New Help for Moms with Postpartum Depression

By Bonnie Rochman, Parenting

An inpatient psychiatric unit specifically dedicated to women suffering perinatal (prenatal and postpartum) mood disorders opens and gets new moms the help they need.

hortly before last Mother’s Day, 28-year-old Lauren Meehan-Machos broke down in front of her startled husband. “This is more than I can handle,” she sobbed.

The typically confident and self-assured Cary, NC, mom — a former Miss New Hampshire — had felt overwhelmed and panicky since giving birth to her first child, Luke, two months prior. She’d obsessed so much about getting feedings and naps “right” that she stopped eating and sleeping herself. She cried continuously. She started throwing up.

Her doctor had prescribed medication for postpartum anxiety. But, she told her husband, the day before, she’d found herself at the wheel of her red Chevy Impala, rain falling in sheets from the sky, thinking, If I drive my car off the road, all this will go away.

“I was stunned,” recalls Kevin Machos. “She’d done a very good job of hiding what she was feeling.”

Immediately, Meehan-Machos’s obstetrician referred her to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC). There, doctors had recently debuted a groundbreaking inpatient psychiatric unit, the first in the nation specifically tailored to women suffering perinatal (prenatal and postpartum) mood disorders. Unlike a general psychiatric unit, it offered:

• A core group of doctors specializing in perinatal issues
• Psychiatrists attuned to medications that wouldn’t harm a pregnancy or a nursing newborn
• An unusual policy of allowing children, even babies, on the ward during extended visiting hours
• Mom-only counseling focused on anxiety and bonding.

And though there were only six beds, one was available for her.

Read more…

Sadly, my blog posting is taking a hit lately. It isn’t that I don’t want to, or that I have nothing to say; it’s just that all my free time is taken up either with taking care of Jamieson, working, sleeping, doing chores, or spending quality time with Doc. It’s hard to find an hour or two where I’m actually in the mood to write, AND have the time to do it.

I hope to be able to find more time and energy to write as the weeks go on.

Anyway, here is what’s been going on during the last month.

The last part of May and first part of June pretty much sucked. Doc was sick with a bad chest and head cold, then I was sick with the stomach flu and exhaustion, then Jamie got the cold, then I got the cold. Luckily, Jamie had gotten the stomach bug earlier in the month, and Doc didn’t get it at all. I went to Kathryn and Brett’s Memorial Day cookout, but probably shouldn’t have, and we missed Valerie’s birthday dinner altogether. My doctor tried me on several different medications in an attempt to alleviate my exhaustion and feelings of being overwhelmed and anxious, but the side effects made me feel even MORE sick to my stomach and also plagued me with insomnia, both at night and while trying to nap. Shortly thereafter, I came to the conclusion that actually getting sleep would make me feel better a lot faster than trying to fool my brain into being happy, so I stopped taking it.

The weeks since have kind of been a blur. I definitely have been feeling better, probably largely due to the fact that I’ve been sleeping for one long stretch most nights. When I think back to just a few months ago, when I was lucky to get 3 or 4 hours of sleep in a row, this seems like an impossible dream!

We changed up our night feeding schedule. Doc does the first feeding (usually; if I’m still up I will do it sometimes) and the second feeding, and then I get up in the morning with Jamie. He’s usually up some time between 5 and 6:30 a.m., usually closer to 5. Although recently he’s taken to not really going back to sleep after his second feeding, which is kinda messing things up. We hope that he’s just starting to change up his own nocturnal schedule towards sleeping through the night.

Jamie turned six months old on June 8. Doc and I bought him some presents, and Grandma sent some too. We had some pretty intense storms blow through in early June, including some tornadoes nearby. Our power went out about 10 a.m. one morning after massive amounts of rain, and was out until nearly 11 that night. The house heated up quickly; Doc and Jamie went to the mall to cool down in the afternoon, and then we went out to dinner and ran some errands in the evening. The power came back on as we washed baby bottles by candlelight. The stoplight at our corner blinked red for almost a week before they fixed it.

