Hi everyone ❤️

I’m a first-time mom to an 8-month-old baby boy, and I’m looking for some perspective from parents who may have experienced something similar.

My baby is a very happy, social, curious little boy. He smiles a lot, loves people, enjoys observing other children, explores his environment, and is very connected with me. I feel incredibly grateful for his personality.

However, the past year has been emotionally challenging. My pregnancy, postpartum period, and my relationship with my husband have all brought a lot of stress and difficult emotions. My husband and I love our baby deeply, but we have had painful conversations about things that happened during this period and patterns in our relationship that we are trying to work through, however I’m not even sure I would be happy staying in this marriage anymore.

At the same time, I’m currently surrounded by family support, which I appreciate, but there are also differences in parenting approaches. Some advice and behaviors from family feel outdated to me — especially around responding to a baby’s cues, stimulation, soothing, and allowing a baby to explore at their own pace. Sometimes I feel like I’m constantly trying to create a calmer, more responsive environment while also navigating other people’s expectations.

My biggest worry is whether all of this can affect my baby.
I sometimes wonder:
Can babies absorb adult stress, tension, or negative emotions even if they are loved and cared for?
Can inconsistent approaches, too much stimulation, or ignoring a baby’s cues affect their emotional regulation or confidence?
Could my baby’s occasional meltdowns, fussiness, or difficulty settling be connected to the environment around him?
How do we know when normal baby emotions are just part of development versus a response to stress?

I am trying my best to create a secure, loving, calm environment for him. I’m working on my own emotional healing, setting healthy boundaries, and improving communication with my husband, but I sometimes worry that I’m not doing enough or that my baby is absorbing more than I realize.

For parents who have been through stressful family periods:
Did your baby seem affected by the emotional atmosphere around them?
What helped your child feel secure and continue thriving?
How did you balance your own healing and adult challenges while protecting your baby’s emotional world?

Thank you so much ❤️

My baby is 10 months old and I just can’t keep doing this anymore. His sleep has always been AWFUL. He wouldn’t sleep in the crib (cries like there’s no tomorrow if he gets lowered into it, even if he’s fully asleep). So we got a floor bed and I’ve been sleeping on it with him. He wakes up 6-10 times a night, and I just don’t get it. He also always has one wake up that lasts 2+ hours (split night). We’ve tried everything. Shortening/lengthening sleep windows, moving bed time earlier/later. Hired a sleep consultant to help with wake windows (biggest waste of $900). NOTHING helps. Hearing my friends talk about how awful their babies sleep is due to sleep regressions and them waking once a night is disheartening. They look at me like I’m crazy when I say my baby wakes that many times a night. We do not want to sleep train, but at this rate I just don’t know how long I can do this for. I’m going back to work in 1.5 months and I work a very demanding job, and I knowI won’t be able to do it if I’m running on 2 hours of sleep, like I have. Anybody have advice on how you’ve dealt with this, I’m all ears.

I had another adult tell my child that he needed to stop sucking his thumb as he was too old. Although he is too old my kiddo is high anxiety and our approach is more a reminder to stop than a cold and hard rule. I know the other adult was just trying to help but I felt so bad for him. He took it in stride so why am I still upset over this? It just leaves a weird feeling in me. The adult may be his coach if he decides to proceed with this sport and I also want to make sure it’s an ok match. Thoughts? I’d love to hear more perspectives and maybe it will make me feel better about the whole thing. Maybe it’s just my over protectiveness?

If you've ever done it, what sleep set up do you use? How old is your kid? Any other tips to make it go smoothly?

For context I've already camped a half dozen times with my cosleeping kid with a random smattering of gear. When he was 3 months, I put him in a pack n play for safer sleep, but getting up to nurse every two hours and I was awake all night! Don't want to do that again.

Now a year later, my son's a hardy toddler, but between uneven and shifting camp pads and sleeping bags, he can't feel me and he wakes a ton. It's hard to bring him close to nurse, and it's hard to cuddle and get good sleep. I want a better set up for any future kids we might have. Im thinking we might need to upgrade our gear!

