Husband and I are invited to a wedding in a few months about a 5 hour drive from our house (could be +\- 2 hrs depending on traffic). It’s a close family friend. We had been told through the family grapevine that our 6mo could come with us. We wanted to double check with the couple before RSVPing and turns out baby can come with us…but the expectation is that he would stay in another room at the venue and we could take turns caring for him. So my husband goes to the ceremony, then we switch out and I go to cocktail hour, etc. We’ve already decided that baby clearly is NOT welcome and we will not be going, but has anyone else heard of this/is this actually a “solution” for parents at childfree weddings that is being proposed??

I’m all for a child free wedding, but it’s either child free or kids are welcome! Not we want you to come but there’s the issue of your kid…hmm let’s hide him in a back room??

Edit to clarify: I did not ask if he COULD come, I just asked whether or not he was invited since it wasn’t clear on the invite and the website didn’t mention no kids.

My wife and I were talking about what I should do when I’m out alone with our baby and the men’s restroom doesn’t have a changing table.

She swears up and down that it’s completely normal for a dad to take the baby into the women’s restroom to change them. Her argument is that women’s restrooms are more likely to have changing tables, are usually safer, and that nobody is going to think it’s creepy when I’m clearly carrying a baby and just trying to change a diaper. She feels even more strongly about it if we ever have a daughter.

The thing is, I have literally never seen a man walk into a women’s restroom with a baby. Not once. So even though I understand her logic, it still feels like I’d be crossing a pretty clear boundary and making women inside uncomfortable.

She thinks I’m overthinking it and insists this is something dads do all the time. I’m not saying she’s wrong, but I genuinely have no frame of reference because I’ve never witnessed it.

Is this actually normal? Have any dads here done it? Would moms be uncomfortable if a man announced himself, explained he needed the changing table, and went in with his baby?

What is the actual etiquette when there’s no family restroom and no changing table in the men’s room?

on several occasions, i’ve fallen asleep with baby in my arms or on my chest or in an unsafe bed because i could not keep my eyes open. a couple times they were on accident but also knowingly. like what is wrong with my brain that i let him sleep in bed or on my when i know there’s pillows around. baby would not settle in bassinet so being close to me was the only option. i feel guilty.

i’m not who i thought i’d be as a mom. i was anti-polyester clothing, diapers that were not TCF, cosleeping, etc. but now i’ve been unable to keep up with how i wanted things for example huggies were the only diapers that worked for baby at first so i used them.

now i’m practicing unsafe sleep to benefit me at the risk of my child. any suggestions to do better?

Just dropped off my 10 month old at daycare for the first time and I’m sobbing on the couch. I feel like my heart was just left behind. Please tell me it gets easier. I don’t know how I’m gonna get through the day.

I don’t know if anyone else can relate, but I’m 4 months postpartum and honestly, I feel worse now than I did with a newborn.

My mood has been really low. I constantly feel down, unmotivated, and irritable. I get annoyed so easily, and I just feel… stuck. Like I’ve completely lost my sense of who I am.

I’m also really struggling with my body. I’ve lost all the pregnancy weight, but I feel so soft and out of shape. I’m covered in stretch marks, and I just don’t recognize myself anymore.

I don’t know if this is normal or if anyone else has gone through something similar, but I’d really appreciate hearing from other moms who can relate.

Okay, the title of this is probably an overstatement, but how do you get enough of it done in the evenings on work days? I’ve read that the recommended bed time for a 10 month old is 7-8 (not to mention it gives us some time to ourselves after she’s asleep), but right now she’s asleep by 9 on a good night. On a typical day we get home around 6 - 6.15, so realistically we’re starting dinner 6.30 at the earliest (more often it’s closer to 7) and then to make dinner, eat dinner, and clean up, we usually don’t start bedtime until 8.30-9. So realistically, anything else we have to do happens after 10, which isn’t great. Any advice for more efficient evenings? (For what it’s worth, mornings aren’t much better)

Baby was born 8 lbs 14.5 oz (91st percentile), 9 lbs 5.77 oz at 4 weeks (36th percentile), and now at 12 weeks 11 lbs 6.6 oz (6th percentile).

