bostonimproper's journal

Where are you and where are you going?
mathiverse
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Post by mathiverse »

Congratulations! I'm happy you and your baby are healthy!

mooretrees
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Re: bostonimproper's journal

Post by mooretrees »

I’m glad to hear baby is here! Everyone has a different experience with breastfeeding and how they feel about their birth. We got it easy with nursing but had a terrible time getting our son to take a bottle. DH ended up bringing baby to work twice a day to nurse. Not ideal.

Basically all of parenting seems to be dealing with the imperfections of being a parent. Babies grow up healthy on formula, boobs and everything in between. I hope things improve and that however the situation resolves, you feel good about it.

bostonimproper
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Re: bostonimproper's journal

Post by bostonimproper »

Thanks for the well wishes everyone!

With some more experience, my husband and I have started getting a routine down with the baby. I’m managing to get eight hours of sleep, albeit in chunks of a couple here, a couple there. Most of my waking time is still spoken for, either taking care of the baby or on basic personal needs like eating or showering. I’m still struggling to make time for anything that requires a chunk of concentration (going over my crypto transactions for last year’s taxes has been a slog). But I feel a lot better mentally and emotionally.

If you had asked if I felt the “baby blues” two weeks ago, I would have denied it, meanwhile crying my eyes out every few hours. I really didn’t realize how much I was riding the wave of postpartum hormones. I’m starting to feel somewhat myself again, which is nice, and I’m really enjoying our child more as they level up from angry potato to angry potato that occasionally smiles and coos vaguely in my direction without making direct eye contact and does silly things like trying to eat my breast pump.

On the breastfeeding front, I’ve made the decision to best-effort pump (around 4-6x a day) until baby has hit their two-month immunizations and their digestive system has matured a bit; right now they are in fussy gassy mode as that all kicks into gear. Once they hit that milestone I’ll probably wean and move to exclusively formula fed once they start solids, if my supply doesn’t dry up before then. While the latching has gotten slightly better— as in I can get them to do it maybe once a day, up from once a week— I think it’s probably unlikely we’ll be able to make breastfeeding really work. My supply is just too low and I don’t have it in me to pump even more (seriously who has time to do this 4 hours a day with a newborn) while we continue to figure out the latch stuff, and the window for building that up is closing too fast for me to reasonably catch up.

While I’m still kind of grieving giving up on exclusive breastmilk feeding, I’ve mostly made peace with it. I noticed I would sometimes let pumping get in the way of picking up and comforting my child because of the cumbersome nature of holding both my flanges and the baby to my chest, and I really hated how much I was “parenting” the pump instead of my child. All things considered, I’d rather enjoy this time with my little one being a newborn and attend to their real needs in front of my face than kill myself trying to make exclusive breastmilk feeding work for the sake of optimal nutrition or whatever. Kudos to the parents who can make it work or for whom feeding came easy. For me, though, I’m throwing in the towel.

bostonimproper
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Re: bostonimproper's journal

Post by bostonimproper »

A few updates:
- Baby is two months old now. They recognize and smile at us, engage us in riveting conversations (“ah goo? ahh ooahoo”), can roll over and bat at hanging objects, and have decided their hands are the most delicious things ever. Still haven’t hit my happy place in terms of a sustainable routine, but I’m liking being a parent more as time goes on— better than the opposite.
- I’ve transitioned to 100% formula feeding. It’s had the desired effects (better mental health, more sleep). Honestly, once I got better rested, a lot of the guilt around not breastfeeding went away.
- Convenience >>> everything else right now. We are throwing money at problems because we don’t have the time or energy to deal with it all. And even if we did, we are prioritizing just enjoying this phase of life.
- In line with this, I’ve started automating our non-retirement investments, which I used to rebalance manually. Outside of our crypto allocation, it is now basically 100% VT. I have come to the conclusion that I am not smarter than or good at timing the market, and my time and attention is better spent elsewhere.
- We haven’t managed going outside an hour every day, but we have gone on many walks and other outings with the baby. I’m hoping we can maybe go hiking in the next couple weeks of the weather permits.
- Massachusetts is STILL rejecting my paid leave request.

bostonimproper
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Re: bostonimproper's journal

Post by bostonimproper »

Baby is doing well. They were sleeping through the night for a couple weeks there which was heavenly, but I think the four month sleep regression came a bit early and now we’re back to contact sleeping between 3:30-5:30 AM. Still, their smile in the morning just melts my heart, so even with the lack of sleep, my cup is filled.

