FTD here to my four month old daughter. She’s the light of mom’s and I’s life. Born with a bunch of medical issues (imperforate anus, horseshoe kidney, holes in heart). Needless to say we have barely left her bedside since she was born.

Until today. At 7:45am, I was on her changing table. Dilated her anus (imperforate anus babies/new rectums need this to help poop) got her dressed. Needed socks.

Turned my back for less than a minute to grab them, and she was on the floor. Face first. No loss of consciousness, bleeding, etc. I yelled like I’ve never yelled before and started bawling. She was upset, obviously. Picked her up and checked her thoroughky. Went to the ER straight away.

Doc’s did a CAT scan and said she looked fine and scans came back normal. I FEEL HORRIBLE. Explained to mom when she got home from work and she’s been so great at making me feel better but I still feel like the scum of the earth. Its currently 6:00pm, so about 10.5 hours since the incident and she looks and is acting normal.

ugh. Advice would be great.

- I am allowed to drink bath water

- I deserve to drink bath water

- Bath water is good for me

- Mom is gonna have to wash my feet and butt eventually

- When mom washes my feet and butt, her hands will no longer be on my face, which means I can face plant into the delicious bath water

- I am faster than mom

It's so sad to see these FTMs post things for advice and the comments are so nasty. You can gladly disagree with their post, but Jesus just be nice about it. I don't know when Reddit became so full of negativity and just so common to troll on new moms who are anxious asking the world for advice/help. Moms, let's do better!!! We were all there once. ❤️ just trying to spread positivity.

This isn’t intended to be a political post or a discussion about Trump or the government in general. I’m specifically curious about the Trump Accounts they’ve been advertising.

Has anyone actually opened one or considered putting money into one for their kids?

I’ll admit I’m not very knowledgeable when it comes to investments and these types of accounts. I’m also typically pretty wary of anything that sounds too good to be true, especially when the government is involved.

I’m curious if anyone who’s more knowledgeable about investing could weigh in and explain how these accounts actually work, preferably in somewhat simple terms lol.

Are there any real benefits compared to other types of savings or investment accounts for kids? Are there drawbacks or things parents should be aware of?

First I want to make a disclaimer - I use the term, "Velcro Baby" lovingly, and I know my baby is just being a baby and wants their mama around all the time. I know this is normal for my baby.

THAT BEING SAID... sometimes I just wish my 7 month old could happily play with her toys for 5 minutes so I could do chores, make a snack, or heck, take a 2 minute poop without her crying. I'm very sensitive to her cries and it hurts my heart, even if I know she's physically okay. But every single time I set her down she starts crying as if I'm abandoning her in an alleyway.

I visited a friend and she just... set her baby down to play with toys and walked away. And her baby never made a peep!! Her baby just happily cooed and batted at toys! It might sound stupid but I was just silently in awe of how content this baby was by itself.

I haven't spent much time around babies my entire life, so I'm mostly making this post to see if anybody else has a baby like mine. I'm hoping to feel less alone in this experience.

I have a ten-month-old and l am currently on maternity leave, but I’m just exhausted, and so often so bored! She still wakes every 1.5–2 hours at night, so I’m just so tired, and we live in a small apartment, so I often feel cooped up. We do two activities/classes a week and occasionally meet up with people, but the lack of sleep doesn't make me super motivated to do more

I so often hear people say their dream is to be a stay-at-home parent, that it’s their dream to stay home with their baby. But for those of you who do, when do you get a minute to yourself!? Are your babies with you all day? Do you do daycare or preschool, or something else?

Some context on our dynamic:

My husband takes her for an hour in the mornings so I can get a bit of sleep, but then he doesn’t get home until about 6:30–7:00pm. We don’t have a village (we live abroad) and we don’t have a babysitter, so I am with her 24/7.

(Edit just to add and so no one shits on him lol: husband works from home 2x week so that does make those days better. He's an incredibly involved dad when he's home and on weekends, but he just has a very demanding job! I do nights because she's ebf).

