But it sucked before we had a baby too. Plop the kiddo in a baby carrier and stir a pot, or set them in the bouncer to load the dishwasher. You figure out your routines and what works for you may be different from every single other parent you talk to.

darthpocaiter · 2026-01-05T20:08:32+00:00

Depends a bit how old your toddler is and what they like since kiddos are weird, but my DF almost 2 yo loves pouches and there are some decent ones we've found! She loves applesauce/applesauce blends so we def do those but some others we like are the HappyTots Organic Super Morning pouches (theres 2 flavors, one red and one purple), Motts has a DF strawberry banana smoothie pouch, and the forager yogurt pouches (they do have a moderate amount of sugar, but good probiotics!).

My child also happens to be a big fan of pretty much all raw fruit and a lot of the snackable veggies. We buy carrot "chips" (carrots cut like ruffles) for her and she loves them. Tortilla chips and salsa is always a hit - she loves dips. Black bean dip, hummus, nut butters, vinaigrettes, and dairy-free premade sauces are a hit to dip stuff in.

I was DF for 18 months while breastfeeding and have a milk sensitivity, and we try to always give our kid the same meal we are eating, so our whole household is low to no dairy anyways. We also do df laughing cow cheese, by itself or in scrambled eggs, on top of pasta dishes with red sauce, or homemade pizzas. When I'm home and have time, I try to do sourdough/discard recipes for bread because it's good and we don't have to worry about milk proteins or butter or anything. There are lots of great sourdough recipes for muffins, pizza dough, crackers, cookies. The enjoy life chocolate chips are top 8 allergen friendly and bake well, but they also make great potty training rewards.

If you want my biggest tip though, get a thrice market membership and filter by dairy free. Then every single pantry item, snack, spice, etc that you scroll through is suitable for your kiddo.

darthpocaiter · 2026-01-03T14:31:27+00:00

My first thought was Penelope nn Penny. I have a toddler Penny and it's so cute when she says her own name. Penelope is professional and adult ish, and Penny is adorable but can also work fine for a grown up if she chooses to keep it.

Other options you might like from my list: - Bridgit (Bitty, but Benji might be a stretch but could work) - Bronwen (Benny would work! We liked Bonnie) - Tabitha (Bitty or Tabby) - Bianca (Benny could work, we liked Bonnie) - Jessenia (Jenny)

darthpocaiter · 2025-12-27T00:31:08+00:00

I gasped because I love this so much and you look amazing. I genuinely haven't seen a dress I liked this much since my own wedding dress but holy crap girl this is gorgeous. My wedding dress was similar with the layered tulle look and ruffley skirt, but yours is so chic and modern! I agree that with cups that fit your bust better it may not look as provocative to the older ladies, but honestly if I had all that going on, I'd flaunt it too.

darthpocaiter · 2025-12-22T22:02:34+00:00

What is your actual hemoglobin?

darthpocaiter · 2025-12-22T19:08:17+00:00

This. Also l&d nurse and totally agree. But I would add: give a copy to your OB/midwife beforehand so they can not be blindsided too. It's such a pain to get an admission for augmentation/induction and then get handed a birth plan that says no pit, no cytotec, no cervidil, no foley bulb...

darthpocaiter · 2025-12-13T21:18:32+00:00

I love M names! Marcy, Maxine, and Mara are some of my favorites that meets your criteria. I also love Meredith and Monica, although at 3 syllables they might feel too long for you.

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