Newborn Trenches

Welcome to the newborn trenches

In this episode, we’re taking you behind the scenes of those blurry, snack-fueled, what-day-is-it early weeks with a new baby. We’re sharing our real experiences: the meltdowns, the magic, the things no one warned us about (looking at you, 3 a.m. Google searches).

We’ll chat through the products that were actually worth the hype, the ones that ended up in the “why did we buy this?” pile, and the advice that saved our sanity vs. the stuff that was pure clickbait. Yes, we’re talking “sleep when the baby sleeps” and other gems people love to toss around.

If you’re pregnant, in the thick of it, or just love a good honest baby story, this one’s equal parts comedy, comfort, and practical tips. Pull up a burp cloth and press play.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

If you don't set it up correctly, I'm sure it could cause a lot of gas. And that's why it gets such a bad rep. Still have it on my counter, which it should be in the truck. You're not a bad mom if your kid doesn't like the first three, four, five formulas. Whatever works for your kid is what you should do. None of their kids have enjoyed the halo. If I lived in a place where my mom could just hop on by, I think that would have been more problematic. I just didn't want to like have someone come over and just watch me like cry on the couch. Welcome to Advanced Maternal Age. Real and raw talk from pregnancy, labor, 3 AM trenches, and the messy magic of motherhood. Fertility conception, surprise turns, and the acronyms no one asked for. Whether you're tracking your cycle, cuddling a newborn, or figuring out what's next, you're in the right place. I'm a chint. I'm Meredith. We're your co-pilots on this AMA ride.

SPEAKER_01 0:53

This is advanced maternal age. We're back. This week's episode is about newborn trenches. The trenches, if you've gone through them, you know, they're hormonal, they're a roller coaster. It's up and down every single day, several times a day. Beyond that, we want to kind of cover like the tips or the advice or whatever you see on social media, and people say, Oh, you must have this or you don't need this. And how it's actually truly opposite for me and you. In a lot of ways, certain things worked really well for me, but they didn't work for you, and vice versa.

SPEAKER_00 1:27

Yeah. I feel like obviously everyone talks about what works for them and maybe what didn't work for them, but it's kind of shocking how much on social media it's like the same. Yeah. Like everyone talks about, oh, these this really worked for me, the word it's a tip or a product, oh yeah, or a service. You see all the trends. It's a trend all the same. So it kind of makes me think like, oh, is people are they just making those for clickbait? Yeah. And they know they're gonna do well because oh, so everybody else is doing it. Right. Did well or their TikTok did well. So we're definitely not here for that. We're here for the honesty of it all. So we're definitely gonna we want to talk about the things that we thought, oh, really worked for us, whether we were given advice that, oh, hey, this really helped me and it also helped us, or maybe the opposite, like somebody told us, hey, this didn't work for me at all, but it worked really well for one of us.

SPEAKER_01 2:11

Exactly. Yeah. I mean, I think we can start off with products because that seems to be like when you're pregnant and you're like going down like your registry and trying to figure out what you want. You're obviously looking at what has worked for people or not on social media. A lot of things are always the same, right? Like the same brands pop up, a lot of that stuff pops up. I think we can both though kind of agree, or I don't know, but agree to the fact that you don't always need the brand name, right? Like you can Oh yeah, totally. Like I think now I'm trying to think of like knockoff stuff that I got that or even like the Grecos, right? Like nobody like Graco used to be the brand name, but now you have like Mockingbird, Lalo, Stokey, like all of these other fancy stuff. You don't need those, yeah, you don't need like those higher luxe brands. I think in a lot of ways, we've had to buy set sometimes almost second sets of stuff for like our family's homes. Yeah. And we end up buying like the more affordable priced brand or something like that's also a no-name, like on Amazon.

SPEAKER_00 3:13

Well, and they work great. Yeah, I have a hot take on something that didn't my child could give two fucks about, but everyone like dies over it is that giraffe thing. Oh, Sophie the giraffe. Sophie the giraffe that's like$30 now. And my kid could give two fucks less. And I did not buy it, my mom bought it, but like he doesn't care. He hates it, but he likes all the other like teether toys that you can get on Amazon that are way cheaper. Like you can get like a set of three for 10 bucks, and this Sophie giraffe is like$30, and he could care less.

