u/Financial_Couple_808

Hey all!
My amazing 14 week old son is a truly happy little guy. He smiled at 5 weeks, has been grabbing things like crazy these days, coos, and is just the joy of our lives. My wife and I have been fortunate to both be home since his birth. We’re a two mom household, so we split his care 50%. He’s formula fed, which means we can do sleep shifts so that we both get at least 4 or 5 hours of uninterrupted sleep.

Our son is on a 4 nap schedule, with 75-90 minute wake windows. He eats 5 oz every 3 hours and 15 mins these days. He’s always had some reflux and gas, but is growing great and our pediatrician said to just let it pass naturally over time. He has always had some trouble in bassinets. He might sleep almost 10 hours with one waking over night on our chests. For awhile, we were awake holding him on our chests for 6 hour shifts over night so that he would sleep. If he’s laying on us for naps, he’ll sleep 1.5-2 hours. In the bassinet, he will do 20 mins or so if he has enough sleep pressure.

During the night, his sleep looks like this:
5ish-5:30ish: last catnap of the day
Outside time/bath/bottle/wind down: until 7:30/8.
8-9: bassinet sleep with one wake up. Usually needs a rocking, but sometimes falls asleep again on his own! We have a sidecar bassinet fit for a 5 month old.
9-10:30- usually a good bassinet stretch with little to no support.
10:30-11:30: usually wakes and falls asleep in arms. Not hungry yet
11:30- hungry and eats 5oz
11:30-2:00am: held upright for 20 mins and back in bassinet. My wife and I switch shifts at 1am
2:00am: wakes and needs some rocking support, not usually hungry. Often will not tolerate going back in the bassinet
4:00am- feeds again, and will not go back in the bassinet usually. Often has a BM around 5:30-we think this might be why he doesn’t want to lay flat and is in a light sleep state?

Sorry for the detail, but as I go back to my teaching job and my wife goes to work soon as well, we’re looking for some help or solidarity with why our son isn’t tolerating the bassinet super well. Is this biologically typical for infant sleep at 3 months? Is there something we’re not supporting him with enough? We lay next to his bassinet so he can see us and feel that we’re there too.

We are considering co-sleeping so that we can soothe him a bit easier and hopefully he can associate waking with feeling calm and supported. However, we are always nervous about the safety of this.

If anyone has any tips or solidarity, we’d so appreciate it!

Hi all,
My wife and I have a beautiful, healthy, happy 14 week old son. We are a two mom household and we split the child rearing 50%. My wife gave birth but I was lucky to also have almost 15 weeks of leave as a teacher. We have had to formula feed since birth.

We have used a bassinet since birth, to no success. Our son will at most stay in the bassinet for 2.5 hours, but most nights, he needs some support every 20 minutes to an hour. We don’t want to sleep train him or make him an “independent sleeper”. If it wasn’t for the safe sleep fears, especially with formula fed babies, we’d have already coslept. We are looking forward to when we can all snuggle together at night.

I go back to my teaching job next week, and my wife goes back to work soon as well. My wife has recently started having more intensive postpartum anxiety symptoms, as a result of the sleep deprivation. We do sleep shifts, but that affords us between 4 and 6 hours of sleep a night. Of course that’s considered good for early parenthood, but with our impending return to work in jobs that require us to be “on” all day, we’re getting anxious and stressed that we won’t be able to safely rock him back to sleep with 5 hours or less. We have started finagling our evenings around that we come home at 4 and sleep at 6. We are getting obsessed with “gentle independent sleep foundations” that don’t work, and losing our minds with accounting for every minute of our evenings, just so that we could make it through until he sleeps a bit better. It was feeling so stressful and negative. My wife and I love our jobs, love our son, and want him to be safe. We want to be good, regulated, and safe parents. It felt a bit like we were losing our minds trying to make that happen with our current bedside bassinet set up.

Not to mention with shared childcare will come illness, sleep regressions (although can be even regress further?) and more disregulated sleep. He sleeps amazing on us-we have technically chest slept with him since birth, but we’ve just been awake when we’ve had to do this. He was going almost 10 hours with only one bottle in between at 10 weeks like that.

We have ordered a zonli wheat 4 inch floor mattress, with the intention of following every safe sleep 7 guideline other than breastfeeding. I’m hoping for some tips, other formula fed families, or just advice for our situation. And please, no formula feeding shaming. We have come to terms with our situation and are feeling confident. He is healthy and so incredibly happy, and we are past the 3 month mark!

Thank you!

Hi all,
I’m a FTM to an awesome 10 week old. We’ve been doing Ready to Feed until now, and our pediatrician said we should switch to powdered. Our baby likes cold formula, and we prep bottles in advance and store them in the fridge.

Now that we’re switching, I’m torn on the advice of boiling water before mixing or not. Since my baby drinks cold formula, we’d like to use the Dr Brown’s pitcher.

However, putting the hot formula in a plastic pitcher to have it slowly cool over time seems unsafe to me as well. Even more, daycare starts in about a month, so we’d need to prep bottles anyway.

Our pediatrician said risk of burns from the hot formula is more of a concern than Cronobacter is at this point and recommended we just use cold tap water.

How do you all manage this? Thanks!

Hey all,
My wife and I have an incredible 9 week old baby, who is about to hit 13 lbs around when he is 10 weeks old. Our pediatrician OK’d the Merlin Sleep Suit once he hits 13 lbs.

I’m not opposed to the sleep sack in general, so I’m really hoping for anyone who has some evidence based knowledge about whether it’s unsafe* *our baby to use the suit before 12 weeks, or whether it’s the weight limit that’s important. The Halo website says it’s designed for 3-6 months, but I’m not sure if that’s the same kind of recommendation as other sleep sacks, which emphasize the weight rather than the age.

For context, I have OCD, and uncertainty/gray area is hard when SIDS and safety are a big concern. Any tips here would be helpful! Thanks!