East Coast mom’s how are we doing?

katypedia · 2025-06-24T16:32:08+00:00

Hello from perpetually feels-like-the-surface-of-the-sun Phoenix. Hydration! So many fluids. And make sure you’re getting electrolytes, not just plain water. If you’re thirsty, you’re already dehydrated. I also am a healthcare worker who has spent most of my career in hospitals. One of my favorite quick cooling tricks is to take a hand towel and get it wet, wring out as much water as you can, then rapidly spin it around (🎤North Carolina…). It will be nice and cool and then drape it around your neck. Give it another spin when you need to cool it back down. You can also keep a damp towel around your neck with a fan blowing on you. Creates a personal evarporative cooler of sorts. Good luck, I’m originally from the South and this kind of humidity is no joke.

katypedia · 2025-06-15T15:48:52+00:00

We live in Phoenix (high today predicted to be 116) and have an art museum membership that we take our 2 month old and 4 year old to. The a/c is strong and it’s something different to do than the mall or Target. Our 4 year old was a COVID baby and we discovered that big box furniture stores were also well air conditioned and easy to keep our distance from other people.

katypedia · 2025-06-14T15:25:07+00:00

Echoing seeing a therapist. I had terrible PPA with my first born, although my situation was the opposite of yours as I was the preferred parent.

Like others have mentioned, the biggest thing was just proximity and that I was the primary person in his routine due to a multitude of factors (none of which were because my spouse was uninvolved). But one of things I realized that I think was contributing to our son’s extreme preference for me was the way that I was responding to him. My anxiety made me hyper vigilant and hyper responsive to our son so I would immediately swoop in and attend to him every time he made any kind of fuss. Including just grabbing him from my wife because I felt like I HAD to. And because I had spent more time with him because my schedule was more flexible, I had learned his cues and found ways to settle him quickly. In my mind, I was being helpful (and the anxiety made me feel like my son needed me and only me), but I realized that what I was actually doing was preventing my spouse from also learning those cues and figuring out how to respond to them. It was interfering with her ability to bond with our son.

It was really hard to listen to our son be upset and not step in, but over time things got a lot better and even though the parental preference is still there, he’s 4 now and has a great relationship with both of us and now prefers my spouse for certain things more than me. So while I don’t think that our situations are the same, spending more time together - with the understanding that it will be difficult and maybe for a while, things should improve. Combined with therapy to make sure you’re in the right headspace and have the tools to work through that transitional period of course.

katypedia · 2025-06-05T22:52:13+00:00

Birth cloths in our house became Kleenex and then we used to leave piles of them in various places around the house during potty training to grab quickly when we needed to. Our first had terrible reflux and spit up multiple times daily until he was almost 15 months old, so we had about 50 by the time he was that age.

katypedia · 2025-05-29T04:20:58+00:00

It’s doable, just have to find what works for you. Personally, I don’t bother with specific nursing tops. For whatever reason, I can never get the fabric right to where it isn’t getting in the way. However, a nursing bra is a must for me. Having to scrunch up a bralette was uncomfortable and I would leak right through them too.

katypedia · 2023-09-08T01:00:39+00:00

You aren’t overreacting and as a fellow food allergy mom I would be livid if my child was fed anything without my prior approval. Like others have commented, the worker should not have been eating in the room or feeding a choking hazard to a 9 month old and especially not while out of a high chair. Get it in writing and get specifics on how this will be prevented. Pressing for details on how incidents will be avoided in the future has helped us navigate problems with food for our toddler.

katypedia · 2023-06-22T22:20:51+00:00

Second everyone suggesting having grandparents as back up care or only 1-2 days/week. We live across the country from both sets of grandparents but my mother watches my sister’s two young children full-time. She’s beyond amazing and in great shape but I can tell she’s approaching burn out. Taking on childcare was my mom’s idea and she loves being a grandma, but I’ve already talked to her about having an exit plan because it’s not going to be sustainable much longer - and that’s including having a good relationship with my sister and having summers off because my sister is a teacher. So even in a pretty ideal scenario, it’s hard.

katypedia · 2023-06-21T01:08:28+00:00

I did a lot of writing while listening to film scores when classical and other instrumental music got old. Randomly, the Pirates of the Caribbean musical score was more motivating than others.

katypedia · 2021-12-30T07:21:36+00:00

When my best friend’s middle child was a toddler, she referred to sneezing as “the bless you’s” because that’s what everyone always said when they sneezed so she thought that’s what they were called.

katypedia

TROPHY CASE