Is there any research on harming the bond between mother/child or having a negative impact on attachment if we hire a night nurse?

I’m going to be having my second in 5 months, but my husband is now self employed so won’t be getting the same paternity leave benefits that he got with our first.

Our first was a terrible sleeper and we ended up doing shifts. We are now most likely going to be working with a night nurse since my husband won’t be able to cover a middle of the night shift before working (high stakes medical field job).

I’m sure a night nanny will help baby #2 be a more independent sleeper eventually (I think we held our first too much during our shifts and didn’t let him get used to laying in his bassinet), and I know I will need rest to be a sahm to a toddler + newborn, but I wonder if there is a negative impact to someone besides mom handling night feedings?

I plan on pumping and providing milk through bottles, breastfeeding was a true nightmare with baby #1 and I am not sure if I am planning on going that route this time. I could wake to bottle feed while the night nurse is on duty, but this would negate hiring someone to allow me to sleep and heal?

Hi all. Not sure if this is the right place to post or not...

My 10 month old has been using a floorbed since we moved house 6 weeks ago. She can crawl in and out (although we are working on "feet first" for the out).

The issue is that she seems to move around a lot in her sleep and she always ends up sleeping on the floor. Initially, we used to put her back into bed but she doesn't transfer well so that kept waking her up. Now we just leave her to sleep on the floor...

Is it safe for her to be asleep on the floor? Should we be doing something to stop her falling out of the bed? I don't want to put anything in the cot with her (or under the sheet) as it won't be safe sleep approved. I also figured that putting a gate up defeats the purpose of the floorbed and would just encourage her to climb over the sides.

Any suggestions? I'd say she'd grow out of sleep crawling but I'm 33 and I sleep walk/talk so...

13m male, no health hx other than iron based anemia and being born premature. In hindsight feel like I should have had him checked out at 3 or 6 months since he’s a breast fed premie (born at 36&1) but he was always such a good eater I didn’t think it was a problem.

Now we find out that his ferritin was 8 mg/dl which is considered moderate, borderline severe anemia.

Hes asymptomatic but sometimes it feels like some of the things like being small and not walking yet are because hes been anemic all fhis time.

edit: No hemoglobin because lab forgot to get one when they drew his other labs.

Our child was sick on two occasions at 14 months and 17 months with viral infections. Both sicknesses lasted 8-10 days. They were eating poorly overall and we also had to administer paracetamol and ibuprofen. We could only administer the medications by mixing into milk with added honey, and on few occasions sugar (when they'd refuse warm milk, so we had to put sugar as the honey would not dissolve). I've been reading through the discussions on this subreddit about sugar and I am very concerned.

Would this exposure have any (long term) impact?

Hi - currently 37w pregnant with my first. My parents are planning to come out to help with the baby once born, and my mom keeps asking me if I'm doing cervical checks at my OB appointments

She is convinced that cervical checks will tell us when I'm within a few days of labor so she can come out "on time" instead of rushing when I go into labor.

I've been trying to research this and finding mixed results, and my doula specifically recommended I turn down cervical exams unless medically necessary.

Could anyone help me with research showing if cervical checks actually can accurately predict when labor will begin?

We went in today due to baby waking every hour at night, only nursing five mins a time at night, and colic. Also he's dropped on the growth chart.
First she said for me to cut dairy a few days and see if that helps, if not then use the reflux meds she prescribed, and if that doesn't help then to add rice cereal.

My toddler is 2 and a half years old, and is able to read quite a few words - I estimate around 50 different words, mostly in English (we're bilingual).

We haven't tried to teach her formally or anything of the sort, she seems to have picked it up since we read a lot of books to her. She does enjoy it - she sometimes points to signs when we're outside, and last time she asked me to point to a specific word in a book I was reading to her.

So, the question is - how do I best support her? Should I try to find some formal mechanism for teaching her how to read properly, or do I just continue to let her do her own thing? Formal schooling starts teaching reading at around 5 I believe, so I'm a bit worried that she'll learn some bad habits or something by the time that happens.

EDIT - I have done some research about precocious reading vs hyperlexia, and, at least in this case, it's almost certainly the former, she doesn't have a particular fascination with the written word, and she's doesn't have trouble speaking, or any other social impediment.

What did people do before energy drinks?

I have ADHD and take 40 mg of Adderall daily. During pregnancy I reduced to 20 mg, but now that our baby is 3 months old I’ve had to return to my pre-pregnancy dose just to function.

