Pregnancy Thread

Don't listen to them, Noodlebro. Some babies don't make your life hell. My kids sleep just fine, always have (with one exception), and when our oldest (twins) were born, they slept like champions. Right through the night, save for when we woke them up to feed them, as soon as we brought them home from the hospital. They would be in bed by 8, feed them at 11:30, sleep until 8 the next morning. They also napped twice a day for about 1.5 hours in the morning, 2 or more hours in the afternoon.

We had plenty of free time.

Now, not every child is like that, and not everyone parents in the same way. But people who say things like, "your social life is over when you have kids," or "you'll never sleep again," are somehow doing things wrong, if that's actually the case for them. I have five kids now, and I still have plenty of free time. Mind you, I don't work all that much, so that helps of course.

Life will continue. Your wife will not be pregnant forever. She will calm down, and you'll settle into a routine that suits everyone, as you can be an equal helping partner when the baby is born, whereas you can't be an equal helper with pregnancy.

So your post got me thinking so I started mathing it out. So our 7 month old baby also pretty much sleeps 12 hours (6:30pm to 6:30am) plus naps 2 hours a day which means she is awake and requires at least one of us to be supervising her 70 hours a week. 40 of those hours are spent with me at work each week which leaves 30 hours less free time per week split between the wife and me. So that is basically 2 hours less free time per day per parent for us. That isn't taking into account the extra chores the baby creates, we do cloth diapers and make our own food because we are stupid fucking hippies* so that combined with normal baby laundry and pumping probably cut into that free time a couple of hours per week as well.

We do still get plenty of free time, we get a chance to catch up on all of our TV shows and I still brew beer at least once a week, but there is a significant chunk of time per day devoted simply to childcare. Now I'm sure this will ease up as she gets older and can be left relatively unattended to self entertain but as of right now constant supervision is required.

The "you'll never sleep again thing" so far hasn't been an issue for us. Like you, from day 1 she has pretty much slept through the night. There were the 4am feedings early on but we were used to being woken up by at least one of the 2 cats and 2 dogs we have living with us per night anyways. I would say by 4 months she was sleeping straight through the night most of time. Now I was the same way when I was a baby, and my parents were like "this parenting thing is easy, I don't get what the fuss is about" and then they had my brother. The same parents that had no issue getting me to sleep through the night early on could not figure out any way to get my brother to do the same. He was up and crying constantly for no rhyme or reason other than that is just the way he was. Every baby is different.

So far our social life has changed, mainly because of our daughters 6:30 bedtime. We have a very good routine and the few times we have tried to alter it, things go bad for the next day or two. Having a social life isn't impossible by any means but we do spend a little bit more time with the friends that also have kids (because going out to dinner at 5:00pm is a lot more acceptable to them) and have to play host a bit more often. When our daughter is older hopefully she'll be a bit more flexible in her bedtime thus allowing us to be more flexible as well.

*We really aren't hippies, we do the diapers and food mainly for cost saving purposes.

I'm not too worried, and truth be told I did sign up for this so this is my life now. The nesting stuff is just running me really tired now. For instance the other day I had to work really late again and got home at 9:00. She graciously waited for me to get home to cook, then immediately hounded me to go for an hour walk, and also she's bothering me to do thank you cards. By the time I'm done I'm asleep on the couch on accident and repeating it all again the next day.

At least we wont have to be kicked from the inside by a baby, and later win, say, incontinence and vaginal reconstruction from birth. Small sacrifices. Yay penis, yay us

Yeah, nesting is kind of terrible. I'm in nesting 2.0 right now, or the "Oh shit she's CRAWLING! WE NEED TO BABYPROOF MEOW!" nesting.

One other note on the sleeping, while I still get ample time to sleep I've always been a stay-up-late-sleep-in-till-noon kind of guy and even when I've wanted to I've never been able to adjust my cycle to get up earlier. So it isn't that my kid doesn't allow me enough time to sleep but the 6:30am wake up time has been tough for me to adjust to. She slept in till 7:30 today and it felt like the best day in my life.

opiate82_sl said:

Yeah, nesting is kind of terrible. I'm in nesting 2.0 right now, or the "Oh shit she's CRAWLING! WE NEED TO BABYPROOF MEOW!" nesting.

