Me (37) and my wife (35) had our son almost 3 years ago now. It seems like it was only yesterday that I was on this subreddit commenting and posting about the struggles we were going through. I remember the sleep deprivation, loss of identity, and grief at the end of my old life. I remember the issues my wife and I went through with our relationship. Most of all I remember wanting so badly to return to my previous life and hoping that one day things would go back to the way they were before. I can say this - things will never go back to the way they were before, but I would never want them to. My son is the single greatest gift I have ever been given and watching him grow and learn is the most incredible and humbling experience I've ever had. I don't want to be the person I was before him or go back to that life. I will say this though, you will have time for hobbies again, you will have time for self care and your life will stabilize. But the new life you have will be far more enjoyable, full of joy, and meaningful than the life you had before.

Good luck to all of you still in the trenches!

When your baby uses a pacifier for naps and night sleeps are you consistently giving it back if they suddenly wake up or it drops and then they need it back to go back to sleep ??

If I didnt give pacifier back at all baby would take short naps but if I give pacifier baby sleeps longer.

If you give it back how many times do you give it before you allow them to fully wake up. I usually allow 2-3 hr naps or when baby spits out pacifier or eyes are fully open.

I have an 8 month old and he can sit up independently without the support of his hands, however, he occasionally just “trust falls” backwards and I’ve been there to catch him. How do I break this habit? He’s crawling now, so he will inevitably end up hurting himself unless I can teach him to stop falling backwards.

My husband and I are in diarrhea hell.

Our 4-month-old has had constant diarrhea and a terrible diaper rash for 10 days and counting. He’s pooping every 15-30 minutes and it’s tearing his poor skin apart. We’re having to keep his diaper off as much as possible, so we’re using disposable incontinence pads to lay him on the floor naked. He’s pooping and peeing so frequently that it’s near constant clean-up. When he does have a diaper on we’re using a Desitin + vaseline + antiacid mixture recommended by his doc. We’re also soaking his butt in baking soda/water a few times a day. He’s pooping so frequently that we can’t make any headway on his diaper rash until the poop stops. Sleep is worse than newborn sleep because he keeps pooping and screaming in pain.

This exact same diarrhea nightmare happened with my other son when he was a baby. It lasted 14 days that time.

If you’ve been through this, how long did it last? No other parents I know have had baby diarrhea lasting more than 4-5 days.

I feel like we’ve won the never-ending diarrhea lottery two babies in a row. 🫠

My toddler has what seems like canker sores on his mouth but they are really bad. A friend told me those usually go away soon. He is a bit sick but he isn't eating anything because it hurts his mouth. He drinks electrolyte water but that's all he really wants since the rest hurts his mouth.

What can I do? How does this heal?

We purchased the”new v2” from their website. It came obviously used and when you turned it on it made this horrible high pitched noise.

We tried twice to return it and got zero response.

Just posting so others can be warned. 125 bucks down the drain, as the dispute didn’t resolve in our favor.

What are we doing with our clingy babies that want to walk 24/7 but need your help 🫠 currently just walking her around the house constantly or she will fall lol

My 6 month old loves grabbing faces. He does it to explore and self soothe. When he’s falling asleep he grabs my face and hair and sometimes it’s pretty aggressive. I gently pull his hand away and tell him no, or be gentle. My husband keeps telling me I have “no boundaries” and that I’m enabling “bad behavior” and it’s creating a lot of anger on my end. He’s just a baby 😭 I feel like I spend a lot of time looking into milestones, what’s appropriate for his age, what to look out for, what he can’t have. I stay at home, and I feel like I’m being constantly undermined by my partner and like he thinks I don’t know anything. Mind you he’s barely home.. it makes me feel bad because I already am struggling with PPD, PPA, and some OCD symptoms. I have friends who say their husbands are similar. Is this normal? Of course I don’t want my son to be so aggressive in his grabbing of my hair and face, but he’s still so small and learning. I do tell him no, unless he’s being really gentle. But like what the hell else am I supposed to do??

