u/fancystrikes

My baby is 7 months old, around 95th percentile for height and weight, and we’ve ended up (using all safety precautions) cosleeping again after a brief and failed attempt at crib sleep. It feels like he nurses nonstop overnight. It seems like he’s taking 3-4 full feeds a night, and even more when teething. We don’t use pacifiers and I don’t plan to start and I don’t want to do Ferber/CIO sleep training. I’m a FTM so just wondering if this is just how some bigger babies are.

Anyone else have a big baby who basically ate all night? Did they eventually grow out of it on their own, or did you have to actively night wean?

My baby is 7 months old, around 95th percentile for height and weight, and we’ve ended up cosleeping again after a brief attempt at crib sleep. It feels like he nurses nonstop overnight. It seems like he’s taking 3-4 full feeds a night, and even more when teething. I’m a FTM so just wondering if this is just how some bigger babies are.

Anyone else have a big baby who basically ate all night while cosleeping? Did they eventually grow out of it on their own, or did you have to actively night wean?

ETA: I don’t use pacifiers and don’t plan to.

But once he’s done cutting a pair of teeth, he continues wake and be inconsolable unless he gets to eat, out of habit it seems. He’s 7 months.

I’m so sleepy. Anyone else going through this?

I coslept with my son for the first 6 months of his life (Safe Sleep 7, C-curl, etc.), but after an illness and some brutal jet lag from a trip, he started waking 4–5 times a night and doing 360s around the bed. Friends had success with Ferber, so we decided to give it a try.
I couldn’t even listen to him cry. I’d leave the house while my partner did check-ins. The first night he cried for 45 minutes at multiple wakeups. It was awful.
After a few weeks, he was only fussing for about 10 minutes at bedtime, but he’d still wake around 3–4 a.m. and often be so worked up that he’d be awake for the day, even though he used to sleep until around 6. We ended up in this inconsistent middle ground where I’d usually bring him into bed after that wake-up and nurse him back to sleep.
A couple of nights ago his top two teeth started coming in, and his bedtime crying sounded completely different, painful rather than protesting. I went back to feeding him to sleep and then full cosleeping.
The difference has honestly been striking to me. I feel like I can breathe again. And maybe it’s coincidence, but during the weeks we were sleep training he seemed much more withdrawn and laughed a lot less. Since returning to cosleeping, even while actively teething, he’s been bubbly, engaged, and much more like himself.
I know the research generally concludes that sleep training isn’t associated with long-term harm, but my experience has left me wondering whether there are aspects of infant emotional experience or attachment that are difficult to measure.
At this point I feel pretty strongly that I want to return to cosleeping. My partner is more persuaded by the literature, and I also don’t want him to feel like the difficult weeks we spent sleep training were all for nothing.
Has anyone else stopped sleep training and gone back to cosleeping? What made you decide? Did you notice any change in your baby, or find any research that helped you make sense of your experience?

I coslept with my son for the first 6 months of his life (Safe Sleep 7, C-curl, etc.), but after an illness and some brutal jet lag from a trip, he started waking 4–5 times a night and doing 360s around the bed. Friends had success with Ferber, so we decided to give it a try.
I couldn’t even listen to him cry. I’d leave the house while my partner did check-ins. The first night he cried for 45 minutes at multiple wakeups. It was awful.
After a few weeks, he was only fussing for about 10 minutes at bedtime, but he’d still wake around 3–4 a.m. and often be so worked up that he’d be awake for the day, even though he used to sleep until around 6. We ended up in this inconsistent middle ground where I’d usually bring him into bed after that wake-up and nurse him back to sleep.
A couple of nights ago his top two teeth started coming in, and his bedtime crying sounded completely different, painful rather than protesting. I went back to feeding him to sleep and then full cosleeping.
The difference has honestly been striking to me. I feel like I can breathe again. And maybe it’s coincidence, but during the weeks we were sleep training he seemed much more withdrawn and laughed a lot less. Since returning to cosleeping, even while actively teething, he’s been bubbly, engaged, and much more like himself.
I know the research generally concludes that sleep training isn’t associated with long-term harm, but my experience has left me wondering whether there are aspects of infant emotional experience or attachment that are difficult to measure.
At this point I feel pretty strongly that I want to return to cosleeping. My partner is more persuaded by the literature, and I also don’t want him to feel like the difficult weeks we spent sleep training were all for nothing.
Has anyone else stopped sleep training and gone back to cosleeping? What made you decide? Did you notice any change in your baby, or find any research that helped you make sense of your experience?

I cosleot with my son for the first 6 months of his life, but after an illness and jet lag from a trip he was waking 4-5x a night and doing 360s around the bed. We decided to try Ferber as friends had success with it. I couldn’t listen - I would leave the house and cry knowing he was crying. Even with check ins, he cried for 45 minutes the first night with my partner. Horrible.

