Ep. 71: Blue Breastmilk and Teething Conundrums

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Laura Birek: Welcome to Big Fat Positive with Shanna and Laura. This week we have our weekly check-ins. We have our special segment, What I Googled This Week, where we ask the internet, are babies’ zombies and vampires? And we finish up with our BFPs and BFNs. Let’s get to it.

[Music]

Laura Birek: Hi, everyone. Welcome to the show. This is episode 71. Shanna, what’s new with you and how old is your baby?

Shanna Micko: Hey. CeCe is 10 months old.

Laura Birek: Such a big girl.

Shanna Micko: I know. It’s just blowing my mind. She’s going to be a year old in two months. It’s just crazy. So some big stuff this week. I’ll start with the cute stuff. Her little top two teeth broke through.

Laura Birek: Oh, yay! Congrats.

Shanna Micko: Yeah, so that’s a relief, because she’s sleeping a lot better. I think she was in a lot of teething discomfort recently.

Laura Birek: Oh, really?

Shanna Micko: What’s super cute that she’s discovered is, well, you know how I will feed her like little Cheerios as little munchy food. She’ll pick up a single Cheerio and bite it between her tiny two top teeth and her tiny two bottom teeth and just like takes a bite of a Cheerio.

Laura Birek: Just a little dainty bite.

Shanna Micko: I’m just like, goddamn it. I love babies. Fuck. They’re so cute biting goddamn Cheerios. So cute. I love it.

Laura Birek: See, my guy has had those four teeth for a while now and he still is just like shovel food in mouth. He kind of gums it on his back teeth, but he’s not taking any dainty bites of anything.

Shanna Micko: Maybe it’s a personality quirk of hers. I don’t know. So that’s the cute stuff. Laura, you know about this because you were very involved in this story of my week.

Laura Birek: We saw a lot of each other this week.

Shanna Micko: We did. So some of you may know that California is on fire.

Laura Birek: The whole state. Top to bottom.

Shanna Micko: It’s a lot. So the Santa Ana winds are blowing in and that makes insane fire hazard conditions with dry air and the wind. I happen to live somewhat close to a mountain range, like on the North Valley of Los Angeles and that place caught on fire the other day.

Laura Birek: Turned in.

Shanna Micko: If you’re familiar with this area, it was called the Saddle Ridge Fire. I woke up Friday morning and Steve was taking the air purifier out of the bedroom and I’m like, “What are you doing?” He’s like, “There’s a big fire.” Then I was like, “Oh my God, all night I thought I was dreaming about smoke and smelling smoke,” and it’s real.

Laura Birek: Really? That’s so interesting.

Shanna Micko: Yeah, so I got up and I was like, “Oh my God.” It smells horrible and you look outside and it is just raining ash and so smokey and I found out that this fire was totally out of control and the mandatory evacuation zone was just north of our house, so we weren’t in it.

Laura Birek: You’re talking blocks, right? I remember looking at it and being like, ooh, that’s real close to Steve and Shanna’s house.

Shanna Micko: I want to say like a half a mile maybe. We’re separated from those hills by a freeway. So the fire would’ve had to jump the freeway. But with these winds, it’s crazy up here. Anything could happen. I freaked out and I was like, first of all, I don’t want my house to burn down and be in it. I don’t think that’s going to happen.

Laura Birek: That’d be bad.

Shanna Micko: That would be really bad and then the smoke was just awful and I work at home and I’m like, I can’t have my baby and me be in the smoke all day. I just told my manager at work, “I’m sorry I can’t do any work today. I’ve got to evacuate and find some place to go with my baby and my dogs.” Spent the next hour running around the house trying to think of what do I need to bring for a weekend away for an entire family because Steve had already gone to work and taken Elle to daycare and with two dogs, what am I going to do with the dogs? You were so nice. Thank you, Laura.

Laura Birek: First of all, I’m your like fire haven. Anytime there’s fire, my house is open to you.

Shanna Micko: Yes, we’ve had to escape fires before in the past. That’s a different story for another time.

Laura Birek: It is. Maybe we can do that story another time, but luckily your house has never been on fire.

