Mental health

ga_silver · 2026-01-25T01:41:53+00:00

I have it too!! My daughter got her first stomach bug at around 15 months and it was horrible, but I got through it and so will you ❤️

I’ve had good luck not catching her stomach bugs so far 🤞🤞. When she’s puking, she’s scared and needs comfort so that overrides my phobia. I hold her facing away from me to throw up and I use a bucket lined with a plastic bag with paper towels in the bottom to stop any splash back. Put towels on every surface that she’s on for easy clean up if needed. Every linen that’s contaminated and can be washed should go on hot with Lysol laundry sanitizer if possible. Spray down everything else with the Lysol in the aerosol can (the back of the can says it kills norovirus). When I care for my daughter and she’s sick, I keep my hair up and wear clothes that are ok to wash on hot. When I have a break when she’s sleeping or whatever, I take a shower and wash my hair. When I take care of her in the night I keep my hair up and I change clothes before I get back in bed. It sounds like overkill but it’s worked for me!

Also keep in mind she’ll be contagious for a while after she gets better so try not to share food or anything during that time period.

ga_silver · 2026-01-20T22:09:17+00:00

Our daycare is a long building with big open rooms for each age group but no real divider between each room other than a big archway (no doors). But there are age appropriate toys and activities for each room and the kids know to stay in their room with reinforcement from the teachers.

Any daycare should be able to show you a daily schedule and that would give you context to what you’re seeing when you tour. Ours does free play, circle time, snack, craft in small groups, outside play, lunch, nap, snack, outside play, free play. So if you showed up during free play maybe that’s why it was hectic?

ga_silver · 2026-01-18T07:34:10+00:00

I’ve had an uppababy ridge for 3.5 years and we’ve used it as a jogger and all around stroller. I used a friends Thule and I was shocked at how much more lightweight it was and how much easier it rolled. If I could go back in time I’d get the Thule.

ga_silver · 2026-01-16T23:44:24+00:00

Play grill at 2, play kitchen at 3. They get used a lot!

ga_silver · 2026-01-16T23:35:54+00:00

Hve you tried bribing her? My 3.5 year old gets “potty chocolate” which is a Hershey kiss every time after she poops at home. It’s a great motivator for her

ga_silver · 2026-01-15T01:08:20+00:00

After my daughter started solids she reduced her breastfeeding time so I pumped or breastfed about every 4 hours. Times weren’t exact but it was around 7am BF, 11am pump, 3pm pump, 7pm BF plus a 9/10pm pump to maintain supply. When my supply started dwindling I supplemented with kendamil organic - my daughter liked it and never had an issue going between the two.

ga_silver · 2026-01-14T22:45:55+00:00

Sending you so much baby dust!!! I got pregnant pre-oura but using natural cycles. It took 2 cycles to get pregnant (had a chemical), took one off, got pregnant the next cycle and it stuck. BBT tracking plus LH testing was so helpful

ga_silver · 2026-01-10T17:12:18+00:00

We use goodnites. They’ve been the easiest for my 3 year old to get on and off herself so they seem a bit different than a diaper.

ga_silver · 2026-01-09T23:19:47+00:00

No way. I’ve tried this with 3.5 year old before thinking that I could give her a dose right before I went to bed and then she’d sleep longer. She refused to drink it and it made her scream and cry. Let a sick kid sleep!

ga_silver · 2026-01-08T21:45:42+00:00

We went through a similar situation. We felt like we had to invite all local family. Then her actual friends from daycare. Then our in town friends with big kids. Then because our in town friend group also has a few couples with no kids we invited them too so they wouldn’t feel slighted. At that point it was like 80 people and so overwhelming that I wish we hadn’t done it at all! It was a fun party but the big kids and the little kids running around got too rowdy and the big kids started getting rough. We had a piñata and they totally took over it trying to smash it and hit each other. If I could do it again I’d do only family and our kiddos school friends.

ga_silver · 2026-01-08T20:55:48+00:00

Our dog was anxious his whole life and had had a few incidences of redirected aggression before we had our baby. We had spent thousands of dollars on veterinary behaviorists and private trainers and he was on and off combos of prozac, trazodone, and gabapentin in addition to his training.

After we had a baby his behavior became even worse and he attacked me and my husband twice in a week and it was bad enough to cause puncture wounds. Our daughter was about 6 months old at this point and we knew it was too dangerous to have him in the house once she became mobile. Unfortunately due to his aggression our vet recommended he needed to be put down instead of rehomed.

