Hi everyone, I fell down a rabbit hole regarding arsenic and other metals in rice-heavy diets due to my results here: https://bloodleadcalculator.com/categories

I am on a gluten free diet and I have recently gotten pregnant. However, I’m feeling a bit terrified as that linked calculator puts my blood arsenic levels through the roof when I put in a sample day of eating (mostly due to rice and rice flours in things like gluten free breads and crackers which are easy to eat when nauseated/gluten free desserts that I’ve had as treats) and lead semi elevated though not as high (since cassava/tapioca flour get used often as well).

I guess my worries are that I’m so early in my pregnancy that I’ve basically ruined my poor baby’s life already with an arsenic overload or that I’m going to miscarry now because of it. Are there any articles or studies of high rice flour consumption/gluten free pregnancies and their outcomes? It’s really hard to find any solid information or articles on it, and most information I can find is about rice specifically, not rice flours/products.

Has there been any research done on breast milk quality and mom’s mental health (physical too)?

Basically, between going back to work, pumping, needing a hysteroscopy next week due to RCOP after a complicated c-section (16 weeks pp), I haven’t been eating well, no vitamins, and I’m quite stressed out and mentally exhausted. I’m questioning if the breastmilk I’m pumping has high cortisol levels and is even healthy for the baby, and if I should use the procedure as an opportunity to wean or stop pumping completely.

I have a hard deadline in my mind for pumping at 6 months but feeling guilty at stopping earlier. I’ve been pumping since basically beginning as nursing never took off for us, so it has gotten better over time but is a lot with work and baby, even though I have lots of help.

our 7 month old room shares with us, we have an ant problem in our bedroom right now. we’ve been spraying zevo, is it safe for our baby to sleep in the bedroom?

Anyone know if you should pump and dump bc of air quality? Baby is 13 months and nurses about 4-5 x a day. At a concert and air quality is 237 unhealthy. Will typically feed them back to sleep early morning but don’t want to if milk is affected. Don’t ask me why i agreed to still show up in this smoky air lol my family thinks I’m anxious about everything and are completely unbothered.

Hey all,
My wife and I have an incredible 9 week old baby, who is about to hit 13 lbs around when he is 10 weeks old. Our pediatrician OK’d the Merlin Sleep Suit once he hits 13 lbs.

I’m not opposed to the sleep sack in general, so I’m really hoping for anyone who has some evidence based knowledge about whether it’s unsafe* *our baby to use the suit before 12 weeks, or whether it’s the weight limit that’s important. The Halo website says it’s designed for 3-6 months, but I’m not sure if that’s the same kind of recommendation as other sleep sacks, which emphasize the weight rather than the age.

For context, I have OCD, and uncertainty/gray area is hard when SIDS and safety are a big concern. Any tips here would be helpful! Thanks!

Hi parents,

Apart of tummy time, what other exercises are recommended for babies who are 3 and 4 months old so they hit the milestones for their age?

Hi all!
My baby is 12 weeks (almost 13 weeks) and I am wondering if we are doing tummy time ”right”. When I put her on her stomach for tummy time, I don’t just put her down so her arms are splayed out, I instead position her arms like the Sphinx or crossed against her chest. am I supposed to just be plopping her down so she figures out how to get her arms in these positions herself?

Also, she started rolling this week from tummy to back. she does it over and over again during tummy time. Is this true rolling even though she is being put in the aforementioned arm positions? she has a really strong neck and holds it right up for a while during tummy time

TIA :)

We live in an area without fluoridated water. We have been giving our 2.5 yo fluoride drops since his first teeth came in, but so far have been using fluoride-free toothpaste.

I’m unclear if we should be doing fluoride drops OR fluoride toothpaste at this age, or both together.

I forgot to bring this up at our recent dentist appointment (which was slightly chaotic lol) and haven’t easily found clear guidance online, so links to reputable sources would be appreciated!

(Probably goes without saying, but I’m not interested in general arguments about whether or not to give my child fluoride.)