We got to the point where he was only protesting/fussing for about 10 minutes and then waking up around 3-4 am. At that point we were inconsistent but mainly I ended up taking him into the bed with me and feeding him to sleep. Sometimes he was so riled up he’d be awake for the day, when he usually preciously woke at 6am.

About 4 weeks in (this was a couple nights ago), his top two teeth started coming in and his crying at bedtime was different and pained so I went back to feeding to sleep and eventually full cosleeping. I feel like I can breathe again. I don’t care what the “research” says and I don’t trust that they have studied the full spectrum of the effect on attachment. The nights we sleep trained, my baby was more withdrawn and wouldn’t laugh much. The last couple nights we coslept, he’s been bubbly and open (even on top of painful teething).

I’m firm we should return to cosleeping. But my partner suffered a lot of nights sleep training and I don’t want him to feel like it was all for nothing. Plus, obviously, the literature says “sleep training is fine and not harmful at all!!!”

Anyone else relate to this? Is love to hear your points of view, literature you’ve found that supports cosleeping, anything that might convince him from a research or even anecdotal standpoint that sleep training is not the best thing for our babies. While I’m certain I’m going to return to cosleeping, I’d love to get him fully on board with us.

As someone who grew and birthed a human this last year and who has also had intestinal spasms for 15 years, they are on par with each other in terms of pain level. I actually preferred labor pains because at least I was accomplishing something.

Tell me why ChatGPT was the one to help me figure out these were intestinal spasms even though I’ve been to countless GI doctors. I’ve never even been offered an antispasmodic but I’ve been to the ER and given dilaudid for the pain (it didn’t help lol).

I’m tired of having pain without a purpose.

Let me start by saying I am never on my phone when I’m actively watching my baby. But… I’m still logging 5 hours of screen time a day. During naps, after he goes to bed. I get paranoid if he even sees me looking something up, and because we use it to take photos of him and very occasionally FaceTime with grandma in another state, he gets excited and starts reaching for it.

I didn’t grow up with a TV. I’m pretty anti-screen. Yet, I’m hopelessly addicted to looking at my phone. I’ve deleted most social media. I’ve tried Brick and BePresent and screen time limits. I even bought a lockbox with a timer for it once. They’ve all worked for a little bit, but never lasted.

Right now, there just isn’t much going on in my life. We live in a super rural area. I’m not back to work yet. I don’t have a ton of friends in the area. My screen time got decidedly worse during the newborn period and hasn’t resolved naturally like I hoped it would (baby is 7 months now). I have hobbies like art and music, but after a long day of baby care, I’m tired and it’s low-effort entertainment.

It’s so obvious to me that children will mirror the relationship you have with technology. I worry I can only hide my addiction for so long, and if he is obsessed with screens, it’ll be my fault.

Not looking for judgment from other moms, just want to hear from others going through this and what, if anything, worked for you.

Let me start by saying I am never on my phone when I’m actively watching my baby. But… I’m still logging 5 hours of screen time a day. During naps, after he goes to bed. I get paranoid if he even sees me looking something up, and because we use it to take photos of him and very occasionally FaceTime with grandma in another state, he gets excited and starts reaching for it.

I didn’t grow up with a TV. I’m pretty anti-screen. Yet, I’m hopelessly addicted to looking at my phone. I’ve deleted most social media. I’ve tried Brick and BePresent and screen time limits. I even bought a lockbox with a timer for it once. They’ve all worked for a little bit, but never lasted.

Right now, there just isn’t much going on in my life. We live in a super rural area. I’m not back to work yet. I don’t have a ton of friends in the area. My screen time got decidedly worse during the newborn period and hasn’t resolved naturally like I hoped it would (baby is 7 months now). I have hobbies like art and music, but after a long day of baby care, I’m tired and it’s low-effort entertainment.

It’s so obvious to me that children will mirror the relationship you have with technology. I worry I can only hide my addiction for so long, and if he is obsessed with screens, it’ll be my fault.

Not looking for judgment from other moms, just want to hear from others going through this and what, if anything, worked for you.

Our son is 6.5 months old and recently discovered pacifiers. We don’t use them for sleep, just on occasion while he’s playing or in the car. He’s in the stage where everything goes in his mouth, and he seems more content exploring and practicing crawling when he has it. It also helps him not cry in the car if he’s awake.

My partner is pretty anti-pacifier and thinks we shouldn’t be “sticking something in his mouth” frequently as it could hinder development. I’m not convinced.

For those of you who did or didn’t use a pacifier, how did it actually play out? Was it a net benefit or did it cause more problems than it’s worth?