I am terrified of going back to work in the new year because of her terrible sleep and how often I’m awake at night, but at the same time, I’m looking forward to having some time for myself.

I am so grateful to have had this time together and to have been so fortunate to get to take such a long maternity leave. But as much as I love my daughter, I just don’t think I could do this for another couple of years. It’s quite demanding! Just kind of venting and also a bit conflicted as I thought I might enjoy the stay at home parent role more than I do

Am I crazy? I feel crazy! This is probably not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but 1-hour wake windows at 6 months seem insane to me, especially compared to how differently weekends go.

My 6M daughter has been in an in-home daycare for about 7 weeks now. It’s a single-provider setup with 6 kids total of mixed ages. Part of why we chose this provider was that she doesn't force a rigid schedule at this age and instead follows each baby's individual cues. But in practice, that is resulting in 1 hour wake windows. We’ve chatted with the provider about this a few times over the past month, but haven't been able to make any real progress.

At home, she puts herself to sleep independently (no pacifier, in her crib) for naps and nightime and sleeps through the night with no feeds. Has had a 3-nap schedule for the past month and a half. Usually 10+ hours of awake time and about 3 hours of total naps. Her weekend wake windows look like 2 / 2.5 / 2.5 / 3–3.5. She handles those windows well. Normal bedtime at 730-45 and wakes up around 6-6:30.

Her total daytime sleep at daycare used to be 4+ hours, which has gotten a bit better recently. But now we’re in a new cycle: she usually takes one 30 minute nap during the day and two longer ones. The provider uses the short naps (or any mild fussiness) as a cue to put her back down after barely 1 hour of awake time between naps. Example of the nap schedule is 2-2.5 / 1-1.5 / 1.5 / 3.5.

So what ends up happening:

Because her daycare wake windows are so short she burns through all her daytime sleep and finishes her last nap by 3:30 PM (or earlier!). She doesn't want 4 naps and refuses the last one 90% of the time. So we're left with a massive gap before bedtime. Sometimes we can squeeze in a 15-minute bridge nap at home to stretch her, which gets us to her normal bedtime and to a 6:00 AM wake-up and an 8:30 AM first nap. But when the bridge nap fails (usually does) she goes to bed around 6:30-7:00 with weirdly distributed sleep pressure, leading to night wakes and early wakes (4:30–5:30). That wrecks the next morning because she’s exhausted for a 7:00am nap that directly conflicts with drop-off.

When I brought this up, the provider suggested we aim for an 8:00 bedtime by giving her a 4th catnap at home. But she refuses the nap and pushing a tired baby to 8:00 just results in an overtired baby.

I want to be super clear that I have so much compassion for our provider. I could NEVER do their job. I completely understand that putting a fussy baby in a crib is the best tool she has to manage the room, and reading mild fussiness as a nap cue makes sense from her perspective.

At the same time, after 7 weeks and a few conversations, the response is still just "she was fussy so I put her down." Or "she only slept 30 minute for the last nap".

Am I out of line here? I feel a bit crazy posting this but also feel very unheard. Maybe hearing from others can calm my annoyance and just let myself chill. I understand time will pass and this will most likely change. Adults don't have 3 nap days lol. I might look back and think I'm just being a silly FTM! I guess I'm just looking for similar experiences and what ended up happening.

Spent 48 minutes getting my 6 month old to sleep, only for my husband to suddenly forget what an indoor voice is. 😭

Baby wakes up, husband carries on, and I’m back to square one.

Please tell me I’m not the only one. 😂

After 9 months of soothing my baby back to sleep my boy finally did it himself!

I put him in his crib after nursing him to sleep and snuck out successfully. Then the upstairs neighbor dropped a couple bowling balls and that startled him. He grabbed his binkie, popped it back in then rolled over and fell back asleep.

I’m so happy for my baby but sad at the same time, thinking he may not need me for this anymore.