Shanna Micko: No.

Laura Birek: But you’ve been in close proximity to fires more than once. This is the second time. I woke up to a text message from our friend Marilyn, who is also a super fan of Big Fat Positive and she was like, “Oh, just FYI, I think Shanna’s really close to a fire.” She didn’t know your actual address, but she knew sort of the general neighborhood you lived in, I think. So I looked it up and I was like, shit, you really are close to that. I texted you first thing. I was like, “Do you guys want to come over and we’ll figure out somewhere to put the dogs?” You were like, “I might just have to do that.”

Shanna Micko: Yeah, this was like 6:00 a.m. we’re texting about this stuff and that morning was crazy too, because CeCe woke up with the hugest morning blowout ever. So the entire crib and her pajamas are covered in poop.

Laura Birek: Gross.

Shanna Micko: So Steve’s dealing with that. I’m rushing around and I step in dog pee and I’m just like, what? It just felt like such a frantic, chaotic morning. But I did seek refuge at your place and I ended up booking the dogs at doggy day care and we ended up getting a hotel near your house so we could just be away for the entire weekend and it ended up being kind of like a fun getaway. My kids were excited about it. Elle loved it and you and the baby and Corey came over and went swimming with us. So we tried to make the most of it and have a vacation.

Laura Birek: That was really fun. I was like, “There’s a pool there? We will be there.”

Shanna Micko: Yeah, it was great. I had to go and buy bathing suits for the entire family because when you’re evacuating your house, you don’t think to bring swimsuits and swim trunks.

Laura Birek: You’re like getting birth certificates.

Shanna Micko: Computers.

Laura Birek: Exactly. You may need that bathing suit.

Shanna Micko: We spent a good chunk of change at Target just buying stuff that I didn’t grab from the house, but it’s good. Then the cool thing, I don’t know if we told you this, Laura: where we work, we found out has a disaster relief fund. So if something like that happens to one of the employees, you can submit receipts and explain the situation and they refunded us money for our hotel.

Laura Birek: Really?

Shanna Micko: Yeah, we bought this big huge air scrubber from Home Depot, because when we got home the house smelled like smoke.

Laura Birek: I bet.

Shanna Micko: They paid for that for us.

Laura Birek: Wow. That’s amazing. There’s a lot of perks to working for a big corporation, I guess.

Shanna Micko: There are hidden perks. You just got to look behind the curtain and find out.

Laura Birek: That’s very cool. People were texting me that morning like, “Oh my gosh.” Like my dad, anytime there’s a fire within like a hundred miles, he’s like, “Are you okay?” First of all, very okay. Second of all, in Pasadena, which is 30 miles away from you, something like that, you would have no clue that there were fires anywhere. It was like crystal clear. Absolutely beautiful fall day. So you got to have a little vacay in Pasadena.

Shanna Micko: As I drove out of my neighborhood on the freeway, it just was like I was driving out of a cloud. It really just felt like that. It was so gray and dark and gross.

Laura Birek: You forgot to tell people the best part of our weekend, Shanna.

Shanna Micko: Oh my God. Laura, you and I got together by ourselves in the evening for a drink.

Laura Birek: Like grownups who don’t have babies.

Shanna Micko: Because this hotel is in your neighborhood. It was like five minutes from your house and you had the grand idea. You’re like, “What do you think about sneaking out after the kids go to bed and having a drink?” I was like, “Yeah, that sounds awesome.”

Laura Birek: We could not remember the last time we had just gone out for drinks just the two of us, right? It had been years.

Shanna Micko: No, I can’t remember.

Laura Birek: You couldn’t come to my bachelorette party because you were pregnant. No, you had just had Elle.

Shanna Micko: Yes.

Laura Birek: Right. So who knows? Gosh, could it have been before our weddings?

Shanna Micko: Oh my God, I have no idea.

Laura Birek: Anyway, it was glorious.

Shanna Micko: It was.

Laura Birek: We tapped out after one drink.

Shanna Micko: At like 9:30.

