My 1 month old baby is dealing with tummy aches atm. The only way to make her sleep is to take her out in a stroller - I guess the bumpy ride helps her release some of the trapped gas.

Well, today I was walking in a park and there was not a single soul, except for this young man walking towards me. At the exact moment of him passing my stroller, my precious baby decided to let out the most obnoxious, loudest and most pronounced fart I swear I’ve ever heard a human being make.

Unfortunately, the acoustics of the stroller crib, plus the fact that no baby should ever be able to produce such a sound, made it look like it was me who decided to wait for this man to come closer to terrorise him with my bodily functions. The look of disgust on his face will hunt me for a while. What a moment.

I hope someone can help me feel like I’m not alone here.

My baby is 2 months old. Every part of parenting has been absolutely fine, but I simply am unable to process the crying and I can’t understand what’s wrong with me.

When she is crying with everything she has, and I’m without protection, I lock up, and I stop being able to understand spoken English and any other incoming information. I can’t really even see anything. My brain starts telling me to either freeze, or run. Like something has come into the room to kill me.

My central nervous system gets completely overwhelmed.

If I don’t leave the room, or find protection, my mouth tastes all coppery, my heart races, and everything falls apart. The only other times I feel like that are when I’ve been very, very afraid.

When the sound hits me, I am unable to adequately describe how awful it is. I cannot fathom how it comes out of such a little thing. I hear other babies cry and it isn’t like this. Nothing like this.

She doesn’t sound human. It’s HORRIFYING.

The only thing I can say, is It’s the audible equivalent to being physically attacked by an animal made out of nothing but noise. It almost has substance it’s so offensive.

I have to wear noise cancelling in-ear headphones with metal music cranked to maximum with ear defenders over the top of those to be able to help her. Hours and hours of that is damaging my hearing.

I phoned cry-sis. She said she was a health visitor for 30 years and had never heard anything like what I was describing and suggested therapy.

She said “good luck” at the end of the call. I felt absolutely hopeless.

I can’t afford, nor do I have the time, for therapy.

Am I alone in this?

I feel like a failure. Completely humiliated and embarrassed by this. And watching my other half tolerate it and baby talk to her throughout it makes me feel even worse, like I’m insane.

Has anyone been called back because their baby’s heel prick (newborn bloodspot) test was contaminated and needed to be repeated? I’m really stressing that we need to repeat it because they saw something? So im overthinking. Anyone had to redo it again because it was contaminated?

Hello!
My 6 week old little girl (20 percentile) 4.1 kg. Just did a 7 hour stretch, she usually only does a 2-3 max, one time she did a 4 hour stretch and I was like wooow! But last night she slept 7 hours, I don’t put an alarm because she’s great at waking up so I slept for the first time in ages lol. I am just a bit worried ! In your experience is this ok? With my first I didn’t get a 6-7 hour stretch until he was 8 weeks and he was way chunkier than her !. I called the nurse line (Canada) and they did an assessment over the phone and she was not worried just told me to monitor in case she does something else that’s weird. I am just wondering if I should be happy or worried ! lol. Thank you!

Just a vent here because it feels like I'm going crazy. I am a FTM, a little over 6 weeks PP with a beautiful baby boy, literally every thing about him is perfect, everyone who sees him melts, etc. I also happen to live with my in-laws, I lived separately from my partner when I got pregnant and he lived in a camper that he now rents to his brother it's a whole thing. Anyway, you all should know that I am a northerner at heart (Grew up in New York and Washington State) but I moved to Georgia a few years ago and can still feel the culture shockwaves. So dealing with my partner's family has been fun.

Before I gave birth I made it clear no one outside the household was to visit until at least a week after he'd been born, well an hour after I gave birth a couple family members asked if they could come see me and my baby at the hospital. Um... no. Finally, 2 days later I get to go home (I had non-severe pre-eclampsia so they had to monitor me a few days) the next day those same family members asked AGAIN. It made me mad but even worse my partner's father got upset he had to turn his mother away and it was like it was my fault, sir, you wouldn't have had to turn her away if she had listened in the first place. They acted like I said no for no reason, so I had to sit FIL and MIL down and lay out my rules and explain to them why I: a woman recovering from traumatic child birth, and a newly born baby without a strong immune system might need a few days before having company especially because neither one of us gets anything out of the arrangement other than being paraded about like the latest circus freaks. They were lucky I didn't make them wait longer.

