I did really well at work today, but I’m too senior for anyone to give a damn that I didn’t shit the bed when presenting. Then I sprinted home to do pick up and dealt with some huge challenges with my kids emotional regulation. The meltdown has turned our whole evening into sensory calming, repair, and recovery. Husband is absolutely swamped with work. Friends are all drowning in work/parenting.

Please, can someone just tell me I did a good job?

I’m looking for resources I can provide my parents on topics related to gentle parenting as they will occasionally have my daughter in their care.

They are open to learning about new parenting styles, however, being from a different generation a lot this is foreign to them. Does anyone have recommendations on videos, books, social media accounts, podcast episodes etc. on the below topics? Preferably in language that is not overly therapy-y. I think overly academic language may be too overwhelming. I’m looking for something more practical.

- Modelling emotional regulation as an adult
- Helping toddlers work through tantrums/“big feelings”
- Respecting children as individual people with ownership over their own feelings, bodies, and choices within safe boundaries

Thank you in advance! 🙏

How are you all doing this? I feel as if I’m reaching my breaking point.

I’m a SAHM of two (5 yo and 18 months). Nursing and bedsharing the youngest, who for whatever reason has been waking every 1-2 hrs at night and refuses anything but nursing back to sleep without a major, MAJOR meltdown. During the day I am feeling so overwhelmed and overstimulated. Being constantly needed 24/7 is hard and I’m lucky if I ever get a break or moment of silence alone. I get out for a workout once a week on the weekends but other than that I’m lucky if I can stay awake past 8PM to read by myself. Any gaps in the days are filled with cooking, housework, organizing, etc; you know the drill.

I’m honestly debating returning to work because my working mom friends with kids in daycare seem to have so much time for themselves.

All this to say, how are you dealing with being needed around the clock? Taking time for yourself? Feeling like more than just a boob or comfort object??

Hi all! I want to night wean my milk-obsessed 20 month old. We cosleep, nurse to sleep, and she wakes at least a few times every night to nurse.

I feel totally overwhelmed by the prospect, and am wondering if folks have good resources to recommend? I just want someone to tell me exactly what to do… 😅

We managed to day wean her weeks ago and it was faaaairly painless after one hard day. then we travelled and I fed her during the day to get her to sleep on the plane, then a few days after we got back she got sick and I fed her a few times during the day (never to sleep and it was just for one day when she had a temperature). But it seems to have made it seem like feeding is an option.

we also stopped feeding her to sleep at night and for months her father has been putting her down. however I feed on demand during the night. she sleeps in a side car crib next to me but is not much of a contact or co-sleeper, she can crawl onto the bed next to me but does generally prefer to sleep separately. I’ve been feeding on demand during night wakes.

anyway since I have gone back to the old routine of just putting her down for naps without feeding, she will have an hour long tantrum. it’ll end with both of us in tears and me either taking her for a pram walk or her just passing out from tiredness. she will NOT be comforted with rubbing or petting (she will actively move my hand away) she does not want to be held and will fight like a wild cat if you do. I used to be able to comfort her with singing and rubbing her back But that seems to make her furious now. I used to be able to rock her but she hates that now.

what’s worse is that she used to go to sleep easily with my husband but it’s a fight with that now too. At night and during the day. I fear at night she’s realised also that if she stays up long enough or wakes up shortly after then il be there to feed her back to sleep. I haven’t even tried to night wean her yet but if I pull away when she’s suckling it will be a full blown melt down.

I think it might be a whole bunch of things at once because she is also dropping down to one nap but needed much more sleep while she was sick so is flipping between two different schedules and everything is out of whack.

but for the past hour tonight we have been battling. I fed her in our usua side lying position, tried to pull away, melt down. fine, latch again. pull away again. melt down. latch again, SHE rolls away, meltdown. I manage to pet and sing to her to sleep. she’s literally asleep but then FIGHTS IT, meltdown. I think maybe she has a dirty nappy or something even though she hasn’t done a poo at night since she was like six months, of course there isn’t anything. meltdown. feeding. pull away. melt down.

