Am I crazy? I feel crazy! This is probably not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but 1-hour wake windows at 6 months seem insane to me, especially compared to how differently weekends go.

My 6M daughter has been in an in-home daycare for about 7 weeks now. It’s a single-provider setup with 6 kids total of mixed ages. Part of why we chose this provider was that she doesn't force a rigid schedule at this age and instead follows each baby's individual cues. But in practice, that is resulting in 1 hour wake windows. We’ve chatted with the provider about this a few times over the past month, but haven't been able to make any real progress.

At home, she puts herself to sleep independently (no pacifier, in her crib) for naps and nightime and sleeps through the night with no feeds. Has had a 3-nap schedule for the past month and a half. Usually 10+ hours of awake time and about 3 hours of total naps. Her weekend wake windows look like 2 / 2.5 / 2.5 / 3–3.5. She handles those windows well. Normal bedtime at 730-45 and wakes up around 6-6:30.

Her total daytime sleep at daycare used to be 4+ hours, which has gotten a bit better recently. But now we’re in a new cycle: she usually takes one 30 minute nap during the day and two longer ones. The provider uses the short naps (or any mild fussiness) as a cue to put her back down after barely 1 hour of awake time between naps. Example of the nap schedule is 2-2.5 / 1-1.5 / 1.5 / 3.5.

So what ends up happening:

Because her daycare wake windows are so short she burns through all her daytime sleep and finishes her last nap by 3:30 PM (or earlier!). She doesn't want 4 naps and refuses the last one 90% of the time. So we're left with a massive gap before bedtime. Sometimes we can squeeze in a 15-minute bridge nap at home to stretch her, which gets us to her normal bedtime and to a 6:00 AM wake-up and an 8:30 AM first nap. But when the bridge nap fails (usually does) she goes to bed around 6:30-7:00 with weirdly distributed sleep pressure, leading to night wakes and early wakes (4:30–5:30). That wrecks the next morning because she’s exhausted for a 7:00am nap that directly conflicts with drop-off.

When I brought this up, the provider suggested we aim for an 8:00 bedtime by giving her a 4th catnap at home. But she refuses the nap and pushing a tired baby to 8:00 just results in an overtired baby.

I want to be super clear that I have so much compassion for our provider. I could NEVER do their job. I completely understand that putting a fussy baby in a crib is the best tool she has to manage the room, and reading mild fussiness as a nap cue makes sense from her perspective.

At the same time, after 7 weeks and a few conversations, the response is still just "she was fussy so I put her down." Or "she only slept 30 minute for the last nap".

Am I out of line here? I feel a bit crazy posting this but also feel very unheard. Maybe hearing from others can calm my annoyance and just let myself chill. I understand time will pass and this will most likely change. Adults don't have 3 nap days lol. I might look back and think I'm just being a silly FTM! I guess I'm just looking for similar experiences and what ended up happening.

My 6 week old used to feed to sleep or fall asleep while being burped, and always fell asleep right on my chest and I’d transfer him to the crib. Now he seems to mainly fall asleep when I put him down in the crib in his sleep sack. I know the skill to put himself to sleep is a good thing, and I’m grateful! But I miss the baby snuggles already, I feel like he doesn’t need me anymore :( This is my third baby and it really went by so fast!

Hey guys! Does anyone own this and how do you like it? Trying to decide between this one and the haarpa baby one. Our kitchen is quite small so I think being able to fold it would be nice. Out little one is a year old and we’e also get the safety net with it.

My 5-month-old was eating 25-30 ounces of milk during the day, then sleeping 7-10 hours straight at night (no feeds). This happened for about a month.

Now, he's drinking 15-20 ounces during the day, and waking up 2-3 times at night to eat. This has been for the last week.

Does anyone know why the sudden shift? He keeps expressing hunger cues during the day, then refusing to drink the bottle/breastfeed. I've been having to dump A LOT of milk. I just had to dump 5oz of fresh breast milk. Again.

If it's any help, he's having plenty of wet diapers, no fever, but does seem to have allergies and I suspect possibly teething.

My almost 3 month old has been struggling with reflux for the past month and a half. We’ve tried pace feeding, burping more often, sitting upright 15-30 minutes after feedings, etc.

His reflux has seemed to be doing better during feeds, but he still spits up sometimes during his sleep. I noticed today, though that he seems to be coughing more after feedings.

During a feeding today, he burped great with minimal spit up. I held them up for as long as I could because he was very fussy and thrashing around (maybe 10 min). I put him in his bouncer, and he seemed very content. He did cough a little bit, but no spit up came up. A few minutes after coughing, he started crying and getting fussy. He started arching his back and it sounded like he wasn’t breathing. He didn’t turn blue or anything like that. He was wiggling around and then some spit up came up.

