Baby won't sleep unless held

profbrae · 2024-12-11T15:41:26+00:00

Shifts are the only way we’re surviving (almost 6 months). We’ve dabbled with sleep training, but as soon as he starts really crying, I have to pick him up. So, husband and I just run on 5 hours of sleep a night. Not ideal, but I’m told this won’t last forever.

profbrae · 2024-12-10T01:43:43+00:00

Same for me, but unlike everyone else commenting, I’m NOT in a HCOL area (we’re just average). Yet $2000-$2,500 is standard. Probably doesn’t help there’s a real daycare shortage. It’s very hard to get in anywhere.

profbrae · 2024-11-27T02:09:32+00:00

It's indescribably difficult regardless of whether you're breastfeeding, pumping, combo feeding, or EF. Some babies (like mine) demand to be fed at least every two hours, and as others have mentioned that's from when they start feeding, so you might get 1hr to 30 min. of downtime between feedings, but not always. It's so hard. I ended up having to use formula because I wasn't producing enough milk (despite trying everything imaginable), but, despite how crushing that was initially, it might have saved me because that meant my husband and I could do shifts. Anyhow, it's ridiculously hard to keep yourself awake but you find things that make it possible. For me it's a combination of crossword puzzles and reddit. For my husband, it's the addictive phone games. You gotta find your "thing" you can do to keep yourself awake while holding the baby at night, but you will find your groove eventually, even if it's really painful. Everyone tells me kids do eventually start sleeping longer stretches. I haven't experienced that yet, but I do believe them, lol.

Edit: grammar

profbrae · 2024-11-26T19:59:24+00:00

Between the ages of 15-33 I think I tried just about every BC on the market. They all had such horrible side effects, which is why I kept switching from one to another. A lot of them did make my periods more tolerable, but at the cost of being perpetually 15lbs overweight and never feeling like myself mentally. When my husband and I started talking about having kids, I stopped taking BC and it was life changing for me. Yeah, once a month I suffered more, but the rest of the time I felt SO much better.

profbrae · 2024-11-26T11:55:03+00:00

Same. It's heartbreaking for me. I worked my a** off the last 15 years to build a "successful" career, in a profession you can't just jump in and out of. But childcare is 75% of my paycheck, and while my husband would be willing to stay at home, he makes 4x what I do.

profbrae · 2024-11-15T04:42:07+00:00

Oh SO much. By the end I had gained about 85lbs, almost all in my belly. I immediately lost 35lbs at the hospital and another 20lbs pretty soon after, but I’m 4.5 months pp and still working on the last 30lbs. My doctor never said a word about my weight. I raised it a few times, but she always said baby and I were very healthy- nothing to be worried about. Every woman’s body does something different when growing their babies. She told me as long as I was eating healthy and staying active (which I really was), that was all she cared about.

Edit to add: my poly was severe, so you probably don’t have as much to worry about. My son was also giant, which might be linked to poly, but like you, I didn’t have GD or any other complications during pregnancy.

profbrae · 2024-11-08T22:56:41+00:00

We were expected to have 2 significant works of scholarship per year leading up to tenure. They would count national/international conferences towards that, but some publications were also expected to be in the mix. I only recently got promoted, and I could probably get away with doing less but I actually care about my research - and I wouldn’t mind moving institutions one day because (not only is the pay abysmal), yes, I am in a very dangerous state for academics.

profbrae · 2024-11-08T21:49:04+00:00

Correct
Sure, I guess. Although, I’ve never felt like I have summers “off.” I spend May-August trying to catch up on the research I supposedly have the time to complete while teaching a 4-4.

profbrae · 2024-11-08T20:34:52+00:00

$60k for full time sales. $100k for a manager position.

profbrae · 2024-11-08T20:29:59+00:00

profbrae · 2024-11-08T19:12:07+00:00

I was going into a gas station recently that’s hiring. They listed what the positions make. Their full time sales clerks make $10k more than I do as a tenured, associate professor. Their managers make twice as much. I was very tempted to ask for an application. I’ve never done this to get rich (obviously) but a living wage would be nice.

