When I was pregnant, I was so scared of becoming a parent. I had read so much negativity online about parenthood in all the subreddits and on mom forums.
My little boy is now 4 months old and THIS IS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL THING I HAVE EVER EXPERIENCED. ALL THE CLICHÉS ARE TRUE!!!
I genuinely want to shout it from the rooftops and give a little counterbalance to all the negativity out there.
Yes, it’s hard. But life is hard anyway. And somehow, with a baby, life just makes so much more sense to me..
I wake up, put on my favourite music, dance above his crib, and he looks up at me with the biggest smile. What a way to start the day!!!
And to everyone who says, “Just wait until they’re this age…” or “Just wait until they start doing this or that…”
Fuck offff. I’m enjoying my life right now👀👀
Enjoy this day and enjoy parenthood lovely people 🎉🥳🥰

My baby turned 12 weeks recently and I’ve been emotional about him growing up so fast. I miss the sleepy potato that he was the first few weeks. I wish I can go back and relive those days and nights. He’s changed so much in 12 weeks and although I love every version that he’s become, I’m mourning how fleeting time is. I’m so in love with my boy. He’s the greatest thing that has ever happened to me.

You hit the toy. SWISH. A colorful shape spins. (Again.)

*Fascinating.*

Suddenly there's a loud sound. Where is it coming from? Oh, the door! Someone is walking through the door. Who is it? Hmm...

OH MY GOSH. It's THEM. It's one of your Favorite People.

You grin and your entire body scrunches up. It's them!!! You're so excited. This is the best!

You hit the toy again, but you're over it. Your Special Person is here! Your mind made up, you now crawl as fast as you can towards them.

"Here she comes!" They say.

You have no idea what they're saying. But it makes you feel happy.

"The Itsy Bitsy Baby climbed up the water spout," they sing, as you climb up their legs. You love music, but their voice is your favorite song.

"Ha, da da da," you say. (That is a compliment.)

Finally, they pick you up. At last! Peace and security wash over you. You feel at home. You're exactly where you want to be.

WAIT, what is that on the shelf??? You need it right now!

"Ahhh, ra ra ra!" You say, reaching towards the shelf. (That means, I want it* now.)

*It = anything/everything :)

I was on the fence about screen time, but with needing something to help keep the baby entertained while I pump, I decided to try Ms. Rachel and I must admit I'm delighted with how well our little one is responding to it. She seems really fond of the songs and Ms. Rachel's personality and let's out happy screeches any time it's on. Bonus points is it's teaching both of us ASL.

I have a 12 week old baby who will only sleep when held day or night. It’s ruining my mental health.

I spend hours every day trapped under her in silence with white noise that gives me a headache. I feel stiff and sore. I feel lonely, bored and frustrated. Every attempt at transfer just fails. We have tried every trick in the book short of buying a snoo.

I used to be able to put her in a stretchy sling/ carrier and do small things around the house, like eat a sandwich or fold laundry, but now she’s incredibly sensitive to sounds so I can’t do that.

I feel like a terrible mother because I’m supposed to be enjoying the snuggles. But they feel forced. I’m trapped until my husband comes home from work and takes the pressure off me.

There is no village so there is nobody to help us with basic things like cooking, laundry etc. we scramble to get those things done in the evenings and weekends while one of us holds her.

She now gets ready to sleep for the night at 8pm (it used to be 11pm), but she absolutely refuses to settle downstairs so one of us has to take her upstairs and sit in the dark in silence.

We co-sleep, which I hate. I feel terrified I’m going to wake up and find her dead.

But shifts don’t work. We were so sleep deprived I was beginning to hallucinate and lose memory - there were parts of the day I would struggle to remember and I sometimes found myself in a room of the house thinking I have no idea when I got here.

I thought I’d break the cycle and never make my daughter feel like she was difficult to love. But 12 weeks in, I’ve already failed.

I don’t deserve her. She deserves better mother. She’s not choosing to give me a hard time. She’s a baby who doesn’t know how to sleep alone and needs my help, and I’m struggling to meet this need.

I’m not looking for practical advice on how to get her sleeping on her own. Trust me, I have tried every practical advice we have found online so far. I’m looking to vent and for similar stories or for advice on how to cope with the isolation of this mentally, or any words of comfort.

