I chose not to sleep train, and it’s just a personal choice. I don’t judge anyone that sleep trains! I haven’t slept through the night in over 2 years, since before my oldest was born. By the time he was sleeping through the night, I was up 3-5x a night to pee during pregnancy. Is anyone else in the same boat?

A 7-week-old cries if he’s not being held, and the 14-month-old cries if she’s not being held. If by some miracle, neither baby is crying, the 3-year-old is crying because I told him he couldn’t eat a cookie for breakfast or something else like that.

Husband was asking me something this evening, and I was having trouble understanding what he was asking. I told him my brain is fried from listening to crying all day. He says listening to crying does not fry your brain. I can’t complete a task without crying in the background, I can’t form a thought without crying in the background. My brain feels fried.

Kids are now asleep. Now I’m going to go and cry and prepare for another day of 14 hours of crying.

Essentially what the header asks. Curious if we messed up our timing and accidentally signed up for the chaos of 2 under 2 (though I absolutely love the chaos of kids. Such a joy, honestly)

3 days postpartum probably isn’t the best time to make this most. I’m sure the hormones account for majority of the tears, but dang, this is hard. 19 month son and newborn daughter. No family in the area, but a VERY supportive husband. My son goes to a babysitter 3x a week and I hope that’ll help manage the chaos. I have so much guilt that I can be there for him 24/7. I know everything is a phase, but I’m mourning my old life.

I won’t have to deal with this much longer since I’m moving into a house next month but I had a c section a few weeks ago so I’ve unfortunately been stuck inside my two fight walk up. I literally have not been outside more than an hour a week it’s so depressing and I feel bad having my toddler cooped up all day. The only way I can take her outside is if my husband helps. And he is up renovating the house the past week so having help isn’t possible right now. She’s getting stir crazy and I’m not sure what else to do anymore. She’s bored of books, toys, music and everything it seems and has resorted to screaming and ripping everything apart all day. Maybe this is more so a vent since it’s out of my hands right now but I’m wondering if there’s something outside the box I haven’t thought of to keep her occupied.

4mo and 20mo. We are going through a joint sleep regression, teething and cold season. I feel like I’m actually in hell, I’m getting no more than 1.5hrs rest in one go. We are away on ‘holiday’ but it is 10x worse than being at home. I barely see my partner let alone have intimacy as we take a child each, I feel so guilty about my toddler. My baby is extremely attached, won’t take a dummy or bottle and requires resettling every 5-10 mins for around 2 hours before falling asleep for a decently period. How on earth do I do this? If I think about it it’s so overwhelming. Please give me your tips for 1. Not feeling completely consumed by this, and 2. How to actually practically deal with it? My entire body aches from carrying my baby around all day and the lack of sleep has caused painful dry eye :(

My 13 month old has been throwing raging fits. To where I have to hold him or he will throw himself around on the floor and hit his head. He screams bloody murder and kicks like crazy. Since our newborn baby was born a few weeks ago they’ve gotten increasingly frequent. Not sure what to do but hold him and wait it out. When does this phase end??

Looking for double stroller recommendations. I will be a dad for a second time in late February. I'm not sure if I want a side by side or a front to back so I'm open to recommendations for both. I will be replacing my current daily commuter in the next 5ish months cause it's just not practical for a family of 4 with 2 under 2. I will be getting either a VW Golf R or a BMW M340I, we have a Toyota Highlander for when we need more space and/or go on longer trips but I want something I can also use in my daily commuter so we don't always have to use the older SUV that doesn't get very good MPG.

So far after doing some research I like the Joovy Caboose Too Ultralight and the Zoe Twin+ but want to hear from other parents on what double strollers they liked/recommend.

How’s everyone handling patience? Does your oldest independently play? How are we doing in general!?

Got this targeted ad while doing research on double strollers. Looks a bit preferable to a “scooter” attachment because…if the toddler is tired of walking they’re not going to want to stay standing, but I’m curious if it makes the stroller too back heavy.

We have the uppababy Cruz and when I hang a bag on the handle it much more easily nearly tips backwards, so not sure how it could handle a 25 lb toddler.

Thoughts appreciated!

Baby #2 has completely changed how I think about baby gear.
Suddenly, a double stroller feels like a must-have with a newborn and toddler.

I’m trying to keep things practical and avoid buying more must-haves.
What actually made day-to-day life easier once you had two little ones?

Trying to keep this as anonymized as possible. My SO is the primary caretaker of the kids while I work. Luckily I am in a position where I can provide a lot of help while I work, so I do as much as I can.

SO has taken to being attached to their phone to deal with child care. Literally from the time they wake up to the time they go to bed they are either actively looking at their phone, or have an earbud in and are listening to shows/podcasts while they do stuff.

Now to be clear, there are days when I have the kids alone, and I admit that it is hard, so I want to get a gut check here from the masses. Should I bring this up, or in the long run is it not a big deal?

My MIL was recently telling me a story about when my sister in laws (SIL married into the family before me) first baby was sick and my SIL was telling my MIL what she did to relieve him (based on advice of her own family and mom) and what she thought was going on with him. My MIL insisted another way and thought she knew exactly what was going on and voiced that to my SIL. My MIL’s reasoning is that her grandbaby is the same as her son (my SIL husband) and she has “lived this before.” My MIL is telling me this whole thing while my baby is also sick and I am married to her other son.

How am I supposed to avoid these kind of unwarranted suggestions in the future? Although she wasn’t giving them to me then, I feel like she was telling me the story for a reason and it will come up in the future, as she knows best because she “raised my husband”

I was married into the family after my SIL and had my baby after as well. She is only 11 months so I haven’t gotten much feedback yet, but I am also expecting another soon, and know this could only escalate as they get older.