SPEAKER_01 3:47

No, I mean, so my son only started liking that in the last maybe two to three weeks. He did not care about it. And I don't know if it's because of his developmental age, but it's like they you would assume that once they start teething, they like that toy. They don't like that toy that time. I found that it was a waste of money too. I had it in my registry, but he does like it now. Again, I think it in the overpriced, like overpriced, overhyped toy in general. Like you can live without it.

SPEAKER_00 4:15

So maybe it's an older toy, but it's funny because it's just it's it's it's advertised for like zero plus or whatever. And that's the other gag. That's the gag, is that there's so many toys that are advertised zero up, but to what you just said, like, no, they're not actually gonna be able to enjoy these things until they're older. And it's a lot of it's developmental. Like, are they grabbing things? Are they touching things? Are they into the sound putting everything in their mouth? I kind of feel like part of that zero plus rating is for maybe like toxicity or something, or like choking hazard. Like, okay, if you gave this to a two-week old baby, will it harm them? No. No. Yeah. But will they do anything with it? Will it be helpful for you? No. So probably not. Yeah. Yeah. So when we talk about the newborn trenches, like specifically, we're talking about that first like eight weeks, the first two months, the things that we felt really did help us.

SPEAKER_01 5:07

Yeah. I think one of the things that me and you have discussed in depth is bottle washers and sanitizers, right? So for context, uh, you had a sanitizer, I had that mom cozy bottle washer plus sanitizer thing. Like I went all out.

SPEAKER_00 5:23

I had the baby Brazo sanitizer. Yeah. Still have it on my counter, which it should be in the trash.

SPEAKER_01 5:29

So we have two very opposite opinions on like if sterilizers and bottle, you know, bottle washers work. I have loved mine. I was also pumping. So I had not just my bottles, but I was I had to wash my pump parts in it. And on top of that, because my child had oral thrush and then I got thrush. If anybody knows anything about this, you know, you can pass it back and forth. So the the only recommendation to try to, you know, prevent any cross-contamination of thrush between you and the baby is that you have to like either boil everything for at least like three minutes or so, like scald it to death, or you need to be using like a sterilizer. So I use mine a lot, but even at my parents, I have the Dr. Brown sterilizer, which is like it looks like yours, but maybe slightly bigger. It's a tank, but it dries and it sanitizes so well. And I can like dump like half the world in it, which I have loved because I sometimes have like multiple bottles, but also the pump parts are like another situation on their own. Like I don't even care about the bottles. The pump parts are like really what drives me a little crazy.

SPEAKER_00 6:34

Yeah, I didn't have, I wasn't breastfeeding at all, so I didn't have any pump parts. But I think that I don't know, it's just crazy. Like I read the reviews. I also believe that if you can get things secondhand, do it because you literally only use things for such a brief period of time. So that's been really a godsend.

SPEAKER_01 6:51

Another tip is try to get anything that you can secondhand. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:55

Facebook Marketplace, also, if you can be part of like a local mom's group, which we're a part of. So I did buy my sanitizer secondhand off of somebody from a local mom's group, but it was brand new. I mean, she used it for like no time at all. The baby braza did not dry, like it not to completion. If you have to change the filter. Oh, I did everything, literally everything. And that's so I tried it, the baby nurse tried it, my mom tried it. Like we were messing around with that thing six weeks to Sunday. But you know, it just, like you say, old school hot water, like, you know, clean it with the bottle brush and you know, the soap. And that's what I did. I mean, I just, it was just something that I'm not gonna say, like, oh, it's absolutely bullshit because everyone's different. But if you're on a budget and you're also trying to conserve space, I say you don't need it.

SPEAKER_01 7:42

Yeah. I think another thing that actually we were talking about this morning, and I ended up doing this now that my child is six months older, is that I reduce the number of bottles that I'm using. So the less bottles, the less you're washing stuff, the less you have to clean, the less of everything. I think the pumping does get like really hairy because I I mean, I'm like that person that like kind of reuses like my pump parts over now that I don't have that whole thrush issue, and you can, but like before when I had to boil everything, it it's like so neurotic, right? So you're like boiling everything. You need two to three sets of everything, and it's just like it's like more than your dishes, it's very annoying.

