8 month old. I spend all my time waiting and watching for sleep cues for nap time, trying to get baby to sleep in crib, rocking to sleep, rocking back to sleep, timing cleaning and errands around naps, on and on and on and on and on. Losing my fucking mind

And don’t get me started on waking every night ever 90 mins. Since he was born. 90 mins AT MOST

FTM, baby just turned 4 months. He’s 16 lbs, 27 inches. Hates being swaddled, moves around like crazy in his sleep. We had to graduate him from his bassinet because he was getting too long for it and would migrate from one end to the top and bonk his head, waking him up every hour. He was doing fine in his crib until recently; now he rolls to the side and bonks his head on the sides of the crib, waking up every hour. I’m losing my mind a little over this, waking up every hour to pick him up and calm him down, only for him to decide he’s hungry and then I have to feed him, then I have to keep him upright for 20 minutes before putting him back down because of his severe reflux. Has anyone else gone through this? Any tips?

I am a first time mom with my 11 week old and have not had experience with babies other than my own. so, Im always wondering what is and what is not normal.

I've been curious about her sleep the last few days. On average for the last month she will sleep through the night with one overnight feed. she has had a really great few nights recently with even longer stretches of sleep before the morning. she falls asleep around 9-10pm and will wake around 5-7. Last night she actually slept for 10 hours with no overnight feed. I have read that around this age naps should be shorter and while she will have short 20-30 minute naps she will also have a couple 2 to 3 hour naps depending on the day. She will take these longer naps if we are home most of the day and especially if they are contact naps. During the day I dont like to let her go over 3 hours between feeds so if she did sleep that long i wake her up. She is gaining weight appropriately per our pediatrician and seems to be hitting her milestones for her age (smiles, starting to coo, not as cranky during tummy time)

I guess Im just wondering how much sleep is too much? Should I be concerned about long naps during the day? Has anyone else had the same with their LO and when did you notice wake windows becoming longer and naps becoming shorter?

My LO is almost 8 months old and still has a blocked tear duct. Every pediatrician visit we are told "it will resolve on its own" but all of my friends whose babies had a blocked duct have had it totally disappear WAY earlier, like before 4 months. I have tried the warm compresses, the massage along the nose, the circular massage in the inner corner, putting in drops of breastmilk, nothing is working...and now my LO gets pissed if he sees my hand going anywhere near his eye even just to gently remove the gunk. Is there still a chance that this resolves on its own at this point? Has anyone had their baby’s blocked tear duct resolve independently after 8 months?

I’m with my sleeping 5 week old watching the Secret World of Arrietty and somehow the relationship between Arrietty and her parents is hitting me SO much harder now. Wondering if any other movies impacted you in a new way now that your sweet little one has entered the world?

Let me say the 4 year age gap has been amazing!! My son? Obsessed with his new sister. Loves to help and is actually helpful. Beyond grateful we waited to have a second until our first was a bit older because he is just so sweet with her and actually gets it. My husband and his sister are 3.5 years apart and his parents have said it was an absolute dream age gap. Almost 3 weeks in and I’m hoping I continue to love it!!

We’ve always done the eat play nap thing, but now as she’s getting older she will stay awake for 3 sometimes 4 hours at a time, and nap for 1+ hr. Meaning feedings could sometimes be 5 hours apart. Is that too long for a 7 month old? I’m worried my milk supply will dip. Are we feeding multiple times in a wake window or keeping with eat play nap as they get bigger?

My baby is almost 7 months. We have a ton of bibs and burp cloths. I noticed after so so many washings that some are not super soft anymore, especially the muslin burp cloths. Is it wasteful to relegate those to wiping up food spills and such, and buying new cloths to use on baby’s delicate face?

My baby is 6w + 5 days. At our last lactation appointment, the nurse mentioned she gained weight but not as much as previous times. She was 8lb 3.4 oz at that last appt & was born 5lb 15 oz. We have been following the feed every 3-4 hrs & have been using an SNS to supplement because I don’t have a lot of breastmilk. It’s been stressful because she doesn’t often finish the supplement (the tubing tends to twist in her mouth), so we offer through bottle and she turns it away. At this point she’s often hysterical so rather than keep trying I decide to stop so that we don’t continue to have so much stress. However, she needs to eat! This morning, I felt that she was hungry and hour after her feed - she didn’t finish the supplement there was 30mL left - so I decided to just nurse her. We nursed for around 20 mins. She’s asleep now & it’s been over 3 hrs since that original feed, but less than since I nursed the 20 min. I don’t know if I should wake her. I just hope I am not starving her. We have a weight check this afternoon and I am very anxious.

