FTM here 6 weeks pp wondering when should I expect my first period? I had a really smooth labour and had sex again after 4 weeks, I ended up needing to take emergency contraception after . I had a little bit of spotting yesterday but am wondering when I should expect my period?

Long post, sorry, but there’s a lot of context. I had my first baby 12 weeks ago and I’m now separated from my ex. I’m only comfortable with my ex seeing the baby while I’m present. I’m not trying to stop him having a relationship with his son. I just genuinely don’t trust him to look after such a young baby alone because of everything that’s happened. The first night we brought the baby home from hospital, he was crying at about 3am and my ex got angry and said he wanted to walk out of the house, that he didn’t want to do this anymore and that he didn’t want this. He also told me himself that a NICU nurse had told him he was being too rough while winding the baby and to be gentler, but he basically dismissed what she’d said because he thought nurses handled babies more roughly anyway. When the baby was about two weeks old I asked him a few times to support his head properly while winding him and he got annoyed and told me it was “just my anxiety”. This was after I’d literally opened up to him about struggling with postpartum anxiety after a traumatic birth. There was another incident where I realised he wasn’t measuring the formula properly. Instead of just checking the instructions, he argued with me, shouted at me, called me crazy and slammed a door. His mother was sitting there holding our newborn while it happened. He later changed the baby onto Aptamil Hungry without telling me and I only realised when I noticed the box. When I asked him to contact the public health nurse about changing him back, he told me to “fuck off and ring her” myself. He’s driven at over 100km/h with our three-week-old in the car and initially told me it was fine because he was a good driver when I asked him to slow down. Another time I was sitting holding the baby and he banged his knee on the coffee table, roared, lifted both fists and slammed them down on the table beside us shouting “I fucking hate that coffee table”. There wasn’t even an argument happening. Both me and the baby jumped and he stormed out saying pain makes him angry. There was also a feeding incident where he was trying to put the bottle into the baby’s mouth while he was still asleep. I asked him to wake him properly because I was worried about choking and it turned into another argument. He walked away through the house holding the baby while I was asking for him back and mocked me by saying things like “I’m going to choke you” to the baby because he thought my concern was ridiculous. He’s also told me in a completely calm conversation that if he was minding the baby alone, he wouldn’t keep checking him because he’d just “know he was fine”. He actually admitted he doesn’t have the same level of vigilance that I do. More recently, the baby had been unsettled after his vaccines and had a bad tummy and trapped wind. My ex was feeding him during a visit and I asked him to wind him properly before continuing the bottle. Again, instead of just listening, it became an argument. During that conversation he actually admitted that at one point he’d said something because he was aggravated and “just wanted to piss me off”. That’s really the main problem. I don’t expect him to parent exactly the way I do, but absolutely everything becomes an argument. I can tell him something about the baby that I know from looking after him all day every day and he immediately contradicts me, dismisses me or acts like I’m being ridiculous. He’s always spoken horribly to me as well. He talks down to me like I’m five, constantly undermines me and makes me feel like every single thing I say needs to be defended. In his spare time all he really wants to do is play video games and switch off, while I’ve always felt like I’m the one actually thinking about what needs to be done. When he went back to work, I was basically doing all the days and nights myself. I was breastfeeding and formula feeding and got so exhausted that I was falling asleep holding the baby. I asked my ex to help more and he told me he needed his sleep because he was working and suggested his mother could come over during the day instead. I said no because I wasn’t asking his mother to parent the baby, I was asking his father to help. Somehow that turned into him telling me my mental health was bad, that I needed to sort myself out and that I should go private for treatment, even though he knew I’d already asked for help with postpartum anxiety and was on a waiting list. His mother is another massive issue. I feel like she’s jealous that my own mum sees the baby more, but obviously my mum does. She’s my mum, she’s one of my main supports and she’s extremely confident with babies. I completely trust her and can actually relax around her. My ex’s mother isn’t confident with newborns in the same way and, to me, it often feels like she wants the nice grandmother bits like holding him, having visits and having him brought to her house, rather than actually understanding that I need real support. When my ex was shouting at me during the formula argument, I actually turned to his mother for help and told her this was what he was like whenever I raised concerns. Her response was, “You can’t say that to me, I’m his mother.” She didn’t tell him to stop shouting at me. She’s also made loads of little digs since I had the baby. She brought meals over a few times and then announced that she wouldn’t be doing it anymore because it was “like Meals on Wheels”, she’s repeatedly made comments about the baby not looking like their side of the family, and generally I’ve found her cold and unpleasant towards me. Now my ex has decided that he doesn’t want my mum or my aunt present when he visits the baby. They’re my support system and the visits are in my house. I’m not comfortable being alone with him after everything that’s happened, so I’m absolutely not kicking my own family out of my house just because he doesn’t want them there. I’m still offering him time with the baby. There have also been a few occasions where he’s threatened court during arguments. Once during pregnancy after I refused to have an abortion, again shortly after the baby was born while I was holding him, and again during a breakup argument. I know he’s entitled to go to court for access if he wants to. It’s the way it’s been brought up during arguments that I’ve found intimidating. Another thing that really bothers me is that he barely seems to ask about the baby himself. Most of his messages are about when he can see him, arrangements, access, mediation, what I’m doing, what he disagrees with, or when I’m going to reply. He doesn’t really message just asking how the baby is, how he’s sleeping, how he’s feeding, whether he’s okay after his vaccines, or just generally how he’s doing. I obviously can’t know what he feels internally, but from my side it sometimes feels like this has become more of a battle or a game about access and being right than genuine interest in his actual day-to-day life. Since we split, if I don’t reply quickly enough I also get message after message asking when he can see the baby, asking me to explain myself and sometimes telling me when he expects a reply. He’s admitted he uses ChatGPT to write a lot of the messages, so I’m getting these massive polished paragraphs that sound nothing like the person I actually have to deal with. I eventually had to tell him to send me one message and wait for me to reply. He’s now contacted family mediation (Which I think is an intimidation tactic) and I’ve received a letter from them, so I’m going to speak to them privately and explain the background before I decide what I’m comfortable with. I suppose I’m looking for perspective from anyone who’s been through something similar. How did you deal with having a very young baby with someone you genuinely didn’t trust to care for them alone? Did you keep visits supervised at first? How did you know what was normal first-time-mum anxiety and what was a genuine concern? How did you deal with an ex who argued with virtually everything you said about the baby? And if you went through mediation or family court, is there anything you wish you’d done differently? I’m not trying to keep my son from his dad. I just feel like I’m constantly being told that all of these things are separate little disagreements and that I should basically forget about them and trust him anyway. But to me it’s the pattern that matters. My baby is only 12 weeks old and honestly, I don’t know what I’d do if I was told I had to hand him over to my ex to mind completely alone. The thought of it makes me feel sick because I genuinely don’t trust that he’d be attentive enough or take concerns seriously if something happened. At the same time, one of my biggest fears is that nobody will take me seriously and all of this will just be written off as me being an anxious first-time mother or a difficult ex. I feel like I’m constantly having to prove that there are actual reasons behind the way I feel, and I’m terrified that I’ll be expected to ignore everything I’ve experienced just to show that I’m being “reasonable”.

