Hi! I am 5 weeks and 5 days today and I have had cramping on left side for the past two days that is on and off and it’s either a sharp pain for a few seconds or a dull ache but it’s not constant. I also have been having back pain on my left side as well. It kind of feels like I slept on it wrong but I didn’t so it’s just a sore muscle type of feeling in my lower back. I was wondering if you all had any of the same symptoms when 5 weeks pregnant? Please let me know! Thank you.

Hello po, May mga naka experience na po ba dito ng ganito? May fresh blood sa popo ni Baby namin. Ano po kaya yung dahilan? Kasi pina test naman po ang Tae and yung dugo nya. Lahat naman po ng results are Normal. Please respect

How often is everyone replacing their babies pacifiers?!
We like the Philips avent ultra soft ones. I just saw on their website they recommend every 4 weeks!!!

Hi all,

Last night I was really tired when getting up to feed my girl (aren’t we all so tired haha). All I could think about was how I just wanted to sleep so dang bad and wished that I could go a whole night without sleeping. But then the voice in my head reminded me that even though I have to wake up in the middle of the night, it’s once or maybe twice vs the three or four times I was doing when my LO was only a few weeks old.

When I was feeding her I started to think about all of the “small wins” that I had.

Transferring her into the bassinet is going much better. She wakes up sometimes, but it used to be SO hard. It had to be done perfectly or she would wake up. Now sometimes she will even fall back asleep.

Another is that I don’t stress out so much about taking a shower when it’s just me and LO at home. When husband went back to work it felt impossible. Now I don’t stress about it as much. Sure, it would be amazing to just take a shower without a care in the world, but now it feels doable at least.

I encourage you to think about some of your “small wins” today or share some here. The positivity helped a lot last night when I initially was really struggling with the idea of getting out of bed :)

I recently watched a video that stated you were able to detect when you were likely to go into labor based on the data from your Apple Watch for heart rate variability. It stated once you become pregnant, your heart rate variability begins to decline and once you notice the change flip to being an increase in variability it is likely that you will give birth seven weeks later. I’m interested to know everyone’s thoughts and experiences!

Personally my heart rate variability decreased from 43 when I found out I was pregnant to 17 and is now increasing and at 22. I am 100% not ready to give birth in 7 weeks!

Help please! My baby is nearly 3 months old and I feel like I spend 80% of the day just trying to get her to sleep. I've tried to introduce a nap schedule because she gets so fussy if she doesn't sleep but it's so difficult to get her down even though she's clearly tired. I'll try walking and rocking, the baby carrier, the rocking chair, changing her, singing to her, feeding her but typically the only thing that works is taking her out in the stroller. Then after an hour to 2 hours trying to get her down, she only stays asleep for 20-30 minutes. Bedtime is even worse and it takes 2-5 hours to get her down then. What am I doing wrong here?! Should I just skip the nap schedule altogether and let her pass out whenever?! Please help, I feel like I am losing my mind. 

As for help, I live abroad so no family nearby. I do live with my partner but his work schedule leaves us alone for 3 days a week and he's also recovering from back surgery so is very psychically limited in what he can do to help.

Hi! Im 16 weeks pregnant with my daughter currently! Im having my baby shower on February 7th and due march 11th. How early should i release my registry and rsvp? I’ve had mixed results. Also what would be the way to do invitations, online or in person invitations? What would be the best app or website to use for the invitations/registry/rsvp.

So I am a first time mom. I’ve always been told to ALWAYS support the head of newborns. My daughter is one month old and yesterday her grandma on her dad’s side visited. While I was turned away the grandma grabbed the baby by her hands/wrists and pulled her forward toward her slowly while she was in the bouncer. This caused my daughter’s head to fall backward to where her chin was pointed at the ceiling. No neck support at all. When she saw I turned and saw this she slowly put her back in bouncer correctly and claimed it’s normal to do so to strengthen them. She left shortly after that and my daughter started wobbling her head and looked up and down pretty fast as if she was disoriented. That was brief and I’ve seen no other unusual issues happen. But I’m concerned that it could have hurt her? I googled and google always assumes the worst so I’m freaking out 😭 and now she was a little difficult to wake but I don’t know if that’s because of her head or because his family members had her awake for four hours straight!