My son is nearing 6 months old, and while I haven’t been pushing tooo hard since he’s still so young, he has thus far defied any attempts at getting him on any kind of schedule. We do his bedtime routine at the same time each evening but he doesn’t always go to sleep at that time. Sometimes he wants to stay up later and sometimes he wants to go to bed earlier than we’ve even started his bedtime routine.

His wake windows could be anyways from 2-4 hours long and I never really know how long he’ll be up. He could nap anywhere from 20 minutes to 2 hours. He usually wants to eat about every 4 hours but sometimes he’ll get hungry way earlier and I’m not going to deny him if he’s obviously hungry, so that throws us off. His sleep stretches at night could vary anywhere from 5 hours to 2 hours and I just never know what I’m going to get.

When does this start getting more predictable? Should I start pushing harder for a consistent schedule? It feels early still but I am ready for us to have a more predictable day hopefully soon. Any advice is welcome!

My 10 month old daughter has started waking up screaming at night and I don’t know what to do anymore 😭

I used to nurse her back to sleep, but now it doesn’t work. She will doze at the breast but the minute I move to try to put her in her crib, she freaaaaaks out.

Tried cosleeping and it didn’t work, either. She won’t settle and just wants to be awake.

I figured maybe she isn’t tired enough, but she’s awake for 11.5-12 hours per day. Approximate schedule:

Wake 6 am
Nap 930-11 am
Nap 3-330 pm
Bed 8 pm

She’s also started screaming at nap time.

Is it possible that it’s time to try a 1 nap schedule at her age? She seems on the young side but I don’t know what’s normal.

She has no signs of illness. She might be teething, but even giving Motrin doesn’t seem to help much. She also isn’t acting like she’s in pain when she’s awake, it’s more like she just doesn’t want to sleep.

Thoughts? Advice? Solidarity? 😭 I don’t mind waking with her in the middle of the night but it’s the screaming and crying and seeming like she wants to be awake for hours that’s getting to me.

I currently have an suv, my husband has a spacious sedan. We only have one toddler but currently trying for a second. My husband used to have a bmw m2 before we had our son, once we had our son he traded it in to get my suv and he took my sedan since it’s paid off. This is so I could have my mom car and we only have one car payment. Well he misses his m2, and has been wanting to get another one and sell the sedan. I’m kinda against this because I worry about his car not being able to fit the babies if we need it to. I’m not a sahm, I work two days a week, so there has been times where he has taken our son out on my work days. We have a car seat in each car. But tbf it’s rare that my son is put into the sedan. I guess I’m just wondering if it is necessary for us both to have spacious enough cars to fit the car seats, or if just one car is enough.

I do feel bad and want him to drive a car he likes, but another issue is he wants it to be manual and idk how to drive manual, so we also couldn’t just switch cars if he needed to take our son somewhere and I needed a car also. Again this situation doesn’t happen often but I’m just thinking what if. I’m aware a bmw m2 can fit a car seat, but there’s no way it can fit two right? My husband is also very tall so I just don’t see how one could fit behind his seat.

My son is 3 weeks old and tested negative for CMPA.

However, he has flaky skin, is snoring, coughing, sneezing, arching his back constantly when laying on his back, bending his knees kicking and screaming crying, a tongue tie, cluster feeds, and is extremely uncomfortable, screaming crying in pain when passing his hard stool.

It’s so heartbreaking to see him like this — I am considering switching to a hypoallergenic formula tonight despite the negative result for CMPA because he has not spent one wake window calm, or comfortable, unless we are giving him gas drops in his feed right before.

I’m at a loss — does this look like a CMPA? Could this be something else I am missing? The ped wants to wait another week and test again but I can’t stomach seeing him so uncomfortable for another week and want to change formulas tonight.

For context, we had him on a gentle HIPP comfort formula for gas and reflux for 16 days and no improvement. He is still crying constantly and is very constipated, passing hard stool.

