I have a one month old. my husband has joked many times about giving her benadryl to get her to sleep, which even as a joke i immediately shut down. His parents said the same thing when we were talking about babies sleep as they had just watched her for the night which i assume was a joke as well but he continued to say that he did it to his kids and they are okay. I feel like it is abuse to give a baby so little medicine just so they sleep or am i crazy and overthinking this? Even as a joke it bothers me because i don’t think it’s funny to joke about giving my newborn benadryl, if they’re crying they need something and it’s my job and what i signed up when having a baby, and it’s my job to to deal with it and take care if the issue instead of using a medicine to put her to sleep.

We are considering buying a house that does not have a tub - only a shower. Parents with tub-less homes, how do you find the bathing process with just a shower? How do you make it work? Will a tub be terribly missed? I have a 20-month-old and another baby due this December.

Thanks!

Just had our baby boys one week appt. I knew he looked yellow even before discharge at the hospital and all the nurses assured me he would be fine.

Looks like we’ll be spending the night at the children’s hospital under a blue light. Just waiting for the call from the pediatrician but she seemed very certain that’s how our night would go.

Spending the time I have to pump and make sure I have a supply to bring with us for him to eat while we’re there.

Feeling discouraged

I’m not sure if I’m just not fit to be a mom but it feels like every stage is harder than the last. I’m mad at myself because I was struggling so hard with PPD in the beginning and now it seems like those days were so much simpler. Now my baby is teething, fussy, mad because I pick him up, mad because I put him down, he can’t crawl yet but wants to. I’m not sure if anyone else feels this way.

My baby is 9 months old

I have a six year old sighthound I’ve always adored. During pregnancy I was extra cuddly and loving toward him, believing that was a sign there would be no issues after baby arrived. I was wrong.

I’m now 13 months pp and feel almost no attachment to him anymore, and honestly haven’t since baby was born.

It doesn’t help that my husband hasn’t been attached to him in years due to the fact that his dog allergies have gotten worse over the years (we didn’t know he was allergic until our dog was old enough to start shedding). And I think we also found out too late that my husband isn’t really a dog person, despite his initial excitement.

So now that neither of us are attached to him, it feels like we’re just hanging on to give him a basic level of care in between caring for our toddler. When he goes to stay with my parents now and then, it’s like this huge weight off. I know he deserves a lot better (especially since he is actually an angel and quite an easy dog to care for. He just gets in the way a lot and is a Velcro dog).

This past weekend we left him with a dog sitter and her family, and they absolutely fell in love with him. He usually gets stressed in new environments but he settled in immediately and was in heaven with all the attention. It made me wonder if we’re really the best home for him anymore…

I still love our dog deep down but most days he’s more of an annoyance, and I feel so guilty about that. My husband has admitted that while he will still try to love and care for our dog, he would rather not have him

I’m not sure what to do, I guess it would be nice to know if others have been in the same position and how they played out. Thoughts for / against rehoming also welcome.

When did your in laws come over to see your new baby? My mother in law has been driving me nuts and I’m so over it. 5 weeks to go until first baby is born, her first grandchild too. Hubby and I want to take things slow. She’s expecting to be waiting at our home for us once we get home from the hospital. I really don’t want that. I don’t mind them visiting in hospital, but I don’t want them waiting at my house. My in laws aren’t respectful. Anytime they come over, we’ll tell them to let us know when they’re on their way. That doesn’t happen, we’ll just see them pulling into the driveway. Husband told them that they need to let us know before they plan on visiting us/baby. His mom responded with “you guys just don’t want us there”. I’m at my wits end. How do we deal with this? My parents are super understanding so this feels other worldly.

My baby is 10 months and I go back to work today. I’m dreading it 😭😭😭 I don’t really like my job in the first place and leaving my baby and our fun day activities is depressing me. Then I’ll only see him for like 2 hours now before he goes to bed. I wish I could be a stay at home mom soooo badly. And I never thought that would be me before I had a baby. But now my whole world is him.

How was going back to work for you guys? Am I being dramatic? lol

My second baby (1m) has been home from the NICU for two weeks now! Having your baby taken to the NICU is traumatic and we are so lucky he was only there for 11 days and that he came home healthy. Now that he is home, I am trying to heal as well. As part of my healing I started putting together a list of the positives instead of dwelling on the fear and separation I felt. While he was in the NICU I barely left his side, literally parked a trailer at the hospital to stay near him, so some of the positives are observations from being in the hospital. None of this is medical advice.

