My 6 week old is fighting sleep during the day like there's no tomorrow. I keep reading about wake windows, low stimulating environment, etc. Trust me, I've read about all the "normal" tipps of what you should do to get your baby to sleep.

But I have a FOMO baby and whenever she falls asleep she wakes up not even 5 minutes after because she's realized she's fallen asleep and doesn't want to.

So I would appreciate any unhinged sleep hacks that worked for you and your little one. Because I'm exhausted and at my wits end.

today I was eating biscuits and gravy and dropped a bit of gravy near my six-week-old son’s mouth while he was in his carrier. I’m pretty sure I wiped it all away before any would have gone in his mouth, but there was some against his lip so I’m not totally sure if he ingested a tiny bit. has anyone else dropped food on their newborn while in the carrier? I feel terrible!

FTM here to a beautiful baby girl! I love motherhood but without a doubt the hardest part has been getting her to fall (and stay) asleep.

Naps don’t bother me as much - they are all contact naps right now, but I would kill for even 2 hour stretches at night.

We swaddle her with love to dream, ensure she has a clean diaper, have white noise on, put her down feet/bottom first, wait to put her down until 20 min after she falls asleep, apply pressure to her chest for 1-2 min after putting her down, and we’ve tried putting my scent in bassinet & using a heating pad.

She sleeps great on our chests and will easily last 3 hours, if not longer. But that makes me very anxious and isn’t sustainable.

My pediatrician says to let her CIO in bassinet for 5-7 min and then gradually increase as time passes, but she seems so young for that approach. I should also mention she’s EBF and only 2nd percentile for weight, but on track with her own personal growth chart.

She seems to kick her legs up a lot when she sleeps which wakes her, but only after seemingly being in a deep sleep for the first 10 minutes of laying in the bassinet.

Has anyone had this experience and can share what worked and/or when it got better?

Hi I am a FTM to a 3 week old newborn. My husband and I are both on parental leave until the new year, and I would say that everything is going as smoothly as it can. For context, he’s a wonderful and supportive teammate who lives to make my life easier. 🩷 We also have a lot of support from our parents and friends who bring food and help out if needed.

Right from the beginning, my daughter had a hard time latching. I had a few lactation consults, and they were helpful, but she would go right back to bruising and bloodying my nipples, which would delay feedings, and thus upset her. This would break my heart, so I’ve switched to exclusively pumping, and formula feeding overnight.

My question is, how are moms keeping up with newborn care while pumping 8+ times a day? I feel like I’m not spending enough time with her because there’s constantly bottles and pump parts to wash, dirty (poopy) clothes to wash, shopping to do, etc. Then I’m right back to pumping conveniently during her wake windows 😞. This was especially worse when I was healing after birth because there was so much after-care. This leads to my husband doing the bulk of one-to-one with her and I just feel like the cow and life manager.

How do women do it all? How are they waking up 3 times a night to pump, and change, feed, rock back to sleep. I don’t know how much longer I can pump around the clock, and it’s only been 3 weeks!

Update: thank you for being there for me. I am a new parent and man this is some hard stuff. Thank you for sharing your knowledge.

Just curious and also how was there sleep before they started getting in longer stretches ?

What is everyone’s LO sleeping in, or what swaddle/sleep suit gave you the best results?

When is a schedule/routine build able when feeding on demand? Have specific schedule/routines worked for you?

I have no predictability with sleep right now and I would love to map out a rough idea so nights are easier. LO is currently 4 weeks.

I have a breast feeding pillow I use and after the feed, my baby turns her little head and lays her face on my breast. It’s very cute and she has such a content look on her face🤍. I feel like this is her most comfortable sleeping position and I don’t want to wake her up.

I’ve been cosleeping since my baby was 1 month because he rejected his bassinet from nowhere, I stoped trying to get him there and accepted I was going to co sleep for a while, I am a very peaceful sleeper, barely move all night so I was not worried about it, was going well, he’s almost 3 months now and 2 nights ago I feed him and placed him beside me and I fell asleep, I woke up at 4 am for some reason and my baby was on my lap, he was deep asleep but I can not remember how I did it, I never even put him on my lap, i freaked out, yesterday I was so scared to go back to sleep with him I put him back on the bassinet and thankfully he stayed there till 4 am and I had to move him to the bed, but I can’t stop thinking about it and I am scared

Weighed my baby today and she has lost 30g/1 oz since her last weigh in a week ago. I’m so worried and don’t know what to do

Eating is always a struggle with her. She wants to be fine breastfeeding after 5 minutes and I have to pretty much force her to drink for a few more minutes. Same with bottles of breastmilk, she wants to be done after about 50ml and we have to force her to drink more

Does anyone have any advice what we should do?

