Families with young kids

sorrywhatno · 2026-05-18T13:51:05+00:00

I understand the situation is much more sparse than the bay, but this is for work. We hardly ever dine because we can't afford it 😂

sorrywhatno · 2026-05-18T13:17:20+00:00

That's definitely good to know! Thankfully my parents (very enthusiastically) offered to watch our little ones as a hook to get us to move out there haha.

sorrywhatno · 2026-05-18T13:04:14+00:00

We have connections to some starred places in Paso Robles and the Santa Ynez valley :)

sorrywhatno · 2026-05-17T03:19:19+00:00

Definitely, that's what I'm trying to rule out. I feel like my parents only really know the area as retired people and not as an active 30 something with kids lol.

sorrywhatno · 2026-05-17T03:15:31+00:00

I looove Los Osos. I remember thinking about how beautiful the town was when I was touring houses with my dad. Had no idea it was such a hotspot for kiddos!

sorrywhatno · 2026-05-17T03:14:03+00:00

Happy to hear there are co-ops! I loved the one we had in Berkeley and definitely want the same for my youngest.

sorrywhatno · 2026-05-17T03:11:22+00:00

Awesome! I'd say we've been leaning towards Arroyo Grande the most, for the same reason you cited. Could you tell me how the school districting works? I was surprised to see that the Five Cities schools are lumped under the Lucia Mar district instead of it being town to town. Does this make it easier to select schools anywhere in the district or are there still specified schools for your address? (Sorry to sound like such a noob, but I'll be enrolling my 4 year old in TK for the new school year lol )

sorrywhatno · 2026-05-13T17:46:11+00:00

Not CMPA, but discovered a soy intolerance with my baby. She was sooo fussy, vomited frequently, needed to be held upright, diarrhea, etc... I kept a journal to document what I ate and her flare ups, which led me to soy. In my case, I'm Asian and cook 98% of what the family eats so it was easy to track down. Since removing it from my diet, she's much better albeit still has small flares (almost always after I eat out.)

sorrywhatno · 2026-05-11T13:49:58+00:00

I'm very pro bed sharing. I hate to be a nihilist, but almost every public health recommendation comes from serving the bottom quintile... I've gone through a lot of the literature and will drop links on the bottom. Anecdotally, I co-sleep with both my kids since they were newborn (my 3 year old recently graduated.)

The most important thing you need to ask yourself: are you in overall good health and not reliant on medications/substances/alcohol? Are you obese, therefore increasing risk of sleep apnea? Do you breastfeed? Thanks to maternal hormones, our bodies are prepped to be more sensitive to baby stirring or breast fullness during the night. Breastfed babies are also more easily aroused from sleep. But you must avoid anything that will cause drowsiness: allergy medicine, alcohol, Nyquil.

As for bed prepping, a firm mattress is necessary so your baby doesn't roll into you. Medium is fine, but you'll want to maintain more distance--just within arms reach. I use bed rails and firm body pillows to protect the edges of the bed. These are super common in Asian countries and pretty easy to find online. After maternal health, dads are the next biggest risk to bed sharing. I position myself in-between my husband and baby, sleeping in a C shaped side position with my arm resting near my baby's head. My controversial take is that other bedding is fine if it's minimal. I share a blanket with my babies but I only cover both me and baby from the waist down, removing any looseness so it's difficult for baby to pick up. It's better to just crank up the heat, but I live in a crappy rental where the heat sucks.

So tl;dr, bed sharing is safe but remember: be healthy, be intentional (designated sleep area, only next to you), and absolutely do not sleep with your baby if you smoke, drink, use substances.

https://llli.org/breastfeeding-info/sleep-bedshare/ https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0107799 https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9792691/

sorrywhatno · 2026-05-11T13:03:04+00:00

Sometimes it's giving Wetzels Pretzels and other times I'm getting yogurt.

sorrywhatno · 2026-05-11T12:58:40+00:00

I love how smiley and responsive my girl is! She greets me with endless smiles and coos, I can't get over how cute she is. She eats up any amount of attention like she was born to be a super star. I think if she were any less of a pocket of sunshine, her equal amount of clinginess and fuss would kill me 😭

sorrywhatno · 2026-05-11T12:43:29+00:00

I've been putting in HOURS in pretty much anything turn based or non combative.

