UO Thursday 4/12

pourmeanothermocktail

Don't worry, he'll judge you.

pourmeanothermocktail

I have 2 for the day. 

1- I post a lot of pictures of my son online.

2-I wish there was more going on on this board.

jhjocelyn

@pourmeamocktail

I’m right there w you on both counts! 

And I totally had a real UO today and didn’t think to start the thread! 

Thisnis not related to specific people here, just a theme that bothers me. 

I kindly disagree w the line of thinking that our bodies are equipped to give birth unassisted if we just let them.  Yes, a body *should be capable, but mmaaannyy are “defective” in one way or another, and need the help to get the job done. 

I am not at all opposed to aiming to go all natural. I’ve just seen women with this line of thinking who also have other health issues and it makes no sense to me. If you’re body can’t handle X, then why are you blindly expecting it to handle childbirth flawlessly? Sometimes, we just aren’t wired to handle it, and that’s okay too. 

Of course, I will prolly get flamed, and I’m about to start the busy part of our nightly routine, so if I go mia it’s purely irl business.

edited to clarify it is not towards anyone here. 

stothi

pourmeamocktail said:

I have 2 for the day. 

1- I post a lot of pictures of my son online.

2-I wish there was more going on on this board.

Never thought I'd miss drive bys so much

Neither of these opinions are unpopular to me. I post a ton of pictures of my kid on Facebook and my hubby used to post pictures of him on Instagram. My husband is currently anti social media but I think he'll come back to the dark side.

Afm,UO- I don't like short shorts. I don't think they need to be touching the knee or anything, but covering the butt cheeks would be nice. Especially like say at a preschool/kindergarten...

Also I think I'm super weird/picky cause I dislike when a diapered child's outfit doesn't cover their diaper. I guess that goes back to my dislike of short shorts. I don't mind if the top of the diaper pokes up over the waistband when kiddos are playing and in fact find it adorable, but it bugs me when diaper bulges out the crotch of their shorts. Especially if it's dirty diaper butt/crotch.

UO#2- I don't like pictures of babies in dirty diapers. If the diaper is sagging down to their knees and has a clearly visible blue stripe down the front, or worse in the back, I don't really want to see a picture of that. (For anyone who doesn't know, a lot of diapers have a color changing stripe. Yellow = dry, blue = wet/dirty. Blue in the front usually is pee, blue towards the back tends to be poop.)

nlc8424

@pourmeamocktail I go back and forth all the time about posting pictures of my son on social media. He really is cute and I think it's a great way for distant friends and family to keep tabs on him and see who he currently looks like (currently 90% me and 10% H).

Also, this board is so slow. I kind of laugh to myself when I browse other BMBs and see weekly threads with like 3x the participation. It kind of makes me curious about who is on this board particularly. Is the group dynamic just not that great? Are most of us employed and trying to be good employees? Time difference? 

My UO: just because someone works somewhere and you don't know where you're going does not mean that said person must drop what they're doing to assist you. I was apparently both a dietitian and front desk receptionist today. People like to wait for you to pick up your head from your actual work to acknowledge them and give them "permission" to speak. Well guess what, if that was my job I would gladly do so, but every single person who stops in my office for directions is immediately stopping my work. Also, no, I will not get off the phone with an actual patient of mine to give a stranger directions. Sorry not sorry. 

MandyMost

@jhjocelyn I totally agree! When things were “all natural” women died very frequently in childbirth and the infant mortality rate was astronomical! Not being able to go all natural is not a sign of weakness, it’s a sign you should thank modern medicine and the scientific method for your high life expectancy. 

stothi

@jhjocelyn all natural would have killed me and my child most likely so I'm all for some medical interventions!

pourmeanothermocktail

@jhjocelyn I agree with you in part (and don't feel like you were digging at me at all) I do totally support modern medicine, and while I am very much working towards a home birth, I don't desire an unassisted birth. If I was a midwife and my husband had some basic first responder skills, then maybe, but still probably not. 

But on the other hand, I do feel very strongly that the current OB/hospital/medical practices/hospital and/or insurance company policies tend to cause a lot of the issues women have giving birth spontaneously-that is vaginal, with no physical assistance during exit). I won't judge anyone that wants medical pain relief during labor and delivery, that's a personal decision. But I do see studies showing that the US has the highest rate of c section births plus the lowest mom and baby health records of a developed country. Some of that I know is due to handling a larger range of illnesses and conditions and trying to care for very very young preemie babies. But some is due to failure to help women adequately.

I am all for surgical intervention when it's mom's choice or need, but I feel there are policies in place (routinely not allowing moms to move around or eat and drink in labor, etc) that cause more baby distress, that lead to more interventions or surgeries. 

There's nothing wrong with a cesarean, but why has the rate climbed so much higher here than other countries, without the mortality rates going down?