We continue to try to get Jamie’s digestive issues fixed. He’s been on Nutramigen AA formula for about a month now. It costs $155 for a week’s supply. No, that is not a typo. We’ve been lucky enough to get a few samples from our gastroenterologist’s office as well as a couple of shipments from Dr. Debbie. I’m not sure that it’s really making that much of a difference for him, to be honest. Doc has observed that when he’s relaxed, he seems more relaxed now but when he’s fussy, he seems more fussy. More peaks and valleys, in otherwords, whereas on the regular Nutramigen he seemed fairly consistent with a low-grade fussiness. He has learned to accept the taste of it but he really didn’t like it at first. We think it doesn’t stick to his ribs as well as regular formula. It does seem thinner and more watery, like skim milk. He certainly continues to put on weight, but he’s not as satisfied with it.

We are going to a new pediatrician now. Our first pedi just wasn’t a good fit. I don’t think she ever really believed that there was anything wrong with Jamie. She once called him “high strung,” as if it was a personality issue that was causing his constant activity, crying, pain, and crankiness. She suggested that we just run the vacuum cleaner in his room all night, since constant loud noise often was the only way we could get him to sleep. Her bottom line with us was that he was gaining weight and thriving, so he was fine (and she repeated this to us at every visit). I know she thought that we were overreacting and exaggerating. It was as if she would prefer that Jamie just outgrow whatever was going on with him, rather than work with us to try to get him help. He may be gaining weight and growing properly, but there’s a whole quality of life issue that she was completely ignoring.

In fact, we finally went to the gastroenterologist (Dr. Annette Whitney) completely on our own, not because of any suggestion of the pediatrician’s. And Dr. Whitney knew what was wrong immediately, since milk and soy protein sensitivity is one of the most common infant food allergies. You’d think that the pediatrician might have picked up on this and at least suggested it to us as a possibility, but she never did.

Anyway, we really like our new pediatrician, Dr. Michael Brown. He’s personable and seemed to truly understand what we’ve been going through with Jamie, and he wants to help us get him feeling better. We’ve only been in to see him once, but so far I am pleased.

Dr. Brown prescribed a steroid cream for Jamie’s torso rash/eczema, and within a week the rash was completely gone. Poor baby isn’t scratching at his own skin all night and day now. I think that has really helped him to feel better overall.

He’s drinking prune juice (mixed with water), which smells like ass (and Doc confirms that it tastes disgusting too). But Jamie seems to like it just fine! And it’s helping keep him regular.

We started him on rice cereal, AGAIN. This is the third time, and the third brand we’ve tried. And at last! Success!! Healthy Times Organic Brown Rice Cereal does not give him 48 hours of intestinal cramping like the previous brands we tried. It says “NO SOY” right on the box in big letters. I suspect soy may be a bigger issue for him than dairy, because of his reactions to the other cereals, both of which contained soy (one from Vitamin E in an undeclared form; Earth’s Best Organic Brown Rice Cereal, I’m talking to you! Please label your cereal as NOT SOY FREE!). And of course, it’s twice as expensive as regular rice cereal, and only available at Whole Foods. Sigh.

He’s really getting the hang of eating from a spoon, and he seems to like the cereal. He’s figured out (mostly) that the spoon goes on TOP of his tongue, not underneath. When he’s cooperative, he doesn’t really even make much of a mess. We are usually giving some to him in the morning and the evening. We’ll be able to try a pureed fruit or vegetable in another week or so, I think, with guidance from Dr. Whitney.

She had us bring Jamie in for a barium enema, which was about as fun as it sounds. They filled his lower intestine with barium liquid and took x-rays of his little guts, and although they didn’t see anything immediately wrong, they found it really interesting (and so did we) that it took him about 30 minutes and a feeding to “expel” the barium. Most babies get rid of it immediately and forcefully. Not so Jamieson. We heard today that the results came back normal. I have mixed feelings about that. On the one hand, I am really glad that there isn’t anything seriously wrong with him. On the other hand, if they had found something, it would have at least been an answer and we could have been on the road to getting it fixed. Mostly I’m thrilled that the tests were normal, though.

So now we wait, and keep searching for answers.

We had a nice father’s day. Jamie did a drawing for Doc with giant crayons — his first artwork! I framed it in a special frame that opens with a magnet and allows you to swap out artwork whenever you please. He also got another Bluebird of Happiness for the bedroom. Then we all went out to lunch at Picasso’s Pizza, and later went shopping at Fry’s. For dinner we grilled bacon-wrapped filet mignons (Mom’s gift to Doc) and had rice pilaf, salad, and wine. A good day.