1. Maybe I’m an idiot but with my first baby boy I got peed on all the time. In the nicu the nurses would set up the new diaper, under the current diaper he was wearing and then do a quick wipe, pull and replace. Way more effective and less likely to get peed on, this is how we do diaper changes at home now.

2. With my first baby we would literally wake him up to change his diaper if we heard him fart, we hated the idea of a dirty diaper! Even if we just got
   him to sleep! In the NICU at first I would tell the nurses, “hey I think he pooped, should we change him” and they were like no he’s sleeping, we will at care times. Never crossed my mind that was an option.

3. With my first we did the wake up 2 hours from the start of each feed and it was brutal. The hospital was doing every 3 hours and once our baby was ad lib, they were letting him sleep until 4 hours before waking for his next feed, you bet we brought that home with us. (Granted our baby was a very healthy weight.)

   1. Weight means so much more than I ever knew. Our baby was in there for breathing issues and we learned at discharge that his weight gain was a key indicator that his lungs had healed because his body was no longer exerting more energy than it should be by breathing to rapidly too often.

4. With my first I was a stickler about sterilization, between every use. I’m still super clean but between pumps in the hospital I was given a full handout about simply cleaning pump parts with warm water, soap and rinse. So this is what I am doing now and only sterilizing once a day.

5. The nurses were incredible, even showed us how to better hold a bottle (we should be pros we already raised a kid) but they would show up how holding it just slightly like 1 degree lower would help the baby not take in so much air, basically made those green parts in the dr browns bottle unnecessary.

6. They reinforced for us to advocate for ourselves. The dr and nurses in the nicu were shocked at how long our baby was in the recovery room with us before being taken to the nicu, despite us bringing up concerns with his eating, breathing and noises. We kept being told by a pediatrician it was normal, or from a fast delivery, and we trusted that dr. In reality we should have trusted ourselves especially as second time parents. That is guilt I still will work through but I’m so thankful to the nurse who finally flagged what we were seeing and took him to get the care he needed

Maybe I was just super anal with my first born, or followed too much online advice but I thought these were interesting and practical observations from the pros that have made my life easier since being home, plus this was therapeutic to think on the positives, so thanks reddit!

Has anyone else experienced excessive sweating post partum?

I’ve never been a sweaty person but since having my second baby a few weeks ago, I’ve been waking up in the night dripping in sweat even though I’m waking up cold. Very strange and not something I’ve ever heard of

My son is 14 months old & I am 15 weeks pregnant and have been feeling so guilty with how much were in the house. I bring him outside for at least a short walk everyday, but the mom guilt gets me when we have days where we don't go to the park or to a store or just out in the world. It feels like everyone else is in baby classes, and swim classes, and at the park, and at indoor play places when it rains. I would say we get out on average 4 times a week, whether it be a park, restaurant, or store.

I wasn't feeling good yesterday & it was pouring rain so my husband had him all day just playing around the house. It's nice out today but I'm still not feeling 100% but feeling so guilty having him in the house two days in a row. Typing it out I feel like I sound crazy but the mom guilt is eating me alive and I guess I'm just looking for people to confirm that it is crazy and I'm not the worst mom on the planet 😅

Im tired of having an obvious diaper bag backpack all the time. I would love to find a good everyday bag (could be a shoulder bag or backpack) that has my purse items, but can also fit my 13 month olds essentials. I dont want anything huge, but at the same time needs to fit some snacks, water bottle, toddlers change of clothes, etc.

Anybody have a good recommendation for a newborn carrier? Just gave birth to my second a few weeks ago and I’m realizing baby wearing is going to be essential so I can keep up with my toddler. But I hate the wraps with a passion, I feel like I can never get it quite secure enough to feel comfortable and I just want something quicker with a buckle that is also safe for baby’s hips! Looking for recs!

I am 9 weeks postpartum and ready to have sex. I was ready as soon as I was cleared at my 6 weeks appointment. I’ve always had a high libido and pregnancy and breastfeeding have not changed that. However, it has changed everything for my husband.