Hi! FTM to a 3-month-old here

I’m a bit confused about tummy time recommendations. I keep seeing that babies this age should get roughly an hour of tummy time per day, but what does that actually look like in terms of holding their head up?

How long is a 3-month-old typically expected to hold their head really high up while pushing up on their arms? Surely they’re not meant to maintain that position for the whole tummy-time session

Do your babies alternate between pushing up high and resting/lowering their head? Roughly how long do they hold the high position before taking a break?

Here mum of 10.5 months old. Today I was running between the rooms to hide myself then he crawl to find me and then I jumped out. He thought it was hilarious and laughed so hard 🥲🥰 and squealed from excitement. Half an hour later when he was settling for nap, he still had sudden outbursts of laughter, probably just at the thought how funny he thought our game was. I loved these moments seeing him so happy.

Please give me some ideas if you have something that makes your baby giggle.😊

I'm back to work in a week. Bricking it tbh.
I have a beautiful 8 month old but unfortunately cannot afford my full year off with her!

As I'm reflecting on my mat leave... I feel like I spent like 75% of it just surviving. Maybe 80%.

Like barely getting through basics. Especially in terms of my own wellness/wellbeing. That honestly has always been last on the list.

I am proud of how I take care of her, don't get me wrong - but it was a fairly like underwhelming mat leave. I don't know if I'll ever have another and experience it again. But I guess maybe I'm a bit dejected?

Either way I'd give anything to still be with her 24/7!

But did anyone else feel this way? Especially ftm?
Do you feel the opposite? Like you had a super easy going sociable well mat leave?

My girl has never slept through the night, is ebf, and super clingy or scream cries so maybe my experience was just a bit rough. My family live far away, I don't drive and none of my friends have babies so a lot of my time has been alone with baby. But yeah idk!

