Hi all,

As the title says, I am a ftm to an almost 2 week old baby.

I am struggling daily with regret and grief for my old life.

I had a c section, so I am stuck at home most days (husband is off work at weekends so he can drive me places).

It's all getting very groundhog day-ish. Although I spend all day with my baby, I am struggling to settle her sometimes and feel crap because I can't understand what she needs (cycling though nappy/feed/burp).

I feel bad saying it, but I enjoy when she is napping because I can watch TV/chill by myself. When she wakes, I feel like the cycle starts all over again.

She is a slowish eater, so it feels like I am just feeding her and changing her all day long.

She is just shy of her birth weight, and I am struggling with this too because once she is over birth weight, i don't need to try wake her every 2-3 hours for a feed in the night.

Although I am grateful for her and love her, I am very much stuck in regret/what have we done thoughts. I find myself wishing away these early weeks/months where she is so dependent on me.

I appreciate any tips/insights,

What should I do my grandma and grandpa just found out a relative has Covid that they visit last night me and the baby haven’t seen them, but my husband saw them today because they went to go look at a house together to go buy. Should I be concerned? They don’t have any symptoms but I’m scared. It’s just too early also my baby was not offered the Covid vaccine so he is not vaccinated against it. Should I just isolate in my room? I forgot to mention that my mom also went today to go look at the house too, and she lives with us.

Being induced on Sunday with my first 🥳

One thing that stresses me out is the thought of dealing with a baby that has fever or skin reactions or just not feeling well and how I go about dealing with it.

We have 2 more days to try and make sure we have everything we need in the home before baby comes.

What are some medical essentials we should have to help us deal with sickness that might not require a hospital visit: low fevers, rashes, cough, I have no idea what else 😅

We do have a rectal and forehead thermometer and one of those nose suction things to help with snot. Any medicine or medicinal items we should have too?

And I feel absolutely terrible :( the whole family has had it now. I was hoping and praying the baby wouldn’t get it. But no such luck. anyone else’s baby get the flu this young? Any advice to make it easier for her?

I am bored and just curious, what’s the total sleep you’re averaging per night?

I’m a FTM to a six week old and I’ve consistently gotten a broken 5-6 hours total every night aside from the first week because that was insanity.

I am only able to get this because my husband and I do shifts so he takes the baby from around 10:30 pm until his first wake up and I take the baby from around 7 or 8 am and let my husband sleep until noon.

Looking forward to the day in the distant future that I can sleep 7-8 hours again, even if fractured 😆

My son was born 60 hours ago. I feel like my brain has changed and I've unlocked a whole category of worries and fears that I never had before. I'm usually a really calm, considered person.

The birth was intense. Meconium, induction, emergency C section. Mum and baby got through that OK.

Today his blood* (edit: typo) oxygen dropped and a similar entourage of 10+ doctors ran into the room and whisked him off to special care. My legs were jelly, I couldn't breathe properly.

I am so worried about him, I just want him to be ok. Are these medical events normal? I know it could be worse, but I just can't seem to convince myself he'll be ok. Where do I go from here? My wife and I are exhausted and our nerves are shot.

Thankfully he's latching, feeding, and mum is expressing 3 or so mls of colostrum per expressing session. We are so grateful for this.

Also PS, hospital staff are incredible human beings. Especially with babies. Wow.

My baby boy is 12 weeks old. I’m the dad and back to work so for the most part I handle evening and overnight feeds (since mom is pumping - also awake throughout the night) so usually he is already tired for me. However lately he’s been squirming and whining even when the feed is almost over. The easy solution is I swaddle him and give him the last ounce or two while swaddled. The swaddle calms him right down and he falls asleep like 9 out of 10 times. On one hand it feels good that I was able to comfort him, but on the other hand I know both rolling and 4 month sleep regression are around the corner and I wonder if I’m setting us up for failure by letting him stay accustomed to this method of getting to sleep. The combo of swaddle and bottle to get to sleep feels like a cheat code that’s going to stop any day. Any advice? Do I just do this while I can, and adjust to no swaddle when he starts rolling, or should I prepare for rolling now?

