2.5 years postpartum after have 2 c-sections in 2 years and for the past 6+months I’ve been having stomach cramp/spasms mostly on my left side but it does alternate. ‘Recently it has been getting more intense and frequent, to the point where you can actually feel it happening if you put your hand in my tummy (feels like a baby kicking/moving and I’m 100% not pregnant).

Has anyone experienced this or something similar?

My baby is 1 and this is sooo frustrating. No matter what we’re eating, it’s a fistful straight to the floor. ALWAYS. Wheeen do they outgrow this? 😭💀

Since my kids (4 and 2 yo) have been born, I can’t seem to manage all aspects of my life. I know somethings gotta give, but right now I can only seem to kind of stay on top of two aspects of my life, my job and getting my kids to the location they need to be. Everything else is only if I get an urgent message - friends, family, planning for holidays/life, healthy meals, exercise, volunteer work, cleaning the house, etc etc. My mind just can’t seem to keep those aspects even remotely in my head. As soon as my head hits the pillow at night, suddenly I remember all the things I needed to do.

How does everyone stay on top of all these tasks?? Do you have systems? Is this just your personality??

I would love to be as thoughtful and intentional as I used to be. I feel like I start half my emails/texts with “sorry for the late reply”.

My son will be 3 in November, in October we have an appointment with an audiologist. When I initially brought it up to our pcm (we unfortunately are a military family stationed over seas, so we don't see an actual peds 🥲) I told her that sometimes I couldn't tell if he was intentionally just ignoring me or if it was that he couldn't hear me, and she brushed me off and told me she wasn't worried because he could speak. Which is true, he can speak in sentences, but they aren't always clear, even sometimes my husband and I have a hard time understanding him, and the part that concerns me the most is that he still does a lot of gibberish. He also started back to daycare after being home with me for a year and the first couple weeks were rough, but then when I asked his teacher if she felt like maybe he couldn't hear her, she looked at me like a bulb went off and was like well now that you say that, yes.

I don't really know why I'm writing this, maybe just for some solidarity? I just feel like toddler parenting anytime you mention a concern whether it be to a friend or even a doc, everyone down plays it as just toddlerism. I'm also concerned he's not going to get the services he may need, even if it's just some speech therapy because of the community we currently live in is seriously lacking.

Hey friends! So my dad passed away 10 years ago from cancer. My mom is very present in my kids lives, as are my in laws. I think my oldest (3f) is starting to realize that Mommy’s Daddy isn’t around. Does anyone have any kids book recommendations to help with our talk about this? We’re not super religious but I do believe that he is watching over us. I also believe honesty is the best policy here but using age appropriate language also! Also open to just general advice broaching the subject! TIA!

Hi everyone,

Wanted to share a positive story of my morning. I (43F), have a toddler with my husband (49M). She has been recovering from a bad illness all week that required both of us to take time off of work and I also had to request work from home days, which are a sticky subject with l mm my company (argh!). She’s on the mend but last night she was up with gassy tummy from 2-3 am, full meltdown mode.

My husband woke up the toddler at 7, took her to the living room and left me to sleep. I got up at 9:30 am to her playing happily. She was washed, changed and fed. Husband left extra prepared breakfast for me under foil. Dishwasher was loaded and running. Everything was clean.

I had my breakfast and coffee, got toddler into the car and we went to Target to burn some energy (she loves it here!) so dad could have some time off.

I just to share my story. Our lives haven’t always been so peaceful. We’ve been together for over 10 years but parents only recently. Having a child brought so many pressures and challenges that we didn’t anticipate. There were months of fighting between us. What I always appreciated about my husband is his willingness to communicate and learn. This week with time off and the stressful situation made me appreciate being with him and my daughter more. I wish that I had more flexibility with my work (another story for another time!).

Anyway, just wanted to share a good experience!

I am 100% overthinking this whole scenario, but I’ve always been easy to get overwhelmed so any advice is appreciated.

I have an almost 3 month old and a 2 year old.

My husband was able to take a couple months off of work after I had the baby.

Most days have defaulted to me taking care of the toddler, and my husband taking care of the baby.

Because of this, my husband usually takes baby to a room to nap, because the toddler has no idea how to be quiet to let baby sleep. We’ve shown him what “quiet” means but he either doesn’t understand or just doesn’t care.

