u/Hopeful-Relation3502

And I'm like ma'am he's 13 months just unusually tall.

I'm due in november and having a 17 month gap. I'm starting to think about our stroller situation, and not really sure which type to get. I want to feel fully independent with the kids and avoid feeling trapped at home. Ideally I'd get a full double travel system, with a bassinet attachment and everything, but those are extremely expensive and way out of budget. I was wondering if I could get by with just a baby carrier for the first few months, and once baby can sit supported just use a regular double stroller.

A few lifestyle factors that might influence this:

1. We live in a city, and everywhere I need to be on a daily basis is a 2 minute walk from our flat, including my son's daycare.

2. My son attends fulltime daycare, so I can run errands when he isn't home

3. November and early December are still nice outside, but January-March are gross. We won't be getting out much probably.

4. I have help and likely won't be alone with the kids during most afternoons and weekends

What did you guys do? Was anyone in my situation and still regretted not getting a full travel system with all the extensions?

I'm pregnant with my second, and will have a 17 month gap. I've been thinking about how to introduce the new baby to the toddler recently, and wondering what others experiences were like.

Depending on how labour develops, I could potentially be in hospital for around 2-3 days if no complications occur (1 day during the labour itself, and 2 more days postpartum). On the one hand, I feel like this is a long time for the toddler to not see me and I don't want him to wonder where I am and miss me. I also like the idea of him being on of the first people to meet his little brother, and family will likely visit me in the hospital.

On the other hand, he will be only 17 months, hospitals can be overwhelming, unfamiliar environments, and I don't want to stress him out. I don't think he will understand much and I don't want him to cry when it's time to leave and not understand why mummy isn't coming with him. Having him come on the last day and leaving together isn't an option, last time I gave birth discharge took a few hours and was really chaotic. Keeping him home with grandma will reduce the transitions and potential meltdowns, and dad should be around for some of the time as well.

Did you have toddler visit the hospital or did you introduce the newborn to them at home? If you introduced at home, did you feel like you were away from toddler for too long?

Disclaimer, listen to your paedeatrician, I'm just curious about different practices and guidelines

Where I'm from we don't do cows milk for toddlers and we don't take bottles away at 12 months. Babies usually breastfeed or bottle feed until anywhere between 12-24 months, and weaning is a more relaxed, gradual process. Its only more of an active process if the milk intake is interferring with solids (which are absolutely encouraged don't get me wrong), or the child is eating too well and gaining too much weight so they don't physically need the extra calories. Most kids are weaned around 18 months give or take, and once a child stops consuming breastmilk or formula they just eat a normal diet and cows milk isn't given as a drink.

Online it seems like everyone is taking bottles away at 12 months, which I assume is an American guideline, so I was curious if anyone else can relate?

So I had a traumatic birth with my first, and he didn't latch at all. I tried to pump every 2-3 hours, day and night, from the moment he was born until 5 days PP. I wasn't very well medically, collapsed from exhaustion and started having hallucinations from the sleep deprivation so we decided to stop. He had severe colic, didn't sleep at all, and I didn't have access to better pumping equipment or any form of lactation support at the time due to unforeseen circumstances. We went straight to formula. He's now 13 months old and I still grieve not being able to breastfeed him, it was really important to me and one of the things I was looking forward to the most.

Anyways I'm 22 weeks pregnant with my second, and really determined to make it work this time. Of course I can't control how I give birth and how this newborn will be and whether or not they'll have issues, but I'm not willing to give it up at 5 days PP again without fully trying everything. I'm wondering what I can do to be better prepared this time, especially if I have another traumatic birth or baby doesn't immediately latch and I'll need to put in the work. Any tips?

We use european car seats with a 105cm height limit. My 12 month old is currently 80 cms tall and has hovered between the 90th-99th percentile for height since birth (average weight). I'd like to keep him rear facing for as long as possible, but wondering for how many more years we will be able to safely use our current seats.