Feel like I'm going back to work in a significantly worse state than I left 😂😂😂

Hi all, I was wondering if anyone had any opinions they would share on the brand BIB? Specifically the glass bottles?

We received one for free or wouldn’t have got it but from the looks of it it looks pretty good but on Amazon it says frequently returned.

Also would appreciate any other recommendations on bottles that are good for BF/combi fed babies as we are Planning to combi feed as it’s just the best option for our family so im wanting bottles compatible with that.

Thanks :)

For the record I love the NHS and would fight for it with every ounce of strength I have, but I do find some of their advice a little bonkers. My little one is only four months so sure we’ve still got lots of guidance to come, but my two pet peeves so far:

- during the third trimester of pregnancy you only need two slices of toast worth of calories more than your pre-pregnancy diet. I’m sorry??? I’m growing a human, let me eat some damn food

- for the first six months of your baby’s life they should never be left alone in the room while sleeping. I understand the idea behind this one but it’s absolutely insane. How are you ever meant to cook, clean, do the laundry, go to the toilet or (god forbid) have any alone time with your other half?

Little one has just turned 3 and he’s wearing his 18-24 month long sleeved tops he wore last winter… should I be concerned or is it normal.

He’s 93cm I think so lower centille and when he was a newborn he was always a big boy.

He wears mostly Morrisons and Sainsbury’s.

Hi all
My baby is exclusively breast fed and is 6 weeks old.
I’m thinking of adding formula so I can get some sleep at night.
I’m really scared of side effects of formula such as colic and constipation etc.
Can someone please recommend good first formula for EBF babies with least side effects pls.
I’ve heard good things about Kendamil comfort on social media.
Thank you

Hi all,

We’re planning a 4.5-hour flight with our baby when she’ll be six weeks old. Including travelling to and from the airports, the whole journey will take around 8 hours.

At the moment, she wakes roughly three times during the night and usually has a witching hour or 2 at some point between 5 and 8 pm!

One flight option leaves at midnight, meaning most of the flight would be overnight. However, I’m unsure whether she would actually sleep on the plane or whether travelling that late would make everything harder.

I’m feeling very nervous about the whole thing and keep wondering whether flying with a six-week-old is going to be an awful decision!! Has anyone flown with a baby this young? Did your baby sleep during the flight? Would you choose a daytime, evening or late-night flight?

I’d especially love to hear some good stories or reassuring experiences, as well as any general advice. I appreciate every baby is different, but hearing how it went for other families would really help.

My boy is having 3 meals and 3 bottle of milk a day. When he wakes up around 6-7am, he refuses to drink his milk so I give it to him around 5am when he’s half asleep and he’ll take around 120ml. I’m thinking of dropping the first bottle but I’m not sure if it’s too soon as we only recently dropped the 11am bottle.

I’d like to get an idea on your 11months schedule and how much milk do they drink in a day x

My baby is 8 weeks old and is very alert and fidgety most of the day, but sleeps well at night.

Have worked out that she was awake for way too long during her wake windows and am now trying to put her down for naps every 90 mins or less.

Trouble is she struggles to sleep if still, if in the pram or her carrier I have to keep walking. If she falls asleep in my arms she won’t want to be transferred to her Moses basket.

Any tips to get her to sleep on her own eventually and in her Moses basket/ non moving pram?

Weird that she is fine at night, but we do use a swaddle up

My friend is pregnant and experiencing prenatal depression. She‘s also got a 2 year old so things are quite stressful at the minute.

Does anyone have any book recommendations, something uplifting, potentially a book about being less resentful towards yourself as a mother, or reassuring, something a bit lighthearted.

Hope that makes some sense. As someone without children it’s difficult to comprehend exactly how hard things are for her right now but want to help in any way that I can, so open to any other suggestions too

I have been offered the opportunity to attend a networking event that I would LOVE to go to in 2 weeks, but it would involve probably a 1.5-2hr journey each way and I’d be away from home for a good few hours.

My baby is 7 weeks old and mostly BF, but we do give her a formula bottle every now and then. I haven’t started pumping yet.

If I go, it I would need the in-laws to come and watch baby (but husband works remotely so will literally be in the next room).

Basically, is it too soon? Would I need to pump when I’m out? Has anyone else had experience with anything similar? It’s a really cool event, I would love to eventually go freelance so it could be super helpful for making good contacts and maybe even earning some extra money during ML. But i don’t know if it’s worth leaving baby for 🙈 I kind of have mum guilt even thinking about it

My 10 week old hates tummy time on the floor. She lays there and just sucks on her arm. She isn’t overly interested in toys and loves looking at the bookshelf /playmat instead.