Laura Birek: We were both like, no. The bartender was like, “Would you like another?” We were like, “No, we’re already pushing it with these old fashions we’re having.”

Shanna Micko: Yeah, we did get hard liquors. So I am impressed. That’s something. But yeah, it ended up being kind of fun and everyone’s safe and it was a tricky weekend, but we had a good time.

Laura Birek: You guys were lucky. There were some houses that did burn down not too far from you. So I’m sure that’s always a scary thing.

Shanna Micko: But yeah, so that was our week. What about you guys? What are you up to?

Laura Birek: Dramatic week. Well, other than all the stuff we did together, which every time there’s a fire near you, I have fun because I’m like, yay, visitors. Our babies got to play together, which was so cute.

Shanna Micko: I know.

Laura Birek: I got to go swimming and we got to go swimming with the babies together and just so much fun, but over here, well, my baby is nine months old.

Shanna Micko: Woo-hoo.

Laura Birek: Which I’m looking forward to because you say it’s the most fun month so far.

Shanna Micko: I think so. I love it.

Laura Birek: I’m really looking forward to it and he had his in and out day. Do you know about the in and out day?

Shanna Micko: No, what is that?

Laura Birek: It is the day where your baby has been outside of your body as long as your baby was inside your body. For me it was 38 weeks and six days, which I looked it up like months ago. I was like, I got to figure out his exact in and out day because people will do the nine month photo: nine months in, nine months out, right? I was like, well, it’s not going to be the exact day. So I want to find out the exact day. He’s 38 weeks and six days. It was literally on his nine month birthday.

Shanna Micko: It was?

Laura Birek: It was.

Shanna Micko: So funny.

Laura Birek: Some weird math. So we got to do the nine month photos and his in and out day photos, which was cute and fun and he’s doing great. I’ve been having a mixed bag of a week though. One thing that really pissed me off is on Monday on my way out of the house to go to Mommy & Me class. You know how you’re gathering up all your crap and you have your diaper bag and you have like all the shit you have to bring everywhere you go?

Shanna Micko: Yes.

Laura Birek: Then I always have to have my Hydro Flask bottle with me, which is one of those like big metal vacuum water bottles. So I had my Hydro Flask bottle on the couch and I was picking up the backpack, which is my diaper bag and just then I saw that the Hydro Flask bottle was rolling off the couch. Like a dummy, I put my foot out to try to stop it and the thing dropped straight on my second toe nail and I think I might have broken it. It hurt.

Shanna Micko: The toe or the toe nail?

Laura Birek: The toe.

Shanna Micko: Have you explained how big this water bottle is to people because…

Laura Birek: It’s a liter. So it’s like a good…

Shanna Micko: It’s like a good 17 pound.

Laura Birek: It’s fucking heavy, man. It’s all metal. It’s heavy without the water in it and it was completely full of ice water and it fell off the couch straight on. The little edge of it hit the base of my second toenail. So now it’s all black, my toenail and I’m FaceTiming with my mom and she’s like, “I think that’s broken.”

Shanna Micko: Oh, no.

Laura Birek: That’s fun. Luckily, at Mommy & Me they had an ice pack and gave it to me and I of course got to teach my baby a lot of expletives. So that was fun. But I feel like that’s just sort of my baseline now is just running into things, dropping shit. I’m always very careful with the baby but everything else has gone out of the window.

Shanna Micko: Totally. The other day I was putting away groceries and I’m always trying to do a million things at once, like putting away three different things and a brand new giant thing of maple syrup just flew out of my hand, sailed across the kitchen and landed on the floor and broke open and it was a huge puddle of mess.

Laura Birek: Oh my God, was it a glass bottle?

Shanna Micko: Yeah.

Laura Birek: Oh, God.

Shanna Micko: Of course. So that was fun. God, I feel you.

Laura Birek: You feel my pain.

Shanna Micko: 100%.

Laura Birek: Anyway, that was just a dumb move. The other thing that happened this week is I decided to get a babysitter for a day. It’s not the regular one I’ve been talking about trying to schedule. I actually was trying to schedule a regular one, but I was going to do a trial day and then it turned out she was allergic to cats and no one had mentioned the cats are, anyway.

