u/BathBombsNFacePalms

Hi all, I don’t know what I’m looking for more here- advice or just commiseration.

I need to help my 9month old boy dissociate feeding to sleep. He is bottle fed and formula fed. Aside from the typical concerns about bottle rot, which I of course want to avoid (boy already has 4 upper teeth and 3 lower), he overeats his bottle when trying to get sleepy and then vomits all over us both. We’ve tried spacing solid food meals out two hours prior, which is really hard to do in the mornings with a shorter wake window. And it also means some days when he needs an early bedtime, dinner is early early and we can’t eat as a family.

He only ever does this when he’s relying on the bottle to get sleepy. If he isn’t then he will stop and move on when he’s no longer hungry. But as it is this happens several times a week. I’m so tired of being vomited on. We aren’t talking about little spit up, I’m talking spewing ounces of formula plus chunks of his last meal. I’m sure he isn’t a fan of this either.

But when I’ve tried before, he has such a hard time. He’s already challenging to get to sleep, even with a bottle feed. Any ideas on how to do this as gently and with positive attachment in mind would be so appreciated. I’m thinking of starting to do a feed in our living room before bed and naps, then to bring him up to his nursery with his paci and rock and read his favorite book for as long as it takes.

I’m going to preface this for my own sanity and remind myself that baby is now sleeping soundly in my arms and he is okay. But I’ve had a hell of a day and just need to vent.

Today is the first day that my baby has skipped a nap entirely. He is 9 months old, and on a 2 nap routine. I tried so hard for that second nap, stopped and let him play a while, tried again later, more formula, different pacis, different positions, laying on the floor mat together, the works. From 1pm-3:30.

Here’s what I’m actually going to vent about though. My friend, who has several kids, had previously given me this advice, that if a baby is tired enough they will sleep. “Just don’t stress about it!” she has (basically) said. So trust me, after 3:30, I tried to let it go. We went to the library, I came home, made dinner. He was absolutely exhausted. Like a little drunk infant running around. I tried feeding him solids for dinner, and I genuinely worried he was unable to eat it because he was too tired to chew and swallow properly. He kept falling over trying to get my food. I pushed bedtime back by a whole hour and a half. I’ll give him credit. He made it all the way from 10:45am-6pm on just his half hour nap from this morning. I feel awful for, well, everything. For not being able to get him to sleep when it was time, and also for just trying to get on with the day while he was so tired. But I’m also so frustrated with the amount of times I’ve been told to just not stress about things?

I’m the only person who thinks about his nap times, his feeding routine, how to help progress with his solid foods, etc. and it feels like any time I talk to my friend or spouse (baby’s parent too) I’m just told I’m doing great and just don’t worry! It’ll all come together.

This is what happens when I don’t stress about it. Honestly the day felt like a disaster. He’s exhausted, our night is thrown off, who knows what time he’ll wake up in the morning.

I’m just, so tired of being told not to worry. I feel like it’s just that no one wants to hear a mom complain. So, I’ve committed to not complaining anymore. Not to the people in my personal life. Just have to grin and bear it. Life of a mom.

So, we all know infant sleep is generally awful, yes? I keep desperately telling myself that there will come a day when this baby is a teenager and rather than rocking him back to sleep 5x a night, I will be dragging his butt out of bed to get him to school. Somehow knowing this change is inevitable has helped me mentally a bit. Lol.

I want to come up with more examples of “this too shall pass” statements and reassuring thoughts about common baby challenges. Another example could be: my baby is currently learning to eat solids, he gags quite a bit right now and I know refusal is common especially as they get a bit older.. well someday I’ll be complaining that my teen boy is eating me out of house and home!

Does anyone have other funny examples of how the challenges of babyhood are going to change as thy get older? Things we can remind ourselves on the rough days?

Looking for advice on how to approach the pediatrician appointment tomorrow.

When my baby was about 3.5 months old, I went in with him to the doc for some reflux issues. Since we were about to hit 4 months, I also asked her “how important is it to do the while drowsy but awake thing?” because I knew sleep training was often recommended at 4+ months but I knew o don’t want to do any official training. Her advice was basically “Drowsy but awake is ideal, keep trying it.” I said that I don’t really want to sleep train and I’d be happy to rock him to sleep well into toddlerhood if it didn’t impact his ability to connect sleep cycles. She was essentially like “If you have more than one kid, you don’t have time for that. Keep trying to out him down drowsy but awake. If you get to 9 months and he’s still waking you up every 3 hours we might have a talk.”

Friends, he turned 9 months old today and he is absolutely waking me up every 3 hours or more. He’s teething 3 teeth at once, of course he is. And just a month ago we were in a regression because he learned to sit, crawl, pull to stand, and cut a different tooth all in the span of two weeks. Sleep has been awful. Of course I’m desperate for more and better sleep. But, I still don’t want to sleep train. Honestly I’m so nervous to even talk about it with the doctor that I think I’m just going to lie.

I don’t want to lie to his doctor, ever. I believe in science, and I like this doctor A LOT on every other issue, so I don’t just want to request a new one. I just think this one area she is misinformed and biased because of her own life experiences. How do you handle it when your doctor is not on board or continuing to recommend interventions that you disagree with? I’d love some script ideas if anyone has any ways they’d approach it, because I know she’s going to ask about sleep.

Basically the title.

I just bought some TheraBreath for the first time after seeing someone on here recommend it (I’m prone to tonsil stones so better than alcohol-based mouth washes.) Checking the ingredients, I see hydrogenated castor oil and sodium hydroxide. I make soap as a hobby. Those are soap ingredients, am I right? Do we just gargle with soap plus some extras? Haha.