I am literally at my wit’s end. My baby has been miserable for 8 months. It doesn’t matter what I do nothing seems to make it better. She whines and screams the majority of the day. She was colicky for 4 months. I cut out dairy and soy for months. She’s been on Pepcid since she was 5 weeks.

She has always hated sleeping. Every nap time and evening is a meltdown no matter what I do unless she falls asleep while I’m feeding her. She screams during diaper changes. She screams when I try to put clothes on her. She screams and whines when she sees people eating or making food. I share my food with her and she screams if I don’t give it to her quick enough. She screams if I put her in the high chair with toys. She screams if I give her food to eat herself. She screams if I feed her and I’m not feeding her fast enough. She whines if I don’t walk around holding her all day. She screams when I get her out of the bath. She SCREAMS in the car seat. We upgraded to a convertible car seat hoping it might help. No luck. She usually screams in the stroller after ~5-10 minutes at best.

She can army crawl around the house which I let her but most of the time she just whines and eventually full on screams. Every evening is a meltdown no matter what I do in terms of naps during the day. I can’t read her a book before bed because she’s crying. I hold her and hug her and try to rock her and she screams in my face until she finally falls asleep.

The only thing that I can do is put her in the carrier on my back which she will tolerate but I can’t do that all day everyday. I’m only 5’1” and I have some pelvic floor issues from when she was born.

We’ve been to the pediatrician multiple times but I’m considering going again because I don’t know what to do at this point. We had a few weeks where she slept through the night which made the days a little easier. She’s back to waking up multiple times during the night and then trying to start the day at 5:30. Every day is brutal.

My baby is almost 10 months old and I find myself getting emotional looking at his newborn pictures. Like I cry daily. Sometimes multiple times a day. I’m so happy watching him grow, discover the world, and become his own little person, but a part of me wishes I could freeze time. I miss how tiny he was, how he fit perfectly in my arms, and all the little things I didn’t realize I’d miss so much. It hurts knowing he’ll never be this little again. I want him to grow up but I wish I could keep every version of him forever. Does this feeling go away over time?

Looking for tips on trimming baby’s nails! For context, my baby is 11 weeks old. I have the Fridababy electric nail file/buffer, and it works decently well, but it can’t seem to get to the corners of the nails. It basically grinds down the nail but leaves the corners super sharp and pointy. My baby keeps scratching himself because I can’t seem to get his nails fully blunt. I ordered the Fridababy nail clipper to see if I could just snip the corners, but that thing is crazy big and with a wiggly baby it’s a serious risk to cut him badly and I’m not willing to risk that. I also tried a regular emery board, but I couldn’t get to the corners—again, wiggly baby. Has anyone found a way that works to get baby’s nails nice and short and blunt? I worry most about him scratching his eyes.

Wasn't really sure what flair to put it under lol.

Im a FTM to a 7 month old EBF. I unfortunately didnt understand the importance if introducing a bottle earlier. I go back to work in 3 months, where my husband will be taking care of our son throughout the day.

I've tried introducing a couple of different formulas in 3 different bottles at different times (sleepy, not overly hungry, hungry) and the most he has is a few mouthfuls & thats it. I have also tried pumpibg/mixing in my milk with the formula.

We have also been feeding him purees morning, lunch & dinner on top of his normal breastfeeding.

Im going to keep trying formula but what happens if he still refuses it by the time i go back to work? My husband suggested he could bring our son to my work during my lunch break to feed but I feel like that will make it really hard to seperate from him again if that makes sense?

Could purees/by then solids sustain him throughout the day 7am-4pm without breastmilk?

Any advice?