Shanna Micko: Yeah.

Laura Birek: So I got another babysitter who just was like a quick drop in and I was trying to do work while my babysitter was watching the baby and Lord, help me. I keep accepting gigs. I don’t know why. Shanna, why am I doing this?

Shanna Micko: I have no idea.

Laura Birek: It’s normal.

Shanna Micko: I keep saying it’s the guilt about not making money for the household. Is that why?

Laura Birek: Maybe, yeah, to have my own spending money that I can feel frivolous about. Also, I feel guilty towards the clients because they’re like, “We need you.” I’m like, it’s nice to feel needed. Not like I’m not needed all day by this thing who’s crying at me all the time. So anyway, I was trying to do work. It was way too hard because even with the babysitter in the yes space with my baby, he would crawl over, pull up to stand on the baby gate and just stand there with his arms up on the baby gate just crying at me and the babysitter would be like, “Why don’t you come play with me?” To try all these tricks. He was just, nope, hold onto that baby gate crying. I eventually just was like, well, I won’t do work. I’ll just go run errands or something.

Shanna Micko: That’s good.

Laura Birek: I need to get that back office done.

Shanna Micko: Yeah, going to a separate space is going to help a lot with that.

Laura Birek: It is necessary. Anyway, so I’m still on that treadmill of trying to do work during naps and meanwhile I’m limping around on my lame foot.

Shanna Micko: Thank you for it. Well, you have to give us an update if you do find out it’s broken.

Laura Birek: Okay, I will. It’s pretty throbby, but who needs extra toes?

Shanna Micko: Yeah, just lap it off. There you go. Anyway, should we take a break and come back with our special segment?

Laura Birek: Yeah, sounds like a plan.

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Shanna Micko: We’re back and our special segment this week is one of our favorites, What I Googled This Week, where we talk about the interesting possibly embarrassing things that we’ve Googled recently about parenting, babies, et cetera. Laura, what did you Google this week?

Laura Birek: Okay. So I googled, “Why is my breast milk blue?”

Shanna Micko: What? Why is it blue? What’s going on?

Laura Birek: First of all, it’s disconcerting to look at it. I know that breast milk changes color. Like sometimes if your baby is sick, apparently it’ll change colors to show how many antibodies are there. I don’t know if that’s true or if it’s just like an urban legend. 

But you know I only pump once a day. What I do is I get to sleep in a little bit and Corey does the first feeding with the baby and then I will wake up and pump. So it’s like the first thing in the morning and I get a lot of milk that way and I don’t have to pump again later and then I just feed my baby straight from the tap the rest of the day. So the other day I’m pumping and I’m looking at the milk coming out and it looks very thin and also very blue, unmistakably like a baby blue color basically.

Shanna Micko: Wow. What did you eat recently?

Laura Birek: I know. I thought maybe it was what I ate. Nothing special, so I had to Google it. I was like, oh no, am I getting sick? Is the baby sick and I don’t know and this is the first sign? What could this mean? Did I take some medicine? Who knows? Well, it turns out what I was looking at is foremilk. Do you know about foremilk?

Shanna Micko: I do. But tell me more.

Laura Birek: I will. So apparently the composition of your milk changes depending on how long you nurse or pump basically and so they call it foremilk and hindmilk and the foremilk is like the first stuff that comes out that tends to be more watery and less fat. Then the hindmilk has more fat so it’s like creamier and I guess because I had been like asleep so long, I had a lot of foremilk and so what I was seeing was the first go of my milk and that was just mostly foremilk and that’s why it was blue and it was true. I kept pumping and then eventually it all evened out in color.

Shanna Micko: Wow.

Laura Birek: There you have it.

Shanna Micko: That’s fascinating. But that also must be changed from person to person, because I don’t recall ever seeing blue foremilk. It was definitely thinner and more watery but yeah, I think that’s fascinating.

Laura Birek: To my eyes it looked very blue and clearly I’m not the only person, because it’s a thing that comes up when you say like, “Why is my breast milk…” then it fills in blue. There was like bluish green. Somebody suggested green. Makes me think that maybe it would be sickly. But who knows?