In many ways, my parenting journey has forced me to let go how I want things to be and just settle for muddling through as good enough. I had a lot of desires coming in to parent in a more “granola” way. Cloth diapers? Cue unending diaper rashes and yeast infections. Breastfeeding? Hello latch issues and a big undersupply. Baby wearing? Back pain like broken glass in my spine (probably doesn’t help that my core hasn’t entirely healed from delivery). I’ve had more deliveries from Target in the last three months than I care to admit. My inner minimalist, zero waste, walk-my-kid-through-the-forest-daily inner self is none too pleased, but right now any extra time I have needs to go to sleep and any extra energy to fixing my still kind of broken body. At least we’ve been taking baby outside on walks or just laying in the grass pretty regularly. That’s been nice at least.

Now that the “fourth trimester” is over, I’m starting to turn my attention to what’s next for me on the job front. I have one more month of maternity leave. In the time I’ve been out the company has fallen into a death spiral and half my department has either left for greener pastures or has been outsourced to India. So I’m not intending to go back if I have other options.

So far, the job search is going okay, but not great. I’ve probably applied to 10 roles, 3 recruiter calls, only 1 hiring manager interview so far (which I think went pretty well and should move to an on-site, fingers crossed). For some jobs I’m not even getting a recruiter call despite referrals, even where I’d be a good fit based on the type of role/my experience. The market definitely feels tougher than it did when I searched two years ago and I’m seeing much fewer interesting opportunities come my way even compared to last fall.

In terms of starting my own business, I’ve come to the conclusion that now is definitely not the right time. I need the structure of a “job” to be able to carve out time away from the baby. At the moment, I feel like a lot of the parenting is falling on me by default despite my husband being the designated stay at home parent. To be fair, part of that is me soaking up time with the baby while I can. But still, I think I need the excuse of work to reset the dynamic a bit so that I have cycles again for focus time.

Scott 2
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Re: bostonimproper's journal

Post by Scott 2 »

It's great your maternity leave extended through this year's job market. I've been watching from afar, happy to be insulated from it. Regardless of long term potential, AI seems to usher in a lot of near term disruption.

Watching my friends have children, I came to the conclusion parenting is a game of survival. I haven't seen anyone crush it, with all expectations met.

bostonimproper
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Re: bostonimproper's journal

Post by bostonimproper »

Scott 2 wrote:
Thu May 11, 2023 9:26 am
AI seems to usher in a lot of near term disruption.
Really, you think so? In what way?

Scott 2
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Re: bostonimproper's journal

Post by Scott 2 »

You seem to have more experience with it than me. My observation is fairly casual, based upon news reports and online sentiment.

Were I working, I'd be looking at how to lever the tools into my workflow. Anytime work can be automated, it differentiates. I don't think there will be full replacement, but people left behind, who fail to adapt.

The worst impact I've seen is a friend in the voice over industry. He thinks AI voices will eat most of the bread and butter corporate gigs. To the point where he's shifting his career to run in person events.

It's not that the results are better. It's that they are good enough. He can hear the short comings, but people don't care. His agent threw together an AI clip, based on sampling his voice. His girlfriend believed it was him.

bostonimproper
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Re: bostonimproper's journal

Post by bostonimproper »

@Scott 2: Oh yeah, I definitely think there are some industries that are likely to be “disrupted.” Graphic design and illustration, customer service, copywriting, concierge and assistants, to name a few. And I agree there will be new LLM-powered tools that will be expected for knowledge workers to know how to leverage. But I don’t see it replacing software developers, product, or good analysts anytime soon, despite tech VCs salivating over the opportunity to reduce headcount with AutoGPT or whatever.

bostonimproper
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Re: bostonimproper's journal

Post by bostonimproper »

Work

Job search has fizzled out. It’s pretty brutal out there in tech right now— at least it has been for me. I’m not getting past phone screens. I’m getting auto-rejected for jobs I’m a good fit for. It’s definitely bruising the ego a bit.

