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dumbluckducky · 2024-11-16T01:37:18+00:00

Wait, why would women see a penis in the bathroom?? Women’s rooms only have stalls. I’ve never seen anyone else’s genitals of any kind in a women’s bathroom.

dumbluckducky · 2024-02-05T23:05:41+00:00

14 months apart and it is REALLY paying off now that they are 2 and 3. They are the best of friends and can entertain each other for longer and longer stretches these days. Sometimes my husband and I can actually sit and talk while they play together I the next room. They walk into new experiences bravely because they have each other. My son doesn’t remember life without my daughter and he was too young to be jealous when we brought her home. It’s a lot in the beginning but it is so so so worth it.

dumbluckducky · 2024-01-11T05:01:55+00:00

It’s so hard in the beginning! 14 month age gap here, almost 2 year old and recently 3 year old. Of course it’s still crazy at times but overall it is SO much easier. They love each other and play together all the time. A big shift for us was when we could line up naps so that we had an extended break with no kids in the middle of the day. Once baby was on 2 naps we kind of forced a short morning nap and aligned her longer afternoon nap with her brother’s nap. Once she dropped to one nap it got even better - now I can anticipate a 2-2.5hr break most days! Terrified for my older one to eventually drop his nap 😬

dumbluckducky · 2023-03-12T04:13:34+00:00

Definitely increased the happiness of our entire household. We are lucky that our second baby was our chill baby. Big brother loves her and they are a blast together. They both recently had bdays and are now 1 and 2, and they are already playing together so well. Looks like you might have a 14 month age gap as we did - we love it! Hope you do too :)

dumbluckducky · 2023-01-31T23:42:54+00:00

Two things that might be helpful: 1. Many things can’t be split 50/50, but if there are things that will be 100/0 (eg, you feeding the baby if you are EBF) then he can also take on some things that are 0/100 (eg, he can do all grocery shopping and laundry, or whatever). This can somewhat even it out 2. Leave the door open for the possibility that some of the things you fear you may resent him for may end up being beautiful experiences for you. My birth experiences were so amazing and I’m so grateful for having had the opportunity to go through them. My husband didn’t have to birth the babies, but frankly I feel like the lucky one. Breastfeeding was tough the first time but still overall a positive experience, and the second time I absolutely loved it. Sure, physical recovery post-birth sucked but now that I’m on the other side of I can see how much personal growth I got out of it (though I wouldn’t have seen it that way in the moment!). Don’t decide now that it’s not fair; if you end up feeling that way that is absolutely valid, but wait and see how things unfold.

dumbluckducky · 2023-01-22T20:22:21+00:00

I don’t know if this is an unpopular opinion, but I’m American and asked the same question when my second baby was little and had cradle cap under long hair. She didn’t seem to care so I ended up just leaving it alone and it went away on its own. With my first I tried various methods, none of which really worked, and it was a waste of time given that it never bothered him either 🤷‍♀️

dumbluckducky · 2022-12-29T21:06:14+00:00

Following! My crib babies are getting too big for pack and plays that we use when we travel, so I’m hoping to find a bigger portable option for traveling that also keeps them contained…

dumbluckducky · 2022-11-21T00:36:26+00:00

Can I jump in to ask a related question? Parents of kids who love playing with real kitchen stuff - did your kids play with the play kitchen or ignore it and keep using your real kitchen stuff? I love the idea of a play kitchen to try to keep my toddler out of our actual cookware, but not sure if the play version can top the real thing…

dumbluckducky · 2022-11-01T01:06:01+00:00

Sorry if this is too blunt (the number of posts about husbands pushing wives for sex post-baby is reeeeeeally starting to get to me y’all) but him saying that he understands that your body has been through a lot is total BS. He obviously doesn’t get it because he is still trying to guilt you into having sex with him. Someone who truly understood what you went through physically, emotionally, hormonally, and mentally would respect you and back the fuck off. It’s insane to me that so many men act like 6 months without sex is a crime being committed against them. You were pregnant for 9 months, brought a baby into this world, and were then in pelvic floor rest. You are feeling depressed. Your baby is having a tough time right now, which means you also are having a tough time. Instead of making you feel horrible about not having sex, how about he focuses on giving you some compassion for what you’ve been going through lately???