But, I still want to have tests done during pregnancy, and have a midwife at home to help of deliver or tell me if things are not going well.

jumpy57

Haha yeah our board it totally vanilla. I don't mind though I can lurk for drama elsewhere. Maybe we just don't have a lot of thread starters? I feel like when things like the product spotlights get posted we get some good responses. 

Lcardinal04

I’ve never posted on this topic, but I have two this week...

1) I side eye DD’s classmates parents who give their kid shitty food and constantly can’t groom their child. I walked in this week to find a parent just leaving brought a full size corn dog for his child for breakfast.... there is a supermarket down the block! Positive end is I dont side eye one time occurrences but this child constantly has weird food for breakfast. But seriously a full size corn dog for a two year old at 7 am!

2) it drives me nuts how frequently people say a form of punishment is “emotional abuse.” I work in child welfare, I’ve seen possibly every type of abuse and situation, and it is not emotional abuse to make your kid wear goodwill because they get too label happy and post the story with their face blacked out. Story was on the news! It may or may not be a good parenting choice, it may not be someone else’s parenting style, but things like this rarely rise to “emotional abuse.” —I did say rarely because sometimes it is a piece of a puzzle indicative of a much larger problem. However, it drives me crazy when so many people label a sit. Like this abuse— kids in our comm. are going through real emotional abuse every day, and I feel calling it that just shows how little people step outside their fences. People don’t realize the reality of how frequent and severe emotional abuse is, and that’s our societal choice since child welfare hearings are confidential to public/media but still — the naievety of society kills me. Okay stepping off my soap box. — totally understand if I get flamed for this.

[Deleted User]

Personally, i just feel burnt out.  DH would still say i bump way too much as it is, and maybe I do.  But as long and arduous as ttc was for us, now that we are here, praise God, pregnancy has thus far been a dream.  I am happy to make friends and support women at the same stage as me right now - I think that part is really pretty special actually!

But I also have a lot of bump friends who are still waiting / struggling.  So I still lurk and/or post on other boards to keep following their journey and cheer them on to victory (!) Or support them when they are feeling low.  I have just as many if not more bump friends who are already parents of outside children by now, and have become more of irl friends than internet friends, even.  I'm generally already accustomed to turning to them for parenting or pregnancy advice, and since I can do so in a more private setting, too, I may feel more comfortable going there first, than airing my personal business on the public pages.  Idk.  Plus working 40 hours, where it's often a little but easier at least to just L&L than respond every time I have a response in my head.  I can't even tell you how many times I start typing replies, and then I have to put it down mid-reply, and it may or may not seem pertinent anymore by the time I have a chance to pick up again.

So for me anyway, I do what I can.  But I do feel a bit spread thin, - like butter scraped over too much bread, - and not just on the bump, but in most areas of my life right now.  So it is what it is!  Bottomline is tho, no matter how much I may be posting at any given time, I'm so grateful this group exists!!! ❤❤❤❤❤

jjess1201

I also feel this board is kind of boring. Personally, I think there are too many broad threads and people are afraid to start a new thread and be flamed that it should go in the Random thread. Then, the Random thread is so big, there are things I might respond to but by the time I read through the thread, I forget what I was going to respond to or it's so far up the thread, it's not worth responding to because there have been 10 other topics discussed since then. Just my UO, it doesn't deter me from lurking and posting once in a while. Also, I work FT and am busy at home so I don't spend a lot of time one here.

My UO: I am totally dreading breast feeding the new baby. I just don't want to! I had a hard time with my first due to supply issues and I just did not enjoy it or feel a magical bond with my son during nursing sessions. I'm a horrible mom! I might try exclusively pumping, but we'll see.

MandyMost

@jjess1201 I feel exactly the same. Most threads have about 10 topics going on so it’s hard to actually have a conversation about something. It feels like you just post a statement, not participate in a conversation.

nlc8424

FWIW it doesn't bother me that the board is slow, it just means that I check other BMBs often for entertainment purposes, I don't post anywhere else. I think in your case @BusinessWife that it makes sense why you maybe don't post as much as you used to and I fully sympathize with feeling spread too thin. I feel this way all the time. I know for my first pregnancy I didn't really participate in my BMB because I wasn't sure what exactly to contribute. I like having this board personally because I don't have a lot of mom friends or pregnant friends IRL, I'm one of the first in my group to have a child or even be married. So we all are coming from a different place and that's okay. 

starla

I personally like the volume of posts on this board. Like @BusinessWife I'm also on other boards and lurk IF and TTCAL on TTGP. Plus I'm on mobile which is a whole other challenge.

