Parenthood venting thread
I think my son is the cutest six-month-old that has ever lived, but damn, this month has been so hard.
We all had COVID in the beginning of March, so my wife and I burned a bunch of sick days while being very ill, exhausted, and awake all night with a screaming baby. Screaming.
He got better for about 2 days and then immediately got a nasty cold which he kindly passed to us. More sick days, more screaming, less sleep than we got with COVID.
The cold turned into an ear infection after two weeks of horrible congestion, so his doctor put him on Amoxicillin. Except the Amoxicillin didn't work on the ear infection after 9 days of treatment. Oh, and he started having bloody diarrhea.
We went to the doctor immediately and they said, "Oh, yeah, that's definitely blood and that's not great. We're going to try a different antibiotic now and send his stool to get tested."
Then, my washing machine, which was full of diarrhea pajamas, broke down. After several hours of tear down, I was able to drain it and replace the drain pump.
Washing machine was working great, except the gasket/seal on the door is old and didn't go back on properly during the repair. Water on the floor (minor leak, no big) and now have to deal with replacing that.
Meanwhile, the kid still doesn't sleep at night and seems to communicate mainly through crying, whining, and grunting. The fact that he isn't babbling, squealing, or mimicking us is honestly a little stressful. He's six months old and I'm seeing him "become conscious" in a lot of really amazing ways. His laugh is absolutely incredible, he plays with toys in what seems like a pretty advanced way, he is crushing his physical and cognitive milestones way ahead of schedule, but he has a handful of social milestones he hasn't hit yet. My wife has autism in her family and I have ADHD, so any developmental delays are obviously pretty concerning to me. He is making eye contact and laughing though, so I guess that's good.
I really shouldn't complain. I'm a teacher and we just had a week off. Most people don't get that. But I'm so exhausted and work tomorrow just sounds daunting. We can't send the kiddo to daycare with bloody diarrhea and I seriously cannot take any more sick days this year. I guess one silver lining is that my mother-in-law came up from out of state when my wife told her she was losing her sanity over all of this. So, we do have a couple days of childcare covered this week.
Tl;Dr: Month from hell.
Edit: I'll add a positive. He was super funny and full of laughs today and yesterday during the day time (night time still isn't fun). He also seemed to get a little scared during the eclipse today during totality, and I think that's adorable in a way. He did a pouty whine and only stopped when I put him closer to me and let him see my face.
Anyone else want to share some war stories?
That laundry breakdown must have been such a terrible moment. I feel it viscerally. Like, "Really? Now?" Kudos to you for getting in the to fix it! That's a real moment for a parent to shine.
I do think these experiences plumb your depths, and you find out you have reserves and resources you didn't know about. But it is neither fun nor comfortable when it happens.
I remember those kinds of hell week/months happening if I actively think about it or am reminded, but most of my instinctive memories from that time are fun times reading, her falling asleep on my chest, etc. I don't know if that provides any comfort to you now though.
We had some concerns about my daughter with speech and eating that led to us getting occupational therapy and speech therapy for her. It was a (free) state run program, and they would come to our house and work with our daughter weekly. It was also an hour of free babysitting. Maybe there is something like that where you area.
She is fine now, but we had so many worries over things her first year. It's hard to be a new parent, but I would say trust your instincts. Our pediatrician would tell us that he wanted to hear our concerns even if we were afraid they were nothing because we knew her best. So he trusted our instincts too.
Last bit of unsolicited advice: pick up some paper plates and plastic silverware and give yourself a break on dishes. Or something similar if that doesn't sound helpful. The point is, sometimes you need a pressure release value, even if it is a small one.
This is very relatable. I remember a general sense of things being challenging, but generally view the first year in a positive light. Which I think means our brains evolved to block out the negative to trick us into creating more babies later on when baby fever hits in the toddler stage haha.
This has actually been the best year of my life (okay, it might actually be tied with the amazing time I had hanging out with my wife during COVID quarantine when neither of us had to work for a while).
Anyway, it's super challenging but also super rewarding. The baby snuggles are awesome! I love being a dad and watching him grow.
I think I'll look back fondly even though it's been super hard.
Um Lou, I am confused reading this. How does Brazil relate to babies and their care?