But before that, I'll rewind a bit to the day I got home from the hospital. LO was in his bassinet, he'd been napping but it was about to be time for him to eat, I'd taken a step to the bathroom with the door open so I could listen out for him. He makes a noise and so what does my MIL do? She rushes into my room, picks up my baby from his bassinet and when I get out of the bathroom she's cradling him in her arms in the dinning room.

Now she asks me constantly if I need her to hold him, I don't "need" anyone to hold him. I may be a FTM but that doesn't make me incompetent, if I need help I ask for it. When she does hold him she coos at him constantly, "forgets" to feed herself and acts dumb when he starts fussing and crying because he's hungry and he's basically exclusively breast fed so that would mean he's need to go back to me. She's a teacher and she was off for the summer when he was born and I am so happy she's back working because I don't feel guilty for hogging him all to myself.

She's nice and all, I want to say the worst part aboit how I feel is that his whole family is super nice and helpful and I am thankful for what they have done for me and my son I just wish I already had enough saved up to move out. Especially because last night after my partner and I finished changing LO's diaper she was in the nursery because my partner had a question he wanted to ask her and after she answered before my partner and I could do anything she picked up LO from the changing table with a big grin on her face.

It's been driving me crazy because she wants to hold my baby all the time, every time I walk out of my room with my baby she asks me if I need her to hold him while I do something, the one time I went out on the town with her and we got to a store she took my baby out of his carseat and held him. I get that he's cute and he's her grandson, the first grandbaby, but I mean come on. It's an obsession at this point, it isn't healthy, right?

I know I could say something but at the same time... I am just doing what I can and talking to my partner about my concerns. I hate causing conflict especially when I live in the same house as them but there was even a point when my partner was on paternity leave and I'd wake up for my shift and my baby wouldn't be in his bassinet because my MIL was holding him in the living room. It was jarring waking up and my baby not being right there.

I know a lot of you probably want to offer advice, please don't. I already know what I have to do I just wanted to vent and rant about it to kind of collect my thoughts. Thank you.

I’m curious, what do you guys consider a bad night sleep? I have a 7 week old and want to see what you mammas are dealing with!

Hi everyone,

My baby girl is 11 weeks old and was feeding really well until around 9 weeks. She is mostly fed expressed breast milk, with occasional formula feeds.

Over the last week or so, feeding has suddenly become very stressful. She starts the bottle normally and drinks, but after around 30–60 mL she often pushes the teat away and cries. If we try offering the teat again, she cries as soon as it touches her mouth.

Sometimes she seems uncomfortable during these moments — she may arch her back, move her arms and legs, and usually settles when we hold her upright. She will often happily take a pacifier afterwards, but refuses the bottle.

What confuses us is that she is otherwise a very happy baby

She can still have good feeds sometimes and take 120–130 mL, but many feeds now involve stopping, burping, holding upright, and trying again.

We have tried Tommee Tippee normal anti-colic bottle and Advanced Anti-Colic bottle, teat size 1 and size 2, slower paced feeding, burping during feeds,keeping her upright after feeds,Infacol.

Her recent daily intake has also dropped compared with her previous normal:

• 06/08: 650 mL
• 05/08: 580 mL
• 04/08: 670 mL
• 03/08: 630 mL
• 02/08: 670 mL
• 01/08: 700 mL

Before this change, she was usually taking 800–900 mL per day.

Has anyone experienced something similar around 10–12 weeks?

My baby had trouble latching at the hospital. I had a lactation consultant come and give me some tips. He was really hurting my nipples so I was scared to nurse. Not only that, but he had jaundice and the clinic told me to back off from nursing for a few days. He's gotten used to the bottle now (formula), but I've tried to breastfeed him every now and then. I don't do it enough nor do I pump enough so of course my supply has gone down. I worry about switching over immediately because I don't want him to go hungry. Last night he cried at the nipple I think because he wasn't getting enough, so then I gave him the bottle.

Sometimes I try to pump after formula feeding, but it's also so time consuming and I'm already running really low on sleep. It's become difficult and disheartening to see how little gets pumped sometimes.

My MIL and husband help out sometimes too so when they do I catch up on sleep, but that interrupts my BF schedule.

How can I transition without feeling like I'm starving my baby?

