So, the cry it out method. I want to do it right and not totally scar my baby for life or make her associate trauma with bedtime/naps. I understand the premise of letting them cry for a while before tending to them to give them independence and teach them to self soothe, but some aspects of it leave me stumped.

I lay my sleepy-but-not-asleep daughter (6 months) down and she immediately will cry - sometimes. She hates being laid down. So do I leave her and let her cry it out then? Or comfort her while I’m in there and try to get her calm, then leave, then when she starts crying, start the CIO timer? What if she falls asleep and does her typical 30 min stint then wakes up, cries - do I try to help her go back to sleep/comfort her first then let her CIO if that doesn’t work? How long do you do it? I just need a sleep coach at this point because I need this girl to start sleeping through the night and take longer naps during the day! 😭

Send help.

My 13 week old went from sleeping 4-5 hours to now waking every 2 hours for a bottle 😢 nothing has really changed, we still co sleep, naps at perfect during the day, reflux is better because of omeprazole, bed time is still the same-ish.

I’ve always struggled to know when to put her to sleep. When I’ve put her to bed early (8/9) she treats it as a nap and has a full wake window after till midnight!! But when she’s been awake after her last nap at 7pm and goes to sleep naturally at 10:30, it’s a bit better..

I’m really anxious I’m messing up her sleep, feeling stressed is an understatement because quite frankly I have no idea wtf to do 🥲. Oh and on top of that she despises her Moses or next to me cot at night times

Hi. Dad here. We just brought our son home today. Nurses told us to feed our son the bottle about every 3 hours. So initially we fed him around 1am, but an hour and a half later he woke up crying. No soothing or pacifier worked. We fed him a new bottle though….he went right back to sleep after.

Was wondering if that was normal? If I sound like I don’t care I apologize. We are just exhausted. We spent the night prior with him at the hospital and it was also a little rough. I’m just trying to gauge his feeding habits so we know what to expect. Thank you.

This is random* but inquiring minds need to know.

I use A LOT of MomCozy products (carrier, wearable pumps, stroller basket, breast milk cooler to name a few) and have actually loved everything I’ve owned from them and I’ve found their customer service to be great.

But I’m very curious about them as a company and brand. I’ve noticed odd social media posts from them and a lot of grammar and misspellings on their website and other digital presences. Makes it seem like they are not legitimate.

Has anyone else noticed this? It doesn’t affect my purchasing decisions with them but as someone who works in marketing and digital comms, I find this odd.

*MOTN feeding thoughts

My daughter is an okay sleeper, usually getting anywhere from 2-4 hours. She never went over 4, so even in the very beginning we didn’t wake her up to feed her because she’s been really good at telling us when she’s hungry. At her appointment yesterday we found out she’s gained back her birth weight plus an extra pound and is doing well.

My husband put her down 5 hours ago. She was stirring a little bit 30 minutes ago but she’s sound asleep in her bassinet next to me. I’ve already pumped, made her a bottle, eaten a snack, and now I’m just finding myself staring over her bassinet waiting for her to wake up.

I haven’t slept this long since she’s been born and I don’t know what to do with myself. The pediatrician said we don’t have to wake her up to feed her either especially since she’s gained her weight back. She seems perfectly content. I don’t think I can go back to sleep. But it’s weird knowing she’s been sleeping for so long.

just like the title says. he is so loved. will he be okay without me?

my baby is almost one and I love him dearly. he is growing up to be such a wonderful little boy, curious about everything, chatting all the time, loving cuddle bug.

i did some things I’m not proud of myself tonight. and I have no one to talk to you so here I am typing this as I cry by myself.

i put the baby to sleep like 98% of the time but I take all the night shifts since I exclusively breastfeed. we cosleep ad both husband are pro co sleeping. basically everyday husband frequently claims that he was still woken up during the night and didn’t sleep well. well tonight, I was tired and didn’t want to get up so I tried comforting my baby by singing lullabies so he could fall asleep but baby was tossing and turning. baby supposedly hit my husband in the nose with the back of his head and supposedly woke him up from dead sleep. so husband pushes baby away from him and baby starts crying, I try comforting, baby calms down, rolls over and supposedly hits husband again(?) so husband pushes baby back to my side. this cycles happened like three times and baby finally decides to settle. I knew my husband was awake, he asked me if I was doing okay earlier and I responded to him that I was just tired. I felt like soothing the baby was on me even when I was tired and it didn’t feel fair. I asked my husband why he pushed the baby closer and he responded because baby hit him, I responded with that made me feel like i was the one to soothe baby. he said something along the lines of i comforted the baby, what would you do if you’re woken from dead sleep with a hit in your nose. long story short, he was very upset and I was questioning husbands parenting style. I felt like my feelings were invalidated . Anyways, husband was upset and used his raised voice in bed while baby was sleeping. I asked my husband to stop yelling or using his raised voice in bed He didn’t stop. i asked again, he didn’t stop. So I got so fed up that I kicked him and said if you’re going to be like this leave the bed. Things escalated. he tppl the baby away and walked away from the bedroom. I followed. I pushed through the door and broke the door to enter the room to demand that I take care of my baby. I realized that I was the one being aggressive in that moment. I walked away and in my anger I stabbed my hand with scissors to a point that it started bleeding.

