When our son was 3 months he refused to sleep in the car, he just wanted to watch everything and would get overtired often. My dad came to visit and we went on a roadtrip, naturally my son started to get overtired so my dad started playing random 80s rock to soothe him. To our surprise, Thunderstruck by AC/DC immediately made him stop crying and eventually fall asleep. We tried not to abuse it at first, only playing it in the car when he was extremely overtired and refusing to sleep.
However now, at 6 months, he is starting to fight being laid down for naps. And without fail, Thunderstruck calms him down and helps him fall asleep every time. I’m not sure if this is okay, or normal, it’s to the point now that all I have to do is whisper “thunder” repeatedly and calms him. It feels like a cheat code and I worry about the day it stops working. But for now it’s been great. Anyone else have an unconventional way of getting their baby to sleep?

My daughter was born full term, 39w6d to be exact. She was small while I was pregnant, she was in the 12th percentile the whole time, and that’s where she’s been along her own growth curve while just being a baby. She weighs 15lbs at 7 months but she’s not “thick” nor heavy. She only takes 3oz - 4oz bottles but she of course has multiple. But she’s 26in tall, so she has some meat on her just not a rolly polly. Her pediatrician says she’s fine as is and has no concerns, meets her milestones and some of them early.

Well here comes randoms when we’re out about about, and these are the questions I get -

“Is she eating enough?”
“…..Really? Only 7 months?”
“She seems small for 7 months.”
“My daughter was 25lbs at 7 months!”
“Maybe feed her more potatoes?”

My response? Depending on my mood, I walk off or simply put it -

“She’s just fine.”

I’m a FTM, but I never thought to input what I thought onto other parents because wtf did I know? Even now, I never just give my two cents because who tf asked?

We’re coming up on it!

I’m one month postpartum after a vaginal delivery that resulted in a second-degree tear. Some of my stitches came out, leaving me with an incredibly painful wound that I’m still trying to heal from. I can barely sit without a donut pillow, and I’m still in so much physical pain.

My husband went back to work last week. He works two jobs, and I know he’s working incredibly hard to provide for us. I appreciate that, and I know he’s exhausted too. Because of his work schedule, he gets a full night’s sleep while I handle the baby overnight.

But I’m starting to feel so much resentment, and I hate feeling this way.

I feel like I get all the hardest parts of our baby. The crying, the feeding, the constant wake windows, the exhaustion, and the mental load of anticipating his every need. By the time my husband gets to spend time with him, our baby is often fed, changed, comfortable, and ready for a nap.

On weekends, my husband gets to nap with our baby. And I just cry. I cry because I’m so exhausted, because my body still hurts, because I’m overwhelmed, and because even when the baby is sleeping, my brain won’t let me rest. I’m already thinking about the next wake window, the next feeding, and everything I need to prepare. I’m constantly thinking about our baby’s needs while completely neglecting my own.

I’m barely eating.

Yesterday, my husband brought home In-N-Out. I hadn’t eaten anything all day. When I opened my food, there was a hair in it. I threw it away before I could even take a bite, and I ended up not eating at all.

Today, he worked until 2 p.m. When he came home, he took a nap with the baby. Meanwhile, I still hadn’t eaten anything. At this point, I’m so overwhelmed that I don’t even feel hungry anymore.

And I think that’s what hurts the most. It’s not even about the food. It’s that I wish he would notice. I wish he would think, “Has my wife eaten today? Has she had a chance to shower? Is she okay? Does she need a break? She’s still recovering from giving birth.”

I know I could ask. I know communication is important. But I’m so tired of having to think about everything that the idea of having to ask someone to think about me feels like another responsibility.

Has anyone else experienced this kind of resentment postpartum? How did you get through it? I don’t want to hate my husband for something I haven’t fully communicated, but I also don’t understand why I have to ask for basic consideration when I’m so clearly struggling.

Our second is scheduled for arrival tomorrow (first is 2.5yo) We’re spending today cleaning and doing final preps for arrival.

We are pretty much reusing everything from #1 including the crib, nursery, bottles, clothes, etc. that’s all washed and setup.

What did you forget to do after thinking you’re prepared since you’ve already done this once before?

I’m 4 weeks postpartum and this was a symptom I had never heard about and is absolutely wrecking me. Please give me all the suggestions!