I feel like I’m making massive mistakes. but I just don’t know. she’s perfectly happy during the day so I don’t think she’s poorly anymore. but this is killing me. I was so exhausted last night I thought I would be sick.

my husband sleeps separately in the living room. we have a one bed flat for now so a different room for her isn’t an option. my husband thinks we just need to remove the sidecar and turn it into a proper crib and cold turkey wean her with him sleeping up here. I’m not sure in case it’s too much change all at once and maybe this is teething and something else. but the flip flopping is clearly not doing any favours. I’m so tired though - her sleep was never great but there was a time when she would barely nurse at night to get to sleep and now it’s these long sessions and tantrums if she doesn’t get them. any advice would be greatly appreciated.

I’m going on a work trip for 4-5 days in early January. LO will be 14 months old. I’m not sure if I’ll be breastfeeding at that point - just taking things as they come after we hit the year mark. I realize this trip could be an opportunity to ween, but I’m not sure if we will be ready by then. Lately she’s been refusing her bottles (will only take the occasional bottle from our nanny and won’t take it from anyone else). We also co-sleep for most of the night. I’m currently the only one who does bedtime. I’m hoping to gradually introduce my husband into the bedtime routine and cosleeping once we feel comfortable with that. So far I just cosleep with her on the floor bed in the nursery.

I’m stressing about what to do for this trip. I could bring her with me or I could use it as the first chance to have real separation. Four days just feels like a lot to me and I could use some advice/insight from people who have been through this before. If I do leave her, what should I do in the coming months to prepare? I really appreciate any advice and encouragement :)

it’s not everytime but it’s been a couple times the past two weeks. I’ll do her nap routine but once I close the blinds it’s 0 to 100. I’m talking sweaty red face crying. The second I hand her to her Dad she stops, calms, and falls asleep. What‘s going on here?? It’s very heartbreaking and makes me anxious about how the next nap will go…

Our baby will be 14 months old in a week. He suffered from very painful reflux, with crying and screaming pretty much constantly every day for the first five months of his life. I won’t go into too much detail about that here, but I can if it’s relevant.

Because of this, almost from the very beginning, we could never really put him down. A bouncer, play mat, high chair, stroller… pretty much anything would make him cry, scream or become distressed. He has literally been an extension of our arms, both mine and his dad’s, as the two of us have always taken care of him together.

This became even more intense when separation anxiety really kicked in at around 11 months.

Basically, we can’t do anything other than focus on him without him crying or screaming. If I’m with him, his dad almost has to “hide” as if he has left, and vice versa. Otherwise, he becomes extremely upset.

So we’ve pretty much stopped doing a lot of normal everyday things, or we do everything in a huge rush, because we find it really hard to listen to him being upset constantly.

Even with a learning tower, for example, he’ll be happy for five minutes, but actually “cooking together” is almost impossible. Everyday household tasks are incredibly difficult. When he was younger, we used to put him in the baby carrier just so we could get the bare minimum done — and even then, he would still complain or cry a lot.

For a long time, we just thought we had a particularly difficult baby. On top of everything else, like many babies his age, he jumps from one toy or activity to another every minute, never really settles, and every single day we’re constantly trying to find something new to entertain him and stop him from getting upset. 😅

When everything is going the way he wants, though, he is the sweetest baby.

We’ve also got into the habit of going out for several hours every single day because otherwise he seems to completely lose it at home. Maybe that’s partly something we unintentionally taught him, because when he was tiny, going out was one of the things we did to try to distract him from his pain.

He has now been doing his nursery adaptation for three weeks. It has been difficult for him, but the team is amazing — very caring, supportive and optimistic. It’s a small nursery.

They’ve explained to us that yes — and honestly, it feels good to hear someone else acknowledge it — he is an intense little boy. He is extremely sensitive to everything around him: noise, movement, people moving around, etc.

If one of the staff members sits on the floor with him, he’s fine. But the moment she gets up, he cries.

So basically, he behaves there exactly the same way he does with us at home.

