Ep. 37: Dream Feeds and Daycare Nightmares

Shanna Micko: Hi. Welcome to Big Fat Positive with Shanna and Laura. On this week’s episode, we have our weekly check-ins, we have a fun, special segment called Internet Insanity where we discuss interesting, funny, or unusual topics that we found online recently and we wrap it up with our BFPs and BFNs. Let’s get to it.

[Music]

Shanna Micko: Hey, everybody. Welcome to the show.

Laura Birek: Hello.

Shanna Micko: Hi. Episode 37. Yay! Hi, Laura, how are you?

Laura Birek: I’m hanging in there. How are you Shanna?

Shanna Micko: I’m good. I’m good. I want to hear your check-in and what you and the little one have been up to this week.

Laura Birek: Yeah, we are five weeks postpartum. My baby’s five weeks old. So I got to actually go to my final postpartum doctor’s visit this week. They do it around six weeks. I think I went around five and a half weeks. I think they called it a wash there and it went great. He says my C-section scar is all healed and he gave me the all clear to go back to normal life activities.

Shanna Micko: All right.

Laura Birek: I know I can lift things heavier than the baby, which I kind of started doing earlier anyway, because there’s only so long you can ask your husband to carry every tiny little thing around the house. Sometimes you’re just like, I think I can move this box. I feel good. I think I can move this box. So I’ve been cheating a little bit, but not too much, but now I know I’m not cheating, because I’m all clear.

Shanna Micko: Good. Did he give you the all clear for old fashioned and Godmother sub sandwiches?

Laura Birek: You know what? I’d never asked permission for that, but I’ve just assumed that now that the baby is no longer inside of me, I’m all good for cold cuts.

Shanna Micko: That’s true. That really is the threshold for that.

Laura Birek: Yes, and Eggs Benedict, which I had by the way and it was glorious.

Shanna Micko: Yay!

Laura Birek: Loved it. So at my doctor’s visit, my doctor walks in and he’s like, “Wow, you’re looking great. You’ve definitely lost weight already.” I’m like, “I know I have. I’m not even trying. It’s just happening.” 

Then he’s doing his exam and he’s telling me how I sound great emotionally, all this stuff. He was like, “Not being pregnant suits you.”

Shanna Micko: Is that kind of a backhanded compliment?

Laura Birek: I don’t know, because I totally agree with him. It’s one of those things where if someone came up to me and was like, “You look tired.” Usually, that’s a weird thing to say, but I would be like, “Yes, because I am.” But yeah, I don’t know, because I was like, “Yeah, not being pregnant definitely suits me.” I’m very into it. I’m so happy to not be pregnant anymore. I loved that being pregnant got me my little guy, but woo. It was hard.

Shanna Micko: Thank God it’s over.

Laura Birek: The other thing is that my blood pressure is back to normal, so I’ve been taken off the labetalol, which is the beta blocker that they gave me to try to lower my cholesterol. I’m supposed to sort of keep monitoring it. He asked me, “Do you have a monitor at home? Just take it a couple times a week just to see.” But it’s been pretty normal, so that’s good. That resolved itself.

Shanna Micko: Fantastic.

Laura Birek: The other thing I wanted to follow up on was I talked last week about Taking Cara Babies.

Shanna Micko: Yes.

Laura Birek: TakingC-A-R-Ababies.com, which was an online course that a friend of ours gifted to us about how to encourage good sleep habits and I was really pleased with it and started giving me some really good tips. Well, one thing I will say is it came up against my child’s first developmental leap, which is from the Wonder Weeks app that you had talked about.

Shanna Micko: Oh, okay. So that’s a big challenge to tackle sleep while they’re in a developmental leap. How did it go?

Laura Birek: Middling. It’s interesting, because the Wonder Weeks tells you that when they’re going through a leap, you’ll see they get extra clingy. They want to feed more often. They are kind of inconsolable for reasons you can’t understand. So knowing that made me feel better about it, but he definitely wasn’t sleeping as well as he had been. We had gotten up to a point where using the Taking Cara Babies methods, we were increasing his sleep by about like about a half hour every night for the big, long stretch. We actually had gotten one night where he slept four and a half hours straight.

Shanna Micko: Nice.

Laura Birek: I didn’t know what to do with myself. It was so great and then he has reverted during this leap. 

So he’s back to wanting to eat every night even to two hours during the night, which is kind of a bummer and I’m tired. But it’s good to know that it’s in theory temporary and there’s a good reason: he’s going through a growth spurt.