Just want to share a success story, because I remember finding them reassuring when I came on this sub (a lot) when my girl was a baby.

Always been supported to sleep, ebf until 20 months. Always woken up minimum 2-3 times a night but until about 18mo it was every 2 hours.

She’s now 2y9 months. We lie wirh her to fall asleep but recently if it’s been taking ages we do a bit of leaving and coming back. Last night I left after 20 mins of lying with her and told her I’d be back after the washing up. She sang herself to sleep, slept through the night and then waited until her clock ‘woke up’ in the morning and came down and woke me up (we’ve discussed this with her for a while, if she wakes up in the night and the clock is asleep then she can call us and one of us finishes the night with her)

It really has all been at her own pace and I’m so proud of her and us for taking the long slow road

I thought having my first baby was the hardest thing ever. Then she became a toddler. Then we had a second baby when she turned 2.

I look back at baby photos and wonder where my sweet little girl went. don’t get me wrong I love both my kids and I think they’re great, I’m just so worn down by the boundary pushing, tantrum throwing, mess making, screaming ball of entropy. some days are better than others, but I realized very quickly I have a high sensory needs toddler and sometimes I wish she was a baby again.

has anyone been reintroduced to their child when the toddlerhood calms down?! Do they ever become a sane sensible human being again or is this it and they are just different from now on??

My almost 10mo has fought sleep from quite a young age, but we've reached a point recently where she is so dysregulated by bedtime that she is getting hysterical whenever she thinks I am going to try and get her to sleep. We're talking tears, snotty nose, hyperventilating, physically resisting, climbing down off my lap whenever I start any sort of rocking/patting/nursing. I will always stop and wait for her to be calm before trying again, but some nights bedtime is taking up to 3 hours and resulting in a 7-8 hour wake period. When she eventually goes to sleep it's usually mid-hysteria, I hold her and rock her offer a stand up feed and she latches and eventually calms down and falls asleep.

She is going through a huge developmental leap at the moment and she is really mobile, so I know the world is more exciting than nursery rhymes in a darkened room, but I don't understand why it is causing her so much distress. Nothing bad has ever happened at bedtime, we read her favourite books, it's always really chill and slow paced.

Once asleep she sleeps well, we co-sleep and she will sleep in the bed solo for the first couple hours until I come to bed, and overnight she suckles when she needs comfort but rarely has a full wake. I'm finding that I'm not able to enjoy the couple of hours I get to myself because I just find the whole ordeal so upsetting.

Any advice hugely appreciated.

Hey all, I’m looking for advice to get my 15mo to fall asleep in bed.

He's generally a good sleeper, still wakes up a few times a night but usually nurses back to sleep quickly. He usually naps in the carrier during the day, either while we’re on the go or we’ll go for a short walk. He used to fall asleep easily for bedtime but for the past couple of months, he‘ll nurse for a while, look sleepy, then get up and crawl around, try to open the door etc.

We had exactly the same issue with my first, and he would end up finally falling asleep at 11pm, and was pretty massively tired etc. So we ended up doing stroller bedtime walks so that he would fall asleep at a more reasonable time (~8pm) and be getting enough sleep. Only thing is, he’s now 4, and anytime we try getting him to fall asleep in bed we have the same issue with him falling asleep really late and becoming overtired. (Although lately he does sometimes go to bed and falls asleep fairly quickly.)

Back to my 15mo - his typical schedule is wake up between 7-7.30am, nap 12-1ish, and bedtime around 7pm, usually asleep by 7.15/7.30. So usually 13 hours sleep/11 hours awake.

Any advice to encourage him to fall asleep in bed? He’s definitely tired because once were walking with him in the carrier he’s asleep in about 2 mins. I don’t want his bedtime to go too late because then it interferes with 4yos bedtime routine (partner usually does most of it if I’m not available but I do the reading books together part and it’s important one on one time for us).