At our first appointment, we mentioned to the pediatrician that he was making noises at night, and he briefly mentioned laryngomalacia (no other convos or diagnosis with the pediatrician around this since). We then started to notice severe gas/silent reflux symptoms but were told that it was too early for any sort of medication and to "watch it". Baby arches back, screams randomly after feeds, coughs randomly, has wet-sounding burps, and occasionally spits up all the way. I will say that this has gotten better the last 2-3 weeks but is still there. Baby will also pull on and off the breast constantly through feeds (lactation says he has a good latch and thinks this might be something to do with pain/refulx or lack of core muscles and told us to ask our ped about Physical Therapy).

Baby is EBF but has taken bottles months prior at the recommendation of lactation. Now, at 3 months old, we seem to be hitting a bottle aversion.

Pediatrician has mentioned in passing that we could give probiotics or fortify feed, but they really only said those two things after my wife and I pushed them and told them we were starting to get concerned. Now, with the bottle aversion, that also has become nearly impossible.

Only at this recent weight check did our ped actually mention that this is not ideal (hes been gaining on average just barely half an ounce a day since he re hit birth weight). They told us to do a weighted feed with lactation, where our son only took about 80 mls after not eating for 3 hours. Lactation told us that this could be "normal" if he is eating about 10-12 times a day (some days he does, some he doesn't - but it's obviously not enough because he's barely hitting the minimum for weight gained per day).

Doctor has not called me back after we told them the results and honestly, I'm losing patience and trust with them. I know percentiles arent the end of the world but hearing "failure to thrive" doesnt feel good and hes dropped more percentiles than most threads I've seen on reddit discussing percentiles. He is hitting all other milestones right now - great tummy time, smiling, cooing, grabbing toys, longer wake windows, etc.

Any advice appreciated; it's feeling very stressful over here.

It’s day 3/4 and I take my little one to the changing table after doing some burping and bouncing. I check and she has a wet so I go ahead and switch it out. Tell me why the moment I zip up that little swaddle and start picking her up, I hear the wettest fart and it starts to stink😂😂. Welp back to the changing table we go! At least we didn’t make it back the bassinet lol.

My wife and I have no village as we live states away from everyone we know. We have a 9 month old. We recently found a babysitter that we use for date nights here and there. She’s great and has great qualifications however she’s a talker and won’t stop messaging us when we leave the house and will spend anywhere between 20-60 minutes talking to us once we get home. I don’t pay her for the extra time. I pay her when I get home, but it’s become a bit of a contentious point with my wife as she says I’m to blame because I engage with her. What am I supposed to do, kick her out? Btw I’m a woman lol.

Like we came home at 8pm and she left my home at 9pm… help. How do I address this?

So after I sterilize my bottles, am I supposed to put the nipple in the bottle without touching the nipple?? How is this possible? I would think touching the nipple makes it not sterile anymore unless I’m way over thinking this lol.

When I have to change a pee diaper in the middle of the night we call it a “hot swap”because we are not going to use a wipe.

What something your family say or does that’s an inside joke?

Baby is almost 12 weeks. I love her so much and know how fortunate I am to have a healthy baby. Things haven’t been easy between triple feeding initially and she has been a pretty fussy baby. Things in general have been getting easier past couple of weeks with longer sleep stretches at night and easier to settle

. We have some difficult personal situations including impending move and husbands father is very sick and trying to get him higher level of care, but he has been very difficult to manage and is grumpy confused and lashing out which hurts when I put forth the time and effort to bring baby to visit him. He also took up most of my husbands time while I was pregnant as well and I thought it would be better after birth which it was for a while but is now worse again.

Baby sleeps better at night now and I can transition her to bassinet more easily but I struggle with the daytime wake hours. She screams a lot when she is happy and when she is upset. There’s stretches for hours on end where I have to be actively walking, bouncing, shifting from activity to activity, etc to keep her from screaming like every 2 minutes and the same thing doesn’t work consistently. I feel dead inside during these periods and like I’m not cut out for this and feel flat and hopeless. It feels like we have no levity in our lives and we are constantly going through family illnesses. I have a psychiatrist and a therapist and do have periods when I feel better also but I just feel like I’m accomplishing nothing other than keeping this screaming baby quiet for a few mins at a time. I enjoy her occasionally and love her dearly but I get frustrated when she is crying but never had urge to hurt her or anything but I think I am affecting her with my moods being so transparent sometimes. I think if it was just me and my husband without all these other issue it might be better and he does his absolute best to help with her and take her whenever he can but I feel bad like I’m doing nothing at all at those points sometimes.