Shanna Micko: Do you know how many days are left in the leap? Have you looked at that little calendar in the app?

Laura Birek: Well, here’s the thing. I know that they say they don’t start early, because it’s all based on gestational age. But it was like four days earlier than he was supposed to start that he just got super, super duper fussy. My child is not on a calendar. You know what I mean? I know that the Wonder Weeks people say it’s as scientific as possible, but they can’t predict when your child’s actually going to go through a growth spurt to the hour, to the day in general vicinity. He was a little early, so I actually don’t know exactly where he is in the cloudy or the stormy stuff. But he’s still in it. It’s been like four days. I think it said it can last up to a week, right?

Shanna Micko: That sounds about right. I bet he’ll move through it and get back to sleeping better after he’s done with all of that, because they’re going through so much and their brain is going through so much and it’s a lot and he needs that comfort and that extra milk right now.

Laura Birek: One of the things we’ve been doing with the Taking Cara Babies method is the dream feed. Do you know about this? Do you do it?

Shanna Micko: We haven’t started it with this baby yet, but with my first, that was the key to getting her to sleep through the night at nine weeks old.

Laura Birek: Oh, that’s good. Okay. I know that they say it’s a little early, but you can start to try. What the dream feed is by the way everyone sort of describes it differently. Some people say you literally pick up your sleeping baby, keep your sleeping baby asleep the whole time as you feed them and then put them right back down still asleep to continue sleeping for the rest of the night. It ranges from that to I think Harvey Karp says, no, it’s just a feeding right before you go to bed so that you line up your longest stretch of sleep with their longest stretch of sleep. With Elle, your first baby, did she actually sleep through the feedings?

Shanna Micko: Yeah, I actually just talked to Steve about it, because he was always in charge of the dream feed with her and I asked him, “What was it like? What did you do?” He said, he would go in, get her from the crib, actually take her to the living room, watch TV, put an episode of the Office, sit her up, feed her a bottle and she slept through the entire thing and then he would lay her back down.

Laura Birek: That’s amazing.

Shanna Micko: She was a good sleeper though. She’s different than this baby and then she would sleep till morning. I can’t believe it that she did that at such an early age.

Laura Birek: Oh God, that’s so soon. From now five weeks, I’m like in a month, could I have a child that sleeps through the night? Amazing.

Shanna Micko: Potentially, I will tell you that, CeCe, my newest baby is not there yet.

Laura Birek: Every child is different, I guess.

Shanna Micko: Exactly.

Laura Birek: So about the dream feed, I started doing this and just before we actually started recording, I was talking about how my baby is currently napping and I’m like, we got to record as fast as possible, because I’m watching on the monitor and I’m home alone. Corey’s back at work, so I have the monitor right below my mic. We’ll post a picture of that on Instagram. I think it’s pretty funny. I’m like staring at him in his crib hoping he doesn’t move and he kind of twitched and I was like, oh my God, is he awake? Shanna, you were like, oh, no. It’s amazing what they can do in their sleep and not wake up and the dream feed has been one of these things. I take him out of his bassinet, put him on his side on my Brest Friend nursing pillow, pull the boob out and have to put my nipple right up against his lip to be like, hey, there’s something here for you. He just still 100% asleep opens his mouth, takes the nipple in, starts feeding and I’m just like, what the hell, kid? But then at 3 a.m., you sneeze and they’re wide awake.

Shanna Micko: I know the irony, right?

Laura Birek: Your husband could take your first child out of her room, watch an episode of the Office and put her back without waking her up.

Shanna Micko: Yeah.

Laura Birek: They’re little enigmas, man.

Shanna Micko: It is so funny. Well, that is the interesting thing about the dream feed is that it does come at the first stretch of sleep in the night and that’s when they sleep deeper. They are known for sleeping lighter later at night. Like from 2:00 a.m. on I guess is a lighter period of sleep. That’s what my pediatrician said anyway and it’s rung true for us.

Laura Birek: Oh God.

Shanna Micko: So if you can do it in that first period, when there’s still pretty deep asleep, I think that’s where you can get your success. You’re inspiring me to really go for it and try it, because I would love to get CeCe on this dream feed schedule too and see if that works for her.

Laura Birek: I feel like there’s not a lot of downside to it.

Shanna Micko: No, not really. I feel it might be a little awkward taking her out of the SNOO, because you have to turn off the robot crib. It stops shimming. It stops making noise. The room is dead silent. You have to clip her out of the crib. There’s just a few more awkward steps. Whereas with Elle, it’s just like lift her. She’s already in her crib at this point in her own room. So it was more like one fell swoop, but I’m going to give it a go.

