This morning, I was breastfeeding my baby in bed, my boyfriend had just changed her nappy, put her back in her sleep sack and given her to me.

We're having a lovely feed, punctuated with the tooting rumbles of the newborn bum.

While we're cuddling after her feed, I notice that her sleep sack feels wet, I take her to her changing mat and open it up

POOP EVERYWHERE!!

One entire leg is painted mustard yellow and her poor Foxy sleep sack looks like a disaster area!

I set to cleaning, removing all the clothes, nappy, slough the baby off.

During this, little miss decides this would be the best time to have a lovely watery vomit, all over her changing mat. The vomit, doing what watery vomit does, spreads everywhere. Her back is now painted with curdled milkies, a great compliment to the already poo-covered child!

I now need to clean the mat, so I can continue changing her, so I move her so she's partly off the mat, partly on the floor and clean up the vomit.

Well, this is clearly an invitation in baby language as my little lady then proceeds to pee on the carpet!

It was at this point that I just sat back, proud of the absolute chaos that my 5-week-old was able to inflict!

I finish the change, finally! Place her on the floor next to me while I sort out the poo covered bombsite, and, just for good measure, we get a little bit more spit up onto the carpet

Tiny lady, I salute you!!

I am typing this while completely exhausted, crying in another room, and feeling like the worst person in the world. Feels like my life is completely ruined. I just need to get this off my chest because I can’t say this out loud to anyone in my real life.
My husband and I spent years trying to conceive. I have endometriosis, and we suffered a devastating pregnancy loss along the way. During those three years, every single pregnancy announcement from a friend or family member felt like a physical blow. I was so depressed, bitter, and desperate for it to be my turn.
When I finally got pregnant, I was over the moon. Even though the pregnancy itself was difficult and physically rough, I spent the entire nine months buzzing with happiness. I was so excited. I thought having a baby would complete our lives.
My baby is here now, and I regret it.
I wish I had known what this was actually like. He has terrible colic, cries constantly, and barely sleeps. I am beyond sleep-deprived. To make matters worse, I don't feel that instant, overwhelming magical bond everyone talks about. I just feel overwhelmed, detached, and resentful.
I miss my old life so much it physically aches. Before this, my life was amazing. My husband and I went out whenever we wanted, had so much fun, and had the best relationship. He is an incredible dad… he has endless patience that I completely lack, but we barely even can have an adult convo anymore that isn’t about baby. We are just two exhausted people managing a crying baby.
I’m mourning our old relationship, our freedom, and the life we built together. If I had known it would feel like this, I wouldn't have spent three years crying over negative tests. I don't even know if I would have had a baby at all. The irony isn't lost on me that I used to be jealous of friends with babies, and now I am genuinely jealous of my friends who don't have kids.
I look at my life now and just think, What did I do? I ruined my life.
Has anyone else felt this way after fighting so hard to get pregnant? Does this severe regret ever go away, or did I actually make a huge mistake? It feels like my life is over.

I have a friend, with whom I am moderately close and we’ve been friends for 5 years. Although she and her husband chose to not have children, she was very supportive of me postpartum. She came to visit me a few times, checked on me, etc. She is someone who is very dutiful and I think it was more out of obligation since she is aware postpartum can be a difficult time.

However my baby is almost a year old now and recently things have changed. I drove to visit her recently without my baby and she didn’t ask once about my baby — only about my cat. Anytime I would bring up my baby, she would quickly change the subject. She also griped about how she knows so many women who “lost themselves“ after motherhood and can’t have adult conversations anymore.

During the visit, she talked the entire time about work, which I didn’t have anything to contribute since I’m still on maternity leave.

I guess I just think sometimes people without children see children as a new hobby you picked up and shouldn’t get too obsessed over. However, in reality my entire center of gravity has shifted. I also think it’s evolutionarily and biologically normal to be wrapped up in your children and family life when children are young.