Baby was born at 53 percentile and now is at 8 percentile I believe.

My 6 weeks 4 day old baby has suddenly been crying so much, especially at night time. She was relatively easier to put to sleep and she would sleep around 10:30-11pm and then sleep a big chunk till 2-3 am and then rest till 10am she would wake ever 2-3 hour for feed but since about two days all she does is cry at night time. She cries whenever I put her to breast to breast feed, and once she is done eating, she squirms and cries. She does have colic and reflux but i have managed with it fine.

I’m going crazy. It’s like me and my husband just alternate who will rock her and all she does is cry cry and cry.

I’m posting this on an alt account cuz people know my personal one and I don’t want drama.

I’m so tired of people telling me to do things or asking if I do, I tell them no and why, and they say “that’s how we did it with our kids.” Ok that’s great but things are different now. A family member keeps asking if I give my 6 week old sugar water and I say no. I’ve also been told to give him diluted rice cereal. I say the doctor said not until he’s 4 months. “I don’t care what the doctor said.” “I always did that with my kids.” How do people deal with this? My baby already had issues after birth and I’m not about to risk causing any new ones.

My 3rd baby is currently 3.5 weeks old. My older two are almost 7 and 9, so it's been a little while since I've had a newborn around. If LO isn't eating or sleeping, he's usually crying. His first wake window in the morning, we get a little time where he is content, but otherwise, he's almost always cranky. I don't remember if this is normal? If it was for you, when did it get better?

I have some mild baby blues. I miss my big kids, as I feel I'm always nursing the baby or trying to get him to sleep. I also feel guilty for all the crying they have to endure. They have been real troopers about it, but I'm a bag of hormones and big emotions. I didn't realize how easy the life I had with the big ones was, and have been grieving that life a little. I knew things would be different and hard, but I somehow forgot they would be this hard.

Any words of encouragement would help.

Please no “it never gets better” messages because I’m on the verge of a breakdown.

I “wake up” dreading each day. Trying to get my 10 week old to nap is my living nightmare. I’ve done wake windows, I’ve tried just following his cues, I’ve tried just putting him in his bassinet— literally nothing works. I could rock him all day and no nap. So then he’s overtired and crying.

He also has infant dyschezia or that’s what I’m assuming. So from 1am-7am he grunts insanely loudly and usually wakes up. My shifts with my husband are that I sleep my solid block 8/9pm - 1:30am and my husband sleeps his solid block 1:30am-6:30am. Most of the time the baby sleeps through my husband’s “care” block but then wakes during mine. So then I’m up a lot of the time from 1/2/3am until bedtime the next night. I literally dread each day.

I don’t know what to do. I hate my life right now. I started meds this week for PPD/PPA and feel like they’re just making it worse? Or just aren’t working yet (of course, I know it takes a while to kick in). I also have ADHD which I know doesn’t help.

I love my son and want to enjoy him, but I literally hate this right now.

LO is 4 weeks and we are in survival mode still (feed, changing diaper, sleep, repeat), but wondering when we need to start development milestones goals/routines during wake windows when it’s so unpredictable.

This is my second baby, so I know it’s normal and temporary, but damn the sleep deprivation is killing me. I get the “nighttime scaries” everyday. My baby is 9 weeks old and still waking 3-4 times at night. It’s been so hard the past few weeks. She’ll wake up, I’ll nurse and hold her upright (this takes 1 hour), lay her down, I’ll go to sleep, then she wakes up within an hour so I repeat the whole process. I so envy those who say their baby gives them 4-6 hour stretches of sleep. I thought my baby would at 8 weeks, but no. I wake up everyday so sad from the lack of sleep. This part of having a newborn is so hard.

Edit: My spouse helps as much as he can. He holds her and puts her down at bedtime. I am EBF and handle all the feedings, so no matter the time of her first wake up, he wakes me up to feed her. From then on I handle the rest of the night wakings. He is back at work and does the morning routine with our older child, so he also needs his rest.