Laura Birek: The other thing that I am not sure about is burping. He’s a spitter-upper, so I don’t know like how much I need to burp afterwards and if that’s going to wake him up.

Shanna Micko: Tall guessing game.

Laura Birek: On that note, I just had to go retrieve my sleeping son, because he was no longer sleeping. So you might start to hear little baby squeaks in this episode.

Shanna Micko: Aww, squeak.

Laura Birek: Hopefully, he’s pacifier sucking, because I’m going to try to get him to do that. So Shanna, maybe we should move on to you. What are you doing this week?

Shanna Micko: Good. Well, I have a lot of stuff going on this week, but I’m going to try to focus it down to a couple things and I’m going to start off by saying I’ve got some good news and I’ve got some bad news.

Laura Birek: Oh, boy. Which one do we want to hear first?

Shanna Micko: I don’t know. What do you want to hear first?

Laura Birek: Let’s start with the bad, because then we can end with the good.

Shanna Micko: Okay.

Laura Birek: That was a burp. Go ahead.

Shanna Micko: The bad news is that my postpartum hair loss has started.

Laura Birek: No, so that’s a real thing, huh?

Shanna Micko: Yeah.

Laura Birek: I was hoping that was just an old wives’ tale that we wouldn’t have to deal with.

Shanna Micko: No, maybe you’ll be lucky. Maybe you’ll be blessed by the hair gods. But the first time around, I was not and this time it has begun. My hair’s really long right now so it just seems like so much hair. I rinse my hair and it’s just coming out of my fingers. It’s crazy.

Laura Birek: Oh, God.

Shanna Micko: The weirdest thing, I don’t know if it’s like you’re also sprouting new hairs up front, but I end up looking like one of those chickens with a fuzzy head. Have you ever seen one of those? They look like they’ve got a big white afro fuzzy head. That is exactly what I look like when I wear my hair in a ponytail, which is almost all the time, let’s be honest.

Laura Birek: This is a side note, have you watched that documentary I think it’s on Netflix called Chicken People?

Shanna Micko: I started that. I watched some of it and I couldn’t get into the chicken culture.

Laura Birek: It’s a story about people who show chickens, but there are some really pretty chickens in that movie.

Shanna Micko: That is the takeaway. There are some gorgeous chickens. The chicken I’m talking about is crazy looking.

Laura Birek: You look like one of the pretty chickens.

Shanna Micko: Aww, thanks.

Laura Birek: You look like one of those prize win chickens.

Shanna Micko: I do pride myself on being a prize win chicken. So that’s no fun. I remember last time, gosh, it lasted for me till like around month seven. So I’ve got a few more months of this and I think I need to just get a haircut and kind of be done with a lot of it anyways.

Laura Birek: But if you get a haircut now, because you’re sort of in the middle of a transition, is it going to be weird? Will it make the cut weird?

Shanna Micko: Who knows? My hair’s weird right now anyway, because I haven’t cut it in ages. I’m so lazy and so cheap. My dogs have gotten more haircuts in the last nine months than I have.

Laura Birek: They’re good looking dogs.

Shanna Micko: They are, especially when they get a trim. But it’s due time, so I just need to chop some of it off. If I do, maybe I’ll share a picture on Instagram for you.

Laura Birek: I will see it before and after.

Shanna Micko: Before and after maybe with a little chicken fuzz head. Bang, we’ll see. Anyway, the good news is that my numb fat pouch above my C-section scar is getting smaller.

Laura Birek: Yay! Finally.

Shanna Micko: I’ve been so stressed out about this fat pouch above my C-section scar, because I don’t really remember it from the first time around and I’m like, oh my gosh, is this the new normal? Is it ever going to go away? I think as baby weight is starting to come off, I think it’s shrinking a little bit and so I think there might be a light at the end of the tunnel.

Laura Birek: That’s awesome.

Shanna Micko: I don’t think it’ll ever be the same exactly as I was before, but I feel heartened by that.

Laura Birek: When we talked about it the last time, I wasn’t quite sure what you were talking about and I think it’s because I was still so swollen after my C-section. But now I know exactly what you’re talking about.

Shanna Micko: Okay.

Laura Birek: It’s not your normal fat pouch. So I think now that my swelling has gone down and I’ve lost a little bit of weight, I now see the distinct. There’s my abdominal fat and then there’s the extra little fat pouch below it basically. It’s like a lump. It’s like a camel, two humps.

