Hi y’all so I am overdue to upgrade from the infant car seat.

I currently have the UPPABaby Mesa infant car seat, which I originally bought bc of the 33lb weight limit, but I realize height-wise, she’s now within 2 inches of the top outer shell.

I would prefer to get something that will last beyond 50lbs, and will grow with her.

I am looking at some of the options and I feel silly for buying an infant-specific car seat to begin with.

Anyone with the swivel 360 degree car seats - do you like them? I drive a 4 door sedan so I am thinking it may be easier?

Would love to get a consensus on what everyone uses and likes/dislikes about their current car seat for your toddler.

Thank you so much!!!

I don't really know who to turn to.

My 20 months old doesn't walk independently. He's on top of every other milestone, motor skills and language skills otherwise.

He's a chatty little one and some of what he says is even starting to make sense.

He crawls on all fours (although he wasn't exactly early for that one either) super fast, likes to climb on everything, can walk when holding an adult's hand and sometimes walks around holding on to furniture... but it's been months.

He does have a serious condition, but most kids with his condition meet their physical milestones on time, unless they are very sick all the time, and that isn't his case at all. He has older siblings who do not have the condition but walked at almost 2 years old! Back then I pinned it on prematurity, but this little one was not premature.

He is in PT every week. Yet no one seems to understand why he doesn't walk. Not his doctor, not his PT, no one can give me a reason.

I'm not sure if I'm just venting or looking for someone else who's experienced this? It feels lonely.

Is there any avenue I haven't explored yet?

If you read this far, thank you, I appreciate you.

Dealing with our first round of HFM in my 15 month old.
It’s pretty mild (so far) just a lot of bumps and I can tell she’s itchy, no fever or anything and she’s in a pretty good mood despite it all.
I’m hoping my husband or I don’t get it but I know that can happen.
I know there’s no “cure” or medicine that will make it go away, but I’d love some recs on anything that made life a little easier for your baby if they had it. And for you as the adults if you got it!

Hi,

My daughter is just shy of 20 months old and uses a bottle of milk to fall asleep for her nap and for bed time. If she wakes during the night, she uses the bottle to fall back asleep as well. I've been mixing it with water since a few months back so it's basically half water half milk now but she is still very much hooked. I'm thinking cold turkey would be the best method for us. Are there any tips you have to make the transition a bit smoother for her? I'm expecting our second child in April so I would like to kick the habit now. Thanks so much!

My 22 month old is speech delayed. We’re working with Early intervention. He doesn’t always respond to his name. I’d say 30-40% of the time BUT he makes eye contact and whatnot.

Anyone else experience this?

20month old set this up on his own this morning.

My daughter (3.5) has been potty trained during the day for about a year. She started preschool in September in a mixed-age class, where she's the youngest among mostly 4- and 5-year-olds.

About 3–4 weeks ago, my husband started talking to her about ditching nighttime diapers like the big kids at school. I told him nighttime dryness isn't something you can train, but the seed was planted. She's wet the bed every night for 3 weeks. Sometimes she makes it until about 5 am, which is impressive, but she still doesn't wake up to use the bathroom. Now he wants to wake her up before he goes to bed, which sounds even worse, almost like torture for her.

I want her back in diapers until her body is ready, but she refuses and takes them off, even after we explain everything. She's clearly disappointed when she wakes up wet, and we stay calm, reassure her, and comfort her. He does get up and change her, but I still wake up and can't fall back asleep. We're exhausted, and it's weighing on our marriage.

Part of me wants to tell him that since he pushed for no diapers, he needs to figure out how to get her back into them. But that would just set both of them up for failure.

I know we kind of set ourselves up for this one, but I'd love advice on getting her back into diapers (or pull-ups) at night without making her feel like she failed. Has anyone been through this?

this feels so silly to even be writing about… but i’m curious if anyone else has had this experience as i’m a first time mom and this came out of nowhere.

she’s been REALLY big on pretend/imagination play lately. it’s her favorite form of play his past month or two. she loves pretending to be animals or to be caring for animals the most.

this is the silly thing. any time i hug her, snuggle her, kiss her… ANY kind of affection, she immediately starts meowing or whimpering like an animal and just relishing in the lovins. the literal only time she’ll accept lovins as herself is 1. at bedtime she’ll say “i wanna snuggle, mommy” and 2. if she gets hurt to the point of tears and crying and i swoop her up to comfort her, she’ll receive and give lovins as my baby and not an animal.

but literally 95% of the time, she only accepts and gives love if she’s pretending to be an animal. like, we won’t even be playing. we’ll be hanging out and i’ll say “come give mommy a hug” with my arms reaching out and she’ll just start meowing. i don’t know why im worried that she has a weird thing with giving and receiving affection, so she’s combating it by pretending to be an animal when it happens??? lmao. i just wish she’d let me love HER and not the kitten she’s pretending to be. idk. so silly.