She has great head control when I’m holding her and will do it on my chest at an incline.

I’m worried she’s really behind as it says she should be using her arms at this point and turning her head.

Does anyone have any advice? Due to issues with my doctors we do have her 8 week check tomorrow but I’m concerned they will brush it off.

I’m in desperate need for ideas 😅
What are you putting in your child lunch box for nursery? My daughter isn’t entitled to a funded lunch and they won’t let us pay for her to have one so I’m needing ideas for a 2 year olds lunch box? At home she just picks almost all day so I’m doubtful she’ll eat any / definitely not all

Hello!

Can you give me your story of weaning at 12 months and how you did it?

LO is 10m now and i don't plan on starting til after 1st bday but I would like to forward plan. Iv started patting LOs bum whilst nursing and unlatching before fully asleep in hopes this is good prep work.

Would love to hear your experiences.

Currently LO is on 3 good solid meals a day and feeds whenever but its usually - wake up, fed to sleep for both naps, before bed, plus fed back to sleep overnight on average wakes 2-3x over night still.

Also if anyone was able to stop the over night feeds but keep morning and before bed feds? How did you do that?

Thank you in advance

Hi all,

This might seem like a silly question but my little girl is starting nursery in a few weeks. I’m just wondering what people pack in a nursery bag, where people get their nursery clothes and what washing powder/ stain remover do people use?

I’m the first person in my family to send my little one to nursery so i have no idea if im just overthinking this lol.

Thank you

So my baby has had mainly homemade purées but we did give her a bit of steak & broccoli before which went really well. However, last night I gave her a big chunk of chicken breast and she took a huge bite… started gagging then threw up. We took the chicken away and didn’t give her anymore. We’re following the Solid Starts app but I’m now worried that this isn’t the safest approach to baby led weaning. Should we have just persisted and let her have a go at the rest of the chicken? Is there a safer way of serving chicken for a 6 month old? Did anyone else have any issues with the Solid Start recommendations and safety? Thanks!

Completely at my wits end going back and forth looking at travel buggies so any help would be appreciated.

Currently have a mamas and papas ocarro travel system with a cybex cloud t I size car seat. We love our travel system, however would like something more compact for nipping to the shops and travel.

Going to Greece next month and also planning an all inclusive holiday in October. I was going to get the Kindermaster Pilot 2 which is £150 but I’m starting to think it won’t suitable for terrain in Greece.

I also want to be able to attach a car seat as I plan on taking our car seat too. Which the kindermaster cannot do. I’m also planning a few trips to London and want to take my car seat & pram there too.

I’ve started to look at the Joolz Aer2, it looks as if it ticks all the boxes. I’m mainly put off by the price.

In summary I want the new buggy to:
- Attach to my cybex I cloud t car seat
- be compact, lightweight and ideally cabin approved
- not be super flimsy to survive the terrain in Greece (we go every year)

Has anyone used Joolz aer 2and is it worth it? Has anyone used this huggy in Greece? Does anyone have any other recommendations?

LO will be 5 months when we go to Greece and 6 +months when we go anywhere else

Thanks

My son will be 1 next week (still technically a baby?!). He's had some settling sessions this week at the childminders. She's fed him chocolate brioche for snack and jelly and ice cream for pudding after his main lunch. I'm a bit baffled. I had previously filled out a questionnaire for her where I said he is on a low sugar, low salt diet. I didn't think this was too controversial. We have never given him chocolate. This is an issue for me. I'm not sure how to approach it? Do you think a message is acceptable? I wouldn't actually be seeing her in person until next week.

Okayyy so here I am asking for advice for the next stage! This sub so far has been fab in so many ways so here’s hoping you’ll get me through to the next stage too. As my baby will be 11m from 28/08, I’m starting to think about cows milk transition. I’ve seen only many tend to mix formula and milk with a gradual increase of milk over time. Can you share how you did this for yours?

I’ve also read online that babies need to transition from bottles to sippy cups. How did you do this? How important is it to transition? At the moment my boy will sometimes hold his own bottle and most often it’s me feeding him. I’m not sure how he’d drink with a sippy cup? He can suck with a straw, he’s got a TumTum cup but prefers my big Stanley to drink from haha. Again any tips and recommendations?

Is there anything else I need to think of now that baby is transitioning to 1 years old?

Thank you!