We finally unplugged from spoon-fed entertainment… we cancelled our cable and Tivo service! I have had some form of cable television since I was about 11 years old, save for the three years I lived in the dorms at college. And you know what? I don’t miss it one bit. Since all stations are now required to provide local over-the-air programming for free in digital, we bought a converter box and antenna for the upstairs TV, and an eyeTV and antenna for the downstairs TV. Upstairs, I just watch whatever’s on if I am interested (which is rare), and downstairs, they eyeTV streams the over-the-air HD and digital content to the mac mini and into the TV. The mini works as a DVR, and we also are using Boxee (although now are moving to Plex, which just works better), Netflix instant streaming, Hulu desktop, iTunes, etc. etc. Almost anything that we used to get through cable and record on the Tivos, we either watch through the good ol’ Interwebs or record it using the eyeTV and the mini. There was an initial cost to get all the equipment, but the amount that we’ll save each month on cable and Tivo bills will make up for all that in just a little over a year. Doc did a ton of research and spent hours and hours trying to find the simplest and most elegant solution for us, and he really did a fantastic job!

I’ll have to post more later. I’m tired now and want to get this out to the teeming millions (a.k.a. my two readers, who may very well have given up on me now that I’m only posting once every few weeks)…

Foiled! Everything except for my work files, for easy access :)

I arrived at work on Monday morning, my first day back after maternity leave, to find my office wrapped in tinfoil. Nearly every surface, including the desk, chairs, floor, computer, and most everything on my desk, was completely foiled. My co-workers wanted to decorate to welcome me back, and they found an ingenious way to do it!

I was a lot more worried about it than I needed to be (me, over-worrying? what a surprise). It helped a lot that Doc and I went over a plan on Sunday for how we would coordinate the morning with Jamie, as far as getting up, nursing him, eating breakfast, and getting me ready for work.

It also is nice that Mom is here this week, helping us out with my transition back to work. She’s been a big help, offering an extra pair of hands, a shoulder for crabby baby tears, help around the house and with dinner, and lots of love and good advice.

I’m seeing the beginnings of a nice routine. Jamie usually wants to eat sometime between 5 and 7 in the morning. If it’s towards the earlier end of that spectrum, I try to get him (and myself) to go back to sleep for a while afterwards. If it’s later, then we just get up after he’s done. Doc gets up when we do, and he takes Jamie while I shower and dress. I make myself some coffee and make sure I have my pump and bottles and lunch and everything else ready to go, then I’ll feed Jamie one more time before I leave.

I really miss my boys during the day. It’s hard to be away, but I am being kept quite busy at work so at least I have that to distract me. Also, I feel good knowing that Jamie is at home with his daddy and not at daycare at this young age.

When I get home, I feed the baby right away, then we have some play time and maybe a bath. We try to get him to go to bed sometime between 8 and 9, and then he’s generally down for the night except for feedings… although sometimes he is still Mr. Cry-Cry Pants for a while before going back to sleep.

Me going back to work is happily coinciding with a decline in Jamie’s colic symptoms. I think that he’s learning to handle his own discomfort much better. He isn’t as fussy as he used to be, doesn’t cry for hours on end most of the time, has long periods of happy or stoic time, and can entertain himself in his crib or pack ‘n’ play for 15-20 minutes at a time without getting upset. This means that all three of us are getting more sleep, which we desperately need.

He’s also learning to coordinate his hands much better. Now he can grab things on purpose instead of merely by accident. He likes to grab his toys, books, clothing, pacifier, his own toes, our hair, Doc’s beard, and my bra. When Doc feeds him, he can now grab the bottle (but he can’t hold it by himself). I think he’s really excited to have more control like this.

He’s also started to laugh when he finds something funny. It’s different than his regular coos and giggles.

And he’s also teething. Tons of drool, tons of sucking on his own hands, and more fussiness (his colic decreases, and the teething starts up… sigh). He loves when we rub on his gums with our fingers. It is time for us to get some teething toys that we can chill. Doc found one that vibrates, which we think he’ll like because he likes sucking on his vibrating duck toy. Unfortunately, even though he’s getting good at grabbing stuff now, he can’t coordinate enough to get things into his mouth yet.

We have been busy beyond belief, raising our child. Most of the time I have no time to sit down and blog, or if I do I am too tired to actually do it. So I’m going to give a quick recap of the past month or so.