[Deleted User]

...andplus, I am 100% okay with not being the hot mess BMB.  J/s ;)

magnolia209

For random internet strangers, I think we mostly seem like a cool and busy bunch! I love this board. I really like hearing what you all are going through. My friend IRL who is also pregnant never googles anything, never noticed weird little changes, always feels fine etc. I’m way more sensitive and neurotic than that! It’s great to be able to talk with you all about all kinds of weird stuff. 

stothi

@Lcardinal04 I totally agree with both your opinions.
Someone's my kid goes to school with uncombed hair or a weird combination of things packed in his lunch, but always clean (or clean as you can keep a 2 year old) in clean clothes seasonlly appropriate with plenty of health/ healthish food. I side eye the heck out of the parents of the kids who have popcorn and pretzels as their whole lunch because "they don't like meat" and the parents of the kids who NEVER have hair combed and always have dirty noses/faces.

And no, not everything is abuse, so people need to stop calling it that. You can disagree with another parent's tactics without calling it abuse.

jhjocelyn

Oh I would totally get side-eyes for the foods DD eats. I do keep it appropriately bfast food vs lunch etc. She needs all the fat and protien we can shovel in quickly. And for a while was super picky.  Ramen was one of her first fav’s, vienna sausage is also a hit, corn beef hash from a can is her regular weekend fav, plus all the easy mac, beefaroni spaghettios.  

Now she’s better and will eat the meals we eat w a few exceptions, she loves her veggies we just drown hhem inolive oil or butter first. And every meal involves some form or cheese or yogurt. 

She literally averages 1,700 calories a day, 100g of fat, and 60g of protein. And that maintains her size at average, she’s got scrawny little limbs, and at 4 is almost but not quite 40” and 40lbs. 

ferris0906

@jjess1201 I completely agree with your breastfeeding UO. With my first it was a constant battle with latching, with supply, with pumping while working, with pain, etc.  No joke it's one of the reasons I waited six years to decide to have another.  I want to not dread it, but I do. 

ready44

@jjess1201, I'm also very much not looking forward to BF'ing again.  I EP with DS1 and DS2, and I nursed and pumped with DS3.  I'm not a huge fan of either nursing or pumping for various reasons, though I am grateful that thus far it has been my choice to continue with either as I know not everyone is able to BF.  If it doesn't work out this time for whatever reason (supply, stress, logistics), at this point I think I'll be more relieved than not.

AdmiralKitty

Count me in on not looking forward to breastfeeding again either. We had a seriously rough start (EP'd for almost a month before my son could/would latch with many sobbing attempts throughout that time) combined with DMER which made me feel like crap every time I let down, made for an extremely unpleasant experience. I'm not going to put any pressure on myself this time around and hopefully it will be a much more pleasant and easy process. 

pourmeanothermocktail

Just sending out love to anyone/everyone who dreads pumping/nursing. Don't give yourselves guilt over it, you aren't a better or worse mom no matter how you feed your baby (ya know, as long as it's not Cool-Aid or Coffee in the bottle!). 

Don't feel obligated to nurse!

That being said, my crazy ass is probably going to be nursing a toddler and a newborn. he hasn't quit yet.

dexnie

MandyMost said:

@jjess1201 I feel exactly the same. Most threads have about 10 topics going on so it’s hard to actually have a conversation about something. It feels like you just post a statement, not participate in a conversation.

Agree. 

I’ve voiced this before and suggested that *maybe* we don’t lose our minds when someone posts a question outside of the question thread, but I think the tone was set early on and now it is what it is. 

I personally have no interest in reading pages of disjointed randoms/questions/symptoms threads, so I don’t. I pop in and glance through weekly bump threads and the rare one off, which means I am much less active than I was/am on other boards. 

Wishilivedinflorida

+1 to being spread too thin. I work 45+ hour workweeks and have a one year old. I Bump when I can. That being said, this is the only BMB I have ever regularly participated on. My last BMB was super vanilla compared to this one, even, and I quit in the first tri pretty early on. I do think perhaps it’s easier to participate as a STM+ because at least you have some experience to share. Maybe that’s part of why I have more to say this time around. 

iluvgoldies33

I agree. This board is slow and i think we should start more discussions/convos in their own. 

yogapants247

I actually have been liking the feel of this board more and more but I NEED to stop being such a lurky lurker and start posting more!

My U/O is that I have really been trying to watch what I eat and make sure I don't gain too much weight too quickly. PART of this is due to the fact that I had gestational diabetes with my first, and I'm really hoping to avoid that this time (though I know I have very little control over it) but a bigger part of it is definitely vanity. It took me over a year to be comfortable with my body again after having DS and I want that time to be much shorter this time around. Plus I have my sister's wedding 6 months after I'm due, and I want to look good in pictures. I feel like I didn't give a shit about myself for a very long time after DS was born and I want to try to hold onto my self-care a little better this time around.