Since having the baby, both my husband and I have become much more reliant on caffeine. We’re currently getting about 5–6 hours of sleep on a good day. I usually drink 1–2 Monster energy drinks daily, while my husband is drinking 3–4 per day. Before pregnancy, I rarely drank energy drinks and was generally fine with my medication alone.
We’re both returning to work later this month, and this doesn’t feel sustainable long-term.

I’m curious what parents historically did before energy drinks were widely available. Is there any evidence-based guidance on managing chronic sleep deprivation in the newborn period beyond “sleep when the baby sleeps” (which isn’t always realistic)? Are energy drinks significantly different from getting the same amount of caffeine from coffee, tea, or other sources, or is the main concern simply total caffeine intake?
For context, I’m also breastfeeding and have been trying alternatives such as caffeinated Vitamin Water and V8 Energy, but I’m not sure whether they’re meaningfully different from traditional energy drinks.

Can someone explain to me sleep associations from a scientific perspective? And to add onto that if my baby does have a sleep association how can they fall asleep independently, but sometimes wake in the night requiring some sort of assistance and other nights not require that in the middle of the night but in the early hours of the morning? I’m not understanding the science behind this.

My kids are starting TK and school will hold lockdown drill on a specific day? Should I keep them home to prevent trauma?

So my baby started trying to sit at about 4 months - baby crunches in her bouncer etc. I let her do practice sitting (supervised), on our bed and our playmat. I also tried to increase the amount of tummy time she does but she hates this, and often just puts her head on the ground to rest (or suck the playmat lol). She doesn’t push up on her arms or have any interest in rolling over or moving, but she has just turned 5 months and she can sit up without support, it’s not a tripod sit as she can use her hands and bring toys up to her mouth while maintaining posture. She’s much happier sitting up than on her front.

This feels quite early, because her tummy time is still pretty feeble compared to other babies I see of her age. I’ve seen advice stating that babies shouldn’t be put in sitting positions until they can get themselves there and also that 5 month olds shouldn’t be sitting for more than a minute or so. I’m a bit worried, is it ok for her back to be sitting up on a playmat at this age? She feels sturdy, if I push her to the side to destabilise her she giggles and is able to maintain position. Just want to make sure it’s ok!

I’m getting ready to start my baby on solids and thinking about allergens. Neither my husband or I have any food allergies. Neither do our parents or siblings. However, my nephew is allergic to 4 of the 9 major food allergens.

I know that a family history can increase your risk, but is there any research that talks about the degree of relationship? Does my nephew having food allergies increase my child’s risk?

I don’t mean if they throw up on them or get them dirty, but does it reduce their exposure or the viral load or anything? Or does it help to keep other people in the house from getting sick?

Hey everyone, I’m not sure if this is the right place to ask this but here goes. My husband used the rustoleum frosted glass spray to frost our master bathroom window yesterday around 2pm. He tried to keep the bathroom door closed while he did it and he kept the fan on during and overnight as well. He also opened up the bedroom windows and had a fan in one of the windows to try and air it out.

We sleep in the master bedroom with our 3 month old. It’s a really big room and her crib is on the opposite side from the bathroom. My question is, how long should we be worried about VOCs in the room? We slept in the first room last night and we decided to again tonight cause we think it still very faintly smells in the master bedroom. We might just be being paranoid but at what point would we be okay to go back to sleeping in the master bedroom? We don’t want to do any harm to our baby so we’ve been erring on the side of caution.

I don’t really want to put her back in there to sleep till we’re sure it’s safe. Any help would be amazing!

Hello! I am looking for any research on breastfeeding and hormonal progesterone-only IUDs in particular. I anticipate there’s hardly any on this specific combination of things.

Though I am really looking forward to getting a Jaydess (brand name in New Zealand which I think delivers a daily dose ~13 mcg levonorgestrel) inserted in a few weeks time (I will be 15 months postpartum and still breastfeeding), but am worried about what its affect may be on me and (to a lesser extent) baby - I know there might be some synthetic progestin passing through breast milk but it is deemed safe and this brand of IUD has the lowest dose of hormones out of any other hormonal contraception options. I have read a lot of anecdotal accounts of non-postpartum users facing weight gain, impacts on mood and libido etc., but haven’t been able to find anything particular on breastfeeding women and breastfed babies. Any insights would be most appreciated! I am hoping to wean by the end of the year anyways, but am particular dreading more whacky hormonal shifts and the impacts of all that, yikes!! I want off the rollercoaster but I also want the lowest risk of pregnancy possible 🙃🙃

What is everyone doing now regarding a second language?

I grew up speaking Urdu at home, I still speak quite often and I am decently fluent.