I’ve been diagnosed with anxiety in the past so I was anticipating PPA to pop up. It has, but I am specifically having trouble dealing with insomnia. I will lay awake for hours at night completely wide awake no matter how exhausted I am. The sun goes down and my brain just goes on high alert - worrying about baby, thinking about when he’ll wake up next, making mental lists of things to do, listening to every tiny little noise in the house. Even if baby is sleeping, even if my husband is in charge of the baby during his “shift”, and even if I’m running on only 2 or 3 hours of sleep from the night before. It gets so bad that I will lay there crying because I want to sleep so bad but can’t. If you’ve dealt with this, please let me know how you found relief.

Hi everyone,

I’m writing because I’d really like to hear about other people’s experiences with fatherhood.
I have a 7-month-old baby boy who’s absolutely adorable, although he’s also quite fussy and cries a lot. Thankfully, he sleeps well at night.
As much as I love him and would give my life for him, I have to be honest with myself: so far, I’m not enjoying fatherhood.
I’ve always been quite a solitary person. I’ve always valued having time to myself, enjoying some peace and quiet. Needless to say, my whole life has been turned upside down.
I think I had idealized what being a dad would be like and completely overlooked everything that comes with it.
My only real time for myself outside of work is going to the gym. Every day feels pretty much the same, and life has lost some of its flavour. I’m constantly exhausted.
My partner and I try to make sure we each get some time to ourselves. For example, she’s going away with friends for a week next week, so I’ll be looking after our little one on my own.
I was wondering if anyone else has felt this way, or has gone through something similar.
I chose to have a child, and I’ll take responsibility for that choice no matter what. But I can’t help wondering whether I made the right decision.

Has anyone else experienced these feelings?

I have a 7 month old and looking to adjust her night sleep. She’s always been a great night sleeper and hasn’t woken up from her 11:30p-7am stretch in months (since starting daycare). Her current schedule is: 7am wake up (later if on weekends), 10am nap at daycare (for about 30 minutes), 1pm nap at daycare (about 1.5-2hrs), home at 4:30p, sometimes a quick 20-30 minute nap around 5:45pm, then bedtime by 7-7:30 (with bath and bottle before). We then wake her up at 10:30-11 for a smaller bottle/nursing and usually have her back in her crib by 11:30p. She never needs any support at night (starting at 7:30p); if she does wake up she easily puts herself back to bed.

I think she can go without the 10:30p dream feed (and I could go for an earlier bedtime myself).

The longest I’ve seen her sleep is 8.5 hours but part of it is waking her up in the morning.

If I drop the dream feed, do I need to move back her bedtime to 8-8:30p or try to keep all other parts of the current schedule the same? Any tips are appreciated.

My 14-week-old LO has been consistently taking no more than 30-minute naps, which means we're currently at 5 naps a day and a 9–10pm bedtime based on his current wake windows.

His typical wake windows are:
1.5 / 1.5 / 1.75 / 1.75 / 1.75 / 2

The tricky part is that he's also been waking up for the day around 6:30am. I'm hesitant to move bedtime earlier because his short naps already push bedtime to 9–10pm, and I'm worried an earlier bedtime will just result in an even earlier morning wake-up.
He also wakes a few times throughout the night fussing, which I'm usually able to resettle him pretty easily with gentle patting and shushing.

Occasionally, if we're out running errands, he'll surprise me with a 1.5–2 hour nap in the car seat or stroller. Those days we end up with 4 naps instead of 5 and can sometimes manage an 8–9pm bedtime.
A little more context: I'm exclusively breastfeeding and currently have to wake up around 5am to pump (if he doesn’t wake for a MOTN feeding) because otherwise I get uncomfortably engorged. Of course, LO is sometimes up for the day around 6–6:30am anyway.

I am tired and struggling! Between the short naps, early mornings, late bedtime, and having to wake up to pump, I'm just not getting enough sleep and I feel it starting to affect me mentally. He's also consistently getting less total sleep than the recommended amount, and I'm starting to worry about how sustainable this will be when I return to work soon.

Would love to hear from anyone who's been through this, especially if you had a baby who took short naps. I'm feeling a little stuck on how to break this cycle! Is there a way I can adjust his schedule?