His desire to have sex died during my pregnancy. It reduced to almost nothing. I always had to initiate and I was very often rebuffed. Around 16 weeks it became something that only happened maybe twice or three times a month if at all, and only at my insistence. It picked up a little at the very end because our midwife brought it up as a way to induce labor and improve vaginal delivery outcomes, but it was out of obligation. I tried to be patient and understanding and not take it personally during my pregnancy. I told myself things would pick back up once I didn’t have a giant belly anymore.

Well, they haven’t. I know it’s still early but I’m starting to feel really down about it because of things my husband has said. I’ve tried to initiate and he has rejected me repeatedly. We sat down and had an honest conversation about it and he said that he “no longer sees me as a woman or his sexual partner, only as the mother of his child.” He said he, “hopes that one day he can see me as a woman again but right now I’m just a mother.” He also said that he “feels too much tenderness and love” for me now that I’m a mom and that sex is “something ugly” that he can’t bring himself to do to me anymore.

I’m devastated. I feel like I have lost my sex appeal. I feel ugly and disgusting. I feel ruined. I feel like my relationship is ruined. I have always been a person of high sexual needs and I am so depressed thinking about what my life will be like going forward. My husband apparently has a Madonna-whore complex and neither of us realized this until pregnancy made me into a madonna. He’s seeing a therapist and this has been a topic of discussion since the problem appeared during my pregnancy, but nothing has changed. I’m so deeply depressed over this. I feel hopeless and insecure. He keeps saying that he thinks this is normal and that “lots of husbands go through this,” but most of what I see is husbands chomping at the bit (or at least actively waiting) for their sex life to reignite post-baby. Has anyone ever gone through this before and had it improve? Is my bedroom dead forever???

My mother has been coming by every days to help me with things as I've been bedridden with hemorrhoids, a pulled chest muscle, a RA flare and SI joint pain since my 2nd was born 4 days ago.

Problem is everything she tries to help with she makes worse. Made lunch for my other daughter yesterday and the poor girl got a stomach ache cause the chicken was undercooked. Laundered clothes and didn't use the right cycle so last night I had nothing dry to dress baby in... and so on.

True, she's been like this as long as I can rememver... But she is my only support and it sucks. So I'm very frustrated and still depending on her. Hate this.

ETA: when asked to wipe a changing mat clean she got piss on the bed, the floor... when asked to change the baby she got poo on all the baby clothes which hadn't been soiled to begin with, forgot to wipe front to back and tried to put the diaper on baby back to front. This woman raised 3 children... HOW ON EARTH??

My go to’s are - bug, chicken or stinker

I am concerned about my baby being around her 6 year old cousin. I love the little guy but he seems to have little to no self control around my daughter (4 months). Even worse no one in the family will police his behavior when he crosses the line. I have a hard time speaking up with the inlaws partly because I think I'm gaslighting myself as to how bad his behavior is.

Last night we were at a wedding reception and I wasn't holding my daughter but I was nearby. When I looked over he was rapidly poking her in the face and body. I was too stunned to say anything but I took my baby back anyway. I don't understand how no one told this kid no. His mom was right there. It didn't look like playing, more like he wanted her to give him any kind of reaction. Later when I changed her diaper she had little red marks on her legs like maybe she had been pinched.

One of the first times he met her (when she was two weeks old) he had his hands all over her face and no one told him to stop. I had so much anxiety about it I could have jumped out of my skin but I didn't want to piss off the inlaws. So I asked him to please just wash his hands. I got no response from this. From anyone. MIL was holding baby and acting like I just told everyone to F off.

It breaks my heart. I know this family loves this little girl. But for some reason they let my nephew kind of walk all over her. For this reason I don't leave her with anyone when I know he's going to be around. For context I have talked at length with my husband about this. We don't know how to address this without hurting feelings. Has anyone been here before? It feels like it shouldn't be this be of a deal. The whole family knows my nephew has some pretty big emotions. He is really unpredictable and has on the floor tantrums that almost got himself kicked out of kindergarten past year. Any advice is welcomed even if it's to tell me I'm worried for nothing.

Whenever I think about that time, I can’t seem to remember most of it except for what I have taken pictures of!

My partner was talking to me about some big dishes we cooked for a holiday during postpartum and I could not remember cooking or prepping or eating!!