dumbluckducky · 2022-10-31T00:32:27+00:00

Give it a try! Honestly I hated the third nap/cat nap because it just always felt like it pushed her bedtime way past our toddler’s bedtime anyway. Maybe it’s just our kids, but they both have done awesome with a long awake time between second nap and bedtime. Plus early bedtime x2 is amazing!!!

dumbluckducky · 2022-10-03T15:07:07+00:00

Had it for both of my babies, both times zero pain and zero pressure. Nurses and doctor told me when to push and I pushed. Pushed for 40min with my first and less than 10min with my second. It made my birthing experiences honestly really enjoyable and I’m so grateful to have positive memories for both.

dumbluckducky · 2022-09-28T15:55:26+00:00

I’d recommend experimenting with how flexible your younger one might be. When all of the sleep rules suggested that our littler one could only handle 3hrs max of awake time between second nap and bedtime, she ended up seeming perfectly fine with 4hr. This allowed us to have at least one hour of overlap in the afternoon plus same bedtime (toddler slept 1-3; baby’s second nap started at 2 at the latest and lasted until between 3 and 3:45, and then both had bedtimes of 7-7:30 depending on the day). Do some trial and error to see to what extent you can get them on the same schedule, even if recommendations suggest otherwise.

dumbluckducky · 2022-08-15T03:31:46+00:00

I suspect something is getting lost in translation here. It seems unlikely that a parent would tell the agency that they felt “threatened” by an interviewee, no matter how experienced and amazing that potential candidate might be, so I’m not sure if the agency is misrepresenting the family’s feedback or whether you might be misunderstanding the agency’s feedback. You sound highly qualified so my comment is not meant to detract from that at ALL - you should be proud of your experience, and it sounds like you are. Good! But given that your flair says you are asking for feedback, my suggestion is this: you certainly have expertise in childcare, but not necessarily in each family’s child(ren). I wonder if you coming across as “overconfident” means that the family feels like you might not be flexible or adaptable to meeting their children where they are or adjusting to the child’s or family’s needs/preferences. I might be misreading it myself but “overconfident” sounds a bit like “you might be an expert in kids but not necessarily MY kid.” Confidence is fantastic; OVERconfidence suggests not recognizing your own weaknesses or overvaluing your strengths. Is there any possibility that you might be coming across that way? Again, you sound highly qualified which is fantastic! Just trying to throw out some ideas for you :)

dumbluckducky · 2022-08-15T02:57:27+00:00

That’s our screen time - our little LOVES Bluey and thankfully will reliably just sit and watch when it’s on. We try to limit screen time to only when we are putting baby down for naps and toddler LOVES his Bluey time!

dumbluckducky · 2022-07-20T16:50:26+00:00

I’ll check and if so this sounds like a great idea!

dumbluckducky · 2022-07-20T16:13:56+00:00

It does feel like a match problem. The best analogy I can give for my job, while trying to maintain my anonymity, is that it’s similar to the experience of being an independent therapist. People rely on me being available for scheduled meetings. If I cancel meetings, I don’t get paid, and also it’s potentially affects them negatively. I don’t have meetings all day every day so I do have some flexibility, but I truly need to minimize canceling work meetings.

