u/W4x_Wings

Hello! I am an FTM to a one month old baby girl who is currently set to start daycare at 3 months when I have to return to work.

One of the things that has challenged me the most so far has been feeding. My baby is pretty sleepy most of the time, and when she gets hungry, she often goes from zero (mild lip smacking) to 100 (wailing) within 2-5 minutes. Since you're obviously not supposed to let newborns "cry it out," I've been trying my best to drop everything and get her fed when this happens, which means literally everything else has gone by the wayside for me. I can't even figure out how I'm supposed to pump and feed her at the same time eventually, even though I'll need to work on that soon. The few times I've tried have ended in dropping things on the floor, lol.

Here's my concern: let's say my baby takes 15-20 minutes to finish a bottle, which she currently does. Let's say she gets hungry while another infant is eating. Realistically, does this mean she will be left to scream for the 15-20 minutes it takes THAT baby to finish their bottle? Maybe I am being thick, but I'm not sure I see how group care and feeding infants on demand can go together. Is my instinct right here, or are daycare workers just way more efficient than FTMs in a way that enables them to deal with this juggling?

Please be honest with me about your experiences here.

Hi everyone! I have a 3 week 4 day old and I'm starting to try to use my pump more and give some bottles in anticipation of going back to work and getting rid of some engorgement MOTN and I am having a lot of trouble figuring out how the heck to keep up with dishes.

I have a grownsy countertop bottle washer, but I can only seem to fit either a) 2 sets of spectra pump parts for double pumping, with some difficulty OR b) 3 small Philips avent bottles and a few pacifiers . The instructions with the washer said not to block any of the spray jets/arms, so I'm trying not to do that. I would try to handwash more right now, but I don't currently have a suitable wash basin and don't really have a Tupperware large enough to fit everything in. I just tried to use a glass Tupperware I have and ended up dropping something in the sink :/ What am I doing wrong??? Am I missing something really obvious? How are y'all loading these things effectively ?

My beautiful little girl is currently 3 weeks and 3 days old, and I am really, really struggling even with my husband home from work for 6 weeks. I am extremely worried about what is going to happen when he goes back. He works 12 and a half hour shifts a decent drive away, and my in laws who live 20 minutes away both also work . My parents live quite far away.

I have PPA and have been needing quite a bit of help with a lot of things during the day, like being able to get literally any chores done. I'm not comfortable with any baby carriers yet, and we still haven't quite figured out whether or not her car seat is safe enough because no one around here checks them. My counters haven't been cleaned since before she was born.

This baby is practically impossible to wake up and is sleeping up to 5 hour stretches at night - which I have been greedily allowing to happen, then practically choking her on my let down, leading to 2 vomit incident in the past week. As a result of the sleeping, she eats practically every 40 minutes in the late afternoon. There is nothing I can do to seem to break this cycle. It takes my husband and I both severely pestering her to get her to wake up at all. The diaper change, cold wipe, blowing on her face, etc. tricks don't work at all, or only work for a few seconds. She has enough outputs so my LC isn't concerned about her, but it is driving me nuts.

My husband has been literally hand feeding me my dinner because of the constant feeding if I'm going to eat, and I'm definitely not drinking enough water. I constantly need his help to do things like clean up after a blowout or if she spits up too much.

I need to be pumping to build a stash and start practicing bottles for when I go back to work at 12 weeks, but I'm struggling to even get my pump up and down the stairs in a timely fashion to use it, let alone washing it quickly enough, and I also can't figure out holding and tending to baby while using it. Baby has only had a few baths at home, and we're not wash clothing her high traffic areas down every day like we're supposed to. I also have a high needs dog that I have to figure out how to get to an inflexible doggie daycare without endangering the baby.

I looked into hiring a short term mother's helper or nanny through an agency since I really don't have enough time to vet someone thoroughly myself at this point. I technically have enough money to swing it, but it will completely decimate my savings. I'm not sure at this point if that is what needs to happen though.

For those of you whose spouses have extended work hours on shift schedules and who have no help - please tell me how in the cinnamon toast fuck you did it, because I have no clue how this is going to be possible. This really isn't just a vent. I desperately need to know!!