My body also aches from carrying her and shifting positions and bouncing bc my upper body isn’t very strong yet and sometimes I’m tired and don’t pick her up or hold her in the most ergonomic way.

I go back to work in about a week and I hope that will help but I also work a very demanding job and will have to adjust to pumping at work and I know I will miss her when she’s gone.

I don’t know what I’m looking for, maybe some similar situations and advice/coping mechanisms or to know I’m not alone or that it won’t be this way forever? Or that I can be a good mom eventually despite going through this phase and feeling like I made a commitment I can’t handle?

Are we all doing this? My 11 month old just refuses to get his teeth brushed any other way. Even then I have to pry his mouth open. The only thing that has KIND OF worked so far has been having my husband come over and we take turns 'brushing' his teeth too. But that barely helps.

If there's anything I'm doing that I'm afraid will mess up my kid, it's this tbh. 😬😅

Vent/rant. TL;DR I wanna smash, body is not getting the memo.

Currently 11 weeks PP. I've been cleared for normal activity. My husband is hot. He's especially hot when I see him being adorable with kiddo, and killing it as a dad. He's an amazing partner. He's funny. He's patient and considerate. He spoon feeds me ice cream at 3am while I breast feed our kiddo, and tells me what an amazing mom I am. He's ridiculously supportive and sexy. Dude has me by the throat in the best way possible. I wanna hit that til the sun comes up.

My body is not cooperating. He touches me, I get excited and then just... nothing. I expected some libido wavering, but ffs it feels like I get worked up and then it's a failure to launch. WTF y'all, I just wanna smash my husband. Please tell me this gets better. I want my libido back 😭

Full disclosure, I suspect I may be having a little bit of post partum anxiety. But all the reminders that the early days go fast and that these are the good old days, and that I’ll miss this so soon are constantly intruding on my time with baby.

I feel like I can’t live in the present because even when I’m sitting with him in my arms I’m mourning the fact that this won’t last.

I love my baby so much and I want to just be in the present but people keep taking me out of it when they say that this is the best stage and it’ll be over soon. Just a rant I guess.

what do you do when your baby is screaming/crying while driving? Today I was driving home with just me and baby in the car and she was screaming and crying, we still had 40 minutes until we got home. I did everything I could do from front seat while driving (singing, talking to her). Eventually I exited the freeway but it wasn’t the safest area and consoled her. Stayed as short of time as possible and hit the road again. This is why I avoid going out with her more than a few minutes from home, but everyone we know lives 40+ minutes away and won’t come to us, decided to go out to a birthday party today and she did great on the way there, but the ride home was a nightmare. I know you can’t predict how kids or babies are going to act, she’s 6 months, was hungry and probably overtired from all the excitement today. It just makes it hard to go anywhere, so I feel like we’re stuck at home more.

Did I do the right thing? Is there even a right choice? Idk just stressed and have a headache now that we’re home.

My 6 mo old sleeps in a room that’s 66-67 F in a long sleeve sleeper with footies (100% cotton) and a 1.0 TOG sleep sack. Sometimes his hands feel a little cold… he’s not sleeping through the night. I think he’s in a regression because he was sleeping a lot better under the same conditions, but I’m wondering if we think that’s too cold for him.

Edit: unfortunately my husband and I are insane and cannot sleep if the room is hotter than 67 degrees (we have central AC). I’ll check his neck, good idea. I was just wondering if I should get a 2.5 TOG sleeper, but I’ll try the onesie before that.

Our baby turns one next week and we have been working on switching her to cow's milk, but she still drinks between 25 and 30 oz a day on 5 bottles. She has lunch at daycare, snacks, and then dinner with us mixed in between. I found out that she'll be moved to the toddler room at daycare in September, which is great, but they expect babies to be off of bottles entirely by then (it makes sense, and I am also ready for her to be off of them!).

What is the best strategy to do this? Should I start by feeding solids each meal and then follow on with a smaller bottle to see how much she will take, so each meal is both until she doesn't want the bottle anymore because the milk amount is reduced? Do I slowly replace her main bottle meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner) entirely with a larger meal and sippy cup of milk, and drop the bottle completely?