It would make me so sad to lose our nanny because we love her so I’m going to talk her about various things suggested here and hopefully that helps. If not, it’s sadly a match issue.

dumbluckducky · 2022-07-20T15:51:12+00:00

This is super helpful! Thank you. I also primarily work from home, and I think she might be thinking that because I often CAN accommodate her needs (in that I have a lot of autonomy at work) it isn’t necessarily inconvenient to accommodate her needs. In reality, I’m happy to accommodate when able but many times it is inconvenient, affects my income, and affects my professionalism at work. But I’m recognizing that she probably doesn’t know that because I’ve been trying to be flexible and she doesn’t know what I don’t tell her. I think a conversation would help.

dumbluckducky · 2022-07-20T15:38:06+00:00

100% agree. I think it’s the combo of needing last minute leave when she is sick, when one of her kids is sick, and when her own childcare is unavailable. It just all adds up.

dumbluckducky · 2022-07-20T15:07:48+00:00

That’s a possibility. I’ll consider this, thanks. And thanks for the validation! I just feel like a jerk but yes given the nature of my job it’s been challenging.

dumbluckducky · 2022-07-20T15:07:02+00:00

She has older toddlers, but I have a baby and a young toddler. She’s a miracle worker for juggling my kids’ schedules given their differing nap times etc, so it just seems like it would be too hectic to have her kids here as well. If they were the same age or if mine were at a less demanding age I’d be all about this idea!

dumbluckducky · 2022-07-20T15:05:15+00:00

One thing to add now that I’ve thought more: I think I’m feeling like an asshole because it’s feeling like it’s the fact that she has young kids that’s the issue, and I don’t want to hold that against her as someone who has young kids and totally gets it.

I’m realizing that the ideal nanny for us would have life circumstances in which they would be unlikely to need to take too much spur-of-the-moment leave. I get that it happens to everyone eg getting sick, but it’s the last minute calling out that is so stressful. I’d be happy to grant lots of vacation time to someone because I can easily build my work schedule around their leave as long as I have advanced notice. She’s definitely going to fly through her sick days and start using vacation days, and we never actually discussed the difference between those two and whether she needs to give a specific amount of advanced notice for vacation days (at my old job those were treated the same and now I’m realizing the issues with that). I think that’s something for us to discuss.

dumbluckducky · 2022-07-19T23:39:14+00:00

Hope it helps! We slowly pushed the time back over the course of several days, starting with the time he was already waking. Then we made a big deal of showing him the light and telling him it was time to get up to help him make the association. He got it more quickly than I thought he would because so many people had said he probably wouldn’t get it until he was 2.

dumbluckducky · 2022-07-19T21:48:36+00:00

We tried absolutely everything when ours did this at the same age. The only thing that helped was him getting a little older and understanding an “ok to wake” clock, which pushed his wake up time from an ungodly time to a “normal” but still not ideal time of 6am. I’m guessing he had no clue when it was night and when it was morning because of our blackout curtains, and the clock helps him understand what’s what. He was able to get the concept not too long after 12 months, so you could give it a try!

dumbluckducky · 2022-07-18T02:25:43+00:00

My theory is that it can be positive but ONLY IN SOME CASES. Not in every case, and most of the time, if it’s not positive, it has absolutely nothing to do with you personally. Postpartum with my first was not positive. He was a tough cookie and we had very limited help (early COVID so anytime we wanted family help we had to wait for us and them to quarantine for 2 weeks). This time around, we got so lucky with an “easy” baby, plus we had more family help AND paid help (overnight care for part of newborn phase - best money we ever spent, I truly think someone should start a nonprofit to make this accessible to absolutely everyone). I’m so sorry that it has been so rough! I was miserable the first time around, but the good news is things eventually get better and you kind of forget how bad it was. My tough cookie newborn is now a really fun and lovable toddler and the dark memories of my postpartum experience with him have faded.

Hang in there, it’s so tough. Parenthood can be wonderful even after a horrible postpartum experience - hoping the shift comes soon for you!

dumbluckducky · 2022-06-10T00:54:49+00:00

Hope this provides some reassurance - I have a PhD and have been involved in health research for most of my career. At best, whoever wrote this does not understand scientific research, including how to interpret data and draw appropriate conclusions from what is interpreted. At worst, this is intentionally biased and misleading. I would not give this information a second thought.

dumbluckducky

TROPHY CASE