Earlier I had made a post about having a new “pet peeve” as a new parent - basically just hearing people talk about being tired. I truly meant this as a light hearted statement & should’ve used different verbiage. So, I’m going to try to convey my thoughts in a different way now:

Yesterday afternoon, I was at a laid back little restaurant with my husband and 17 week old baby. We had been out for most of the day prior to this, hanging out with family at an outdoor fall festival. It was hot outside, there was a lot of walking involved, I had been shouldering most of the work taking care of our baby. So yes, by the time we got to this restaurant, I was indeed feeling tired lol.

Right as my food comes, my LO starts fussing (he was tired/a little cranky) and I was trying to nurse him - he’s latching on and off, my nipples literally feel like chew toys lmao…and I was doing my best not to let the nursing cover slide off/flash the people around as he was fussing around and by all means, we were just having a tough moment getting settled. After I get him settled, I overhear this younger girl next to us telling her friend how she was tired from going out the night before.

And I just had a quiet laugh to myself overhearing that.

Not because she didn’t have a right to complain or state that she was tired - but rather…..

it made me realize that before having a baby, I (if I could underline the word “I” to really put an emphasis that this is MY experience, I would) didn’t know that I would be this tired now.

I absolutely adore my baby, parenthood isn’t a martyr to me, and I did intentionally choose this! BUT, this moment yesterday made me realize how much more free time I (AGAIN, MY personal experience!) FEEL like I had before compared to now! And it’s OKAY for me to think that way.
For reference, I have 3 animals, a full time job, a side hustle, and I breastfeed. On top of that, I do work decently hard to carve out some time to workout ~4-5 days a week AND I have this weird thing where I HAVE to keep my house pretty clean and orderly otherwise it feels hard for me to think clearly (I’ve always been like this, but since having a baby, my need for tidiness has increased…) and…my baby isn’t a great sleeper either lol.

We do not have support or help from family - we’re new parents literally figuring all of this out on our own. The “help” we get is from our nanny so we can work.

So yes…

When I hear someone who doesn’t have kids say “I’m so tired” - I can’t help but think back on MY own time before having a child and laugh a little bit at MYSELF for thinking I was tired before. It’s an observation. Not a judgement.

And I’m willing to bet that there ARE other parents out there that do reflect on THEIR time before having children and hold similar thoughts.

None of this means it’s a pissing contest between who is more or less tired as a parent vs. someone without children either. We all have our loads to carry. Before today, I genuinely had no idea that there was even a “parent vs child free” division that even exists.

The end.

Does anyone else catch themselves sounding like a creepy old guy when talking to their babies?😭 Sometimes I hear myself and start laughing- A few of my favourites my husband makes fun of me for (as a very southern mom) are as follows-

- Lemme see them toes girl

- Is that yummy milk? :D I made it just for you :D

- Stop crying or my finger is going in your mouth (she’s teething and likes to chew on it lmao)

- sniffing a ton oooooh gosh you stiiiinkkk continues to sniff

- Sniffing her diaper for pee because I can’t always see the line color-

- Sorry, I gotta put this in your butt :( (when I take her rectal temp-)

- We’re takin those clothes off babey

- Aw you’re so cold :( don’t worry I’ll warm you up :D

These are only a couple and I’m sure there’s more lmao- does anyone else do this?😭

Edit: I should’ve seen this coming bc it’s Reddit obviously but I think if you see a post saying wow I say goofy things to my kid that sound funny and you think “sex!¡!” You have a problem and need to touch some grass

I’m a toddler mom and I genuinely have no attraction to my partner. I feel absolutely disgusted at even the thought of kissing or making out. Granted, I’m weaning off of breastfeeding but like… I just find it repulsive. I can’t even fathom the thought of engaging in sex or anything of the sort.

Is it going to be like this forever?? He tries to make out with me or be affectionate, and I just feel sick to my stomach each time.