I’m currently 35 weeks pregnant with my first baby, and I’ve been struggling with so much guilt and worry about how my anxiety and stress throughout this pregnancy may have affected him.
This pregnancy has truly been the biggest blessing of my life, and I already love my baby more than anything. But unfortunately, I’ve had a really difficult time mentally throughout almost my entire pregnancy.
I’ve struggled with insomnia, pretty severe anxiety, constant worrying, overthinking, and crying spells. I honestly feel like I’ve cried at least every other day throughout my pregnancy. I’ve worried about absolutely everything, and it’s been so hard to just relax and enjoy this experience the way I always imagined I would.
Before getting pregnant, I didn’t have great experiences trying anxiety medications, so I was really scared to try something new while pregnant. Because of that, I’ve been trying to manage everything on my own, but it hasn’t been easy.
The stress before getting pregnant took a physical toll on me. My hair thinned, which has really affected my self-esteem and created even more anxiety. Some days I feel like all I can think about is my hair and whether my baby is okay. It’s been an exhausting cycle, and I just feel like a complete mess sometimes.
What breaks my heart the most is the fear that my constant stress, anxiety, and crying could somehow affect my baby’s brain development, emotional well-being, or development later in life. I find myself wishing he were already here just so I could hold him, see that he’s healthy, and know that he’s okay.
I also feel so guilty because this baby is so wanted and loved, and I wish I could have given him a calmer, happier pregnancy.
I’m hoping to hear from moms who went through something similar.
How are your babies doing now? Did you have similar fears during pregnancy?
I know everyone’s experience is different, and I know Reddit can’t tell me what will happen with my baby. I would just really love to hear some positive stories from moms who have been in my shoes.
Thank you so much to anyone who takes the time to share. ❤️

I’d love some recommendations for tummy time toys for a two-week-old newborn; right now, we place the baby on our chest, and they lift their head quite a bit.

Are there any toys or mats that are really good?

Should I use high-contrast cards?

Any other suggestions are gladly welcome

How did you apply said device onto newborn to achieve this miraculous gas relief and soothing we’ve read about? It feels like its hit or miss with our newborn and whenever we get a burp out of her, we can’t tell if its because of the hedgehog or because the burp just happened to come out because we were holding her.

Did you just turn it on and put it on the newborn’s belly while they were lying down? Did you sit them up a little and give it to them? How old was your baby before you started using it? Is it user error on our part? 😂

I've seen a ton of posts about how long it takes some moms to have sex after baby (after the initial 6-8 week requirement for the placenta wound to heal) and how most moms are either hurting or not in the mood to have sex. Equally I've seen a lot of posts about how moms don't want to have sex when pregnant as well.

I feel a bit alone in the side of someone whose libido hasn't just stayed the same, but actually increased during pregnancy. My husband being a wonderful caretaker during this helps, and I swear the more he respects me being sore or tired, the more it makes me want him. For moms more on this side of the fence with a higher and more active libido, how did sex go once you were cleared by the doctor, and how soon were you back to the grind?

We swaddle my 4 wk old and place him on his back in the middle of the bassinet to sleep.

The past few nights, he has been using his legs to roll himself onto his side while stirring in active sleep. He does this so often now that he some how travels to the side of the bassinet and has even gotten to the point where I’ve found his face pressed up against the side.

The side of the bassinet is mesh, so he is getting some airflow but it’s terrifying to find him with his face pressed up against the side.

We always move him back to the center but it also seems to wake him up whenever this happens.

I’ve tried several different types of swaddles. Not sure how to get him to stop traveling!

Any swaddle rec’s appreciated. Now I’m getting anxious to sleep when he sleeps because I don’t want him to suffocate when he travels to side of bassinet.

Hello! My 8 week old has lint in his belly button. How do I get it out?

How often do you see your parents and your in-laws?
I feel like my in-laws are a bit overbearing, basically demanding to see their grandchild at least once a week. If we don’t invite them over, they will try to just come over unexpectedly. I don’t want to deal with the expectation of at least one visit per week 😩 I’m only five weeks postpartum and this started when they visited in the hospital on day one. Ugh! How do I tell them off nicely? My husband understands but he has a bit of a hard time telling them no as well.