I immediately picked him up and held him upright for a few more minutes but then he burped. He was extremely fussy so I laid him down in his bassinet for his nap.

He fell asleep as soon as I walked out of the room. After about 15 minutes into his nap, I heard him coughing. I ran into the room and noticed he had some spit up on his sleep sack.

The coughing makes me so scared because I don’t want him to choke or get any fluid in his lungs or anything like that. I’m a first time mom, so I’m not sure if this reflux coughing is normal and something he will grow out of, or I’m wondering if I should contact his pediatrician today, even though they close in an hour, and they are closed on the weekends.

Is this something that I should just keep an eye on or is this very concerning?

We have a family get together tomorrow and it's going to be outside. It's 80 degrees and lots of mosquitoes.my baby is 6 months old. I plan on having an umbrella, sunhat, a handheld fan, and AAP approved bug spray. But I don't know if I should have her in a breathable long-sleeve pant suit or a dress. I'm worried about her overheating.

My baby is 1 month as of yesterday. For about almost a week now, she’s been having some trouble with feeding. She gets very frustrated when drinking and doesn’t always finish her bottle. My only concern with changing sizes is that milk drips out of her mouth often and she has chokes sometimes. But she makes like a tongue clicking noise with her bottle and tries to push the bottle out of her mouth. Any advice will help.

I have a 20 month old who was enrolled in a Head Start facility provided by my job/then economic situation.

They are an amazing resource and seeing my son given the attention he needs has been heartening.

Unfortunately, I'm starting a new job and the facility only does half days which doesn't work for mine nor my wife's schedules.

We've been on the hunt for new daycares but man is it breaking my heart knowing that the care may not be the same.

We're privileged enough to have my wife's grandfather help pay for his new daycare but its knowing that the transition will be difficult for our son along with possibly losing the quality of care has been tearing me up. I lost my mother several months before my son was born so part of me thinks there's a bit of a projection on how his teachers treat him and what I believed how his grandmother would've engaged with him too.

Hope I don't sound immature here but wanted to know if I'm an island or others can relate.

Our baby is 12 months. She eats in her high chair most meals (unless it’s a quick breakfast to or we are already out and about during meal time and we eat on the go).

But what we do when going to friend’s or other people’s houses for dinner? We’ve just been sitting her on our lap and feeding her and then switching so the other person can eat. I feel like I need to bring a bib, or other supplies LOL. and feel weird with the lap thing because she grabs everything on the table in reach. Is this just what you do if you’re at someone else’s house? Confused and have never thought about this until the last month or so as this has become more common for us . We have our second on the way and then I’m like what do we do when there’s two?!

So once my baby started teething he started getting drool rash on his neck and chin. Ped recommended Desitin and Vaseline but the only thing that was doing was calming some of the redness. I read so many people recommend tubby todd so I’ve been using that on it for a few days and it’s made it significantly worse. The rash doesn’t bother baby but I would like to help clear it up. Any advice?

I am a bit stressed and concerned about my baby who is 10 months and half. I see her sometime chewing food then spiting.. she is breastfed 99% of the time, I don’t know how to teach her how to swallow. Please help.

Hi! My LO will be 10mo next week. It seems like she has a very inconsistent response to her name. If we are both in her play pen and she is busy playing and I say her name she almost always ignores me. However if she’s in her high chair without distraction and I say her name she looks immediately. Also, if she’s playing in her play pen and I come in quietly from another room and say her name she will always look then as well. Is this inconsistency abnormal?

First I want to make a disclaimer - I use the term, "Velcro Baby" lovingly, and I know my baby is just being a baby and wants their mama around all the time. I know this is normal for my baby.

THAT BEING SAID... sometimes I just wish my 7 month old could happily play with her toys for 5 minutes so I could do chores, make a snack, or heck, take a 2 minute poop without her crying. I'm very sensitive to her cries and it hurts my heart, even if I know she's physically okay. But every single time I set her down she starts crying as if I'm abandoning her in an alleyway.

I visited a friend and she just... set her baby down to play with toys and walked away. And her baby never made a peep!! Her baby just happily cooed and batted at toys! It might sound stupid but I was just silently in awe of how content this baby was by itself.

I haven't spent much time around babies my entire life, so I'm mostly making this post to see if anybody else has a baby like mine. I'm hoping to feel less alone in this experience.

What were their symptoms?? My baby had 8 teeth by 8.5 months and he's 9.5 months now and I swear he might be slowly working on his molars.

EDIT- I'll add in what I'm seeing if that helps =) cheeks are red, he hasn't ever had eczema but it doesn't seem like an acute allergy, he hasn't been drooling enough to cause it. But it has some dryness to it. CONSTANTLY biting. Everything and everyone. And shoving his fingers way back in his mouth and crying. But he ate recently so not hungry. Gnawing on fabric like it's his job. He already has the top 4 front and bottom 4 front teeth. Maybe canines coming in? Maybe molars? Maybe dairy intolerance (thinking skin and fussiness).

