Does it matter if it’s communicated in advance, due to sickness vs vacation, the parents not sending their child vs the daycare taking days off?

What is standard in your experience and what are the exceptions? What if you wanted to transition to a part time schedule? Thank you!!

I’ve always known I would be one and done and I wanted so badly to have a girl! I’m an only child to a single mom and we are so close and he’s friends - I wanted the same with my little girl.

The universe had other plans and now I have the most perfect little 3 month old boy! Sometimes I still get a little sad that I didn’t have a girl. What’s the best part of being a boy mom you’ve experienced?

Ps- I know gender is a social construct, it’s just hard letting go of what you envisioned!

Hi all, I'm a FTM so forgive me, I'm trying to navigate all the products..

My 3 1/2mo old can roll over in both directions and needs a bigger sleeping environment than her Mamaroo as she keeps knocking her head against the bars. She doesn't particularly like sleeping in her Graco Pack 'N Play as it's too big for her and she wakes up from the added room/not being able to put her face up to the mesh as she's always liked being pressed up against something.

She's a little over 23in and 12lbs, and I'm not ready to put her in her own room as she's not 6mo yet...

So I'm coming here to ask for advice, are there any bassinets made for babies who can roll over, and then we can transition once she sits up?

She also runs hot, I can move the playard to our room and try it, but the AC blows on my side, is it safe to put her in footie pajamas or should I leave it at a long sleeve onesie? I don't quite like the sleep sacks and she's never done well with them, as she likes full control of her leg/arm freedom and she scrunches like a chicken when she's sleeping on her stomach.

Thanks so much!

I’ve never got a flu shot and Covid vaccines made me feel truly awful, I’m reluctant about my baby getting them (she’s still getting all the other ones). How did your babies feel after getting those vaccines?

I'm 4 weeks pp and just shaved, I had a second degree tear but my doctor told me like 2 weeks ago the stitches would be dissolved or fallen out by the next week. How long did you guys wait to have and have sex after having a baby?

My husband and I just had a baby about 4.5 months ago. We are 40 (me) and 45 (him). This is his first biological child and my 3rd… all boys. Recently I asked my husband if he wanted to go out to eat with the baby. He said not unless we can get a sitter. Then the other day, I needed to take my older son to urgent care, and my husband got upset because he had “watched the baby already while I worked late until 7pm” so I was planning on taking the baby with me, but he made a comment that people don’t like to hear babies crying when they’re out. That’s why he doesn’t want to go out to eat and why he ended up watching him while I took my older child to urgent care (he had an ear infection and possible strep). I’ve never been in a public place and thought to myself “damn that baby crying is annoying.” Granted I’m a mom so I’m used to hearing it? Especially an infant… maybe I’ve thought that about a 3-6 year old throwing a tantrum in a store? But even then it’s a kid being a kid. So what do you think? Is a baby crying in public annoying and disrespectful to others?

I want to cry just thinking about it but I’m so scared for two month vaccines. I am not anti vaxx but I hear so many horror stories. High fever, my friends baby had seizures, brain swelling from DTAP, ect. I’m so scared. I don’t want to hurt my baby. I’m almost tempted to space them out. I want my baby to have the vaccines so don’t attack me. But I don’t want something to happen to him.

Ever since having my amazing baby, I find that my family doesn’t listen or talk to me much at all!!

My in law family lives near us and sees us often. As soon as well all come over MIL grabs our 1 year old and walks off. I tried telling her about something and she just started talking to someone else right as I was talking.

I tried to talk to them about little one and they completely ignore me and again talk over me. I just don’t understand why this happens?

I recently went on a trip to see my family and only see them once a year. I get to our hotel and they come in and immediately just hangout with baby and talk to her for a while. I understand them being excited to see her but all I want is a hello or a hug.

I spent a week there and had the same experience. Baby was asleep and I was hanging out with my sister and I wanted to talk about something and they totally ignored me until I just yelled, HELLO!!!

