The Great Big Question Thread

inthewoods23

@francesgs good to know. I pulled out one of our rectangular body pillows to sleep with now that I'm getting bigger. I'll probably use my pregnancy pillow once I hit 3rd tri and it's not cold AF in the house. I can't stand cotton sheets/pillowcases in the winter because of how cold they are when you get in bed. I might go on a search for a fleece pillowcase for the pregnancy pillow but for now at least have some microfiber pillowcases for the straight body pillow.

blf2072

@francesgs thanks for sharing this!! I was googling it in the middle of the night because I couldn’t sleep ! 🤦🏻‍♀️ I’ve been waking up consistently between 2-3 am and can’t sleep, so I have been googling things lol also my stomach is growlingggg  every time, guess I’ll start to keep some crackers next to my
bed! 

mamadino_

@blf2072 you’re welcome! I have been waking up every night around the same time and then cannot go back to sleep! And always end up hungry lol it’s kinda frustrating. I am just tired all the time. 😴

sconniegrl

Totally agree! I got a cheaper one with my second and couldn’t even find the hb in 3rd trimester! I gave it away and refuse to get another one this go-around!

twentythree19

@blf2072 with my first, I want to say I didn’t for sure feel baby move until 24 weeks, but I was in the anterior placenta club. With DD2 & this pregnancy too, I want to say I felt movement around 15 weeks.

elmann1

@thegeekymom yes to the Boppy wedge!! I love mine. It’s pretty smashed from my last pregnancy but so comfy to lay on my side with. Lately I’ve been falling asleep so hard that I don’t move and wake up on the same side with a sore shoulder and hip 😂 

inthewoods23

Anyone have tips to prevent your ear from aching like crazy when you wake up in the morning? I clearly did not move around last night being wrapped around my body pillow. It's fine now, but I'd like to prevent it from happening in the first place.

kd0811

Late on this but my OB said you can lay on your back as long as your at a tilt - think slightly turned to the right or left (with a pillow under the side of your body). It’s not the same but it’s helped me.

re: Doppler, even my OB couldn’t find the heartbeat this week so she used the ultrasound and found it no problem. I think it’s more stress than it’s worth!

inthewoods23

I've been wondering.... how can you tell if you are carrying high or low? I think I'm carrying low, but I also figure it looks that way because the uterus starts low in your body and baby is only so big at the moment. Does it change as they get larger?

sunshineandlemons

@inthewoods23 I’ve never been able to tell until the very end of pregnancy. I did ask at my appointment today because I’m peeing all the damn time and wanted to make sure it wasn’t potentially a kidney stone issue because I have a history of them. The doctor was able to tell where the baby was based on the Doppler and said he was on top of my bladder. 

I always thought this was an old wives tale but she told me boys sit out more in front and girls are more wide, so said I may need a pregnancy band later on to help support my belly. Maybe that explains why he’s on my bladder right now. I didn’t experience the need to pee all the time in second trimester with my girls so maybe there is some truth to that. 🤷‍♀️

inthewoods23

@sunshineandlemons from what I could tell at my last appointment, I think my OB had the doppler pretty low on me too when she got to the HB so I'm presumably carrying low right now but I haven't had to pee all the time (yet). Strangely at my early ultrasounds he was always laying diagonal across me from my right hip to my left ribs. Yet my bump is more of an oval right now so he's definitely out more than he is wide.

I also wonder how much it matters whether you have a tilted uterus or normal positioned uterus when you get pregnant. I thought with my tilted uterus he'd grow more up than out but that doesn't seem to be the case.

I'm also super curious post-birth what position my uterus will go back to. Will it tilt again or not.

mommyz21

@velvetblue88

were you asked to take a baby aspirin as well?

I tested positive over the weekend with very mild symptoms. I feel like I am already over it however my doctor's office would like me to start taking a baby aspirin for the rest of the pregnancy. I am not sure if that is the standard of care these days or is my doctor being overly cautious to prevent blood clots. I am also concerned if this will be harmful for the baby in the long run.


Thank you!

peppylilfoxy

@mommyz21 baby aspirin is safe. It's very low dose. I took 2 baby aspirin plus fragmin (a blood thinner) throughout my pregnancy with my son and both my hematologist and ob said the baby aspirin wouldn't be harmful. Both my mom and my grandma took baby aspirin with their pregnancies too.

peppylilfoxy

@sunshineandlemons that is really interesting! I must have been carrying high with my son then because peeing was never an issue for me. It would make sense though cuz his sasquatch limbs would always end up in my ribs too. 🤣

velvetblue88

@mommyz21 Yes, they told me to take baby aspirin to prevent blood clots for Covid, but I'm already on it to also prevent preeclampsia. There's lots of research on the low dose aspirin (81mg) being helpful for a lot of reasons for baby, including improved nutrition delivery to the placenta. I'm all for taking something that help me and my taco-sized passenger.

tea_and_biscuits

Hello, FTM here and full of questions... 

