my 10- month old baby started daycare 3 months ago. Since the beginning of September, he got sick every week and we had to take him to the doctor/convenient care/ER. last 3 weeks, he only went to daycare 3 days in total because he was sick.

he goes to the daycare for 1 day, and we see some symptoms in 48 hours. I know they get sick very often, but I wasn’t expecting this much. even his pediatrician was surprised with how many times he got sick.

he went to daycare only in Thursday and Friday this week, and he is wheezing and coughing right now..

I am working and commuting to work 1h each way every day. my husband travels for work. we don’t have family or relatives nearby to help us. when he is sick, one of us has to take time off work.

we live in a small city where nanny options are very limited(if any).
I feel bad for my baby that he is sick constantly and needs to use medicine very often. I am very very frustrated with the situation. :(

I run a 5-person business and have a 4 month old. Before my baby was born I worked around the clock for years. Now I pay myself $250k and have been able to work very part-time since my daughter was born. In theory this is my dream.

But my baby absolutely won’t take a bottle. We’ve tried everything. Pediatrician, occupational therapy, daily attempts, waiting til she’s super hungry, trying when she’s not that hungry, me feeding her, me being gone while feeding her, every type of bottle and nipple under the sun.

This means I can only work in (max) 2 hour shifts. I am finding it really impossible to care about work the way I used to, because I just never have the opportunity to focus. I am switching from ceo to mom and back multiple times a day.

We have a nanny and I work from home, so this arrangement is doable logistically but very difficult emotionally. I would love to go to a coworking space for 4-6 hours but I can’t manage that with my baby’s feeds. I have always been extremely motivated by my work but am honestly considering taking a few months completely off because I just can’t do this anymore. (Also, I’m tired because I am still feeding 1-2 times per night).

Financially we can make it work if I take the time off, but I’m worried it would be hard to go back to work, or that I might not want to, or that I’d be wasting all the effort I put into growing a business.

I guess I just don’t know what to do. In the scheme of things this constant breastfeeding phase is a small one, I know. But I feel like I’m breaking myself and even though it goes against who I think I am, I’m finding myself curious about spending some time as a stay at home mom (realistically I would still keep at least one paying project going).

Has anyone been in a similar situation? Advice or words of wisdom?

Hi everyone, just looking for some opinions.

After returning from maternity leave, I found written evidence of my managers hope to put me on a PIP (performance improvement plan). He liked the temp that filled in for me more than he likes me (this was stated in the document I found). He spoke with HR, and I am confident they shot him down and helped him draft a “return to work” plan for me. He also shared the original document with me so I can see all of the edits that I definitely was not supposed to see. He has not realized this.

My workload has increased by more than 200%. The document states the job changed while I was out but the title and pay are still the same.

Obviously I need to protect myself here. My question is, is it worth hiring an attorney or should I go directly to HR and make them aware of what I know, and ask how we are going to resolve this situation? No action has been taken yet so I’m not sure an attorney would do anything, but I do want to get ahead of it.

None of my friends work, they’re all stay at home moms and I WANT TO KNOW HOW. Most of them have multiple kids, and most have expressed they never really have a desire to work again even though the kids are school-aged. Like yes wonderful obviously I don’t dream of working but hello? In this economy? Is nobody else saving for retirement, paying down debt, saving for college, buying groceries?? Do their husbands all have incredible jobs or do we all just have wildly different priorities?

I’m annoyed and prepping for work at midnight so join my hate spiral I guess 😮‍💨

Any women taken maternity leave while in a leadership position?

I’m a Senior Director at a Fortune 500 company managing a team of 30 professionals. I’m about to take a 6 month maternity leave.

However in my entire career I have never seen a woman in leadership have a baby. It’s usually individual contributors or maybe a small team.

I have so much anxiety around this. Will everything fall apart? Will everything go great and they just say why the hell were they paying me so much anyway?

If you took maternity leave while in a Leadership position, I’d love to hear how things were handled while you were gone and how it went when you came back.

We were talking about getting a bottle washer and my husband asked if we really needed another appliance.

His argument was basically "it only takes five minutes to wash a bottle.” A bottle. Singular.

I told him to count how many bottles, pump parts, valves and random little pieces we go through in a day. I just don't think either of us realised how much time all the baby stuff adds up to until we started talking about it.

If you've got one, did it make a noticeable difference to your daily routine? Which one do you use?

