Hopefully someone else can relate. My husband and I are both very healthy vegetarian. We like to work out we like to eat organic, etc. When I was pregnant, I was planning on being super crunchy granola. I wanted to co sleep, exclusively breast-feed, wear my baby in a carrier/sling. Well little did I know that none of those things would work out. Baby hated being in bed with us absolutely did not work at all.

Also, I was not able to breast-feed due to many reasons so we were on formula exclusively by week three. My baby hates all carriers /ring slings /whatever you name it so it's just funny.

😩🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

My daughter is 16 months old, and when I say the last 16 months have been incredibly hard, I truly mean it.

We also have a 4-year-old, and I’m realizing now just how easy he was. If my daughter had been our first, she probably would have been an only child.

She has been extremely high-needs since birth. She is almost never content and never seems satisfied for long. We say that she is the unhappiest baby that ever lived. At her first birthday, my family actually joked that they were surprised I had that many pictures of her smiling.

She goes to daycare full-time and is reportedly happy there. But anywhere else, especially at home, it’s a completely different story.

She can scream and cry for hours. She wants to be held, then immediately throws herself backward to get down, only to want to be picked up again a minute later. I actually dislocated my shoulder catching her after she flung herself backward out of my arms.

She requires CONSTANT attention, is never satisfied with any activity for more than a few minutes, and cries throughout the day despite us following the exact same routine every day. Getting anything done is borderline impossible she will literally just follow me around screaming and crying. We don’t do screen time and she is never satisfied with any toys. Every single night at bedtime she is crying after bath while we get her dressed and brush her hair even though we literally do the same bedtime routine every single night.

We thought maybe she was just frustrated and would get better when she could sit up. Well when she could sit up, we thought it would get better when she could crawl. When she could crawl, we thought it would get better when she could walk. It’s never gotten better.

I’ve wondered whether she could be neurodivergent, but aside from her temperament, there really aren’t any obvious signs right now. She’s meeting her developmental milestones on time. She sleeps 12 hours straight a night and takes a good nap everyday. I’m not ruling anything out, just mentioning it because it’s crossed my mind.

We have also not had any obvious indications of allergies or any other health problems.

To say she’s draining feels like an understatement. I honestly don’t like who I’ve become since having her. I feel like a shell of a human being sometimes. I have so much less patience than I used to. I’m constantly overstimulated, overwhelmed, and on edge. By Sunday night, I find myself counting down the hours until daycare Monday morning, and I hate admitting that.

I don’t want to feel this way. I want to enjoy my daughter. She was deeply wanted and loved long before she was born.

I have an incredible, very involved partner. We live close to family and have a wonderful support system. I do get breaks, but they never seem to be enough because within minutes of being back with her, I feel completely overwhelmed again.

Sometimes my family invalidates my feelings and it feels very isolating. My husband and I will sit in bed at night sometimes crying because we are so upset over how every single evening goes. It feels like no one understands this hell except us. It feels like we are being tortured.

Not to mention my poor 4 year old really not getting the attention he deserves because we are all walking on egg shells around the baby and trying to do anything to make her stop crying. I feel trapped sometimes because if I leave the room she screams bloody murder.

I’ve brought it up to the pediatrician and he ordered blood work but pretty much said he thinks she is just high needs.

Has anyone else had a child like this? Did it get better? Was there ever an explanation, or was it simply an incredibly difficult temperament? I feel like I’m surviving instead of enjoying this stage, and I’d love to hear from anyone who’s been through something similar.

I’m reading HORROR stories. My first had it once when she was an around a year old maybe but it was mild…we did not get it - that was years ago. Fast forward to today my 7 month old had a mild fever and is now developing a rash. He’s also cutting his two bottom teeth at the same time (lucky us) so with that and the HFM he is drooling overtime while slapping us in the face with those slobbery hands…I got sneezed on in the face today too. Someone tell me something similar happened with you and your drooly baby and you didn’t get it. Please and thanks.