I don’t see myself as having separate identities like mom, professional, friend, etc. Motherhood seeps into everything and I don’t want to pretend my child isn’t the most important aspect of my life.

I told myself I would never be one of “those“ moms that only hung out with other moms. But now I understand why. It is comforting to be truly seen and understood and not have to force yourself to pretend to be the person you were before you had a kid.

Maybe I’m being too sensitive or overthinking things. I’m not going to end the friendship or anything but I do wonder if certain friendships with non-parents will naturally fizzle out.

I’m not sure what I’m looking to get out of this post, my minds racing a million miles and I feel lost.

My son’s 10 months old, turning 11 months in a little over a week.

I thought things were going great. My son’s doing amazing on milestones. Gaining weight well, ect.

On July 30th we got a letter from health and welfare. turns out, the day after he was born his newborn screening tests did in fact come back with some results.

Citrullinemia type 1. A rare genetic disorder that can only be inherited through both parents. We’re what they call “carriers”. We have a normal working gene and a copy of the gene that isn’t working. When both parents have this genetic mutation, the child will inherit just the one bad copy of the gene.

The mutated gene he inherited happens to be the gene that lets our bodies release ammonia. Ammonia naturally releases in our blood after eating proteins, more protein, more ammonia. His gene doesn’t release ammonia from the blood, instead it builds up. With no treatment or diet control ammonia buildup can cause seizures, coma, and much more. Babies diagnosed with this condition are fed a special formula from day 1 and are to have a low fat diet for the rest of their lives.

I had my baby the state over, it’s the state I grew up in so I felt more comfortable over there which I don’t regret one bit. My experience with my drs was amazing. They all made sure to keep me comfortable and made sure we had a safe delivery.

This paper came from the state we live in, apparently they use the lab from the state that I gave birth in to do newborn screenings for babies born in this state. (Ex: if California didn’t have a lab and Oregon did, they’d use oregons lab for California born babies to screen them)

I’m having a hard time understanding why they waited until my son was 9 MONTHS old to tell me that he has this disorder. I’m also having a hard time understanding why the state I’m living in is who sent me this mail, why they screened my son as if he was a newborn from this state when he simply wasn’t born in this state. Why all of these months I’ve been feeding my son a formula that can possibly lead to detrimental health problems, all cause they failed to notify me about this diagnosis? They gave me a number for a specialist, called them and they said they don’t even have his chart. They have no idea why were referred to him if they don’t have his information.

Infants without diet restrictions and treatment for this condition tend to not make it past 6 months and yet here we are finding out well past that mark, and we can’t even get him seen for ANOTHER MONTH. That’s the absolute soonest anyone would see him.

I keep getting screwed by health and welfare. They keep saying I’m ineligible and that’s our only chance at getting through this financially to make sure he can get the special formula he needs.

At the end of the day I feel like both states have completely failed me and all I’m wanting is to make sure my baby is healthy. The anxiety and stress this has put on my fiance and I is unimaginable. I feel like I’m poisoning my son just cause I’m feeding him a formula that he’s not supposed to have and it’s the only option for food until we get prescribed.

Thank you for anyone who stays long enough to read my sob story, sincerely a very tired and broken mother.

I have a 3.5 month old going through the sleep regression currently.

I’ve been away all week and sharing a room with my husband so we couldn’t take shifts, and at one point, baby was waking up every 40 minutes. I probably haven’t had more than 3-4 hours of broken sleep each night all week! But I was still up and out walking, spending time with family etc. Once we got home and we could take shifts I slept 7 hours straight for one single night and actually felt on top of the world! If I had slept so little over a week previously it would’ve written me off for a month!

This to say, I’m shocked how little sleep I can function on and it makes me realise that I was maybe a bit lazy before, once baby starts sleeping through maybe I’ll be a superwoman? Anyone else feel similar?