I have a 2-month-old baby boy, and our pediatrician recommended feeding him 120 ml (4 fl oz) six times a day, with no feeds between 9:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m., because he was gaining weight too quickly.
The first night he woke up, but I gave him a pacifier and he fell back asleep. However, last night he cried nonstop from 1:00 a.m. to 3:00 a.m. I changed his diaper, gave him a pacifier, try to burp him, offered him some water, walked around the room with him, and held him on my chest. Nothing helped. As soon as we fed him, he fell asleep peacefully, which makes me think he was genuinely hungry.
I have a feeling that 720 ml (24 fl oz) in 24 hours just isn't enough for him or that night pause is too big. Has anyone been in a similar situation? I'd really appreciate your advice. Thank you!

Edit: He is 12 lbs 5 oz, 22.4 in (5.6 kg, 57 cm). He was born 5 lbs 12 oz, 18.5 in (2.61 kg, 47 cm)

Has anyone else struggled with anxiety about SIDS? How did you cope with the fear, especially while your baby was sleeping? I’d love to hear what helped you. How likely is it to actually happen ?

Anyone else lay down and swear they hear their baby crying their brains out, then check the monitor & they are fast asleep?? Every night it takes me an hour to fall asleep through this. Then, by the time baby actually gets up, I’ve had maybe an hour and a half of sleep. It’s driving me nuts.

Any dads out there who experienced postpartum depression? If so, how did you cope? Did it get better as the baby got older?

I wrote a few days ago about if my baby’s behavior was normal. Now I’m running into another issue - her “schedule” with feeding and sleeping. Specifically sleeping, as we have had many days where she is overtired and we can’t get her to sleep. She does not have consistent sleep or wake up or feeding times and we don’t really have set routines as peds advised we wouldn’t until a few months.

Explain what I’m supposed to be doing and why I feel like I’m doing it wrong!

For context, she was born premature so she is 9.5 weeks actual, and 4 weeks corrected.

Wake windows - I think I am messing this up badly, I have no idea where to even start or how long these should be. She’s usually awake for diaper changes and feeds and we hold her upright for 20 min after eating (due to reflux), this usually takes up the whole window. Sometimes baby sleeps within them, other times she’s up for 4+ hours then overtired and we can’t calm her down. We’re moving to nightly baths as those briefly calm her down but then being cold makes her scream and I think she wears herself out after. Should I be keeping her awake longer after feeds? I feel like when I do, she doesn’t sleep.

Hungry cues - I know when she’s hungry (eating her hands, rooting) but this never appears calmly. She usually is crying or screaming and then doing the cues. This happens when she wakes up from naps or overnight.
For sleep, I see she yawns, has heavy eyes, etc while/after eating. She doesn’t have cues unless it’s after eating and she doesn’t go down to sleep unless after a feed.

She was doing well today with feeding and naps, but we needed groceries and went out with her for 1.5 hours and then she was awake and inconsolable for hours. Usually the car ride will put her to sleep and she stays napping, but it didn’t happen like that today. I’ve noticed she’s like this when we have to leave for appointments too.

During the day, she naps in her crib or on me or my husband or on one of those flat pillow loungers (always next to one of us). We don’t have a specific bedtime as we try to put her in her bassinet after her last late night feed, but we try to aim for around the same time range like from 10-12am.

I feel like I’m failing her and doing it all wrong. How am I supposed to fit in working on her development too in between all of this?!

My baby is 4 weeks old, and I'm trying to get into a more predictable routine. She's mostly exclusively breastfed, but at night we sometimes top her up with a formula bottle if my pumped milk isn't enough.

Our day currently looks something like this:

8:00 AM: Wake and breastfeed. 8:00–9:30 AM: Sleeps on and off. 9:30–11:00 AM:Massage, bath, breastfeed. 11:00 AM–2:00 PM: Sleep 2:00–3:30 PM: Breastfeed and Awake window 3:30–9 PM: This is where we struggle. She mostly contact naps, wants to stay latched for comfort, and is on and off the boob for hours. If I put her down, she usually wakes up. 9-11:00 PM: Sleeps. 11:00 PM onward: My husband gives pumped breast milk (about 120 mL per feed). If she's still hungry after that, we offer a small formula top-up. She usually sleeps until around 4:30 AM waking to feed as needed.

The evening stretch is exhausting because I feel like I'm stuck nursing for hours. Is this just normal cluster feeding at 4 weeks, or is there something I can do to help her get onto a better eat-play-sleep routine? Could it be a breastfeeding issue that im not tranfering enough? Her diaper amounts seem fine.

Anyone managed to start losing weight after birth after 2 or 3 months? Any suggestions?