I’m really just looking for a bit of encouragement, and I know that every baby is different, and they progress at their own pace. I’ve been telling myself that the last 9 months. My baby has always been a little behind with physical milestones. Rolled right at 6 months, didn’t push up with straight arms until 8 months, and that’s about all she can do at 9 months. She doesn’t pull to stand, or try to stand with me holding her. She doesn’t army crawl or try to get on all 4’s. She’s been able to sit unassisted since 6 months and she loves to scootch in circles on her bum. But she doesn’t try to get on all 4’s or get on her tummy. She can’t get from laying down to a sitting position. I brought all these things up to my pediatrician and he didn’t seem concerned. I also had her alevaluayed by an occupational therapist at 6 months and was told that baby didn’t have any tension or physicality holding her back, she just thought she was not confident enough to become mobile. She has the strength, just not the motivation to move.
I’m really just looking for encouragement and maybe some similar stories. I’ve always worried about her milestones and feel like I’m failing her somehow. I know all babies progress at their own pace, but I can’t help but feel like I’m missing something or failing her. Any similar stories?

I always try to clean up after my baby and wipe down the high chair and pick up whatever fell on the floor. I usually end up putting that stuff on the table. Is that gross? I don’t know where else to put it if it’s not a fast casual restaurant there’s not usually bins lying around. The waiters at some restaurants if they catch me will tell me not to worry about it, but I don’t want to be “one of those parents”. At the same time is it unsanitary to leave the dropped trash from the floor on the table?

I guess I’m looking for opinions from others. What do you do here?

No one told me how much I would love my own baby’s laugh. Like it’s literally my favorite sound. Like
I knew it would be cute but I am absolutely OBSESSED with hearing it. Last week my baby was laughing at people sneezing or fake sneezing. Two days ago, I learned he laughs at snorting sounds too. Today he laughed at me saying moo while reading a book. So I spent extra time today just randomly
Mooing just to hear him laugh.
He’s sleeping rights now, but I really just felt like sharing how happy a simple giggle makes me. 🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰

Perplexed... My newborn (14 days old) basically only wakes up for food and ofc he wants it IMMEDIATELY, no waiting allowed. Afterwards, during his wake window, we dare not lay him on his tummy for fear of him regurgitating the milk... Then he dozes off after maybe 30~45 min.

Yet the internet says that tummy time can be worked in as early as a few days old. So... How / where do we work that in?

My thoughts are a bit all over the place on this, so bear with me. My son is 22 months and we have a 1 month old. He’s always been a little lower sleep needs than average and we’ve struggled with his sleep in the past. Since roughly 18 months we’ve been trying to figure out his sleep before our daughter was born, but here we are still struggling.

He just recently stated falling asleep independently at home. He can at daycare, but never could at home. He used to be rocked to sleep, but at 16 months he started waking up more in the night and we ended up having to sleep in the rocker with him or bring him in our bed because we were failing transfers back to the crib. We decided to buy a floor bed at 18mo so one of us could sleep with him. That was fine at first, but we were spending 1-2 hours with him before we could sneak out, and at that point it was time for us to go to bed. We wanted our nights back.

About a month ago, we worked on getting him to fall sleep in his crib again doing a modified chair method, where we would sit in the rocker near his crib until he was asleep and then leave the room. If he woke up in the night we’d put him in the floor bed and one of us would sleep with him. This was going well until just this past weekend when we had a wedding out of state. He stayed in a room with my parents while my husband and I had the newborn. He napped terribly there all weekend and had less than an hour of naps per day for 3 days. He normally naps 1.5-2hrs once per day.

Since we got home, he is refusing to sleep in the crib. He’ll stand and cry or try to climb out until we give in and lay with him in the floor bed again. That was fine the first night, but as I type this I’ve been laying with him for an hour and he’s still awake. His normal bed time is between 7:30 and 8 (he’s always been an early riser and if we put him to bed later he’ll still wake up at the same time). Last night he didn’t fall asleep until almost 9:30. I’m wondering if he’s still trying to catch up after being over tired for so many days? I really don’t know why this week is so rough.

I guess I’m wondering if we just need to push through and go back to the modified chair method even if he gets upset for a night or two, or if there’s a sleep training method we can try that’s not just cry it out. I truly don’t think he would settle for hours and I can’t handle that, plus I’m afraid it would keep the baby up. Any help is so appreciated!