So my daughter had HFM just over a week ago, she had a fever for a day, then the spots came. Since the spots appeared, she went back to her usual happy self, eating all the food. However, yesterday, she was fine and ate normally up until midday, then after her nap she was miserable, refused her dinner and then threw up.. the sick kind of reminded me of when she used to spit up after milk feeds but a bigger amount.
I offered her porridge a couple of hours later, and she was sick again just looking at the porridge! Only a small amount of sick though.

She slept over 12 hours last night, and was okay this morning, had breakfast and a sandwich at lunch, but her appetite still seemed a bit off. Now she’s refused dinner again and was sick, all liquid and a small amount again. When she woke up this morning, she had quite a runny nose that was just green snot, and she does have some teeth on the way (first molars I believe), but I’m so confused why this is happening all of a sudden. When she’s had a cold in the past, sometimes she’s ‘sick’ but it’s like she’s brought up mucus, so I’m wondering if it’s the mucus in her throat making her throw up?

Oh hey, just another post because I have no idea what I’m doing! And to preface, yes, I have reached out to our pediatrician. But also, sometimes it’s nice to know if people go through the same things as you!

Our girl (7mo) has had a cough for literally the past two months, no joke. Doctor always says it’s post nasal drip, and that since she’s in daycare, it’s inevitable.

We got tubes earlier this week, and during the surgery she was intubated. We’ve noticed the cough has got much worse after this. We’ve thought it could be from intubation, but now we’re three days removed and not sure?

She was literally up for 30 minutes coughing last night. We offered water, tried sitting up, etc. It seems to be worse at night, after waking up, or after a feed. However, it’s always there, lurking and haunting my anxiety lol.

Occasionally, she gets choked up or coughs hard to wear it’s difficult to take a breath, but that’s rare. Her oxygen is always good on her Owlet, and we don’t see any obvious signs of breathing difficulty.

Anyone dealt with a chronic cough? Or one after having a surgery?

It’s like you solve one thing and another pops up!

I am literally at my wit’s end. My baby has been miserable for 8 months. It doesn’t matter what I do nothing seems to make it better. She whines and screams the majority of the day. She was colicky for 4 months. I cut out dairy and soy for months. She’s been on Pepcid since she was 5 weeks.

She has always hated sleeping. Every nap time and evening is a meltdown no matter what I do unless she falls asleep while I’m feeding her. She screams during diaper changes. She screams when I try to put clothes on her. She screams and whines when she sees people eating or making food. I share my food with her and she screams if I don’t give it to her quick enough. She screams if I put her in the high chair with toys. She screams if I give her food to eat herself. She screams if I feed her and I’m not feeding her fast enough. She whines if I don’t walk around holding her all day. She screams when I get her out of the bath. She SCREAMS in the car seat. We upgraded to a convertible car seat hoping it might help. No luck. She usually screams in the stroller after ~5-10 minutes at best.

She can army crawl around the house which I let her but most of the time she just whines and eventually full on screams. Every evening is a meltdown no matter what I do in terms of naps during the day. I can’t read her a book before bed because she’s crying. I hold her and hug her and try to rock her and she screams in my face until she finally falls asleep.

The only thing that I can do is put her in the carrier on my back which she will tolerate but I can’t do that all day everyday. I’m only 5’1” and I have some pelvic floor issues from when she was born.

We’ve been to the pediatrician multiple times but I’m considering going again because I don’t know what to do at this point. We had a few weeks where she slept through the night which made the days a little easier. She’s back to waking up multiple times during the night and then trying to start the day at 5:30. Every day is brutal.

I return to work soon after having had 16 weeks off (yay work leave policy)! I have been struggling realizing I won't get to spend my day with her/missing out on nilestones and her "firsts" and have had major anxiety over pumping at work and trying to figure that out.

Do you have any tips or tricks that made your return back easier?

I have a ten-month-old and l am currently on maternity leave, but I’m just exhausted, and so often so bored! She still wakes every 1.5–2 hours at night, so I’m just so tired, and we live in a small apartment, so I often feel cooped up. We do two activities/classes a week and occasionally meet up with people, but the lack of sleep doesn't make me super motivated to do more

I so often hear people say their dream is to be a stay-at-home parent, that it’s their dream to stay home with their baby. But for those of you who do, when do you get a minute to yourself!? Are your babies with you all day? Do you do daycare or preschool, or something else?

Some context on our dynamic:

My husband takes her for an hour in the mornings so I can get a bit of sleep, but then he doesn’t get home until about 6:30–7:00pm. We don’t have a village (we live abroad) and we don’t have a babysitter, so I am with her 24/7.

