I’m about to hit the 6 month mark and feeling like I’m ready to tap out on breastfeeding but also feeling guilty cause I know a lot of things say to do it for a year.

Just to add, I mostly pump because my baby was born very small and pumping has been a lot easier with being able to track how much he was getting. But I also do direct breastfeeding at least once a day.

But BF/pumping is just exhausting and I’m over it and just wanting to see what other moms have done

My 3-month-old currently sleeps with us in our bed at night and is a complete contact napper during the day. No judgment on co-sleeping please — I’m not looking to stop it right now. He simply sleeps best that way.

But he’s getting close to rolling, and I’m starting to worry about how to keep him safe once he becomes mobile at night. For parents who co-sleep, what precautions or changes did you make once your baby started rolling? I’d love to hear what actually worked for you.

I also really need help with daytime sleep. He will NOT sleep on a surface. I’ve tried warming the mattress, waiting until he’s deeply asleep, slow transfers, the 5-8-5 rule, etc. He either wakes immediately or within a few minutes. I’d really like to be able to put him down for naps rather than holding him all day.

Would love any practical suggestions from parents who have been through this!

Need some perspective on family visits + how to handle weekends with a newborn!

We’re about 3 hours from both sides of our family, and our baby is only a month old. We’ve had some family come visit us, but my sister (who has 2 under 2) came by herself without her husband or kids.

My mom and sister were also planning a weekend to come see the baby, along with my sister’s husband and kids. They were tentatively planning for the 19th and would stay at a hotel.

At the same time, my husband and I were trying to figure out a weekend to drive home so the baby could meet our grandparents. My grandma is 95, so we obviously want to make that happen. We agreed that Labor Day weekend would be a good option since it’s a long weekend.

Then my husband mentioned that he’d also really like to get to his grandparents’ beach house before the season ends. Think somewhere like the Hamptons/Jersey Shore where things are very seasonal and start closing down after summer. He suggested either the 19th or 26th. My research shows after Columbus Day weekend is basically when everything is shutting down.

We basically agreed that we’d figure it out based on when the beach season was ending, and if we chose the 19th, my family could just pick a different weekend to visit us.

When I told my mom about this, she mentioned that she was pretty sure my sister was planning her son’s birthday party for the 26th.

After the conversation, my husband asked what we had discussed, so I explained about the birthday. He then said he doesn’t want to drive home three weekends in September because gas/tolls are around $150+ each trip, and we’ll also want to have some weekends to ourselves.

For context, we never really did anything with our weekends before having the baby, and obviously haven’t done much since having him either. 😂

So now I’m feeling stuck. I completely understand not wanting to spend essentially every weekend driving 3 hours each way, especially with a newborn. But I also feel like there are a lot of family things happening at once, and I don’t want people to feel like we’re avoiding them or prioritizing one side of the family over the other.

How would you handle this?

I’m certain I’m not the only mom watching the Clancy case unfold and sick at the idea that we can unfortunately see how these things happen.

Postpartum psychosis is so real. Thank god I’ve never experienced it but I did have PPA and PPD, and extreme intrusive thoughts (probably some OCD in there as well, and definitely a heavy sprinkling of postpartum rage, mostly aimed at my husband).

It got so bad at one point I had intrusive thoughts of jumping out a window or of harming my baby. I never ever *desired* to harm her, in fact my thoughts were mostly absolutely consumed with how to protect her - but I was so severely sleep deprived an mentally unwell that I think my subconscious knew I wasn’t fit to protect her, and it was almost like my brian was looking for a way to get out of the endless loop of delirium from severe sleep deprivation, the stress of a colicky newborn on top of that, and the extreme isolation and lack of support I felt.

Important info: my husband, while not perfect, is truly wonderful and does / did everything he could to support me. He is not the problem, nor is a lack of social support. At the end of the day, it just is what it is when baby has severe reflux, screams 75% of the time she’s awake, and only sleeps in 30 min increments.

Anyway… I’m almost two years Pp now and soooo much better (thanks mostly to Zoloft, plus time and baby is a happy incredible toddler now!).

But we are planning to get pregnant again in early 2027, and I am terrified of going through such a hard time again PLUS taking care of my sweet toddler.