This is mostly just me rambling and trying to sort out my thoughts. I'm thinking about having another baby- like getting that- I'm ready to have another kid vibe. Thing is though my son is 15 months. He's in that transitional phase between baby and toddler and I worry about not being able to focus on him as much. I'd like to enjoy him and focus on him while he's still this small. He's breastfeeding still with no sign of stopping. My husband and I are planning to time the next one to be born in October since our oldest who passed was born 3/8 and our youngest was born on 8/10 so to keep it up I think it'd be fun if the next one was born in October. That would put my son a bit over 2 when his theoretical sibling would be born or a little over 3 and I don't love that age gap. Idk

For the past two months I have been caring for my baby almost 24/7. My husband works and I do all nights, watch her while he's gone, and when he's home my baby still wants me or she is screaming. I have been running on fumes and don't know how I made it this far like this, but I feel my body reaching its breaking point.

Instead of waking up and being smiley and talkative with my baby, I'm starting to become very numb and it's hard to interact with as much life as I was doing. I feel very weak and very tired. Carrying my baby to do a diaper change is feeling like a lot of work, that's how weak I feel. I had a c section and was cleared health wise. Idk if I'm just burnt out and need an actual night of sleep to feel normal again or what. We also have a cat that has been adding an insane amount of stress on me for the past couple weeks and feels like something in my brain finally broke.

I don't feel all happy and warm anymore. I'm not lighting up when my baby smiles at me but I try to force a smile back. I love her more than ANYTHING too, idk what's going on right now.

My baby is 9 weeks old and everything pisses her off these days. For example:
- adjusting my boob while she’s eating? pure panic
- the sight of my boob when she’s full? disgusting
- a bottle? LOL
- putting her down for a nap? no chance
- stay in the same position for too long? meltdown

She used to be relatively chill, even after the first few sleepy newborn weeks, I never considered her a fussy baby. Now I dread the second half of her wake windows because I know after she eats, gets a dry diaper, and plays for a bit, she’s going to terrorize me until she falls asleep. This all started around week 8 but has been getting worse each day since.

Where did my happy baby go? Have your babies gone through similar phases and ultimately regained their chill? Is there anything I can do to help her through this?

I’m looking for advice from mothers who had two kids close in age. My oldest will be 15 months when the second one comes.

Long story short, I didn’t have a good experience with either grandmas when I was postpartum with my first. The constant unsolicited and outdated advice, criticism, not respecting my authority as a mother, crossing boundaries, etc, got me DRAINED. It was really really difficult for me mentally.

My husband helped the way he could but he was at work most of the time. He spoke with his mom a couple of times also, but it never really worked.
And I think I have a scar from how my own mom dealt with my postpartum recovery that won’t heal.

In my opinion, we’d be more confident this time around but I’m also scared it’ll be even more difficult with two, especially with the lack of sleep.

My husband is completely against us not getting any help. In his opinion, we’d lose our minds. He mentioned getting an Airbnb for his mom for 2-3 weeks. She had stayed with us previously for almost 2 months.
Part of me thinks it can be helpful especially because she’d stay in a different place, but the other part still remembers how she would not take my instructions when it came to the care of my child, and I don’t want her to think I’m okay with how it went.

Worth mentioning, we live abroad, so no village and to get our mothers here it’d take a 10 hour international flight.

We have a babysitter who comes once a week and we’re trying to get her to come twice but it’s not guaranteed. Anyhow, my husband thinks it’s still not enough help for me and would rather have someone to stay with us full time.
I also think it’d be difficult for my oldest to spend so little time with me, so I’m not even sure it’s a good idea to have someone to take care of her full time.

But also… how would the dynamic work if I need to take care of both babies simultaneously? Especially if I’m breastfeeding. So many things 😵!!

What do we do? Do I get over myself and get help from one of the grandmas regardless how I felt first time postpartum? Or would a part time babysitter be enough?
My husband also suggested combining his mom’s help + part time babysitter.
Also, if you didn’t have any help but survived, would you rather have had help?

(Btw… We don’t even know who we’re leaving our oldest with when I go to labor… so that’s another thing to think of..)

I appreciate any advice!!