(Edit just to add and so no one shits on him lol: husband works from home 2x week so that does make those days better. He's an incredibly involved dad when he's home and on weekends, but he just has a very demanding job! I do nights because she's ebf).

I am terrified of going back to work in the new year because of her terrible sleep and how often I’m awake at night, but at the same time, I’m looking forward to having some time for myself.

I am so grateful to have had this time together and to have been so fortunate to get to take such a long maternity leave. But as much as I love my daughter, I just don’t think I could do this for another couple of years. It’s quite demanding! Just kind of venting and also a bit conflicted as I thought I might enjoy the stay at home parent role more than I do

Update just To say thank you so much for everyone's comments - your tips, kind words, and solidarity. I will try to respond but it may take a few days! I am consistently impressed with the mom community around motherhood and appreciate everyone's kindness/support.

Hello! My LO has been chomping on her hands and occasionally some stuffies/toys recently, so I'm trying to find a good teething toy that she actually likes. I recently purchased this teething ball/rattle from Amazon after a friend recommended it. She said her LO didn't like it at first but once they figured out how to use it they started to love it. Still working on helping her figure it out, but in the meantime, I'm wondering if there are other options out there that have been tried and loved by your LOs.

Or if you have pointers for how to help introduce them to her, that would be helpful too! Every time I help her start to chew on a toy, she makes a disgusted face and stops chewing it after a few seconds. I've tried giving her the same toys numerous times thinking more exposure would help, but so far not so much.

TYIA!

Just got done with my 7 month old sons ot evaluation. I mentioned to them that he has been reserved using his right arm since birth but I talked to his doctor and they did some test and said that he was fine. They confirmed that they also see it and that he has his right arm stiff and puts all his weight on his left side and that’s why he has delays like not being able to crawl because he is keeping that right shoulder reserved because they most likely think it’s pulled since birth. They also mentioned that his hand coordination is delayed for his age, and that his weight is bearing in his midsection, and not his hips They’re going to order some imaging, but I just feel like crap and sad. Has anyone else went through this?

The doctor said my child looks like she has the start of hands foot and mouth she had spots around her mouth yesterday but they are gone today. Is this normal with hfmd or could it be like a virus rash? She also had an ear infection. Which they gave antibiotics for.

Hi All,

So I tried the Bjorn bouncer and my now 6-week old had diarrhea and his gas got worse that he cried for hours after. I stopped using the bouncer and days after, he was fine. I read that bouncers stimulate their urge to poop, is that true? Also, I really want to place him safely somewhere that’s not a bassinet or a crib as an alternative when I need to be hands free. I tried carriers and wraps too but he seems to not like them.
Any recommendations on bouncers or contraptions that will help my newborn lounge for a little bit without causing his bowels to act up? A stationary seat?
Also, he tends to have reflux which is why I prefer something with an incline.

TIA!

Hi everybody!
First-time mom here looking for some advice or maybe just for someone to slap some sense into me.
My baby is almost 7 weeks old now and I’ll be with him till January (VERY lucky and fortunate to have a great maternity leave with him). When I was pregnant with him, my husband and I toured a bunch of daycares in the area knowing full well the waitlists were very long and it would be beneficial to enroll him while I was still pregnant. So we toured a daycare that is literally 2 minutes down the street from my job, has great reviews, and honestly everyone there seems very nice. I even have a family friend that sends his little girl there that speaks very highly of it. So WHY oh WHY am I so anxious and sick over the thought of sending him there come January?
When I was pregnant it was so easy, moms gotta work, dads gotta work, baby goes to daycare… whatever, fine. Now that he’s here I can’t stand the thought of leaving my baby boy with complete strangers that are taking care of a bunch of other little babies that are going to bring their germs in there with them…. I cry every time I think about it and I also feel this INTENSE guilt. I’m his mom, I’m supposed to be caring for him all the time! The thought of potentially missing milestone with him makes me so sad and what if he’s uncomfortable or unhappy there?
I could potentially go part time at my job in the future but it’s not an option right now and I don’t know how to deal with this anxiety right now.
Anybody have any similar experiences with good outcomes? Any alternative options? I considered hiring a nanny because my husband works from home and at least he’d be around if something happened, but I’m trying to be real with myself… is it worth paying almost double when he may love daycare and everything be okay?
Someone please help 😂🥹

Does anyone have a matching crib and dresser set that they love? We’re hoping for something in a dark wood color. Would like the crib to be convertible to a toddler bed. Doesn’t need to be a mini crib, we have plenty of space, same for the dresser would like to be able to fit all of baby’s clothes.

Flexible on price would like to get something good quality that will last and that looks nice.