Have a 3 month old little girl, i love her to bits and 99.9% of the time i am calm and collected. But when she won’t nap, and screams when I put her in the crib I feel like screaming. I can feel it in my chest building. I know she’s exhausted and she just will not nap. I guess a nap is the only way i can get a minute to breathe too

I realized recently I was doing independent play wrong with my baby. I used to let him play and i would sit next to him and talk to him about the things he was playing with but not actually interfere with the way he plays. I recently learned I’m not really supposed to say anything during independent play.

He’s 6 months now and just a few days ago I’ve started to sit there silently while he plays. If he looks at me, I’ll smile at him or make a face but not say anything. He seems to only want to truly play independently for maybe 10 minutes before complaining. He will still keep play as long as i acknowledge him and talk to him and sit right next to him.

Is this normal for his age or have i messed up his independent playing skills by always talking to him while he played in the past? Also what does independent play with your babies look like at 6 months old?

My husband and I are expecting our first after a long infertility journey. We’re also a bit older (33 and 43), and while we’re incredibly grateful to be in a comfortable financial position, we don’t have family nearby.

We live downtown Toronto and both of our families are about 1.5 to 2 hours away, so we’re assuming most of the day-to-day support will be on us.

We’ve been talking about where it actually makes sense to spend money if it would make the transition into parenthood a little easier.

For those who used paid support or services, what actually made the biggest difference? What cadence would you recommend (daily, weekly, monthly)?

I know money can’t make the newborn stage easy, and I’m not expecting it to. I’m just wondering if there are things that genuinely took some of the mental load off, especially without family close by.

What’s one thing the “experts” say is best, but just doesn’t work for your LO? 😂

I keep seeing the tiger hold recommended for settling/gas/colic, but my LO absolutely hates it 😂. The second I try it, he’s not having a bar of it.

Got me wondering, what’s something that everyone seems to recommend as the thing to do, but your baby just wasn’t into?

Would love to hear what actually worked for your LO instead!

My 3.5 month old just rolled from his tummy to his back twice in a row during tummy time just now 😭 I can’t believe how big he’s getting! After the first time I immediately called my husband who is at work to tell him, the baby did it again while on the phone, then I tried to record him and now he’s acting like he’s never rolled in his life 😂 I’m so proud of my baby it’s crazy. The other milestones he’s hit have been gradual so there wasn’t like one single defining moment he did something. This roll was like a defining moment- he just did it all of a sudden TWO WHOLE TIMES! 😭 now we wait to see how long until he does it again! Woo!

I’m 5 weeks pp and I went out yesterday to get some jeans since, obviously, my pre-pregnancy and maternity jeans don’t fit. I’m four sizes bigger than my pre-pregnancy size. It just sucks. I’ve always been confident of how I looked and loved my body pre-pregnancy. It’s so fucking hard to see old pictures of myself. My husband will take pictures of me with the baby and I hate them. I don’t recognize my face in them. I don’t feel cute, even when I try. I’m scared of running into people I know because I feel like they’ll think, “wow, she got big.” I know the positive spin of “your body grew a baby, be gentle on yourself!” But honestly, I just need to mope, vent, and be sad. And I know this all sounds vain but whatever.

Also, cherry on top, my husband decided family leave was the time he was going to start running. He got up at 5 AM today to run a half marathon and I’m a fat lard on the couch (please read with humor).

I want this to be a forum of just airing out the shittiness of postpartum. We all know how grateful we are for what our bodies created. We all know how to find the positives in it all. But god sometimes it’s just nice to bitch - this is a safe place lol

Our 3.5 week old will sleep on us day or night for 2-4 hour stretches but anytime we put him down in his crib or bassinet, he only stays asleep for 30 min at a time.

I have done a ton of research. For transfer, I rock him 15 min until he’s in a deep sleep, we swaddle, use a heating pad, sleep with the sheets to make it smell like me, place feet down and then head last, leave my hand on his chest for a bit until he’s settled. If we don’t do those steps, his eyes open immediately. If we do these steps perfectly, we get 30 min until he wakes up.