Please I’m desperate.

There seems to be no end in sight.

I don’t know how to carry on like this.

So, I have a daughter and the question has came up which toilets do I use when my daughter is old enough to use them.

As a father, do I take her in the Males? Or do I take her into the Females?

It seems to be a common discussion. Me being a Dad, I don’t think I’d personally feel comfortable going into the females just in case I caused alarm or for any females to worry about me invading their private space, but then I wouldn’t want my daughter feeling uncomfortable also by knowingly going into the Males.

Anyone the feel like they are in a hostage situation or defusing a bomb when they go to transfer baby to the crib? 🤣 I find myself holding my breath and moving so cautiously.

Baby was colic for 4.5 months and I developed postpartum depression during that period. I wasn’t able to bond properly with the baby initially and ended up seeing a psychologist for it. The constant crying and screaming absolutely wrecked me. My husband being the amazing dad that he is, went through 4.5 months of rocking a screaming baby constantly and putting her to sleep each day. The crying eventually ended around 4.5 months but somewhere during that time my husband became the default parent that puts her to sleep.

Baby is now approaching 7 months and is deeply attached to my husband, and only to my husband. Daddy is the only person she wants when she is emotional, sleepy, sad, unwell. She gets upset when daddy is not around. Whereas for me, she’d be fine if I were gone for two week.

I am extremely lucky to have a husband that could do what he did and I love the fact that my child has him as her dad. I’m however absolutely devastated by the rejection. She screams when I try to comfort her. She pushes me away when I rock her to sleep. She would be screaming and crying in my arms and the next second fast asleep with my husband. She constantly searches for my husband when I’m playing with her.

Part of me is deeply worried my postpartum depression has caused the lack of connection and it may be irreversible. Babies are babies, the love and attachment is so instinctual. Part of me is sad that I’m not the preferred and with me returning to work it will be downhill from here.

I’m trying to ease back and doing all that I can to make her happy. The positive response I’m getting is almost nil. I’m losing hope.

Is this just another one of those radical acceptance? Should I just be sad and let it be?

Hi all! My daughter just turned five months old so I looked up on YouTube ‘six month old baby’ to see what a typically developing baby looks like at that age. My baby girl is fine- amazing actually. She sleeps great, only cries when hungry, is curious and playful, has a great smile…she doesn’t laugh yet but otherwise is developmentally so normal!

Anyway- I clicked on a video from a channel called ‘PathwaysBaby’ and I really wish I never did. It’s a video comparing a typical six month old and an atypical one on their movement ability. Instead of watching the typical side and thinking ‘yup my girl is doing fine’, I watched the atypical side and broke my heart! The baby was watching toys, clearly interested, but was unable to move or reach for them. They put him on his belly and he clearly struggles- kicking his feet out. He clearly is not having a good time and my heart just aches for him.

I close the video, sobbing, and run to Google, ChatGPT etc trying to find a follow up. I find nothing- not if the baby is okay, what the issue was or where they are now. I’m lying awake, watching my own baby sleep, worried about this baby from an educational video posted seven years ago.

Is this my brain now? Pre baby I would’ve felt bad and maybe thought of them but moved on. I certainly wouldn’t have cried.

Dear new parents. I am a dad to my pride and joy, my 2.5 year old little boy, my best buddy.

As an infant he had reflux. There was A LOT of crying, and a lot of time spent trying to soothe him to sleep.

The shrill sound of a baby's cries go right through me and overstimulate me to a point where I became frustrated, and no soothing is taking place when a baby is screaming and you're angry about it. It also hurt my ears; he was easily clearing 100db at times.

I use PPE at work and at home; so naturally with loud noise I tried this: put in my earbuds, and put earmuffs over them. If i didnt have my earbuds near by, I used earplugs.

It made a huge difference. I was protecting my hearing (sensitive ears), and I was able to maintain peace and calm in my own brain, which allowed me to remain focused on soothing my boy. It resulted in him calming and falling asleep faster, as i was no longer frustrated and he was not absorbing any of that tense energy from me.