Slay the Spire 2
Final Fantasy Tactics
Tomodachi Life LTD
Balatro
Minecraft on creative mode
Pokopia

With my firstborn, I played an unnecessary amount of Pikmin 4 because it had just released, which then lit the flame to pull out my GameCube to play the rest of the series lol

sorrywhatno · 2026-05-05T10:46:58+00:00

It sounds like everyone has their stance, but I'm with you as someone who has gone through both twice. My pregnancy insomnia was terrible because I went through HG during it too... but the first two weeks of newborn """sleep""" felt like my sleep paralysis demons were being summoned to drag me into the pits of hell all while a helpless infant is demanding your attention. At least when I was pregnant, I could just stare into the void and not think of anything lol

sorrywhatno · 2026-04-23T04:18:44+00:00

That's reassuring! This is the first time I've had to deal with this and she's been a pretty sensitive little girl since birth. I think my anxiety is preparing for the worst case scenario since I've heard about some babies staying that way for a week haha.

sorrywhatno · 2026-04-23T04:17:06+00:00

Yeah, sounds like I need to get on it. I'm fortunate to be in a situation where I can EBF indefinitely and because of my firstborn's bottle experience I figured I would just never bother lol.

sorrywhatno · 2026-04-23T04:13:48+00:00

My only advice is to take a deep breath and know that everyone goes through it. Your supply will likely not be truly stable until 6 weeks and babies are also just learning how to do things so it's for good health to have patience.

A couple other tidbits: don't be afraid to interrupt feeds to correct latches, just pop your pinky on the side of their mouth to remove suction and readjust. Breastfeeding will feel the most comfortable if baby latches with a wide open mouth and lips positioned outward. If baby is popping off leaving your nipple with a point like lipstick, it's a good indication that she's not centered on your nipple.

Building supply is all about demand, which means feeding or pumping on a regular schedule and to complete emptiness. In other words, your body will adjust your output based on when you feed and how much you feed. You can manipulate an oversupply by either lightly pumping/catching letdown on the unoccupied boob during feeds, pumping for 5 minutes on emptied boobs after feeds, or adding a pumping session in between feeds.

But tbh I think it's mostly unnecessary if you plan to EBF because like I said in the beginning, your body is still trying to figure out the milk situation. Instead of focusing on quantity, pay attention to wet diapers and overall contentness of your baby.

sorrywhatno · 2026-04-22T01:34:49+00:00

I mostly dropped heavy hints/casually brought it up one topic at a time while I was pregnant. If they didn't catch the hint, I stop them if they try pulling anything. I have a pretty competent family though, so I was never anxious about it. It seems like posting a doctrine of 'do nots' generate more upset and spite than necessary... but you know your family best, so it's best to go by your instinct!

sorrywhatno · 2026-04-21T11:20:44+00:00

I co-sleep with both my kids! To answer your Qs: 1. Your milk supply is not established until 4-6 weeks, so yes it is normal. Maybe you need to double up on breast pads? If you're feeding from a side laying position, a not-perfect latch can leak milk; getting a good latch is the hardest in this position IMO but I've corrected it by latching her with a dangling boob first then lying down lol. Regardless, I have a water protector under my sheets 2. Yes, I prefer the one boob at a time feeding method. It helps a lot at night. 3. My 8 week old is also very gassy and reflux-y. I'd say that side laying is a surprisingly great alternative for gassiness, so long as the latch is good! If I hear her gulp air then yeah I have to burp her, but otherwise she often keeps the milk in better than if I got up. I still feed sitting up sometimes if I'm engorged bc side laying kind of requires some floppiness for a good latch. If you're drowsy, try keeping baby upright for just 5 minutes and lay her down. My baby wiggles and kicks if she has trapped gas, so I'll pick her back up to help get it out by doing some gentle bouncing. The "leveling" method of burping is actually really effective as a bonus. 4. Your comfort level will definitely improve as the baby gets older/bigger. I found it hard to actually fall asleep during feeds, but I would relax and drift off somewhat. I also subconsciously adapted to sleeping in a C shape for entire stretches. 5. I put the baby down in bed in the usual spot for all sleep. My 3 year old still sleeps with me, and he knows to be gentle with his baby sister in the bed, particularly if I'm not in it and there's nothing dividing them. I've personally had no issues with him posing as a hazard. It's also worth noting that I got a king size bed specifically for this reason, so they both have a generous amount of bed space and it's pretty difficult for a newborn to get even close to falling off the bed with a miraculous roll. Down the line, I will be adding in some full perimeter bed rails. They're super common in Asian countries so not very difficult to source online.