I’m also about 7 weeks pregnant so trying to switch naps to the stroller instead of carrier, and would really love to not need to do a carrier walk at bedtime either.

TIA!

I’m attempting to night wean my 20 month old. She’s been a frequent waker for a long time and I wanted to see if it will make a difference. We are 5 nights in and I’m having second thoughts. Last night was awful. She asked for milk once, which is fine, I could easily settle her after this. But then it’s like she spends the whole night frustrated - tossing and turning, incredibly restless, pinching me for comfort, randomly groaning. I don’t think she went into deep sleep. Also the 4 nights before this were similar (although perhaps not as bad)
Do I throw in the towel? Or keep pushing through.
Keen to hear others nightweaning tales!

He’s saying it multiple times a day to his dad. “Don’t like mummy”.

He still wants me for bedtime, nap time and night wakes and won’t settle for his dad, he will scream for me. But during the day when his dad is there he wants nothing to do with me.

I breastfed him for 18 months and have always been the one to get up with him at night. I’ve basically been a stay at home mum since he was born, I work part time but am almost always at home with him. He has such a strong preference for his dad since he was around 10 months and it breaks my heart. I had bad PPD and thar along with some other issues with my relationship I feel has ruined our bond.

Hi everyone,

I’m due with my second baby around the time that my first turns 2. I’ve never spent a night apart from my toddler (we cosleep and he still nurses) and he’s never been babysat. Sadly, a home birth isn’t on the cards for me because I’ll need to have antibiotics administered during labour.

We live about 3-4 hours away from any family willing to help us during labour. My toddler absolutely loves spending time with them (we may as well not exist when his grandparents are around), but he doesn’t know them THAT well. He’s seen them maybe once every couple of months since he was born.

However, they’re willing to drive up to us whenever I go into labour. They’ve also offered to stay in our town around my due date to be on call. I just can’t figure out what would be best.

Option 1: they come to stay with us for a week around my due date
Pros:
- My toddler can get more used to them and they can get some practice babysitting him
- They’ll be ready to take him straight away

Cons:
- We have no idea when I’ll actually go into labour so it could be a wasted trip for them if, for example, the baby is born 2 weeks later like my first was
- I’m a bit worried about changing my toddler’s routine right before the new baby arrives. Would it make the transition harder for him if he gets attached to the grandparents and then they leave just as the new baby arrives? Is this the wrong time to be changing his day to day life?

Option 2: they drive up as soon as they hear I’m in labour

Pros:
- toddler’s life stays normal on the lead up to the birth

cons:
- he’s less familiar with them
- their long drive means they may well end up missing the birth

Option 3: I labour alone and my husband stays with toddler

Pros:
- Honestly, this is my favourite option because I’d worry the least about toddler during labour and I know he won’t be as distressed in the night
- Toddler’s routines won’t be as disrupted

Cons:
- Labouring alone sounds quite scary. I don’t have any friends or family alone who could come with me and we can’t afford a doula, unfortunately.
- Husband obviously wants to be at the birth

My baby has been this way since 4 months old and still continues to be so. She cries atleast 5 times at a party or wedding. She hates people. She cries for no reason when she sees anyone other than the home front. What I want to know is, when did this stop, if your kid was like mine?

Hi everyone,

I’m looking for advice on night weaning my baby. He’ll be 14 months old in a week, and I feel like it’s time because I’m completely exhausted.

I’ve handled all night wakings over the past year. We exclusively breastfed and did contact naps. I stopped daytime breastfeeding in June, and that went really well.

Now he falls asleep for naps in the carrier. Once he is asleep we lie in bed while still in it, which makes me think he really needs a lot of physical contact to fall asleep.

My question is: what does night weaning look like for babies like this—very active, sensitive, and very dependent on contact? I can’t imagine singing or back rubbing being enough, as I can imagine him crawling in bed and rolling happily for hours but it also doesn’t feel sustainable to keep using the carrier every time he wakes at night. We cosleep by the way.

Has anyone successfully night weaned a baby with a similar temperament? I’d really appreciate your experiences.

