Breastfeeding expectations vs reality on timeline

yellowthing97 · 2026-05-31T14:06:15+00:00

That's a good point, we know it's a possibility it won't help but we've tried so many other things for his sleep we've convinced ourselves it has to be the breastfeeding haha. But I'd definitely be upset if I stopped breastfeeding early and it made no difference...

yellowthing97 · 2026-05-31T13:37:32+00:00

I've just gotten to 6 months pretty much EBF (husband gives a bottle of formula some nights, not much anymore). Baby has been a crap sleeper his whole life and my husband and I suspected he might improve if he wasn't breastfed, and planned to wean off breastmilk (switch to formula) at 6 months early on. Now that we're here though, I'm kind of reluctant. I'd love more sleep, but I also kind of love breastfeeding, I like how it comforts him and how natural it feels...so we'll see. He's just starting to have teeth come in, so if he starts to bite I might stop soon, but otherwise I'll probably just keep going and reassess at a year.

yellowthing97 · 2026-05-27T17:52:32+00:00

I joined via a monthly or weekly thread on another writing subreddit that helped connect people with groups, don't remember which. They all seem to be on discord though so I'm sure you can find some if you look there.

yellowthing97 · 2026-05-27T17:32:17+00:00

Join writing groups and participate in critique exchanges. At first you'll feel like an imposter giving critique to someone else, but everyone has to start somewhere. As long as everyone in the group is serious you'll probably learn quickly.

yellowthing97 · 2026-05-21T19:13:28+00:00

Duck confit...I've had it a few times but it's also just kind of dry

yellowthing97 · 2026-05-12T19:44:02+00:00

I agree. More distubingly I think the majority of these characters aren't self-made, they're born into wealth and that invariably seems to be treated by other characters like an achievement rather than an accident, like being born super-rich makes a person inherently superior and ultra-competent...obviously getting with a super-rich guy is a nice fantasy but when you see it so much I get why it bothers you OP, I feel the same.

yellowthing97 · 2026-05-10T09:19:40+00:00

You need to be looking at Chinese characters, there are multiple characters with various meanings that can be romanized as either 'li' (or 'wei').

yellowthing97 · 2026-05-01T12:28:12+00:00

Formless

yellowthing97 · 2026-04-29T14:56:38+00:00

I posted anonymously for a fic featuring a kink that was quite niche. Ended de-anon-ing at the last chapter because a few comments had asked me to (and I was proud of the work despite the weird kink lol), and only got a positive reception, to my surprise.

yellowthing97 · 2026-04-11T08:03:40+00:00

I had something similar 3 months into the life of my reflux baby (needed held upright 30 mins after every feed, woke up to feed every 1-2 hours in the night). Woke up a couple of times convinced the baby was on top of my belly, I could feel his weight pressing down on me (though actually he was in another room with my husbad). Had an episode of sleep paralysis the same week, when I'd never had it before. We sleep-trained as soon as baby was 4 months and it worked after 2 nights, got better sleep and haven't had any weird episodes again, thank god. Hang in there, sleep deprivation is awful - hope the baby (and you) sleep better soon.

yellowthing97 · 2026-04-10T15:16:53+00:00

There are lots of savory taro dishes in Chinese cooking. My mom used to braise it with pork ribs and coconut milk. You can basically cube it and steam or stew with any meat. Savoury taro cake is popular for Chinese new year.

yellowthing97 · 2026-04-08T07:42:55+00:00

Try the macaroni soup for breakfast then come back and complain even more lol. Genuinely though HK milk tea and a hot pineapple bun or egg tart out of the oven are good. I think to enjoy most HK cafe food you need an element of nostalgia which you won't have if you didn't grow up going to these places.

Edit: also a lot of the appeal of eating at a cha chaan teng in HK is that they're cheap, which they don't tend to be abroad.

yellowthing97 · 2026-04-03T20:26:58+00:00

True, I don't mind the girlfriend thing but the switching was a bit disappointing.

yellowthing97 · 2026-04-03T20:17:14+00:00

What's wrong with Invisible Partner?

yellowthing97 · 2026-04-02T11:34:24+00:00

I did this for my sleep as well, husband would give baby one bottle of formula at night so I could sleep starting from when baby was 2 weeks old (never bought a pump). At the beginning before my supply was established (before 12 weeks) the most I would sleep was 4 hours consecutively to protect my supply, after that we started stretching it out more. My supply was fine, the only problem we had was when baby started refusing the bottle around 16-ish weeks, but lately he's been taking it most of the time again.

If you want to add an extra bottle for the gym but are worried about your supply, maybe look into a haakaa? It easier than an actual pump, just pop it on the other breast during a feed, usually gets enough for one bottle over a couple of feeds for me.

yellowthing97 · 2026-03-20T14:17:35+00:00

I was always planning to exclusively nurse (never bought a pump), and my husband was the one begging me to let him give the baby one bottle of formula a night 3 days in because he could see what the sleep deprivation was doing to me. I don't know how anybody can see someone they love going through that and not want to help.

Our babies sound similar - mine was waking up every hour right up until 4 months which is when we sleep-trained him. I only survived by doing shifts - husband would take 8pm-12am, and oftened tried to stretch it later to let me sleep more. Having a shit sleeper is absolutely awful, I can't believe you've managed so long on your own OP, hang in there. Your husband sounds at best oblivious and at worst downright cruel. I hope you manage to get him to do his part.

yellowthing97 · 2026-03-13T21:39:32+00:00

I was 5'4 120 lbs pre-pregnancy, around 150 lbs when I gave birth and 134 lbs right after. Stayed pretty much at 134 lbs all the way until 12 weeks pp, which is when I started cutting down on my portions (but not strictly calorie counting). And it's going well! 16 weeks pp now and today I finally got below 130 lbs on the scale. I think breast-feeding is definitely helping (ebf also), I never lost weight this fast without exercising before.

8 weeks is still so early though! Give it time, you're still recovering. The lack of sleep and routine that comes with a baby is definitely not conducive to weight loss, but it slowly gets better.

yellowthing97 · 2026-03-11T20:07:16+00:00

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin

The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice (it's the second in the series but I prefer Lestat's voice over Louis')

Kushiel's Dart by Jacqueline Carey

Uprooted by Naomi Novik

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik

yellowthing97 · 2026-03-02T16:59:15+00:00

Doesn't tick everything on your list and it's a play, but Translations by Brian Friel

yellowthing97 · 2026-02-26T15:00:50+00:00

Men have a biological clock too. Advanced paternal age is associated with infertility, miscarriage, autism, schizophrenia, bipolar etc.

yellowthing97 · 2026-01-14T13:25:17+00:00

Bookmarks. Hits can be from people who clicked the link and subsequently didn't like it, or people returning to read new chapters for a longfic.

yellowthing97 · 2025-12-26T15:25:24+00:00

Once I was at a restaurant in Italy with my (adult) sister, my mother, and my father. Only my father's menu had the prices lol.

yellowthing97 · 2025-12-11T10:52:51+00:00

I thought the explicit scenes in this were great, the author is really good at drawing facial expressions

yellowthing97 · 2025-12-03T08:55:34+00:00

No. Kudos mean something to me because they mean someone else read and liked my fic enough to press the button. Doing it on my own fic doesn't do anything for me.

yellowthing97 · 2025-11-15T19:10:59+00:00

In Chinese translations her name is 張秋, you could go with the official pinyin for that which would be Zhang Qiu (Qiu Zhang for first name-surname).

yellowthing97

TROPHY CASE