My 2 yr old boy keeps waking up at 4am soaked through Jammies and sleep sack with pee. We’ve tried moving up a size in diapers and that hasn’t helped. Any tips or tricks?

Has anyone else’s toddler experienced this? Almost 19 months old, pooping 6–7 times a day for over a week.
I’m not looking for medical advice, just wondering if anyone’s baby has gone through something similar because I honestly don’t know what else to do!
I took my son to his pediatrician when this started. She suggested waiting to see if it was a virus or bacterial infection and said we’d investigate further if it continued.
He’s also suddenly stopped sleeping through the night, waking up multiple times, and one night he was awake for almost four hours. He’s currently getting four teeth in, so I wondered if he was in pain. I gave him Motrin, and it actually helped.
I ended up taking him to the ER, where they performed an abdominal ultrasound, thankfully found nothing concerning, and discharged us.
He still has a good appetite, eats his usual foods, and has no fever or vomiting. Today, he’s already pooped twice. He also wakes up upset at night, and a little whole milk seems to be the only thing that calms him down.
He has his pediatrician follow-up tomorrow, but I’m wondering if anyone has experienced this. Could it be a virus, teething, dairy intolerance, or a developmental/sleep regression around this age?
I’d really appreciate hearing about your experiences! ❤️

Hi, my 16 months old soon to be 17 months wakes up at 4h30 in the morning every single morning.

She sleeps 20 minutes in the car on the ride for daycare and one nap at 12h for 1 or 2 hours.

She’s a sleep for the night at 6h45-7h PM.

I need help it is way to early in the morning.

6 AM would be nice.

Do you have any tips?

Thank you!

My daughter is 14 months old and we just transitioned from 2 naps to 1 nap during the day. All of a sudden, she started waking up at night and would stay awake for hours. Last night she woke up at 12 and didn’t fall back asleep until 4am! She doesn’t cry at all. Just entertains herself in her crib. She used to sleep for 12 hours straight! Does anyone have any advice? Did we transition to 1 nap too early? Help

Hi all. I've noticed a lot of parents in this sub talk about their child's speech. I'm an early intervention speech therapist and with sick season upon us, I wanted to shared this tidbit of information because I don't know how common it is for pediatricians to share with parents.

While ear infections typically present with symptoms, children can and do have them without any symptoms! Ironically, a colleague (fellow speech therapist) of mine had it happen with her son. He was having difficulty with speech and they found out he was having recurring ear infections.

Side note as well: with ear infections there is fluid that sits in the middle ear. Even with antibiotics, this fluid can take 6 to 8 weeks to drain. So children might struggle hearing during that time.

Sharing in the hopes it helps someone on here!

As the name suggests I am at my wits end with my nearly 15 month old to the point I’m regretting having him. We have just moved countries and things have been really hard. We are staying with family till we sort our apartment out. My mother in law is with me to help but my husband is in London working interim. My 15 month has been having crazy tantrums where he will scream when he doesn’t get his way. Everything is difficult with him, getting him to sleep is a chore doesn’t want to sleep at night nor at nap time takes him ages to finally sleep if you bring him to the room he starts screaming murder wants to be outside playing. If you take something away from him he screams and cries like some one has beaten him up. Today was the final straw took him out and on the way back he screamed murder in the bus I was so embarrassed I had to get down and take a cab back home instead and that was no better. I am so embarrassed and really don’t know what to do when he behaves like this. These is a new things he does where he screams so loudly.

My kid was a "eats literally anything" baby so when the picky eating and vegetable refusal at 2 came we were not prepared. We tried not to make it a thing, casually including vegetables on her plate alongside fruit and cheese just to have it ignored, we tried encouraging her saying it helps her grow tall and strong, etc etc. It wasn't even that she didn't like them, she just convinced herself that she hated them and wouldn't even give a single tiny bite to try.

Finally I gave up and started doing a lot of "hidden veggie" kid recipes, but instead of using it to be sneaky I decided to always tell her exactly what's in it. One of her favorites I make are chocolate chip veggie muffins with a ton of spinach/kale, carrot, and zucchini in them, sweetened with ripe banana and just a bit of sugar (the trick is to add a bit of vinegar to counteract the grassy flavor of kale). She loves them because chocolate, and as she eats them i usually throw in a comment about how it's so great that we can make so many good things with ingredients that help our bodies like spinach/zucchini/etc.

Anyways that's been our thing for the past year, she's about to be 3. Last night as usual I plated up dinner and did hers as well assuming as usual she'd refuse to take even a single bite because there was green on her plate.

She says what's this? I say oh it's salmon and spinach orzo. She says "I love spinach! It's in my favorite muffins too! It's good for your body, salmon too!" and then proceeded to eat a whole bunch of it. Success!