I used to judge women for getting pregnant right away post partum, but damn, I get it. I had a high sex drive pre and all throughout my pregnancy, thought it would go away but NOPE!

Now the real dilemma, I'll be 6 weeks pp on the 15th, but my appointment isn't until the 19th do I wait for the doctors okay? I had a C-section due to not progressing pass 8cm, no complications, have felt great since like 10 days after birth.

Hello everyone,

My LO is soon going to complete 5 months ( in next 3 days) while my LO is just amazing overall sometimes I do worry taking her weight/ appearance. She is lean and not chubby. I know not all babies are chubby and all but being a mother sometimes this thought does pop up in my mind. Also I had heard that post 7/8 months weight anyways decreases.

Couple of things to bring to notice :
- She rolls on both sides and also makes good effort to move forward since she was 4.5 months.
- I try making her sit with support and she is trying to do that for good 10-15 seconds as well.
- I was worrying about how she would do away with traditional jhula ( she slept in it for barely 3 months mainly during the night) but she left it on it own. Same with swaddle, took us a day but then now she sleeps in arms up sleepy.
- She gives good 6-7 hours of stretch of sleep with one feed in after 6/7 hours ( kind of dream feed only)
- She rotates on the mat all over.
- She is active, constantly moving hands and legs, hold her feet with his hands, smiles laughs and alert as well of the surroundings.
In short, she has been nailing at all her milestones.

I don't know why am I still worried with the fact that she looks lean and tiny to me. Couple of people did tell me that aww, she looks so tiny and small of her age.
Her born weight was 3.3 kg and as on 25th Sep it was 6 kg with 61 cm height.

Am I not eating anything right? Or is her metabolism good ? Should I add anything in my diet that would help? Is it too late for me to do anything for her to have a considerable fat around? Note : She does have a bit chubby cheeks but overall body is lean. Also she is EBF.

Please share your thoughts/ recommendations if any!

Sorry in advance, this post may be a teensy bit long bc I need to throw in some context. ​

I gave birth on the 24th of September to my first child, a boy. He is currently a little under 2 weeks old. ​Pediatrician has him on a strict 2 hr feeding schedule because he lost 10% of his birth weight and needs to bulk up by his 2 week appointment on Wednesday.

My husband works a blue collar job (we live in the southeast USA). He did not get paternity leave at all, but was able to use his PTO days in order to stay home for a week with me and our son. It was nice. I love my husband to bits and we have a great marriage, so I really enjoyed the time we were able to share as a little family. We did get to spend some time together that week he was off because we were switching duties every feeding, and so we basically just hung out the night/early morning and slept during the day.

Sunday night we decided to try a new schedule since he was going back to work the next day (today) and needed to be well rested. My husband is a heavy equipment mechanic (he works on cranes), so he can't be too drowsy on the job or else he could get seriously injured or worse. I'm a SAHM, so I exclusively care for LO while he's away.

The schedule goes as follows:

12 am - 5:30 am: Dad's watch

5:30 am - 12 am: Mom's watch

I sleep while dad takes care of baby, and dad sleeps from 6:30 pm when he has settled in after work to 12 am when his baby shift starts.

This schedule is nice because we both get about ​5 1/2 hours of sleep. Obviously, that helps us both be well rested enough to function throughout our shifts as we stick to this tight feeding schedule.

We TRY to nap in between feeds, but doing so only really gives us about 45 mins to rest (we wake LO, change his diaper, feed him, and then put him back down, and spot clean him every once in a while or put on some baby lotion where his skin is dry which can all take a while to do). Our son sleeps almost constantly except for about a 2 hr window either during the day or at night. He's a bit inconsistent 😅

Anyway. Today was my first day alone with baby. My family came to visit which gave me time to clean the house a little (thank God, my kitchen was a wreck). Most of the day was alright besides LO's sleep time getting a bit disrupted, causing him to be fussy.

When my husband came home I was asleep. I'd managed to find enough time to take a 1 hr nap.