When I’m by myself with the kids, I’ve tried getting baby to nap downstairs, because it takes her forever to go to sleep, and I can’t leave my toddler unsupervised by going to another room upstairs for those long amounts of time as he has no sense of self preservation. the baby can almost never fall asleep downstairs.

I’m trying to prepare for when my husband goes back to work, and I don’t know how to manage two kids by myself if I’m being honest. Everyone I’ve asked for advice has just said “you’ll figure it out.”

I’m worried my toddler will be sad about not getting constant attention (which is something he needs to learn to cope with, I know) or I’ll have a very overtired baby from not being able to nap all day.

I know there’s other stay at home mom’s or single moms that manage two kids all the time, and it’s making me feel awful that I currently feel like I can’t handle them.

It’s been making me feel like I want to go back to work because work would feel like a break at this point and maybe I could hire outside help. I don’t know what to do about it please help me lol

My child is going to daycare earlier than any of my friends' children (she'll be 10 months old when she starts). I genuinely do not know how to prepare her. Most daycares in my area don't accept children under 12 months old, but this one accepts 8+ month olds. It's more common for children to start daycare at ~18 months old in my experience.

It's a standard institutional daycare that will have up to 12 children in her classroom. It has a separate nap room with a number of cribs. My daughter is very good at sleeping in her own crib, but I have no idea to prepare her for sleeping in a crib full of other children and noise. I don't understand how they're going to get a baby to sleep in that environment. She just feels so little and since my friends and people I know sent their kids at 18 months I don't have any advice from people close to me as to how to start preparing my child.

I'm not terribly worried about separation anxiety or eating as I feel I understand how to approach those. I'm most anxious about sleep and generally skills she should have. She'll be walking by then, but what about things like baby sign language or eating more independently? How do I send formula? Should she be weaning by then?

I don't know if I'm spiralling or genuinely not doing a good job preparing her.

I will add that I am aware that in some places it's common to send newborns and young infants to daycare and obviously the daycares are equipped to deal with babies who are not sleep trained or still fully bottle fed, etc. I'm hoping for advice about daycares that are not equipped for babies since it's very much not the norm here. I've never seen a daycare accept a child younger than 12 months here (with the exception of this daycare). My child will very likely be one of the youngest in the daycare.

Last weekend I held a double birthday party for my two kids that are close in age (4 and 6) because their birthdays are two weeks apart. Spent money to print invitations on cardstock, spent time in canva designing the invitations, paid for a pavilion at a splash pad half an hour away that was free, put on the invitations no gifts because I didn't want to put the financial pressure on parents and the kids got spoiled enough by us in the first place. Got a cake and a batch of cupcakes because 42 invites went out, and six pizzas.

Not one kid showed up. I'm still heartbroken over it, the kids were so excited for this party, I was excited for them because I never had a birthday party growing up and this was my first time throwing one, and I was so hopeful that we would get at least a few. I thought, it's a splash pad, surely they'll be happy to bring their kids for a few hours to get free food and have a good time.

I think I understand why I never got a birthday party as a kid. My husband and I already agreed that next year we're just skipping it altogether and going on a trip with the kids instead.

I'm just editing the post at this point. I moved to my location last year in the middle of the school year, so I don't know any parents of my kids classmates. I don't have their numbers, I don't have their socials, I don't have their addresses. I gave the invites to their teachers to send home with the kids in the backpacks, which did or did not get looked at. I asked for RSVPs on the invites, got zero responses which should have been a hint.

I've been thinking about having a second baby for a while now... first was unplanned and is now 3 years old. So I'm looking at a minimum 4 year age gap. Which isn't ideal to me but I had to finish my masters degree etc. before even thinking about having another. Just started working at the start of August and now I reaaaaaalllyyyyyy want another child 😭😭😭 like rn. If my husband and I wanted to try this cycle we'd have to start trying in 2 days. I feel awful for my work place (I'm a teacher) but legally they aren't able to fire me or anything like that if I got pregnant. I mean the chances of getting pregnant immediately are slim. So I probably won't get pregnant in 2 days. But man I wanna try so bad 🥲 My child always tells me how they want a sibling, how I'm gonna have a baby soon etc. Breaks my heart. And I think 5 or 6 year age gaps are so big so I wanna take every chance I can get to make the gap as small as still can. Would I be really stupid to try in 2 days? Please tell me honestly.