Welcome to parenthood. The good news is developmental delays while sick don't really count. Temporary regressions are a major thing, and when my kids are sick, even at 7+ they want to do little more than curl in the fetal position and cuddle a parent for about 12 hours. Then they're done being sick and decide to bounce off the wall for 2 hours....
The second worse sickness for us was when we all caught covid. 2 parents, 1 preschooler, and one 12 month old.
Luckily baby just breastfed, miserable but manageable. But the older kid was only miserable for about 24 hours. Then they were fine and were immensely irritated that Mom and Dad could barely muster to lift off the floor for more than a few moments for the following 3 days.
My kid didn't starve to death those three days of hell because of Kraft Mac, Hot Dogs, Cheerios, and peanut butter on a spoon. Because thats about all either parent could muster at 5 minutes of 'must do this or child will die' energy per hour. TV was just on constantly and elder kid had free reign of the tablet.
The worst was later when we all got norovirus. It only lasted about 12 hours, but in that 12 hours it was just an endless parade of shit and vomit split between two bathrooms and 3 buckets. I'll take COVID for days over that again.
My youngest is in the worst of the terrible twos, after my eldest basically decided to skip that developmental phase. I haven't timed it yet, but it feels like there's never an end to the tantrums and sibling fighting because even the slightest provocation escalates quickly.
My kid is easily reading 2-3 levels above their grade. As a result, it's really difficult to find content that is both a reasonable challenge and remotely relatable and appropriate.
They both can destroy the house faster than it can be cleaned and maintained. This is immensely annoying and I may eat them if this continues.
Smart children are a blessing and a curse. I'm terrified for the inevitable moments they realise (incorrectly then correctly) that they're smarter than me. Its literally my only andvantage that's keeping the younger from burning the house down for their own amusement.
Parents with support networks annoy me when they complain how hard it is. I'd cut off no less than 3 toes for a grandma that can be trusted to not shake a baby or a grandpa that will actually interact with their grandchild and not just prop them in front of the TV.
I was that kid reading several years ahead of grade level.
If I faced that issue with a kid, I would look for youth fiction from before 1960. The endless wizard of Oz books are safe and interesting. Treasure Island doesn't spend time on sexual content. Anne of Green Gables is amazing. The minute they hit puberty, you can use woke teen content but the ten year old wants adventure or friendship. Old books won't be sexual unless written for adults.
Yea we've tried a few different things. Dahl was a hit. But the OG Boxcar Children was a flop, in part because the world has moved on.
That's really the struggle with the older content.
"Why didn't they just look it up online."
"Because the internet wasn't invented yet."
"Oh. What about cell phones?"
"Nope."
"Life must have been harder."
"Sometimes yes, sometimes no."
Yeah, survival or fantasy or science fiction themes make it easier for sure. Also unapologetic historical fiction.
to be fair, I was a voracious reader and grew up reading tons of older children's fiction and I still couldn't get into the boxcar children for some reason. Didn't grab me like most of the alternatives.
Thanks for sharing!
I'm a special education teacher who teaches all four content areas for 8th grade. I'm also a certified English teacher. I might actually be able to help if you wanted to tell me what grade level your child is reading at currently.
I myself was a terrible student but a phenomenal reader (ADHD kid with strong language skills). My mom pretty much let me read whatever I wanted and it never hurt me. Fortunately, most kids just aren't interested in truly adult adult stuff. And anything that pops up is usually a good opportunity to teach and guide your child. If your kid is smart, they're already thinking about difficult things like death, violence, etc., although I understand wanting to avoid overly sexual content.
I started Harry Potter in second grade and that kept me occupied for a while.
Do you know how to use Lexile scores? They can be a good jumping off point for finding books that are appropriately challenging, then you can use Google from there to see what kind of content is contained in the book.
You’re doing a good job.
Kids are resilient.
It does get better, just in time for your biological urges tell you to start making another.
I should have learnt my lesson, but here I am with a 3.5yr old and my eldest about to turn 18.
Snippety snip snip is now complete. That'll stop the urge for number 5!
unsolicited advice
Did a quick search and no one mentioned sign yet.
Some kids don't communicate verbally to start. My mom was convinced something was wrong with me when I made no sounds at all beyond crying for nearly a year and a half, and now I'm super loud and won't/can't shut up.
We also had great success with signs. We just always did the same ASL signs when we talked to baby, and baby started doing them back, which cut down on, my estimate, 95% of what would have turned into frustration and crying.