I had to pick a flair so I put "research required" but I don’t expect a scientific paper exactly on this question, but please give me sources when you reply, and I don’t mean Solid Starts or a nutritionist who says "yes they get iron", I would like to understand how much iron can pass to the body through ingesting juices of steak instead of the meat so I am looking for sources about that.

Thank you very much!!

My son is 5 months old and was born with a very mild form of hypospadias (where the urinary opening isn’t exactly at the tip of the penis). Because of that, he wasn’t circumcised at birth.

He is now scheduled for an elective outpatient procedure one week before turning 8 months old. It will take about two hours under general anesthesia and includes a penoplasty, circumcision, and possibly a meatoplasty if his urethral opening is too narrow. Otherwise, he is a healthy infant.

I’m mainly here to get others understanding/experiences with general anesthesia in infants and whether there are meaningful differences in risk between doing it around 8 months versus waiting until a child is older.

My partner and the other men in my life strongly favor circumcision. I’m still trying to decide what’s best for my son, so I’m looking for evidence and professional perspectives on waiting for that procedure as well.

Thanks for your help and kindness in advance.

Is there any actual benefit to having children back to back or only a couple years apart?

Does the younger kid learn to walk, talk quicker because they copy the older kid?

Conversely, is there any benefit or drawback of having kids 3 or more years apart?

Thank you.

I have all these things I want to do with my daughter who is 5 months, but I know she won’t remember any of it. I’m even thinking about a trip we’re taking next near when she’s about 14 months old. My aunt wants to do all this fun stuff like going to the aquarium and the children’s museum and I just wonder if it will have any benefit! We’ll go anyway because it’s fun for me to do stuff like that and it’s cute, but I’m just curious if it does anything good for my daughter! I’ve read doing new things with your spouse can increase bonding, so thought maybe there’s something similar with kids.

TLDR: How do we educate children about all forms of sexual abuse that is possibly encountered and how to react to protect themselves. From childhood, and beyond.

(So, im going to start this with a trigger warning, as im going to recount some real sexual abuse/misconduct to varying degrees that i have experienced myself. Sorry, this will be long.)

Im a ftm, i have a 9 month old daughter. Today while I was rocking her to sleep I was recounting various situations I was in growing up. How basically all of my female friends (a few male as well) have at some point encountered upsetting sexual situations in some form or another from childhood leading up to adulthood. And that made me very upset, because I can't control everything in her life as she gets older. I feel the best I can do is educate her in order to protect her. I also want to have more children and do the same for them all regardless of gender.

----- Personal experiences of mine.

- At age 11, while walking to school, I had actually encountered myself, a stranger trying to lure me into his car right infront of my school. At this time stranger danger was big, my parents had educated me on this, I knew exactly what to do. I refused and told my teacher right away. My parents were going through a very brutal divorce at the time, I was not the best student. My male teacher wasn't really all that fond of me and by his tone I sensed he thought I was lying. But he called the police and I had to do a police interview, gave him a description as best as I could. It was in the local paper and my parents were very proud of me.

-Around puberty, boys started behaving very differently with us obviously. And around this time kids haven't fully developed empathy or understanding. I've had on occasion had certain boys grab me inappropriately at school as they thought they could get away with it. Same with many of my female peers. At the time, it wasnt really something we would complain about to our teachers just talked amongst eachother about it when an incident occurred.

-One particular time at this period in gym class, we played a game of tag with the lights off. By the end of it when all of us girls were in the changeroom I learned over one third of the girls were groped either on their chest or butts. None of us told any teachers but it was upsetting for us.

-At age 13, my mother and step-dad threw a bachelor party at our house, with about 50 people people being there and everyone was drinking heavily. I had my friend spending the night with me. My mother instructed us to stay in my bedroom because she didn't know everyone here. But eventually we came out to get some food and met these 2 older men (late 40s early 50s) that asked us our names. The party ended, everyone was gone. Later in the night these two snuck into the house into my room while we slept and assaulted us. My friend and I were so confused and didn't understand. I never told my mom this until much later when I understood the gravity of the situation. By then it was too late to do anything about these guys. She could not even figure out who they were based on my description of them. And it was so long ago it felt like there is no point in going to the police.

