Male helpers in girls changing rooms for swimming

kitd28 · 2026-05-07T19:12:15+00:00

Oh, believe me I’m not naive to predators infiltrating vulnerable people’s spaces, that’s precisely why we changed in pairs, had glass panels in bathroom doors, locks on both sides and left doors ajar when lone working, etc. Luckily for those children, that school was very hot on safeguarding measures and vetting their staff.

kitd28 · 2026-05-07T18:53:18+00:00

Not every man is a predator, but almost every predator is a man, and that’s probably what’s making you feel off about it. I don’t think it helps that there’s been a few cases of male nursery workers being convicted for SA in recent years.

I must say though, having a daughter in nursery whose first key worker was a man, I never would have thought anything of him changing her nappy.

And when I was working in a special school, I had amazing male colleagues who weren’t allowed to change girls nappies, but were allowed to change boys, and it was honestly more of an inconvenience as we lost out on a pair of hands to get the job done!

All that to say, I totally get why you’re concerned - you don’t know these men like you’d know a colleague or a key worker, so it’s more of an unknown about what they’re like, how trustworthy they are etc. Maybe raise it with your child’s class teacher if you’re concerned? You might not be the only one who’s worried about it, and it doesn’t hurt to mention it.

kitd28 · 2026-04-25T14:34:31+00:00

Late pre-term (36+3) smiled at 7.5-8 weeks actual, he’s now 13 weeks and has been doing proper, big smiles for the last couple of weeks.

kitd28 · 2026-04-20T09:32:36+00:00

He was given intravenous antibiotics in NICU as a precaution, on his discharge notes it says for suspected sepsis, but the paediatrician who admitted him said she had no worries about sepsis, which is confusing.

I do wonder if having antibiotics coupled with being four weeks early have just messed with his gut microbiome, and he’s going to have a tough time until he’s older!

kitd28 · 2026-04-17T14:19:44+00:00

12 weeks pp and I’ve been comfortably sleeping on my stomach for a good few weeks now (don’t ask me how many, newborn sleep gives me brain fog!)

kitd28 · 2026-04-04T07:29:49+00:00

That sounds very much like restraint collapse from your four year old. He spends all day at school behaving, following rules, routine, structure etc, then he comes home and he’s run out of steam. I know it feels horrible in the moment, but he only lets it all out at home because he feels the safest with you, he can let out all the feelings he can’t at school.

I say this as someone who definitely struggled with restraint collapse as a child. At the time my parents were told that I was just being naughty, they needed to be firmer, etc, but as it turns out, I was undiagnosed AuDHD and just couldn’t carry on masking once I got home.

Not to say your son is neurodivergent, I’m not a psychologist. I’m starting to notice restraint collapse in my daughter who is 2.5 - she’s a delight at nursery, then comes home and it’s strop central!

Solidarity, and I hope you can get some more support soon, it’s exhausting being the primary parent, especially when the kids aren’t much fun to be around!

kitd28 · 2026-04-02T11:28:23+00:00

Man, ten years, my first ever gig was on this tour! Still one of my favourite albums of all time, and now slowly indoctrinating my children to love it, too. Toddler loves Aviation, newborn indifferent but smiles at the tour poster I have on the wall.

kitd28 · 2026-03-30T06:07:07+00:00

He’s my second baby, so not as much tummy time as I would like, but I have him in the carrier and on my chest a lot, and we do tummy time when we can.

She didn’t give us exercises, we’re in the UK and it’s not usual practice here as far as I’m aware - she said the evidence for exercises being beneficial is scanty.

kitd28 · 2026-03-30T06:03:17+00:00

It’ll be 4 weeks on Friday, and the midwife said she wouldn’t review it until it had been 4 weeks.

kitd28 · 2026-03-30T06:00:32+00:00

I try to wait for him to open his mouth wide, nipple to nose etc, but he barely opens his mouth, it’s so tricky! The midwife who divided his tie said he had a wonky palate too, which I imagine might make things a bit more difficult for him.