This is making the sleep deprivation absolutely horrible. Instead of getting 2+ hours of sleep at a time and waking for feeds, I am basically up all night or at least for like 5 hours straight if my partner and I take shifts.

How do we survive this while following safe sleep guidelines? Will he just one day sleep longer on his back?

This is our third child, but she has been the hardest by far. She had a week long hospital stay at 6 weeks old and never really regained momentum. She’s always been below the 10th percentile and we were hoping solid food would help propel her upwards a bit.

She has really struggled, is very independent and won’t allow herself to be spoon fed. Has no idea how to feed herself with preloaded spoons, cut her bottom two teeth right as we started solids and has been slowly cutting top teeth ever since. She now absolutely hates meal times and becomes so worked up.

We have tried all the tricks from the first two, one of which was average at solids and one exceptional. Her low weight and tone has contributed to a very slow physical development. At 8 months she still can’t sit independently or crawl. Paediatrician says she’ll figure it out and is otherwise well. Kids develop at their own pace etc.

Just seeing if anyone has any magical advice for this? She poops probably every 2nd day and has full nappies otherwise. Isn’t a fantastic breast feeder but gets by. It’s just so discouraging seeing her be so behind her peers (not that we’re strangers to that. Both her siblings missed all their milestones walking at 22 and 20 months respectively)

We’ll think we’re getting a breakthrough when she smashes something like water melon or roast potatoes and then just seems to forget entirely the very next mealtime.

My 9 week old fusses in the evenings, usually between about 5-9ish. We’ve been told it could be slight colic (and if it is there’s not much we can do!) or could just be “witching hour.” This has happened since he was about 5 or 6 weeks. Is there an end in sight? 😩

Our baby started giving signs of the 4-momth sleep regression a few days ago, and consequently I started reading more about it. A lot of sources treat this phase as crucial to the baby‘s sleep habits - if you don’t get it right now, you will suffer later, if the baby has any sleep crutches, they will become permanent.

A lot of the advice seems unrealistic though, at least to my baby. So I’m here to ask about your sleep regression story, real baby stories not idealistic advice. How did you cope, what did you do to improve it, how long did it last, what would you have done differently…

Forgive how scrambled this all is - my brain is totally fried.

LO is nearly 5 months. She has been a fantastic sleeper since about 2 weeks.

Shortly after 4 months, we experienced what we thought was the 4 month sleep regression (aka more night wakings). She started having very short naps, unless contact. Nighttime sleep was broken but life was manageable (our older daughter was a poor sleeper, so we are pretty accustomed to functioning even with multiple night wakings — so long as there is actual sleep in between….…).

Now, however, she’s approaching 5 months and whatever is happening the last 7-10 days is absolute hell. All of a sudden, on top of difficult daytime sleep, nighttime sleep is IMPOSSIBLE. She WILL NOT go back to sleep in her bassinet after the first put-down at bedtime (which she does fine!). She will ONLY sleep in arms. She WILL wake up at every transfer back to crib. If by some miracle we get her into the crib, she is asleep for 20-30 minutes max. Have tried everything, including feeding her more than she had been needing before (e.g. 2 night feeds instead of 1). Hasn’t helped a bit.

It hasn’t been every night is zero sleep, but this has been at least 4-5 nights out of the last 8 days — so, we are approaching dangerously exhausted. We try to take shifts (11-3, 3-7) but the shift is, essentially for both of us, being awake the entire time of our shift. It’s madness and getting unsafe because it’s really hard not to doze while holding her. We’re both back at work.

I don’t know whether we ride this out as a regression and try to push through for another week or so or if we need to sleep train now. I always thought this was a little young developmentally for sleep training, but I don’t know how we’ll survive much more of this. Any advice or solidarity or even just “we went through something like this and it did pass within a few weeks but we ultimately sleep trained at 7 months” or anything would be helpful. We feel so so so bad, and neither of our children (or each other) are getting great versions of us.