SPEAKER_00 8:21

So I think the bottles are is a fair point because you start off with small bottles, whether you're breastfeeding or pumping or formula, yeah. You smart you start off with like the smaller that are only like the four ounces, and then after that, then you go up to the bigger, which are like eight or nine ounce bottles. And honestly, like I say if I were to do it again, just get well, yeah, just get the big one and just get one or two. Like tiny ones, max four. Like now I rotate between four bottles. I have way more than four, but I literally haven't touched them, they're in my cupboard, and I just don't use them because the more bottles you use, it's just a weird thing with your mentality. You're like, oh, I have all these bottles. So then you just wait forever until you wash them. But if you have less, you're gonna wash the ones you have and just keep it going. On that topic, the other thing that everyone's bottle types, though. I had multiple. I know this is a hot topic. This is so annoying. I feel like it really depends on your kid. Yeah, really does. Because I, my kid, I started with the doc brown Dr. Browns, literally could not hate them more. There's so many fucking parts. Yeah, it's not anti-colic any more than any other bottle. Sorry, like it's not. That's a total marketing ploy. That stupid green thing that's in there is total horseshit.

SPEAKER_01 9:37

The the Phillips thing, right? You have the Phillips Admin. I have the Phillips Admin.

SPEAKER_00 9:41

They're like the two best, but and I will recommend them. But if you look at Phillips Advent on social media, everyone runs them to the ground, like reads them for filth. Everyone says the Phillips Admin are the worst for gas, for this, for that. Now, I'll say I think one of the reasons is, and Phillips Advent, if you're listening, a rep from Phillips Admin, y'all need to do better about explaining how to put the nipple in the bottle because you have to align. There is a notch on the lid, and there's a notch in the even still has that. And you have to, yeah, even flow is similar, and you have to align that. If you don't do that, the whole premise of the, you know, anti-gas goes out the fucking window. But I learned that from somebody on a TikTok reel. There's no place in the box or anywhere on their website that says to do this. So honestly, I could see why people hate them for that, because if you don't set it up correctly, I'm sure it could cause a lot of gas. And that's why it gets such a bad rap. I didn't realize nipple what were nipple confusion really meant until I realized it, which is if you are breastfeeding and you're also giving breast milk through a bottle, you have to really be No, it doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_01 10:49

Formula or breast milk through a bottle. But if you're using a bottle while you're breastfeeding, correct.

SPEAKER_00 10:54

Yeah, yeah. But then you really have to be conscious of the nipple type.

SPEAKER_01 10:58

And not only that, the nipple flow. So it's not just the bottle type and the latch of the bottle, but it's also how fast something is coming out of that bottle, whether it's formula, whether it's breast milk, how fast is that flow? Because every flow for every company completely works differently. And then each bottle type, the way that the baby is sucking the milk out of that nipple and that bottle is different too. So, like I have boon, I have even flow, I have Dr. Brown, all of them. The way that they the baby is sucking the milk to get whatever it is out is very different. So, with like Boone, he was too little to understand that it's more of like a straw suction. It's not the same as like how it is for the even flow and the Dr. Brown. So he couldn't really understand how to use that bottle.

SPEAKER_00 11:44

Personally, for me, once I found one that he liked, which was just my second one, I didn't change it. Don't change it. Yeah, I don't change it. Yeah, I didn't buy any more. So I had the Dr. Brown's and then they had the Phillips Advent. And then when I realized he liked the Phillips Advent more, he liked that nipple, he liked all of that. And obviously, you move up the flows as they get older, but I didn't change it. So I know some people they're they use like three different types of bottles, which I don't personally understand that. But if that works for your kid, then I guess great. I mean, that's really the name of the game. Whatever works for your kid is what you should do.

SPEAKER_01 12:15

I had to like play around with so many bottles, so many flows, so many of this, even jump back and forth between flows because one was slightly too fast, one was slightly too slow, and then you're like, what do I do?