In early February we drove to Wichita, Kansas, to go to Grandma Rose’s funeral and visit with the family. It was sad circumstances, of course, but nice to see everyone again. We weren’t sure how Jamie would do on a long car trip, but I didn’t want to stay here by myself for the weekend and of course I wanted to be with the family, so we decided that all three of us would go. The drive is usually about six hours when it’s just me and Doc driving, but it turned into about nine hours with Jamie, because we had to stop to feed him every two hours or so. He was surprisingly good in the car on the way up, sleeping a lot and not being cranky. However, on the way back, he cried for a good portion of the trip.

Also in early February, he began reaching for his toys now and then. He especially likes his neon yellow giraffe Chime-Along Pal. Doc got him two other Chime-Along Pals and he loves them.

Jamie went with me to the grocery store for the first time on February 9. He didn’t want to stay in his carrier hooked onto the grocery cart, so I had to maneuver the cart through the store and clumsily grab groceries with one hand, and hold the baby in the other.

I was off all dairy products for two weeks, trying to see if Jamie had a dairy allergy. It didn’t seem to make much of a difference. So I’m back on dairy, although I’m eating less of it than usual.

Rachel babysat Jamie on Valentine’s Day afternoon so Doc and I could go to lunch. We ate barbecue and then went to Best Buy to use up some gift certificates. Romantic! :) Rachel seems to be so in love with this baby; it’s adorable.

Towards the middle of February, he started to be able to support his own head most of the time. Now he can support it almost all the time except for when he’s very very sleepy.

We took Jamie off Prevacid about three weeks after he began it, because it didn’t seem to be doing much good. The doctor told us that he definitely has colic; finally the baby had a classic meltdown in the exam room instead of being happy and sweet like he usually is. Doc bounced and shussshed him as the doctor watched, and he confirmed the diagnosis.

As of February 21, he weighed 12 pounds 10 ounces. I’m sure he’s probably 13-1/2 by now.

We took him to a party at Joel and Valerie’s house, to watch the Academy Awards, and he was very well-behaved. He slept a lot of the time, and after he ate his dinner, Doc wrapped him in the Moby Wrap for the rest of the evening. Surprisingly, we were able to stay till the very end and were the last guests to leave!

Late in February, we bought Jamie a side-to-side swing. He hated the front-to-back swing that we already have, and seemed to enjoy it when Doc rocked him side to side in his carrier, so we bought a new swing for him. He has taken to it really well. He sleeps pretty soundly in it most of the time, at times when we know that if we put him flat on his back in the Pack ‘N Play, he would be awake and crying within minutes.

For the past week or so, he has been very very cranky and eating every 2 hours again. Growth spurt? We hope the colic will end soon because it’s so tiring for all three of us.

Just this week, he rolled over for the first time! From his tummy to his back. He’s repeated it several times since, and always seems pleased and surprised.

And on Monday, we started something new with him. I’m too tired to type anymore now, so stay tuned for the update.

Life with a new baby is getting easier in some ways, and harder in others. Jamie is a little more predictable now, and we’re a little more experienced in reading his cues.

We’ve begun to develop a rudimentary routine. I go to bed after his last feeding of the day, usually around 10:30 p.m. Doc watches Jamie (who’s hopefully sleeping) until he’s hungry again, often around 1 or 1:30 a.m. Doc goes to sleep then. Jamie eats again around 3:30 and then around 5:30. (All times approximate). Usually he will sleep between feedings, although he’s occasionally fussy in his sleep and I soothe him by rocking him a little with my hand and shushing him (a loud white-noise style SHHHHHH). Doc takes Jamie downstairs after that session and, because I’m not getting steady sleep for most of the night, I snooze until the 8 a.m. feeding. Sometimes, I then sleep again until the next nursing session, around 10:30 a.m., but usually I get up and go pump milk instead.

Since he eats about every 2 hours, and a feeding takes around 45 minutes (longer if I need to soothe him to sleep afterwards), I usually don’t get more than 1-1/2 hours of sleep at a stretch. Sometimes Doc has worked it so I’ve gotten 3 hours in a row, and once he bottle-fed Jamie some breastmilk so that I got 4-1/2 hours straight!

I estimate that Doc gets about 4 hours of somewhat solid sleep most nights, and I get about 5 or 6 over the course of any given day. I think what’s been hardest for me is not getting that 5 or 6 hours all in a row. Doc works his butt off to give me as much sleep as possible, but because we breastfeed exclusively (the occasional bottle of pumped milk notwithstanding) there’s really no way around the fact that I have to be awake every two hours. It’s draining for both of us.