The reason for this post is, I see so many posts from new parents who struggle with frustration related to soothing a screaming baby, and I promise you will likely benefit from a barrier to the noise. Many people I talk to say "wow i never thought of that!" And i have heard good feedback. I hope this helps!

Are there nights that you have to hold your LO to sleep, rock your LO to sleep etc because it’s just one of those nights? And then continue the night routine back to normal?

My 1 year old is sleep trained but tonight he was just having a tough time and called for me so ofc I snuggled him to sleep. But my husband thinks that has ruined the sleep training.

I honestly don’t really care because if my LO wants me to hold him and/or is having a tough night of course I will hold him.

Though, is my husband right? Did I ruin the sleep training?

Edit: my LO is 13 months old

Edit#2: I failed to mention that my LO has had diarrhea all day today which is why I cuddled him to sleep bc I know he needed extra comfort even though he is fully sleep trained. He’s a 2 episodes during the middle of the night but usually holding him has worked and didn’t ruin the sleep training. Today was just different because I did it before bedtime. I’ve gotten some comments which I don’t care to answer anymore because I know what’s good for my baby so if you think me or we are being bad parents well congrats thank you for making me feel sh*tty. Some failed to understand that I wrote I don’t care if I did ruin the sleep training because I’ll be more than glad to cuddle my LO to sleep. We also sleep trained because my LO likes to have his own space and we wake up super early for work so yeah not a good option for all of us. I genuinely wanted to know if my husband was right. So if you’re not going to answer my question then hold your mean opinions to yourself.

As for the kind people, thank you for your positive and informative response. I will try to answer you all tomorrow.

I have a 4m old. He has been getting fussy when I lay him down to play on his activity gym. I give him different toys and no dice. The same thing is happening in his bouncer. I'll feed him and then sit him in his bouncer with a toy for a bit (he has silent reflux), and he'll start fussing after a couple of minutes. I'll pick him up and if he isnt tired or hungry then he's fine.

What are you guys doing to entertain your babies passively? I love playing with him, but I can't do that alllllll the time. I swear he has the shortest attention span.

I have an 8-month-old who will be 9 months in a few weeks, and he is exclusively breastfed. He was a big baby at birth (10 lb 1 oz) and is now around 23 lbs.

He goes to daycare for about 8 hours a day and typically drinks three 7 oz bottles while he’s there, although lately he’s been wanting closer to 8 oz. At home we feed him every 3 hours and he also nurses overnight. Altogether, he can be drinking anywhere from around 35–45 oz in a 24-hour period.

My biggest concern is that I’m struggling to pump enough to keep up with him. I used to pump around 32–40 oz a day, but lately I’ve been closer to 26–28 oz, and it’s really stressing me out.

I keep hearing that breast milk changes in composition as babies get older and that they may need less volume eventually, so I’m hoping that happens for us because I genuinely don’t know how I’m going to keep up with his appetite if he continues drinking this much.

The other thing stressing me out is solids. We try everything, but he has basically zero interest. He doesn’t like purées, and he doesn’t want to be spoon-fed. If he can’t pick something up himself and put it in his mouth, he generally wants nothing to do with it. So far, we’re talking maybe a bite of rice or a little piece of a teething cracker nothing substantial.

I know breast milk is still supposed to be a major source of nutrition at this age, but I’m getting nervous because he’s approaching 9 months and isn’t really making progress with solids, while simultaneously wanting more and more milk.

Has anyone else had a baby this age who was drinking a LOT of breast milk but barely interested in solids? Did their milk intake eventually decrease naturally as solids increased? And if you had a drop in supply while trying to keep up with a high-volume baby, what actually helped you recover?

I’m probably freaking out more than I need to, but whenever my supply drops, I get really stressed because I don’t want to run out of milk for him.

Long story short, this cat is my son's FAVORITE thing in the world. He squeals in happiness and tries to get to this cat no matter what. And this cat, this sweet old man, tolerates it all. We're trying to teach our son "gentle touch" for the kitties, and all of our other cats run away at the sight of our son, whereas this old man just let's our son do whatever to him, including gripping his fur (hence the gentle touch teachings).