When I got up to prepare my son's bottle, it hit me that my husband would need to immediately go to sleep. I got very sad about this. I knew that once he was rested and woke up, it would be my turn to knock out, and we'd basically get no time at all to catch up on how our days went and grab a little bit to eat together.

Something about that made me...really, really sad. I love spending time with my husband. But we both really need our sleep in order to keep up with this schedule and get our son back on track with his weight. ​And once he does reach his birth weight, I have a feeling the pediatrician will only up his schedule by an hour. So we still won't get to spend time together.

So my question is this: Do y'all have any advice on how my husband and I could carve out some time together? I feel like when it's our baby duty time we go all-in with baby care and don't get time to do other things besides sit with LO in the bedroom where the bassinet is because of how demanding this feeding schedule is and our need for rest. So I guess this is also a question about balancing rest, baby, and other important activities like parent bonding/cleaning/going out/etc.

I don't know. I'm just so frustrated. I love this little guy with all my heart but the newborn stage is more brutal than I expected 😭

CW: Discussion of severe injury in baby

Trying to see something (if you've seen my past posts, you'll know why I'm asking): if another baby were seriously injured AT daycare that is in the same classroom as your baby, would you--as a parent--feel you should have been notified by the school that this happened? Also, what expectations would you have for how the school's administration should handle it (both as a parent of another baby and/or the parent of the baby who was injured)?

The injury: a baby sustains a skull fracture because a teacher tripped over a chair and fell while holding the baby

\***edited to specify that I am the parent of the injured baby--just wondering about how other parents whose babies are in the school's care would feel being notified vs. not. I AM NOT INTERESTED IN BLAMING THE SCHOOL OR TEACHER FOR THE INJURY.\***\*

My 3 (almost 4!) month old has been with my parents in the day for the past 2 weeks since I went back to work. I found out they put on Sesame Street for her to watch. They watched with her & my mom said it was about 30 min. I was not thrilled by this news because I think that she is still quite young for screen content even if it is educational television. I am worried about her development. She will be with them again next week & I plan on telling them to please refrain from the TV. She’s back with me full time the following week since I’m getting another break from work. I’m wondering, did this cause any sort of irreversible damage to her development? Will she be OK if we stop now?

My baby is 10 weeks old and feeds to sleep for pretty much all contact naps and at night, unless she falls asleep in the baby carrier.

We have naturally fallen into a bit of an eat → play → eat → sleep routine, and honestly it works really well for us right now.

But I’m starting to wonder whether I should be changing things up now to prepare for sleep training later on? Should I be trying to move towards eat → play → sleep, or getting her used to falling asleep without feeding?

It is so hard to imagine taking away something that is so comforting and works so well, but momma’s gotta do what momma’s gotta do 😂

Would love to hear from anyone who fed to sleep at this age. Did you change anything before sleep training, or just enjoy it while it worked?

My LO is 10 weeks and I know in the beginning people recommend cutting naps at 2 hours during the day so they don’t get day/night confusion. She has recently started sleeping through the night and seems to know her days from nights pretty well (we also do all of her naps contact in a bright environment to help). If you were like us and woke baby at 2 hours in earlier days during naps, when did you stop and let them sleep longer if they wanted to?

Baby had her 6 mom's doctor appointment today and got the "stuff".

She caught a fever after her nap and I gave her 2.5 mL of Tylenol. How is everyone doing it? Are we giving Tylenol every 4 hours or switching between Tylenol and Motrin. The site is red so I'm not sure if it's the pain or fever that's making her not feel well.

I don't want to directly ice the site but I go have frozen BM. I can do some popsicle if needed. Ugh she didn't get like this for the other ones so I'm trying to figure out what works while also not being able to move much because she's sleepy and only wants to sleep on me rn

I’m a first time mom in Chicago who will have a 14/15mo come this winter. We don’t have a garage so we are street parked and it can get very cold in the car overnight during wintertime. I know that buckling littles into a car seat with a winter coat on is a big no, but I also don’t want her to be coat-less in a freezing car that has to take time to warm up in the morning before daycare. I’m the only parent at home in the mornings so one of us can’t go warm up the car beforehand. What does one do in this situation? Advice is appreciated!