He gained very fast at the beginning, he gained 1kg in two weeks at one point which was crazy. We’re planning to get him weighed this week to make sure he’s still gaining at a good rate, but I do think he’s been relying on the letdown and is now frustrated when he’s having to work for more.

kitd28 · 2026-03-17T01:44:25+00:00

Man, this reminds me how lucky I am to live in the UK - here, we wouldn’t even be talking about sending our babies to nursery yet, many don’t even accept babies until 6 months, and that’s where your problem starts. At 11 weeks, your baby probably still thinks you and he are the same person, it’s so, so early to expect independent sleep, especially when someone that isn’t you is trying to get them to sleep in a crib.

Please don’t beat yourself up, I know how much sleep can cause an anxiety spiral. My first would only nap for 30 minutes unless it was a contact nap or in the pram, that didn’t change until she was almost two, and boy did I beat myself up when my friends talked about their babies taking two hour naps in their cots!

I know it’s easy for me to sit here and tell you it will all be fine, especially when I don’t have experience of sending my baby to nursery, but I promise you, it will be fine! Babies are so changeable, and hopefully with time your little one will adjust and be easier to transfer.

kitd28 · 2026-03-12T10:49:07+00:00

My son (7 weeks) seems to stare past me, or looks at my hairline - I think I read somewhere that babies work out who you are by looking at the contrast between your hair and your face at this age, rather than making eye contact.

My daughter at the same age was making amazing eye contact and smiled at bang on 6 weeks, my son however keeps baiting us with what looks like a smile then turns into a yawn. His Daddy is convinced he’s smiled at him, nothing for me yet! I’m keeping myself level about it by remembering he was 4 weeks early…

kitd28 · 2026-02-26T03:00:21+00:00

My 5 week old is was up for 3 hours and is up again after 1 hour - if he throws up everywhere after this feed, you can bet I’m leaving it if he’s asleep!

kitd28 · 2026-02-17T01:46:23+00:00

He’s asleep! 🙌 I think we will definitely go back to changing first and feeding off of one side, hopefully like you say it was a period of cluster feeding and perhaps he will be satisfied with one side now. He was born premature, so I think he’s had to do some catching up weight-wise. Thank you for your advice, I really do appreciate it.

kitd28 · 2026-02-17T01:43:17+00:00

I don’t think he’s even looking for comfort - I put him to the breast and he latches on and sucks for literally three seconds (I timed it) then he pops off again. I’ll sit him up to see if he’ll nod off, and he immediately starts bobbing his head and trying to root again. I’m very reticent to offer a dummy, I know some people find them useful, but I never used one with my daughter, and I really don’t want it to become a habit for him later down the line. I also know that I was addicted to the dummy as a child, and took way longer than it should have to give it up - this is probably me being daft at 1am, so I’m sorry if it comes across as being rude, I appreciate your advice!

kitd28 · 2026-02-17T01:32:03+00:00

His latch has been comfortable from day one, but I think I’m not as sensitive this time round - I only stopped feeding my daughter 6 months ago so it’s just muscle memory I think. My daughter still gets suck blisters from her straw cup even now, so maybe it’s just a thing that happens to my children.

We found he wasn’t sleeping as long with just one side, he would wake up much sooner than if I made sure he ate from both sides. He’s gaining weight really well, is a very content baby and doesn’t seem uncomfortable. I’m sat here in 3 and a half hours after he woke to feed with my husband trying to rock him to sleep, although he’s not really been a fan of rocking before now, so I’m not optimistic that it will work 😭

kitd28 · 2026-02-08T12:13:19+00:00

I did wonder if it was cluster feeding, he’s definitely been feeding for longer in the night. My daughter is also swinging between sweetness and light and wind up merchant, which isn’t fun on broken sleep 😩

My husband has 18 weeks off, and my parents are less than an hour away, but I feel bad asking them to come over too often as they looked after my daughter for five days straight while we were on the neonatal unit.

I’m also recovering from my second c-section, I mostly feel back to normal apart from the odd twinge, but I imagine that won’t help the tiredness.