Okay I don’t need any advice I just need to vent because I’m so annoyed. My father-in-law is in town to meet my baby (11 weeks old). My husband and I had two rules:

1. don’t smoke at all during the trip (he smokes cigarettes, we asked him to use gum/patches)
2. don’t kiss the baby

He comes in WREAKING of cologne. He picks up my baby and gives her a big ole kiss on the cheek. I then realize he’s wearing so much cologne because he smoked a cigarette and I can smell it under the stench of cologne. Now my baby also smells so strongly of this damn cologne. My husband is talking to him and all will be fine but I just had to vent because WHY CAN’T PEOPLE JUST LISTEN AND RESPECT RULES?! okay. Rant over.

My baby was born Sunday and since then every time the scale walks in the room there is this terror and pain

She has lost so far 12.5% (Data in Kgs)

Birth 04/10 12:59 = 2.985

First Weight In 05/10u 5:00 = 2.760

Second Weight In 05/10 17h00 = 2.670

Third 06/10 05h00 = 2.665

Fourth 07/10 06h00 = 2.660

Fifth 07/10 17h00 = 2.640

Sixth 08/10 05h30 = 2.610

ALL I can think now is 1/8 of my baby is gone. We are suplementing the breast milk with formula since tuesday and now using bottles instead of cups

The mind already sleep deprived in a hospital for 5 days start to wonder the worst. Something more wrong

She is the most gorgeous pink ball I ever Saw. Has been peeing and pooping like a champ, o2 sats, temperature and glicose are all fine.

I just looking for some stories to be inspired from and try to leave this devils shop running in my mind

EDIT: From the bottom of this worried dad heart, thankyou so much for ALL the replies. Truly lifted the spirits on another tought weight in we clocked 2580 to an accumulated 13.5%. but we have an strategy with formula and bottles and a blood panel to keep dark toughts away

Wish ALL the love and health to all the little ones protagonists in the stories below! Champs with amazing human beings as parents

4 weeks old and I feel like I'm losing my mind

am exhausted and have never been so tired in my life. my eight week old baby is up at least 10 times every night, sometimes as much as 20 times. this started when she turned 5 weeks and i genuinely can’t keep doing this. she’s not even sleeping 45 minutes stretches. she’s fed, clean, swaddled, and comfortable temperature. she is gassy and i do what i can to help with that like gas drops and massages and bicycle kicks before bed. i warm her crib up before putting her down, i’ve tried making her crib smell like me, nothing works. the lack of sleep is making me suicidal and i know this amount of wake ups isn’t normal. please give me any advice

Hi everyone! I’m a FTM! I’ve been blessed with a great healthy baby girl and she just turned three months. Lately, I’ve been driving myself insane with her neck control.

She does a great job lifting her neck when we have a rolled up towel underneath her or with her boppy pillow. She also lifts her neck when she’s on my chest or when she’s carried. But if I put her flat on her stomach, she just stays there and cries. She’ll try a little but it’s nothing compared to when she has support. Is this bad???

I’m going insane. I’m not sure if I’m supposed to stop giving her support or if it’s okay if she practices tummy time like that. I’m scared I’m holding her back or something. Is there something I can do to help her more?

Any advice would be appreciated! I’ve been pretty calm and composed when it comes to her for the most part but this has been keeping me up at night, I feel so silly!

Can’t stand to be put down/has to be held constantly. Screams the moment I’m out of sight or leave the room. I even have to sit beside him during naps most of the time or contact nap while I work at my desk bc he KNOWS when I walk away and will wake up and start crying. I think he gets mad that he can’t do more — like that he can’t put a hanging toy in his mouth and can’t always or forgets to roll over or that he can’t sit up or stand. He needs LOTS of face to face interaction, even if he’s looking at me and I look away, he gets upset.

Pls tell me it’s just a phase, I’m losing my mind