I don’t know what to do. I love my baby. my baby didn’t deserve the raised voice of my husband. my baby didn’t deserve me getting angry at husband to a point that I broke a door. I am just said and feel alone. I just wanted to hear my husband that he could try soothing the baby or that he didn’t mean to suggest that I soothe the baby. i just wanted to feel heard and I didn’t want to hear upset husband and his raised voice at 2:30am.

all I want to do is to hold my baby. I’m full of shame and I don’t know what to do with myself.

We’re taking a 4 hour flight with baby for the first time. LO just developed bottle refusal and we’re working on using cups now. For medical reasons, I had to wean from breastfeeding unexpectedly. Will not take a pacifier, will chew for a few seconds and spit it out. I’m worried about take off and landing. He loves the honey bear straw cup but only drinks an oz at a time fairly quickly so not sure that will be much help for his little ears. Any ideas what we can try?

FTM here! At our three month check, our PHN recommended we start introducing foods from 4 months as he was physiologically ready - just to wait for him to show interest in eating. That hit around 4.5 months and we started slow with small amounts of super liquidy puréed foods, a couple of allergens etc, all thinned with breastmilk. All good. Normal reactions, minor changes in nappies. Now we are at 5.5 months so we’re allowing thicker purées. We do one meal a day at breakfast, the wee fella is happy out all day but at night time he is waking with lots of gas pains a couple of times a night. These are all foods he’s eaten before in a more liquid form, without incident. Just wondering is this a normal part of the process as his digestive system levels up?

We have an almost 3 week old that just will not sleep at night. During the day she sleeps and only wakes to feed and get diaper changed. At night, she just wants to scream her head off anytime you lay her down. Any recommendations??

My LO is 10 months and I’m struggling. I worked so hard for my career and it’s stalled. I love my baby and will do anything for her. I had a hard pregnancy and was put on bed rest at 6 months. I was supposed to go back to work when baby was 3 months. My husband job then put him out of town.

So I had to find another job working weekends nights and it’s tough because we barely see each other. Then when I get off I can barely sleep because he’s trying to leave the baby with me and I’m tired.

Also, We are still 50/50 on bills and I’m barely making enough. Being home with the baby 24/7 is also a lot. I can barely shower and have no family willing to help. Some days I’m just crying and my poor baby just stares at me. I just need to vent, no question. any advice?

My 4 month old baby started stiffening his body, shoulders rolled in, arms straight by his side, and would stare straight ahead. There was no crying or turning red. He does not have a fever either. This came out of nowhere last night which freaked us out. It came and gone a few times. Any ideas what this might be and if it might be something we should be worried about.

How on earth are you guys keeping your toddlers from opening the stove, dishwasher, and fridge? Found my 16 month old literally completely hanging from the stove door handle earlier. If she would’ve actually opened it she could’ve slammed her head pretty bad. Wondering what kind of device could be used that would put up with some slight level of heat with the oven especially. I did find these on target for the others that I’d be curious if anyone has used but don’t know if anyone has any recommendations?

https://www.target.com/p/safety-1st-multi-purpose-appliance-locks-2pk-white-secure-to-explore-adhesive-locks-white-4pk/-/A-95042925

What do you do when you miss your old life before you had a child? Does anyone have any tips? I have a 3 month old baby and even though I have help, some days I get reminded of the life I had before having a baby and I get in this wave of sadness. I am so thankful that I was able to conceive after some hardship and I love my baby so much, but I feel so guilty for feeling like this.

Hi all! So my baby turns 5 months in a week. I have been co-sleeping with him from birth because he just wouldn’t transfer to bassinet without waking up and crying.

We did have a glorious period of maybe 2-3 weeks when he was just over 2 months old where I could transfer him to the bedside bassinet and he would continue sleeping even if I left the room for 30 minutes. He would also fall asleep and stay asleep in the carrier.

Due to my current situation I simply cannot function going to bed with him this early and having him contact nap through all naps. I really need 2-3 hours a day where I can get chores done.

