Has he started walking a lot yet? A lot of kids are on the totally snapped out but and then start to trim up. Our kid has mostly skinny legs but for awhile it seemed like he would grow out of his diapers and now he’s back snapped all the way down.
If he is walking ton and just has amazing thighs, I think thirsties duo size 2 are supposed to be a bit more generous than all in ones and might be a good option. I loved the size 1 when my kiddo was smaller than most of the all in ones.
Six month appointment today with her new doctor and I’m so much happier. It was like a night and day difference. I feel that her care is not harmed and probably improved because I was heard, respected, and validated as person, biologist, and mom, respectively.
That is wonderful! I’m glad to hear it.
The worrying part of my brain is wondering about wills, life insurance, et cetera now that I have a dependent mini-person. What do?
I’m not sure because at 7 weeks old Baby Spore is halfway between a sleepy sack of potatoes and a new human being?! Am I a parent now??
After so much pumping & washing of parts from NICU tube feeding, I love that there is (almost) no equipment required.
When he’s feeding calmly I’m just impressed at biology and bodies! It’s so primal and cool! When he’s flustered and flailing and tiny angry hands are grabbing at my nip… not so much.
Also: I am perpetually thirsty and hungry, but at least it’s not a reflux-inducing hunger like late pregnancy. And worried about supply all the time (we’re doing about 1-2 feeds a day with formula or combo), even though I said in an earlier thread that I wasn’t going to be stuck on it.
Breastfeeding is turning out to be pretty cool in the abstract but very imperfectly bumpy in reality. Several times a week I catch myself thinking I will be very excited for us to graduate from this. Maybe at 4 months? Six?
Which bit would you like stories or advice on?
Yes, I think you might be!
Breastfeeding, and having such mixed feels about it.
He took to it very well. Very attached physically and emotionally. I did not. My body did a good job of feeding him (and an even better one once we fixed up his tongue tie and later his dairy allergy), but I really didn’t enjoy breastfeeding. I could have done with a break from it anytime up to 6 months; but I thought I couldn’t take a break. I was done with it sometime between 6 - 12 months, but he turned it into a comfort thing and we negotiated (ha) an end to it at 2.5 years old. There were many, many mixed feelings all the way through.
What do you currently have in place? Do you have any life insurance through work or independently? Do you have access to legal services through your work (my work has this, not sure how common it is)?
I’ve been working on this for my family for a long time, it is A Lot and you have a tiny needy human on your hands so just try to break this up into chunks and not get overwhelmed by it all. I’m happy to walk you through it, or not. Let me know how much hand holding you want.
Thank you @meerkat! I have a life insurance policy at $100k via work (company pays premium, there are no other options), but my field/disposition will have me changing jobs within a few years. Spouse is the named beneficiary. No wills. No other legal services, I believe.
I’m not a doomsday-thinking person usually, but does it make sense to think about who we’d want to name as guardians and/or executors in case both parents get hit by a bus?
I would love to know what you’d prioritize if you were setting this up from scratch.
We have guardians and a will.
The beneficiary of our will is our estate and we have named trustees with directions for the children. The children are not the beneficiaries because our state does not let minors inherit and it is held in trust by the state, rather than in trust we determine. Or something like that the lawyer advised.
My work has “met law” as a benefit, and that covered the lawyer who did our will for a reasonable price. It’s the only time I’ve ever elected that coverage.
I have 5 years left on term life insurance and we likely will not renew, as our net worth is enough to take care of the kids. Work provides 1x salary.
Wills/guardians first. Talk about who you would want to be your child/children’s guardians. This can be someone different from the person who will handle your money - that’s how we have it set up. The person we most trust to be sensible about paying out for, I dunno, private school tuition or summer camp or whatever is not physically capable of keeping up with a small child. We chose one of my cousins as the guardian instead of Mr. Meer’s sibling because of Reasons. No one needs to know your Reasons, that between you and your spouse. I did call my cousin and ask if she’d be okay with being a guardian (and also her brother, he’s back up guardian which I wouldn’t have considered except it was a thing on the worksheet). You don’t need to tell anyone else who you chose for guardian, if they get upset at the reading of your will, welp you’ll be dead.
I got my hands on a will kit kind of thing so it was a bunch of worksheets, Mr. Meer and I each filled out our own copy and it also included Healthcare Power of Attorney and a couple other things that are easy to knock out at the same time.
[Child interruptus]
Next up is life insurance or long term disability insurance. I have a little life insurance through work (funeral expenses basically) plus a million dollars each for myself and Mr. Meer. The impression we got is that policies basically don’t bother going below a million. We initially got it when we became home owners and we wanted to cover the cost of the mortgage but once we looked at the numbers it made more sense to do a million. Looking back on it now, if one of you passes but the other survives, you want (in my opinion) the surviving spouse to be able to quit work or at least take a long leave of absence. Working full time + the day care drop off/pick up hustle + all other life stuff solo + grieving is just way too much. The general advice is that no major decisions should be made till at least a year after the other spouse passes.
Getting life insurance will require having a physical done by one of their people. When we got two life insurance policies I think we had to have two separately scheduled physicals which was dumb, but the person was able to come out to our house and just get our vitals. Just mentioning that since it’s corona-times, I imagine they could probably do it outside?
Next up, and this will be a long haul kind of project, make a list of where all your accounts are at. You don’t need to include log in information in this document, just pretend you and Mr. FG disappeared tomorrow and someone needs this piece of paper to know where all your checkings, savings, credit cards, mortgage/rent, utilities, life insurance(s), HSA/FSA, retirement accounts, 529, etc. along with your baby’s pediatrician, day care info if any, etc.
Since my child has special needs I also have the info for his specialist doctors, therapists, etc.and since he’s older I wrote up some of his preferred foods/activities/behavior stuff and a general routine to our day (which, lol, just occurred to me is wildly out of date cause it’s from Before Corona when he still went to school and had after care).
There is more information on the personal finance subreddit on end of life planning since “[family member] suddenly died” tends to come up regularly there. I found it helpful as a starting point.
Again, this is a lot! A couple years ago I was trying to do monthly adulting goals and “make wills” was one of them. Something like six months later it actually got done, but that’s better than never! Then after that was something like shop for car insurance, then after that was making a list of our assets, etc. Take it in whatever order, do one thing at a time.
Thank you for all this! A super helpful list to chip away at.
I found this essay after googling “breastfeeding ambivalence” at 3am. Really feeling it so hard. http://www.mothersmovement.org/features/06/11/m_friedman_1.html
Wow, yes, this hits very close to home right now. It’s kind of nice to know that the messy feelings surrounding Breast feeding for me are more common than people will make you think.
I have a love/hate relationship with breastfeeding. Overall I choose to continue and do feel more positivity than negatively about it but it isn’t all wonderful.
It uses up just about all of my willingness to be touched by other people. Right now while I’m feeding a 12 week old I don’t have any tolerance for being touched by other people. This sucks for Mr Pancakes but he is an adult and can work through it. It isn’t so easy for our three year old. Her climbing on me (or just sitting close enough that we are touching) while I’m feeding the baby makes me scream internally. I am hoping it will just get better at some point as he feeds less frequently.
100% me until like 5 or 6 months. Solidarity.
Yup. Being “touched out” was a horrible sensation.
I think this may be the real reason breastfeeding is good birth control. I 100% didnt want anyone to touch me for the first few months. Breastfeeding a 2 year old was much easier.