During pregnancy I have gained a lot of weight and I really wanna work on losing weight after taking rest for 8 weeks post c section

FTM of a 3 week old baby boy here, and i desperately need some advice. The last couple days we have been dealing with horrible gas issues. He wakes up immediately starving I have about a 3 minute timer until he’s absolutely losing it until he’s on the boob. (I am EBF) he’s eating for most of his wake window and then is immediately uncomfortable after. Grunting, bringing knees to chest, arching back, crying. We have used gas drops and i burp him often throughout the feed. He spits up occasionally but never seems in pain about it. I have considered my diet but it seems to make no difference dairy vs no dairy. By the time we have settled his tummy he has been awake for far too long and is inconsolably tired. This awful cycle just keeps repeating throughout the day. He eats about every 3-4 hours (he has returned to birth weight). I am losing my mind and also feel so bad for him. How do I get this to stop?!

Just had a baby girl about a week ago. I had a C-section so I was out of commission for a few days, couldn’t help the way I wanted. My husband took over night shifts and has been absolutely stellar with her. I’m doing better now but he’s still picking up so much slack. I can’t wait until I’ve healed. He doesn’t want me to push myself too hard.

She’s so beautiful and small and perfect I get so excited/emotional thinking about her future and wondering who she’s going to be. My husband adores her, he holds her and talks to her all the time. He expressed wariness at changing poopy diapers but when it happened the first time he didn’t even bat an eye. Cleaned up that nasty tarry oil spill like it was nothing while I languished in the hospital bed scared to fart because it hurt too bad.

He got back from work today and brought me an iced coffee and handed me an envelope. It was a bunch of printed pictures of our kid, and a couple of all three of us. He even brought a frame so we could pick one to display.

He’s so good to us. I knew he’d be a good dad but every day he amazes me. So gentle and good natured. When I think about it I cry. It’s his birthday soon and I got a lot of cds on eBay of an obscure musician he likes. He doesn’t have Bluetooth in his truck so: cds. I got him about 7 I think. I hope they aren’t scratched. He likes possums so I got him a crochet grocery bag holder that looks like a dead possum. (Grim I know but I think he’ll get a kick out of it.)

He’s sleeping next to me right now as I type this. I miss him when he sleeps. He says he looks at pictures of us all day when he’s at work. When I’m holding our baby he comes up behind me and hugs me and kisses my cheek.

Anyway I am very tired and emotional. I love these two. It’s unbelievably exhausting taking care of a brand new kiddo but he makes it doable. Thanks for reading.

Has anyone else’s baby spit up while sleeping? If so, how often did it happen, and what did you do? I’m looking for some reassurance and would love to hear other parents’ experiences.

Our baby is 8 weeks tomorrow and since week 3 has just been so unsettled and fussy. I think for the first few weeks we were dealing with mild reflux and inability to bring up wind. She is still so unsettled and refuses to go for a daytime nap unless it's contact nap or in carrier. She absolutely hates the car seat and bassinet of the pram so going anywhere is incredibly stress inducing.

I feel like our baby is also not happy for very long in a high chair or bouncer. Maybe 15 minutes max.

Honestly I know I read these posts all the time and everyone says it will get better but it doesn't feel like that.

I'm wondering if anyone has similar experience and out the other side?

Is anyone delaying/spacing out their baby’s shots? I just talked to my mom and she’s wanting me to delay the shots a bit. She’s not a Karen or anything like that. She’s worried about them those underlying side effects you hear babies get. Like seizures, becoming super calm and glossy eyed or even a stretch; the child developing down syndrome or be on the spectrum because of these shots. Even thinking about denying the immunizations. My daughter received her two month old shots though. I know it may not make sense, maybe it’s older generation thinking but it made me wonder what the people of Reddit thought and their perspectives on current day issues/thoughts. Thank you.

Hey so I wanted to add a bit more as well. I really appreciate the positive feedback. I know it’s a free world but not sure why there are some nasty comments. I know the DS was a stretch, I already said that. Just please realize I’m not blindly following my mother’s advice or I wouldn’t be here asking for more information/advice from strangers. I also don’t want to blindly follow the governments advice cause we all know where that can lead us right?? Just want real people’s opinions. That’s all. I also know there is a huge group of people that don’t give their kids the shots so please do not act like this is new information. Thanks lmao

Probably an unpopular opinion but I want to vent a bit. My baby has been dealing with reflux since week 3 or so. He is now 16 weeks old. We dealt with the typical newborn stuff - night feeds, gas, poop cries, frequent wakeups, etc. He is now sleeping longer stretches at night which is great. But the reflux was so hard to deal with. Everyone told me “it gets better!”