Shanna Micko: It’s just so distinct I think, because the C-section incision is pulled so tight. It’s just almost like a little shelf keeping the rain off that incision or something.

Laura Birek: Maybe it does have a sort of purpose in that way.

Shanna Micko: Exactly. A little awning. Anyways, so that’s good and I have one other thing that’s maybe a little not as light of a topic. I don’t know if you want to discuss that real quick with me.

Laura Birek: All topics are open.

Shanna Micko: So you know that I went through IVF to have my second baby and part of that is creating embryos and I was fortunate to create a few more than we actually needed and so I’ve got some embryos on ice. I don’t know if on ice is really the best way of phrasing it.

Laura Birek: They’re frozen?

Shanna Micko: They are.

Laura Birek: They’re not like in a cooler you take to the beach or anything, but they’re frozen.

Shanna Micko: They’re not in a cooler you take to the ballpark and so I need to decide what to do with them.

Laura Birek: Gosh, that’s hard.

Shanna Micko: It is hard. When I first started the process, they give you forms to think about what to do with them in the event that your partner passes away or bigger life things. I was just like, donate them to research. No problem. I’m not attached to these things that aren’t even created yet and now that they are created and I have a baby that came from one of them, it’s just a whole new feeling and experience for me. It’s just like now I see the potential in them and it’s so complicated, because I’m so super pro-choice and never necessarily saw life in a bunch of cells like that. But now that they’re mine, it’s so complicated and so strange and it costs a lot of money to keep them frozen and I need money for other things right now. So I am in a massive conundrum. I don’t know what to do yet.

Laura Birek: That is tough, because I can see a variety of reasons you’d want to keep them. You say you only want to, but what if you completely change your mind in three years or whatever? Less likely, but maybe it’ll happen. There’s just so many ways you can see to keep them, but there is sort of also this: you’ve worked so hard to get those.

Shanna Micko: I did. I worked really hard and I’m 99.9% sure I’m done having kids. I’ve only ever wanted two children. I don’t really want more, but what if I changed my mind? Then the other option is embryo adoption. I could donate them and another couple could adopt them and that’s a whole other thing like, oh my God, I could have other biological children running around in the world theoretically.

Laura Birek: I know. That is so hard.

Shanna Micko: Weirds me out.

Laura Birek: It’s interesting to me, because in theory to me I’m like, well, that’s the no brainer, right? In my perfectly altruistic mind, I’m like, that is the thing to do. Help another couple have a baby who can’t. But then at the same time I’m like, whoa, no. Literally, your girls could have a full biological sibling out there and you have nothing to do with it. That’s so strange to me.

Shanna Micko: It is so strange once I started thinking about it, because Steve was very much like, let’s just give them to another couple, donate them. I’m like, okay. Maybe I could come around to that idea and I just obsessed about that idea for like a day and I almost was crying at the thought of it, like do I want to do this to my daughters to let them know that maybe somewhere in the world they have a biological sibling? Do I want to obsess about this and think about this every day for the rest of my life, like where’s my biological other children, maybe? Because you don’t know if they’re actually going to come to fruition if you donate them, because embryo transfers don’t always work.

Laura Birek: I think it’s really interesting too, because I know that lots of people use donated eggs or donated sperm, but there’s something about it being a full biological sibling rather than a half. I totally agree. I feel like I wish I could just be completely unemotional perfect response to this and would love anyone else to be able to have their child. But I think it would weird me out too. That’s not to say that it’s not a good idea. It’s just like it would take work. I don’t know if you still listen to Happier in Hollywood, the podcast with the writing partner team Elizabeth Craft and Sarah Fain.

Shanna Micko: I love it. Yes, I haven’t listened to it recently, but I love it.

Laura Birek: It’s one of my favorites and Sarah Fain calls herself a choice mom, because she decided to have a baby without having a partner. So she did basically IVF with a donor sperm and she actually has told the story. I can’t remember if I heard it on her podcast or she told it on another podcast that I listened to about how she discovered her daughter’s siblings in LA, because the sperm donor had donated a lot of sperm basically.

Shanna Micko: Wow.

Laura Birek: But one of the siblings she found for this donor, she had gone to a toddler music class with her daughter and there was this little girl that her daughter completely wanted to play with and played with the whole time and got along really well and then they later found out that they were half siblings.

Shanna Micko: Whaaaat? That gave me chills.

Laura Birek: Isn’t that crazy?

Shanna Micko: Yeah, that’s so crazy.