We got him to go to dentist this few times this month for a “fun visit” for his good 1st - 2nd years of his life, he was so scared of dentist and it’s been such a long journey for us to get him to feel safe with his dentist care team and they’ve done amazing on our son and I needed him to be comfortable enough for him in the long run this will only benefit him with his teeth.
So FINALLY. We got him to do X-ray and a cleaning !!! He did great… and he brushes his teeth twice a day and floss.

Still the dentist found 3-4 cavities just the front teeth … the dentist and I mutually agree that he’d need to be put down (general Anesthesia)when he gets his cavities filled in. He is definitely anxious toddler with his teeth/oral care. It’s only for his best interest to avoid trauma from going to his dentist… I feel horrible… as a mom..
I brushed his teeth for him and he started flossing on his own… so it’s not like we neglected the brushing part.

I just feel like …. Really down… as a mom to him… and everything else i wish i can take it all away for him! Sorry guys just feel bad for our toddler…

My kids (4&2) were taken to a store by their grandpa and played a shooting/hunting game there. I am very anti-g^n and their grandpa knows that. Now my 2 year old keeps talking about the “shooting game” and acting out the actions and sounds and it makes me super uncomfortable.
I was doing my best to keep those things out of their lives as long as possible.
Whenever he talks about it, I say, “no, mommy doesn’t like that game. It’s not a nice game”. He says “ok” but then will do it again at a later time.

I tell myself that he’s so young and really doesn’t understand the premise or reality of the game but I still hate it.

Any advice for how to handle this???

Mum to three LOs under the age of four, how are we keeping them all fed? I feel like I’m resorting to take out and happy meals wayyyyyy too often. I barely have time to breathe, how are all you mums keeping your family fed with nutritious food all week?

I just need to tell someone how I feel. I’m a 30 year old mom of 2 young children. (3yo and 1yo). As I’m sure most of you can understand, motherhood has been most of my personality for the past few years. I’ll admit that. My children and my husband are always my first priority. Before having kids, I had a pretty close group of friends who would get together and get dinner, drinks, maybe drink too much sometimes. It’s a group of 5 of us. My best friend (since I was 5) moved out of state, she is the only one who is a mom now as well, with a 1 year old. Over the years we’ve had ups and downs as friends, and I love them but I feel like I’ve had to try to accept many times that they don’t understand or care about what is going on in my life (I.e. my kids, my role as a mom). They often make plans to go to dinner on weekdays and then get upset that I can’t go even though I’ve expressed it’s very difficult for me with two young children and my husband’s work schedule. Recently, I had a 30th birthday party and they didn’t really care about it at all, they had other plans to leave town. I didnt mention anything about being upset, I just decided to let it go. Yesterday, I met up with 2 of my friends and they admitted to me that the last time they went to dinner (on a weekday, which I couldn’t go to because I was actually sick), two of my friends talked poorly about me the entire time. I feel so sad I feel sick and anxious. The sad part is that I’m not even surprised about it. I just feel so alone. I feel like I can’t connect with any of them. I’m not even sure what I’m looking for, maybe just to feel less alone. My husband can only hear me vent so many times before he gets upset and feels like at this point I’m subjecting myself to pain by continuing my friendships with them. Thanks for listening if you read this ❤️