Given the situation, it looks like I’m going back to my old job. I’m not thrilled by the prospect, but the cash compensation is good and this year they increased my stock grant by a lot. Basically if I stay for another 18 months and the stock price goes back to where it was two years ago, it’ll put me over the edge for FIRE. That’s assuming they don’t fold in the next year. I give it 50/50 odds.

Baby

Baby is in a phase right now where they very much want to be able to crawl/roll/walk but aren’t quite able to yet. They are very angry about this state of affairs, as evidenced by the yelling whenever they flail their arms and legs in a desperate attempt to move, g’dammit during tummy time. I see so much of myself in their budding personality. Constantly striving for more, but easily frustrated. It’s weird how much of a person they are already, even so little. I’m nervous about toddlerhood.

The one still kind of grating thing right now is sleep. Baby currently refuses to sleep anywhere except on top of one of us after 3:30 AM, which means whoever is on duty for the night doesn’t get any sleep after that point. On top of that they wake up about 4-5 times a night where we need to pop the pacifier back in, so our sleep is broken up as well. It’s frustrating because we got two weeks early on of perfect sleep, I’m talking 12 hours with zero wake ups of pure bliss. I hope we get back to better sleep soon. I’m very tired.

Priorities? AKA Two Kids or One and Done?

Looking over the next five years or so, I’m trying to figure out different priorities, such as:
1. Having a second child (unsure if that means another pregnancy or adopting)
2. Renovating our attic space to add a bedroom and bath (go from 2/1 to 3/2) — we probably want this if we have a second kid
3. Purchase investment property in the Michigan and/or Ireland (where husband has citizenship)
4. “Retiring” early (i.e. quitting my 9-5, but probably still making money somehow either through part-time fun work, starting a business, pivoting to a different career, etc. — the key thing is to not have “work” and “paying the bills” be coupled anymore)

Right now I am really craving time freedom. I want to be able to putter around on some little hobbies, read a book, take naps in the middle of the day. Of course I know a lot of this feeling is because of baby and losing a lot of the freedom I had in pre-baby life. And I also expect this to get better over time as baby gets older — it’s already significantly better now than it was in the newborn phase. Still, the thought of resetting to zero and making the time crunch even worse with a second child feels unappealing. At least with one kid, my husband and I can each give each other breaks while the other takes the lead. With two, that’s much less of an option.

There’s also the financial cost, which also eats into the time freedom. With another child comes another college fund, the prospect of a big home renovation so each kid can get their own room, preschool tuition, and all the other things that come up. I understand the sentiment of “kids cost whatever you want to spend” but at the same time there’s a certain type of life we want to be able to give our kids and that life costs money. This means working longer which also eats into the time freedom.

Layer on top of all that the thought of another pregnancy and I’m wary of the prospect of another kid.

On the other hand, my husband still wants a second child. And to be fair so did I before we had our baby. Right now I feel our family is very much “complete” and I can’t imagine splitting my time/attention/care that’s currently going to baby to multiple children. But who knows if I’ll feel the same way down the line?

Back-of-the-envelope, I think I can handle the additional costs of a second child with around 3-4 more years of work beyond my current FIRE timeline. So if I might reach FIRE-with-one-kid by 33-34, I’d reach FIRE-with-two-kids by 36-37. It’d also mean the years where we have two kids and I’m still working (roughly when I’m 34-37) will be very hectic and tiring.