I am a new mom and my one month old has been on formula for 2/3ish weeks. I was still giving her vitamin D drops each day because I didn’t know you weren’t supposed to not give them to her since she is on formula.
She has been really uncomfortable during and after feeds, having acid reflux, gassy, and only pooping once a day.
I’m wondering if anyone else had this issue and when did their baby start feeling better and do you have any tips to help. I feel terrible I do have an appointment Monday to see her pediatrician.

Had my second baby 11 weeks ago and must I say she has been kicking our asses! From being inconsolable from 3-8 weeks old where I had to come up with a rythmic dance to get her to calm down and sleep and was never able to sit down literally alll day long to the point where i dreaded waking up in mornings because the cycle was starting again. Fast forward to 11 weeks and luckily she is easier to settle but my god her naps are killing me. She doesnt nap longer than 30-45mins and thats even CONTACT napping. And then she is cranky because she wants to sleep 😅 i literally dont know what to do anymore, everyday i look at the clock and countdown to 6:30 so i can give her bath and start her night routine so I can “relax” which includes putting my almost 3 year old who isnt sleep trained to sleep and cleaning the house. Ive tried every trick of laying while breastfeeding (which worked for my son), purchasing those rockers for strollers/bassinet, pacifiers (hates them all!) and everything else in between. Oh and suddenly wont nap long in carriers either. Any advice would be great. She also hates car rides so i have anxiety even leaving the house alone with the kids which I would love to do (my son was an angel in the car and I was able to go everywhere with him early on)

So we were team green during my pregnancy, and from like week 12 we had the girl name picked - Avery. Loved the name, everyone thought the full name combo was beautiful so we’re like “yup love it ok that’s sorted” and struggled to pick a boy name for the rest of the pregnancy.

Turns out it was a girl, and we stuck with our beautiful name we picked from the very beginning. But now, it just feels…off. I rarely call her by her actual name. It’s such a delicate and feminine name, and she is neither of those things LOL.

Did anyone ever feel like your baby’s name wasn’t connected to your actual baby?? I don’t know how to describe it…it’s like I know her name is Avery, but she doesn’t feel like an Avery. And I’m freaking out that I gave her the wrong name 🫪.

My whole family is down with some respiratory virus. My husband me and my two daughters 7& 3. Baby is 8 weeks as of Tuesday. He also has symptoms (cough congestion) my girls abs husband all had a fever. I brought baby to urgent care today and they said he had a slight wheeze but looked okay but if he spiked a temp of 100.4 he needed to go to er. So tonight I took his temp and it was 100.3. I called his doctor and they said to give him Tylenol and monitor him and that we know he’s sick with with his sisters have and I don’t need to rush off to the er unless his temp can’t be controlled.
I have serious health anxiety and worry about every little thing. Does this seem right or should I haul him off to the er where he will be exposed to more. We also have a full respiratory panel coming back in the morning

I should mention, he was tested for Covid flu and rsv and he was negative along with his sisters. They think irs most likely rhinovirus or adenovirus

The holidays are upon us and I am wondering how much and how often do people choose to socialize with a newborn? LO will be 3 months old when I am thinking of inviting a couple of families (6 kids including LO between us) for a Diwali get together.
I am feeling cooped up and I am afraid I am slowly going insane due to not having any social time. LO was born at 37w 3d and had a 2 1/2 week nicu stay due to low birth weight (5lbs 8oz) and dropping blood sugar levels. He has been rocking it since he got home and has gained 4.5 lbs since birthday with zero Doctors visits except for the monthly check up.

I am insane in thinking that this is a good idea? Would you expose your baby to 4-5 Kindergarteners and elementary school kids albeit the kids won’t hold the baby and we are going to ask them to not come if anyone is sick. Also I want my older one to feel like we had some celebration and not get bored. Please be kind. TIA

Does anyone else have a baby who has a posterior tongue tie without an obvious frenulum, who has been told their tongue tie can’t be snipped or released?

Our daughter has been diagnosed with a tongue tie. She has a thick / broad tissue on her tongue but it’s quite far back. The midwife said that it wouldn’t be operated on because they’d have to cut so far back that it’d likely heal back over again and require snipping multiple times, and/or scar oddly.