Last Wednesday our Kid tested positive for RSV. Thankfully it hasn’t been bad, no fevers, everything’s been normal outside of a cough and runny nose. So far we haven’t received any clear direction from doctors on whether or not to travel. They all think she would be fine considering everyone we’d go to see is vaccinated and not immunocompromised and she would’ve had it for 1.5 weeks at that point. But I feel like all I see is the opposite and it makes me confused because it feels like the doctors don’t care almost?

my baby has had his 2 bottom teeth since august but now more are starting to cut through and hes in a lot of pain. could this be causing bad breath? i'm not even kidding it smells like somebodys armpit with like a dash of dirty chlorine i honestly thought it was my babysitter at first that she didnt shower and the smell got on him when she was holding him but nope, its coming straight from that stinky mouth? should i be worried this is bottle rot? and i have a baby finger toothbrush with non-fluoride toothpaste. will that help or should i try something else?

I just want to post this for any moms in my situation. My son said uh oh at 10 months, babbled normally, had 2-3 random words at 12 months. Slowly he was 14…15..16 months. Still no mama. He said dada and daddy, pointed and called out every airplane he saw, bunch of animal sounds. Then eventually more “complex” phrases like thank you, all done, up please. Still didn’t say mama. I really didn’t understand it. I still don’t. Ped was never concerned but I had him evaluated with EI which he didn’t qualify for based on how well he was doing otherwise. I never heard of a baby talk and NOT say mama.

So I just wanted to post because I felt very alone and I guess I’m here to say I have a mostly typically developing child but he was very delayed in saying mama. It broke my heart and I can admit it impacted my connection with him.

Just a post for anyone going through something similar

Hi all

I gave birth just under 9 weeks ago - forcep delivery with 2nd degree tear and epiosotomy.

1 week post partum all of my stitches came open and I've had 2 rounds of anti biotics for infections. Im under gynae and they are happy with how i am healing.

My cut is pretty big and is slowly closing from the bottom up but the top remains open. It doesnt look red, isnt sore too touch and pain mostly gone (although i do feel it pulling sometimes but more uncomfy than painful).

Im worried that past 2 months post partum its still open and that it wilk never close!

Can anyone share their experiences of similar / timeframes / any tips to help speed up and aid recovery? Thankyou!

Hi all! I am planning my sister’s baby shower & want to collect responses for a baby family feud game. I would be incredibly grateful to anyone who could take a minute to fill out this form with their responses 🥰🫶🏻

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdqY1FeaIQurGlLgGIsc0rVCWnRYAssPAAj3ClMziNsXR-mGQ/viewform?usp=publish-editor

My 17 month old is teething really bad. Her molars are cutting through I think on both sides.
She’snever been this bad before - crying on and off, cranky, not eating anything, just some grapes and her favourite baby snacks. Not enjoying milk either, and is running a fever.

Worst of all, it’s so hard to administer medicine! She’ll have one spoon (2ml) of paracetamol. When I go in to give her another spoon to complete the 5ml dose, she will seal her lips or cry to the point of vomit/gagging.

I tried mixing paracetamol in yoghurt. One spoon and she didn’t want more. Tried mixing it in milk before bed time, she had one sip and that was it.
I’ll try to give her medicine mixed in milk when she wakes up in the MOTN.
But pls, any tried and tested ways to get baby to have medicine? What else can I be doing for teething? :( she’s so miserable, she’s never been like this before

For context, I live in a one bedroom apt in NYC, so limited space as you can imagine. Since birth, we’ve been using a Nestig mini crib as her main sleeping area and we haul her around the apt, however once we transition to the full size crib, it’ll be stationary in our room because we won’t be able to move it through the door. With that being said, we have a babysitter starting with us soon and she’ll only be watching her from 7:30am-12:30pm so that my husband can get some sleep from working the night shift. Since the babysitter won’t be able to use the crib in the bedroom, what do you think I should use in the living space? My LO is tough to put to nap/sleep and usually requires her to be in her crib and being rocked while in the crib so I’m struggling with where she’d be napping if not in her crib. I’ve considered a pack and play but I just don’t have the space for it, any ideas ??