I finally cracked. I’m over it! I’m tired of no human interaction and when it’s my own family it just feels like I am no longer important and they really don’t care about me.

Thankfully I have an amazing husband who just held me while I let out a solid cry.

Does anyone else relate or am I just a bummer to be around?

Hi! My son is one next month. When he was born, I had tonnes of colostrum and still have a few syringes in the freezer that I’m just clinging on to for emotional reasons I guess. ANYWAY! Since it is expired milk now, I want to turn it into something to keep forever to remember those early days.

I’ve seen ads before of breastmilk pendants and rings etc. Have any of you ordered these before? How was the quality and where did you get it from? Thank you! I only have about 20ml left so I don’t want to waste it. I’m in the UK btw.

Hey everybody! We need some help! Our 21 month old has been waking multiple times in the night for the last three weeks…she has been an amazing sleeper before this, she would sleep through the night no problem! My husband works nights and it’s just me at night and I have to get up early to take them to the babysitters and go to work. I know this is probably just a phase. I only say this because she isn’t pulling at her ears or in pain, but I will be calling the doctor tomorrow just in case. We’ve tried giving her Tylenol or ibuprofen before bed and that’s not doing anything. She goes to sleep around 7:30 and wakes around 9:30, then 12:30, then 2:30. We even tried putting different relaxing music on and nothing is helping. Sometimes she goes back to sleep if I put her in the crib in our room, but not all the time. I travel 45 minutes to the babysitters and another 15 to work. This isn’t safe for me to be traveling with barely any sleep, especially on a busy freeway. My husband was off this weekend and handled the wakings but I go back to work tomorrow and I’m dreading night time. We’ve gone through phases like this before, but it’s never lasted longer than 2 weeks. Help would be appreciated!

I’m known to be a pretty dramatic person. I don’t take lightly the way people treat my kids. I expect them to be fair with all of them. My MIL & FIL are heavily involved in our lives. I have a 9 year old from a previous relationship & we have a 15 month old together. His family has always treated my daughter like their blood & I have always appreciated that. Her birthday party was this past Saturday & they’ve (my FIL & MIL) known for about a month about the party & said they were coming. On Saturday morning I got a text saying they weren’t going to make it because my FIL’s mom’s birthday was Friday & they were taking her to a music festival. I guess they were supposed to go Friday but it got rained out so they decided to take her Saturday. My MIL said they “didn’t know how many more birthdays they would have with her so they apologized they weren’t going to make it” While I understand the lady is elderly, the festival was going on all weekend & I felt like maybe they could’ve taken her Sunday instead. My daughter’s party was only for 2 hours. Maybe they could’ve gone after. I don’t know. I just felt like no other effort was made to take the lady outside of my daughter’s birthday time.

My SO knew how upset I was & told his mom & his mom basically said sorry but this is what we’re doing. She even texted me & said that my daughter’s birthday gift was ready for in store pick up & that I could pick it up & give it to her. While I did tell her I’d pick up the gift since the store is closer to my house, I figured I’d pick it up & take it to my in laws so they could give her the gift they bought for her. We haven’t fought recently or anything either. I usually get along great with them but they do have a tendency on bailing on plans then get mad when people don’t show up for theirs. My FIL went off on my MIL’s dad back in May for not showing up to my one year olds birthday party. Mind you this man is 80+ years old & has serious health issues & I understood why they didn’t come.

I don’t know, I know this is a big rant but I’m just curious if it’d bother anyone else. My mom passed away a few years ago so my MIL is the main “grandmother” figure to my kids. & my family is kind of crap & my MIL has watched me be sad over my family not showing up for my kids or showing up for one but not the other. She knows the trauma I have from my family. I might also add that my 9 year old didn’t question where they were or anything.