This isn’t a decision I need to make today, but it’s one I’ll probably want to make in the next 2-3 years, and where I lean may affect other decisions I make between now and then.

theanimal
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Re: bostonimproper's journal

Post by theanimal »

bostonimproper wrote:
Thu Jun 01, 2023 10:44 am
The one still kind of grating thing right now is sleep. Baby currently refuses to sleep anywhere except on top of one of us after 3:30 AM, which means whoever is on duty for the night doesn’t get any sleep after that point. On top of that they wake up about 4-5 times a night where we need to pop the pacifier back in, so our sleep is broken up as well. It’s frustrating because we got two weeks early on of perfect sleep, I’m talking 12 hours with zero wake ups of pure bliss. I hope we get back to better sleep soon. I’m very tired.
I'm right there with you. 8 months of poor sleep and counting ! :lol: Though my daughter learned to sleep on her stomach last month and it has ogtten a lot better since then as it seems she is able to be more comfortable that way. Otherwise at night we have had the same stuff going on. If left to her own desires, my daughter would be on Mrs. Animal's boob every hour throughout the night for comfort. To try and break that sense of dependency, we've tried to disassociate my wife from my daughter's idea of sleep, basically by Mrs. Animal sleeping elsewhere past the middle of the night (not easy in a one room house!). That seems to have helped too.

Otherwise I generally have a hard time falling asleep with her on my chest. Mrs. Animal somehow can do it no problem. Over the past few weeks, I wait until she falls asleep, then I slowly move her over to one of my sides (still in my arm(s)). She is able to keep sleeping that way and feels comforted and I can sleep too! If that doesn't work and I have to keep her on my chest, sometimes I keep my phone nearby and put on a podcast or music with a sleep timer to lull me back to sleep. That doesn't always work but I've found it helpful to get my body calmed back down and in sleep mode after getting some intense screaming in my ear at 3:14 AM.

Anyways, best of luck! Hopefully it gets better for all of us soon.

bostonimproper
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Re: bostonimproper's journal

Post by bostonimproper »

@theanimal 8 months? You know what, you’ve sold me on it— one kid it is! :lol:

I’d love to go back to sleep once baby is on me for the early morning but my husband is super against cosleeping due to risk of accidental asphyxiation so I mostly just scroll my phone or read on my Kobo. If this keeps going past 6 months though without improvement I’m definitely going to lobby for it again.

7Wannabe5
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Re: bostonimproper's journal

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Realistically, you're looking at age 6 or 7 for your youngest in order to ensure nobody invading the sanctity of your sleep. That's also the blessed age when you can hope for never again being called upon to help wipe a butt. Why this was the conventional age for starting school.

Biscuits and Gravy
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Re: bostonimproper's journal

Post by Biscuits and Gravy »

Co-sleeping with my son means at four years old he still needs assistance self-soothing to sleep, so I’m on year six of interrupted sleep (he has an older sister). I wouldn’t recommend co-sleeping if you value your own sleep.

I am glad I had two kids close together (they play, interact, care for each other, etc.), but it does make things 4x harder. Another kid introduces an entirely new person to the mix; with their own medical issues, personality, and wants and needs. There is no accounting for who comes out.

macg
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Re: bostonimproper's journal

Post by macg »

bostonimproper wrote:
Thu Jun 01, 2023 10:44 am
Work

Job search has fizzled out. It’s pretty brutal out there in tech right now— at least it has been for me. I’m not getting past phone screens. I’m getting auto-rejected for jobs I’m a good fit for. It’s definitely bruising the ego a bit.
Have you seen some of the "hacks" out there to get past the auto-rejects? One I remember is to copy the keywords from the job listing into your resume, and set the font to white, so it's invisible. Theory being that the applications they are using for the initial screening just do keyword searches, so this would bypass that.

To be clear, I don't know if this or other "hacks" that you can Google actually work. It just popped in my mind when I read that you are getting auto rejected. I've been lucky that I haven't had to go through the job search process lately, it's definitely brutal.