Laura Birek: I guess part of the way they knew it is that there was a Facebook group for everyone who had used this particular donor. I don’t know how they know. It must be like donor number of 321, right? But so there was a Facebook group for all those people and she had joined it, but then never actually looked at it very closely, because she was too weirded out by it that there were all these potential siblings out there. But that’s how she kind of recognized that toddler in the music class and then went back to the Facebook group and was like, shit. That is one of the siblings. Now, they apparently have a great relationship and a bunch of the siblings all get together a couple times a year.

Shanna Micko: That’s so cool.

Laura Birek: I’ll try to find the link to the podcast where she talked about this and put it in the show notes, because it’s super interesting and it gives another perspective of maybe it could just be a matter of expanding the definition of family, right?

Shanna Micko: Absolutely. I think being aware of the other siblings existence is very helpful, especially because I happen to know that the rest of my embryos, almost all of them are male and I have two daughters.

Laura Birek: Fascinating. Wow. I didn’t know that. You hadn’t told me that.

Shanna Micko: A lot of embryo adoption is anonymous. Especially if I go through my clinic, I’m not going to know who gets it. I’m not going to know the fate of the embryos. I’m not going to ever know and neither would my daughters and maybe one day, they would meet up and be attracted to each other and hook up and God knows what.

Laura Birek: I know.

Shanna Micko: It’s possible.

Laura Birek: You got to get that 23 in me.

Shanna Micko: Yeah, true. Maybe that kind of thing would prevent that and the other interesting thing is that the embryos if they go on to be born to another couple, might not be born soon. They could stay frozen for 10, 15 years. I could be 60 years old and a newborn Shanna and Steve baby could exist in the world somewhere. The science of it is all mind blowing and fascinating and trippy and a lot to think about.

Laura Birek: That is a lot to think about. I have zero advice except for whatever you decide will be the right decision.

Shanna Micko: Thank you. If and when I decide, I’ll let you guys know.

Laura Birek: Yes, please do. Keep us informed.

Shanna Micko: Anyway, that’s my check-in. I think we should move on to our next segment, Internet Insanity, right after this break.

[Music]

Laura Birek: Our special segment this week is Internet Insanity where we talk about all the interesting and bizarre things we find on the internet. So Shanna, what have you found on the internet to talk about?

Shanna Micko: Okay. I found advice column that came out recently: Dear Prudence. Are you familiar with Dear Prudence on slate.com?

Laura Birek: I think I’ve run across Dear Prudence a couple times.

Shanna Micko: Yeah, me too. Then it’s an advice column. Anyway, someone wrote in needing advice about something and I found this interesting and that is this person has a baby and takes the baby to daycare and signed up for daycare months ago and seemed like a great fit. The mother of the baby adopted the baby, so she’s not the biological mom, so she’s not breastfeeding the baby. She doesn’t make milk. You know what I mean?

Laura Birek: Yeah.

Shanna Micko: She’s a formula fed baby.

Laura Birek: Oh my God.

Shanna Micko: Explains that to the daycare provider who upon learning this said something along the lines of, “You feed her that garbage or something,” and the mom kind of brushed it off, because she’s so used to hearing this crap. Anyway, I know she explained how to feed the baby and baby goes there for months and one day the mom comes a little early to pick up the baby and walks in to the daycare and the assistant kind of tries to distract the mom and she kind of pushes by her, because she’s running late. She walks into the other room and finds the daycare provider breastfeeding the mother’s baby.

Laura Birek: My God. Wow.

Shanna Micko: She’s like, what are you doing? She’s said something along the lines of I’m saving your baby from ingesting all those horrible chemicals for months.

Laura Birek: Oh, she’s saving the baby in that case?

Shanna Micko: I should mention that the daycare provider has her own child about the same age, so she is a lactating mother.

Laura Birek: Yes, I was hoping it was something along those lines.

Shanna Micko: Wow.

Laura Birek: Breastfeeding another person’s child without their consent seems wrong.

Shanna Micko: It seems so wrong. It’s so crazy and the mom wrote in like, should I report this daycare provider? It’s like, YES! Oh my gosh, could you imagine walking in on someone else breastfeeding your child?

Laura Birek: No, I can’t. Sometimes in the middle of the night I would have fantasies that someone else could breastfeed my child. But that’s what pumping in a bottle is for.

Shanna Micko: Anyway, I know that wet nurses were a thing, but I’m pretty sure that’s what the mother’s consent. So this is just off the charts bonkers.