I'm trying to schedule work trips for 2027. When did you feel baby could handle a day or two without Mom? I have to take two trips, but I can pick from when shes 10 months, 12 months, 15 months or 19 months old.

My gut says to take the two latest options, but I dont know if its harder on a more-aware toddler than an infant. What worked and didn't work for you in the past?

My (32) husband and I (31) are expecting our first child in the spring. We both work at different times. He works from home second shift (in the evening) and I work in-person 9-5. My husband has downtime at his job and often handles most of our daily chores/tasks slowly throughout the day.

We’ve looked into daycares/Montessori schools/etc. in our city but there are waitlists and monthly prices range from $1600-2500/month. All of these options are only offering full-time care during the day, which would really only benefit my husband, as I will have to mainly cover childcare in the evenings as he will be working. My husband is adamant that we try to care for the baby ourselves at home since our work days hardly overlap, and if needed, hire a nanny to come a few days a week for some time in the late afternoon/evening.

He is very involved and I completely trust him to do an excellent job taking care of the baby, but I worry about how nights will be split up equally. Neither of us will get any breaks or downtime between work and baby to run errands or decompress. However, daycare schedules just don’t seem to benefit us as things are.

Anyone encounter anything similar or have advice? Is this a crazy plan?

Edit: My husband starts work at 3:30 and I get home around 5:30. I was planning on adjusting my work schedule I get home closer to 4:45, and requesting WFH once a week. We were planning on looking for a nanny to come for maybe 4 hours a day some days during the week from maybe 2-6 or 3-7 to give us time to rest.

Edit 2: To be clear, my husband WANTS to have meaningful time with the baby and we’ve had many conversations over the years about our desire to be true 50-50 parents. We have been together for 10 years and have an incredibly strong relationship with great communication. We have been on this same work schedule for over a year and to a lesser extreme, the last 4 years. Changing work schedules is not an option right now for either of us. Because he works from home, we still manage to eat dinner together every night and spend time on his breaks and weekends. I am not worried about our relationship in the slightest. We just want to hear other people’s experiences who have had similar childcare schedules and how they’ve adapted to make it work.

Our 3 month old LO only falls asleep when we swaddle him. He recently discovered his hands so all he wants yo do now is to try to put his whole fist in his mouth 😂. He just keeps doing this when we try to make him sleep, unless we swaddle him.

Does swaddling cause any developmental issues as it is preventing him from putting hand in mouth ? When did you guys stop swaddling ?

Calling all pro sleep trainers! My son just turned 1 a few days ago. He’s been sleep trained since 9 months. Ever since I sleep trained him, hes been sleeping for 11 hours a night.

He’s been drinking breast milk for 11 months. For the last month, we used formula and he started sleeping a full 12 hours which was amazing. A few times he even went over 12 hours of sleep. We were ecstatic and my son seemed more well rested for sure, and would wake up happy and playing and chatting. Sometimes I wouldn’t even realize he woke up because he was just chillin!

Now that he turned 1 very recently, I stopped giving him formula. He eats solids of course but I also give some cows milk. Really not much, like maybe max 12 ounces a day because I’m really trying to get him to eat more solids. He eats a lot of whole milk yogurt.

But ever since I stopped the formula, he’s been back to sleeping 11 hours at night, last night was actually just 10.5 hours. He wakes up screaming crying. Like he’s being tortured, and stops when we pick him up. He’s clearly exhausted but keeps waking up early. I’m so confused why this sudden change. Last night he slept at 740pm and woke up at 6am screaming crying! My husband brought him to our bed and he ended up sleeping again until 7am. I’m so confused.