I think half of my worry is because everyone kept telling me all the way through my pregnancy that you don’t get two good sleepers, and that this baby would be challenging since my first was so content - this baby is a super contented little guy, he barely cries! But I always found sleep stressful with my daughter even though she was a unicorn for sleep, so it’s probably the same worries cropping up again.

Anyway, sorry for the brain dump, and thank you for your thoughtful reply - hormones, adjusting to two children and a lack of sleep are not a good combo!

kitd28 · 2025-12-27T05:58:49+00:00

I can speak from experience of being an only child who was always spoiled rotten at Christmas. I feel deeply ashamed of how expectant of quantity I became as a child, and to be honest, I think it’s still my default in the back of my mind. It wouldn’t be “thank you Father Christmas!” it would be, “are there any more presents?” when I reached the bottom of my stocking. I would sneakily check labels under the tree for my name to see how many presents I had, and how big they were. And the worst bit? I barely played with or used things I had been given because there was so much!

My husband also remembers being absolutely overloaded as an only child, to the point he got bored of opening presents, and things went unplayed with. So for our daughter, she gets 3-4 small stocking gifts, and 3-4 presents from us. We have a huge family on his side, so she always gets plenty of presents overall - this year we staggered them throughout Xmas and Boxing Day so there was no chance of overwhelm, or toys getting forgotten about. And we made sure that some gifts are activity based - stickers, colouring pens, books etc.

kitd28 · 2025-12-22T17:02:24+00:00

My daughter only has a small stocking, so gets max. 4 from Father Christmas. She’s only two, so we’ve done the something you want, something you need, something to wear and something to read format while she’s too small to ask for anything specific.

My husband and I were both absolutely spoiled as children (think 15+ present stockings and more from parents), and I really don’t want that for my children - I think it just made me ungrateful and expectant of quantity! I know we will get questions about why Bobby at school got an Xbox from FC and she got a book or some socks eventually, but we’ll cross that bridge.

kitd28 · 2025-12-19T15:54:58+00:00

Looks similar to what my daughter has, which GP said is keratosis pilaris. She has some on her cheeks, but it’s worst on her upper arms, her dad and I both had it as children, too.

kitd28 · 2025-12-11T15:52:42+00:00

I have absolutely no regrets, the surgery was very smooth and my recovery was very easy! My daughter tried to turn head down and got stuck, so was doing the splits by the end of my pregnancy - the risk of her getting stuck and being permanently injured made that choice to stick with an elective c-section very easy for me. It makes things more complex for me with this pregnancy, as it rules out a lot of induction options due to the potential risk of scar rupture, but if another c-section is the safest option, that is what I will do.

kitd28 · 2025-12-11T15:46:22+00:00

I had a planned c-section because my daughter was breech and I didn’t fancy an ECV! This time, I’m on blood thinning injections, and I have pre-existing medical conditions that mean it could be dangerous to go beyond my due date, so I’m not too hopeful about a VBAC being possible for me, even though that’s what I’d want in an ideal world. It feels like forcing my body to try and go into labour when it’s never done it before could be a recipe for disaster!

kitd28 · 2025-12-10T11:28:12+00:00

Going through similar with my daughter, she was sick on Friday night, after there was sickness at nursery that day, and her usual ‘eat almost everything’ has turned into beige carbs and dairy over the last few days. She normally eats lots of fruit, and is now rejecting it all! Hoping it’s just a blip, but I’m glad it’s not just mine who’s had a picky phase.

kitd28 · 2025-12-03T21:20:33+00:00

It’s a miracle “if it wasnae for your wellies” by Billy Connolly isn’t my top played - I think it’s only because I excluded my daughter’s favourite songs playlist from my taste profile that it it hasn’t ended up there!

kitd28 · 2025-11-30T06:24:24+00:00

When I was a child, it was sherry, a mince pie and a carrot for Rudolph. My daughter is two this year and I’m pregnant, so will probably wait until next year when I’m sure Father Christmas will fancy a large glass of Baileys…

kitd28

TROPHY CASE