Laura Birek: Well, and you don’t know. I don’t think it’s the worst thing in the world to have someone other than the mother nursing the child necessarily. If it’s a consensual arrangement and if let’s say something happened to me and I didn’t have enough breast milk and let’s say I’m in a coma at the hospital and you were like, I’ll feed your baby while you go by formula or whatever or Corey you’re in the hospital and we can’t figure out what to feed your baby. I feel like that could be a situation where I’d be like, that’s cool. That’s nice. I know you and I know you’re not doing drugs and all that stuff. God, I hope the daycare provider is also not doing drugs.

Shanna Micko: Let’s hope not, especially since she takes care of children all day.

Laura Birek: Yes, you got to ask for permission for that. Was there a follow-up?

Shanna Micko: At the end of the letter, she was just like, “Of course, I’m going to take him out of this daycare, but I need advice. Should I report this person?” Dear Prudence was like, “Yeah, report this person.” So I’m assuming that it will be reported.

Laura Birek: That’s good advice from Prudence.

Shanna Micko: I agree. What do you have for us this week?

Laura Birek: Well, mine is an aggregate. I don’t know if you’ve noticed this. But on my social media feeds, the advertisers have figured me out. So basically, every single ad on my Facebook and Instagram is some sort of gadget or do hickey for the baby. I scrolled through today and just took screenshots of every single ad I got. I’m going to tell you what they are.

Shanna Micko: Okay.

Laura Birek: First one is Lovevery. They want you to have a magic tissue box toy for babies. Then Pebble & Pebble: Cute Clothes For your Little One and they’re showing me a little onesies with the pirate thing skull and crossbones.

Shanna Micko: Yes.

Laura Birek: But it’s with swords and it says, “The Goonies Never Say Die,” on it. Then there’s the Kinedu Baby Development app: Take Away the Pressure of Trying to Figure Out What to do With your Baby.

Shanna Micko: I’ve seen that one.

Laura Birek: So it’s teaching you how to do things with your baby, I guess. 

Then I got the Pop Pacifier, which looks like a pacifier that pops in and out. So I guess doesn’t get dirty. I don’t really understand it. Also, the PPTP.

Shanna Micko: Very important.

Laura Birek: Which I don’t own any of, so I actually have to say I almost clicked on that. The PPTP is this little cone you put over your little baby’s penis, so it doesn’t spray pee all over, which happens a lot. Yesterday, he did that twice in one diaper change, which resulted in an impromptu bath.

Shanna Micko: Oh my gosh.

Laura Birek: Because the first time I was like, I’ll just wipe it off with a wipe and the second time I was like, all right.

Shanna Micko: Enough is enough.

Laura Birek: This one is interesting. I get this a lot. The Tranquilo mat, T-R-A-N-Q-U-I-L-O. Have you seen this one?

Shanna Micko: No.

Laura Birek: The video ad is of a screaming baby and they put them on top of this mat and immediately quiet. Very compelling. I think it’s a vibrating mat.

Shanna Micko: Interesting. Okay.

Laura Birek: Then there’s non-toxic cleaners from Force of Nature showing babies making a mess and all the non-toxic stuff you can do it. Then I’ve got Jiobit, which is a tiny GPS tracker that lets you keep tabs on your kid at all times.

Shanna Micko: Wow.

Laura Birek: Then Veer Gear, some kind of stroller thing. Then just like a onesie ad. This was a good one. A company called Gathre, G-A-T-H-R-E.

Shanna Micko: So pretentious.

Laura Birek: It’s very chic. It’s like a white ad with a very minimal ad and it looks like a leather changing mat.

Shanna Micko: That sounds like a terrible idea by the way.

Laura Birek: Shanna, it’s the first ever two-toned vegan changing mat.

Shanna Micko: Praise. Yes, I need that in my life.

Laura Birek: You need a two-tone vegan changing mat for sure and that was just today on my internet.

Shanna Micko: You are getting bombarded. Now, did you say that was Instagram or Facebook?

Laura Birek: Both. I get Facebook ads in my timeline and then these were actually the last couple were in my stories on Instagram, which I thought was interesting. They’ve definitely got me figured out.

Shanna Micko: Now that makes me want to look at my ads on Instagram and see what is being pedaled to me.

Laura Birek: You might have better online activity than I do. I clearly haven’t turned my cookies off, because they know exactly what I need. They’re like, your baby’s not sleeping here. Have this vibrating mat. I’m a little offended that they think I would want a two-toned vegan faux leather changing mat.

Shanna Micko: You want all leather, baby. Only the best for Laura.

