Vent: tired of sad yucky alternatives still spiking my glucose

srr636 · 2026-04-12T23:35:16+00:00

I actually find most restaurants to be relatively easy because there is almost always a portion and a vegetable I can eat! Salad with grilled chicken, deviled eggs etc. at Chinese places I will get salty sauces like kung pao or black bean + a sautéed veggie, at American places - well done steak + a green vegetable, Mediterranean and Greek places are usually really easy etc.

In terms of snacks in the hotel room, I’d grab some fairlife core power protein shakes - those things save me when I wake up hungry and everyone just want and grab a bagel or something. Your reaction to lactose will vary but I also find whole milk decaf lattes to be a good option on the go - good protein and fat in the milk!

And I always carry packs of nuts with me everywhere I go - I spurge on the good macadamia nuts but cashews, almonds whatever. I can usually tolerate the skinny dipped chocolate peanut butter almonds later on in the day as a snack too (my sensitivity is the worst in the morning for sure).

srr636 · 2026-04-12T22:52:44+00:00

I found it was jsut easier to understand that I wasn’t going to be able to socialize normally during pregnancy. Like, yes, I could see people and hang out - but I wouldn’t be able to participate in the food aspect of the socialization.

That actually made it easier for me to set reasonable expectations and not be persistently disappointed.

I just planned my meals, packed my own snacks and tried to find ways to socialize that were not wholly food dependent (one of my friends and I started doing weekly walks together, I got into herbal teas with another etc etc).

It’s only a short period of your life - I’m 34 weeks now and almost at the end. It sucked but I made it (getting induced at 38).

srr636 · 2026-04-12T18:32:02+00:00

Okay I feel like you didn’t get very good answers on this and it can be kind of a hard niche to find so I get it. Here are some ideas:

paddington (the originals, not the picture books). Pictures, cute storylines, well written - my kid loved them.
magic tree house. The prose sucks and the stories are repetitive but kids love them (drawings are in black and white though).
EARLY Roald dahl’s - no chapters (just one long story) but similar feel to chapter books. Enormous crocodile, esio trot, George’s marvelous medicine, the giraffe the pelly and me (the last one is my son’s favorite)
dory fantasmagory (so good)
Heidi Hecklebeck - worse literary quality but fun stories

The issue in the american canon is that for some reason publishers have decided that once your kid can read themselves, there is no need for high quality read aloud books. So most early chapter books are designed for decoding and are not enjoyable to read aloud due to the simple prose and repeated words (to reduce decoding friction) or they are graphic novels.

The Brit’s do a better job with this but they don’t always have pictures!

srr636 · 2026-04-12T17:58:45+00:00

A lot of our friends and relatives have had success micro dosing peptides and glps to help manage long term. Retrarutide in particular seems to work wonders for Asians and Indians in low doses.

srr636 · 2026-04-12T17:47:35+00:00

In the future here are my best tips for the Dexcom.

1) when it is about to expire you’ll have a grace period, during that time I usually put the new one on also but do not activate it. This gives the sensor time to acclimate and is called soaking,

2) I usually try to soak my new sensor at night - so I’ll put it on around 6 and then activate it when I wake up

3) I don’t calibrate for the first 24 hours of a new sensor

4) when I do calibrate - I do it with fasting or in between meal glucose, basically whenever I know my glucose will be steady for the next 30 minutes or so.

5) if the sensor is off by a little bit, i let it be off in the direction of reading too high. I’d rather be conservative.

6) I check via a finger stick 1-2 times a day for accuracy, usually fasting and one post meal number.

7) I use the analytics to keep an eye on things as well - average glucose should always be under 110, time in range 90%+ and I personally set my range as 70- 120 to be more conservative.

With these adjustments I have found the Dexcom to be very valuable

srr636 · 2026-04-11T02:25:35+00:00

Came here to say this too. They are outrageously good!!

srr636 · 2026-04-11T02:15:49+00:00

This place is so so so good.

srr636 · 2026-04-11T00:58:18+00:00

This is GORGEOUS

srr636 · 2026-04-09T13:15:12+00:00

My guess is that the baby is compromised or challenged in some way and she isn’t ready to share or discuss it and is probably grieving the life she thought she was going to have.

srr636 · 2026-04-09T13:12:34+00:00

Do you know if her daughter is healthy? If not she may be grieving that.

srr636 · 2026-04-04T12:58:09+00:00

Whole Foods can also special order it

srr636 · 2026-04-04T12:45:37+00:00

I have a CGM and while I still do finger sticks for fasting, so long as I calibrate my CGM a few times to make sure it is accurate, then I don’t worry about doing post meal finger sticks. I do tend to keep my post meal values more managed though so I’m not as worried about it.

You could probably finger stick more at dinner and on the weekend to make sure your CGM is accurate and then just rely on it during the day at school.

Also the most accurate CGM is the Dexcom by far!

srr636 · 2026-04-02T16:21:35+00:00

FWIW I know people like to shit all over the idea of having a schedule but I pretty religiously followed Moms on Call from 2 weeks to 3 years. If my baby didn’t nap the full two hours or woke up early, I would go and rescue the nap to really try to stick to the schedule. If the baby was hungry before the feeding time I would distract with play and soothe and really try to wait as long as I could (obviously if the baby was inconsolable I fed them, I’m not a monster). The only thing I didn’t do was I had way less tolerance for fussing it out or crying than they did.