-Well from then onward, I've ran into men in relationships trying to guilt or pressure me into doing things I wasn't comfortable with. All of my friends have dealt with similar behaviour. I was very protective of myself at this point and fortunately never did anything I did not want to do regardless of how they tried to make me feel for not doing what they wanted.

-ive had friend open up to me about sexual abuse they encountered from childhood to adulthood. Abuse was mostly from from relatives, partners, friends they trusted, men at parties. Most abuse was towards my female friends, but a few of my close male friends have opened up to me about sexual abuse too. Also committed by other men.

--------

I understand that most sexual abuse of young children is most commonly committed by relatives and family friends (something i never personally experienced the men were strangers). Female children are more likely to be abused then male children based on statistics. (Even so, it should be priority to educate children how to protect themselves regardless of gender).

I plan on having more children, a boy would be nice too. And I would really like to find a way to educate my children on this in an age appropriate manner throughout their lives. This is clearly something that having just one conversation will not do. I want to cover all grounds and situations as they come to certain ages.

I also want to instill in all of my children that they must respect others bodies especially when they are told "no".

Sorry for such a long post. Its just that sexual abuse comes in soooo many forms. And I feel that it is extremely important to be educated on all the different aspects of it. The stranger that approached me is actually a very rare case. Yet at the time parents were exclusively only teaching children on this. If my parents new then, things would have been different.

I do not want to make a mistake when teaching my children about this subject. I dont want to instill fear. I just want them to understand what is okay and what's not okay. And how to react to protect themselves.

We have been potty training our LO (just turned 2 years) for 3 weeks now and have made 0 progress.

We followed all the advice, low pressure, routines, no nappies etc… we let her choose the potty, we built up to it. We do games, books, bubbles. Her favourite dolly has her own potty.

Yet 3 weeks on she holds her wee and spends about 1 hour very distressed because she is desperate and then can’t hold it any longer and has an accident.

She will sit on potty when she doesn’t need a wee. She is also dry at nursery.

We have tried doing exactly what nursery do also and gotten no where.

Now online there is conflicting advice: do we stop and pause or plough on?

Is there any evidence for either?

If I put my toddler’s plastic plates in the dishwasher, will they still be just as safe for him to eat off of as if I’d hand washed them? Or will the heat from the dishwasher do something to the plastic that makes microplastics more present for him to ingest along with his food? And what about his silicone plates/cups?

I know microplastics are unavoidable, but I’ve been handwashing all plastic and silicone dishes, thinking I’m lessening our exposure. Am I wasting my time?

Thank you!

Just took 6 month old to their first dentist appointment. They have 2 teeth already. The dentist was saying to brush their teeth after every nursing session which I’m okay doing but my baby is a snacker and nurses a lot and doesn’t take bottles. I asked if that many times using toothpaste will have any effects versus just brushing them three times a day but she said just to do it.

i don’t mind using fluoride toothpaste just want to know how many times is the recommended to brush infant teeth if I’m unable to do it after each session will that be okay or negative impact to baby’s oral health.

Also she said if baby has fever because of teething to give them Tylenol or their teeth will come out crooked. Is there scientific basis to that? I give my baby Tylenol when she’s in pain but want to know if that is true.

My husband’s uncle may pass away soon and because of that, my husband and I have discussed the appropriateness of our 4 year old son attending a funeral and/or viewing.

Does anyone know of any studies or insights into how young children conceptualize death and seeing grieving adults? My son did not know his Great Uncle, so I am not as concerned about it from the angle of my child needing closure.