For parents of very tall children, until what age did your kids fit in their seats rear facing height wise?

So my first baby will remain in fulltime daycare when I give birth to my second, we're having a 17 month age gap. With all the sicknesses going around, some of which are dangerous for newborns, how do you keep them safe?

What do you do when your eldest is actively sick and you're home alone with both babies? and what do you do with day to day contact? I'd imagine my first could potentially want to be all over the new baby since he's a very affectionate child. I'm worried about his saliva coming in frequent contact with the newborn.

My son is 12 months old and I'm 20 weeks pregnant. He is a very loving, sensitive boy and also very clingy and cuddly. He's having some separation anxiety and always wants to be held or have me in his line of vision whilst playing. He is so chatty and an absolute ray of sunshine.

I can't help but worry about him having a negative reaction to a new sibling and feeling like his mummy is being taken away. I know I'm ultimately giving him the gift of a sibling, he will adjust and in 4-5 month from now he will be in a completely different developmental stage, but my heart breaks at the thought of his world flipping upside down and the pregnancy hormones aren't helping.

Any words of encouragement?

Ok so my husband and I have a disagreement about this. It's his best friend's birthday party tomorrow, which my husband is organising. They have been ttc since november with no good news yet, we saw them a few weeks ago and they weren't pregnant. They suffered an ectopic in february and also had a voluntary abortion 3 years ago after an accidental pregnancy (they weren't married or ready at the time). So they aren't exactly dealing with clinical infertility but the topic is also probably sensitive.

I'm currently 20 weeks pregnant with our second baby, our first just turned 12 months. I'm obviously showing and have already been asked if I'm pregnant by multiple rude family members. We decided not to tell anyone except our parents about the pregnancy until my anatomy scan at 22 weeks, it's just what I'm comfortable with and a personal boundary, so the best friend (and the whole friend group attending the party) doesn't know.

Here's the issue. I personally feel like I shouldn't attend the party. If it were any other social gathering I would've come without hesitation, but since it's his birthday I don't want to draw the attention to myself, have everyone speculate, possibly trigger them in any way and ruin the vibe. I wouldn't ever say anything but my bump kinda speaks for itself at this point. Idk I just feel like showing up like that especially without them knowing would be a really insensitive thing to do and I just want them to enjoy their day carefree. It doesn't sit right with me.

My husband heavily disagrees with me, he says I don't need to hide just because I'm pregnant and I have a full right to exist socially even if I'm showing a bit. It's 100% my business on who or when I decide to tell about it and I don't owe anyone anything. As long as I keep quiet about it at the party and don't talk about pregnancy it should be completely fine. I'm way overthingking this, my bump is still on the smaller side and I just need to wear my boxiest dress to conceal it a bit. Their ectopic was a long time ago, it's not like it was super recent or anything, and if they're triggered by my small bump it's up to them to manage their feelings about it and the responsibility shouldn't be on me. I shouldn't be excluded from the party especially since he is the one organising it. *Edit - end of husband's opinion

I completely understand his POV about not having to exclude myself socially but also worried it would still upset them. Am I overthinking this? Any thoughts?

Edit: just to make it clear - the last paragraph is my husband's opinion and I personally don't think february is "a long time ago". It sounds traumatic and I don't know how they're doing deep down. As I've said above I don't want to upset anyone, I just want to be a sensitive friend

Edit 2: Looks like most comments here share my opinion, which finalised my decision not to attend. We will say our toddler picked something up at nursery and I need to stay home with him. Husband will attend alone. I'd rather be extra sensitive on the matter than risk upsetting anyone. I just want them to have a good birthday.

People keep talking about distinct baby smells and newborn smells and how good they are but I could never smell mine like at all? All I could smell was sour milk and poop. Yes he had reflux. He's now 12 months old and no longer smells of spit up, but it's either neutral or sour from food leftovers or sweat in his hair at the end of the day. Am I the only one?

