u/Sufficient_Meal6614

My 15 week old baby has started to become more challenging to parent, not less. Through the newborn phase I was looking forward to the 12 weeks point when I understood we would have cleared the first big hurdle.

But he now sleeps less well, and is also much more difficult to handle when awake. I used to put him on the mat and he’d be happy mostly until time for nap, when he’d scream but then go down. Now he practices rolling and belly crawling but gets frustrated really quickly and grizzles throughout every wake window. Attempts to cycle through entertainment and soothing are exhausting and only work for a short time. He has even started rejecting carrier walks which used to interest and lull him. He ends up in floods of tears when a minor frustration will escalate fast. Then he will cry until the wake window ends. Yesterday my partner was napping him, and he was crying so hard I thought he would vomit.

Is it normal for it to get so hard at this point? He is eating ok.

My baby boy is 14 weeks. For every time he naps or goes down for the night, my partner or I will hold him with a dummy and white noise until he gets “doppy” as we call it. He can usually then be transferred to his crib, just asleep.

I hear a lot of talk of routines. But like… how? I keep a rough eye on wake window length and watch for his sleep cues, and go from there. He sleeps different lengths of time each time, so like… it’s impossible to know how the timings will go. When you’re implementing a routine, are you just putting them in the crib at that time and they go off to sleep? Like, I legit don’t understand how you exert any control over any of the timings.

Tell me how you do it! Inquiring minds need to know!

Our baby boy, 12 weeks and I believe 3 days old, is a sweet thing. In his wake windows he smiles, coos, waves his arms and legs excitedly and is a general charm.

Just one small issue. He cries most times that it’s time to sleep. He naps five times a day, so in total that’s up to six crying episodes a day (sometimes it curiously doesn’t happen but it’ll be back the next time). It often only lasts two to five minutes, but sometimes longer. Mostly it’s not howling style crying - occasionally it is though.

We have tried adjusting his wake windows every which way. It doesn’t seem to have a strong association with when he’s been fed, and we see what we think is a normal amount of spit-up and burps/farts. We use dummy and pink noise, swaddle, dark room, sometimes a little rocking. Nothing works. We have to conclude he either hates to go to sleep, or hates the feeling of being tired right before he sleeps.

Is this the witching hour? Cos … it happens during the day too. Does anyone have experience with this problem? When did it end?

I started taking my baby to classes and groups to socialise and get out. He’s 11 weeks, and we’ve had some really good outings where everything goes well - then days where it doesn’t.

Today I went to yoga in the morning and baby looked around in wonder at the instructors and was in a nice mood, then had a pram nap. In the afternoon we had arranged to see a friend in a park with a petting zoo (her child is old enough to appreciate this element). The timings for his naps and feeds didn’t work out (impossible to know in advance when you set the time to meet with your friend), he struggled to sleep any outside the house, then I dropped his bottle on the floor when I didn’t have spares (he’d already used one) and couldn’t keep feeding in case the teat was dirty. So he cried in the pram back to the car, then on the 20-minute drive home.

Other mums in my NCT group are not taking their babies out because they cry. I felt like they were saying it’s better for the baby to be at home, because going out upsets them. I wondered if I’m being a bit selfish dragging my baby to stuff when it clearly disrupts his naps and sometimes upsets him.

What are other people‘s takes?

Edit to add - to be clear I don’t think the NCT folk were saying I am selfish, they’re nice people! I was self judging after seeing the choices they are making. Thanks for the tips 🙌

My son is 2 months old. We really want to visit my brother and his kids this summer, but he’s disclosed to me that his children aren’t vaccinated. He and his wife have very different political beliefs to my partner and I, mostly I really don’t care - have no interest judging his politics. On this though, wouldn’t my son be at a significant risk? How have you navigated this?

I’ve been unable to directly breastfeed since my baby was born six weeks ago. The birth was exhausting and traumatic and I had health problems afterwards. I started pumping to maintain supply so that I could hopefully start breastfeeding eventually. The latch hasn’t really happened yet, which is another story, and I am pumping six times a day and getting about 50 ml per session.

I am now reasonably sure the latch won’t ever happen. So the main reason to pump is now only to provide some portion of my babies diet in breast milk. Pumping six times a day to provide such a relatively small proportion of his intake (about a third) seems like a lot of work for not much benefit. I pump three times from evening through the small hours and I find these sessions particularly difficult In terms of sleep lost in order to pump, especially the one at the end of the night before I go to bed because it delays me being able to sleep. I haven’t found a good way of caring for the baby and pumping at the same time so the pumps only really take place when my partner is caring for the baby or I have put him down to sleep.

Does anyone have any wisdom? Is this small portion of breastmilk actually benefiting the baby? Did anyone else have a similar situation and find a sustainable way forwards?

Edit to add: I use a Minbie pump, for about 20 minutes each time. I’ve tried a Spectra and manual pump too, it didn’t really give much different amounts.

This is probably a silly question but I can’t really ask anyone in my normal life. Basically I’ve noticed that what my family is doing with the baby is different from what some others do and I wondered if there are negatives I should be considering.

The baby struggled to latch from birth (tongue tie plus a traumatic birth for me, and the fact I have small flat nipples). This means feeding a combo of expressed BM and formula, so baby’s dad can care for baby just as effectively. We are still trying to get a latch six weeks in, with some modest successes.

Since birth I’ve been happy to hand my baby to his dad and share the caregiving pretty much equally. This means that when I’ve left the house, I have sometimes not been with the baby, and when I’ve run into acquaintances, people have asked me; “Where is the baby?” (I’m like … obviously with his father? Where else would he be…?) Meanwhile, when my partner takes the baby to the shop or etc, people say to him: “Ahhh, are you giving mum a break?”

I had assumed that sharing care between the two of us is completely fine. But I can now see this isn’t the norm. Reading Lucy Jones’s Matrescence I can see that many mothers are basically the sole caregiver, and feel deep guilt for leaving baby with another - even for a few minutes.

I don’t feel that guilt, nor the same intense sense of tug or failure when I step away from the boy for an hour or two (I do think of him and his lovely face while I’m gone, but it’s not painful). I am curious and have been wondering: Is there any reason to think what I’m doing is less good? Is there any evidence about attachment or biological outcomes that suggests I shouldn’t share care in this way?