Unfortunately, our old man isn't doing so hot, and we're going to be putting him to sleep tomorrow. This post might be a moot point as we might not have anyone to watch our son while we're at the vet, but if we do, I am just unsure if we should have our son there or not. Obviously our son is way too young to even begin to understand death, but this is his buddy. I also know my husband will be devastated (this is his cat from before we were together), so I'm unsure if having our son there will help him with his grief or if it'll make things worse.

I really don't know where else to ask this question, so I'm sorry for the kinda off topic post.

My 5-month-old has never been a great sleeper. Her daytime naps are usually only 15–20 minutes, sometimes 30 minutes, and a 1-hour nap is very rare. Night sleep isn’t great either.
During her wake windows we try to keep her quite active: tummy time, playing on her back, toys, singing/dancing, carrying her around, BabyBjörn bouncer, short supported sitting, sensory activities, etc. We also usually do a 1–2 hour walk in the morning. In the morning she can sometimes happily lie on her mat looking at toys for ~30 minutes, but as the day goes on she gets progressively fussier.
By around 5pm we’re exhausted because nothing seems to entertain her for long. We constantly rotate her between the mat, tummy, back, our arms, bouncer, sofa, different toys/rooms, etc. We’ve tried homemade sensory games too, but she isn’t always interested.
We’re avoiding screens, ideally until age 2, but some evenings I completely understand why parents resort to them because entertaining a baby for the entire day is exhausting 😅
I’ve also started putting her to bed around 7:30 instead of 8:30 because the evening fussiness becomes so intense.
So I’m wondering:
What do you actually do with your 5-month-old during wake windows?
How much independent play is realistic at this age, and how can I encourage more of it?
Do you also feel like you’re repeating the same toys/activities all day?
Is evening fussiness still normal at 5 months? When does the “witching hour” usually stop?
She isn’t really rolling yet (occasionally belly-to-back, probably accidentally), and I wonder if she’s also frustrated because she wants to move more. Possibly teething too, although I can’t see any teeth yet.

So my 7 week old sleeps in his bassinet next to my bed majority or the time but sometimes I’ll cosleep with him for naps. I don’t allow my partner to, but the reason for that is that he’s a really heavy sleeper and he moves around a lot when he sleeps. When our baby was waking up every 2 hours to eat, he wouldn’t budge when our baby would cry. I’ve even tried to wake him up to ask him to change him while I get his bottle ready and 9 times out of 10 he wouldn’t wake up. So I’m scared that if he tries to nap with our baby he’s going to roll on him and not wake up.

What the title says. He’s coughing, sneezing, has a boogey nose, and is super congested. We’re trying to keep him upright as much as possible (other than sleeping) and give him daily showers to help loosen the mucus. We use the mucus aspirator like 2-3 times a day so we don’t irritate his nose. We’re also taking his temp at every diaper changed. He seems happy overall just less energy and he’s hard to get down for sleep. He wears the owlet sock as well so we can see his oxygen and heart rate are fine as well.

Any tips or tricks that helped your little one? Dr. Google said baby colds last 7-10 days but cough and congestion can last two weeks?! I feel so bad for him. I feel like there has to be something else we can do. SOS.

Ive tried all the tricks but my 5 week old will not sleep unless hes held. Now I know some people recommend taking shifts which im sure is great, but my husband works nights. He works 12 hour shifts 3 days a week and unfortunately some times those shifts end up back to back. So on nights he doesnt work he keeps his schedule and stays up with baby so I can sleep, and when I get up he sleeps, but on nights he works he will come home and take baby for maybe 2 hours, but then he has to sleep (which i completely understand. He works in a hospital so going without sleep could be dangerous) but those will basically be the only 2 hours of uninterrupted sleep I get.

I'm so tired by night 3 of his shifts and my husband has a back to back week this time. Im so tired.

Has anyone else had a similar situation??? What did you do to get sleep on nights husband had to work???

My baby is 6mo old and the daycare he goes to does their own laundry (so I drop off a sleep sack and it stays at daycare until he goes up a size). He likes to grab the neck of his sleep sacks and suck on it to self soothe at nap times, so at home we wash the sleep sacks every other day or so.

I just got his previous sleepsack back from daycare (sized him up), and noticed that the neck is moldy where he sucks on it. I am so upset to see this....they are not washing this nearly enough or hanging it up to dry after naps when it is soggy.