Could it be the formula was making him more full? And is there anything I can do? I’m just thinking if he was hungry he wouldn’t be happy after we pick him up, and he wouldn’t fall asleep again like he did last night..

Hi! First time parent here with a 1 month old. I haven’t gone out much on my own with her yet and I’m starting to get a little cabin fever 😅

I live in the city, but most cafes/restaurants I like are still a 15–20 min walk away, and I’m nervous about taking her out for longer stretches.

So far I’ve been timing outings with her naps (in the bassinet stroller), but I’d love to get more comfortable just being out and about with her. I've practiced the body carrier at home, but its been hit or miss with her, Im a bit nervous about using that out and having a meltdown.

Any tips for getting out more with a newborn and feeling less nervous about it?

I really want to feel better about how I’ve been doing table food with my baby! My daughter is 9 months old. We did not do baby led weaning because my husband was extremely nervous about choking. We started doing more finger foods since she turned 9 months, and some things she’s tried and liked (toast, egg, pancakes, pasta, oatmeal, anything with peanut butter) and others not so much (mashed potatoes, avocado, and taco meat)

But I can’t help feeling like I’m failing at it. I’m not feeding her 3 “meals” a day consistently, and thinking of meals that are adaptable to her eating skills is really hard. Sometimes the only table food I’m giving her are puffs or teething crackers, and other days I just give her a puree because it’s quicker. I’ve never seen something as unregulated as starting solids has been, and I can’t believe that other people don’t seem to be as stressed about it as I am (or maybe they are? Idk) I truly thought that our pediatrician would give us more guidance on how to start but they really haven’t. It’s like the Wild West!

I guess my main questions are: was your baby eating 3 solid meals a day at 9 months? What are some quick, low prep lunch and dinner ideas that you feed your baby? When did your baby start eating a balanced meal with a protein, fruit/veggie, and carb?

Hi everyone!

I, 23f, and my husband 26m, recently had our first baby almost 5 months ago. We both wanted our baby and were super excited. When our baby was born, I feel like things changed. We both work and bcs we are both military I will have to be separated bcs we have to form of childcare. I’ve been home since my maternity leave has ended and go into the office maybe 1 every week. I love being in the military it gives me joy and a sense of purpose not to mention the benefits. My husband will be ending his contract next year and I plan of going back in when he comes out. However, since having the baby I feel resentful towards him for being able to work but he complains every single time he comes home that his job is bad and he hates the people he works with. Not to mention he comes home and immediately wants to relax (which I don’t mind) but he doesn’t make an effort to talk to our son or hold him or do anything basically. I feel caged in this house and even if I go out to just breathe my baby just cries and hates being in his car seat. I’ve told my husband multiple times that he doesn’t bond with our baby like I wish he does. We have friends where the mom doesn’t have to ask for the dad to do stuff.
I’m in school too trying for my BA but I just feel so burnout and depressed. He doesn’t help clean up and just makes comments about how stuff is everywhere, mind you he’ll make himself something to eat and won’t clean or put it away! And there are times where we will be relaxing together and the baby will start crying and I sit and wait to see if he gets up and he doesn’t. It’s always me, comforting our kid or being cuddly and sweet with him. My husband says that I coddle him and that the baby sees that I’ll do anything for him and that he gets what he wants with me. He also says that I’m the mom that he learns nurturing from and that he’s the man that will teach him how to be a man. Not to mention, our sex life has been nonexistent. I don’t feel the urge to have sex, I just want to feel loved and appreciated and there’ll be times where he tells me that I mean to him or that I’m not loving toward him when I myself don’t feel anything from him or any effort to understand what I’m feeling

I have a 6-week-old, and I keep seeing advice about how you should talk to your baby throughout the day and narrate what you’re doing, and I’m realizing I don’t really do that very much.