Laura Birek: That’s right. My baby’s not getting changed bareback on 100% leather. Nothing. He’s staying in his diaper.

Shanna Micko: I’m on Instagram. Just let me see real quick what I’ve got here.

Laura Birek: Okay.

Shanna Micko: Oh, God. Goodbye credit card debt. That’s accurate. The next one is K-Y brand condoms. What does that say about me? I do not use condoms. I’m allergic to latex, so they are missing the mark there.

Laura Birek: They are.

Shanna Micko: New York Times. You know why? Because I did all my baby gadget research with my first baby, I guess.

Laura Birek: Yeah, that’s true.

Shanna Micko: Stouffer’s two times the beef frozen lasagna.

Laura Birek: I bet there’s a different algorithm for having two kids.

Shanna Micko: Maybe they’re like use protection. You don’t need more children.

Laura Birek: So anyway, I hate to admit that the advertisers have me pegged with what they do and I look forward to not actually clicking on any of those ads, but then Googling them all later to figure out if I do really need that Tranquilo mat.

Shanna Micko: Keep us posted.

Laura Birek: I will. So let’s do our BFPs and BFNs after this short break.

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Shanna Micko: All right. Let’s wrap things up with our weekly BFPs and BFNs, big fat positives and big fat negatives of the week. Laura, what do you have for us?

Laura Birek: Okay. So I have a BFP that is something we keep talking about, which is the SNOO bassinet.

Shanna Micko: Woo-woo. Ooh, so you’ve got one?

Laura Birek: I think I’ve just been so sort of out of it that I haven’t really had a chance to mention that I did end up renting one about a week and a half ago. So I didn’t want to talk about it until I sort of had given it a good chance to see how well it worked and I have to say that I’m liking it. I was really hoping it was going to be like an instant miracle worker.

Shanna Micko: Right.

Laura Birek: But you know that’s not how real life works and they don’t even say that. On their website, they’re like, it will get you another hour of sleep is what they like advertise.

Shanna Micko: They advertise an extra hour of sleep for like $1,200?

Laura Birek: Yeah.

Shanna Micko: Interesting.

Laura Birek: That that hour is golden as you know. It says one plus. It says gives you an extra one plus hours of sleep at night and I found that to be true. So it’s definitely extending his sleep. The first night he got in it, he slept five straight hours and I was like, what?

Shanna Micko: Wow. Because he was sleeping 90 minutes at a time or what?

Laura Birek: Yeah, 90 minutes max, two hours and I was going insane and then the other thing was he was staying up so much. Every time he woke up, he was up for another like hour, so I was not getting any sleep. I was willing to throw money at the problem, which is what I did. We rented it not as much money as if you buy it. That first night he slept five hours and I was like, holy shit, this thing is amazing. That has not been repeated. I don’t know what was going on with him that night.

Shanna Micko: He was shell shocked by what his new reality.

Laura Birek: I know. Well, it does gently rock all night. So I think that first night he probably was really into it and then he probably has gotten used to it since then. But it was interesting and I do find it helps. I like looking at the log and you can see when they were like soothed and when they went back to sleep. That’s sort of my judge of how well it works and that happens multiple times a night. So I look to see if he’s been soothed and he has at least once a night, maybe twice a night, most nights and sometimes it’s even more than that. But that to me is a win, because that’s a time where I would’ve had to wake up, pick him up, probably given in to feeding him when instead I get about an extra hour out of the night. So I’m really enjoying it. I just think that it’s good to sort of temper your expectations with it and I know you had said it was your BFN a few weeks ago, but you’ve come around to it, right?

Shanna Micko: I have and I think my problem is I didn’t give it enough time. I gave it a week and I know now that my daughter was dealing with real bad acid reflux probably and that was why she wasn’t sleeping at that time. Now that that’s under control, she’s sleeping five to six hours stretches every night in it. Pretty much knock on wood.

Laura Birek: Really?

Shanna Micko: Yeah, occasionally it’ll be a little shorter. She’s in the leap right now, so here and there it’ll be shorter. But she’s been doing really well in it and I’ve come around to it and I like it. I renewed it for a second month. I didn’t return it after the process.

Laura Birek: Good to know. So I’ll keep checking-in. I’ll do that in my check-ins in the future. Won’t make it another BFP or BFN, but I wanted to sort of withhold talking about it until I sort of had a verdict and I think the verdict is good just with tempered expectations and got it six hours stretch at night sounds amazing, Shanna.