Milk. More. Food. Washroom. Toy.
Please and Thank Yous became the generic "yeah I want that, gimme", which really cuts down on frustration as well.
....I forget if we had others.
(Ma and Da vocalizations came up quickly so the signs for those were abandoned).
My brain is probably permanently addled. Kid is a teen now, but I still can't sleep in certain positions or risk waking up with pains (symphysis pubis dysfunction). Stretch marks for forever "tiger stripes".
But on the plus side, all babies now sound incredibly muted to me - I was behind a baby on the last flight and it hardly even registered. My new niece sounds like her volume is permanently set to 20%. My carpel tunnel is gone as well!
I would add another enthusiastic voice for early childhood signing. Most of the difficult part of parenting is "what does this small human with no output method need?" and giving them an output method fixes that problem in, as you said, 95% of cases. There are a variety of other benefits to early communication as well, mostly related to language acquisition and ability in later development. I guess as a citation, I'll say that my wife is a renowned speech-language pathologist with a special interest in early childhood development. I would not say that my kids were experiments, but if they had been they would have been quite successful experiments.
Wow, that's a wild month. It sounds like you've been through the ringer, though as a brand new parent, I (and particularly my dear wife) are feeling it.
She's wrapping up the final semester of grad school and is busy with course work much of the time - something that has made feeding baby and pumping a challenge. I took 6 months parental leave to help ease the load, but my back unexpectedly gave in and to heal, I'm laid up with pills and heat for the near future.
I felt your pain with the washing machine - today we were racing to finish course content (she's teaching, too) and her portable hard drive (the only place where she keeps all important files for some reason) encountered a boot error and basically turned into a brick. I've raced hom from my mother in law's place to fix it and complete the project and learned the hard way that when you insert a compromised drive into a functional PC then attempt to do a hard power off when the drive won't let your machine shut down, it totally nukes your OS.
Like you, I'll have to do a teardown and follow a bunch of tutorials on how to fix this thing, but with a newborn, a busted back and a wife in school, I'm basically useless.
Thankfully her mother and I her along and she's quite happy to pick up the slack.
Thank you for sharing your misery with me! That sounds awful and it gives me peace to know I'm not alone in feeling a bit overwhelmed right now.
Your wife needs to start using the cloud immediately but it sounds like you already know that. I learned that the hard way in undergrad so thankfully I was reformed by the time I hit grad school.
Best of luck my friend. Vent to me anytime.
Back to you - I might post my own vent threwy when my kid is sick ;). Take care and hang in there - I keep meeting parents who say this gets easier, so it's possible.
They met also be liars or just so beaten down that they've forgotten what 'better ' actually means, though!
I've been told that kids don't progress at the same pace in all areas, and I've seen both my children grow differently despite being in the same environment. Your kid can very well walk super early and wait until he's in preschool to communicate clearly, at 6 months old that's not a real concern.
Edit: also, you'll always be sick. Always. Don't believe people who say "oh he'll built his immunity in school", that's a lie. He'll come back with a cold and pass it to everyone. Good luck.
Logically, I know you're right. It was when I started typing up this post that I noticed it was this little thing gnawing at me.
Thanks! It helps to hear from people.
Man, the 6-month through ~12-month age period really and truly almost broke us, and that time is a big part of what cemented us as being one-and-done.
Most of that period was spent trying to get a handle on colic (which I'm not certain we ever truly did)... experimenting with different treatments (OTC anti-gas drops, probiotics, prescription antacid), different diet restrictions for my partner, different types of formula, etc., but the only thing that seemed to make any difference was my partner cutting out dairy from her diet.
Which was all well and good, until she got prescribed an antibiotic treatment and learned she is allergic to that kind of antibiotic and had to spend a few nights in the hospital to make sure she didn't spontaneously bleed out due to low platelets, and was put on a steroid treatment that seriously impeded her breast milk production (that had already been struggling to keep up).
Some types of formula were definitely better than others (I learned so much about formula and breast milk during this time!) but our son was always much more colicky on any formula.
My theory about colic treatments
I'm about 75% certain that all of the things they recommend trying for colic are for just two things: placebo for the parents (so they don't feel like they aren't doing anything while their children are obviously distressed) and ways to "run out the clock" until the child matures enough that it naturally resolves.