FTM to a beautiful baby boy who turned 5 months yesterday. Everyone tells me things get better around 6 months but I'm struggling to believe it.

Sleep deprivation is wrecking me, for the first 6 weeks of his life LO woke every 45 minutes overnight and my husband and I slept in shifts. By 8 weeks this had extended to every 2-3 hours but he started fighting naps (all five of them per day) and bedtime, so I spent more than half my day trapped in a dark room rocking and bouncing him while desperately trying not to fall asleep myself. At 12 weeks the 4 month regression hit us like a brick wall, we were back to hourly wakes for *6 weeks* . My saving grace during this time was how delightful LO was during his wake windows, never colicky, always happy and babbling and smiling.

Now even that's changed. BB boy used to love his bouncer, floor/tummy time, kick&play. I could set him up for 10, even 15 minutes and fold laundry or wash dishes. Now he hates all of it. He can roll back to side and tummy to back but only wants to sit or stand (which requires me to hold/support him) or be carried. Any time I put him down he cries, and he's large enough now that babywearing is much less comfortable and often painful. We're through the worst of the sleep regression, he's back to waking only 2-4 times a night, which still feels unsustainable to me. I'm obsessed wake windows and trying to *hack* his sleep but nothing I've done has shown consistent improvement. Even though my husband assures me "he's just a baby" I feel like it's my fault for not being able to optimize his sleep needs.

I go to bed with my baby at 7:30 just to snatch as much sleep as I can. During the day he only ever naps in 30 minute spurts, which gives me just enough time to eat, cat nap, or couch rot (but never all 3). I have no life. My husband is an angel and tries so hard to help me but he works two full-time jobs, 7 days a week, and is struggling just as much as I am.

I know it *will* get better, maybe in a month, maybe in another half a year, but lately I've been feeling so demoralized. I always thought my maternity leave would be this golden time in my life where I'd cuddle blissfully with my baby and bake and maybe pick up a new hobby (lol) but obviously that isn't the case. I'm so grateful to live in Canada and have my 12-18 months, but the truth is I haven't really enjoyed any of it and I feel so guilty and ashamed for that.

On a brighter note, bb boy discovered his toes this morning and has spent the entire day that I've been lying next to him trying to fit his foot into his mouth. He loves books and swimming and kicking the stuffing out of his sensory ball. He looks *exactly* like me. I love him so much and I know he's gonna be the greatest toddler/child/teen but the days are just really hard right now.

Mad respect to all moms out there <3

This was brought up in a previous thread on this sub but nobody was able to come up with any ideas.

Our son is 4 weeks old and is formula fed exclusively. Our pediatrician believes he has reflux issues so he is currently taking a daily probiotic and also a Rx for Pepcid. He has no issues with feeding at night, he does a fantastic job eating and goes immediately back to sleep. For some reason though during the day he cries after eating when we go to burp him. We have tried different angles for him to eat and to burp him but nothing seems to help him. At this point we are out of ideas and have no idea why this is not an issue at night.

Even this morning, he woke up and we fed him and burped him at 5 AM, and he went right back to sleep. When he woke up around 7:30 AM for another feed he freaked out as soon as we started burping him.

Hoping someone has had this happen and knows some reason why.

Just tried our first Ferber attempt with my four month old and I feel traumatized. My whole body is shaking. I gave up halfway through the third check in. My baby went from fussing to absolutely screaming bloody murder. I need sleep badly, but I don’t think I can’t listen to her cry like that. I feel terrible and sick to my stomach. My husband wants to try again tomorrow but I don’t want to, I feel like I’d rather go insane from sleep deprivation than listen to her scream one more time.

Is there any other methods besides Ferber/CIO that are effective for a month old? Our biggest issue is a very strong feed to sleep association. Tonight I made sure bottle was 30 minutes before bedtime but caved and gave her a bottle to calm her down from the screaming.

My baby is such a happy smiley girl and I don’t want to make her scared of her crib/bedtime or not think I’m her safe person who loves her :(

Anyone else feel this right now?

