u/Loose-Walrus1085

Ok there’s no other way to slice it. My poor 11 week old is just the most miserable baby. Every week I try to be positive and think this one might be better, but we remain in this same state of misery. She has gotten slightly better. Instead of screaming 98% of the time her eyes are open, it’s more like 75% of the time. But I’m really feeling like every week that she doesn’t turn into a happier baby, the more and more it’s affecting my mental health.
I’ve tried reflux meds, gas drops, hypoallergenic formula, elimination diets, bottle feeding expressed milk, all of the gas exercises I can find, baby wearing, chiropractor, craniosacral therapy, extra visits to the pediatrician to troubleshoot, etc. I guess she just hates her life? I’m really not sure what the problem is but I feel like I need a week/month to look forward to so I can focus my mind on something. So please tell me when your unhappy newborn started doing better.

Hi everyone! I have a 10 week old who seems to be VERY sensitive to overtiredness, especially compared to my first. She doesn’t really nap on the go because she won’t nap in her car seat or a stroller. And because her wake windows are still so short, leaving the house is always a disaster. Even at home if I’m not timing her nap perfectly, it’s massive meltdowns all day. I know at her age it’s normal to be really affected by being overtired but I’m just wondering when your baby started to cope with it a little better. Just looking forward to a stage where I can enjoy outings with my toddler without sacrificing my baby’s mood.

Hi! Please please please give me any and all advice.

I have a 2.5 year old and 7 week old. My 2.5 year old is very attached to me, super sensitive, and pretty anxious for a toddler. The transition of a baby in the house has been tough but overall he’s been adapting without too many issues. Fast forward to this past week and he had to be hospitalized for a high fever and neck pain with an unknown cause. It was so so awful for him. They had to place an IV and blew his vein twice before getting it the third time. So many different instances of holding him down while he screamed and cried and begged them to stop. He’s understandably very traumatized from it all. Even when they came in the room to do things like take his temperature, he would lose his mind. As his mom, I was of course involved in all of it too and he has been clinging to me even more than normal. Again, I totally understand this and I’m doing everything I can to be there for him.

However, since we’ve been home, the baby has become a really big issue for him. He’s going off the rails if I have to give her any attention. I tried to breastfeed her yesterday and he was screaming and holding onto me and begging me to hold him and saying “calm me down mama” while also begging my husband to make her a bottle instead. He got to the point where he couldn’t catch his breath and started panicking.

I of course think therapy would be appropriate for him but it’s a Saturday and I don’t know what to do until I can get him in. He’s very emotionally vulnerable and deserves all of the love and cuddles right now. But I also have an infant that needs to be cared for too. We can divide and conquer while my husband is home for the weekend but I’m really worried about him returning to work Monday. I don’t want to have to remove myself from my toddler in order to do things like feed the baby. Isolation will traumatize him even more. But she needs to eat. I’m not sure where/how I should draw boundaries. I’m also not sure if giving him all my attention and letting my husband handle the baby will just backfire more on Monday.

Feeling really guilty about my feelings lately and wondering if I should speak to my doctor about PPD.

My second was very wanted and planned for. I was mentally prepared for the bonding process to look different based on posts I frequently see about the bond taking longer with baby #2. But we’re 7 weeks in and if I’m being honest, I mostly care for her out of obligation and not actual desire to do it.

My toddler is 2.5 and the sweetest, most enjoyable kid to be around. He’s so attached to me and I’m really attached to him, so I knew this transition would be difficult. I THOUGHT a 2.5 year gap would be big enough but I really regret the timing now.

My poor baby is of course an innocent little baby who doesn’t know any better, but I don’t enjoy her presence. She’s very colicky so she’s crying all. the. time. She also has bad reflux so I feel like I’m in a constant cycle of feed, hold upright, put back to sleep. She has so much difficulty sleeping because she’s overstimulated. So there’s a lot of waking back up 5 minutes into a nap while in the carrier and then screaming because she’s overtired and wants to sleep. Because of this, I’ll spend so much time getting her into a deeper sleep to transfer to her bassinet just for her to wake 3 minutes later because she was put down. Then I have to go get her while my toddler sits there in disappointment because he thought he finally got some 1 on 1 time but it only lasted a few minutes.

My 2.5 year old still cosleeps and loves to snuggle with me. We’ve always spent extra time in the morning just chilling in bed while we talked and cuddled. Now when the baby gets up, I feel dread because I know we have a few minutes in the morning before she’s losing her mind. All the moments I love with my toddler feel like they get ruined now with the baby.

She also screams nonstop if anyone else holds her. It never feels like I can get a break because even if my husband takes her, I can hear the screaming from any other part of the house. I specifically paid for a mothers helper to come hold the baby and give her the undivided attention she deserves while I play with my toddler but it never works that way, because she won’t chill at all with anyone else.

My toddler doesn’t like her and I honestly don’t blame him. She’s taking up so much of my attention while only screaming at us in return. My husband pointed out that if they’re both crying, I always pick the toddler over the newborn and he thinks that’s unfair.