What does side car a crib mean?!

And what does carrying high/load/wide mean?! 😅

I'm 16 wks, and I am feeling a lot of flutters and small pains in my lower abdomen, but if I'm reading this thread right it might be unlikely to be the baby as I'm feeling that without putting my hand on my bump. Probably a combo of gas & round ligament pain! 

tuxielove93

@knottie_name I do not have to put my hand on my stomach to feel baby kicks. A side crib I think means a crib that lines up next to your bed. And the whole “carrying high etc” thing is kind of crap. Especially this early. It’s just the way your bump looks but that changes based on babies position and a host of other factors 

zinnia19

For those of you with kids, how did you decide what the grandparents are called? Did you let your kiddo pick the name naturally, did the grandparent choose, or did you? My MIL has brought this up a few times saying "when you decide what the baby will call me...". Its odd cause I always just called my grandparents on both sides "grandma" and "grandpa". I'm not used to more unique terms of endearment! 

jellie603

@zinnia19 when we had our first, my MIL/FIL had names already established. Nan and Pup - MIL chose hers and the first grandkid chose FIL. My mom chose the name she wanted to be called. I told her as long as it wasn't obnoxious or hard to say, I would be fine with it. She chose Meme (which is Mimi but she didn't want the I'd I guess)

inthewoods23

@knottie_name round ligament pain would be more towards your sides like by your leg creases (or is it called the hip crease?) and is usually a strong twinge that fades fairly quickly after it starts. If those flutters or small pains are somewhat localized to one area, I'd consider that baby kicks/movement. I generally feel various sensations a few inches below my belly button. Sometimes a little to the left or right of that as well (since my kiddo seems to be laying across me in a diagonal fashion rather than vertically).

stardustskies

@zinnia19 The grandparents chose their own name. This was the 5th grandchild for my dad and stepmom so they were already "Saba and Mamaw". My mom insisted on "just being Grandma". FIL is "Papaw Sean" and MIL is "Granny Snake" (lol she already had a grandkid too and that was her name with him. She chose it. She's an odd bird)

oli9

@zinnia19 I have a seriously narcissistic MIL who spent 9 entire months mentioning that she was brainstorming what she WILL BE called by our first daughter. She announced this decision at the hospital after our daughters birth as if it were a celebration of HER NAME. I quote her saying this in the hospital room as she held our daughter, “I have decided that I will be called GradMommy. It sounds much more sophisticated than Grandma”. 

Soooooooo weird. Our daughter is now 4 and has NEVER called her Grandmommy once. She refuses. She calls her Grandma like a normal
child. Grand Mommy is borderline inappropriate and very strange. LIKE MY MIL. ☺️

peppylilfoxy

When I was a kid it was just grandma/grandpa for my Dad's parents and grand-maman/grand-papa for my Mom's parents. My husband just used grandma/grandpa for all his except his Ukranian grandma was Baba. When I was pregnant with my first son, my parents and I just assumed my dad would be grandpa (because he's English) and my mom would be grand-maman (because she's French) so I never thought to ask what everyone wanted to be called. My MIL simply said she was not to be called grandma because she was "too young to be a grandparent" (my husband and I were 30 at the time and she's almost 60🙄) so I just assumed we would simply drive her nuts by having our son call her baba or grandma anyways.😂

I did come across this mug the other day that had the term "glam-ma" and it was for "a woman who is too young and beautiful but whose children have children" so I suggested to my husband that we have our kids refer to her as "glam-ma" instead 😂

runnergirl2018

@zinnia19 I've always just assumed these days that the grandparent comes up with their own title.  Growing up we called our grandparents by grandma/grandpa and then their first name following.  My kiddos only have 1 set of grandparents and they decided they wanted to be called nana and papa so we've just gone with it

tuxielove93

@zinnia19 I’m an only child and my husband was the first to have children, so we had the first grandchild on both sides. We asked everyone what they wanted to be called. 

It worked out great for the good people. We have two great grandmas (Grammy and Gigi), and grandma/grandpa and then Noni (Italian). Then there’s the step monster in law who landed on Mommom. Part one, she isn’t even a mom so idk where she’s getting being a double mom. Part 2, I have my own great grandmother who had like seven children and dozens of grands/great grands/great great…. You get the idea. She was mommom and it irks me to no end. My husband never had a good relationship or called her mom. We just call her by her name and the kids don’t have a relationship with her so it hasn’t come up yet. 