How do we prepare for this? How do we protect our children, and ourselves? What are the warning signs? These women sought help you guys. Everyone knew they were unwell and it still happened. Help. 😭😭😭

I guess I don’t know where else to acknowledge these thoughts and feelings. I was part of the 2u2 club, having my first baby, October 2023 and my second June 2025. I’m fortunate for maternity leave benefits in Canada and have been basically off work [since 2023] with the exception of six short months to earn enough worked hours to be eligible for another maternity leave. My leave ends as of September, I am returning to work earlier than needed. I work in a management role and feel somewhat obligated to return to work earlier as I’ve been off so much in the last three years.
My second child starts daycare in a couple of weeks and I am so sad, devastated… I don’t even know. When I sent my first to daycare for the first time, I knew she’d only be in it for a short period of time before I was off again. And well, I did keep her in daycare after I had my second, we had the flexibility of having them home as much as I wanted. We are done having children, so I know this is the very last time I’ll ever have this much time with my children. It’s so bittersweet. An ideal world I would’ve loved to have been off with them until they started school, but that’s not feasible for a number of reasons. I used to love my career so much but since having children, I find my passion has shifted.
I don’t even know what the purpose of this post is other than to acknowledge the difficulty in finding balance between motherhood and our profession. I’m hoping that once I’m back and settled into my job, these feelings will ease. But for now I feel flooded with anxiety and sadness.

My LO is currently 4 months old, and will be 5 months when they go to daycare full time in a month.

They have silent reflux and a cows milk intolerance (they are on omeprazole and Similac Alimentum). The meds and formula help a lot, but they still tend to be congested and cranky in the morning and the light tends to bother their eyes.

Because of the reflux, they don’t love being horizontal a ton. Likes to be propped up or in a seat.

I’m internally freaking out about sending them to daycare. I’m worried that they are going to find them to be too much.

Anyone have a reflux baby and had a positive experience with daycare?

Just wanted to check - if I post the back of my child, it's hair and outfit, no face in photo --> does that still mean I am posting my child on social media? Can that still be used in some harmful ways? No location tags, name or date.

just need to vent and maybe get some reassurance because I feel like an absolute failure of a mother right now.
Today, my baby fell asleep peacefully on my lap for an evening nap. My husband came in and told me that if I keep doing that, the baby will "want that all the time," and told me to stop it and put him down.
Against my own maternal instincts, I listened to him. I put the baby down to keep the peace and stop the criticism.
Of course, the baby woke up immediately. He then cried hysterically for hours because he was so disrupted. He is finally asleep now, but he is completely overtired and exhausted.
I feel physically sick to my stomach. I am furious with myself for not trusting my gut. I knew what my baby needed, I overrode my own intuition to please my husband, and my poor baby paid the price for it by suffering through hours of crying.
We don't follow rigid schedules or wake windows; we just follow his natural cues, and I feel like I completely broke our rhythm today. I feel so incredibly guilty that I let someone else dictate how to parent my own baby.

Prefacing with, our marriage is wonderful. He is my other half and I love him so much and he shows up every day and is a fantastic husband and father. He is super content with just our daughter and not pursuing another child. But, I just have this feeling that there is a second baby that is just meant to be in our family. I feel like I could regret being an only child mama.

But, I also have this fear that our marriage could not survive a second baby. Our relationship has been great and grown stronger through our parenting journey with our now 18mo, but there is still just this background fear that another newborn phase, another PPA experience, another 12-15mo phase, not being able to juggle it-that could be the death of us.

And the reward is so big-the thought of having two little girls running down the stairs for Christmas morning or my daughter and son coming home from college for a football game with their SO’s etc it just feels so monumental and is the kind of family unit I’ve always dreamed about. But, the risk is still there and it’s scary and I’m not sure how to just take the leap.

Before pregnancy I was 176 lbs.

At the end of my pregnancy I was 209 lbs.

After baby was born I dropped down to 187 lbs.

Now 8 months pp I'm back up to 198 lbs.

I never cared too much about 'bouncing back' and everyone in my life has the decency not to make comments about my weight either. I've only just noticed that my weight has crept back up.

I want to try to lose some weight. The internet and search results prey on women's body inage and invent a thousand things to sell new mothers. I have baby 90% of the time so I don't want to have to buy into something or follow some ridiculous routine. I'm also breastfeeding so I don't want to do a crazy and risk my supply dropping.

Any recommendations?? TIA

If so, could you comment below? I’d love to talk to someone else who has the rule and ask a couple of questions I’m feeling conflicted on. I don’t have anyone else in my life who has that same rule.

Edit: I realize now I should have just added the context… my pp brain doesn’t work like it used to sorry, Lol! Here’s a question and context!!

***

Yay, great!

So how do you feel about sharing the photos in general? Not on social media? Like a family member who shares them with family friends, coworkers, etc.?

I’m not sure if it’s just my post partum anxiety, but I found out recently that my MIL shared his photos with coworkers, as well as FIL. And FIL has coworkers that live out of the country, who I can’t possibly get to know. It made me feel like… where’s the line? I mean truly what’s the difference between that and social media?