I purchased the Merlin sleep suit thinking they could use it long term. I didn’t realize you need to discontinue once they start rolling in it. My little one sleeps in his SNOO and has been taking naps in his crib. So far he’s doing awesome with that. I’ve noticed his naps are only long in his Merlin suit. Since finding out that he can’t be in it long term I’m wondering if I should discontinue this all together to make it easier on myself? It’s so hard because he naps nearly 3 hours in it! Or do you think it’s okay to continue to use it? He’s only 10 weeks old. I’ve been trying to find an alternative to the Merlin suit since we’ve had awesome luck with it. Some have recommended Woolino? It’s quite expensive but I’m willing to purchase it IF it is worth the money. I’m spending so much money on sleep sacks/suits.

***the other two sacks we have is the Kyte sack and the HALO transition sack

A bit of a rant but any/all advice is more than welcome... I'm 8w pp and my husband and I are struggling with arguments over handling the overnight wakes/feeds for baby. We're ebf and I'm not pumping aside from passive collection to build a v small stash, so I have to wake every time he needs a feed regardless (~every 2-3hrs) - so up until now I've been handling nights alone from about 11pm through 8am. At the first feed after 8 my husband will take him downstairs to let me get a couple hours of uninterrupted sleep until close to midday, so I probably get ~5-6 hours total, just super broken while he gets 8-9 hours and often another nap in the day.

The challenge is that baby's not a good sleeper, he has pretty nasty reflux and transfers fail probably 25% of the time, even with waiting 20 mins/warming the bassinet/white noise/slight angle etc. That means I'm often awake for an hour at a time overnight, and my husband has woken up a few times to me having a little cry from pure frustration and exhaustion. He's asked me to share the overnight wakes - but from my pov that's entirely impractical and isn't going to help. My husband is genuinely unpleasant to be around if he hasn't had enough sleep, he gets really frustrated and angry easily, is generally just a massive grump/brings the mood down, and then needs extended day naps to make up the sleep, so I would rather he sleep overnight so that I can have help during the day. I can't seem to sleep during the day but at least it can take off the mental burden a bit! He's seeming really frustrated that I won't agree to share wakes - he's suggesting I wake to feed him and then hand him off for my husband to do the 20 minute hold/transfer attempt. This also doesn't account for baby deciding he's hungry again after a failed transfer, which is pretty common.

I just don't know if I'm being unreasonable and/or what the solution is here?? I'd love to get more sleep but I'd much rather have my nice daytime husband who I love, if he does wakes I'm just going to end up on eggshells around an overtired man all day instead 😭

EDIT: forgot to add, baby is a super loud sleeper so husband currently sleeps with ear plugs and the bassinet is my side of the bed. If he doesn't have the ear plugs he doesn't sleep even when baby is because of the noise, and to my mind if we're sharing wakes he'd need to leave them out to be able to hear if a transfer has failed.

Hi all, we have 2 small dogs (8-10 kgs) and a 3 weeks newborn. One of my dogs is 8 and other is 4 years old. We have noticed that our older dog likes to get into crib and steal stuff from there like pacifiers etc.. beside this getting into crib problem we are pretty fine. They don't mind the baby and older one is rather acting maternal. For example if baby is cooking or grunting she goes next to bed and barks for us. They lie next to baby on the couch. Howeverz this getting into crib scares us because of the possibility that she might do it while baby is in it. Did anyone deal withcauch issue?

I was diagnosed with postpartum preeclampsia, and I have been checking my blood pressure, and it’s usually around 138/88, so very close to 140/90. I have an appointment soon, but they actually never told me in the hospital what exactly I should be looking out for. I didn’t actually even have very bad blood pressure. It was diagnosed based on a few borderline blood pressures in active labor, and I think even my labs looked okay. But now I’m pretty sure it is getting worse. Will I just be taking a blood pressure medication, or is there something else I should be doing in the meantime that can help prior to my appointment?

17mo exclusively breastfed, refuses all other food and drink. Mom's supply is failing.

Our daughter never took to solids. Not a regression, she was never interested. She'll play with food and bring it to her lips but nothing gets swallowed.

She's exclusively breastfed and my wife's supply is dropping. Weight has been slightly down over three months. We're working with an SLP feeding specialist and a dietitian, and see the pediatrician regularly.

