American McGee’s Alice and the much later sequel which is my favourite game of all time - Alice: Madness Returns.
The aesthetic, the puzzles, the sound design, the voice acting, the political statements underlying the narrative, Alice’s outfits, the collectibles hidden in obscure places, the different art styles for each world level. I just love it! I mean sure, the combat mechanics are not as complex as some games but they fit nicely into Alice in Wonderland lore and if you up the difficulty settings it can be more challenging.
I’m also really enjoying Inscryption at the moment. A puzzle/card game interweaved with an escape the room horror story.
I can’t argue with that 😂
That’s part of the reason I started this community, not just for mothers but to help educate everyone and talk about it frankly. :)
Every week my same food shop is going up and up. All while companies gloat about record profits. Surely the average citizen has got to crack at some point soon and revolt.
Eat the rich!
Thanks for your comment. Excellent point about weekends as indeed, there isn’t a day off.
It’s often more than 8 in the early stages, it’s 8-12 feeds a day. For my son he was a slow eater (or perhaps I’m a slow producer, or both!), needing 45+ min feeds 9-11 times a day. Going down the middle at 10 feeds a day and conservatively saying all feeds were 45 mins, that was a 52.5 hour “work week” for me in the first 4 months. Realistically, it was probably closer to 60. (This doesn’t factor in cluster feeding, see my other comment in the thread for more info on this).
Thankfully, they start getting more efficient and drinking quicker as they grow, and ofc once they start solid food they have other sources of nutrition. So that would indeed bring the average down to around a 38 hour working week over 2 years with one child.
I suffered with this too (my son just turned 2 and didn’t start mostly sleeping through the night until a couple of months ago) and sometimes it can creep back when my little one has a bout of sickness or teething and I know he’s going to be fussy in the night.
First of all, the other advice in this thread to ask for help from a doctor is absolutely valid, however there are things you can do yourself at home too and I personally found I felt completely different once I got some actual sleep!! Sleep deprivation is awful on your mind, body and soul, and it spirals and becomes a vicious cycle.
What really helps me is listening to guided meditations once I get into bed. Having an external voice to focus on instead of my internal voice worrying away is a game changer. An added bonus if you leave the playlist auto playing as you drift off, is that they’re so positive and motivating as they seep into your subconscious that I was waking up the next day full of renewed spirit. :)
This is the deep sleep one I start with and then I queue more from the same series:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/77AGce8ysjMZD0UYc0RD6B?si=WdOwdq74Qp2IFIlrA9hx0A
Secondly, even though it was the last thing I wanted to do when I was so knackered, I committed myself to exercising more. I started going for longer walks during the day and doing a short 10-20 min workout before going to bed (growwithjo on YouTube is fantastic for finding a workout for whatever time you have that night). After a while I upped the time or difficulty of the workouts. Getting into bed physically tired enough to need sleep would win more and more against my overactive brain.
I believe our babies pick up on our anxiety too. I was getting anxious which was making my son more unsettled which then in turn was making me worse, repeat ad nauseum. Getting just a few hours extra sleep over a couple of days made such a positive impact on my mental fortitude that it had an impact on my son too, and he started to sleep better and settle quicker. I noticed a positive cycle instead where a little bit of improvement snowballed into better nights for us both.
Another factor for me was realising that my son is neurodivergent and has extra support needs. This can often include difficulties with sleeping and self settling. Approaching night times with that in mind and trying specific advice for settling autistic infants helped a ton. Not sure if that is applicable for your situation but thought it was worth mentioning.
Take a deep breath. I know it seems endless and overwhelming right now, but this is not going to carry on forever. I promise. I was in your shoes a couple of months ago and now I feel more like my old self again. You’ve got this! If you ever need to talk or vent to someone who went through the same, please do message me.
Several sources support the math that a conservative estimate is 1800 hours in a year (all babies are different ofc). A 40-hour a week job with 3 weeks of vacation, is 1960 hours a year. It’s possible that the woman in this tweet could have fed multiple babies with the number she calculated.
The above number is literally just the time spent physically feeding your child. This doesn’t include the time to pump extra milk, maintain any equipment or pumps; washing and sterilising pumps and bottles, storing expressed milk safely, etc. However, some of this can be helped out by others.
Personally, I’ve found that I’ve spent countless hours on other areas too. Such as researching and purchasing pumps, nursing clothes, vitamins, creams, ointments, physical aftercare (breastfeeding HURTS until you’re “broken in”), breast pads, storage equipment, support devices etc. I’ve also researched, planned and prepared a diet for myself that promotes the best possible milk for my child. Not to mention the time spent “troubleshooting” when you are having problems; reading books, participating in forums, classes, parenting groups, travelling to and from to attend lactation consultations at your hospital, etc. Thankfully, some of this I’ve been able to multitask and achieve while being stuck under a feeding child. 😊
A major factor in such a surprisingly high number of hours per year is something called cluster feeding. Multiple times throughout your breastfeeding journey, typically before big growth spurts or developmental leaps in your child, they will have a period of intense, non-stop feeding. This is to get extra milk ready for their leap and also to signal to their mother that her milk supply needs to increase and/or change its contents (breast milk is different for different aged babies). Cluster feeding can last for several days. My personal experience with this was being trapped on the sofa feeding for hours and hours barely able to go to the bathroom or get myself enough food and drink, I definitely spent more time feeding in a few days of a cluster than I typically did for a couple of weeks combined.
Welp, this ended up a whole damn essay. I hope it helped to demonstrate the time and energy many mums put into breastfeeding.
TLDR; There’s a reason rich ladies of yonder past hired wet nurses to feed their kids - it’s hard work. :)
Thanks for starting this sub. I’ve created a breastfeeding community too over on lemmy.world :)
Thank you! I honestly miss the newborn stage so much, they’re hungry all the time and happy to snuggle into you. I played so much MTG, Valheim and classic WoW cuddling my son. These days, I can’t remember the last time I had a decent gaming sesh. 😂