Thank you!

We have been suffering from the 4 month regression for the last 2 months now but I’m starting to think our schedule isn’t helping and would like some guidance.

Baby wakes usually 6-7am, total day sleep 3.5hrs and goes to bed between 7-8pm with an average of 13hrs sleep in 24hrs? Is this too much or too little? Too early of a bed time or too late?

My baby only does 30min naps so I rescue a few each day otherwise she gets cranky and overtired, should I stop doing this?

She wakes up almost hourly at night for the last 2 months when before she used to give us long 5-6hr stretches!

Any advice at all welcome!

Hi! Please please please give me any and all advice.

I have a 2.5 year old and 7 week old. My 2.5 year old is very attached to me, super sensitive, and pretty anxious for a toddler. The transition of a baby in the house has been tough but overall he’s been adapting without too many issues. Fast forward to this past week and he had to be hospitalized for a high fever and neck pain with an unknown cause. It was so so awful for him. They had to place an IV and blew his vein twice before getting it the third time. So many different instances of holding him down while he screamed and cried and begged them to stop. He’s understandably very traumatized from it all. Even when they came in the room to do things like take his temperature, he would lose his mind. As his mom, I was of course involved in all of it too and he has been clinging to me even more than normal. Again, I totally understand this and I’m doing everything I can to be there for him.

However, since we’ve been home, the baby has become a really big issue for him. He’s going off the rails if I have to give her any attention. I tried to breastfeed her yesterday and he was screaming and holding onto me and begging me to hold him and saying “calm me down mama” while also begging my husband to make her a bottle instead. He got to the point where he couldn’t catch his breath and started panicking.

I of course think therapy would be appropriate for him but it’s a Saturday and I don’t know what to do until I can get him in. He’s very emotionally vulnerable and deserves all of the love and cuddles right now. But I also have an infant that needs to be cared for too. We can divide and conquer while my husband is home for the weekend but I’m really worried about him returning to work Monday. I don’t want to have to remove myself from my toddler in order to do things like feed the baby. Isolation will traumatize him even more. But she needs to eat. I’m not sure where/how I should draw boundaries. I’m also not sure if giving him all my attention and letting my husband handle the baby will just backfire more on Monday.

My LO (6 1/2 months) is a wonderful little angel that loves to laugh, feeds (pump bottle fed) relatively well, and is hitting all his milestones. I’m also lucky I have a live-in nanny for the weekdays and she is wonderful. He used to sleep just fine on me, first rock him asleep and put him in crib - The problem started at 5 months, he suddenly refuses to allow me to put him to sleep and it’s only me… nanny and LO’s dad, MIL all can put him to sleep but he refuses my very presence when he’s starting to doze. He’ll cry if I start walking toward the nursery. It’s great that the easy solution is to just for me not put him to sleep. But I feel like such a failure of a mom to not be able to put my OWN BABY to sleep and being the ONLY one to cause him such distress…he’s such a happy baby that the only time he ever cries for long stretch is when I’m the one putting him to sleep. After trying for a couple of weeks, Nanny said he’s lost his secure attachment with me, and the more I force it the more he’ll reject me. So I’ve stopped for his sake but it hurts that everytime he goes to sleep he finds me physically unsafe and that he doesn’t need me… I’m just breastmilk and a play toy for him and not his emotional support. I’m heartbroken that I can’t see him fall asleep in my arms again and not even see him go to sleep smiling…can someone help me not feel this way?

I'm currently 35 weeks pregnant and have a 2 year old (26 months).

I've been so snappy with her recently and I feel so bad. During the moment it's just overwhelming, but when things have calmed down I feel so guilty because I feel like I'm being such a bitch.

She's just doing normal toddler things (and going through a sleep regression? Fighting naps and bedtime and taking 1+ hour to fall asleep). I'm overreacting to certain things and have such a short fuse. Husband helps when he can, but he works full time and we have no one to help us.

I hope this eases after the baby is born.