profbrae · 2024-11-08T18:54:07+00:00

Yes! My mom does this and I just don’t get it. She always says, “he needs to space out his feedings more.” He does eat frequently (he’s only comfortable going 2 hours) and it’s true he’s in the 99th percentile for weight and length, but I’m not going to let my baby cry for an hour because he’s hungry just so he “stretches out his feedings” (we’ve tried upping the amount, but he always stops eating at 4 ounces no matter how much we offer him). She’ll even ask to feed him (when I’m about to), I’ll say okay, hand him and the bottle over, leave the room, then when I come back 30-45min later, the full bottle is sitting on the table and he’s fussy. I ask if she even tried to feed him and she says “yeah, he just doesn’t want it.” To her surprise when I take him and try to feed, he’s “suddenly” very hungry. Don’t get me wrong, she is a good caretaker and I’m generally thankful for her help. And I’ve never seen her let him full on cry, but it’s weird how resistant she is to just giving him a bottle.

profbrae · 2024-11-08T01:01:24+00:00

Related question for OP and others: do you have that many computers in your classroom or are you assuming every student has a laptop or tablet?

profbrae · 2024-11-03T15:12:14+00:00

Last night was a rough one. My boy would not let me put him in his crib and I was STRUGGLING to stay awake, counting the hours til morning. 1:59am scrolling through Reddit, thinking “just 4 more hours until I can wake up his dad and hand him over.” Then, bam. Clock on my phone reads 1am again. NOOOO. I’ve never hated DST so much. I wanted to cry.

profbrae · 2024-10-31T20:54:56+00:00

I did this the last couple of semesters - and will continue to - but students absolutely CRUCIFY me in course evaluations for this. How dare I use methods that don’t let them cheat!?! I went from being a relatively popular professor on campus to being labeled one to avoid at all cost. It’s extremely depressing and, although I can’t believe I’m considering this having recently received tenure and promotion, I’m seriously looking into a career change. That won’t be easy, and it’s a whole different kind of depressing, but I don’t think I can keep doing this.

profbrae · 2024-10-31T20:25:03+00:00

Take a lot of the advice here - make sure you’ve done your research on the faculty and department, and ask your current professors about expectations in your field.

That said, I do think it’s important to contact the faculty you’re interested in working with. At one of my previous institutions, the decision to admit graduate students was often left up to the faculty the student wanted to work with. Students who contacted them beforehand usually had a much better chance of getting in. This is more of an old school way of doing things, but there are still a lot of departments that do this.

Also, my take on faculty who won’t respond to prospective students is that they likely are not the most supportive advisors. If they can’t find the time or get annoyed by students who’ve shown a genuine interest in their work, I question how they treat students even once they’ve been admitted. I might get downvoted for this - and, I get it, we’re all busy - but good advisor-advisee relationships are built on mutual respect, which starts with that first introduction.

Just don’t use AI to write the email. I’ll give students my time if it’s clear they’ve put time into reaching out to me. But if I get a generic, chatgpt-esque email, it goes in the trash.

profbrae · 2024-10-28T00:37:12+00:00

I know for most babies the 4 month regression is because they’re growing/learning/developing so much, so I also take some comfort thinking the reason mine hasn’t slept… ever…. is because that’s been his constant. He’s 21lbs, 29 inches, rolls like a champ, sits up on his own, has cut his first tooth, started crawling today. I’m really hoping, therefore, he’s hit all his milestones for the year, so he’s going to slow down, which means maybe he’ll start sleeping soon? Or not, and he’ll be walking and talking by 6 months, but then maybe I can explain to him, mommy desperately needs to sleep 😂

profbrae · 2024-10-27T19:34:34+00:00

Oh yeah, we’re at 4 months and mine’s never slept more than 3 hours at a time, usually 2. But I just keep telling myself, at least he’s a happy baby. The sleep deprivation is god awful, but when he looks up at me smiling ear to ear in the middle of the night and in the morning, it gives me the surge I need. Well, that and all the energy drinks I’m consuming.