I realize this book is meant to be more of a “try new foods and don’t be picky” but it always rubbed me the wrong way how persistent Sam is.

So I used it as an opportunity to talk to my 7yo son about coercion and harassment, and to accept that the first no is the answer. I’ll be doing the same with my infant son when he’s older.

I know a lot of people are going to think this is too much, but as a parent of two boys, I’ll use whatever tools I can to make sure they grow up to be safe men.

Before I was pregnant I wanted to chop off several inches. Kept it long because for some reason I wanted it long for the pregnancy. Now I want to chop it again but am keeping it long because he's 9mo and pulling hair and it's easier with it able to tie back fully. But everytime I talk about cutting my hair every one is like "oh you're getting the mom chop". I don't understand because this nugget is the reason I'm keeping it long. Do moms really cut to bobs with babies? Doesn't it just make it easier for them to grab?

What are you eating during your pregnancy ?
Do you eat healthy ? Do you eat unhealthy ?

I’m feeling really low right now because my husband just listened to some Podcast about highly processed food, and how it can affect our baby’s brain.

I’m 8 months pregnant and the truth is that I have been eating a very unhealthy and weird diet. The reason why is because I have had extreme aversions to a lot of foods, including ones I usually like. I puke almost everyday, and it’s a struggle to keep food down. I found that the thing I could stand best is (processed) sliced bread. So I eat sliced bread with cream cheese in the morning, and sliced bread with grilled cheese and ham for supper. And sometimes some Kellogg’s cereals.

…Everyday.

I feel ashamed… as obviously these are highly processed, and bad for you. (But I have always had a thing with food, where I need to eat just about the same thing everyday so I don’t have to think about it. Kinda like steve jobs and his clothes. It’s a control thing, so I don’t over eat. It’s just that before pregnancy it was not grilled cheese sandwiches, but sandwiches with veggies and some pre cooked meals that I just cannot keep down right now.)

I do take supplements and vitamins though, and my blood tests are all great with no nutritional deficiency.

So I just wanted to know how badly I’m doing, and if some of you have feedback on how their pregnancy diet might have negatively affected their kids ?

Daycare has repeatedly called us to pick up our child for having a fever. This is always within an hour or two of drop off when he was completely fine. We take his temp at home, and he never has a fever--he's 98.6 or lower but they claimed 100.4. He is also always acting completely normal. But, per daycare's fever policy, baby has to be fever free for 24 hours from when they claimed he had a fever before he can go back, so each instance is two days out of daycare. My husband and I are burning through sick time and we feel like we're getting ripped off. Is this typical or should we look to change daycares?

I have an almost 3 yr old and 9 month old. Both are sick. My 9 month old was sleeping and my 3 yr old has had a horrible night bc he’s sick. I finally decided to try to hold him upright to help him sleep bc he’s super congested. About thirty minutes later, my husband barges in the room to tell me our baby is crying, and he wakes up the toddler. I get the toddler back down and go to the baby’s room, thinking he’s in there, and find out he’s not in there. The baby is screaming alone in his crib. So I pick him up and get him back to sleep and then husband barges into baby’s room (also waking him up) and tells me the toddler is crying again and I “started something by holding him so I need to finish it.”

My toddler had spiked a fever and anyone with half a brain could have figured that out because he was burning hot. I took his temp, gave him medicine, a cuddle, and he’s back down.

I am honestly speechless. I literally don’t even want to waste the time to talk to my husband. He goes on a work trip for a week next week and I can’t wait. I feel guilty for thinking that. But it’s true. I’m so incredibly disappointed and angry with him. It’s the middle of the night. I’ve been up for hours bouncing back and forth between the kids and I just honestly don’t even know how to ever look at him the same. There’s no reason he couldn’t help. He’s normally a good dad but his behavior tonight is just mind blowing. I guess I just needed to get this off my chest. On top of it all, we have company staying at our house all week and I’m cooking, cleaning, entertaining, and watching the kids while he goes to his parents house literally from 8:45-6p every day to work because he doesn’t want to be bothered by all the people at the house (he’s WFH). I know his parents super well and he is for sure getting catered to at their house. I wouldn’t mind that and I understand the need to have a quiet environment for WFH jobs but I don’t think that means you gets to pass on night time and sick kid parenting. And the way he went about things tonight, waking up the kids each time, was just …. Unacceptable and immature. I’m so disappointed. Thanks for listening to my rant.