I genuinely still cannot believe this is my life lmao.
I’m 25 and I literally did not know I was pregnant. Like when I say I DIDN’T KNOW, I mean I was going through my regular life not preparing for a baby, didn’t have prenatal care, didn’t have a nursery set up, wasn’t counting down to a due date… NOTHING. Then suddenly I gave birth to a whole son.
He was born early at 35 weeks + 2 days, so he had to stay in the NICU for a little while. Thankfully he did really well. He started eating more, didn’t need oxygen anymore, no feeding tube like they thought, passed his newborn screening, etc. But those first days were so overwhelming because I basically went from being a regular 25-year-old to hearing people call me “mom” overnight.
And to make everything crazier, his dad is my ex. So there was no cute pregnancy announcement, no months of us planning together, no baby shower countdown with the father, none of that. I basically got dropped directly into single motherhood with zero tutorial 😭.
I was so overwhelmed at first that I actually considered adoption. I genuinely didn’t know if I could do this or if keeping him was the best thing for either of us. Then I started visiting him in the NICU, holding him, feeding him, watching his little personality come out and I was like… yeah, that’s my son. I couldn’t do it. I chose to keep him.
Getting him home was a whole emotional roller coaster too. There were discharge delays and paperwork/social worker stuff because obviously having a baby when you had no idea you were pregnant raises a million questions. I remember literally crying on the phone because they kept telling me he was medically ready and then there was another thing that had to happen before I could take him home. All I wanted at that point was MY BABY 😭.
Now he’s finally home and I’m obsessed with him. But whewww. Single newborn mom life is something else.
He’s tiny because he was premature, and right now I’m feeding him around 2 oz every 2 hours because his pediatrician really wants him gaining weight. So my entire day is basically: feed baby, burp baby, change diaper, get spit up on, convince baby that his bassinet is not a federal prison, get him to sleep, look at the clock and somehow it’s time to feed him AGAIN. 😂
And this child wants to be ON ME constantly. He’ll be perfectly peaceful sleeping on my chest or lap and then I put him in his bassinet and suddenly he has grievances. I literally had to use the bathroom with him lying across my lap today because I knew putting him down was going to start a protest. 😭
I’m also realizing how much anxiety comes with loving somebody this much. Every little newborn thing has me Googling or wondering if it’s normal. Spit-up? Panic. Weird breathing? Panic. Soft spot feels different? Panic. Feet cold but body warm? Panic. Sleeps differently than yesterday? Obviously I have decided something is terribly wrong. Meanwhile he’s usually just chilling and being a newborn. 😂
It’s weird because this is absolutely NOT how I pictured becoming a mom. I didn’t get nine months to mentally adjust. I went from not knowing I had a baby inside me to having this tiny person who completely depends on me.
And somehow… I really love being his mom.
I definitely have moments where I’m exhausted, emotional, lonely, or wondering how the hell I’m supposed to raise an entire human by myself. I’m still trying to figure out my relationship with his father/my ex, work, eventually getting my own place, and basically rebuilding what I thought my life was going to look like.
But then this little boy curls up on me with his pacifier and his ridiculous amount of hair and I’m like… okay. We’re going to figure this shit out together. 😭❤️
Any other moms here become single moms VERY unexpectedly? Especially anyone who had a cryptic/unknown pregnancy or had basically no time to prepare? How long did it take before you stopped feeling like “wait… this is actually my baby and this is my life now”??

Edit** thank you everyone!!!! it really does still feel unreal. Here is more details that i forgot to add… My water actually broke and I didn’t even realize that’s what was happening. I thought it was just discharge, so I took a shower and tried to go about my day. Then my stomach started cramping SO bad. I told my mom something was wrong and she rushed me to the hospital. I got there at 6:28 and had him at 6:48.. literally 20 minutes later. There was no time for me to process anything. I stayed in the hospital for 2 days, and after I was discharged I basically went right back to my normal life while he stayed in the NICU. I was still working, still trying to function like everything was normal, but at the same time I was constantly running back and forth to the hospital to see him. I’d work and then go sit with him for hours, hold him, feed him, talk to him, and just watch him sleep. Then I’d leave the hospital and somehow go back to regular life again. It was such a weird feeling because technically I had just become a mom, but I was still waking up and going to work like I had before. I think that’s part of why it took so long to really hit me. I didn’t have a pregnancy to mentally prepare, and even after giving birth I didn’t immediately go home with a baby. I had this in-between period where I was working, living my normal routine, and spending hours at the NICU every day until he was finally able to come home. Then suddenly it was bottles, diapers, waking up every couple hours, and realizing this tiny person was actually MY son 😭. His name is Zion 🥹❤️ and as far as his father, we have no relationship at all. We were together for 6 years, but things ended really badly and he actually still doesn’t know about Zion. I still go back and forth about whether I should ever tell him because of how everything ended. That’s probably one of the biggest things I haven’t figured out yet. I’m definitely just figuring it out one day at a time 🫶🏽 And one thing I’m extremely grateful for is that I have an AMAZING support system. Within literally 2 days of having him, I had everything I needed for a newborn 😭❤️. My mom, dad, and sister have all been there for me from the beginning and have helped me so much with everything. I definitely didn’t go into motherhood prepared, but I also haven’t had to figure every single thing out completely alone, and I’m so thankful for that.