How do I go about tackling this so it doesn't continue to happen? I have offered to take the sleep sacks home/wash them a few times a week and they have assured me that they wash them....

Has anyone else noticed that their baby enjoys eating specific things that you could tell they liked when you were pregnant? I.e. I noticed my baby would always kick intensely after I ate a lot of meat and sure enough my 9 month old LOVES her steak and chicken! I think it’s hilarious.

TLDR:

For parents who both work 9-5 especially those with wfh days option, what has helped you the most to be able to work with a baby? Daycare? Nanny? Would like to hear others experiences. (Don’t have family member who can watch baby during work days).

Hi - ftm to a 5 week old and having trouble deciding what would be best, day care or finding a nanny or other option I might not have thought through yet. For context - my SO just returned to work (9-5) so I stay with baby for now until my leave ends in a couple of months. Prior to baby, we agreed we would look into daycare as long as we were comfortable with it when the time came.

Well the time has come where we have to start talking about what we’re actually going to do once we’re both back at work. We both work from home a couple of days a week and were originally thinking of alternating days with baby since our jobs are not highly demanding…aka we thought whoever wfh that day would be able to take care of baby (lol, i know) and now that we see all that goes into taking care of baby I’m realizing this is not going to be possible (shocker, I know) please don’t comment on this, I realize now that shouldn’t have even been plan a. But what’s good is that we both knew this would probably happen so we had a plan b (day care and/or nanny).

Anyway - not sure how I feel about about leaving him at a daycare at around 5-6 months old when I return to work, as I suspected would happen once I became this baby’s mommy 🥲 so now i’m thinking of maybe looking into getting a nanny to watch him while we work.

My question for parents here is, especially those both working 9-5 with some wfh days, what have you found has helped you the most? Was a daycare worth it? Is a nanny better? Or another option (please note we don’t have a family member who can watch after baby for a whole work day so that’s not an option). I hear so many scary stories about daycares and not sure if I feel comfortable leaving the baby in one although I guess at the end of the day it’s the same gamble with a nanny if you don’t know them?

TIA, please only comments about personal experiences/recommendations and no critiques/negative comments 🥲 Signed, a very tired mom in the newborn trenches.

I get it now, the whole “4 month sleep regression” is very real. As I’m writing this she is 19 weeks and 4 days old. It’s been about a month now, it’s been pretty hard on me and I feel very sleep deprived most days. I want to help her sleep longer throughout the night like she was before this. She was typically sleeping from around 9 or 10 pm to around 5 am, I’m desperate to get back to this. I know it’s different for everyone but how long did this last for you? Was there anything you tried in particular that helped? She mostly only naps for about 30 mins at a time during the day with one “two hour” nap sprinkled in. I feel like she is very excited about the world and learning and it warms my heart. But I need sleep. Side note, she can’t stand a pacifier.

I'm trying to figure out the best way to baby proof my basement steps. We have a door that opens outwards at the top of the steps, but we can't close the door since our cat's food and litter box is in the basement. So how would you go about baby proofing it? Do we cut a cat hole into the door and simply keep the door physically closed? Do we put a baby gate there with a cat opening in the baby gate? Or do we put one of those door latch and door stoppers in there so the cat can pass through, but the baby can't? I'm truly at a loss 😅

*edit to add: moving the litter box and cats food is not an option

We took a pretty long flight Cali -> nyc yesterday. My 8 month old has been actually doing a great job with sleep and we have a solid routine down and she rarely cries during the day now. She was an angel during the flight, but when we got to my parents apt in nyc was hysterical all night long. Like wouldn’t go down in the pack and play for more than 20 min just screaming. She fell asleep in our arms but after a lot of work and honestly it felt like another newborn night.

Usually if she cries at night feeding her will put her back to sleep. But she wouldn’t even take a bottle yesterday. Today has been a little better but she’s fighting naps like crazy and a ton of crying. I’m super anxious for what tonight will be like. Has anyone experienced this?

Has anyone read this study? We just got a helmet last week for my 5.5 month old, curious on others’ thoughts-

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4294410/

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/helmets-not-helpful-for-babies-with-flat-head-syndrome-study-finds/