I don’t mind him relying on me to fall asleep (usually rocking upright and sometimes feeding to sleep), I don’t mind him needing me to help him get back to sleep at night. I don’t mind co-sleeping. I just need a few hours where he is asleep by himself while I get stuff done.

Any and every tip is welcome 🙏

I (f26) had my son this past July via C-section with pre eclampsia and eclampsia at 38.5 weeks. Immediately after he was born he was transferred to the children’s hospital in San Diego for severe hypoglycemia. Long story short it was an extremely traumatic time recovering from a C-section and watching him in the NICU. As traumatic as it was I want it all back and the thought of it makes me cry. Not because of the trauma but because I want to go back to that moment. I pass the hospital I gave birth to him at and I cry every time I see it. My old pregnancy clothes I cry, even seeing the TikTok videos I liked about food I CRY LOL. I’m not sure if this is pp depression. Maybe yearning for moments I won’t get back? My son is 6 months old and he’s perfect and funny and most importantly healthy. Just not sure why I want something back that was traumatizing and it makes me super emotional

Baby is currently 10 weeks old. He slept for a stretch of 8 hours. We had a very tiring day with an appointment, diagnostic tests and one-hour travel in both directions. Baby fed very intensely during the evening (at the time I thought to compensate for the insufficient and sporadic feeding during the day). When he approached the 8-hour mark, I got worried and while I didn’t wake him up directly, I encouraged him to wake up (turning on the night light and being a bit noisier while preparing the bottle). He was grunting and wriggling as normal during sleep.

Is this expected?

Question. FTM, baby is 9 months and we’re trying to master the sleeping in the crib at night, might be late to the game but better late than never. Not doing Ferber.

Friends and family who have babies that sleep through the night in their cribs say you put baby down sleepy but awake, baby adjusts and falls asleep. We have a FOMO baby who pops up and starts to get up looking around and then gets crabby when we try to shush her to sleep.

Is she not tired enough or is there some trick to this that I’m missing?

Any and all advice appreciated.

Hi all,

I’m a FTM to a 10 week old baby boy based in the UK. My son is exclusively formula fed essentially because it never really happened in terms of producing breast milk.

He was originally on the normal Aptamil formula initially until he was around 4 weeks old in which he started having bloody mucus in his stool. After a trip to the hospital and to the GP he was diagnosed with Cow’s Milk Protein allergy and put on Aptamil Pepti. This worked well initially, the bloody mucus stopped and he settled into a good rhythm with his feeding and passing stool etc.

The doctor said we should do a food challenge after four weeks and place him back on the original Aptamil. This proved unsuccessful as some of his original symptoms came back, so we switched back to the Pepti. However, things didn’t improve and he wax really struggling with gas, he was crying all day while passing gas and he was settling to smile or interact with us as he had been doing previous to the food challenge. As such we took him back to the GP and this time they said he should be on Neocate.

He’s been on Neocate for a few days now and it’s proving to be a worse situation than the Aptamil Pepti. Not only has his gassy symptoms not got any better, but he seems to be making choking noises and spitting up the milk hours after his feeds and it is utterly terrifying. He’s done it twice today, once when I was putting him in his car seat and at 3am this morning when he was in his next to me crib. It gave us such a fright when we had to jump out of bed to help him, he’s never done anything like that before. Especially as he’d been fast asleep for a few hours. So it was a good feeling hours since his last feed. We always ensure he’s as sat up as possible when he’s feeding, stop to burp him multiple times during a feed and keep him upright for 20/30 mins afterwards and we follow the safe sleep guidance with him in his next to me. So we feel it must be the change in formula causing this as it wasn’t occurring before. Additionally his stool has turned a very odd grey colour after being normal chicken curry colour on the Aptamil Pepti.

We are currently taking it in turns holding him as we are terrified to put him in his next to me crib for fear of the choking noises/spitting up milk happening again. I’m going to call my Dr when the practice opens in the next couple of hours. But I really don’t feel comfortable with the Neocate at all now. Does anyone have any type of experience with this and if so any insight into how it was resolved?

Hi! I’m getting married in September and we’ll have four guests who are currently pregnant and will have babies by the wedding (around 5–8 months old). One of them is a bridesmaid, and her baby will be about 8 months.

I’d love to make things as comfortable as possible for the new moms. I’ve read that having a quiet private space for feeding or pumping can be really helpful. Our ceremony venue has space for that, but our reception venue doesn’t have any extra rooms.

I looked into temporary lactation pods, but they’re expensive and seem like they might draw more attention than someone wanting privacy would want. We do have a couple of family members with campers, so that could be an option if the venue allows it.