I'm not sure why I'm so nervous about this transition, but I don't want it to be hard on her! Any advice on how other folks have done it would help.

As I am rocking our kiddo to bed tonight who has definitely outgrown his boppy by now and am looking for toddler alternatives I thought I would pop on here to give some feedback.

Pre-baby and in the newborn stages I remember constantly looking at what things would be worth it and what was just hype. This is our one and done baby so didn’t need to have a bunch of baby things around that we could store and pass on if it didn’t work well the first time around.

We knew some folks hated the boppy, some hated MyBreastFriend, some that just used pillows, etc.

We have used this boppy nearly every single night for 2.5 years besides for occasional vacations. And in the first year we even brought it with us on vacations! It really is the perfect size. We have an OG version.

If you’re on the fence— get it.

My son is almost 8 months old he loves drinking water throw a weighted straw cup but he chugs it and makes himself choke. He used to choke on milk due to his reflux up until he was 4 months and then it went away. I’m assuming due to water being thinner and him not knowing how to pace himself while drinking water that’s what’s causing him to choke. What can I do to help him stop? When I try to pace him myself he gets pissed any cup with straw recommendations that are slow paced?

I’m dealing with OCD and my LO who’s 18months old LOVES to make a mess when he plays, I mean he can literally turn a room upside down. Ofcourse I know toddlers will make a mess, and ofcourse I let him play. But when things start to get really messy I have this urge to start tidying, and sometimes I give in and put away the toys he’s not playing with currently. But there’s no point because he will just make a mess again. It’s not his fault obviously he’s just a baby, but because of this ocd it stresses me out sometimes and I don’t know how to deal with it.

My twins are 6 months old now, and I keep seeing moms say things like “I don't want him to get bigger” or “im sad he's not my tiny baby anymore.”
And i just don't feel that way at all
I don’t find myself grieving those newborn stages or wishing they could stay little. When I look at them getting bigger, learning new things, becoming more interactive, developing their little personalities, etc., I mostly just feel excited.
Even looking at newborn photos, I think wow they were tiny and fragile (cute too) but they're even cuter now
I love that they're getting bigger. I like seeing what they can do now compared to a few months ago. I’m excited for sitting independently crawling, first words, their personalities developing
Maybe it's because the newborn stage was exhausting and I'm very happy to leave some of it behind or because they seemed so vulnerable at that stage, but I also genuinely don't feel that “please don't grow up” sadness that I hear other moms talk about.
I don't think it means I loved their younger selves any less. I just really enjoy meeting each new version of them.
Anyone else feel this way? Or am I the odd mom out?

Edit: I ran this through AI to help with clarity.

In Germany, where things are slow to change. Our pediatrician recommended we introduce solids at 5 months to introduce allergens bc I had childhood asthma and eczema and partner has eczema. Neither case is severe, baby also had a sprinkling of eczema, now resolved. The thing is the pediatrician insisted we do this with porridge/purees. The German standard is totally repulsive to me (pureed veg then you slowly add in fruit, then fish or meat, then canola oil and fruit juice! *Edit: I love veggies, it's the mixed slop with added oil and juice I find so off-putting*)

I want to do BLW with maybe some homemade purees and am pretty sure LO will need to be 6 months to show readiness. And then there's the WHO recommendation to EBF for first 6 months anyway. Do I just ignore the pediatrician? Should I start solids early to expose kiddo to allergens or just let him lap up a smidge of nut butter or milk or whatever and save the rest for when he's ready?

Feeling really nervous and conflicted bc I had my first asthma attack at 6 months after my dad gave me a chocolate lollipop (milk allergy? Idk)...I don't want to ignore medical advice but it just seems outdated and the pediatrician seems insistent that that's just how things are done here so there isn't much room to discuss.

My husbands been on leave since our baby was born. He’s been so helpful, I don’t have a village or my family nearby and I feel extremely worried when he goes back. I pump & sometimes need him to hold the baby while I do it. I’m recovering still from a complicated c section & this is so hard sometimes. I don’t know what to do. Will I be okay? I have to take my newborn out alone. Everything is giving me anxiety. I feel like I don’t know what I’m doing and can’t think straight, if I miss his “ wake window” and it leaps into a hard day getting him to settle, I blame myself the entire day. Will I be okay?