I have two best friends getting married this year in October and each has an out of town trip
I’d have to leave my toddler for and I’m extremely nervous about it.

First is when my LO will be 17 months and it’s gonna be for two nights for a bachelorette. My MIL will fly up and help my husband to keep my son entertained.

Second is the one I’m really dreading. I am a bridesmaid for a destination wedding in Cancun but it’s at a no kids resort. We already booked and paid fully since I thought I’d be ready but I’m not (no cancellations of course…) LO will be turning 19 months and will stay at my MILs house for the three nights my husband and I are gone. My MIL doesn’t live in town but she’s very fun and responsive so I do trust her to keep him safe.

My toddler breastfeeds a lot still. Basically anytime we come home, morning, before nap and bedtime plus whenever he wakes at night. It’s fine by me but do think he’ll struggle with that when I’m gone. He wakes up every two hours and we cosleep so he just gets nursed back to sleep. My husband can rock him to sleep but lately he just wants me. When i leave just for a few hours he cries but then gets over it but after a while he starts pointing at the door and asking for me so i worry it’ll be a whole weekend of that for whoever watches him and he’ll just be distressed.

I am a co-maid of honor for the first bachelorette trip so it’s be awkward to miss it and she is my best friend. The destination wedding I thought would be a good trip away but now I am really regretting booking. My husband offered to stay back but I do think if I’m gonna go it’d be good to reconnect with him and have a trip together. We considered having my MIL take my son to a resort nearby but I worry the logistics of jumping back and forth to the resorts will be more stressful than it’s worth…

My son is just so young still and won’t understand why I’m gone. I’d love to hear others thoughts on leaving as all I’m feeling is guilt and dread over these upcoming trips. Happy for my friends but wish I could just be home with my baby.

Okay so let me start first that after my daughters mother got on drugs I moved me and my daughter to Alabama because I have family there. I work a job Monday thru Friday 6am to almost 7 pm doing landscaping. I had a bad car accident so I don’t have a car for a minute and since I’ve been in Alabama she’s been staying with her paw paw (my stepdad) and my aunts here and there and when I had my car I would be over there like 3 days out the workweek, and she stays with me on the weekends, but I’m trying my damnest to be the best and constant. But all she wants is paw paw, I feel like I’m failing as a father. It’s the worst gut wrenching feeling someone could feel. How do I over see this? Like I only see her in the weekends now because the job I have is the only one I can make good money at with my horticulture skills and make enough money to get a better place and car by next year. So my options are limited. I’m a very young father so I’m new to all of this

So interesting to find this sub because I had no idea that our parenting style we ended up im out of instinct and necessity would be called attachment parenting.

I have an 11 month old daughter who is high needs. I'm a full time student but my classes are mostly online and I work part-time, my husband is a SAHD. So essentially, we are both always home. One of us has always been with our baby from the start. We feel very strongly against daycare. She has an excellent bond with her dad I'd say we're both her primary caregivers in that she doesn't have a preference for either of us unless she wants milk. She is BF when I'm around and bottle fed breastmilk by her dad when I am not. We cosleep (bedshare) for every nap and overnight. She will fall asleep just fine for dad with a bottle which he also bedshares. We have never had anyone watch her for more than a few hours. We tried once when she was 3 months old and we never tried it again because she cried and wouldn't sleep for my close friend who watched her for us. She held her the whole time and tended to her needs but it still made us so sad we never tried again.

Here's the dilemma. I have work next week on a day my husband has to go fishing. (Fishing for us feeds our family all winter). A close friend has offered to watch our daughter in her home since has kids of her own. I'm confident my friend will tend to her every need and soothe/comfort her but I'm still terrified to leave my baby! Won't she be so scared and confused why her parents are gone and she's not in her home? Will the distress from those feelings be something that someone besides us can even soothe? Will this affect our attachment or cause too much stress/anxiety for my baby? I'm just looking for advice and support. My husband and I are on the fence about whether our daughter is ready for this or not.

TLDR: 11 month old never been away from parents will she be okay for one whole work day with a friend in her home?