Best of luck!

bostonimproper
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Re: bostonimproper's journal

Post by bostonimproper »

@7w5 @B&G Guys, I feel like this is the point at which you’re supposed to lie to me. “It gets so much better, you’re right around the corner from better sleep!” Where’s my toxic positivity y’know? /s but also 😭

@macg Appreciate the advice. For what it’s worth I’m probably exaggerating a bit on the auto-rejects. I’m getting rejected most frequently at the recruiter screen and first call with hiring manager. Which has just been kind of demoralizing (I made it past the HR software to humans and it turns out they don’t like me?). It’s just felt weird because in previous job searches I would typically make it to on sites for roles that get like a good fit in initial calls, whereas I’ve made it to on sites for zero roles this cycle.

Another random observation I’ve had is that the recruiters I’ve worked with this cycle have been a lot more junior seeming. Ditto hiring managers (newer teams, first time as managers). Not sure what this indicates, if anything, but it’s just been a not-so-great experience all around.

Biscuits and Gravy
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Re: bostonimproper's journal

Post by Biscuits and Gravy »

Haha, nah, we only be selling cold hard truths. Having little ones never gets better, but it does get different. If you hate one stage, take comfort in knowing all of the stages are relatively short-lived. That, and your mind will eventually block out those horrible first 18 months.

When I found it overwhelming, I thought about all of the women who came before me and tried to draw strength from our collective well of endless suffering. :) Strength, chica!

theanimal
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Re: bostonimproper's journal

Post by theanimal »

It also depends on what you're doing. We are not doing cry it out/"sleep training" but if you pursue that you may have different results. Some book I read on the topic claimed that over 80% of babies who did cry it out were able to sleep for something like 8 hrs versus somewhere around 66% for those that did not.

At least for us, it has gotten a lot better over the past month or so. We aren't sleeping through the night, but a lot less interruptions. The worst nights now are due to teething, which keeps her up and unhappy. But we never had any moment when she slept through the night like you did with your baby, so maybe you will get back to that. Every kid seems to be different. FWIW, Mrs. Animal was definitely with you on the 1 kid train for all of the last 8 months, until she told me last week that she wants to have another.

Bonde
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Re: bostonimproper's journal

Post by Bonde »

theanimal wrote:
Fri Jun 02, 2023 1:38 pm
It also depends on what you're doing. We are not doing cry it out/"sleep training" but if you pursue that you may have different results. Some book I read on the topic claimed that over 80% of babies who did cry it out were able to sleep for something like 8 hrs versus somewhere around 66% for those that did not.
I think that the Danish Health Authority do not recommend this method and has debunked it publicly. I don't have time to find links as I also have a baby and my ressources are quite scarce.

bostonimproper
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Re: bostonimproper's journal

Post by bostonimproper »

For what it’s worth, we’re not planning to sleep train in the CIO/Ferber sense. Maybe we’ll change our minds after a few more months of sleep deprivation, but for now we’re sticking to our nightly bedtime routine and attempting “drowsy but awake” crib placement over and over until our backs give out.

Vegetarian Baby?

The other day our pediatrician cleared our baby to start solids and my husband suggested to me that we should consider making our baby a vegetarian until they are old enough to choose a diet on their own. I’m not sold on the idea, but my husband is pretty adamant and we’re in the “doing research” phase of decision making. Note that neither my husband nor I are vegetarians, though we’ve reduced our meat consumption over the past few years.

On the one hand, I do think there are a lot of problems with meat eating, ethically and environmentally speaking. And maybe being a vegetarian will make our child more resilient in a changing world.

On the other hand, though we can readily provide our baby with a balanced diet without meat (vegan would be much harder), I do also think a little bit of meat in one’s diet is healthy. Also I feel really weird about the idea of imposing a limitation of my child’s food that I would not enforce for myself. Not to mention, if our child is vegetarian, that will kind of force our whole household to be vegetarian for the sake of convenience in home cooking, which I guess isn’t a bad thing? But it is also not really a commitment I feel like I’m ready to make just yet, though in the abstract, it is something I see as being “better” than our current omnivore lifestyle.

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