Shanna Micko: Yeah, but green is not appetizing.

Laura Birek: No, it’s not. But I also found this article on verywellfamily.com that says, “The color of breast milk is usually yellow, white, clear, cream, tan or blue changed.” So blue is like a normal one, but it says that depending on what you eat or drink, it may also be green, pink or red.

Shanna Micko: What? I definitely wouldn’t want red milk coming at my tities because that looks like blood and that is freaky.

Laura Birek: Apparently, you can also get blood in your breast milk, which is also bad sign. I’ve never had that. Anyways, spooky. So that’s the What I Googled This Week. I have another one, but do you want to go and tell me what you Googled first?

Shanna Micko: Yeah, sure. So what I Googled this week is, “Can I put hand sanitizer on my baby?”

Laura Birek: Can you? I’ve been wondering the same thing.

Shanna Micko: I have just gone ahead and done this multiple times and then I’m like, I don’t know if I should, because they’re just tiny babies and everything you do with them should be so gentle and everything. But it’s so convenient especially like when you finish a class somewhere out at My Gym or something, you just want to slather them on and get those hands sanitized right away.

Laura Birek: We went to a couple petting zoos during the Halloween season. I feel like all these pumpkin patches had petting zoos and I had to make a calculation after my baby had pet some pretty dirty ass sheep and pigs. He pet some pigs, he pet some sheep and he pet some goats and I was just like, I think this is time for hand sanitizer. So I did it.

Shanna Micko: I hope you reached your sanitizer threshold: one pig more and we can do it.

Laura Birek: So did I ruin him? Is he ruined for life?

Shanna Micko: Well, if you want to live according to this forum thread I found on babycenter.com where a curious mother asked this question and the results are, “YOU SHOULD NOT give your baby sanitizer. Sanitizer can kill babies,” et cetera, et cetera.

Laura Birek: Always. What?

Shanna Micko: So that’s the first result that comes up when I googled this. So I’m like, oh goddamn it. I’m going to ruin my kid. But then like several down, there’s a post from the Poison Control Center, which I felt like is maybe more of the real deal. I want to tell you what I learned: poison.org. What they say is that a lick of hand sanitizer is not going to hurt a baby. “A lick of hand sanitizer will not be fatal to a child or anyone else. It does contain alcohol and so should be stored like other potential poisons out of sight and out of reach and if they should drink some, obviously, you need to call Poison Control Center and that hand sanitizer is not any more dangerous than any other source of alcohol around the house. You just got to make sure to keep it away and if you put it on their hands, it dries quickly. If they get a lick, they’re going to be fine. A lot of the horror stories about kids getting sick from sanitizer are probably like the extreme end of the spectrum where they’re ingesting more than they should.” So I actually feel okay about putting sanitizer on her hands occasionally. She has never licked it off. I rub until it dries in the air and we’re done with it.

Laura Birek: I remember there was like a trend or maybe not a trend, but there were all these scare pieces on local news for a while about teenagers drinking hand sanitizer. Do you remember that?

Shanna Micko: Oh, Jesus. No, I don’t, but it does not surprise me.

Laura Birek: But I also don’t think they were really doing it. I think it was one of those things where one or two teenagers were doing it and so then the news picked it up and the new trend that will scare parents half to death.

Shanna Micko: Yeah.

Laura Birek: Well, I’m glad to know that I haven’t ruined him by putting hand sanitizer on him.

Shanna Micko: I don’t think so and honestly, we’ve been putting it on Elle for ages too. I never Googled it when she was baby, because I guess it didn’t occur to me and she’s doing all right.

Laura Birek: I think if anything, it’s probably just drying for their skin, right?

Shanna Micko: Yeah, it’s probably not great for their little baby skin.

Laura Birek: But getting all kinds of weird germs from Super Rando, petting zoo pigs probably isn’t good for them either, right?

Shanna Micko: Yeah, that’s bad for their skin too. Got away their options there.

Laura Birek: Yes.

Shanna Micko: So now you know. What’s your other one that you Googled? I want to know.