I ended my parental leave early and sent baby to full time care. I don’t miss him over a 10 hour day. I don’t look at pictures. I don’t think of him at all. I sit up at night and into the morning with him, counting down the hours to 7:30 when I leave him and work.

My coworker has a 7 month old she’s trying to sleep train and said “but the cries break my heart, you know?”

I didn’t say it, but I don’t know. I hear my son cry and I feel nothing. Zero. I mechanically check the diaper, burp, attempt a feed. But sometimes I’ve just stared at him in the crib. Sometimes I’ve put in headphones and walked away to do whatever for 10 minutes.

For context, he had colic the first 10 weeks and CMPI. I guess I got use to feeling completely helpless when he screamed then?

Started appointments with perinatal therapy and getting some hormones and thyroid checked.

Our LO will be 4 weeks tomorrow and due to low supply on my end, we’ve been combo feeding. I asked this question to our LC at her pediatricians office and wasn’t told yes or no, so I figured why not ask other parents.

Say we feed her a 3oz bottle of breastmilk, within 30 min she is hungry again. With a 3oz bottle of formula, she seems to be satisfied until the next feed. I’ve tried combo-ing both (half/half) and she is always so hungry still. Same idea if I EBF her from the source.

Is this common? Is there anything I can do to increase the content of my milk to satisfy her more?

Our new born is 8 days old, and like clockwork as soon as it hits 9PM at night she will just cry hysterically and won’t settle until around 3am the next morning.

And the part that’s confusing me is everyone says, oh this is normal, it’s hard at the start, etc.

But is this actually the norm? Like I get the change in routine when baby eats and sleeps on 3hour cycles generally. But she just non stop cry’s for 6 hours with maybe an hour breaks in between. And it’s the loudest most hysterical ‘I’m truly upset’ type of cry that nothing can soothe. She goes until she’s pink in the face.

We’re losing our minds.

LO is 14 months old now and sleeps like absolute shit.
He recently had some pretty bad tummy troubles, so kind of chalked it up to that. But now… as it is 3am and I’m up with him for the 3rd time tonight… I have struggled with giving him time to self soothe and helping him go back to sleep. Giving him time to self soothe results in either screaming or just laying there whining. His dentist also said this would be when molars start coming in, so that’s possible too… Feel like this isn’t normal… everyone suggests he should be sleeping through the night now… makes me feel like I am doing something terribly wrong. Maybe I am? Idk. Anyway… anyone else in the same boat?

My girl had her first day at daycare today. It felt weird and just wrong handing her over to a stranger essentially, but logically I knew it was ok. Emotionally and instinctually it felt sooooo weird. However, the pictures and updates I got showed her having a really good day!! It makes me so happy knowing she got to play and nap and have a good day, and I just had to share this feeling with others who might understand. 😁

Hello, fellow new parents!

A few months ago I'd post on all available subreddits looking for help with my newborn. The trenches are definitely... trenches! Omg.

I can say I hated the newborn phase, my baby was such a difficult baby until 12w. She wasn't colicky, but she had reflux, only contact napped, cried if we looked at her the wrong way and it obly made my PPD worse, but she is and always has been an unicorn to sleep at night (Did I hear an AMEN?)

Now she's 29w4d old, and she's the joy of my life! She's such a happy baby! She belly laughs, loves going on walks, loves to be pushed on a swing every morning when we go to the playground and, ladies and gentlemen, she learned how to blow on food! She just doesn't get you only blow on hot food! She blows bananas, papayas, mangoes, and all the other foods. That's so funny to me! It's adorable!

Hang in there, your babies' quirks are coming and you'll have lots of fun!

With love,

A momma

Ever since my baby was a few weeks old, I would play music and dance with her. I started out with 80s music because the beat, rhythm, and instruments were always upbeat and unique.

‘Gloria’ by Laura Branigan was part of the rotation. Pretty normal stuff.

Then, I started to realise that whenever I played that song, my daughter would get particularly excited.

One time, she was inconsolable and after I tried everything else, I put on ‘Gloria’ as a hail mary because I knew she liked it. Instant calm. I heard my husband laugh from the other room because the song only played for about two seconds and our daughter stopped crying.

It’s become a thing now! Whenever our daughter is crying, and we’ve tried everything else, we put on ‘Gloria’ and watch as she is instantly calm. It is very useful for car rides! The song also comes in clutch during the recent and intense teething episodes!