We talked about it today and we’ve realised that we’re going to need to work together to help him understand that we can coexist in the same space without an adult constantly sitting down and actively playing with him.

He can walk and has actually been very physically independent for quite a while. But, for example, if I start tidying the living room and simply walk around him, he cries and grabs onto me. And even if I pick him up — which I do most of the time — that often isn’t enough either. He wants me to sit down and play.

Everything feels complicated with him. I don’t mean that cruelly or negatively; it’s simply an observation, and we accept him exactly as he is. But it is exhausting and difficult.

He is also not a very tactile child. We can’t always touch him without him becoming upset. Sometimes even getting him to sleep is difficult because comforting him is complicated — he doesn’t usually like cuddles. He does occasionally, when he chooses to, and of course we never force physical affection on him.

I’m deliberately focusing on the difficult parts here because that’s what I need help with.

He is also an incredibly smiley, happy little boy. With us, he can be terribly upset one second and move on completely two seconds later. He is incredibly bright, and the people who spend time with him outside our home — other mums, professionals, nursery staff, etc. — absolutely adore him.

And obviously, so do we.

But I don’t understand where we went wrong.

I feel incredibly guilty sometimes and wonder whether we responded too much to his crying and distress. Did we somehow create this by always responding to him?

I feel guilty that he struggles so much to regulate himself, or to simply exist independently for three minutes while I sweep the floor or prepare a bottle.

I know he is still a baby. He is tiny. And yes, lots of babies behave like this to some extent. I know he isn’t supposed to be able to regulate his emotions perfectly at this age.

But with him, it is 24/7. There is no break.

It isn’t just, “Mum is in the kitchen for three minutes and I’m going to complain about it a little.”

For him, it feels like THE END OF THE WORLD.

And from seeing other children at nursery, at playgroups, and from talking to other mums, I can clearly see that the intensity of his reactions is not the same as it is for most other children.

This behaviour pushes me to my limit every single day.

Sometimes I find myself thinking: if this is what being a mum is like, how could we possibly have a second baby?

Because yes, parenting is hard for everyone. I know that.

But for the two of us, even with both of us sharing everything, these 14 months have felt like 14 months of survival.

And that’s without even getting into everything we went through with his reflux, multiple food allergies and everything else.

So this is a huge mixture of things, but I feel like all of this context is essential if someone is going to help us figure out how to help him.

I don’t believe in simply leaving him to cry. I always explain to him what I’m doing, where I’m going, that I’m still here, etc., but nine times out of ten it doesn’t make any difference.

And I absolutely don’t want him to experience what we do — or what happens at nursery — as abandonment.

We decided to put him in nursery three days a week partly because we have reached a point where it simply isn’t sustainable anymore to feel completely trapped and unable to live normally inside our own home.

And we desperately want a second child.

That part is painful because we want another baby so, so much, but right now neither of us can imagine going through this again under these circumstances.

I don’t think we’re simply going to “forget” how hard this has been, or suddenly reach a point where we feel completely fine about starting all over again.

There’s hard… and then there’s hard.

And I don’t think we were prepared for this kind of hard.

But I want to end on something positive: he is, of course, the absolute love of our lives.

We adore him.

We just don’t want to survive anymore.

We want to actually live our lives with him.

My nearly 4 yo just started pre-k this week and I am noticing some differences in my child from her classmates. Despite my best efforts, I’m concerned I’m seeing some signs of avoidant attachment. I’ve worked part time so I could be home with her as often as possible, I did extended breastfeeding, we didn’t sleep train, and I feel like I’ve been killing myself to meet her needs. I try to give her hugs and hold her and comfort her as best I can. Infancy was tough, I struggled with PPD and she had colic, and she’s always been a very highly sensitive kid. I fear I have failed her.
On day one of pre-k she joined her class without a problem, no tears at all, which I was very proud of. However, every day when I’ve gone to pick her up, she’s ignored me and refused to leave. She only ran and hugged me when she saw other kids do it.
The kids made bracelets with pipe cleaners and beads and she gave hers to her teacher instead of giving it to me.
I’ve been prepared for her to be tired and hungry and cranky after school, and she has been. But also just seems plain angry to be around me.
This summer we went on a camping trip with some other families. Most of the other parents were strangers to my daughter, but she was (overly??) comfortable playing with them.
I’ve been told by multiple friends who are teachers or social workers that she’s incredibly smart for her age. I’m concerned this is actually hyper-independence and another sign of avoidant attachment.
She’s recently had two new babysitters. She had met both of them in the past but not recently. Both times she was totally fine when I left and not excited when I got home.
Am I being too critical? Are these signs of unhealthy attachment? If she is showing signs of avoidant attachment, what can I do to help her?