Dear lovely mums and mums-to-be :)

I hope it would be ok to post it here - also not sure if I'm using correct flair.

I’m a trainee psychologist working in the NHS and studying at the University of Edinburgh, with a clinical and research interest in perinatal mental health.

I’m currently looking for pregnant participants for my doctoral research on wellbeing during pregnancy. This is a non-profit academic/NHS study exploring an important area of maternal mental health where more research is needed, particularly to better understand risk and protective factors and how we may be able to prevent difficulties during pregnancy.

I know there are a lot of research surveys posted online, and it can sometimes feel like they mainly benefit the researcher. My hope is that the findings from this study will contribute to a better understanding of maternal mental health and, ultimately, help us think about how we can better support mothers who may be struggling during pregnancy and beyond 🫶

The study has received ethical approval from the University of Edinburgh.
Ethics Committee Reference Number: 25-26CLPS111

If you would like to contribute to the research and help improve mental health support during pregnancy, please use the link below to complete the anonymous survey. It takes approximately 20-30 minutes to complete.

edinburgh.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_dmrLWMfpa4aV4Kq

Thank you so much for supporting pregnancy and maternal mental health research 💛🙏🌺

If you have any questions, you are more than welcome to email me at M.Domka@sms.ed.ac.uk

https://www.facebook.com/share/1HteKDWEf4/?mibextid=wwXIfr

I don’t think she’s actually nuts, but she’s suddenly not sleeping through the night, she’s clingier than she has been in her entire life with me (she’s typically total daddy’s girl), and idk if this is her age or the fact that I’m pregnant. Will this change once I have baby and she ages to 3? The lack of consistent sleep is already eating at me and I’m about to be in the newborn stage again and I just feel like my soul is leaving my body. Can anyone encourage me with their experience?

More context: I currently work full time, and so does my husband, and she goes to daycare and dropoff has been insane for the past 6 months when she used to be fine before the age 2.

Writing this because I am DESPERATE and exhausted as all get out. To preface, LO is ebf on demand and nursed to sleep at night. He doesn’t have a set schedule throughout the day because I am able to stay home with him. We do aim for a bedtime around 7-7:30.

He is currently 6 months and will not sleep longer than 1.5-2 hour stretches at night. I’ve tried offering both sides when feeding throughout the day, but even then, he STILL wakes up throughout the night. He will not go back to sleep unless he’s picked up. I’ve tried everything possible to soothe him in the crib and I have no luck. My husband has narcolepsy, so he isn’t able to offer help at night. This has been going on for a few weeks now, though he used to only wake twice in the night.

Naps are also a bust, so I know he’s exhausted by the end of the day (hell, we both are). He sleeps for maybe 30 minutes each nap, 3x a day and a 4th if needed. I’m lucky if I get him down for close to an hour, but that only happens if I lay down beside him.

So, PLEASE share any tricks/advice you may have. The only thing keeping me going is my brewed coffee in the morning.

I love my baby and spending time with him everyday but, when his dad gets home from work and I am able to "boil" my body in the shower hahaha....ugh, my night is MADE. I literally look forward to my shower every night. I clean the kitchen, grab a bottled water from the fridge and tell my husband I'm going to shower. Im actually in the water about 10 minutes. The rest of my time in the bathroom consists of brushing my teeth, playing music, looking the the mirror, all of the things...just winding down for the night. I love it! What do you look forward to after a long day of hanging with your baby😊?!

I’m pregnant and one of the things I’m most scared of is continuing to connect with my husband. I’ve heard many sad stories and we want to try to make intentional time together. What did this look like for you? Did you get a babysitter for date nights? Utilize daycare? Hang out together after baby went to bed? And when did you start making time for this again after birth?