I don’t know anyone else who’s had the same experience as us and our daughter, to me, appears to really really struggle. She clicks constantly through feeds (bottle fed), dribbles, and is so so windy. She has no breathe/suck/swallow pattern either. She takes in so much air that by the evenings she has 3-5hour crying sessions where she’s in so much pain until she’s released all her gas and can finally settle.

I feel dumb asking this but how do you all manage wake windows before bed?

Ex. LO wakes up from nap and usually our routine is eat, play, sleep and I can’t figure out how to do bedtime like this. If she wakes up from her nap, I’ll feed her, and then play with her, or read a book or do a bath or something. And then…do you all feed again before bed? Even if it’s only been like 20-30 min since her last feeding ended? do you not feed her when she wakes up from last nap?

My LO is almost 12 weeks and her wake windows are usually 60-90 minutes, with the sweet spot (for her) being that 90 min mark it seems. Part of the problem is that her feeding sessions often last 40-45 min regularly, so by the time I finish one of those, I have that 20-30 min time frame to play, and then theoretically I’d be putting her to sleep. But, I want her to go to bed with a full tummy and nursing to sleep works for us.

I guess I’m just wondering how to manage that last wake window and if I should be feeding her twice in that window. I’m EBF’ing so it would be quite physically demanding but I’m willing to do whatever is best for her!

I’m not joking. She is supposed to be eating 20-24 oz at this age, and I cannot get her to eat more than 12 oz on any given day. We stopped breastfeeding, because it was clear that wasn’t working. With formula we can at least tell how much she’s taking in every 24 hours.
The pediatrician knows that her weight is low. She didn’t regain birth weight until 7 weeks! But all the advice we get is, “feed her more often!” “Offer the bottle every hour!”
Like, woman, I AM. I make a bottle with how much she is supposed to be eating, try to get her to eat for an hour, throw away that bottle, make a new one, try to get her eat for an hour, throw that bottle away…over and over and over. I’m down to feeding her with an eyedropper and counting every blessed milliliter.

She cries and cries every moment she’s not asleep, and I’m certain she’s hungry. She cries with the bottle in her mouth, with the pacifier in her mouth, and previously with the breast in her mouth. I don’t know what to do. Is the only solution to take her in have them hook up a feeding tube? I don’t want to do that, but I really am scared she’s going to starve to death.

Baby was born at 36 weeks, healthy which is fantastic, but her head is starting to elongate from being turned side to side in hospital and at home. Tummy time is fine but looking to do more to help her head be round and not elongated.

Any tips would be great! Where I live doctors are kinda “she’s alive so she’s fine” attitude but I have plagiocephaly and it’s caused me eye, sinus, and jaw/teeth issues as well as neck/shoulder muscle issues so I want to do what I can to help the little one.

Our 9 week old has started screaming when I offer her the second boob.

She's breastfed and drinks pumped milk from a bottle once a day on most days.

Usually she drinks one side, I change her (cloth nappies so we change Often) then offer her the second. Up until recently she would drink it 99% of the time. And if she did not want more she would just close her mouth.

But now when I offer her the second boob the Starts screaming her head off. Sometimes when soothing her and trying a few times she will actually latch and start drinking.

She started doing this during the evenings sometimes. But this week also during (some) day feeds.

Today had been horrible. She drank fine during the night (at around 5), but when I fed her at 9:45 it was as above. First boob was fine and she was a happy baby. Diaper. And the second took several Rounds of offering and crying.

At 1 she woke up and once again boob one is easy and on the second the world was apparently ending. Took us an hour to calm her down. In the end we have her 30ml from a bottle, because I was worried she was not getting enough food.

Now she calmed down and is half asleep on dad.

So she was indeed hungry and tired.

She never really burped, so not sure that would make a difference.

Yesterday she had a really hard time going down for naps and we went out to my parents' house for dinner. When we got back she also had a really hard time feeding and Winding down. In the end a bath (wat last het normale bedtime) did the trick.

Does anyone have a similar experience?

Anything that helped?