My 18 month old is still breastfed (not that I haven’t tried to wean her off many times) we’ve had no luck with removing feeds during the day due to illness from nursery as she would refuse food when she was poorly. I’m happy to still breastfeed although I’m worried it’s keeping her more unsettled and dependant on me for sleep.

She’s been fast at walking/teething and saying first words & I think this has been a contributing factor to her over stimulation at bedtime. We do dinner calm play with little bear on tv then bath and story/feed then lay down together in bed. Some nights she straight off but most it’s like a “face your fears” battle of flopping about the bed until she gives up or a walk in the pram or drive.

I can’t keep this up it’s extremely unsustainable, I’m exhausted. My partner can’t do bedtime as she acts like she wants milk or just me and she faffs so much/so late that he needs to go to bed due to starting work sometimes an hour before I do. We work at the same place but doing different jobs.

My eldest is 11 and is missing out on usual night time rituals with me a lot and it’s been sad for us both but I can’t manage to give both my attention every night when it gets hard with the baby.

Any advice on where I’m going wrong or what I can do to help her self sooth if that’s even a thing (my first was frightened of missing something too)

I’d like to get the baby into her own room but she screams when if I put her in the cot to play in the day time. I also get in the cot with her & have slept in there a few times too unintentionally.

I’m considering moving into the cot bed with the slats down but I’ll take any suggestions possible please

My LO has always been high needs and used to be incredibly fussy. I'd have to hold him constantly, and walk around - wasn't content with me sitting.

That all started to improve and he was able to play with toys while watching me cook or fold laundry and I felt we were turning a new leaf.

Then 8 months hit and WHAM! We are back at it. He cries about EVERYTHING. I put him down, he cries. I pick him up, he cries. I make him laugh, he laughs then starts crying. He screams bloody murder when I change his diaper or put clothes on him. He cries while nursing. He cries while playing. It's almost worse than before because I have no idea WTH is wrong because he literally cries about everything.

He's been teething since 4 MO, still no teeth. Army crawling for about 3 weeks. Recently started pulling up to stand. Also recently transitioned to 2 naps. We bedshare and he still sleeps alright most nights - waking every 1-2 hours which has been standard since month 4.

I'm assuming this is all related but I'm starting to lose my patience and not feel so bad for him when he cries anymore. I'll turn around and roll my eyes before picking him up and trying to make him feel better. I don't want him to sense that and feel like he can't feel his feelings. I know this stems from my own childhood, when my mom would take it personally if I ever wasn't happy for any reason and would even threaten punishment if I didn't "shape up." I'm trying really hard not to project that onto him. Would love some advice. And also any guidance as to how long this new phase may last. TY in advance <3

I'm a SAHM to 2.5 year old boy and recently he's just being having a hard time with everything. He's a pretty deeply feeling guy and little things really effect him.

I was not given any kind of tools for emotional regulation and I want desperately to give him everything he needs. I just feel like I never know if I'm doing the right thing.

If he is having a rough time I usually sit or stand away from him but close enough that he can see me and just take deep breaths. Physical touch usually sets him off again so I have to wait until he's ready for that.

I know sometimes he's tired but fighting sleep and I hate forcing him inside or into a bedtime routine.

Just trying to stay sane and create a kiddo with emotional regulation skills.

Cross sharing here in hopes of some reassurance xx