SPEAKER_00 12:26

I think less bottles is the takeaway. And then just knowing that not all bottles are created equal, it might take a while before you find one that your kid likes. And these were things that I didn't know. You know, the way that it's marketed, the way that people didn't talk about on social media, you think, oh, you just pick a bottle and go. And it's like, no, no, no, no, no, no. Like this could be a journey that takes weeks to figure out, yeah. Which is crazy to think because you're trying to figure out everything else. And it's like, oh, add to the list the type of bottle that my kid actually.

SPEAKER_01 12:54

So when we had our baby nurse, she literally was like, You're ordering new bottles and new nipples and new this and new that all the time. Because I literally was trying to figure out like what does he like better? Technically, did he like them? Like, it seemed like he was more comfortable with the even flow, but it was way too fast. You you never know. You really have to try. And you could be that person that just is like, all right, I'm mostly bottle feeding, they'll just get stuck with whatever bottle I picked because I don't want to buy a new one. If it works for your baby and you, whatever.

SPEAKER_00 13:25

The other thing that I think is a hot topic online, especially because I see a lot of reels and TikToks made about it, is the baby Brezza formula dispenser. So I personally love it. I would recommend it to everybody. It's a lifesaver. But though bad reviews come from because people don't set it up right. So there is a QR code you have to scan and you do need to follow it to the letter. If you do not, your baby will potentially not be getting the right ounces that they should be getting. And that's what all the negative reviews are about it. That and that you have to like clean it a lot. But the irony is if you don't clean it, then you know the formula will get stuck and then it won't go through to the bottle. So it's not that it's like annoying to clean, but yeah, probably. I mean, now that my kid drinks seven, five, seven ounce bottles a day, I probably do clean it every day because I'm just using it a lot. But it's not like a pain in the ass. It's just it's par for the course. But I don't think it's a reason not to get it. People are saying how, you know, oh, their kid was only getting like how many ounces, like two ounces is four and this and that. But you need to like read the setup, make sure you're setting up to the type of formula you're using. And if you do it that way, then you're like golden.

SPEAKER_01 14:35

Well, on the topic of formulas, we should talk about that too, because again, you got lucky. You had one as a backup that you, you know, just by chance, if you needed it, you had it. Your son took to Nara Organics really well. Shout out to Nara.

SPEAKER_00 14:50

Shout out to Nara, which is a newer company. Um, it's only been around a few years. Now they're just in Target starting this um this past January. They got into Target in the US. I don't think I don't know if they're international yet, but I was planning on breastfeeding. But until I had the complication from my C-section, and then breastfeeding wasn't an option anymore because my body was not able to produce milk anymore because I literally wasn't eating food for 10 days. I had gotten the NARA after doing some research and I settled on it because it was a whole milk, organic formula. It's made in Germany and by Germany's standards, so by EE standards and everything, but it's a based in New York, the company. So I got lucky because when it turned it out I needed him to have the formula, I had heard that you could go through some trials of getting a formula that the babies liked. So I kind of was a little prepared for it. But thankfully, he was fine with it. He enjoyed it. I didn't have any digestive issues, he was never constipated.

SPEAKER_01 15:46

You never had those issues.

SPEAKER_00 15:47

Yeah, and it was totally fine. But I will say that was lucky.

SPEAKER_01 15:50

I absolutely hate all the American-made formulas. I don't care what any p like pediatricians say. They say that they're tried, intrude, and tested and blah, blah, blah. And like they've been around for 80-something years, whatever. I think that they all fucking suck, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_00 16:04

I just think it's weird to me, and maybe someone who's smarter than and knows more about this. I don't know why they make formula that's not whole formula.