I calculated that I spend probably 7 to 8 hours a day feeding Jamie. That’s a full time job!! Throw in pumping and cleaning the pumping equipment, and that’s another hour or two, depending on how many times I pump each day. Pumping is a real pain in the ass. I love feeding our son and providing his nutrition — it’s a wonderful bonding experience for me and Jamie, and he is usually quiet and relaxed while feeding. But it sure takes a ton of time and energy.

He’s outgrowing a lot of his clothes. He doesn’t fit into any newborn sizes anymore, and some of the 3 month sizes are too small for him. His feet are too big for most of his little sleepers that have feet in them. I hope that he’ll grow into those big old feet soon!

He’s begun, over the past week or so, to smile actual smiles. He also coos and gurgles and makes laughing-type sounds. When we look at him and smile and talk to him in a happy tone of voice, he’ll often give you a huge smile in return and make little happy noises. IT IS SO FREAKING CUTE. That makes it all worth it, right there.

However, he also has some pretty major meltdowns on most days. We strongly suspect that he is what you call a “colicky baby,” as his fussing does not seem like it’s normal to us. Our intuition tells us that it’s not his temperament; it’s pain. When he’s not in pain, he is such a happy mellow baby. And his pain is pretty intense. It makes us hurt inside to hear him scream uncontrollably for sometimes an hour or more at a time. We read a really helpful article at askdrsears.com about colic. He suggests that instead of saying “colic,” call it “the hurting baby” because that’s really what it is.

The general rule is that if the baby cries inconsolably for 3 or more hours a day, 3 or more days a week, for more than 3 weeks, they’ll slap the colic label on your kid. But really, “colic” is just another way to say “we don’t know what’s wrong with him.” It’s a label that describes a collection of symptoms with an unknown cause and no real solution. And really, if your kid cries for 2-1/2 hours a day instead of three, what’s the difference? Is it not colic then? Why not?

Jamie’s pain is largely gastrointestinal. He’ll begin to cry, arch his back, and alternately stiffen his legs and draw them in to his body over and over. His crying escalates to screaming and all we can hope for is to be able to distract him enough that his pain becomes less noticeable. Occasionally he’ll let out a burp or begin to fart like a little motorboat. This often relieves the pain and he’ll relax for a few minutes, until it starts all over again.

Things that seem to work for him (depending on the day) include babywearing (Doc wraps him against his chest and that usually calms him down and makes him go to sleep), gentle bouncing, shushing, singing. Taking him outside does seem to help him quite a bit, although it’s hard right now since it’s winter. We’ve been taking advantage of every warm-ish day and beam of sunlight that we can.

Also, we have been using gDiapers most of the time, now that Jamie is big enough to fit into them snugly. They’re more expensive than disposable diapers, and require more maintenance since you have to wash the liners and the cloth pants. They require a little more time when changing him, since you either have to load up a new flushable insert into the liner or change the outer pants and/or liner completely, and if you don’t have one pre-prepared, it can take more time than you’d want it to with a baby on the verge of getting annoyed with being changed. Jamie looks really cute in the little pants; they’re trim enough to not be any bulkier than a regular diaper underneath his clothing. We like the fact that the inserts are either flushable or compostable, or will biodegrade in a landfill within two to five months. We have had some leak-through issues, though probably not any more than we would with regular disposable diapers. Overall, I’d say that gDiapers are a win. I imagine we will keep using them, although we’ll always have a stash of disposables on hand as backup.

Doc sings the “nom nom” song when it’s time for Jamie to eat. “Nom nom nom, lookin’ for Mom!” Super cute.

Where's my mom?

It is sometimes tiring being the only one who’s able to provide our son with nourishment, but we both feel it’s very important to breastfeed for as long as possible before introducing a bottle. Just to make sure it’s well established… and it’s definitely getting there. It won’t be long before I start pumping and storing breastmilk so that Doc can do a feeding now and again, and then during the days when I go back to work next spring.

The past several days have all kind of started to run together in my head. I can no longer remember how many times I got up in the night to feed Jamie, what times those were, how long it took him to get back to sleep, etc. What time did I wake up in the morning? Did I nap during the day? What did I do all day? No idea sometimes.