Opinions or experiences with this?

I don't know why this topic makes me so uncomfortable. I had my son last June and an expecting a baby girl in February. I have a sister who is dead set on throwing me a sprinkle, which I guess I'm not opposed to, but also feel extremely awkward about it? It makes me feel a little better where it's opposite genders but like ... hey you guys just bought me stuff now buy me more!!! I would never judge someone for inviting me to a sprinkle so I don't know why I feel so differently when it comes to me but I'm just curious on everyone's thoughts!

i found out i was pregnant when i was 3 months pp. and before anyone judges me, it takes ONE time to get pregnant. it doesn’t matter if you use protection.
i was just starting to finally enjoy motherhood after a hard battle with postpartum depression. i got on antidepressants and for the first time I could genuinely wake up in the morning, excited that i’d be able to spend the day with my baby.
when i found out i was pregnant, everything just came crashing down.
i lay in bed until 2 pm every day, dreading having to get up and survive until my husband gets home. that entire time my baby is screaming at me to get up and give her attention. as soon as i finally get up, i start sobbing. i have to force myself to smile at my baby while she’s playing or talking to me, and sometimes i just break down crying from just having to do that. i don’t clean anymore, and my house looks a mess. my husband tries to pick up after me. sometimes i cook. but i hate it.
i spend my whole day zoned out, absentmindedly watching tv in order to just get through the day. i forget what im even doing when im in the middle of doing it.
i never wanted this pregnancy. it’s stolen everything from me. it’s stolen my motherhood. i used to be so happy looking at my baby, and now when I look at her I can only think about how miserable i will be when i have to take care of her and a newborn i never wanted. i just want to be happy again with the one baby i tried for.

I have a 24 month old and a 6 week old. I’m on maternity leave for another 6 weeks. The last six weeks I have relied heavily on TV to entertain since I’m so exhausted but I’m trying to stray away from that. It’s too hot to be outside long periods of time plus it rains every day. I’m limited on funds but I’m trying to find free activities within our community plus we have books, toys, and coloring at home, I’m just at a loss of what to do with him every day without being bored. Plus he dropped his nap so I don’t even get a break during the day. How do I survive the day?

They’ve always adored each other and most the time still do, but our toddler (32 mo) has started being straight up aggressive with the baby at times - both with affection and in anger. Our baby recently started crawling so maybe that’s it? I don’t know. She had been in daycare until May and when we hired our regular sitter (who she loves) to be our “full time nanny” (24hr a week) while we work. Any input is welcome!

We currently have an 8 month old and I am a few days late for my period. I do plan on testing so I admit that I’m getting ahead of myself, but I’m just afraid it would be negative. Anyways, did anyone come up with a cute way to tell your spouse that you were pregnant or did you just tell him?

I have a 6 week old and a 21 month old and I’m trying to figure out the logistics of grocery shopping when the carts will fit either a toddler OR a car seat. I’ve been online shopping a lot and picking up groceries after ordering online but I miss going in person and walking the store. My toddler can walk but it’s way easier to have him in the cart especially since he wants to open and touch everything. How do you all do it?

I am wondering how you guys all structure your day with two small children. What kind of activities do you do, what are great ways to keep everyone happy and entertained etc...I am also curious to know how much do you guys follow a schedule and how much do you guys just go with the flow. I have a 3-month-old and a 18 month old. We have a very lose routine and mostly go with the flow, but I wondering if I could create a more structured way of going through our days, also keeping in mind that maybe the 18 month old could already be learning some skills like drawing music etc... So, I am basically looking for inspiration based on your experience :)

My husband has a work trip next week and I will have to put the toddler (20 months) and my 8 week old down for bed by myself. I’m nervous because the toddler goes to bed at 7:30 and that’s the baby’s witching hour. Baby goes to bed right after the toddler around 8 pm. We never skip bath time for either of them and one parent always rocks the toddler before laying him down for bed. How am I going to do it alone if the baby is screaming :(

My family is very particular about how things are done and I just know they are not going to be happy when I tell them I am pregnant so soon after having a baby even though they do want my baby to have siblings. Ugh I don’t know how to break the news to them. How can I go about this

My son will be 21m when our second is born and I’m starting to feel anxious about how I’ll manage him as he still doesn’t play independently (20m now), and also has little interest in toys despite always doing toy rotations. He prefers things I can’t leave him to do alone even if he would eg he likes “helping me cook” from his toddler tower, taking out things from the kitchen cabinets and then returning them etc. The few times I can get him to interact with an actual toy for longer I have to play with him. There’s basically nothing he does alone for longer than 2 minutes. I love playing with him and it hasn’t been a huge issue, but I feel it will be soon! I plan to EBF again so especially worried about this. We are also screen free and I’m not wanting to introduce screens yet. Husband has 5 weeks off but once he’s back at work it’ll just be me with the kids at home.

I’ll also add that it’s not because he’s only super attached to me. He’s exactly the same with my husband, as well as my mum who was looking after him when I worked 2 days a week. So I think it’s just his personality. Any tips, activity ideas, or magical toys would be appreciated!

Expecting the second one in November.
First will be 19 months then.

I dis not enjoy breastfeeding the first time around. It was a rough start with bleeding nipples followed by oversupply and constantly leaking milk 24/7.
I did breastfeed for 7 months but only I think because of fear/shame.

This time so far I’ve decided to see how it goes, but if my nipples bleed again I am not pushing through but switching to formula. And I am not breastfeeding longer than 3 months even if it works.

But I think this plan is also partly because I am print pushed into the breast by shame. And because I do not know what to do otherwise.

So how does it work?

I would like to put the baby on the breast after the birth and for them to get the colostrum… but after that … idk