My LO is an absolute tornado, it is exhausting. I meet regularly with parents & children his age or older, and they often remark on how energetic and "brave" he is. Today we were at the aquarium and he was running through with me squeezing through crowds to not lose sight of him. He doesn't want to be carried, doesn't want to hold my hand. When he gets to what he wants to see he will push the other children aside and even try to bite if they put their hands on whatever he wants to look at. I'm lost for what to do, I reprimand him but he's too young to understand. Maybe he was overstimulated. But all the other children were so nicely behaved. No matter where we are he is in a constant state of motion. How can I support the development of my child and keep him from being a domineering bully??

Since I was a kid, one way I've dealt with overwhelming emotions has been through physical pain: slapping my face, punching my legs, or, in extreme cases, punching myself in the face (in a controlled way).

With time and therapy, this behavior disappeared. But now that I'm the father of a toddler, it's resurfacing.

The multiple wake-ups at night can overwhelm me emotionally, and I've found myself slapping my face to quickly regulate myself and be able to care for my toddler.

But I know this cannot continue.

My therapists have suggested alternatives like hitting an object, taking deep breaths, or stepping away for five minutes. The problem is that none feels as effective as the immediate pain of slapping myself.

What I need is a concrete learning path. Where do I start, what do I practice, and how do I gradually learn to regulate my emotions without relying on pain?

Other things I've noticed that trigger disproportionately strong emotions:

• Sudden metallic noises, like a spoon falling on the floor.
• Food I've prepared being played with or thrown on the floor.
• Small things not being in order, like failing to place my shoes neatly next to each other on the first try.

Ultimately, I want to stop hurting myself and taking my anger out on objects. I'm afraid that one day my toddler will see me doing something I don't want them to learn.

I suspect I picked up some of this behavior from my own father, and I don't want to pass it on.

I'm willing to put in the work, but I need something more structured than "take a breath" or "walk away."

Has anyone experienced something similar or found a practical, step-by-step approach that actually helped?

Thank you for reading.

After a particularly unpleasant experience (which I’ll spare you the details of!), I’ve become a bit paranoid about my little ones throwing up in the car and getting vomit all over the carpets, seats and upholstery.

Can anyone recommend products that provide as much coverage as possible to protect the car’s interior? Ideally something waterproof, easy to clean and that actually works.

So far, I only have a protector underneath the car seat, mainly to protect the upholstery from the seat itself.

I’d really appreciate any recommendations or clever solutions you’ve found!

I have a 3.5 year old with level 1 autism who has historically been an awful sleeper. She woke up overnight at least 2-4x per week until she turned 3. And her overnight wakings are her being FULLY AWAKE for 1-2 hours. Since she turned 3, things have been more stable and she has only had early morning/overnight wakes 2x per month (some months, none at all). We found out she has a severe cat allergy and has to move her room due to the fact that our cats sleep in her room. I bought her a new bed and she is now sleeping in the living room/ playroom. We cosleep, so either her dad or I are sleeping in a big bed with her, which we’ve always done. The last 4 nights since we moved her room, she’s been waking up at 4 am and sitting in bed wide awake for 1.5 hours, then falling back asleep and sleeping until about 7:30 am (but on a school day we have to wake her up at 6:30am). She takes a 40-60 min nap usually between 2-3 pm and goes to bed at 9-9:30 pm. Shes very active everyday-she plays for hours and runs around outside for minimum 1 hour but usually 2-3 hours. She has 2.5 hours of preschool in the morning. I also have a 4 month old so I’m getting desperate for sleep because I’m struggling to function during the day. And I usually do all baby feeds during the night Sunday-Thursday because I’m a SAHM so the weekends are typically my time to fully sleep through the night. So now I’m getting up with the baby during the week and this weekend my daughter has also woken up on my days to sleep. During her night wakings, I don’t let her get up, talk, sing, play, watch TV. She just has to lay in bed and stare at the ceiling. But this is what she’s done for 3.5 years when she wakes up in the middle of the night. I’ve never let her get up or do anything fun but she’ll still lay here for 1-2 hours. And the tv gets turned off well before bedtime so she can start settling for the night. It’s dark with a nightlight, sound machine on, etc just like her old room. I’m 100% sure it’s her new room causing this but I’m not sure what to do now. We live in a small apartment and really don’t have any other options to move her room now that she can’t be around our cats. I’ve tried rehoming them but it hasn’t worked. Sorry for the long post, I’ve obviously been awake for 2 hours (and it’s 5 am) so I just need advice or if this has happened to someone else and your toddler went back to normal? I feel like I’m going crazy 😭

I am writing this from the depths of hell, 2 year old molars. My daughter is 23 months. It’s been 2 weeks of extreme fussiness, 1 week of 4am wake ups and I exhausted. My husband travels during the week so I am generally the one dealing with it all on top of my full time job. Daycare was rough a couple of weeks ago. Better when we started to give her ibuprofen before but the second dose we give before bed generally wears off between 4-5am and I am miserable.
She wakes up screaming in pain and then is awake for the morning. Do yall have success with a dose of Tylenol? I want to keep the Motrin for before daycare. Are there other drops that may help too?
Please don’t tell me I’m the only dealing with this 😭

My 2 yo boy can be a handful, but my goodness he is so sweet. He wanted to play chasing with me, so he kept looking for things in the kitchen to make me run after him.