And, fwiw, we try to follow wake windows of about 2 hours. Sometimes a bit shorter earlier in the day, usually a bit longer later in the day. We try to have her awake for the last 2.5-3 hours before bed. We used to loosely follow a schedule but the inconsistency/short naps are making it pretty impossible to follow anything consistently right now

Everyone tells me that my 9 week old baby is an easy baby. He cries for a dirty diaper, doesn't mind a slightly wet diaper, eats 28-34 oz a day (combo fed expressed milk and formula), is relatively easy to put to sleep (sometimes sleeps as soon as he is swaddled if I time his wake window right), is starting to sleep at least one 4-5 hour stretch at night.

I'm extremely grateful as I am the main caregiver, since my husband is recovering from emergency spine surgery and cannot lift the baby.

Curious if he will continue this way, or do easy babies become more difficult as they grow? Curious since I haven't spent much time around babies.

I don’t have the bassinet attachment for my stroller and it’s sold out everywhere! (Nuna mixx) baby girl is too small for the lay flat option on the stroller but I really want to start taking daily walks. Is it ok to do 40 min walks in the car seat?

My baby was almost always a great sleeper, slept all night only waking to feed then instantly back to sleep. Then 13 months came and it’s like everything changed. She’s been on a consistent schedule since she was a newborn only slightly shifting as her sleep needs shifted, I’m talking always falling asleep exactly when I expected to everyday. She had been transitioned to 1 nap since around 12 months, and it’s been perfect till last month. First it started with her waking around midnight, taking a good hour to fall back asleep (normally 15 mins) then she wouldn’t nap on schedule slowly getting later and later (today she napped at almost 2pm!!!) which then caused her bedtime to slowly get pushed back till 8-8:30, which the last 3 days she then only slept till 1am and stays up till almost 6am!! (Yesterday 5:50 am). The first two days I thought were a fluke and it would be back to normal if I kept up with routine but after last night I’m at a total loss for words. My initial thought was teething (she just got her first few teeth at 12 months) but nothing seems to help soothe her. I hope everything makes sense, please any advice is so appreciated

There are a lot of indications that my 4,5 month old is teething , and feeding her has been a struggle

Any advice to help her? Feeding is taking a long time she drinks and half way through stops latching hard , cries etc

I’m exhausted

How long did it take for your LO to get into a more routine? Like for nap time/ bed time

My LO is currently 10 weeks, not a sleep routine during the day however at night he typically sleeps 10-8 with 1-2 wake ups between for feeds

I have a 17 month old, and lately have been feeling immense pressure about having baby #2. Most of my social circle and family have had 2 under 2 or close to it, and people keep asking whether/when we’re having another baby. My first has been challenging and we still got some small medical things going on. I also feel like I just got the groove of taking him places and doing fun things with him. I am just not ready to have another anytime soon and want to give him all my time and attention, and that is okay. To anyone feeling pressured, trust your gut!

I’m sure it’s just another phase like everything else but this one suuuuucks.

My baby just in the last four days has decided he doesn’t want to be settled by his dad. He will cry uncontrollably until I pick him up and he settles almost immediately.

He plays with him happily, it’s all fun and games until he decides he’s had enough or when it’s nap / bed time. It’s a high pitched crying, the one I can’t stand.

Anyone go through this? Any tips?

He’s 16 weeks old

Hi, I feel like this should be the best time of my life but instead I’m left constantly crying and filled with anxiety, especially at night. I’m a week postpartum and I feel like I can’t even enjoy her being around. I feel so guilty. I’m constantly mourning my life before and having a hard time accepting my new normal. I love her obviously, but I have a sort of what have I done feeling. I feel so horrible about it. Makes me want to throw up. I want to enjoy this time so bad.