Laura Birek: Okay. So mine was, “Baby sleeps eyes open and blinking?”

Shanna Micko: What? Are you sure he’s sleeping? That sounds creepy.

Laura Birek: So there was one night recently where I thought I heard a little noise. I go to look at the baby monitor and we have like a really high res baby monitor. I love it and I’m watching and I was like, “Corey, does it look like his eyes are open?” It was like 11 o’clock at night. I had done the dream feed. He had gone back down and he was completely still, but it looked like he could see. It looked like his eyes were open and then you could tell there was a little glint. You could actually see his eyeball and he was just slowly blinking his eyes and then I looked up on the Owlet Monitor, which is the little sock that monitors his heart rate and oxygen saturation and you can usually tell if he’s asleep based on how low his heart rate is and it was super low. It was like 102, which is totally what he is that when he’s in a deep sleep.

Shanna Micko: Interesting.

Laura Birek: I was like, what the fuck, man? It was creepy.

Shanna Micko: That’s super creepy.

Laura Birek: It was super creepy and it was like that for 20 minutes. It wasn’t like, he opened his eyes and then closed them. He was just lying there slow blinking. Ostensibly asleep. So I googled and again it’s BabyCenter and it says, “Is it normal for my baby to sleep with her eyes open?” It says, “Yes, it looks odd, but it’s normal.” As a Concord, California naturopathic doctor, Tara Levy, puts it: zombie kid. Watch out! I’m sorry. I’m reading this verbatim and I just was like, oh, a doctor will tell me what’s going on. Oh, no. She just called him a zombie kid. But here we go, “Open eyed sleeping called nocturnal lagophthalmos is harmless and fairly common in infants.” But here’s the thing, everything I found was about younger babies. It was hard to find anything about babies older than six months. So I don’t know. I don’t really have answers. I’d be curious if listeners have observed their babies sleeping with their eyes open, because it creeped the f out.

Shanna Micko: I was wondering if maybe my baby does that, but I don’t have a high enough res monitor to know this. I don’t know.

Laura Birek: That’s very possible.

Shanna Micko: You got to get him a sleep mask.

Laura Birek: Little baby sleep mask. I wonder if he could wear that. Obviously, I’m not going to do this, but I have a problem. For people who’ve seen pictures of me, I have like googly eyes. I have like pretty prominent big eyes and I can’t wear wraparound sunglasses and I can’t wear sleep masks, because my eyes hit them. So I wake up and my eyes sight is all blurry, because it’s been pressing on my eyelids. I wonder if he’s the same, because he did inherit my big googly eyes. But also probably not good safe sleep practices. I was going to say that’s basic.

Shanna Micko: No, it’s like duct tape it to his head or something. That would be crazy.

Laura Birek: Anyway, I don’t have many answers there, but it’s creepy and I’ll let you know if it happens again.

Shanna Micko: Yeah.

Laura Birek: So do you have one more Google query for us?

Shanna Micko: Actually, I do. I Googled recently, “Do babies gums bleed when their teeth come in?”

Laura Birek: Ooh, do they? I haven’t noticed. Have you?

Shanna Micko: I’ve never noticed, but that baffles me, because they’re like you mentioned before, sharp little razors bursting through flesh. So why aren’t their mouths dripping with blood?

Laura Birek: That’s a very good question.

Shanna Micko: I don’t know. So I Googled it and I did not learn anything.

Laura Birek: Really?

Shanna Micko: Well, I Googled that. I Googled why aren’t my baby’s gums bleeding when they’re teething and everything is just like bleeding can happen with teething and parents write in. They’re like, “I saw a spot of blood on the crib. Could it be teething?” I get that it can happen. I understand that, but what I am curious about and the mystery is why don’t they bleed? Why am I not seeing any blood?

Laura Birek: Why don’t they bleed more? It should be like they should have terrifying vampire mouths full of blood.

Shanna Micko: That is what I’m picturing and I’m so confused. When kids lose teeth, they get loose and you pull it out. That’s bloody. So I don’t know. I feel like this is a mystery of the gums.