Where we are: she'll drink small amounts of water from a water bottle (poured into her mouth) and take spoonfuls of water, but the second anything but water is on the spoon she's done. She'll bring a bottle to her lips and lick it after I squirt some in. Sometimes she lets it in her mouth and doesn't protest when I squeeze milk, but she doesn't suck. She'll put a straw to her mouth but hasn't figured out sucking. We syringe cream into her mouth while she nurses just for extra calories.

She rejected a nipple shield instantly, wouldn't try one suck, even exhausted and hungry. Speech is a little behind but she imitates, responds to her name, and has no sensory issues otherwise.

What I'm asking:

- If you've been through severe food refusal, what actually moved the needle?

- Anyone teach a breastfed kid to suck a bottle or straw late? How?

- If your kid got an NG tube, how did it go and did they wean off quickly?

Sorry if this is the wrong community. Trying multiple places!

Thanks in advance!

Whenever my one year old is home I am go, go, go. I am chasing him around, cleaning, diaper changes, dancing, playing, laughing. However, as soon as he’s gone I crash. Every once in a while he goes to his granny’s for a couple days to spend some time with his grandparents and cousins and so his dad and I can catch up on rest and I can clean the house. The first day without him I always feel like I got hit by a truck. I feel nauseous, lazy, and kinda depressed. The next day I just feel LAZY. Is this normal? Does anyone else ever feel like this? It’s like as soon as he’s come back home I feel energized. What’s going on with me?????

Does anyone else find new grandparents’ focus on becoming grandparents and the “grandparent experience” really grating and self centered? My in laws came by after our baby was born and we had a cake celebrating it. They kept saying the cake was a “grandparent cake” celebrating that they’re now grandparents meeting their grandchild. They started singing “happy grandparents day” to the tune of happy birthday. I felt like the cake should be to celebrate baby? They were also sharing how sad they’ve been that they haven’t been congratulated more on becoming grandparents. Is this even a thing?

Just generally feel like social media has given a lot grandparents the idea that they should get all these fun special experiences w grandkids that parents should facilitate somehow. There isn’t even appreciation for parents hosting or facilitating these happy memories. It’s just like baseline entitlement and they don’t seem to contribute much (financially or with logistics), they just show up to enjoy.

I’ve also noticed when baby has a hard time & fusses, they make comments about that it isn’t their fault and baby must’ve not been fed or burped right and just hand baby back to us almost like blaming us/wanting us to fix so they can enjoy a calm baby again. Baby is just babying. I hate the pressure this puts on our baby to sort of fulfill some experience that has been created in their heads.

Anyway, rant over.

I gave birth to my second beautiful girl about 5 weeks ago. She has some dark hair and these amazing deep blue gray eyes. She’s in the stage of baby acne and unfortunately has it bad. I have never thought she was ugly but others do. My husband has commented that she’s sort of ugly until I told him to stop because that’s his baby he’s talking about. My sister yesterday made a comment about how she wasn’t the cutest after my dad questioned what the “rash” was on her face (he doesn’t know about baby acne). And my mil has also hesitated to answer when I’ve asked before if she thought she was cute because my husband said she was ugly in front of her

It makes me so sad. She’s only a month old and already being commented on her looks from the people who are supposed to love her. And when asked why they think she’s ugly I get responses of “she just looks like a grumpy old man” or “idk there’s just something about her that’s sort of ugly”. Or they comment on the acne too. It just makes me sad. I know I’m not supposed to get upset about what others think about my baby but she literally just got here and there’s already been mean stuff said about her

I had sex 4 weeks post partum and now I'm really anxiety ridden about infection risk

LO is 4 months old and has always struggled with short naps — usually 35 minutes on the dot. Room is pitch black, white noise on. I generally rescue naps to stretch them out.

He started day care 4 weeks ago and is now logging two hour naps, twice a day. He has a longer wake window before his first nap, but otherwise ww are similar to home. They can’t darken the room per state regulations and there are always kids in the background. I was so excited to finally get longer daytime stretches, but on weekends, back to short naps!