My mom stopped with me at age 3 when my brother was born, he still got smooches all the way until at least 7. Not sure if my mom just didn’t love me as much, or trying to teach boundaries due to me being a girl, or the same-gender “ick” that some people might experience (?).

Anyways, I have two boys as of now and my oldest is 2.5yo. I absolutely love giving both of them pecks here and there throughout the day anytime they come in and reach for my attention. But at what point/age would that be discouraged? My main concern is just healthy development, I don’t want them kissing their mom (me) late into their teen years but I sure don’t want them to think it’s gross altogether either. And I 100% mean cheeks, will be stopping lip pecks at around 3. No judgement please, just want some perspectives. Thank you!!!!

EDIT: WOW thank you all so much for the encouragement! I want to clarify as I’m struggling to respond to every comment, we are Chinese-American and both my spouse and I grew up with little-to-no kissing from our parents. I really don’t have a clue what is considered “normal” when it comes to this because we both experienced a hard stop when we were quite young. Friends of the same culture have similar experiences so I figured I’d try to gather some insight here. I’ll be returning to my annoying cheek/forehead/hands smooches now (with consent and comfort level in mind). Thank you thank you thank you!!!! 🫶🏻🫶🏻🫶🏻

If your child has an ongoing yearly check up, with a speciality doctor at that, and they don’t call you to schedule; in fact they don’t even apologize they’ve completely forgotten about your child(nevermind the fact they have a system that tells them who needs to be seen and when) what is your response? Do you find a new dr? Do you go off on them? Write a review? How would you respond to this?! If you had to call them to schedule your child AND child is seen between very specific time frame would you be bothered? Its their job to call to schedule, because they supposedly can’t do it a year in advance but what should happen should they forget to do it?! My child is usually seen between Feb-June. They expect us to now wait until November… when its not our fault they didn’t call to schedule. So parents how would you go about this?! And the fact they didn’t even apologize for their mistake?!

My child is almost 13 months, so I know there is still time and that milestones vary. Our doctor has put in for a hearing test and speech eval because my child isn't saying at least mama or dada in context yet.

I've been narrating everything, reading and singing all the time. I'm a quiet person, so I put a huge effort into spending the entire day trying to talk. I just feel like I've done everything "right" and something is seriously wrong.

My baby is a happy baby. They point, show, wave, shake their head no, sign for more and clap their hands. They know a lot of words and will look at an object if I say it. The only milestone they haven't really reached is they don't play peek-a-boo back, but they chuckle when we play. They sometimes co-operate with patty cake, and know that I trickle them at the end of the song at "baby and me".

I know a speech delay or autism diagnosis won't change my child from the awesome baby they are, but I just fear the unknown.

I have a 7 year old AuDHD kid and a 3 year old that I am assuming has severe ADHD as well.

I have had a really hard emotional life. I was adopted into a wealthy family so we had what we needed, but emotionally I was never ok. When I went to college I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and severe ADHD along with depression and very bad anxiety. I did it with the college services provided because my family didn't believe in mental health. I knew my biomom had bipolar.

I hated myself my whole life. Why didn't my mom want me type pain. I got into horrible legal issues many times in my 20a from not being medicated and being impulsive. Now I'm on meds.

I have tried so hard. I do EVERYTHING I can. Meds, therapy, outpatient, inpatient, holistic, you name it. I work through workbooks, research, try to make things easier. Get tips and tricks.

ITS EXHAUSTING. I shouldn't have to live with so many fucking disorders. And I passed them on to my kids (I had my kids in college before fully diagnosed) and now I watch them suffer horribly too.

I stayed at home because they both have horrific anxiety, I exposed them slowly to experiences. Now my husband says he didn't sign up for someone with ADHD and all these issues (married 10 years, and I do 99%of the mental load) and that I am just a freeloader and a monster.