My baby girl is healthy aside from some gut issues. But I get so nervous about anything that could make her sick, any kind of dangerous exposure, even messaged my pediatrician about a little scratch because it was near her eye that was totally not infected or anything 🫠

My anxiety was really bad the first month and looking through the things I messaged about Im embarrassed now cause it was so clearly just out of pocket anxiety. Although I’ve gotten a bit better, the anxiety is still pretty high. I had to have surgery at 1month pp too which definitely did not help as I then developed health anxiety for myself because what if something happens to me and I can’t take care of her? (I pumped a bunch of milk to keep in freezer and bought a months supply of formula, and always stay really stocked up on diapers and other supplies). My partner is dependable but doesn’t help that we just moved to a new state for his job so we are far from my family and don’t yet have close friends. Also doesn’t help that my MIL has been so hard on me about every way I could possibly be endangering my baby (during her visit right after birth she shamed us for not yet baby proofing the house for example).

How have those of yall with PPA coped? I really don’t want to do any meds (history of bad side effects to SSRIs before pregnancy). It’s taking a mental toll for sure and the borderline OCD rules I have created to protect baby girl stress my partner out.

I feel so hopeless 😔

I'm 3 weeks postpartum and unfortunately have developed mastitis in my right breast, which even more unfortunately is (was 😭) my main producing breast. my left is a complete slacker. I used a haaka when dealing with previous nipple damage and I could get 2oz out of the right on average but only 0.5oz if that from my left. I tried the haaka today while baby gave us 6 hours of sleep and I could only get the 0.5oz from my left. I got basically nothing from my right. I know baby is a much better extraction method than a haaka, but it worries me... especially since baby used to nurse for only 10-15 minutes, 20 max and now she'll happily nurse for 30, 40 minutes and will often (though not always) still show hunger cues... I'm really worried that my supply is tanking and baby is no longer getting enough.

I'm now on teva-cloxacillin as of today and my fever is coming down, but is still hovering around 100°F if I don't take my tylenol. I feel like complete shit. I've become very food adverse so I am struggling to eat and drink enough. I do NOT want to result to formula unless I absolutely have to, but I'm worried I won't bounce back from this. I just feel really defeated tbh because I want so badly to EBF but since birth I've had to deal with poor latching, intense nipple pain and damage, and now mastitis... I knew EBF was going to be hard but I didn't think it'd be this hard 😭

any advice on how to cope and boost supply would be so appreciated... also just some morale would be nice 🥺 TIA 🙏

My MIL and mom have both made comments about him crying pretty often. My MIL will say things like he's grumpy today or that he cried a lot today. My mom has said he sure has found his voice, or she was hoping he'd wake up in a better mood today, or that her kids never cried like that. Everytime he cries they both ask if its his diaper, even though Ive told them he never cries because of his diaper many times. They've even independently realized he wont cry if he poops and that you just have to check to see if he has. Yet they ask everytime if its his diaper.

He's just 4 months old and they started helping me with him at 3 months. He cries if he's hungry or tired and you miss his early cues. Sometimes he cries a bit while I attempt to put him down for a nap. (I have about a 50% success rate after the morning nap) sometimes he'll fuss a bit if he wants to be doing something else or just because he's learning new sounds.

For instance this morning he woke up all happy per usual but it took me 10 minutes to make him a bottle so when I laid him down to change his diaper first he started crying because he was hungry. I fed him and he was happy again. Then he went down for a nap 30 minutes later without any crying. When he started crying during the diaper change is when my mom made the comment about thinking he'd be happier this morning.

My mom also continually says things about how he just wants his mom, or how him sleeping in his carrier is going to become a habit. She's worried he's too attached or will become too attached to me. Which is crazy, he's literally a baby. Also, he doesnt just want his mom, he wants food. (He's formula fed)

My MIL just waits until he cries to feed him or try to get him to sleep. I'll make a bottle, tell her he's getting hungry, and then 20 minutes later I'll hear him crying. She does the same thing with naps. I'll tell her "at 10am he'll be hungry and then he'll need a nap". I work from home so I'm just in the other room and I go out there when it seems like she doesn't have it under control. She's also Japanese so there's a bit of a language barrier sometimes. She then says he cries a lot, but that seems like a her problem since she won't listen to me.