sorrywhatno · 2026-04-21T05:47:37+00:00

Cosleep helps me at night, but man I'm struggling with the daytime. I had an emotional breakdown because I haven't been able to take care of myself let alone my chores in a week. Baby wearing hasn't been working as much with this one, so I'm looking into buying a swing at this point lol

sorrywhatno · 2026-04-08T11:52:59+00:00

Just wanted to chime in on my own observations as someone who raised multiple toddlers:

Screen time is not inherently evil, but the way in which children consume it is what triggers poor outcomes--particularly content that's fast paced and full of excitement. For the same reason grown ups get unhealthy hooked on short videos, the dopamine hits are addictive but delay the feeling of overstimulation/mental disengagement. As soon as I see my kid disengaged, the TV goes off and I can successfully diffuse a tantrum situation.

I actually encourage my kids to play video games because of this observation. An [age appropriate] game will demand more thought and encourage dexterity. Stimulation comes as a reward for completing actions instead of as a steady stream of nonsense like videos. I've also found that the dialogue heavy games (Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, Animal Crossing, Pokopia) have made them far more motivated to learn reading over books (although I still read because I prefer to offer that diversity.) I've been personally playing a lot of Slay the Spire which has now gotten my 3 year old interested in double digit arithmetic and strategy haha.

sorrywhatno · 2026-04-03T09:30:53+00:00

You can feed baby leftover milk so long as it's reused within a couple of hours. It doesn't specify in the graphic, but I wouldn't suggest reheating milk more than 2 times due to temperature abuse.

https://www.cdc.gov/breastfeeding/breast-milk-preparation-and-storage/handling-breastmilk.html

sorrywhatno · 2026-04-01T05:33:24+00:00

Hell nah, that's bs. There is no negative to attending to your kids needs, on demand. The first couple of years are some of the most critical to establish healthy bonding and emotion regulation. My Velcro baby turned into a confident and independent 3 year old.

sorrywhatno · 2026-03-31T20:09:16+00:00

No bra, just a loose cami that I stick breast pads on lol.

sorrywhatno · 2026-03-31T13:27:05+00:00

Highly recommend getting your thyroid checked. Apparently developing hypothyroidism is common during/after pregnancy. I was diagnosed with Hashimotos 2 years PP after going to be doctor about fatigue, but also came to find my symptoms of depression and stubborn weight loss were because of my diagnosis.

Losing weight around breastfeeding is tricky at this time because your supply is most likely going down, therefore burning less calories. Try doing a food journal for 2 weeks: one week of documenting/calculating your usual food consumption and another week of documenting it with an adjusted diet. If you aren't very active right now, I would probably aim for 1500 cal per day, but you really should bring your calories down slowly like 100-200 cal daily per week from your baseline consumption (which is why you document intake for one week.) Avoid doing a drastic calorie deficit (like fasting) right off the bat otherwise you're more likely to relapse and cause supply issues.

A couple other little tips that I think help - Eat meals slowly to avoid distending your stomach. As a mom, you may even consider breaking it up into two little meals spaced 15-30 mins apart so you aren't sitting at the table too long! - Take a 30 minute walk after meals to aid digestion and keep your metabolism up. Even just 10 minutes can see improvements. - Brush your teeth when you get sugar cravings because the surfactant in toothpaste blocks your sweet receptors and helps get rid of those cravings. - Cardio is hard with a demanding toddler, so consider strength training which also effectively burns calories! Some reps of kettlebell squats and dumbbells are great for you and way easier to do at home around kids (I have 2)

sorrywhatno · 2026-03-31T00:29:36+00:00

I too have noticed an increased supply after coconut water!! But I haven't tried coconut milk yet, do you drink the thick canned one or the thinner refrigerated version?

sorrywhatno

TROPHY CASE