My 4 year old keeps complaining of “drips” after she pees.
She does hold it for longer than she should, but I don’t think she has a UTI - no reports of pain or burning, no bad-smelling pee, no fever, no real “increased urgency” or anything (other than really obviously holding it because she’s playing, then reaching a breaking point). I know they don’t always look the same, but our 7 year old had two UTIs when he was little, and she isn’t showing any of those signs as far as I can tell.
What could be causing the leaking? She’s been using a toilet for like a year and a half now, so she knows how to pee and wipe and everything. I’ve watched her sit there to “get all the drips out”, and she’s definitely making an effort to make sure she’s peed as much as she can.
I don’t know about for kids, but for adults this can be related to the pelvic floor. Does she have a stool under her feet? Rocking forward and back at the end can unkink the urethra and let that last bit come out. From what I’ve read for my own body a person shouldn’t “push” the pee out because that can strain the pelvic floor, but rather should just relax and let it come out. A deep breath in and “moo” out can help.
For those of you going back to work- what strategies have you used to make a better morning routine?
I feel like ever since getting back I am so discombobulated all of the time. I am used to being an in-the-office-by-7am person.
This morning which has turned kind of normal: baby middle of the night wake up at 430, feed until 5, go back to sleep, alarm set for 630, alarm goes off and I feel like I was hit by a train, snooze until 715-730, panic and feed the baby and walk to daycare while called in to my 8am work meeting.
I feel like I have two options- stay awake and just start my day at 5 or go back to sleep and wake up on the first alarm even when it really sucks.
I feel bad at work and bad at personal life and tired thinking about either option.
We do have everything packed the night before usually (unless it’s Monday and we put frozen milk in the daycare bag in the morning).
Spouse packs my work bag or sets up my WFH situation, packed our lunches too!
I think I’m just struggling with the unpredictable middle of the night wakeups. If he wakes up between 2-3a it seems to work well because I can get a 3h chunk of sleep. It seems like anything less than 90 minutes is really hard to go back to sleep and wake up again. Part of this problem is me just not wanting to get out of bed in the morning when I wake up in the wrong part of my sleep cycle.
The baby is only breasted so I have to do the wakeups even if husband feeds a bottle.
Can I program my baby’s sleep? Jkjkjk. Kind of.
Maybe I set a guideline that if I can get 2 more hours of sleep, I go back to sleep (assume 30 mins of falling asleep). If it’s under that I just get up for the day and work out or work or read or play piano.
I should add this particular morning- I had the baby on, everything ready, I was calling into my meeting at 7:59, opened the door and it was pouring rain. The carseat wasn’t installed from our road trip so I had to scramble around to find an umbrella. But that’s not normal, just comedic timing.
Can you go to bed earlier? No joke I happily went to bed at 7pm if it meant getting five hours uninterrupted (Mr. Meer was on duty with a bottle of formula till midnight ish). I didn’t care that the sun was still up. Then I had more time in the morning to have an existential crisis about why mornings exist and who thought capitalism was a good idea anyway abs why don’t babies come with a programmable sleep setting.
This did mean after work has us immediately eating dinner, putting the baby down, and then me down. I considered my night to be sleep till midnight then catch what naps I could after that. After midnight sleep wasn’t real sleep.
Yes, the secret to life is a three hour chunk of sleep!
Do you dream feed? It didn’t work the first few times I tried it but eventually if I did that baby slept through until morning. (But I supplemented and it only started working when I started topping off with formula at the dream feed, so YMMV.)
Dream fees (or wake to feed) as @BiblioFeroz suggestes around 2-3am if that works better for your schedule/body
Get up at 5am and head to sleep earlier to accommodate that. This is what I did the first couple months. I would work for 45-60 minutes at 5am and then get ready for the work day.
If you are pumping and bottle feeding you can either pump an extra session in the morning or evening (or wake at 3am to pump) and let your spouse bottle feed if it’s anytime after 3am.
Also a friendly reminder that babies (and toddlers and children) change constantly so the 5am wakeups may go away in another 1-5 weeks, or they may be here to stay for the next long while. So figure out what feels right for this week and next week and then reassess after that. You don’t have to figure out one perfect plan because chances are good that you’ll need a new plan soon anyway.
Yeah, what is happening before that early morning feed? What does your evening look like, when is your bedtime? I have been going to bed with my children since pumpkin was born, and also went to bed at same time as Duckling for much of his first couple of years. Generally 7-8pm. 6PM did not work for me At All.
Right now we do bedtime with the baby between 7-8 usually 730-745. Then we start getting ready for adult bed time. Usually in bed by 830-9 and asleep by 930.
Bed time- bath, feed, turn on sound machine, put on sleep suit, rock to sleep.
I thought the dream feed wouldn’t be worth it unless waiting until 930-11? When we were trying dream feeds 930-10 it seemed to work okay but it is effort for me to stay up until then.
Maybe it is worth being a little bit more tired for a dream feed than the wake up?
I also know we will probably be getting to the 4-5 month sleep regression soon so any planning is probably worthless
Sitting with you in this space. My days start at 5 since Ravioli doesn’t like to go back to sleep, which is a scam. Sigh. DH and I trade off–it’s the only thing that’s made a difference. That and setting up as much as humanly possible the night before.
This is the model we had, and the approach we needed. One person would go to bed super early, up early. The other later/later by a couple hours. (So like, 7pm/9pm)
When it gets very tough I tell myself there are no teenage boys who wake up at 5am willingly. This too shall pass. But boy does it suck right now huh!!! Especially as I was also a person for whom mornings were personal quiet time.
LOL, truth. I don’t have a teen yet but BB in particular (age 12) seems to have a whole rich life that goes on before I roll out of bed. (The cuckoo is a late sleeper.)