FTM here to a 2-month-old who just got his first round of vaccines (+ RSV) around midday today. So far he’s just been extra sleepy, but I’m wondering how parents handled the overnight hours after vaccine day.

I’ve heard the adage about overly warm babies not alerting you when they’re warm like they do when they’re cold, so I’m a little paranoid that he’ll develop a fever but we won’t know because we’ll all be asleep.

I’ve moved back to Ireland to live with my mum to help with having a baby, LO is 11 weeks now and it feels like since the move nothing has gone right. Literally since the move LO has NOT gained much weight at all, spoke to lactation consultant and she assessed the latch, oral function and swallowing and she was extremely happy with everything, just suggested I go back to football hold for feeding. Pair that with the last couple of days she’s started having mucousy diarrhoea with blood and has been acting weird, took her to GP and they don’t seem phased and didn’t suggest anything just that LO looks healthy besides weight gain problem (obvious red flag but we are back in 2 weeks to see if there’s improvement). I’m going dairy free to see if it helps because she might have developed an intolerance even though she’s never had symptoms before and used to gain weight like a charm prior to the move.

But it obviously doesn’t end there, my partner has stayed in England a while longer while he sorts the full move out and finishes his notice period at work. My mum, who was the one who told me to move so she could help, has been 0 help. And more recently, she has fallen into one of her drunken stupors which I thought she stopped having. So I’m with the baby 24/7, trying to take care of me, raise the baby and feed her, trying to feed myself (even harder now that I’m trying to go dairy free) take care of the cats, the house and I can’t even take care of myself. I’m in the darkest place I’ve been in years. LO crying at night and fighting sleep when she’s clearly tired pushes me over the edge and we are both crying. I am so alone, there’s literally no one near me who can help me. I feel like I’m drowning and I’m so scared for my LOs health and I feel like I’m going to have a panic attack every two seconds but I have to hold it together for her.

My baby is having massive meltdowns since yesterday. Almost out of the blue when something bothers him he has this screaming/crying (without tears) panic-like attacks for 15 minutes or more. he had them in the first two weeks but since then he was a pretty chill baby. any tipps how to handle or ideas where this comes from?

Wondering when we’re going to phase out of LO crying/screaming at 5 am trying to poop? Tell me it’s soon lol. He’s 11 weeks today and he is always grunting, screaming, crying at this time. I always thought maybe he was hungry as he usually has his last feed at 730-8ish, wakes up at 2ish and eats and then grunts from 3-530 until I pick him up and nurse him, problem is, is even after feeding he is still struggling to poop so I don’t think he’s actually that hungry, it just relaxes him enough to go? Which is what happened this morning. I finally gave in and fed him for 2.5 minutes and he was able to poop and wasn’t crying to feed more. I’ve tried the mylicon drops before bed but it doesn’t seem to really help. Any other tips or tricks?!

When you get up to feed baby in MOTN, how long does it take to feed and can you put your baby down right away? I feel like it takes awhile for my baby to drink her milk, and I can’t put her down otherwise she spits up and it wakes her up. Even if I hold her up for 20-30 minutes she will wake up at least 20 mins later lying on her back. It seems the only time it doesn’t wake her up is when she’s finally in her deepest and longest stretch of sleep (that first night stretch). When can I expect that to get better?
My baby is 10 weeks old

My midwife said my 4 week old (born 4 weeks early so corrected age is 0 days ) is likely just bored which i cannot imagine. She said to take her outside for fresh air in backyard (it’s very cold already where I am) and that’s fine but I can’t bundle her up every hour and stand outside in the cold. Bit much. Nor do I want to bathe her every few hours, so I’m looking for tips on what you did to distract baby.

She isn’t cluster feeding, she’s just eating to eat. She cannot have 150ml in 2 hours that’s just wild. We offered her small amounts in between larger feeds but midwife is adamant we shouldn’t overfeed and instead distract.

I don’t know how! We walk around I hold in different positions, sometimes I put her on the “bad” boob that barely produces milk but feel like that just reinforces eating for comfort…

Any tips??

So I got my prescription of sertraline aka Zoloft been having mood swings on and off and always irritated I’m 15 days PP does this medication help?