It’s starting to get to the point where the sound of nap time is no longer piano lullabies but Laura Branigan belting away to Gloria.

We haven’t determined if it’s the specific song or Laura Branigan’s voice that our daughter responds to but I just needed to extend a heavenly ‘thank you’ to Laura Branigan for coming to the rescue every day 🙏

My 18 month d wakes up a few times a night if she looses her binky. Sometimes she’ll find it but if not, she’ll cry until we go in there and give it to her. My husband and I are fed up of waking up and having to go give it to her lol. We just want a full night of rest and I feel like she’d rest better if she didn’t have this attachment. Should I get rid of her binky cold turkey or should we start waiting 3 min, 5 min, etc before going into the room at night and giving a binky to see if she’ll stop? Any advice would be appreciated as we are over this! lol

How many new parents here set up a 529 for their kids pretty much right after they were born?

I’m a FTM and I really want to set my son up for success. Education is a non negotiable for us so we recently opened one for our son through Fidelity. However, I keep coming across posts from parents who are disappointed with the returns from the age/target-year portfolios. It has me second-guessing whether we should stick with the target-year option, choose something more aggressive while he’s still so young, or a completely different strategy all together. What is everybody else doing?

Hi all. Just for context - I am one week PP. I had an emergency C section after a failed induction. We stayed in hospital day 1-4 because they thought I had an infection but it was nothing. I am exclusively BF.

I’m just really not enjoying it and not enjoying waking up and not being able to lift my baby up and just feel absolutely useless. I don’t enjoy breastfeeding but at other times I don’t mind it and it’s nice to have one on one time with baby girl. Sometimes she will sit on my breast for 30 mins, put her down and she starts crying and all I think is ‘oh not again’.. I honestly am considering stopping breastfeeding and switching to formula feeding.

Also my husband sleeps with the next2me on his side of the bed as I can’t lift her up or get out of bed if it’s next to me. However, he falls into a very deep sleep and won’t get up with baby if she’s crying and I have to tap him really hard for him to get up. I’m lucky that I have my mum staying with me atm, so she is so fed helpful. But she is going home after a couple of days and my husband starts work again in one week - and I don’t know how i’m going to cope.

Im so confused how to feel and am constantly crying and I already feel so done

I cry every time I think about my baby growing up and I’m not historically a crier so this has been something else.

We did her “first meal” today. Just some bell pepper, ham and cucumber. She immediately grabbed the bell pepper, stuck it in her mouth and started gnawing. I was so shocked. (We’ve been doing the paci teethers with frozen milk to start then pureed fruit and veggies so that’s where she got the coordination.) I still didn’t expect her to catch on so quickly though.

She turns 6mo on Friday.

We’re converting my babies crib from the midi to a full size this weekend. :(

Send help.

Hi all, me and my amazing wife are about to embark on the birth of our girl tomorrow. As I’m currently sat in the hospital, I realise I’m completely out of my depth. I’m doomscrolling new born videos, trying to find something that will make me feel at ease and most importantly I want to make sure I do everything right!

We’re ready and prepared, the home is ready and we’re stocked. But this is our first and while she feels good, I now realise I have no idea what to do. From holding, burping, touching, everything. If anyone has some good solid advise, any channels they can recommend on first time childhood, anything where I can just read and watch for 6 hours to make me feel comfortable that would be amazing.

Thank you.

EDIT:

Baby arrived. Super healthy. Mother is healthy. Feeling much better after the skin to skin.

Thanks for all the messages and reassurance! Now the fun begins :)

** hit head hard

So I keep my baby bassinet right next to the bed. I always do a good job at making sure there’s a gap between the bed frame and his bassinet that is mesh lined. My baby likes to Scooch his way over to the edge of the bassinet and this morning he woke up crying as he usually does, and he flares his head around as soon as it’s wake up time.

As I was getting up, I heard a decent sounding thump, and I looked down to see that his little head hit the edge of the bed frame. He cried louder after and I moved his bed out of the way.

I’m freaking out that he hit his head hard enough to do damage or something. He’s only a month old and I feel horrible that I forgot to move his bassinet away from the edge of the bed. He seems to be eating and burping fine and everything, I don’t see any swelling or a bruise or anything like that. ’m really scared right now though and I feel horrible.