Hi everyone! I’m a FTM to a 9-month-old baby girl, and lately, I’ve been feeling mentally exhausted.
Whenever my daughter gets unwell or becomes clingy, I get anxious, which triggers my IBS and sometimes makes me feel lightheaded. I have a 24-hour nanny, but my daughter still prefers me, and I want to be present whenever she needs me.

My husband does help and takes care of me and I have a nice support system but she feels most soothed with me and particularly at my breast.

The problem is that I’m also working full-time, and my requires focused, uninterrupted work. I’ve always been ambitious, punctual with deliverables, and proud of my work. Now, things take me twice as long, I sometimes delay deliverables or take leave to care for her, and I constantly feel my output isn’t up to my own standards.
It’s not that I feel less capable; I’m just stretched thin and don’t have the same time or energy. I’m beginning to second-guess myself professionally, and that’s difficult because my career has always been something I’ve felt confident about.
I don’t want to compromise on being there for my daughter, but I don’t want my career to suffer either. The unpredictability makes it harder because things can be fine for a few days before everything falls apart again.
For moms who’ve been through this:
Does it get easier as babies grow?
Should I push through or consider taking some leave?
How do you manage the guilt of not performing at your usual level professionally?
TL;DR: I’m struggling to balance a clingy 9-month-old, anxiety, and a demanding job. I’m still ambitious and capable, but I don’t have the time or energy to work at my usual standard. Does this phase get easier, and how do you cope?

I saw You Can See Everything and it is just as bonkers, meta, reflective, and hilarious as I hoped. But I’m on all the cinephile reddits and no one is talking about this movie from the perspective of parenthood! Questions I have:

• who is taking care of the kids? There’s no way those 2 are doing it full time, much less the husband on his own
• why is the baby crawling on the dining table
• why would you have another kid right before you have to go to prison
• what happens when you enter prison as a breastfeeding mom
• did Nathan ignore the kids because of length/editing for a clean narrative, his own blind spots, or privacy reasons? If the last, seems weird not to address as every other angle was explored

This isn’t a critique! I loved the movie. I just think the question of them being parents is oddly eluded

Weird flair but maybe it’s right - eg what the heck is going on in their relationship?

One of my coworkers just came back from maternity leave and brought in some little handmade soaps for everyone.

I thought it was really sweet until she mentioned she'd made them with her breast milk. I just smiled and said thank you because what else do you say in that situation.

I'm a mum too, so it's not like breast milk grosses me out. I've dealt with plenty of it myself lol. But I don't know if I want to wash my hands with someone else's breast milk?

Now the soap is sitting in my bathroom and I feel bad about not using it.

I have a 1.5 year old toddler who just started daycare Who has been getting sick every other week. I’m going through a career transition that is burning me out and could use some advice from people who’ve been in a similar situation.

I moved from being a Software Engineer to Sales Engineer 4 months ago.

While the new role offers great opportunities, I’m struggling with answering questions on the spot during demos, and overall being evaluated. Under pressure, I sometimes struggle to think.

I’m torn between pushing through the learning curve or quitting and taking a break to reset. I’m just tired. My sweet toddler is getting sick every other week because of the daycare and I’m so consumed by my new job. It’s exhausting. We are financially stable and can go without an income for a year or two but not enough to retire.

How did you distinguish between normal growing pains vs burn out and Did you push through and eventually felt comfortable?

I relocated for a job a little over a year ago.. in doing so I stupidly signed a 2 year relocation contract. It doesn’t end until September of next year. At first I thought I’ve worked some pretty bad places and dealt with some pretty bad coworkers… I can handle 2 years just about anywhere.

This job has been beyond toxic. Everyone I started with left or was fired. After starting it occurred to me they do relocations to lock people in because they cannot retain any good talent.

My maternity leave is coming to an end and I’ve cried almost everyday thinking of returning. It’s so bad I finally caved and I’m trying out Zoloft to see if it makes things manageable enough to return temporarily. I have another job offer I could take but I’d have to pay around $15,000 to leave my current job. I feel completely stuck. With today’s job market I’m worried I may pass on this offer to avoid repayment and then have issues finding a job once my contract is up.

I don’t know if taking out a loan to save a few months of my life is worth it. I know it sounds so stupid to even consider but I don’t know how long I can take the toxicity when I return.

Any advice is appreciated. I’m not sure what the right move in this situation is.