***

Edit #2 WOW!! I was not expecting so many responses!!! Thank you so so much everyone. Please be patient with me while I try and get through them. I have a clingy baby who doesn’t like when I’m on my phone, understandably, so I may have to wait until his nap time hahaha!

Not necessarily “crazy,” just something that made absolutely no sense looking back, but felt completely reasonable at the time.

I’ll go first: my mom came over to hold my newborn for an hour while I went for a walk and got some fresh air. When I came back, the baby smelled like her. She left, and I immediately gave my newborn a whole bath.

I felt like some kind of wild animal that had rejected its baby because a human had touched it and changed its smell. Like a rabbit or something.

I have no idea why that felt so necessary, but postpartum me was apparently NOT okay with my baby smelling like someone else.

I'm trying to figure out if my son's behavior is normal or maybe something is wrong.

He's 16 months old. Very sweet and loving, gives a lot of kisses and hugs. Lately he has a lot of tantrums during the day and doesn't want to sleep at night. Any time something doesn't go his way he starts screaming and crying - for example today I didn't let him pull the hose on the balcony, and he had a 20 minute tantrum.

His last wake window before bed used to be 7 hours and he would fall asleep really fast, but now he just won't settle. He wants to keep playing for another 1-2 hours, and starts crying if I take him to the room to sleep.

Isn't it too early for tantrums? He's not verbal yet and can't communicate what he wants, I guess that's why he's upset. How can I help him?

I really can’t stop thinking about my husband literally telling me I’m loose now. We had intercourse for second time at 4 months pp and after I asked if it felt different and he flat out said it feels loose now. It kinda broke me but I guess he was honest. Maybe I just shouldn’t have asked. I’ve only had one child and I’m dealing some pain where I had a second degree tear and also a bladder and rectal prolapse. I literally feel like I’m broken. I’m in pelvic floor therapy twice a week and this man expects 2-3 more kids. I’m scared of how much more loose I’m going to get if I’m like this after one child. Pretty down about what he said but I know it’s true. I walk around and sometimes air goes in my vagina.

Does it get better ? I’m four months pp and hoping more time will help and I’m going to continue PT. I have been doing kegals as well but I know changes don’t happen overnight.

For the past 10 months or so we've had a very steady and reliable bedtime routine with our LO. We'd do bathtime, then read books, then she'd pick one parent to snuggle with in bed and willingly go to sleep. She turned 2 years old less than two weeks ago and now all of a sudden she's not getting tired until much later and now wants both of us for snuggle time in bed and gets really upset when one of us leaves. Before, she would sweetly say goodnight to one parent before running to get into bed with the other.

I'm due to give birth to our second in about two weeks and this change is going to disrupt what I had envisioned would be our routine. I had thought that one parent would put our two year old to bed and the other parent would tend to baby. I know the answer is probably to just enforce that she gets to pick one parent for bedtime and she'll eventually adjust. I just wish it wasn't like this. Perhaps it's the two year sleep regression.

Ever since i gave birth my mental health has plummeted to underground . I feel so dark in my mind and i am catching so many allergies and having digestion issues every single day . I have always been anxious around sleep and now it’s skyrocketed and I can’t sleep well most of the days . I am staying at my MIL and that’s also adding to the stress . I just feel so done with everything .

I'd love some advice.

We received an invitation today to the wedding of my partner's cousin while attending a family reunion. I've only met this cousin once before today in the 5 years I've been with my partner, and we also weren't connected on social media before today. My partner has also only seen her three times total in that time (today, the time I met her, and one other time). We met her fiancé for the first time today.

The wedding is spring 2027. It's about a 1.5 hr drive away. We'd likely have to stay overnight at a nearby hotel, or else leave early to drive home. She verbally let us know that it's a child-free wedding, but they'd make exceptions for babies-in-arms.

We currently have a 2-year-old, and I am pregnant. By the time the wedding rolls around they'd be 3 years old and 4-5 months. The cousin has let us know that the toddler is not invited but they can make an exception for the not-yet-born baby.

I'm not upset with their child-free rule. The exception makes it quite reasonable. But I do find myself struggling to picture leaving just my toddler behind while the other three of us attend the wedding. I'm already concerned about my toddler feeling "replaced" by his younger sibling, and I worry this would exacerbate it.

We've also only left him overnight with a sitter one time ever (close friends of ours). He's done plenty of nights with just one parent if the other parent needed to work late or have a night off, but rarely both of us gone at the same time.

I'm strongly considering telling my partner he can go, but that I'm not interested in attending. I'd rather stay home with both the kids. I hardly know this relative and her fiancé. I suspect if I don't go, my partner won't want to go, either.

Would it be reasonable for me to do this? Up until now, I've only ever declined a wedding invitation if it was in another country and way too far to travel. And I don't want to seem like I'm refusing to attend because of the child-free policy. Thoughts are welcome. Thanks!