My toddler just had an overnight stay in the hospital. I stayed with him while my husband was at home with the baby. Even though the circumstances were awful, I’m ashamed to say that I felt so much relief knowing the baby was at home and I didn’t have to deal with her. I’ve only ever left my toddler overnight once (giving birth) and it was devastating to me.

I don’t want to hurt my baby and I don’t want anything bad to happen to her. I just want someone else to take care of her and give her back when she’s like 6 months old. I know I’ll look back and regret these feelings. I also know this post is all over the places but it’s 4:00 am and I had to confess it.

My 6 week old has been extremely fussy and challenging since pretty much 1 week old. I feel like I’m trying everything to figure out what’s causing her so much distress with very little success. One big part of the problem is that once she escalates, she cannot seem to calm down. And I don’t know what to do for her in those moments. When she’s upset she will often scream and scream and scream until she’s barely breathing and then just gives up and falls asleep. It’s torturous to witness and makes me feel awful for her.

On top of that, I’m feeling so overwhelmed and drained with her colic and my husband is feeling less and by less motivated to help with her. He’s pretty much scared to even hold her now. She usually cries for him and like I shared above, she doesn’t stop once she starts. If he does hold her screaming and she falls asleep, she wakes up 5 minutes later and does it all again. So as much as I really want to pass her off some of the day, it’s almost not worth it because it’s a miserable experience for everyone.

Every day I’m hoping it gets better and every day I feel more and more disheartened. My newborn has been pretty miserable since birth. Even in the hospital, when she’d cry it was such a loud intense shrieking cry that it threw me for a loop. My first born was such a sleepy content newborn in the beginning, I only remember him crying for diaper changes. My second on the other hand does. not. stop. screaming. Car seat? Screaming. Stroller? Screaming. Anyone else holding her? Screaming. Me holding her but not breastfeeding? Screaming. Bouncer? Screaming. Swing? Screaming. Putting her in the wrap? Screaming until she passes out. It’s never just a cry either. It’s screaming until she spits up, chokes on the spit up, gets quiet for a few seconds because she can’t breathe, and then gets right back to it as soon as the spit up is cleared.

I’m dairy, soy, and egg free now. She gets gas drops after each feeding. I do gas exercises with her like it’s my full time job. I even tried hypoallergenic formula. I don’t know what else to do for her and we haven’t even hit peak fussiness yet. I’m honestly scared of what that’s going to look like. My poor 2.5 year old is normally the sweetest most gentle kid. But he’s very sensitive and this has been really tough on him. I can see the frustration build and start turning to aggression when she screams. It’s so hard for me to deal with as an adult, I can’t imagine how he feels being around it all day. The pediatrician keeps telling me everything looks good with her and that some babies are just like this. I’m so overwhelmed by this stage and frustrated that the only way I can spend time with my toddler is if someone else holds my baby while she screams endlessly.

Hi everyone! Looking for advice because I’m feeling very overwhelmed at the moment. I have a 5 week old who is having a really tough time. Extremely gassy, reflux, colic, constantly seems uncomfortable. I removed dairy from my diet wondering if this was the issue but saw pretty limited improvement. Honestly didn’t even know if it was the dairy or just her getting calmer as she started getting a little older. I trialed dairy again and based on the day I had yesterday, I do think it’s an issue. However, I think there might be more than just dairy. I’m going to try a hypoallergenic formula while cutting out all of the main allergens from my diet.

With that being said, what should pumping look like to keep my supply up? How often/how long/how many ounces should I aim to pump? I’m so worried I’m going to mess up my supply by doing this or she’ll not want to latch anymore. Any advice? Anyone who’s done the same have advice?

Looking for advice on whether to use the snoo with baby #2 or not. I used it with my first and he slept ok in it but never great. He’s biologically an awful sleeper I believe. Transitioning him out of swaddled arms was awful. Transitioning him out of the snoo was also awful. His sleep pretty much never recovered and he continued waking ever 1-2 hours until 2 years old.

I told myself I would not be using the snoo with my second because I’d rather she just learn to sleep from the beginning without a “crutch” like the snoo. She’s 4 weeks old now and starts the night with a 4-5 hour stretch in the bassinet, which is amazing, but won’t transfer back and I pretty much spend the rest of the night sleeping in 15 minute increments here and there while I hold her. By the time I do bedtime with my toddler and get to sleep myself, I’m only getting 1-2 hours of sleep myself during her first stretch.

So now at this point, I’m asking myself, “is it stupid not to use the snoo?” She already shows so much more potential sleep wise than my son, so part of me wants to ride it out and see how she naturally progresses. The other part knows she might not improve in the near future or end up regressing and being a horrible sleeper anyway. So am I dumb for potentially missing out on a few good months of sleep because I’m more concerned with what ifs? What would you do?

*Also adding that we do enjoy traveling and have no interest in renting snoos when we travel. So I also worry about the flexibility of her sleep in that aspect too.

Baby #2 is 3 weeks old and we’re in the trenches right now. She’s refluxy and I’m currently cutting out dairy and soy because of a suspected allergy. She’s pretty much miserable all day every day. My first born’s newborn stage was a blur so I don’t remember a lot of the early stages. What are some mini milestones in the next few weeks for me to look forward to? I hate to rush it but I need things to get excited about in the near future since current day is so tough.