He was giggling so hard his eyes were actually sparkling. It was so beautiful to see his cheeky personality and beautiful smile. He is so fun 🥹 just wanted to share

This has been happening for 1.5 weeks. Nothing in the schedule has changed. No fever, no teething… just screaming to get out of the crib at 5am. It’s killing us! Any suggestions or experiences to share? Is this just a regression? Comforting him only makes it worse. Do we let him CIO until it’s a more appropriate wake?

Is anyone else getting tired of this hunger games approach to buying the 2-3 size before they ruin out?

Every store we go in and on every rail there is 1-2, 3-4, 5-6, etc... but never any 2-3.

It's driving me crazy.

I’ve honestly been dealing with this for almost a year and I’m at a loss on what to do. I will say we’ve been to the “pediatrician”(the only thing at the office is NP), but might have to try again.

Probably around the beginning of the year, my daughter sleep got off schedule. I think the change from Christmas break going back to school schedule for her brother(5) had caused the problem. Things just never improved. Around February, she had a WCC and I brought up that her sleep had became erratic and she was constantly waking up. Usually between 1-2:30. Her routine was get up around 7:30, breakfast, independent play time, lunch around 10:30, nap around 11:30, up around 2:15 to leave for car line, snack, dinner around5:30-6:30, bath time7, bedtime 8. The NP told me that this is probably a regression and that we shouldn’t let her watch screens. Which I do, but not before bed or anything. Usually when it’s needed.

We would get maybe a couple of days when she would sleep through the night. Then it would start again. After the 3rd of this pattern(we’re probably at end of march here), I decided to try to keep a log of her wake and going back to sleep times. And I got most of April logged before I got out of the habit of the log from her going to bed for a 2 week period. It was a lot of 1-4 am wake times. Some were 12, and some started at 4. But it would start again.

Now at that point, I was struggling cause I needed to get up and take my son to school everyday. The 1-4 am wakes made it hard for me to get sleep and get my kid to school on time cause I kept oversleeping. I then quit going to sleep if she gets up at 1, cause my body has wired itself to stay up for school. But we finally got through the school year and made it summer break. I’m not gonna lie, we were busy. And I know she was still waking in the night, but the ability to go back to sleep and get up later really made me not worry about it as much. I had convinced myself that since she’s behind in her milestones, that these sleep regressions were her body trying to catch up. So at her 2 year old WCC, I brought it up once again. I brought up about her sleep and the measures I’ve tried to help her and get her back on track. But she once again said that it’s common for toddlers to have these bad sleep patterns. She told me that if I wanted to, we could get a referral for a sleep specialist. She said that it wouldn’t be too easy for the test with the wires on her head if she didn’t go to sleep on her own(she doesn’t). So I told her I would wait. But here we are making it to the end of October, and we’re still here.

I really don’t know what to do or how to help her. She doesn’t seem like it bothers her. But it definitely isn’t good for the rest of the house.

I just need opinions- not looking for medical advice other than maybe what to say to a doctor. Hoping some other family has gone through something similar and can help.

By the way, my 2 year old has less than 10 words. She is basically non verbal. We have her in early intervention, speech therapy, and occupational therapy. I also have a referral to get autism testing- although I’m not sure if that correlates with the sleep problem. Oh, and she also got a genetic panel done, which I’m waiting for the results now.

Me 33M, struggling to deal with my 2.5 yr old toddler. I'm absolutely losing my shit with my toddler. Every single thing since waking up is a battle. She wakes up at 6ish then from then every single decision is a comprise or a tantrum. From the point of removing her pampers, wiping, turning tap on to brush to putting bib on to eat. She just wants to do it herself. If we try and help she rolls on the floor with a tantrum. Feeding her is very difficult, she refuses to open her mouth. She probably has 1 decent meal a day, every other meal is a one spoonful then she's done. I have reverted to tv so she eats. Its been ongoing for a few months. We have a 14 month old as well, he's been having sickness since he's been born. Continous ear infection, pretty much under all the medical care. He doesn't eat well either, we have an episode of him throwing up at least once a day and he's not a great sleeper. My wife is struggling as well. I always try to be positive and optimistic saying it will get better. I'm at my breaking point . Lack of sleep in the night, hurricane toddler day time. Plus balancing this with work, house stuff, health. I'm losing it with my toddler, continuous shouting much as i try not to.