u/Katerina_Branding

So the temperature's been going up where we live these days and I am wondering how everyone is handling sun / UV and insect protection.

Context: We live in the countryside and since baby girl was born in spring, I've been spending quite some time outdoors with her and dog, or sometimes even the whole family.

One thing is we all enjoy it, the other is that without carrier walks, she doesn't nap in the afternoon, if you don't count cat naps.

For instance yesterday I left her with MIL and husband from 5 to 8 PM, husband was still working when I got home so he wasn't able to take her for a walk and MIL wouldn't feel comfortable doing that, so baby only had two ten minute naps in that whole time. Which is fine, she generally has longer wake windows and doesn't get fussy, also I took her for a 1.5 walk right before leaving so she had a nice nap. But that's just how she works, she needs those walks to nap properly.

We are surrounded by beautiful nature, however, to get to areas shaded by trees, you need to hike quite a bit. If I do that on a warm afternoon, I sweat and she gets hot, her body being pressed to mine in the carrier. If I only walk around the farm area which is more exposed, I am struggling with how to keep her arms and legs protected from the sun. She wears a hat with a brim + the ErgoBaby carrier has a good sunshade solution, but the arms and legs are hanging out.

Yesterday I kept her in long sleeve for that reason, but felt like I won't be able to do that in summer as she'd get mad hot. I did buy some UV protection clothes, but only realised upon delivery that the one meant for daily wearing is short sleeve. The one meant for the beach is long sleeve, I am wondering if I can just use that one? The material looks the same to me.

For myself I wear as little as possible and put on sunscreen, but I hear that ideally you should avoid putting it onto babies younger than 6 months. I bought some kind of super sensitive baby sunscreen lotion yesterday that doesn't mention any age limitation, is that generally okay to use on arms and legs?

What seems to be the best solution so far is putting her into the pram to get through the sunny area (she enjoys pram walks but doesn't sleep during them) and then putting her into the carrier once in the forest. That usually means though that she'll wake up in the pram once we're walking back home and I'll have to breastfeed her somewhere very sunny with no shade. Driving is also not so great cause she'll mostly wake up in the car seat and be unhappy while I drive back home cause she can't see me. Also only one area of where we live is even pram accessible.

Another solution would possibly be pacing around the living room for a couple hours every day but I don't really see myself doing that the whole summer... And I am thinking there must be better solutions for people with multiple kids and / or pets.

So my first question is, is baby sunscreen okay for a two month old or not?

And the second one: are there any insect sprays you'd consider for a little baby? The forest areas are nicely shaded, but the mosquito season is coming up.

Might be obvious to everyone else than me but just in case: make sure you regularly check ALL their folds! Like, have someone help you lift all the various chins from all sides. If your baby is as chubby as ours, it’s definitely a two people’s job!

Our baby girl was born with 3400 g and then skipped a curve in weight gain and grew real fast. Now she’s two months old and growing incredibly, which means a lot of skin folds EVERYWHERE.

Two days ago, I was changing her diaper in a cafe. Her poop made its way up her back so I took her whole body off, and as she stretched out her arm properly, I found a bit of stinky white buildup in one of her many armpits. I cleaned it off and the skin under was red and irritated.

I felt so bad and worried, tried to go to the pediatrician immediately but both him and the replacement were on holiday / already gone. I consulted ChatGPT and it said this could lead to an infection, but to check for fever first and otherwise just warm water + good drying + baby powder or similar.

Luckily baby girl had no fever, but when cleaning and treating the armpit at home, I discovered similar stuff in her chins!

Won’t even mention the guilt I felt. Luckily it went away quickly, but I talked to my husband and we agreed we’ve both been focusing on her leg folds and her bum bum way more than these areas. Don’t get me wrong, we do wash her everywhere, but she is such a chubby baby at the moment that after discovering the sore in her armpit, I even had trouble finding it again, it was so well hidden!

Will definitely ALWAYS do bath time together from now on, as one really has to kinda stretch her neck to one side and the other check and clean it, this from all angles (front, back, sides). For the armpits, one person needs to stretch out each of her arms and examine it from all angles. And then the drying!
I had to stuff bits of towel in her armpits to make sure it actually dries out properly, as that could lead to more buildup.

Anyways, just thought I’d share in case someone needs to hear this. Also happy to read about how you guys manage this and how often you bathe. My parents used to bathe us every night, while here where we live they recommend once a week only. We do twice a week, but with the summer approaching and this experience, I’ll consider bathing more often. (Of course we wash her with moist tissues during every diaper change.)

I’m just wondering how those of you with multiple kids manage no screen time for the youngest one.