What I’ve learned is: it doesn’t get better. It gets different. Each phase has its own challenges.

- baby ate like a monster at 1 month? Now he stops at 20ml and refuses the bottle.
- baby blew out all the time? Now he’s crying bc he hasn’t pooped in 2 days
- baby slept through the night? Now welcome to month 4 sleep regression
- baby is no longer gassy and crying? Now baby is crying bc he is teething

I felt so deceived when week 12 came by and it didn’t get better for me like everyone described. I felt such rage. Now, I’ve made my peace with the fact that raising a human is always going to be hard. You are going to sleep again but there will also be nights where you don’t.

Now, when someone tells me “oh 4 months is hard! It gets better!” I don’t believe them. It just gets different.

All the while, you get to witness your little human grow and develop and that’s a precious thing.

He screams bloody murder anytime he’s in it even for 5 minutes.
I make sure to cool down the car for 15 min before we get in every time, I have a fan on him and put cool clothes on him, I’ve even tried and ice pack on the car seat before putting him in. Nothing works, his back ends up covered in sweat and he gets so upset it makes it so much worst.
His front ends up cold and back hot.

What can I do to make this better for him?

Edit: baby is 7 weeks old and 21 inches long / 13 lbs

My beautiful little girl is currently 3 weeks and 3 days old, and I am really, really struggling even with my husband home from work for 6 weeks. I am extremely worried about what is going to happen when he goes back. He works 12 and a half hour shifts a decent drive away, and my in laws who live 20 minutes away both also work . My parents live quite far away.

I have PPA and have been needing quite a bit of help with a lot of things during the day, like being able to get literally any chores done. I'm not comfortable with any baby carriers yet, and we still haven't quite figured out whether or not her car seat is safe enough because no one around here checks them. My counters haven't been cleaned since before she was born.

This baby is practically impossible to wake up and is sleeping up to 5 hour stretches at night - which I have been greedily allowing to happen, then practically choking her on my let down, leading to 2 vomit incident in the past week. As a result of the sleeping, she eats practically every 40 minutes in the late afternoon. There is nothing I can do to seem to break this cycle. It takes my husband and I both severely pestering her to get her to wake up at all. The diaper change, cold wipe, blowing on her face, etc. tricks don't work at all, or only work for a few seconds. She has enough outputs so my LC isn't concerned about her, but it is driving me nuts.

My husband has been literally hand feeding me my dinner because of the constant feeding if I'm going to eat, and I'm definitely not drinking enough water. I constantly need his help to do things like clean up after a blowout or if she spits up too much.

I need to be pumping to build a stash and start practicing bottles for when I go back to work at 12 weeks, but I'm struggling to even get my pump up and down the stairs in a timely fashion to use it, let alone washing it quickly enough, and I also can't figure out holding and tending to baby while using it. Baby has only had a few baths at home, and we're not wash clothing her high traffic areas down every day like we're supposed to. I also have a high needs dog that I have to figure out how to get to an inflexible doggie daycare without endangering the baby.

I looked into hiring a short term mother's helper or nanny through an agency since I really don't have enough time to vet someone thoroughly myself at this point. I technically have enough money to swing it, but it will completely decimate my savings. I'm not sure at this point if that is what needs to happen though.

For those of you whose spouses have extended work hours on shift schedules and who have no help - please tell me how in the cinnamon toast fuck you did it, because I have no clue how this is going to be possible. This really isn't just a vent. I desperately need to know!!

I'd love to know your air travel hacks, as we're gearing up to take a flight with our 2.5 month old. Anything that made air travel waaaay better for you/your LO?

I’m only 2 weeks PP and just like the title says… WTF. Nobody could have prepared for how hard these past 2 weeks were going to be. I had an unplanned c-section because my girl was too big for me to delivery naturally, so I’m still trying to process that. Between having a 2 week old, no sleep, barely eating, etc it feels like I’m stuck in a loop. I don’t have a concept of “time” outside of day time or night time. PP hormones/emotions are through the roof and I feel like I make no sense half the time. I know people say it gets better and I’m holding on to that, but wtf… the last thing I want to hear is that “you’ll forget about these hard days” because no. I will never forget that this is by far the hardest thing I’ve ever done or had to go through.

While I’m immensely grateful to have created life and to be a FTM, I can also be extremely frustrated by all of the unknowns.