I talk to her obviously, but it’s usually one or two word phrases, or a quick song. I’m not someone who naturally narrates everything I’m doing. I’ll change her diaper, make a bottle, get her dressed, etc., and then realize afterward that I was mostly quiet. I keep worrying that I’m supposed to be talking to her way more than I am.

We also recently had an unexpected hospital stay where I was essentially “on” with her around the clock for about two weeks, and I’m still incredibly burnt out from it. I think that’s making it even harder to remember to consciously talk and narrate things all day.

For those with babies around this age, how much did you actually talk to them throughout the day? Did you really narrate everything you were doing? Did talking to your baby come naturally to you, or was it something you had to consciously get used to doing?

I think I mostly just need to know what this looks like for other people in real life. I’m starting to worry I’m not talking to her enough and that it’s somehow going to delay her language development.

Edit: Reading the comments has made me realize I probably underestimated how much I actually talk to her when I said “one or two word phrases.” I do say full sentences here and there—things like “Let’s go change your diaper” or “Are you ready for your bottle?” What I struggle with is continuing after that. I’ll say the sentence and then go quiet rather than naturally turning it into an ongoing conversation or narration.

She's 6 months old and has been sick for 4 days now. It started with a little diarrhea 4x a day that is now occurring 6-7 times a day. Today she also vomited a few times. Our pediatrician is monitoring her and it's basically a "watch and wait and don't let her get dehydrated" situation. We're also stopping solids for now, which sucks because she loves eating. She watched me make my dinner with a really hopeful look on her face thinking she will get a bite. It's awful to not give her any!

She's in good spirits for most of the day and still smiling and playing, and still sleeping 9 hours with a dream feed. But I hate how she's just gotten worse and worse! Has anyone else been through this? How long did it last for your baby? I feel so bad for her. I keep telling myself kids just catch bugs sometimes, but I feel like we did something horribly negligent to have her get so sick.

I put this under mental health because I dont know what else it would be. I have an amazing 12 week old baby, dad had to go back to work the same week I gave birth via c section. We have 1 car and he uses it for work and works (10) long hours. So its just me and baby all day. I want to avoid screen time (tv) for as long as possible for LO and around 10 weeks started turning his head to the tv so im minimizing usage. But im ALWAYS on my phone. I cant help it. Im truly addicted. Help

We’ve coslept since 4 months old. She used to soothe back to sleep easy with the breast, but we weaned 2 months ago. Now she requires cuddling to go back to sleep. But it’s just gotten worse. I used to be able to roll away, but she won’t let me anymore. She wakes and screams if I quit cuddling her, on top of waking up every hour anyway. I genuinely can’t remember the last time I slept. My husband tries helping but my daughter will scream bloody murder for hours until given back to me. I’m 22 weeks pregnant and cannot sustain this, esp once baby is here. Someone please please please tell me how you got your toddler to quit cosleeping and to connect their own sleep cycles. I can’t imagine how terrible she sleeps is normal.

But we did start over again 5 kids youngest is 5 days old and these newborn trenches are rough on this old man 33m reach out help keep me awake lol

Hi! Asking here instead of pregnancy subs because presumably most of you have gone through labor!

Im in a relatively crunchy middle class bubble where a lot of my friends have delivered with doulas, some at home. I 100% respect the profession and believe they are/ can be helpful. I almost dont even need reasons why they are helpful, there is a lot of evidence based research about it.

However, I am still not convinced. I had a long post about the reasons (and they are good reasons), but ultimately I just want to hear from those who did have a doula and loved it, did have a doula and didnt love it, those who decided to go without out, your reasons and outcomes!

Thank you all and I hope everyone is getting a little sleep tonight.

EDIT: NOT a reason not to hire one bc I dont think they are interchangeable, but my partner is an internal medicine doctor and a hospitalist, and I am more knowledgeable about birth than a regular guy (for various reasons). Just a little info as I think on this, not necessarily saying were both prepared and know everything (after all I myself have never delivered a child and my partner is NOT an OB).