I have a 2.5 year old son and 2.5 week old daughter. My son has always been extremely attached to me. He never let anyone else hold him as a baby, never allowed my husband to do any naps or bedtime with him, and is just generally attached to my hip 24/7. I never tried to fight it or change it because I love our bond and knew the closeness was providing nurture to his brain. I also feel strongly about enjoying every moment so I never look back with regrets. Because of this I’ve ALWAYS made myself available to him (I’m thinking too available now). I never turned down an opportunity to hold or carry him because I know one day he’ll stop asking and he’ll be too big for my to carry. I even carried him around while I was in labor and having contractions because he was needing comfort. We cosleep and up until he stopped napping, he’s never taken a nap by himself.

Fast forward to current day with 2 kids and I’m really feeling like I’ve set us up for failure. I’m breaking my back trying to give him as much attention as possible and make him feel the least impacted by the change as I can, but it all feels like a disaster right now. I put the baby down or hand her off as often as possible. I still find ample time throughout the day to get on the floor and play with him. I make sure she’s not around for bedtime so we can keep our same routine with just the two of us when we do bedtime and I put him to sleep. I hold both of them at the same time. I also use a carrier when I can to try to be hands free for his sake, but he’s not having any of it. He doesn’t want me holding her at all. There is 0 flexibility on his part.

He recently dropped his final nap and gets more and more miserable every day. He isn’t getting enough sleep because he wakes early now when she’s noisy and grunty and won’t go back to sleep because he needs me to carry him around to sleep. She won’t let me lay her down in the mornings without freaking out so there’s no way for me to carry him back to sleep when my husband’s at work. I don’t know if I can successfully add his nap back in because again, he needs to be carried to sleep which means I have to be able to put her down and keep her quiet for the 20+ minutes he’s falling asleep. I chose not to sleep train and now here I am with a 2.5 year old who is still completely reliant on me for sleep.

He was always the sweetest gentle angel but is acting out more and more every day. I expected behaviors. I expected it to be difficult. But I didn’t expect that I’d be feeling horrible and guilty for how little attention my newborn gets from me and how it’s still not enough for my toddler. I want him to feel secure in our attachment but I also want to treat both of my children with equal amounts of love and respect. He’s never expressed his anger with any sort of violence before she was born but today he bit me during a fit that started over me picking her up this morning when we got out of bed.

I don’t know how to draw boundaries in a way that doesn’t make him feel like he’s being replaced or I’m choosing her over him. I also don’t know how to navigate it so I’m not placing the blame on her (I.e., I can’t hold you right now because I’m holding your sister) as I’m afraid this will make his relationship with her even worse.

I’ve tried just getting them out of the house to get through these early weeks but that doesn’t go well either. If we go to the park, he wants me to carry him around. He only wants to go on the slide if he can sit on my lap. I’ve tried taking them for walks at a local trail but even as an only child, he’d be miserable in the stroller and would want to be carried by me. I can no longer do this because she’s also not content enough to stay in the stroller for an entire walk and I can’t hold them both while also pushing the stroller. He has never been independent with things like play so it’s impossible for me to juggle all that he wants from me + a baby.

Really regretting my decision to have a second child right now. I feel miserable. My son is miserable. My husband is miserable. My daughter is miserable 90% of the time she’s awake. I hate to rush time but I can’t wait until she’s a few months older and hoping that makes things a little better.

I gave birth to baby #2 4 days ago and finding some difficulty with breastfeeding. I breastfed my first for 2 years and don’t remember going through this.

Baby had no issues latching and feeding when I just had colostrum. Once my milk came in, I got super engorged and she has been struggling to latch since. Based on advice I read online, I attempted reverse pressure softening which only worked once or twice. After a 2 am scream fest because she couldn’t latch no matter how much I hand expressed or tried the softening, I finally got out the pump. I was hoping to avoid using it because I really really don’t want to create an oversupply for myself and deal with the misery of engorgement even longer. But here we are and I now have to pump before every feed and it seems like I’m needing to pump more and more each time to get her to latch.

Even when I go through this whole process of pumping and attempting to latch while she lays with me and screams, she sometimes still refuses to latch. Or she will latch and literally suck once or twice and then sleep. Soooo I thought maybe I’m misunderstanding her cues when she’s rooting and whipping her head around like a baby bird with her mouth out and she’s not wanting to nurse?? So instead I’ve tried burping her, but doesn’t seem like that’s the issue. I’ve also just tried paci and sleep but not a winner either.

So I feel like I’m lost and absolutely dreading every time I have to feed her bc it’s such a miserable experience for both of us. Any ideas?

Hi everyone! I’m due with baby #2 in 2 weeks and in the mood to treat myself. My skin is:

-dehydrated (constantly working on this but pregnancy and breastfeeding suck the moisture out of me)

-acne prone

-super super susceptible to PIH (basically a guarantee with every pimple I get)

If you have similar skin, which products are you actually excited to apply because you know you’ll wake up with skin that’s smoother, brighter, or plumper? Preferably breastfeeding safe please!