Laura Birek: I wonder if it has something to do with how slow it is. It’s not like it comes through all at once. They’re like slowly coming through and also they would probably swallow a lot of blood or not a lot. Sounds awful, but they would swallow any blood that comes out. I don’t know.

Shanna Micko: No, that does make sense. They probably do bleed a little bit, but we just don’t see it.

Laura Birek: Yeah, I think they have to a little. It’s probably a sign that I need to floss more, but I believe when I freaking floss, I have sensitive gums.

Shanna Micko: Yes.

Laura Birek: Someone’s going to write in and be like, “You should really take better care of your gums.” I know.

Shanna Micko: Did you notice that flossing when you were pregnant created way more bleeding?

Laura Birek: Yeah.

Shanna Micko: For sure. It’s way better now that I’m not pregnant anymore. It’s so strange.

Laura Birek: I think that’s a thing. I think it has something to do. I can’t remember all the crap from pregnancy, but it’s like your blood volume is so much higher and I’m sure there’s probably a difference in clotting factor for some reason. Who knows?

Shanna Micko: Blame it all on hormones.

Laura Birek: Baby teeth are weird. I actually Googled something recently that was like, “Why is there such a big gap in my baby’s front teeth?” Does CeCe have a big gap between her newly erupted front teeth?

Shanna Micko: Yes, what’s the story with that?

Laura Birek: I was worried like, oh, shoot, is he just going to be a gap tooth kid, which would be kind of cute? But I just was curious and apparently what it is, is as the other teeth come in, they push the gap close so the gap gets smaller.

Shanna Micko: That does happen.

Laura Birek: Did you notice that with Elle?

Shanna Micko: Yep, when she was this age, I can picture a photograph of her smiling at me with a huge little gap and by the time she was probably like 15 months old, I think it was all closed up.

Laura Birek: So weird and interesting. He has a big old gap right now and it’s awfully cute. He looks like a little jack-o’-lantern with his little teeth top and bottom.

Shanna Micko: So adorable. So cute. The mystery of baby teeth. Well, I’m glad you could answer something for us. Thank you.

Laura Birek: Well, Google has not been all that helpful for us this week, but it’s been interesting at least.

Shanna Micko: I think so.

Laura Birek: Shall we take a break and come back with our BFPs and BFNs?

Shanna Micko: I think we should.

[Music]

Laura Birek: We’re back. So we close every episode with our big fat positives or big fat negatives of the week. Shanna, do you have a BFP or a BFN for us?

Shanna Micko: BFP.

Laura Birek: Woo-woo.

Shanna Micko: I wanted to share one of my favorite products. I have loved this thing since Elle was small and continue to love it and that is the Munchkin 360 Cup.

Laura Birek: Oh, the Miracle Cup.

Shanna Micko: Is that a technical name or your given name?

Laura Birek: No, it is a miracle, but I think it is actually called the Miracle Cup.

Shanna Micko: Ooh.

Laura Birek: It’s the one where you can drink out of any side of it.

Shanna Micko: Yes, we love this thing and now that CeCe’s getting older and she’s been drinking stuff at mealtime: water. We’re trying to get her used to using a cup and I bought a sippy cup called Tommee Tippee. It has little handles and stuff and it’s good. It’s cute, but I don’t know. I shouldn’t have strayed from the 360. I should just have stuck with it, because it doesn’t spill. They can drink out of any side of it. It’s not difficult to clean. Although I will say you want to make sure you take off the rubber top and the little tiny circle rubber gasket.

Laura Birek: Let’s describe it for people who haven’t seen it yet, because it is a pretty cool and unique design, right?

Shanna Micko: Yeah.

Laura Birek: So it’s like a normal cup on the bottom and then you screw in this top that has two parts to it. It’s like a plastic top with handles and then it has like holes in it and then you put this rubber gasket on top of it and the rubber gasket keeps all the liquid in. You can tip it upside down, you can do whatever you want and then when the baby goes to drink it, they have to slightly bite down on it and suck. But they figure it out. My guy figured it out really quick, but you’re saying that you really need to make sure you take that rubber gasket out when you wash it, otherwise it can get real gross real fast.