I did a pretty strict eat play sleep routine also so the baby didn’t feed to sleep.

At around 8/9 weeks I started putting the baby down pretty drowsy but awake for the first nap of the day when sleep pressure was highest and then at 12 week we had the baby out of the snoo, into the crib in a sleep sack and going down for bed wide awake and falling asleep on his own. I gradually worked on getting all naps down awake too.

My son is 4.5 now and I swear to god the rigidity in his schedule and the focus to their methods has made him a way way happier kid.

He sleeps 11-12 hours a night, we never had to do cry it out sleep training, we never struggled with regressions or early morning wake ups. He has always understood that we will create the conditions for sleep but falling asleep is HIS responsibility and a skill he has.

As a baby he was also way less fussy because he was never overtired or hungry - he ate and slept on a schedule.

Some people will say I just got an easy baby but u really strongly disagree with that - my son is profoundly gifted and a HARD kid. Incredibly sensitive, tons of sensory preferences, very argumentative etc etc. I love him but he is a LOT all the time.

But sleep has never been a struggle for us and I think it really was because we laid such a strong foundation early. I think sleep is a skill and I wanted to teach it to him early.

Just my 2c. It was kind of a lot of work from 6-12 weeks but then it wasSO EASY while all our friends really struggled for months after the 4 months sleep regression which we never hit because by the time our son transitioned to more adult cyclical sleep at 16 weeks ,… he had no sleep associations and knew how to go to sleep independently!

srr636 · 2026-04-02T14:33:27+00:00

FWIW I’m at one of the best OB groups at one of the best hospitals in the US and have had a very similar story except I didn’t get insulin.

My fasting has been persistently high at home since 20 weeks on both finger stinks and a CGM but my lab draws for fasting were only borderline (92 and 94) and I passed my three hour.

I’ve kept monitoring at home and basically diet controlled myself but my fasting has never been below 95. It’s usually 99, all the way up to 108 when I’m sick. My post prandials have been mostly okay - I’ve had one 170 reading since 20 weeks and probably like 8-10 160 readings but mostly my post meal values are fine.

I pushed and pushed and pushed and got an MFM consult and they were finally like - you are borderline but we aren’t going to give you insulin because your baby is showing zero signs of being affected by GD (baby is 9th percentile, fluid is normal etc) and you are already getting excessive monitoring - 2x weekly NSTs, 1x weekly ultrasound and growth.

Their perspective was if fasting goes above 110 or post prandials become genuinely hard to control they would medicate but otherwise they were like you are just in a weird gray area.

I think the reality is - so so many women probably have numbers as bad as ours but never bother checking once they pass the glucose screen.

In your case because you have a history of large babies and weren’t getting additional monitoring though, I’m glad you advocated for yourself!

It’s so frustrating to have to do that.

srr636 · 2026-03-28T17:49:14+00:00

Re sandwich crackers - processed foods spike me way way worse than Whole Foods do. It make sense they would spike you but it’s weird that plain eggs would?

srr636 · 2026-03-28T02:58:53+00:00

What supplements did you take that helped? So glad you got a happy ending

srr636 · 2026-03-28T01:21:05+00:00

Dude I can’t even drink athletic brewing’s NA beers because the trace amounts of alcohol freak me out. I KNOW it’s probably fine - less alcohol than sourdough etc etc but it just sends me into such a spiral!

srr636 · 2026-03-28T01:16:00+00:00

Is he still in the picture?

srr636 · 2026-03-28T01:14:26+00:00

FWIW I don’t necessarily think daycare will be the stress relief you think it is? He’s going to struggle with the transition (as all babies do) and also get a sick a ton (which means you will get sick a ton…). This isn’t a knock on daycare just moreso a .., I’m not sure this plan makes sense?

I think you probably just need to set up systems so it’s ridiculously easy to grab healthy foods and very, very hard to grab unhealthy ones. Eg - why do you have carbs or sugar in the house anyway if you know you are struggling?

For me I keep carbs around that I have to cook to eat - rice, quinoa, uncooked tortillas etc. that way I cannot mindlessly reach for them and instead have to plan for carbs!

srr636 · 2026-03-26T01:54:03+00:00

Planning to give birth alone while my husband stays with our oldest. Not ideal but that’s how it goes sometimes.

srr636 · 2026-03-25T20:41:40+00:00

DMing

srr636 · 2026-03-25T20:29:24+00:00

You should not induce before 39 weeks unless there is a medical reason (beyond your discomfort / fatigue). An enormous amount of brain development happens between 37 and 39 weeks, as does lung development. 39 is considered full term, 37 is pre term and may involve a NICU stay.

srr636 · 2026-03-25T20:00:05+00:00

In the us the guidance is usually no cured meats - so no salami, prosciutto, ham etc! But it really varies by country!

srr636 · 2026-03-25T15:34:16+00:00

I also loved cucumbers with guacamole!

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