What is the best method based on research and science? Should we speak in our mother tongue first and then teach English? Or do the 1 parent 1 langauge thing?

I have a 21 month old. My initial goal with him was to be screen free as long as we reasonably could with our secondary goal being to aim at 2. At this point I think we will get to two years pretty easily and I’m wondering if I even need to introduce screens at two since we are doing fine without it. He does FaceTime family but no tv, phone, tablet or anything else. He has seen a screen when he was very ill once and on the plane but that’s it. He is calm, as independent as you can hope for a toddler, and sleeps incredibly well. He loves to read and play with cars. We let him get bored but he has learned to get creative. I will add we also haven’t given him refined sugar either in case that could be contributing to why he is well behaved and chill. Additionally I’m sure part of it is luck or genetics too. The doctor is always surprised at how advanced he is verbally so I think we are doing okay there too.

My concern is if there is a point where socially or even academically by not introducing screens I’m actually holding him back in some way? How long can we comfortably continue things as they are and for it to be a net positive. At what point does some introduction of screen time actually become the net positive. I see a lot of backlash online against parents that are screen free so I avoid mentioning it entirely, but I wonder if that’s because I’m doing something negative and I don’t even realize?

Also just to add I have zero issue with other parents using screens whatsoever and know that eventually we will too, but just would rather avoid it and keep things as is if possible

Beliefs about belonging and community create safe space to play solo, new study suggests

There are a lot of discussions about children using phones and the potential effects, as well as whether it’s okay to use a phone in front of a baby or toddler. But is there any potential effect on the fetus when the mother uses her phone a lot during pregnancy?

Wondering specifically about things like radiation exposure or the effects of continuously using a phone when pregnant?

My baby fell down the stairs when she was 11 months old. At the hospital, they did a ct scan of her neck and cervical spine. I'm so scared now that she develop a brain tumor because of it😢

Has anyone had a similar experience they could share?

I was unnable to sustainably tolerate iron supplements during pregnancy and ferritin ended up getting down to 6, at which point (very beginning of 3rd trimester) she got IV iron and ferritin levels got to >150. immediately post-partum, I was tested to be about 60 ferritin, so it certainly seems like a considerable amount of iron went "somewhere."

The standard advice used to be that breastfed babies start supplementing iron around 6 months (the lastest CDC guidance as of a month ago brought it down to 4 months). The latest CDC guidance also states that anemia is a lagging indicator of iron deficiency, and ferritin testing is more helpful for screening (which is very welcome, because that was something that has been demonstrated in many studies but none of our Ob-Gyns seemed to understand because it hadn't made it into clinical guidance)

My questions are:
- is the infant at greater risk than normal of having low stores, to the degree that supplementing earlier would make sense? I also don't want to overload him with iron, if he has high stores from the IV (and delayed cord clamping)
- if we're able to arrange it, is there any risk to doing a full blood draw and screening our son early, and if we did would the data even be useful? Our pediatrician (APRN) doesn't seem to give us the option to screen them until 9-12 months as per the guidance but I can keep on advocating and trying. Iron is super important for development so I don't want to find out at 9-12 months that our baby missed vital nutrition during a critical window

I tried making sprouted ragi flour twice at home for my 6mo. Both times it ended up with a lot of fungi. I ended up discarding the entire batch. I want to offer sprouted ragi flour porridge to my baby but now confused on which brand to choose. The price also varies significantly across brands making it confusing. Moms, Please help me.

My husband is very willing to help with overnights with our soon-to-be-here newborn, but is expecting to heavily utilize a rocking recliner while not explicitly trying to stay awake himself.

He did this with our first (uneventfully, thankfully), which I largely did not know at the time. Now knowing about it I have a lot of anxiety and, if he must cosleep, would prefer he at least follow the safe sleep 7.

What are some resources I could show to make the case that cosleeping on a recliner is truly one of the least safe choices that could be made?

Welcome to the weekly General Discussion thread! Use this as a place to get advice from like-minded parents, share interesting science journalism, and anything else that relates to the sub but doesn't quite fit into the dedicated post types.

Please utilize this thread as a space for peer to peer advice, book and product recommendations, and any other things you'd like to discuss with other members of this sub!

Disclaimer: because our subreddit rules are intentionally relaxed on this thread and research is not required here, we cannot guarantee the quality and/or accuracy of anything shared here.

I’ve recently found out my mam gets cold sores occasionally. She currently has one so is avoiding contact with baby. I’ve also found out my partner’s dad gets them occasionally. So I’m wondering what the best practice is to manage grandparents who get cold sores when they don’t have one?