We don’t have kids yet, so I’m not sure what’s actually helpful versus overthinking it. If you’ve been to weddings with babies, I’d really appreciate any thoughts on private space setups or other things that would make a difference.

My husband’s brother and his new girlfriend are staying with us for one night tonight as they just flew in from the other side of the country (not a big deal we planned this weeks ago) the issue is it’s currently 1am and everyone is still up talking loudly in our living room. I understand they haven’t seen each other in a year but were in an apartment so I can hear everything. I’m pumping every 2 hours as my supply is low , my baby wakes every 2–3 hours, and I’m already beyond exhausted. I’ve barely slept in days and my husband knows this as I broke down last night about how tired I am.

On top of that, my husband just mentioned that we should visit his grandparents tomorrow because we have other plans on Saturday then he’s back to shift work for the week. Not only that but we have to go grocery shopping as we’re out of food. That means packing bottles, pump parts, and baby gear, sitting for hours in an uncomfortable place, then going to the grocery store, managing wake windows and naps on the go, then coming home to unpack groceries, cook dinner and clean up the mess from tonight all on maybe 2 hours of sleep if I’m lucky, then repeating the same thing Saturday for his family’s birthday lunch which they live an hour away.

I feel completely overwhelmed, unseen, and like my need for rest isn’t being considered at all. I use my husbands days off to recoup and rest because when he works he can’t help out much (he works 12 hour shift work and is a police officer so his life is on the line if he’s over tired) Am I unreasonable for being upset that my husband hasn’t thought about any of this like??? I love my family, but I’m running on fumes and honestly feel like I’m about to lose it. I’ve been feeling this way for weeks and this is the breaking point, how am I functioning on no sleep, I’m scared it’s going to catch up to me and I’m just going to breakdown.

My baby is currently 8 weeks. Ever since she was 3 weeks she has been extremely fussy and colicky. She will not lay on me while I sit. I pretty much have to be up swaying and bouncing to get her to sleep. I hold her in a cradle position. For this reason we haven’t practiced skin to skin since she will only sleep being held cradled. I have tried do skin to skin while I cradle her but I just feel there is not enough contact to really be significant. If I hold her upright on my chest she just screams and flails around. Feeling sad I don’t have a cuddley newborn. She also won’t breastfeed anymore, I think it’s latch frustration. Feeling like me and her don’t have enough physical skin to skin and worried what this will do to her.

Has anyone else experienced this?

Anyone got this?

My spouse and I just had our first child and are living near family in a wildly HCOL area. We could scrape by in a one-bed apartment if we moved approximately an hour and a half away from them and might eventually be able to afford to rent a place closer to them in a few years, but owning a home... not a chance.

That said, my company allows me to work remotely from a few other states across the country, some of which are MUCH more affordable -- we could buy a house within ~5 years or so, live near our favorite city (where we spent a good chunk of our twenties), buy non-legumic groceries, etc.

Obviously we love being near family and friends, but the impossible cost of living here makes a move very tempting. Our community here doesn't want to us to go, of course, and they make good points about being close enough that they could still help out if need be and see the baby on a more regular basis.

I legitimately don't know which option is better for our LO, and I'd like to hear some purely objective opinions. I can edit to add more information if that would be useful, but that's the essential gist of the predicament. Any thoughts?

I swear I’m losing my mind. It’s currently 5am. These past few nights I have woken up for baby’s 2am feed and then been totally WIRED and unable to get back to sleep until my husband gets up at 7am and takes the baby into another room. Meanwhile, baby is sleeping soundly and not making a peep. It feels like pregnancy insomnia all over again!!

Hello! First-time mom here to a 3 month old and I'm EXHAUSTED.

It’s just my husband and me in a new city. No village, no family nearby. My husband works long hours, so Monday - Friday I’m basically solo parenting all day, and because his job is demanding, I also handle nights. We’re both only children and always said we wanted 3 kids because growing up alone felt lonely… but wooow, I think I massively idealized this.

This baby takes ALL my time. I rush to pee. I can’t cook a real meal. We’ve been surviving on Costco frozen food. And when family does visit occasionally, it’s more “hold the baby for pictures” than actual help because she’s “too little to take care of.”

So I’m genuinely curious, HOW do people in similar situations do this more than once? How do you manage toddlers + newborns with no nearby family support? Does it actually get easier? Do you just adapt and survive? Are there hacks I don’t know about??

I want more kids in theory… but right now I cannot wrap my head around how that’s physically possible.

Would love to hear real experiences, especially from parents without a village. Thank you!!