u/Any_Dimension_4570

Hi all,

My husband is allergic to nuts, with a severe reaction to peanuts (severity of reaction to other nuts is unclear and varies), and he carries an EpiPen. It’s sensitive enough that he can get mouth/tongue tingles from smelling peanuts, so we have absolutely no nuts in the house.

However, we’ve just had a baby, and the advice is to expose her to allergens (especially nuts) regularly to help her body get used to them. So far, I’ve been using nut butters (so far so good) but this just means I’m ending up with multiple nut butter jars, and multiple risks of cross contamination, which isn’t sustainable.

My new plan has been to buy mixed nut/peanut powder so I can do one single exposure on a day that my husband is out the house and cover all the nuts we need to once per week. This is where I need your help.

Please can you sense check the plan (approved by husband too, but we’re both navigating this for the first time):
- keep nut powders in a sealed/airtight bag AND box away from other food
- take these outside to open them and put a scoop or two into something like yoghurt or fruit purée to give to baby (also mixed up outside)
- do one exposure per week when husband is at work, early in the morning and then bath baby immediately afterwards (she’ll be wearing a bib that can then be cleaned with hot water and soap)
- hand wash any utensils in the sink with hot, soapy water, and then washed a second time in the dishwasher
- wipe down any surfaces with dish soap and disposable wipes, and wash my hands with hand soap and hot water
- do all nappy changes for 24hrs after, to husband isn’t exposed that way

Does that sound like a sensible plan? Are there any additional steps/better methods to keep everyone safe? Any help would be hugely appreciated!

First time parents here! Our lovely 18w old has been sleeping through the night for a while now - she usually does around 9pm-6.30am, her record being 11hrs, and she’s really good at settling quickly at night with a final feed and a story before being put down.

The issue is during the day: since about 2 weeks ago, she has started absolutely refusing to nap. She feeds pretty regularly still and likes to fall asleep on me, but if I try to transfer her to her crib, she’ll wake up and scream within 10 mins, but will then be wide awake and happy for hours. It means we’re barely getting more than 2 long (~1hr) naps a day, a couple of 10 min cat naps, and she is absolutely wired by the end of the day.

Oddly enough, she CAN fall asleep on her own by sucking her thumb/fingers to soothe - she’s just done it on her play mat - when she’s in the right mood, but I think if she senses naps are being planned, she won’t have it (possibly due to FOMO).

Her current routine would be:
Wake at 6.30, then (shown as ranges, as she’s never taken to our attempts to have wake windows):
1.5-3/3-4/1-2

We’re trying to introduce the Ferber method to see if that helps, but I worry it’s too early as attempts so far have failed. As such, we wanted to open it up to this sub in case there was anything else we should be considering - our main goal is to get her happier with napping more of a set schedule and not letting herself get too bothered by FOMO.

Any help or even just reassurance that this is the 4 month sleep regression doing its thing would be much appreciated!

Our 9w old has had some real issues with breastfeeding - she wasn’t latching well due to a severe tongue and lip tie that we only identified at around 6w old and got fixed at 7w.

Since then, we’ve been working with an IBCLC to recover my supply (pumping loads and putting her to the breast a lot) and get my LO latching properly, which has taken so much hard work. We met our IBCLC today and, after being encouraging in previous meetings, she has now said we may need to accept that formula feeding will always be part of her feeding routine because she’s still not transferring enough (her weighted feeds indicate a 30ml transfer) and she’s only gained 60g since Sunday, which is so demoralising and frustrating.

I don’t know how to describe how I feel… I don’t mind combo feeding in itself, but I always thought it would be by choice, and I feel like I’m failing my LO by struggling with all this.

Has anyone had similar experiences and managed to salvage their BF journey? Is there anything I can do to encourage milk transfer (except compressions)?

Any support/advice would be hugely appreciated!