If you have decent normal people you can ask them what they want to be called and go with that. If you have problematic narcissists, ya might want to choose for them 

mamadino_

@zinnia19 Our parents chose was they wanted to be called. My mom chose Nana. FIL chose Papaw and step MIL chose grandma. 

zinnia19

Thank you all for your responses to my grandparents question! Some of your answers seriously cracked me up. Particularly "glam-ma", "grandmommy" and "grammy snake". 🤣 My MIL has brought this up multiple times so it's obviously important to her. I think we will have a discussion to think of a few options so we can veto any really weird ones. She did mention one name at one point that I think was German. Was a little odd cause my husband's side isn't even all that German! I'm all for a slightly creative names, but nothing really wacky. Cause WE as parents have to use this name too! 

stardustskies

@zinnia19 My dad is Jewish and "Saba" actually means "grandfather" in Hebrew so that's where he got that from. So the German thing isn't really that weird, even if she isn't full German she may just be proud of her heritage and want something unique. 😊

rubyrose_0919

This is a great question @zinnia19

My grandma was the sweetest, funniest, kindest person and she had very close relationships with all of her grandkids and great-grandkids... she went by Grandma but most of her grandkids loving called her "Gram-cracker." My little one called her GGB (for great-grandma-first initial of her last name). She passed away in 2019 and we are all still a wreck about it.

My parents really wanted to go by grandma and grandpa but when my kiddo started to speak they sounded like "nama" and "papa" - my parents were SO SMITTEN with those first baby talk names, and those names have stuck even now that he can say the full words. Various nicknames have also taken hold like nammers, namnam, and pappy. If I had suggested 'nammers' to my mom she probably would've knocked me out, but now she signs cards as "xoxoxo Nammers" 🤷🏻‍♀️

inthewoods23

@rubyrose_0919 there's just something about kids not saying words quite right that makes it cute haha. I can't remember if this was my SIL or someone else I know, but they struggled with saying their older sibling's name and it became a cute nickname for a while until that person could finally say the name properly.

From my own perspective as a kid, we called my dad's parents grandma and grandpa. My mom's parents were called (short version of grandma's name) and Papa. It makes me laugh that we used my grandma's actual name more often than not over calling her grandma. My dad definitely goes by papa with my nieces and I think my mom is just grandma.

A couple of my cousins (same family) will often call my mom's parents the Polish words for grandma and grandpa. I don't know how they are spelled though. I just know how they're spelled doesn't really match how it's pronounced

caymanmel

Questions for moms of previous children.  My past 2 babies have loved the Rock N Plays. But those have all been recalled.  So whats the new popular replacement? 

LCantrell86

@caymanmel I was trying to figure out the same. It looks like the most similar is the Fisher Price Rock With Me. 

stardustskies

@caymanmel TBH I still have my rock & play from my son and plan on still using it (supervised) for this one. I'm disappointed too because my son used to sleep in it when he was a newborn. I don't see any reason why I can't use it, with the seatbelt, supervised for a bit. It was recalled for people letting their babies sleep in it without the seatbelt and their infants would turn and suffocate.

tuxielove93

@stardustskies I don’t have one so maybe I didn’t get the whole story, but that recall seemed kind of silly to me. People were using it incorrectly without the safety gear…. Anything is dangerous if you use it wrong enough. 

velvetblue88

Hmph. First nosebleed of pregnancy. I can't remember the last time I even had a nosebleed, but weather has been warm & cold, and I and dealing with allergies today, so the sneezing definitely didn't help.

Didn't last long but .... Super lame. 😆 

Anyone else getting nosebleeds this winter?

caymanmel

Any other mamas in here having a scheduled c section?  It seems so minor but I feel so much pressure to pick the date I want to have my baby.   Im glad the doctor is letting me pick(between 39-40 weeks m-f).  But now I'm over analyzing it.  

skilouise

@stardustskies

That was not the reason for the recall. Even babies that were strapped in correctly died. Any incline, but especially the significant incline of the RNP, is dangerous, and no amount of supervision can make unsafe sleep safe. Positional asphyxiation is silent and invisible. 

stardustskies

@skilouise Oh wow really? I read a few articles on it and didn't see that info but it's good to know. Maybe I'll just trash mine now then..

tuxielove93

@skilouise that’s why you can’t use those infant car seats for sleep unless they are attached in a base, right? They did not advertise the real reason for the recall well at all if that’s the case. 

courtneyqdk

@stardustskies @caymanmel that recall happened when my son was an infant and I remember parent groups online BLOWING UP over it. It was still sold in Canada for a long time after the recall too, which would make me so angry because it didn't have the word "sleeper" or anything about sleep in the Canadian version so I guess they got around the recall through a loophole. We used the fisher price "Sweet snugapuppy deluxe bouncer" and my son loved it but the vibration only lasted 30 min and would automatically turn off and he would ALWAYS wake up. It also doesn't bounce automatically so I'm debating getting something new this time around, because I remember endless bouncing with my foot and like setting a timer to turn the vibrations back on to keep him asleep LOL

I know a lot of friends who love the mamaroo - unfortunately none of them still have it to sell to be second hand! I also know a few whose babies did NOT like it, and it is so much money to spend on the off chance that happens, but I guess it would have a high re-sale value. 

Curious what others are using as well!