Our situation: we have my four year old stepson in shared custody. He gets to watch his dino show every other day when with us, meaning 2-3 times a week, each time around 1 h. We don’t have a television but a projector and a large canvas that we pull down for these occasions. We don’t really leave him alone in front of it but rather at least one of us watches with him.

Now I mostly plan my ‘no baby’ activities like sport for those times when bigger brother is with us and wants to watch his show, my husband ca then easily sit on the couch with him and bottle feed and cuddle our 2 month old.

From what I researched kids her age shouldn’t even be able to track what’s happening on the screen and we sit quite far from it since it’s a huge canvas, however perhaps it being so big makes it easier for her to do so and she definitely tries to watch, even turn her head when we change position so that she doesn’t face it.

My gut feeling tells me it’s not a big deal if this happens 2-3 times a week and on a canvas that’s further away, not a tablet in front of her face or so. What do you think?

Also for her brother, we followed a rule of zero screen time until he was almost three years old and I’d like to keep that for her too. I’m wondering though when kids are 2 and 6, how the hell I’m gonna manage that? Only idea I have is I always plan an activity for her (take her outside most likely, or to a play group) when it’s TV time for her brother, but I worry it might seem forced and she might want to be with her brother, especially since he’s not always with us. Or perhaps only let him watch while she naps?

So I’m wondering when did those of you whose kids already have solid routines start consciously building them / when would you recommend doing so?

Out girl is nearing 2 months and at the moment the only reliable schedule is the following: going to bed between 9:30 and 10 pm, waking for long feed between 4:30 and 5 am, back to sleep between 6 and 7, staying asleep until 11:30. The afternoon and evening are then 100% random and (short) naps only happen with a lot of outdoor baby wearing.

I’m more than okay with the current state of things and my gut feeling tells me it’s too early to start worrying about a routine, but interested to hear the opinions of those who recently managed to build any.

For context little girl has always been a good night sleeper and would only wake twice per night after coming back from hospital, she always did at 1-2 long daytime naps until the last growth spurt though.

Now she seems to enjoy basically sleeping through half of the day and being mostly alert (but not whiny) for the other half (of course I assist her to do some naps but if I didn’t, she’d be happily awake for extremely long periods).

Does it make sense with a baby this little to wake her in the morning, will she then go back to a long afternoon nap? I suspect that whatever I try to build at this point will just take its own trajectory anyway, as daytime sleep habits seem to change out of nowhere every now and then so I don’t bother and just go with her flow.

So our baby girl never really followed the pattern of waking for feeding every 2-3 hours. She did at least 5 h night stretches since we got back from the hospital, was gaining well and had plenty of wet diapers so we didn’t wake her for feeding (after consulting with midwife). She also always had longer than recommended wake windows during the day (I tried my best to make them shorter) but she was never whiny.

I started tracking her total sleep time during her first growth spurt (somewhere between 3-5 weeks, lasted about 10 days) and found out that when I really try (we’re talking 12-20K steps a day with pram and ErgoBaby to help her sleep), we usually get 13 h of sleep in total, up to 15 if she slept even less the day before and was real tired (happened maybe twice). It first stressed me out because ‘babies should sleep more’ but well she just doesn’t.

Now at 8 weeks she seems to be going through another growth spurt and her sleep pattern looks like this: 7-7.5 h stretch at night (10 pm to 5:30 am), back to sleep between 6:30 and 7, sleep until 10ish or 10:30. Then we get perhaps 1 hour around noon or until 1 pm and that’s basically it. No matter what I do, she’ll just do catnaps, 5-20 min. She falls asleep between 9:30 and 10 pm and sleeps until 5:30 am again.

I’m not complaining but like, is that going to stay like this? No more long daytime naps? Or is it a phase? Did anyone else have similar experience with a lower sleep need baby?

So our little girl did almost an 8 hour stretch this night which is awesome, so far her longest. However, I woke up earlier than her, in puddles of milk again. T-Shirt soaked with milk, pillow soaked with milk, bedsheet soaked with milk. Had to go and pump it out until she woke up and could drink the rest out of my breasts.

My question is - with babies sleeping longer at night, will it always be like this? Can the body actually fully regulate the milk production at some point to only produce when baby is sucking?

I almost exclusively breastfeed + some pumping, especially if I know I am going somewhere or when breasts get too full while she sleeps. We give the occasional Aptamil bottle during peak cluster feeds.

I felt like this stopped happening to me when I didn't pump for a few days, as the pumping seems to overstimulate me, but then again there are some people that exclusively pump?

Any experience / advice? She's seven and half weeks old, so my experience is still pretty limited.