One other note on the sleeping, while I still get ample time to sleep I've always been a stay-up-late-sleep-in-till-noon kind of guy and even when I've wanted to I've never been able to adjust my cycle to get up earlier. So it isn't that my kid doesn't allow me enough time to sleep but the 6:30am wake up time has been tough for me to adjust to. She slept in till 7:30 today and it felt like the best day in my life.

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My 2,5 yo wakes up 5.30am, punches my face 'wake up dad'. I don't remember the last time I got to sleep in. Yeah, I enjoy sleeping at work after a 24h shift. The little joys

Noodlemod_sl said:

I'm not too worried, and truth be told I did sign up for this so this is my life now. The nesting stuff is just running me really tired now. For instance the other day I had to work really late again and got home at 9:00. She graciously waited for me to get home to cook, then immediately hounded me to go for an hour walk, and also she's bothering me to do thank you cards. By the time I'm done I'm asleep on the couch on accident and repeating it all again the next day.

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I mean no disrespect to you, so please don't be offended by this, but she sounds quite a lot like a bitch. I understand that she's pregnant and uncomfortable, but wait until 9 for you to come home and cook? That's just crappy. She could make some toast or boiled eggs or some shit like that.

But that just, like, my opinion, man.

And she can handle the thank you cards. Anything that doesn't require physical activity my wife handles. If she didn't keep herself busy with the 'easy' stuff like thank you cards she'd drive us both insane. There's a middle ground to be had.

lurkingdirk_sl said:

I mean no disrespect to you, so please don't be offended by this, but she sounds quite a lot like a bitch. I understand that she's pregnant and uncomfortable, but wait until 9 for you to come home and cook? That's just crappy. She could make some toast or boiled eggs or some shit like that.

But that just, like, my opinion, man.

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Right now she is truly a bitch, so no worries. She's also still working full time delivering mail, so I cut some slack

Noodlemod_sl said:

Right now she is truly a bitch, so no worries. She's also still working full time delivering mail, so I cut some slack

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Yeah, don't want your preggers wife going postal.

Noodlemod_sl said:

Right now she is truly a bitch, so no worries. She's also still working full time delivering mail, so I cut some slack

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Did not realise that last part. Jebus on a stick, delivering mail while late term pregnant has to suck the balls of donkeys.

You're doing good work, man. This, too, shall pass.

Do her feet look like cartoon Barney Rubble feet like my wife's after she gets home from work? She's a teacher and her feet blow up like damn balloons.

My wife is a teacher too and her feet did not go back to her pre-pregnancy size. Closet full of shoes that are useless now

Noodlemod_sl said:

Right now she is truly a bitch, so no worries. She's also still working full time delivering mail, so I cut some slack

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We really should have a subforum for betting on divorces. Forget polls, cold hard cash - or bitcoins.

Tred_sl said:

Do her feet look like cartoon Barney Rubble feet like my wife's after she gets home from work? She's a teacher and her feet blow up like damn balloons.

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No probably because she's moving so much and not sitting down. I've read that those with sedentary jobs or sit down a lot have that problem. She has tiny little baby feet (5'0")

Well shit just got real. If he doesn't come tonight we're scheduling yhr csection Wednesday. Preeclampsia is official.

How many weeks are you at Tred? We had to deliver at 30 weeks to pre eclampsia and everything turned out finein the end

We're at 36 weeks so I'm not really concerned about things going wrong on that front. She's on the monitor now and hes looking great. Nice strong heart rate and lots of movement.

Yeah, 36 is basically full gestation, everything is fully developed at that point. Going past that only gains size, which doesn't have to be done in the womb

Well he's already measuring at 7 lbs and change. Size shouldn't be a problem. haha

So the plan is to go back Wednesday for more tests. If not Wed our doc said he'll definitely be coming within the week. If he's going to come out within the week I'd really prefer it be done Wed. I really do not want to mess with pre-eclampsia at all.