Currently pregnant with my second, my first birth and postpartum were very traumatic. I keep hearing about how the second birth and postpartum experiences are easier, smoother, faster etc and keep hearing stories like "first birth was a 30 hour nightmare followed by 12 weeks of pain and breastfeeding issues, second birth was 3 hours start to finish with no pain, baby latched immediately, tons of milk right away, dancing unicorns and I ran a marathon the next day". As much as I want this to be true, I don't want to come in with this type of expectation and am looking to hear other's perspectives and experiences to balance it out a little.

So if anyone here had a complicated second birth or postpartum experience and is comfortable sharing, including what helped and what didn't, please do!

Currently pregnant with baby #2, we're having a 17 month age gap. All the parents around me with classical 2-4 year age gaps are reading books about becoming a big sibling, giving their toddlers baby dolls, practicing gentle hands, basically all the classical things you do to emotionally prepare the toddler. The toddlers are walking around talking about the baby in mummy's tummy and seem to be excited and semi aware of what's going on.

For those of you with an age gap of 18 months and under, what did you do to prepare the toddler and how long before birth did you start? How much do they actually understand when they're still babies themselves?

My baby is turning 12 months in about 2 weeks, and up until recently was offered 4 6oz bottles a day, 1 in the morning, 2 at nursery and 1 before bed (so 24oz in total), on top of 3 meals and 2 snacks. He eats his solids really well (super thankful about that!) and wouldn't always finish every bottle, but his water intake was really low and it's super hot around here so we weren't comfortable offering any less formula. Recently I found a straw bottle he likes to drink from (after trying every cup under the sun), and his water consumption shot up and is replacing some milk, so over the past couple of days he's been dropping to 2-3 bottles. I'm going to start sending only 1 bottle to nursery instead of 2, and hopefully he'll drop that soon as well so we'll be left with only morning and evening bottles. How did the weaning process look like for you guys?

So this is my second pregnancy, in my last pregnancy I used a large ikea shark soft toy as a makeshift pillow and it kinda worked kinda didn't but our bed was very small so I coped. Now I'm 14 weeks pregnant, starting to get uncomfortable and the ikea shark just isn't cutting it like last time. We upgraded our bed to a very large one and I want to invest in a proper pregnancy pillow. Im not sure which one to get, there are the sausage shaped ones, the extra large full body U shaped ones, there are the bendy ones you can later use as a nursing pillow. Which shape is the most comfortable? Which shape would you recommend to avoid? How are we all sleeping? I wanna maximise comfort here

I'm looking at a 17 month age gap and contemplating on whether or not to get a double stroller. For context, we live in a city and most streets are quite narrow and I have to deal with stairs quite frequently. Like nothing crazy but I often have to lift the stroller across 1-3 steps to enter buildings, playgrounds or simply on the street. We currently have the bugaboo dragonfly and love it, and we were also gifted a single stroller/kiddy bike hybrid thing my kid can start using once they start walking. Some streets are tricky to pass through even with our bugaboo, and I find myself getting on and off the sidewalk to avoid obstacles. Basically with this setup, I feel like a double stroller might be a huge hassle and extremely difficult to manouver around.

Is anyone here managing 2u2 with a single stroller and a baby carrier?

So back when my son was born we were gifted a sound machine from one of our friends. It was a good quality, reputable one too. I tried turning it on to see what it sounded like, and found the white noise and the other music box style sounds absolutely terrifying? It sounded like the music that indicates paranormal activity in horror movies and I was like there's no way I'm having that thing on in my house. I don't believe in ghosts but find them terrifying nonetheless, and the white noise sounded like a ghost box. Can anyone else relate or is this a unique me problem?

Just found out we are having another boy, I'm still quite early in the pregnancy. I'm hoping 2 boys with a 17 month age gap will have a lot of fun together, but I'm lowkey worried about the absolute upcoming chaos. Any tips from seasoned parents?