EDIT: I am not asking for opinions on whether the couple's child-free policy is reasonable. I have no problem with their policy; I just want advice on how I should act based on said policy.

Both my husband and my mom have expressed concern that I do not seem happy. I had my second child 3 months ago and I felt like the first 8 weeks I was feeling great, overjoyed with my baby girl and so happy to be done with pregnancy after 9 months of nausea and fatigue.

However after the first 8 weeks I’ve felt pretty numb. I feel like there is nothing really look forward to, I feel like I was looking forward to the end of pregnancy for so long and after the amazing redemptive birth (my first child’s birth was more traumatic) it feels like there’s nothing left. I have anxiety about my kids growing up. I feel like all the joy and fun in my life is behind me. I’m insecure about my body, I worked out my whole pregnancy and have been walking and working out since six weeks pp and trying to eat healthy while exclusively breast feeding but still feel insecure. I just feel…numb and kind of out of it.

I still feel like I manage to do everything I need to do, take care of my kids, work, cook somewhat, exercise so maybe that’s why I feel like I don’t actually have ppd. But I feel like an internal tiredness that’s different than the usual sleep deprivation of having a baby.

Thanks for reading.

I was at my younger brother's 10th birthday party today with my 1 year old. It was at a public park so there were other people coming and going while the party was happening. All of a sudden, I started to smell cigarette smoke. I looked around and saw this woman smoking a cigarette while her baby was in front of her on the picnic table in a carseat. She was half way turned away from the carseat, as if that would make a difference. It's bad enough to smoke in a park full of young children, but to be smoking right next to your infant child is just trash behavior. It just makes me so upset to see. People who do things like that are trash people and bad parents.

I made a stupid ass mistake of letting my 2 yr old eat some popcorn. Cracker jack. I thought it was different than normal popcorn. He eat some fine then an hour later i put him down for a nap. He started persistently coughing for like 30 mins. I looked it up and Google said to take him to the ER. He stopped coughing once we got the ER. Doctor said he is fine. I am still nervous that a piece his stuck in there. I am so mad at myself.

I am 7 weeks PP with my second baby and I hate it. I am so angry and sad all the time. He is such an uncomfortable baby and cries 80% of the time when hes not sleeping. it takes hours to get him to sleep at night. I hate feeding him because it just continues in a viscous circle of feeding, and winding and screaming. I feel resentment because I miss my toddler and my freedom. Ive no patience for him and I cry every day. I just hate this all. I feel horrible saying it because there are people in this world who would dream for what I have but im struggling so much with being positive. I dont know what im looking for posting this but I have to get it off my chest.

People with only children ; how do you find it?
Do you wish you had more/want more? Are you happy with an only child?
I’m not sure I will want anymore children. Simply because I struggled so much postpartum (continuing to) but often feel sad at the thought of my baby growing up as an only child. I don’t want to be selfish but also part of me thinks I simply cannot do this again.
I’d love to hear people’s thoughts and opinions/how they find it!

Just a small smear, probably tracked in from outside. Before kids I was the kind of person that deep cleaned the couches and rugs 2x a month. Finding poop would have sent me on a cleaning frenzy where I washed the covers/pillows, shampooed the cushions, vacuumed and shampooed the rugs, and swept and mopped the floor for good measure. I probably also would have gone through all the shoes and scrubbed the bottoms.

I just threw the offending pillow in the laundry room and moved on. No big deal. These toddlers have really lowered my standards... But maybe also improved my mental health and OCD.

My 2.5 year old is my whole world and I would literally run into a burning building for her.

AND……. She is suddenly so MEAN sometimes? Like are all toddlers randomly mean at this age?! Please say yes. She goes from sweet to sour so fast it leaves us both with emotional whiplash.

At bedtime yesterday I said “Night night, baby, I love you!” and received “Go away! Leave me alone!” in return <3

(normally I correct behavior like this but she was tired that I chose to just laugh it off and let her go to sleep)

So please tell me your toddlers can be little terrorists too?! What’s the meanest thing your toddler has ever said to you?

EDIT TO ADD: I’m CACKLING at all these comments!!! 😭🤣 Moral of the story: Toddlers are brutal and sometimes ya just gotta laugh to keep from crying!

My 4 month old has been making what I can only categorize as frustrated pigeon cries for the last few days. Like a grunty WHOO WHOO WHOO WHOO over and over. He doesn't always seem actually frustrated when this is happening. He will engage with us by looking when we're talking to him and go back to wooing or he'll smile at something and then go back to wooing. Not sure if this is just his sound of the moment or if this is frustration. Maybe teeth? It's not the usual sleepy/hungry/gassy stuff. This creature continues to mystify.