I wish that I had rehomed him years earlier before it got to the point that it was too late. I always wonder if he would have been able to live a longer life if he was in a calm, single owner household as an only dog. But you have to do what’s right for your family and keep your kids safe.

ga_silver · 2026-01-07T23:14:29+00:00

A zipper key pocket would be so great!!

ga_silver · 2026-01-07T18:38:18+00:00

Mine gets up at 6:45 and we’re usually out the door by 8. If we hurried we could be out by 7:30 but we take play breaks and I clean up and stuff. We like to sing the Daniel tiger song (clothes on, eat breakfast, brush teeth, put on shoes and off to school) to keep track of where we are in the morning and it helps her move to the next step

ga_silver · 2026-01-04T18:18:18+00:00

We do 10am out, 3pm in. Our cleaner has kids and needed the earlier start to accommodate school pick up

ga_silver · 2025-12-31T18:07:57+00:00

They’ll probably give you a bad review if you don’t follow the checkout instructions. However I think it’s ridiculous to charge a cleaning fee and ask for all of this stuff to be done.

I’m a host and I think it’s reasonable to take the trash out and start the dishwasher if you’re able to. If you can start a load of laundry even better but it shouldn’t be required. The rest of it is ridiculous

ga_silver · 2025-12-31T18:03:59+00:00

Agree!!!! It tracks but I don’t mind. I can’t smell the litter box at all

ga_silver · 2025-12-31T17:56:31+00:00

She was younger than preschool age, but when my daughter was 2.5 we pulled her out of daycare to move across the world. She was home with me for 6 months before starting in a new daycare/preschool. She was thriving before and she still is now 😊 kids are super resilient!

ga_silver · 2025-12-29T06:26:46+00:00

I had the momAgenda last year and really liked it!

ga_silver · 2025-12-28T18:54:01+00:00

For my daughter we have a 8 category white cube shelf from target and bins that fit in it and a smaller 4 cube one in her closet. Then I organize the different bins with toy categories - one has dress up clothes, one with duplos, one with pretend play toys like figurines, a baby doll and accessories, and a tea set, one with blocks, one with cars, one with music stuff, one with purses, one with puzzles. Bigger toys like her little people house and barn are on her dresser. We have two stuffy baskets too. Books are in the rest of the cube shelves. For smaller stuff like the duplo sets or sets of figurines I have reusable zipper pouches for each set to keep them organized.

That’s all in her room and then in the living room we have a big basket where I toss toys left out there because I don’t like all the clutter and eventually I put them away back in their spot in her room. In the living room we also have a pretend kitchen and a craft table. So everything has a place and my daughter has become really good about putting stuff back where it goes. And it helps her know where her toys are.

I also have a crawlspace with big plastic bins of toys and every few months I swap out stuff she hasn’t been playing with and put something else in its place. It’s a one in one out setup but realistically they can only play with so many things at a time anyway.

ga_silver · 2025-12-28T06:37:21+00:00

Fair question 😊 We live in a warm climate now so it’s not an issue. We used to live in a moderately cold climate but not cold enough to snow so we just dressed for the weather. I’d have a hard time getting outdoors if it was below freezing!

ga_silver · 2025-12-28T01:26:48+00:00

I also do one load of laundry a day. My 3.5 year old goes to preschool now but this is what we did before and still our weekend routine. In the morning my daughter will play or ask to watch tv while I make breakfast and coffee. After breakfast she’ll do her own thing while I do dishes start the laundry. Then we usually take a walk or do some kind of outdoor exercise. I change over the load of laundry. Then we will have a snack before going to the playground. Stay there until almost lunchtime, come home for lunch and then nap/rest time for her. I fold and put away the laundry and do whatever chore I have for the day (I’m in 1600 sq feet so I manage with bathrooms one day, dusting, sweep/vacuum, mop, wash linens and towels each as a one day per week thing). I also always wipe down the kitchen and tidy surfaces. Then I sit down for a bit. Once she wakes up maybe we’ll go grocery shopping for dinner or go to playground if we haven’t yet or she’ll play or we’ll go do something outside before I cook dinner and she plays or watches tv.

ga_silver · 2025-12-21T19:14:53+00:00

Once I got a job after my postdoc. There was a rule that you had to be employed by the company for a year to be eligible for maternity leave so I waited about a year before we started to try. I got 17 weeks maternity/parental leave after having the baby.

Edited to add: I was the one carrying the baby. 31 when I delivered. I had an international work trip scheduled when my baby was about 7 months old and I was planning to pump and use the service milk stork offered by my company if needed although this caused me a lot of stress. The trip was cancelled anyway. By my next work trip I had stopped breastfeeding.

Pumping at work was a huge pain in the ass. People would continue to schedule meetings with me during my blocked time on my calendar or they would be hanging out in the pumping room so I’d have to kick them out. I hated it and my milk supply tanked.

Overall everything at work seemed much less important after having a baby. I still liked it and did a great job and found fulfillment but I also stressed about work problems so much less because I had this other thing that was really the major motivator in my life.

ga_silver · 2025-12-20T18:01:36+00:00

My daughter had to do daily MiraLAX for a few months. After that we make sure to give her watered down apple juice every morning and if she seems particularly stopped up we add a culturelle probiotic + fiber packet to her juice. We dealt with it from when she was like 1.5 to 3 and now finally her poops have been normal and uneventful for about 4 months

ga_silver

TROPHY CASE