Our son is 6.5 months old and recently discovered pacifiers. We don’t use them for sleep, just on occasion while he’s playing or in the car. He’s in the stage where everything goes in his mouth, and he seems more content exploring and practicing crawling when he has it. It also helps him not cry in the car if he’s awake.

My partner is pretty anti-pacifier and thinks that we shouldn’t be “sticking something in his mouth” frequently as it could hinder development. I’m not convinced.

For those of you who did or didn’t use a pacifier, how did it actually play out? Was it a net benefit or did it cause more problems than it’s worth?

My son is 6.5 months old and we’ve been doing Ferber for about two weeks. Bedtime has honestly gone better than I expected. He usually cries or fusses for 10–15 minutes or less and falls asleep on his own.
Our schedule is roughly 2/2/2/2.25 with 3 naps. Most days his naps are about 45 min, 45 min, and 1.5 hours. Bedtime around 6–6:30pm.
Our bedtime routine is nurse, diaper, pajamas, sleep sack, story/song, white noise, crib awake. He’s sleep trained at bedtime but not night weaned. Our desired wake time is 6am (that’s also the time he’s woken up on his own every morning when we were cosleeping).
Here’s what’s driving me crazy. Ever since sleep training, he’s been waking between 4 and 5am almost every single day.
If he wakes around 3am and I feed him, he’ll usually go right back to sleep until around 6. But if he wakes after 4am, I’ll feed him and he’s just… awake. Happy, chatting, rolling around, messing with his feet. Sometimes for 45 minutes or longer, and then we’re basically starting the day at 5am. I’ve tried leaving him in the crib to see if he’ll fall back asleep. I’ve tried feeding him. I’ve tried bringing him into bed with me after the feed. Nothing works; he’s awake.
I’m confused because bedtime is clearly improving, but mornings have fallen apart.
Does this sound like a schedule problem? Is bedtime too early? Should I be stretching wake windows? Is the 4am feed reinforcing the wakeup, or is he genuinely hungry and has too little sleep pressure?
Has anyone gone through this exact thing after sleep training? If so, what finally fixed it? I’m starting to feel like I should just give up and go back to cosleeping (which was good for him but awful for me).

Looking for fuzzy dream pop with a pinch of yearning along the lines of:

Cranekiss by Tamaryn
Cocteau Twins
Mazzy Star
The Radio Dept.
The Sundays
Cibo Matto
Slow Pulp
Broadcast

Feels like I’ve exhausted this genre and would love something new.

I’m about a week into tapering off Zoloft (50 —> 25 mg), and it’s making me wonder if I’ll ever be able to come off antidepressants.

I’ve been on and off antidepressants since I was 20 (I’m 37 now), and I’m gently afraid I’ve somehow forever altered my brain to the point that I can’t have a harmonious relationship without them.

Part of why I wanted to try is that my libido has been nonexistent. When I brought it up to my doctor, I basically got laughed at and told, “Nobody has a libido at 6.5 months postpartum.” I know this true for a lot of people, but it felt really dismissive.

The taper has made me much more irritable and emotionally reactive, and it’s causing constant conflict with my partner. I’m starting to feel like every argument is proof I will need antidepressants forever. Because it’s been a week and a half and I’m not irritable than ever. I keep wondering: is this the taper, or is this just me?

Has anyone else gone through this? Did your relationship get worse during the taper but improve afterward? Or did meds end up being the better long term choice?

I got on 50 mg Zoloft postpartum because I was soooo emotional and irritable and constantly fighting with my husband. It helped so much with stabilizing my moods, but the loss of libido has been tough, and I actually feel like it dampens the love I have for my child. Im almost 7 months postpartum and I titrated down to 25 last week and have been such a wreck with my moods. The tiniest thing sets me into a rage and I feel so low. I’m afraid to tell my husband how low I feel so I’m just irritable towards him which doesn’t help anything.

I’m scared that this is just who I am now and that pregnancy changed my brain into an anxious, irritable monster. Can anyone share their experience in dosing down or getting off it? I’m hoping it might help me make a decision whether or not to keep going with the titration or get back on 50 mg.

Just curious if this is normal or if I have a future competitive eater in the family. When he was a newborn through about 3 months, he breastfed for about an hour each session. If I broke him off earlier it was hell to pay. Even now, at 6.5 months, he just eats for 20 minutes and would go much longer if I didn’t unlatch him (tho he’s fine when I do now).

Perhaps of note: he went from 30th percentile weight at birth to 95th percentile at 6 months. 😅

Can we get a bicep thread going? I know I’m not the only one who looks like a powerlifter because my baby has the body of a thanksgiving turkey.

Bonus points if one arm is significantly larger than the other.

My baby is 6.5 months and 22 pounds and a total Velcro baby. Other parents: how did you manage caring for your huge baby before they could crawl or walk? My back hurts! Do we all just have huge biceps?