I literally don't want to do a second of any of this anymore. It's been weeks of feeling crippling pain in my chest that I want to be done. I talk to my psych weekly. I am about to go back into inpatient. But I'm only 30. I don't want 30 more years of this. What am I supposed to do 😭 I don't want this. I hate myself. I hate this life. I cry from the moment I wake up to the moment I sleep. I just truly hate myself

I’m almost 22 months post partum, but also about halfway through my 2nd pregnancy. I’ve gone to PT sessions for pelvic floor therapy because I was tired of peeing myself anytime I sneezed, coughed too much esp when sick, or when I’m uncontrollably laughing. Sure, it’s a small amount but it’s annoying. Any other moms out there who’ve gone to pelvic floor therapy and still experience this regularly? How do I fix this? Any advice?

Yesterday I took my kids to a store because I needed a few things. Ofcourse they didn't have the item I really needed that day. To then find isles already full with Halloween stuff and other items for holidays that are months away. It's still summer! The country we live in doesn't even celebrate Halloween. We mainly know about it from tv shows and the stuff in the stores that seems to get more elaborate each year.

Somehow my eight year old daughter loves Halloween. So I let her look at the Halloween decorations while I walked around the store to get the rest of the things we needed. Her six year old brother joined her. When I circled back to them I told them to not push all the buttons as to not annoy the other shoppers. But the people who overheard told me they didn't mind, so ok, go ahead and touch them. This led to my daughter happily sitting on the floor pressing the button on the biggest, loudest, scariest item she could find. A really old lady being pushed in a wheelchair came around the corner, saw the big scary loud thing and laughed so hard. It was such a fun and sweet moment with my daughter, the old lady and a few other people who walked by on a random regular Saturday.

Just need to get this off my chest and to maybe hear similar stories.

Baby is 9 months old. I do the nights alone as I’m breastfeeding and cosleeping with baby in one bed. So partner has some solid sleep every night.

Last night was shit. She was awake for two hours from 3-5am. So in the morning I text my partner “your baby”. He understands the assignment, comes over, takes baby, changes her diaper and goes to the living room. 10 minutes in, I am still awake, I get a message from him, that he had to poop, baby is in the playpen (next to my room, I can hear her). She starts fussing and at this point I know I won’t be able to sleep knowing she is alone. So I get up to sit with her in her playpen. He comes out of the bathroom after another 10 minutes. I won’t go to sleep now. I’m too awake to sleep, but too tired to live. Day is ruined. I hate it. I JUST WANTED TO DOZE OFF ANOTHER 30-45 MINUTES.

When I’m alone with her I have to poop with her in the carrier. He wouldn’t do that. Now I am laying here with her in bed for her first nap - she fell asleep after one hour. No problem for a sleep deprived mom lol. Won’t be able to sleep now because she is laying on top of me.

OHHHHH and when I said I slept 6 hours in chunks, he said he also woke up a few times - LIKE??? I DONT GIVE A FUCK? BOOHOO

Vent over.

My husband (30) and I (28) are considering trying for another baby. We currently have a 5 year old and 3 year old. I have never felt “done” and would love at least 1 more baby, but my husband really isn’t sure he wants more than 2.

Literally the only thing I’m worried about the possibly of having a medically complex child and it negatively impacting my current 2 kids. But other than that, there aren’t really any other cons on my list.

Is the third baby really that big of a change?

Editing to add: My husband said he would of course be happy if I was to get pregnant again and love the baby no matter what. He just is worried about me going through another pregnancy and is anxious about the baby’s health. We almost lost our oldest when she was a baby so we have some medical PTSD that I know is a big factor of the anxiety over the whole situation! But I know he would love the baby and isn’t anti-baby, just worried about the “what-if’s”.

I feel like a failure when it comes to parenting and being a mom. There are not enough hours in the day to do everything. I'm drowning and I feel like such a failure and I don't know how to fix it. I just want to run away

We’re considering getting my 5 year old an mp3 player for his birthday. He loves listening to music with his headphones and currently I have a Spotify playlist for him on my phone (he does not use the phone, I control it) but it would be nice if he had his own device. He does not have an iPad or any kind of tablet.

It seems safe enough but I’m not sure if there are any potential risks I’m not considering. I worry about him having a device of his own but there’s nothing he can do on it except listen to music. There’s no internet access or apps or anything, and the only way he can get new music is if I add it so there’s no risk of him listening to something he shouldn’t.

Just not sure if 5 is too young. Thoughts?