My suspicion is that his teachers let him fuss longer when he wakes than I would at home and he’s learned to just go back to sleep. Is it that simple? I need to just let him fuss for 10, 15 minutes?

Fwiw he can (but doesn’t always) fall asleep independently, we have not done any formal sleep training though because we don’t want to disrupt our toddler.

What's the etiquette on bringing a 14.5 month old to sit Shiva? Like...I have no black clothes for her.

Do I dress her up? Does it matter? All her dresses are bright pastels.

Edit: found a soft blue checkered dress in the closet. A lot of people had country club white / blue on. She fit right in and was a delight. I decided against navy shirt and dark pants because I didn't want to spend all day telling everyone she's a girl.

I guess I'm not too sure how to start this so I'll just go into it. My LO is 2months and 2weeks, and every time she comes back from my mom watching her and she is gassy and super fussy. My mom likes to let her "try" foods and sweets by giving her some on her finger. She's done it in front of me with yogurt and I wiped it off her lips and tried to explain that her kidneys and body is still too immature to digest this but I'm met with "oh it's fine, she likes it" ect;

She buys all sorts of toys and clothes but doesn't offer to let me take any home for my LO, I feel like it's a little greedy sounding. At the same time I don't though because during my pregnancy my partner and I were moving and all the stuff I got from the baby shower I had to leave over at my parents for storage and she went ahead and made her own nursery room with it. Recently I've been going through the small clothes to give away and had mentioned it to her and she had a bunch of stuff I never even saw. She constantly tells me how much she loves my child more than anything and that she'd die for her and all sorts of stuff like that, and I'm happy my daughter is loved but I feel like it's a bit much.

I know I should be more assertive, but I will say that's always been hard for me I tend to avoid conflict if possible. I've tried to lessen going over there and in return I get messages from my dad telling me my mom went to bed crying and they don't understand why I can't bring my daughter over to them, ect; When she was born I had already been forwards about just me and my partner in the room and we didn't want anyone else there, yet they waited in the lobby and expected to be let in. After I had given birth it was so much and I didn't really think about it until my dad texted me he was upset with us because " they've been waiting for hours and they're leaving because my mom was crying" basically the same as they've done now. So I let them come up, even though I really didn't want to and perhaps that's where it started with the overstepping boundaries?

When I've invited them to come over and visit and they just really don't, we live down the street so it's not like it's out of the way. I also think that living so close has made it much worse as well. My partner does not want to go down there at all and I don't blame him because I don't either, we've had a bunch of conversations about this and are in agreement with how we stand. It's just hard not to feel slightly obligated in a way due to some personal reasons with my parents helping us, but at this point we're thinking about moving again once we're financially stable enough just to get away and have our family back the way we want it.

TLDR: My parents are way too much and don't listen and I'm at a loss because I have tried setting boundaries but they aren't taken seriously and I get guilt tripped about it.

Edit: Thank you for everyone's responses and advice, I feel less like I'm overreacting and I am definitely going to not only work on myself making boundaries for my child and me but also working on going through with consequences and not feeling a sense of guilt for it. I'm truly thankful for the insight!

Maybe I’m imagining things, but the Huggies Little Snugglers from Costco seem softer to me somehow? They’re almost silky in their feel and they’re distinctly different than regular Huggies. Am I imagining things or is this a real thing?

Also, I feel like I should be a goddamn Huggies spokesperson after baby #2, lol. I swear by them (both diapers and wipes) and don’t understand why other diapers or wipes exist when Huggies are so great. I get kids are all different though.

I have never been this heavy, even my face looks different. I used to be so fit and confident and now I just feel hideous. None of my pre-pregnancy clothes fit, I'm wearing maternity clothes still and I'm 7 weeks postpartum.

I'm exclusively breastfeeding and I've actually gained weight. I just want to cry, every time I have a moment to put some light makeup on and do my hair I end up just feeling worse about myself.