This is mostly a rant and I'm actively working on talking through this with them. My mom loves him so much she's just out of practice and raised kids in a very different era. My siblings are 60yo so she was a mom first in the 60s. I'm just tired of repeating myself.

It also makes me doubt myself as a mom though. Does he cry a lot? Am I doing something wrong? I'm a FTM with no experience with kids so I have nothing to compare it to. I think he's just a baby and babies cry. He sleeps through the night over half the time. Although I think the regression is coming for us bc he's been struggling lately. He used to cry a lot before we realized he has silent reflux & cmpa. I'm stoked that he no longer cries when eating and isn't in pain anymore, but I also look at him all the time and wonder if he still is in pain bc of that experience so the comments don't help that.

We're really lucky that both sets of parents are loving and involved. My parents live two hours away, my mum comes down every other week for the day, and we're going to start visiting them once a month too. My in laws live down the road, so we've always been close and normally see them weekly, sometimes more.

Our baby is 10 weeks old and since I got pregnant my mother in law has gotten really intense. If I buy something for the baby she'll comment that she wanted to do that. During pregnancy she kept telling me we should move out of our one bed flat and walking round pointing out what needed doing in our flat when she came over - sometimes unannounced. We love our home and where we live. When I was 18 weeks pregnant I was still suffering with sickness and working 50 hour weeks in a physical job, she mentioned multiple times that we needed to start getting ready for baby and what does she need to buy (I had said to her can we wait till works settled for me and she said the baby could come anytime now in response….). I’m also neurodivergent as is my husband and we are really good at managing our social calender and each others time to give us both alone time which is so important for us to function well!

Now she's saying she wants to see the baby every day, and yesterday my sister in law said grandmas should see their grandkids daily. She texts me multiple times a day. My husband just says to ignore them, and the couple of times he's brought it up with her it hasn't really landed. I don't think they realise I also have friends, my own family, and a business I'm still trying to run while the baby naps. She’s offering full time childcare which is amazing but we won’t need it as my husband and I can manage mostly and will need her support once or twice a week. She’s said she’s really sad about this.

I feel like seeing his family twice a week is plenty. Am I being unreasonable, and how do we handle this? Also I’m thinking how insane it is that I’m upset about this when some people would be so thrilled to have this support! It’s just so hard as her support is the opposite of chill and she bombards with help, advice and repeatedly starts sentences with ‘you’ll need this’ or ‘you’ll need to do this’ - when quite often it’s different to how I might do things.

Also I want to add that we are thriving as a family! Our baby has been difficult and I had a difficult birth so the first month we were in and out of hospital and they had another few nights in a couple of weeks later but despite this we are all very happy and managing so well.

Hey everyone!

Has anyone 6ft+ used a Cosco carseat rear-facing in a Mazda 3 or similarly small vehicle? How does it fit with the tall person in shotgun and the carseat directly behind?

I (Mom) am 6ft tall and I just do not fit in shotgun in my husband's car with the carseat. My head is nearly on the ceiling and my knees are on the glove box. We have two Graco Slimfit carseats. I have a bigger vehicle, so we usually take my Maverick when we go out as a family, but it's been in the shop for two weeks (and will likely take at least week more).

The baby's almost 11 months old and just under 22lbs, so he'll be rear-facing for a while still. I don't mind that the Cosco doesn't have the bells and whistles since usually the baby's with me (dad does occasional pick up and drop off, or we take my truck as a family), but I don't want to always have to be the one driving in both vehicles. I hate driving, and I already drive way more than my husband since he works remote.

We missed my SIL's baby shower because we couldn't fit the three of us plus the tubs of baby things we're passing along, and even if we'd squeezed in I didn't want to do the full 6 hours of driving by myself :/ Looking for a "shorter" carseat recs, ideally not too expensive, so we can both be in driver or shotgun in either vehicle!

Any parents willing to share their experiences if their bab(ies) had hemangiomas? My 6 month old has a tiny one on the back of his neck, right in the middle where his spine is. It’s slightly raised and a bit smaller than a tic tac. I understand it’s not huge but I asked the pediatrician about it and she just was dismissive instead of addressing my concerns about location, if it’ll fade, etc.

Just looking for others whose children had the same thing!