And, of course, during that time we also had the pleasure of the constant stream of illnesses brought home from daycare and shared with us.
Our son is five, now. I won't say "things will get easier," because I don't really think they definitely do. I will say "things will get different," though: as they get older, certain things stop being a problem and new, exciting, different things become problems! This usually happens right around the time you start getting into a groove and thinking "hey, maybe we actually got this figured out!"
Yeah, my wife keeps saying she's sad that he's getting older and I just know in my heart I'm going to enjoy 12-24 months more than this phase. I mean, he's so cute but it's been a difficult and slightly scary start with all the illnesses and doctor's visits.
I kept telling my wife that our kid was fussy and a worse sleeper than most babies. She felt like maybe we just didn't have any other points of comparison and that everyone went through this. After finally getting more data points from other parents, my wife and I know for sure now that our son has been a particularly bad sleeper and fussier than a lot of other kids his age.
I think I agree with you on colic. Outside of milk allergies I think we don't have any answers on why some babies are extra cranky.
Yeah, I think that's the point where the parenting journey starts to become so much more rewarding. I also thought of the first year or so as basically being like boot camp with the baby as the drill instructor: overworking you with constant (often nonsensical and contradictory) orders, only letting you get the minimum amount of sleep (or slightly less), and essentially breaking your spirit so they can rebuild you.
After that point, though, it gets a lot more rewarding as you start to see them figuring things out, start making sense of the world, and begin to explore it more.
The chronic sleep deprivation of the first year is really the worst part. Once you both start getting some solid nights of sleep, everything becomes infinitely more manageable.
Some sleep tips we found through trial and error during our torturous stint:
Swaddles and white noise (or, more specifically, pink noise) were our life savers.
As he got older (6-12mo), we also started to find that our son needed to be swaddled to fall asleep, but loosening up the swaddle after he fell asleep led to him sleeping better/longer (which made manually swaddling with muslin blankets much better than the zipper/velcro sleep sacks we started using).
I felt like pink noise was more effective than white nose, but maybe it was just slightly more pleasing for me. But you may need to play the noise louder than think; being immersed in a fluid-filled sac inside another living being is actually pretty loud.
Sounds like you've had a complete and utter shitemare, it's horrendous and while I don't think I've had the same run of bad luck you have, me and my partner have had those moments of just utter despair. What made it worse for me was people saying "it'll get better" which doesn't really help when every day feel's like a fucking marathon and a week feels like an insurmountable challenge never mind months of sickness, regression, frustrations etc.
I'd say the period between 8-13 months was just hellish for us, our little ones reflux was horrendous to the point where any food that wasn't blended and watered down to a liquid would immediately springboard out of her stomach along with whatever milk she'd had, the living room and her bedroom were like makeshift medical wards covered in plastic sheets, old towels on the ready and me and my partner basically existed in old ragged clothes lest anything nice was ruined by a torrent of baby vomit. We got that under control eventually with omeprazole.
This was compounded by her starting nursery at 9 months, once my partner went back to work, and bringing back every virus and bug under the sun. Every one of which was passed to either me or my partner so we ended up having to take loads of carers days and sick days which resulted in my partner being given an official warning by her employer.
Her sleep was, as you can imagine, almost no existant during this period. If she slept for a three hour stretch it was great, even better if she was waking up for a feed and not because she'd been sick all over herself and her bed or had horrible diarrhoea.
Thks was all topped off with her getting incredibly frustrated with her inability to crawl and then when she began crawling she very quickly got frustrated with her inability to walk.
I'm not even gonna lie, I can't actually remember much being great during that period, it was just horrendous, not even Christmas and her 1st birthday were safe, she had horrible stomach bugs during both.
She's great now, coming up for 2 in a couple of weeks, we still have the odd bug, the odd week where her sleep goes to pot but on the whole she generally sleeps through the night, she's fun, her language and social skills are coming along great, it's nice to see now.
Good luck getting through the rest of what you're going through and I wouldn't worry too much about development, especially at 6 months, they're still so young at that age. Our friends kid, similar age to our own, started crawling quite early at 7 months and then just didn't bother walking, didn't care for it. The parents were really worried until at 18 months he just got up on his feet and cracked on with it, he's a great wee walker now, runs all over the place like he's been doing it for a year rather than just 6 months.
I will have a better reply when I get more time later, but really quick, are you from Ireland?