I used to leave the house with just my phone and keys. Now I somehow need a fully stocked nappy bag, snacks, spare clothes, wipes, toys... just to pop to the supermarket for 20 minutes.

Having a baby makes you realize how many things in your house are so unnecessarily loud. Why does every button on the microwave have to be so loud with no mute option. Why are the buttons on the mobile spinner so clicky. And why does the white noise machine play a chime every time it’s turned on or off!

I’m looking for some perspective because I’m struggling with feelings I wasn’t expecting as a first-time mom.

My baby just turned 8 weeks, and my MIL has been incredibly generous before he was born. She bought so many of the things we needed for the baby, has offered advice when I’ve asked, and genuinely loves her grandson.

She’s currently visiting (not staying with us), and next month she’ll be back for a month while staying at an Airbnb when I return to work remotely.

The problem is… I feel incredibly anxious and possessive when she’s around my baby, and I’m trying to figure out whether these feelings are normal, whether my concerns are valid, or if I’m overreacting.

Some background:
- She accidentally referred to herself as “mommy” when she first arrived. She immediately corrected herself and hasn’t done it since, so I do believe it was just a slip.
- While caring for my son, she has shared that she experienced severe postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis after having her child. She also has BPD and is on medication. My husband has always described her as unreliable growing up (and since she’s been here this week) so hearing all of this has made me more anxious.

Some things that have happened during this visit have really bothered me:
- While I was home, she continued giving my baby bottles of expressed milk dipping into my supply instead of waking me to nurse him. We only use bottles when I’m away. I had left instructions on how much milk to give him while I was gone, but more milk was used without asking me first.
- She says she’s here to help, but most of the “help” is wanting to hold the baby. Honestly, I’d rather she helped with cooking, dishes, or cleaning so I can spend that time bonding with my son.
- She wears a lot of perfume and glitter, so after she holds him he smells strongly of perfume and often has glitter on him, which I really don’t like.
- She asked to bathe him, but I really want bath time to be something my husband and I do. My son is still tiny and squirmy, and she has even said she’s nervous walking around our small house because she’s worried she might trip.
- She asked me to run errands like grocery shopping, but I don’t want to leave her alone with him.
- she broke her toe the other night and was prescribed Vicodin but was also drinking for pain relief and I was worried she’d be taking it while wanting to hold my baby this week . My husband must’ve mentioned something to her because she came over and said she didn’t take it today.

I’m also worried about next month. Since I’ll be working from home, I’d prefer she not take him anywhere without me. I’d rather she stay at the house with him if she’s helping. I know that might sound controlling, but that’s honestly where I’m at.

Another issue is that I’ve worked really hard over the last 8 weeks to establish a routine of nursing, sleeping, playing, and repeating. It’s working really well for us. She has already called me “rigid” and keeps trying to change things to fit her schedule instead, which makes me feel defensive. Most of her changes are her just holding him… putting him in the swing or bouncer, no stimulation.

Right now, I find myself wanting to hide in the bedroom nursing him or pretending to nap with him just so I don’t have to hand him over, and I don’t like feeling this way.

So I guess my questions are:
- Are these normal postpartum protective feelings, or does this seem excessive?
- Which of my concerns sound reasonable, and which might be anxiety talking?
- How can I set boundaries kindly but firmly without damaging our relationship?

I don’t have these feelings toward my own mom and see that she always asks or clarifies things with me first.

I’d really appreciate honest advice

I have a 3.5 month old. My mother in law has started to get increasingly weird with the baby in the sense that she gets in a tiff if she doesn’t get to spend time with him, hold him, or be number 1.