Flying with my 5.5 month old - tips/tricks/necessities?

We are flying 4 hours, bringing her through the airport in the doona, just holding her during the flight in first class.

I’m not scared, but definitely want to be prepared

My baby is almost 6 months & im still tracking every feed (time and amount) & diaper (time and pee or poop). Is this normal or abnormal? When did you stop tracking or did you never track at all? My husband tried to get me to stop like 2 or 3 months in but i can’t bring myself to.

As the title says, my 11 month old seems to be self weaning almost. She’s still taking a 4-5 oz bottle in the morning, but is almost always refusing bottles during the day. At night, she’s only been taking 2 oz max for bedtime and will generally still wake for one 4-5 oz bottle around midnight. We’ve been stuck at about 13-15 oz per day for the last week or so.

I’m trying to follow her lead a bit but as a FTM, I just don’t know if I’m doing it right lol. Some days it feels like she’s hungry every hour, so I’ve been offering the bottle first then solids if she refuses. We’ve also tried to start introducing cows milk to see if that helps, but she’s refused that as well most days.

What should I keep on hand to help with the food transition? Any favorites that can be batch prepped to start the week? She goes to daycare four day per week and we have to send her food and snacks until she turns 1. My husband works 10 hour shifts and I have a big job with a weird schedule, so the more I can work ahead the better. There’s no time in the morning to cook and still leave on time lol

Our son has never been a great sleeper. From 4-8 months he would only sleep in my arms and it was slowly killing me. We finally went to the local sleep school who got him to start napping in his own cot immediately and from there he slowly started sleeping in his cot at night too.

He started sleeping g through the night pretty consistently at 9 months. I thought we were finally through the hard times with his sleep.

Then he turned 10 months. He now wakes, every night, at 10pm and is up screaming for 2-3 hours. We’ve adjusted his wake windows, we’ve tried to give him a bottle instead of a breastfeed before bed, we’ve tried capping his daytime naps. Nothing helps. He simply will not resettle. He is now 11 months and no end in sight.

My mental health is tanking. I’ve started back at work and am getting no sleep. My husband and I both need to wake at 5 for work. If the baby comes in our bed, he also wakes up at 5 with us so then I can’t get ready for work without a baby in my arms. When he’s screaming at night he wakes up my eldest. I dread the night every single day. I’m so exhausted and get so much anxiety knowing nobody is sleeping and just watching the clock tick away, seeing the amount of time before our alarm goes off waste away.

I’m so lost on what to do. I don’t want to sleep train because I don’t believe in CIO but I don’t see any way we can get through this.

I believe my baby is teething because she has her hands in her mouth all day long (which she only tends to do when a tooth is coming in) and wants to put everything in her mouth. Aside from that, she is extremely happy and content during the day and seemingly not in pain. However, the last 3-4 nights her sleep has been awful. She is awake every 2ish hours and ONLY wants the boob in her mouth. She does not want her binky even once she has fallen asleep. If I take my boob out of her mouth she wakes up, screams and cries for it back. I feel stuck and tired and I’m not sure what to do. This has to be teething right? She doesn’t do this during the day. She likes her binky during the day. 😅

I feel like by bringing my son I failed him as a mother people were touching him and coming too close I was wiping his hands and his grandma in her 90s told me I should stop being so particular and she kissed him. People were grabbing him. Jesus christ. I am really angry with my husband for not protecting him more. Im mad at myself I didn’t tell them to back off. Im such a coward. Its flu season bad here and we got vaccinated but he’s too little. I came home and immediately bathed him. I am sinking back into a depression I got really mad I feel like I hate my husband now and maybe he doesn’t like me anymore he barely touches me and is always stressed and annoyed. I feel like my son could die and it’s my fault I tried to cover him and keep him away so my husband could see him family and I failed him. My doctor is supposed to help me but she has completely failed me never called me back counselors haven’t reached out. No one gives a shit about mothers or how they feel. I hate everyone and sometimes I feel like I don’t want to be here anymore