SPEAKER_01 16:11

Like, why do they make skim milk? Skim milk and then they fortify it. It's so weird. I don't get that though. I don't know. I think it's so, so, so weird. So candamel, so I had to go through all the trials of formulas because my baby was breastfed. I was doing a little something stupid where I was like pumping out extra milk, but I was like trying to build a stash very early on. And I was like almost pulling milk away from my child. So then he would be hungry and I'd be like, why do I need to supplement? I thought I wasn't making enough milk. That wasn't the case. I just like wasn't giving it to my child. So then I was like supplementing with formula, and then you know, everybody's like, Oh, try like this, try that, like try the simulac at 360 and this and that, you know. So I'm not a fan of these ones, but that's my personal opinion. And I think that they cause a lot of digestive issues, and then the fucking elementum shit that happens. Which I had no idea what this was. I had no idea. Every time your baby has like a digestive issue, everyone in the world, every pediatrician, every specialist that we've gone to, everybody is like, try elementum, try elementum, try elementum. Oh my god. Elementum has been like run down to the ground to like be like that is the answer to every baby solution. And technically, no, it was never the solution because my child did not have a dairy issue. Nothing like that. Oh, right, that's what it is. It's if your child is suspected to have like a dairy issue. Yes, you're supposed to pull dairy out of your diet if you're breastfeeding so that it doesn't further pass along to your child. So if you have dairy, even if it's like even a little bit of coffee creamer can cause them to have digestive issues. So I think that's what it is. Like you're not supposed to have dairy in your diet. So mothers are always recommended to stop dairy into your diet, don't take any dairy at all because it could be causing, they might have a diarrhea issue. That was not the case. I just like was stupid and I wasn't feeding my child because I was like too busy trying to build a stash. So I had to go through so many trials of formulas. I think I spent three or four hundred dollars of formulas that just had to be donated because I was getting European brand formula. You know, then I went down that route and I gave up for a little bit and I was like, let me try the Similac, let me try the Anfamil. No, they were just like causing all these problems. The European ones were fine. By the time I got that stash, my supply went up and my child was exclusively like breastfed, or like, you know, I was giving him breast milk for I think like three or four months straight. So he never needed supplementation. And so by the time my supply dropped and I needed to start supplementing with formula again, those were really near expiration because they're European formulas and they are not meant to be like shelf stable for years at a time, the way American formulas are. They're like they expire within a year or like six to eight months or something. Right. So I ended up donating so much formula because my child also didn't take it after a while because then he got so used to the taste of breast milk that I had to go through a second trial period of trying different formulas. So the one that they recommend usually if your child is breastfed is try kendamil because it seems to be the sweetest. So that one has worked, but it was still an adjustment, but at least it worked.

SPEAKER_00 19:23

I think that's the point, is that you know, it's just what's not talked about and what would have been helpful to know is that it's not uncommon for your kid to take a while to get used to a formula. I think it's kind of just been said, like, oh, are you breastfeeding or are you formula feeding? Okay, that's it, and that's all you have to worry about. It's like, no, there is other parts.

SPEAKER_01 19:43

And so And also if you're breastfeeding, will your child breastfeed everywhere? My child does not. That's why I have the palm.

SPEAKER_00 19:50

I can't take him out in public. They need to be in their environment, their safe space, which is another thing. And we're saying all this not to scare anybody who's maybe about to be a parent or thinking about having kids. We're just saying it because we're planners. Yeah, and we're your planners. And I think like when you talk about like the newborn trenches, it means something different for everyone else, right? The term. But I think for both of us, we we find power in information. And if we would have been told up front, like, hey, listen, this might happen to you. And if it does, it's okay. Like you're not doing anything wrong. You're not a bad mom because your kid doesn't feel crazy. Yeah, like you're not a bad mom if your kid doesn't like the first three, four, five formulas. Like, thankfully, we live in a world now where it's not just Similac and MML. Like, yeah, there is other options, you know, but I think a lot of people don't talk about that and how that, you know, you can feel like inadequate and like a bad parent by maybe something so trivial, and it could really send you into spiral and you can just crack that out over it, you know? The other thing that I think is a hot take, but maybe not because there's mixed reviews on it, is the snoo. So I had the snoo, but I never turned it on except for like twice. I just used it as a bassinet. Now I borrowed it. That's another thing. That's something that's very expensive. It's like a thousand dollars to buy. I think it's a really nice bassinet. I think that the mattress that it comes with is actually a very good mattress as far as like good for newborns, what have you. I only used it until he was like three months because he got too big and I had to put him in a big size crib at three months. But I literally only turned it on a couple times and it just didn't work for my kid. Like the I know the concept is that it's supposed to help you sleep, which you know that's critical in the newborn phase, is to try to get as much sleep as you possibly can. But he just didn't care. Like he didn't care that it rocked him. He didn't care. It's not that it made him more upset or anything, it just didn't work.