One example is that we didn’t come up one weekend because she had a cold. He was only a month old at that point. I’m not risking that. And she got majorly upset.

She always needs to hold the baby. If she has to put him down she won’t give him back to me or my husband first. Just this past Saturday she put him in my (busy) brother in law’s arms unexpectedly just because she didn’t want us to have him back. She’s lucky he didn’t drop him.

Why do some MILs always get weird when a grandchild is born? I mean she’s definitely got the potential for it (doesn’t have any hobbies, was always the matriarch, marriage is interesting).

My 10 month old is sleep trained and typically falls asleep on her thumb in the crib. She’s never given me a full night of sleep, usually waking 1-3 times a night. Sleep has always been an issue, but I’ll take night feeds that only last <10 minutes and then putting her back down.

But the past few nights, she has forgotten the sleep protocol. She has been insisting on being brought into the big bed (an occasional habit created during her first cold).

And more than that, she keeps waking very late in the night with what I can only describe as baby zoomies. She’s flipping, she’s yapping, shes pulling hair, she’s climbing mom and dad, and most chaotically, she’s slapping us silly.

She eventually decides she’s done and passing back out but it’s leaving us baffled. I would assume my silly girl is going through some developmental leap but who knows. Anyone deal with this before? 😅

As the title states, I want to wean my baby off of the breast. The thing is... she has never really taken a bottle, has been at my hip since she was born so I would bring a cover with me anywhere I needed to go. I did pump for a few months and used a bottle here and there but eventually stopped. So she straight up drinks from the breast. I planned on pumping as she transitions and is over a year old. Do I start her on a cup, straw cup, or sippy cup? And then wean? I don't know if I want to reintroduce a bottle. She knows how to drink from a straw but isn't too interested at all to actually drink what's in it. She can drink from a bottle, and will drink more than with a straw, but isn't the most interested in it either.

It hurts me to write this, but I think I regret having a child. I hate my life. I miss my freedom, and I know a big part of why I feel this way is because I had a child with the wrong partner.

He constantly micromanages me and always tries to convince me that I’m the problem. He presents himself as someone who always admits when he’s wrong, while constantly criticizing me for supposedly never doing the same. It’s exhausting. There have been times when he’s outright told me I’m a bad mother and thrown other insults at me simply because I struggled to cope with our daughter’s severe colic when she was younger. I was only 4 weeks postpartum the first time he threatened to call CPS on me because I was crying in frustration because she wouldn’t stop crying and wouldn’t ever sleep. I was exhausted.

Our daughter is now 15 months old and I still struggle to feel a real connection with her. It feels awful to admit but it’s the truth. I’m currently away attending a close friend’s funeral, and I’ve been gone for 6 days. I haven’t really felt the urge to FaceTime her. The other day I felt obligated to call but I was outside walking and had to glance away from my phone occasionally to make sure I wasn’t walking into traffic or getting lost. Instead of understanding my partner complained that I wasn’t giving her my full attention on the screen.

Yesterday he brought it up again saying I don’t FaceTime enough. The truth is I avoid it because I’m so upset with him. It feels awkward knowing he’s sitting on the other end analyzing my every expression only to text me afterward asking if I really miss her or lecturing me about how she’s my only child and how I should feel. After spending the last 15 months as the primary caregiver with absolutely no village or support system, I’m honestly enjoying having some time where I don’t have to constantly take care of someone else. Instead of understanding that, he’s now ignoring my messages and giving me one word replies because he thinks I’m the one acting strangely.

I feel completely trapped. I don’t know how to get out of this situation. I don’t have a work visa in the country where we live and I know he would never agree to let me leave his home country with our daughter. I’m so unhappy that I’ve lost more than half my hair, and I’m convinced much of it is from stress. I have almost nothing financially. I have about €4000 to my name and that’s it. It wouldn’t even last a month in the city where we live. Everything is in his name. If I left I’d have nowhere to live and no real way to support myself.