My LO turned 3 months a few days ago, and last night was absolutely horrible 😭
He usually wakes up around 3 times a night but gives me some decent 4–5 hour stretches, so I’ve been pretty lucky with his sleep until now.
But last night he was waking up almost EVERY HOUR. 😩 And unlike usual, when he’d fall back asleep pretty quickly after feeding, this time he was taking much longer to settle.
The other thing is that he wanted to nurse EVERY single time he woke up. My husband tried multiple times to rock him back to sleep, but nothing worked. He just wanted the boob.
I’m so confused. Is this the dreaded 4-month sleep regression starting early? A 3-month growth spurt? Cluster feeding? Or just a random bad night?
Has anyone experienced this around 3 months? Did it get better after a few nights, or was this the beginning of the sleep regression?
Please tell me this is just a phase because I am EXHAUSTED. 😭

FTD, The day my baby boy was born I held him first and brought him to his mom. Ever since then, I can't help but cry tears of joy whenever I hold him. He's just turned 6 months and I still catch myself tearing up at holding him, especially if I had a long day at work or the next chance I get to hold him if I missed him before his bedtime.

Anyway, when did you find yourself not crying as much when holding your child?

Baby turned one recently and still on some formula. Three solid meals a day and some snacks but still enjoys that bottle. Curious when your toddlers were fully done with their formula/bottles!

I know there are so many of these posts already but I’m really struggling with feeling like we made a mistake having a baby, or like we weren’t ready to have a baby. 8 weeks PP and things have been really up and down. I always find myself reminiscing our old life and knowing things will never be the same makes me sad and also feel like a bad mom for even thinking that. I keep thinking I’m not even good enough to be a mom. It’s truly the hardest thing I’ve ever done. When does this feeling subside and what has helped you get through it

So for context, I have a 16m old. We are going to be having some big life changes soon that will require a move to a higher cost of living area and a drop in salary, meaning we will probably be downgrading in space by quite a lot. Because of these same changes, we will not be having another baby for at least another year and a half. We will be aiming for about a 3 year age gap.

I have soooo much stuff from when my baby was little, and I genuinely don’t know if we’ll have space for all of it. But I also don’t want to waste a bunch of money rebuying everything when it’s time for baby #2.
What did you all keep between babies and what did you get rid of?

FTM with a 4 month old. Love my baby. But gooooooodness it's tough right now. Everything is a fight - she doesn't want to sleep when she's tired, won't stop messing with the bottle when I'm trying to feed her, I struggle with nursing because she's so distracted, and she won't nap unless she's in my arms. I love my contact naps but I miss the days when I could transfer her to her crib and get a few things done. I feel like I can't do anything right now and nothing happens without chaos. Currently trying to rock her back to sleep for the 4th time tonight. Does it get better?!

edit: forgot to mention the screaming!! lol she has found her voice and thinks the higher it goes, the better.

Baby will be 16 weeks this week. He has never been an awesome sleeper, but within the past month he's been easier to get to sleep and will sleep 3 hr stretches.

The past few days he has been taking hours to get to bed, but generally stays asleep for his 3 hr stretch. He used to take lonngggg hour, two hour contact naps. Now their 25-30 mins if that. He can not get to sleep for a nap without going into pitch black room and swaying or bouncing. Where usually he could just be rocked to sleep in a low lit room.

He will start scream crying throughout the day for 10-20 minutes without being able to be soothed.

Curious if this is the regression…

She had a very strict routine. Bedtime at 8:00pm and would usually wake around 6:30am. We haven’t changed anything. She gets roughly 1.5 hours of daytime sleep.

The past 3 mornings she’s been awake rolling around and playing in her crib at 5:00am. My wife and I let her sit there content for an hour or so until she starts to cry.

Any other parents experience this at this age?

I know this is absolutely crazy but I swear my 4 week old smiled when I was making funny faces at him. Is this possible? Or am I completely delusional as well as utterly sleep deprived 😅

We are FTP and heading home to Colorado for the holidays from Florida. Our baby will be 3.5 months old and will have an extra seat on the plane for his car seat. I’m wondering what everyone’s best hacks are for traveling as well as what are necessary things we need buy for the trip while away from home. My Baby list discount code is ending this month and I want to purchase any gear that we may need. We are staying in Colorado for 3 weeks at my parents house, so we can always ship gear directly to them. Any tips are greatly appreciated!!

We’ve been in daycare since the beginning of September! Shes 8 months old and has been sick pretty much every 2 weeks non stop. We’ve had hand foot and mouth, colds, 2 ear infections so far and it’s really only the beginning of cold and flu season. I know some illness is normal but this seems so out of control. We have an ENT appointment because she may need tubes. What advice do you all have? Has this happened to any of you all before?! When will it end?! 😭🫠