SPEAKER_01 21:47

How did you like your halo bassinet?

SPEAKER_00 21:49

Oh, the halo bassinet. Um, so that one I just used as a secondary bassinet because I had the night nurse and the baby nurse, and we got it actually because I was worried about. About being able to get up and down from the bed easily because the snoo doesn't go over the bed. So the halo one does like you can adjust the height and it can be an over-the-bed bassinet. So that's why I got it. So I'll be honest and say that out of the two, he preferred sleeping in the snoo. He would wake up way more in the halo than the snoo. And I think that goes to the mattress, not so much the actual bassinet.

SPEAKER_01 22:23

And I tell you, every friend of mine that has had the halo, none of their kids have enjoyed the halo.

SPEAKER_00 22:30

I think it's the mattress that it comes with. I think that if you get the halo bassinet, you need to get a different mattress because I just don't think it'll like it. It's way too rigid. It's it's pretty prison mattress like. Like it's pretty bad. So I got mattress pads and like padded it, and then he seemed to like it more. But you know, I also used it as a quasi-play pen when he was little. Like during the day, I'd move it over by the window and I would like put toys in it and stuff when he was like really little, like, you know, just dangly things. And that was like good to use because he was so small. So it was better to have him in that than like on the floor. Because I also have like two big dogs that are always like interested in the baby. But yeah, the the snoo, I think if you get it, definitely share it, like borrow it from a friend or get it secondhand because you just don't know if you can rent it now. Yeah, rent it. But even the rental price is high. Like, honestly, if you can like borrow it from a friend, somebody who, you know, bought it and like, you know, maybe they're gonna have multiple kids because you just don't know. Again, it goes down to preference, and I think people don't talk about that enough. So it's like if your kid loves the technology, amazing, great. But if your kid hates it, then it's a thousand dollar bassinet and you're not even using the technology.

SPEAKER_01 23:42

So I had my crib as an eight and one. So it was a bassinet and it was on wheels. So I just moved it because it was all one floor. I just moved it from the bedroom to the living room to the living room to its bedroom, like back and forth. And we just like rolled it around. But it was a bassinet, and all we did after that, because sometimes, yeah, to your point, the mattresses can be really firm. We just put like the snuggle me pad inside the snuggle me lounger, and then we would put him in there to sleep. And then because we didn't have anything that had motion, because Halo and Snoo both have motion, we would just like move the bassinet and like rock it by ourselves until he fell asleep.

SPEAKER_00 24:22

Every kid is different, and when we say that, it means like you don't know developmentally or even like size-wise, like how they're gonna grow. So, I mean, we'll definitely talk more about this again and get more in depth specifically. But I just want to stay on the topic of this and as it relates to like the bassinet versus the eight and one and the real crib. I thought that I could wait when we're gonna move out of here when Aiden's six months old. So that's in a couple of months. So he's four and a half months now. I thought that I could keep him in the snoo until we moved. Absolutely the fuck not. Because this kid grew like a weed and he started rolling over early and all these things, and that's when you have to get them out of the bassinet. So if I had to do it over, I would have gotten what a chint got, which is like the eight and one, because it's definitely worth it and it makes sense. And it's like then you don't need to keep buying all these things. Let's end on any like advice. So, advice that we received that we thought either was really, oh my gosh, totally relatable or absolute bullshit.

SPEAKER_01 25:21

Yeah, one of the best pieces of advice that I received while I was pregnant from a male, and I wish I was in the awareness and mindset to actually incorporate this, and I didn't do it the first couple of weeks when I should have, was that he he said, like, it's okay for the females, like their mother and mother-in-law to come into the house. He could you don't need are the men of the house, like you really don't need your father-in-law or your father around. You don't need any of the like brothers, bro, brother-in-laws, nobody around, right? And what happened was I had a C-section and I was recovering. My in-laws and brother-in-law would come over to help us, like with all good intentions, helpful with the dog, helpful with like cleaning up the kitchen. My mom was staying with me for three weeks, you know, just like being in the house for everything. But like, listen, it's a newborn. Like, my doula said this because she came to visit me after. She was like, nobody needs to be here. Okay, like nobody needs to be here. And that's exactly what this guy friend of mine said was like, nobody needs to be there except for a mother and a mother-in-law or some female or a nurse or somebody to help you or help cook. Like, nothing else needs to be there.