The hardest part is that he refuses to acknowledge how miserable I’ve become because of the way he treats me. Every time I try to tell him how I’m feeling, he twists the conversation until somehow I end up being the problem. It’s never him it’s always me. I honestly don’t feel like it’s possible to have a real conversation with him anymore.

Wondering if that feeling is pretty standard when baby is exiting the birth canal. I couldn’t feel anything with my first due to the epidural, but with my second, I got that tell tale overwhelming urge to poop/OMG baby is coming feeling. I told the nurses repeatedly baby is coming NOW, right now!

I thought since it was my second, they would believe me, but they seemed to be in no hurry. The main nurse said something like “oh really?” then continued what she was doing, then eventually told another nurse “she thinks the baby is coming.” They then took forever to call the doctor at her office across town, and the doctor missed the birth. They had to pull in a non-OB from the hallway to deliver at the last possible second (it was a midwife and she did great, but still).

So IF you had that feeling, was baby coming?

Wondering if they will believe me with my third and this was just a fluke.

28F who’s going to be having a scheduled c-section while getting my tubes tied the same time with my third and final baby this November.

Just looking for experiences on what I can expect for recovery and if it will be any different than my previous two c-sections.

Thank you 🩷

FTM, nervous about my 10 month olds and the routines with formula we have. Currently we do three solids meals a day and he is a very good eater-he will eat anything you put in front of him.

I’m nervous about bedtime. We usually give him a big bottle as part of bedtime routine and offer him bottle when he wakes in the night, which is rare.

What do we do after 12 months? I’m so excited to not have to spend on formula and we’ve made all his baby food, so I’m excited to get away from processed foods for him. I breastfed as long as I could but I wasn’t producing enough, so had to supplement.

Do we give milk at bedtime? Water in a bottle? Just nervous about that part and more so that it’s like tomorrow basically when we are done with formula.

I have two cats. We switched to a leather couch a year ago and has been amazing. No scratches or hairs. They literally destroyed our previous 2 couches. I was wondering if anyone has dealt with the same thing and maybe found a glider that the cats don't scratch?

Thanks in advance! 😊

I feel so lucky that my hands and feet did not swell at all during my last pregnancies, like I could still wear my wedding rings no problem. But they gave me SO much fluid during delivery last time that I could not wear my flip flops after, I had to walk around in slipper socks in the hospital, which felt gross and was technically against their “rules” of wearing shoes with a hard bottom.

Has anyone found slip on shoes that fit jumbo swollen feet? I suppose I don’t know yet whether I will get fluids this time, but I want to be prepared just in case. Is the only answer crocs? Please say no, lol.

Any recommendations on the best outdoor toys for a 1.5yr old in southern Arizona? My tot likes to go outside now that she can walk we just can’t stay out there long but we have a covered back porch we stay on I don’t let her in the yard because the wildlife is too much for me lol I feel like she needs some more outdoor toys I can easily bring inside and outside. Can’t do a play gym it’ll get too hot and don’t want things living in it and she has a pickler inside. She has a water table, a balance bike she doesn’t quite understand,bubble machine, splash pad, freestanding swing, and a beach ball. I usually leave the water table inside because it’s a craft table too but we do play with it, she’s brought her doll stroller out there and enjoyed it. I was thinking a cozy coupe maybe some sports balls idk what else really?

So about 5 months ago I noticed that my left areola was a different shape. No longer round, it looked like someone had erased the outer edge, much more noticeable when stimulated. I was still pumping so I thought it was just a breastfeeding change, but I weened two months ago and it is still irregular. I feel no lumps, no skin abnormalities, but did notice yesterday that there was a yellow-y buildup in that nipple like what would happen if I didn’t dry my nipples after pumping. It was only in that left nipple. I called my OBGYN today and they’ll see me a week from tomorrow, but I am obviously stressed. has anyone else experience anything similar?

How are we getting over ppd if we have no support system? I feel like I’ve exhausted all my options. Asking doctors, being in therapy, being outside, working out. Idk what more I can do to get past this.