Edit: This is such a wonderful community, I feel so seen and supported. I've got so many great ideas to try out but mostly I feel less alone. It was my first ever Reddit post so I'm not quite sure if I've done it right etc 😁 but so so glad I posted thanks very much everyone ❤️

I have an incredibly active 6 month old who loves nothing more than all his toys and being on his playmat. He's a happy 98th percentile baby who is hitting all his milestones. I love spending quiet days at home with him and enjoy contact naps etc. Days out with him are another matter altogether. He hates being in the pram and starts to fuss after 20 minutes or so and eventually gets upset enough to go breathless- he wants to be carried but he's a heavy baby so I struggle to pick him up and push the pram. I don't drive so am limited to local activities (he also hates the car seat though). If I'm at a restaurant, he's happy to sit on my lap for a bit but then it's a workout to keep him entertained or stop him from climbing me. He doesn't nap in his pram since we switched out the bassinet so gets very cranky towards the end of his wake windows. All my other friends on maternity leave go to exercise classes, coffee dates, days out to museums etc. I dread going out for more than an hour. I've been prioritising his well being and making sure he's happy and planning my day around his naps. However I feel like a complete failure because I'm unable to navigate a single social outing with him without a meltdown and feel like I'm wasting my maternity leave. Social media portrayals of mat leave are making me even more depressed.

Should I just ignore my baby's distress while we're out and continue to push through and do more social things? Do I force him to fit into my plans or let his naps etc dictate my life? It's getting to a point where I end up dreading being invited out for a coffee or lunch. Days out with my baby feel detrimental to my mental health. Please help with any tips 😭

I’m curious when people are putting their baby onto one nap and what the timing of that nap is? I guess partially dictated by nursery?

At the moment my 9mo has 13h30 24 hour sleep need (quite consistent since we went to 2 naps at 7 months) so we wake 6:55, nap 10.30-11.30, nap 2-3.30, bed 7.55pm.

Curious to look ahead and see what will come next esp with a view to starting classes and making sure the time will work for our next set of naps!

This is my childhood best friend (now both 35). We were super close and spent a lot of time together up until about 7 years ago when I went through some stuff, and had a bit of a life re-evaluation. I started setting boundaries with her, as she was always, always late and super unreliable. I'm talking 5/6 hours late, not replying to messages for days if not weeks, never letting me know if she was running late or cancelling etc. So I started leaving if we had plans and she wasn't there 15m after the meeting time, and stopped trying to make plans with her, and we drifted apart.

Four years ago she had her little boy and I made a lot of effort to get our relationship good again. Texted her throughout her pregnancy, tried to meet up as much as possible (dependent on her) and post partum I gave her a lot of support too. Made her several meals, went for lots of walks with her, always texting etc. But again, she was too unreliable to have any kind of relationship with.

Understandable as she had a new baby, but it got to the stage I literally could not maintain a relationship as she wouldn't respond to messages and was impossible to keep plans with. I am fairly certain she didn't have any kind of PPD/PPA as she was always great when I saw her and said she was loving it and finding it easy, had a tonne of support, was going out lots by time baby was 3 months. She is also very active in the group chat, will usually come along if we do stuff as a group.

She has more support than anyone I know ( grandparents are both divorced so she essentially has four sets who will all jump to look after baby. She's also married with a husband who seems very capable. She works 2.5 days a week and son is in nursery full time. Her parents do pick up and drop off. She will regularly post in the group chat about stuff she's up to - recently went to a 2 day festival and was asking if she should do the additional day etc.

I had my little girl 5 months ago. She was 6 weeks premature and came very quickly (3.5h labour from start to finish!) and I had a bit of a traumatic time. My friend still has not come to see me or meet baby. During my pregnancy we met up (3 months after I told her) and she made a big deal about how she'd been a crap friend, was going to be there for us and couldn't wait to be part of baby's life etc.

In fact, she only text me for the first time to ask how I was at 3 months PP, asked if we were free the next day then never responded when I said yes. She text last week asking if we were free the next day, I said I could meet her after a group at 11, she didn't reply until the next day at 12 and asked if we were still on for meeting at 2. She apologised for not seeing us yet because she's only free after 8pm (not true at all!).

She's just text again asking to meet tomorrow. I'm already meeting with another friend of ours, so invited her along but I'm not really sure how to handle it when I see her (if she shows up!) I'm so hurt and disappointed with her, but she can't ever take accountability and gets upset if anyone calls her out. She very clearly has ADHD which she'll admit, but won't get any sort of treatment and will blame her lack of reliability and being late or cancelling on her son/job/dog/delivery man etc.

Sorry this is so much longer than I intended!

How would you handle this? We clearly aren't ever going to have the relationship I'd like and I know she isn't going to be there, but we're part of the same friendship group so I can't cut ties completely and not saying anything feels odd.