We’re beginning to develop patterns. Doc is often awake before me in the mornings, and makes me breakfast when I get up. Tea, bacon or sausage, fruit, and a bagel. I nurse Jamie (nom nom!), hope he goes to sleep, then eat. 

I’m still not quite sure what to do with him when he’s not nursing or sleeping. When he’s crying, it’s time to troubleshoot and figure out what he might need (hungry? diaper change? burp? cold?). When he’s awake and not crying, I guess this is the time when I’m supposed to play with him. But he doesn’t really play yet. He’s not at an age yet where he can be very interactive. So sometimes we just look at each other for a while. I’m sure I’ll start to feel more comfortable with him as he gets older. I already am, in fact.

Last night Doc brought Jamie to me at 1:30 for a feeding, and after he was done, Mom took him for most of the rest of the night. I was able to get a decent amount of sleep inbetween feedings. And this morning, he (and I) slept from about 5 a.m. to 8:30. Three and a half hours in a row! I don’t think he was asleep that entire time, but I was. Mom’s still up now. I’m sure she’s exhausted but we can’t get her to go back to bed.

Doc’s getting maybe 4 hours of sleep every night, which is apparently all he needs. This is really truly actually about the amount he requires; it’s just the way he’s built. But still, I can’t help feeling like the lazy ass in this family. I know, rationally, that we’re both working equally hard now, with breastfeeding (me) and diapering (mostly Doc) and soothing (both of us, I guess, but more Doc from my perspective), but I feel guilty being away from Jamie when he’s awake and I’m off sleeping. Like I should be sharing in the hard work of soothing his crying, instead of abandoning my responsibility to my husband and son.

I guess I still have some inner drive to be Supermom. I know that I can’t though, and it’s not fair to me or Jamie or Doc to try. So the guilt is there, but I go upstairs and take a nap anyway. I know I’ll eventually achieve some sort of balance; it will just take time and practice to get there.

When we took Jamie to the ear nose and throat doctor a week and a half ago (wow, has it really only been that long?), we had to fill out a bunch of paperwork. At the bottom of the page was a line for “signature of parent.” I thought, why does my mom have to sign this form?… Ohhhhhhh…. Wait, that means ME. I am a parent now. It was an interesting feeling.

Thursday we went to the mall for a little while to do some quick Christmas shopping. It was a nice day outside and Doc and Jamieson stayed in a little outdoor courtyard area while I did a bit of shopping. We experienced our first “blowout” dirty diaper. All over me, all over Doc, all over Jamie’s legs and then of course he got his hands in it before I could stop him… all over his outfit, and all over the baby carrier. And in a public place, too. What fun! I think we were a bit overambitious and stayed out too long. Jamie’s normally very calm in the car but he cried the whole way home. I think he just got too tired. So did Doc and I, for that matter.

We watched a video last night about “The 5 S’s”… swaddling, side/stomach position, shushing, swinging, and sucking. This method of soothing actually does seem to have some merit; Jamie does calm down most of the time when we use the 5 S’s. We’ll see if it pans out in the long run.

Earlier this week I went to a very nice lunch and lecture at a local paper shop. The lady who runs the front desk cornered me on my way out of the building and began asking me questions about the baby, since I am obviously heavily pregnant right now. Questions are nothing new, I get them every single day at work from people I see in my building, so I have a nice little set of quick answers worked up to the common ones… when am I due, is it a boy or a girl, do I have a name picked out, is it my first child, am I excited or scared or both.

She asked me all those questions, which was fine. Then she showed me a photograph of her infant grandchildren and explained that they were born premature and spent several weeks in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). I expressed sympathy and asked if they were doing OK now.

That was a mistake; it opened the door for crazy story time.

She went on to explain that she herself had given birth to a premature infant in the 1960s, and back then there was no NICU, that SHE was the NICU for her baby, and that she knew a lot better how to care for babies than any doctor did today. Then she told me that doctors will tell you that babies don’t need water, that all they need is breastmilk, and isn’t that crazy? She gave her own baby corn syrup mixed with water and THAT was what gave him the energy he needed to grow up strong. It felt like she was insisting that I agree that feeding a baby high fructose corn syrup is the best thing for nutrition and energy. I was like… wow, that must have been a really difficult experience for you! Gotta go now!

I know this is only the beginning of the weird advice to come. I have mentioned before and I’ll say it again: My goal is to try to be nice to strangers who offer advice, thank them for it while quickly backing out of the conversation, and not let it upset me.