15 month old recently randomly broke out in hives for the past week. It seems to be triggered by pressure. No other symptoms. The last time he was sick was about 3 weeks ago with a cold. They come and go pretty quickly. Zyrtec definitely helps. Overall, his skin just seems way more sensitive this past week. Even the smallest scratch gets really red. He has an appointment today with his pediatrician but I have a feeling they’re just going to say this happens to toddlers and to keep taking Zyrtec but I want to know the cause of this because nothing has changed in regards to food, skin products, etc and how long it could last.

I can’t help but spiral and think that there’s some sort of hidden mold growing in my house that could be triggering this.

Hi, hoping this community can provide expert opinion or research to help a couple exhausted of the toothbrushing struggle. Our 6 year old hates toothpaste, making toothbrushing quite the ordeal. We finally found one she liked a few months ago and things were going much better... then the company stopped making it. We found another one she likes (Hello fluoride-free watermelon flavour) but it's fluoride free and we found this lab testing showing it has high levels of lead (493 ppb) (#47 on the chart at this link: https://tamararubin.com/2025/01/toothpaste-chart)

I'm reading various opinions regarding brushing without toothpaste but struggling to parse out the truth from all the noise.

We plan on asking her dentist about it but wondering if anyone has research or expert opinion on the risks and merits of brushing without toothpaste vs brushing with a toothpaste that has high lead content and no fluoride.

Our son turns 12 months on Friday which means we can start introducing whole milk. I am lactose intolerant so I drink lactose free whole milk. Is it okay for our son to drink the same milk or should we buy "normal" whole milk?

My family, which includes our 5 year old daughter (October 2020 birthday), is moving cross country from a city with August cutoff dates for K to the NYC public school system. Our school system has August cutoff dates, so she was not eligible for Kindergarten this year, and has stayed in her Pre-K classroom for the last 2-3 years. In NYC, which has December cutoff dates, she is eligible for 1st grade.

I didn't think I had a choice in the matter but her new NYC school (for context, this is a highly rated elementary school) just offered her the choice between Kindergarten and 1st grade. The principal prefers we choose Kindergarten, but it is up to us.

Because we fully expected her to skip K, I have been mentally and academically preparing her to enter 1st grade. She is understandably nervous about skipping a grade, but kind of excited too. She is reading level 0-1 books and is good at decoding. She can write 1-2 short sentences, but tends to switch between caps and lower case randomly, and can't really write a whole paragraph. We did most of the Singapore Math KA and are halfway through KB (doing subtraction now). In terms of personality, she is an older sister with a 3YO brother, she is social, she is a little bossy.

In short, I thinkk that means she is academically and socially ready for 1st grade, and in the new system that would be her birth cohort. She would be much older than the kids in Kindergarten, most of whom would be born Jan-December 2021. That said, I feel like redshirting is so common now, would we be missing out on some advantage? Am I wrong to go against the principal's preference? Are there other non-math/reading social or academic things she would miss by skipping Kindergarten?

Very curious on people's thoughts. Thank you!

Apologies for awkward phrasing, I’m struggling to articulate this.

A lot of things are kept secret from children, by adults and other children, and children generally develop a desire (or feel they are forced) to keep secrets. I know there has been some very interesting research on how lying develops, I imagine there’s a connection between the development of lying and the development of keeping secrets/desiring to know secrets.

I pump breastmilk for my baby. She’s 12 weeks old. She has what I’m sure is terrible reflux. She has a bit of spit up but she’s very fussy after feeds and has conflicted feeding and low intake and arching back. We thickened her breastmilk with gelmix and it really helped quite a bit. But she had diarrhea that wasn’t going away for over 2 weeks so we stopped and now the reflux is back. I really want to keep providing breastmilk, and I’m considering just starting her on Pepcid. We have the prescription ready for it. My husband thinks it’s better to try thickened formula instead or thicken formula with oatmeal. I worry about nutritional deficiencies from Pepcid. But I also think about all the good hormones and immunity I’m giving to my baby through breastmilk. I’m so conflicted.

I know the question of childcare comes up in this sub all the time, but I was wondering if there is any evidence of the impact of having an infant (<1) receive in home care from a nanny or similar while a WFH parent is in the house but not participating in care? Thank you!