My sister-in-law is from Ireland and I couldn't help but read your post in her accent. Your writing is incredibly similar to her manner of speaking.
Haha, close, Scotland actually!
I am going to sound like the stereotypical ignorant American here but since you're from Scotland I hope it's okay to tell you that Still Game is one of my favorite shows of all time. Have you seen it? I'm led to believe that it's like the Friends of Scotland and everyone's seen it. How accurate is that?
Thanks for your awesome and compassionate response. It's nice to hear from other parents. Logically I know that it'll get better, or at least different. Our son is super close to crawling and he gets so mad when he can't. He's up on all fours rocking and flopping. Any day now I assume.
Thanks again!
Yeah, Still Game was and still is incredibly popular here. I went to see the Still Game live shows at the OVO Hydro arena in Glasgow, not as good as the TV show but still really enjoyable.
If you haven't watched it, the TV sketch show, "Chewin' the Fat" by Ford and Greg (Jack and Victor) is also very funny and is where Jack and Victor got their start.
Ah, yeah, I remember the 4 - 10 month stage with chronic colic and the nights of torture began by 7pm.
Here's what we did: Dr Browns for Colic bottles. They were awesome and I would recommend them to anyone, even babies that do not have colic, they're just a really good design with absolute minimal wind creation.
White noise became our friend: I vividly remember uttering the words "Alexa, play white noise" while practically on the edge of tears, holding my crying child that I couldn't do anything for, apart from rock to the gentle hiss. It worked though.
Then we had the game changer: Ewan the Dream Sheep. With its warm soft glow, noises of the heart or white noise, it became our gift of better nights. I'm not sure whether it was a coincidence or not, but Ewan made put downs so much better. Maybe also because of the ten thousand articles of 'methods of sleep inducement' and 'getting into a sleep routine' I'd ingested.
As for the language skills, I brought this up with our health advisor and doctor. Both reassured us with the words of "Is your child a 'Doer' or a 'Watcher'?".
Children that are active and advanced with their dexterity usually have words and language skills come second. It's hard for Doers to jump onto language as they're too busy learning to pick locks on baby gates (this happened not too long ago). All joking aside, the children who are more able with physical things will usually be slower with language, so please do not worry unless you're almost at the 3 years old mark.
I'm in a really good place right now with my five and three year old! Actually my youngest just got out of the hospital but she's bounced back SO FAST it's like it never happened. And actually we had to cancel our whole vacation to see the eclipse because of that.
But still! My first instinct when writing this reply is that I love my kids right now! And I actually enjoy spending time with them! So it gets better. I hated the younger months/years. But just remember that all this time is vanishingly temporary. One day they'll be out of the house and you'll only see your kid for holidays.
God speed to you and your family. Sounds like one of those months you'll look back on in the future when your kids have kids and be able to say "I know exactly what you're going through".
We've been there with worrying about our kids and have the whole sickness horror stories. We all got COVID when my eldest was ~8 months old at a friend's house out of state. Started feeling bad and he started having a fever first. Decided the next day to cut our trip short and drive home since we didn't realize it was COVID and wanted to be close to his pediatrician just in case. My wife started feeling sick and we hit the worst traffic I've ever seen on the way home. What should take ~4 1/2 hours was 9 in part because we had to pull over to change his diaper due to diaherria. Wife got worse and worse and I felt it creeping up. When we finally got home I still had energy and got everyone inside, get rice porridge cooking, showers, and then I felt it coming. Got food in everyone and hit the bed. Woke up with a terrible fever and barely remember the following few days besides some intense fever hallucinations while sitting and patting a baby to sleep in the middle of the night.
That incident reinforced our desire to move to be near my wife's family (I wouldn't trust my immediate family with my kids in any circumstances and most of my extended family as well). Once I finally get a job here I'm looking at a ~80-90% pay cut (after conversion) but the quality of life and having family is so worth it.
I hope your month ends well and you've made my current struggles of my eldest refusing to eat his vegetables now and not drinking enough water pale in comparison.
I'm sorry you've had such tough times lately. Well-wishing your way. Hang in there; those struggles won't last forever.
Steal sleep whenever you can. Naps, going to bed at night early, whatever. Even a 10 minute nap can help. Even sitting and closing your eyes and approaching being fully asleep (but not getting there) can help.