SPEAKER_00 26:30

I think the best thing that somebody told me was kind of similar, which was like, don't feel pressure to have people over or like have your family around. So my mom lived, lives really far away. She lives in Hawaii. So I made the bold choice, some would say, to have her come for a long time. I mean, she came at the end of October. I gave birth early November and she left early January. So she was here for a long time. But, you know, I mentally prepared myself for it. I knew there would be times where maybe her and I would butt heads. I knew there would be times where maybe she would give me advice and I wouldn't like want to hear it. I kind of just like prepared myself. And this just goes back to kind of the type of person I am where I like to just be prepared. So mentally I prepared myself, knowing that she was coming here, like you just said, without malicious intent. She was coming here to be as helpful as she could. I don't think I was prepared though for my in-laws to come over as well easily did. No, and that's the thing. No, and I I with my husband's approval. I think that that is the big takeaway here is that yes, if I lived in a place where my mom could just pop on by, I think that would have been more problematic. And I would have had to probably do what you had to do, which is like have a talk, yeah, and have some hard boundaries. Because she was coming here for a yeah, a good period, but it was a finite period of time. There was a there was a beginning and there was an end. Yeah, I knew when she was gonna leave. And obviously, unless I really needed her to stay longer, like, you know, she was gonna leave when she was gonna leave. My mom for sure, like it's different because she was my mom and saw my in-laws, but we have like a assorted history, which you know, maybe we'll talk about one day. But anyway, I think that that was good that I just prepared myself mentally for it because it wasn't like a surprise. I think if she was just coming by randomly, nobody told me that would have been a problem. I would say that it's okay to have family and friends and whoever come over, but also I think feel empowered and don't feel like you're letting people down or that you're a bad mom or anything like that if you just like are honest and say, listen, I can't have people over today. I literally had a moment, I'm remembering it now, where I was really emotional and I would had been crying like all day. And I had already like told a friend that she could come by at a certain time and she had like texted me like maybe 30 minutes before she was supposed to show up. And I had just, I mean, she would never have judged me and like obviously like knew everything I was going through, but I just didn't want to like have someone come over and just watch me like cry on the couch because that's what I was doing. Like my mom was there all day and like was watching me cry, but like I just didn't want to like subject somebody else to that. And I was just really honest with her. I straight up told her I didn't try to make a lie, I didn't try to anything. I just was like, listen, I'm really emotional right now. I've been literally crying for hours. I'm just going through it. And I just think I would rather you not come because I would feel bad that you're here seeing me in the States. Not that she would have cared, but like I would feel bad. And in that moment, it's like I just had to be honest and tell her that. So I think that that's like the advice that I was given by a lot of people. Um, a lot of my friends that have kids.

SPEAKER_01 29:30

Yeah, eventually had to learn how to say no to people, right? When family and friends wanted to visit, there were certain times that I was like, no, like I actually don't. I I need some time. I'll let you know in a few weeks when I'm ready to have people over because it was the same thing. I was just too overwhelmed with certain things that were going on and I needed space. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:52

And it's hard sometimes, but it's what you need to do to protect your peace. Anyway, well, on that note, we're gonna go feed Aiden some cereal because he's a little hungry and he's been making a lot of fuss in the background. We hope everyone found this helpful. I think that it's important to note that the newborn trenches are just that. They're newborn trenches. You'll get through them. It's not the end of the world. It might feel like it when you're in it. But enjoy it too. Like, enjoy those moments. Yeah, you gotta enjoy the moments because it's gonna go by really fast. That's the cliche that's true. And you just have to enjoy it. Like all the messiness, all the tears, all the frustrations, all the happiness. Like, just enjoy it. So if you guys have any like top tips that you think helped you when you were pregnant, leave them in the comments. We wanna hear about them because I'm not having another kid, but a chinsure shit is, so she can use that next time around. Okay, well, we'll see you guys next week.