Shanna Micko: It’s great. I only sleep like maybe three or four of those, because she goes to bed at seven and I go to bed at 10.

Laura Birek: Sure.

Shanna Micko: But still it’s nice to just have a quiet evening while she’s resting. Hope that comes around for you too.

Laura Birek: Me too. Anyway, what’s your BFP/BFN?

Shanna Micko: I have a BFP also.

Laura Birek: Good.

Shanna Micko: It’s a product I’ve been using pretty much this whole time. I can’t believe I haven’t mentioned it yet. It’s the Haakaa Pump.

Laura Birek: Yeah.

Shanna Micko: For people who don’t know, it’s a one piece silicone pump. I don’t even know how to explain it. You squeeze it and attach it to your boob right over your nipple.

Laura Birek: It’s almost like a vacuum or a suction cup.

Shanna Micko: It creates a suction over your nipple and it gently pulls out any milk that comes down when you have a let-down. So if like you’re feeding on one side, you can put this Haakaa Pump on the other side. I catch like maybe two to three ounces.

Laura Birek: Dang, girl! That’s a lot.

Shanna Micko: I know. I only use it really in the middle of the night or first thing in the morning when I’ve got a lot more milk. I wouldn’t use it during the middle of the day, because I don’t have as much. But that’s pretty much what I do for pumping the bottles that my husband gives her is I just use that. I don’t really use my electric pump very much. I love my Freemie. I talked about it before, but it’s pain in the butt to clean all those pieces and this is one thing just suck it on there and then just wash it with a bottle brush and you’re done. So I love it. I’ve been recommending it to all my friends. All my new mom friends have been getting one and it’s fantastic. This was not around when I had my first baby and I really wish it had been.

Laura Birek: I have to say I’ve tried it and gotten basically nothing out of it, but I think my supply is different. Actually, I think we’ve only talked about it in private, but I don’t feel my let downs.

Shanna Micko: You mentioned that.

Laura Birek: I clearly have a let-down. I just fed my baby a whole bunch and puked up a bunch of it, so I clearly have and when I pump with an electric pump, I’ve gotten at the most eight ounces out of both sides in a session. But generally, I’ll get like four. I tried the Haakaa, because I have a friend who I’m going to actually leave this friend unnamed, because I’m about to tell a funny story about her that she might not wanna be named for. But I have a friend who just uses them exclusively as well and she had a bit of an oversupply problem and so she was telling me to try to use it and I tried and got nothing like maybe 10 milliliters or something. So I haven’t really gone back to it, because my other side doesn’t really leak either. I’ll nurse on one side and stop and I don’t have anything coming out the other side. So I don’t know what it is, but it does seem really way more convenient than using an electric breast pump. But so this friend who I’ll tell you who she is after we get off, she said what she started doing is just walking around her house with one on each boob, because she had a big oversupply problem. So she would just catch extra milk and that’s what she was freezing. She said one day she was doing that and she went to go put a sheet on her bed and she went to fluff it out and knocked both of her Haakaa’s off of her boobs and the breast milk just went flying all across their freshly made bed.

Shanna Micko: No.

Laura Birek: Try to not to multitask too much with the Haakaa.

Shanna Micko: Yeah, some people say they like to use it in the shower. I just feel like any activity, that’s going to be way too risky. I don’t want to risk knocking it off. I hold baby in football position on one side, Haakaa on the other.

Laura Birek: I feel like I’m the only person in the world who doesn’t get used out of it. Everyone loves it.

Shanna Micko: I’m sorry. I would think you would be a perfect candidate for it, with all your copious breast milk.

Laura Birek: I think you know what it is. I don’t think I have copious breast milk. I think I have just the right amount. So that’s the thing. It’s like the other side isn’t leaking, because it’s not ready yet. What do you think, baby? I think baby thinks we should wrap up this episode.

Shanna Micko: I think so. Well, thanks for chatting and thanks little baby for joining us and thank you guys for listening too.

Laura Birek: Yes, thank you. We love our listeners and we would really appreciate it if you went on iTunes and left us a rating and a review. It really helps us find new listeners and we’d love to hear from you. We’re on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at BFP Podcast. We also have a Facebook community group you can join. We also have a website, bigfatpositivepodcast.com, where we’ll post our show notes.

Shanna Micko: Big Fat Positive is produced by Laura Birek, Shanna Micko and Steve Yager.

Laura Birek: Thank you all for listening.

Shanna Micko: See you next week. Bye.

Laura Birek: I’m off to change the baby.

Shanna Micko: Bye. Bye. Bye.

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