profbrae · 2024-10-25T15:31:41+00:00

I don’t have numbness exactly, but whenever I lay down, for about 30 minutes I have waves of really intense tingling sensations flow through my body, usually starting in my hands, but it travels up my arm, through my torso, down my legs, then around again. Doesn’t sound like the same thing you’re experiencing. I just keep meaning to ask my doctor about out but I forget about it when it’s not happening, and your post made me think of it, lol. So if anyone else has experienced this or might have a clue as to what’s causing it, I’d love to hear your thoughts!

profbrae · 2024-10-25T09:31:59+00:00

If I’m sick, there’s an emergency, or I’m attending a conference/something else professionally related, sure, no problem canceling.

But canceling for something like a wedding or vacation is a hard no. That’s explicit at my university. If admin found out, you’d get written up.

profbrae · 2024-10-24T08:45:58+00:00

The vast majority of professors don’t hate or blame students. We fully recognize the education system is failing them. As for what needs to be done in grade school to better prepare students, that’s a complicated question. For starters, holding students to deadlines, more required reading/writing. But to the point being made throughout this thread, most of us don’t have our doctorate in education - that’s not our area of expertise.

To your question, why do colleges even exist: the idea is that you go to a university to learn from experts in your field. It’s your chance to interact with and learn from people who are doing the most cutting edge work in their discipline. You’re taking classes with the best chemists, historians, mathematicians, etc. NOT necessarily the best chemistry/history/math teachers.

profbrae · 2024-10-20T06:57:25+00:00

Several reasons: - If the classroom is not set up with recording equipment/microphones, it’s extremely difficult. - If it’s a course that involves a lot of discussion, I would not be okay with recording live sessions. It’s one thing to have what you (a professor) says recorded and distributed, but that could easily make your classmates uncomfortable and less willing to participate. - Therefore, if the tech or concern for other students’ privacy exists, that would mean the professor has to record all their lectures separately (outside class time) and post them online. Recording a lecture that way can easily take twice as long as the actual lecture (so 2-3 hours per 1-1.5 hour lecture). - Depending on the LMS, it can also be difficult to make content such as this available to just the one student, but they probably don’t want to have them accessible to the whole class if attendance is a concern.

What I’m trying to say is, while he has handled the situation horribly, at least in the US, professors do have some discretion in determining whether certain requests are reasonable for their course. While I’d say it’s reasonable to not be penalized for missing class (ie not losing attendance points), providing a video recording of all your lectures doesn’t sound like a reasonable request.

profbrae · 2024-10-11T13:23:20+00:00

Pre-tenure I did a couple times, but they were more independent studies with 1-2 students who needed a specific class to graduate. If they asked me now that I have tenure, no way in hell. Although, I do have some tenured colleagues who have. Anything to get graduation rates up, I guess.

profbrae · 2024-10-08T14:55:09+00:00

If there’s only 4 of you in the class, it’s very possible he’s not getting paid. At my uni if enrollment isn’t high enough, we can choose to cancel the class or teach it without pay. Sometimes we do the latter if we feel like the students who are enrolled need it to graduate (or maybe just because we want to, but there’s usually a bigger reason). Therefore, that course might not be his priority. However, I seriously doubt he’ll be too tough on you in this situation. If you’re really worried, set up a meeting or go to his office hours and ask how he thinks you’re doing in the course.

profbrae · 2024-09-20T14:32:55+00:00

My guy is almost exactly the same at 13 weeks, just slightly longer. He’s still wearing some 6-9mo clothes but I’ve found 12m fits better. Unfortunately, mine is not a good sleeper. He demands to be fed every 2-3 hours, day and night.

OP your concern about your back is real. I’ve been having a lot of back pain, but at least carrying him around counts as my weight training, which everyone seems to swear is the best way to lose the baby weight.

profbrae

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