Shanna Micko: Real gross. Then if you flip the lid upside down, there’s a small clear ring that goes over the threading so that it kind of seals in the lid to the cup. You want to make sure to take that part off too and I just take those two parts off, stick them in the dishwasher and everything is clean, because I know that a few years ago there was like a big thing: moms were scared. They’re like, look at these 360 cups, how disgusting they are. They breed mold and bacteria. It’s like, well, you didn’t take the cup apart properly to wash it and that is what happens.

Laura Birek: It reminds me of when I had a newborn and I first started pumping and Corey was trying to be really helpful by washing my pump parts, but he didn’t realize you had to take the duckbill valves out of the flange and at some point I had to be like, “Hey, babe. You need to take this out, because observe all the mold,” and he was like, “Oh, shit.” He never forgot after that point.

Shanna Micko: Once you see that you’re like, ooh. But so we love those cups and highly recommend those if you’re looking for sippy cups.

Laura Birek: They come in fun colors too.

Shanna Micko: Yes, they really do. It’s fun colors and different sizes. What about you, Laura? What do you got for us?

Laura Birek: I have a BFN.

Shanna Micko: What’s up?

Laura Birek: BFN is back pain.

Shanna Micko: No.

Laura Birek: I’ve had like a couple back aches here and there in my life, but I’ve never had like true back pain and all of a sudden this week, it just hit me and it just was so excruciating lower back pain and I know it’s because the baby’s getting heavier. I made the stupid mistake last week thinking that I didn’t need the Brest Friend nursing pillow anymore. I was like, oh, my baby’s getting big. He can just kind of like sit more and be more upright while he’s nursing and he can nurse totally fine like that. But it turns out it was completely not ergonomic for me. It made me arch my lower back in a weird way and after doing that for less than a week, I came down with terrible back pain.

Shanna Micko: Oh, man.

Laura Birek: So I got the Breast Friend back out. I’m trying to take it easy and be more ergonomic in my movements and everything, but yikes. It sucks and it sucks, because there’s no way you can’t not carry your baby around.

Shanna Micko: Yeah, you still have to keep doing everything you’re doing, but just now with pain.

Laura Birek: Yes, exactly. I feel like that’s sort of the definition of motherhood. It’s like, do everything you were doing before plus some more stuff. But also with pain.

Shanna Micko: Ding-ding-ding. You win the prize, Laura.

Laura Birek: But it’s also great. I love it very much.

Shanna Micko: Oh, of course. It’s all worth it.

Laura Birek: But also you get this adorable baby, so it’s worth it. But it’s just like, ugh, my back. So hopefully it’ll get better. I’m hoping to get back to Pilates, because I know that core strength really helps with back pain.

Shanna Micko: Maybe get a massage.

Laura Birek: I would love that. I don’t know when. I have to figure that out.

Shanna Micko: I know.

Laura Birek: I was really hoping your hotel had a hot tub this week, but it did not.

Shanna Micko: That was a let down.

Laura Birek: For me especially. Why is your hotel that way? I will say the old fashions did help though temporarily.

Shanna Micko: Oh, yeah. Total muscle relaxing.

Laura Birek: Exactly. But anyway, hopefully it’ll resolve itself pretty soon and if anyone has any tips on lower back pain, please send it into us.

Shanna Micko: Yes, Laura, where can they reach us?

Laura Birek: We are on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook at BFP Podcast. You can also find us on our Facebook community group. Just search for Big Fat Positive community and ask to join. I will add you. It’s a closed group, but it’s awesome and you should join. We also have an email address, [email protected], or just go to our website bigfatpositivepodcast.com

Shanna Micko: If you love the show, we ask that you spread the word. 

If you know a pregnant person or a new parent you think they’d like the show, let them know. We would also love it if you could leave us a rating or review if you haven’t already on whatever platform you listen. That’s super helpful in letting the world know how wonderful we are.

Laura Birek: Aww.

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

Laura Birek: Thanks for listening, everyone. We’ll see you next week.

Shanna Micko: Bye.

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