u/juniorchickenhoe

We live in eastern Canada and for a while now the days have been getting significantly shorter, meaning we wake up before the sun rises, and start our day in the dark. I try to follow the possum approach as much as possible, but I also adhere to wake windows. My 11 month old needs at least 3.5-3.75 hours awake per wake window to go down easy and sleep well. Being still on a two nap schedule that means he wakes at 6 and goes to bed around 8-8:30. Waking him up past 6 am pushes our schedule towards a later bedtime that just isn’t ideal for us. Baby usually wakes on his own around 6 am, but sometimes I’ll have to wake him (rare) but I do feel that even when he wakes on his own, he may be wanting to go back to sleep with a little help. Maybe I’m projecting, but I personally DESPISE waking up before sunrise, and I feel like it’s bad for our circadian rhythms to do so. So it feels kinda cruel to have my baby start his day and start playing in a pitch dark living room only lit by artificial lights… so I’m asking my fellow scientifically inclined parents: how do you cope with diminished sunlight? Do you shift baby’s schedule later to follow the sun in the morning? Or am I making a mountain out of nothing?

We sleep trained with modified Ferber (6 min check ins) at 7.5 months old and it worked pretty well. My son is now almost 11 months old and I messed up by assisting him to fall asleep while we were traveling, and now for the past month he’ll only fall asleep with me patting his butt and while holding my hand. Needless to say it’s giving me a ton of neck and shoulder pain trying to lean over into his crib, and I want to go back to him falling asleep independently. I’m just terrified that it’ll be harder now since he is older, especially now that he can stand up in his crib and is a lot more persistent than he was. Is it easier sleep training a second time? Will he catch on faster since he’s done it before?

Okay let me preface by saying I know babies don’t manipulate, I have a bachelors in developmental psychology, I’m not trying to assign any ill intent to my baby. BUT my 8 month old son has started fake crying?! Like he’ll pull a crying face and make crying sounds, no tears, and it doesn’t sound or look like his usual cries, and he is cleaaarly watching my face for a reaction through his half closed eyes it’s just SO funny and adorable, he’ll smile right away once I give him attention, like he’s clearly not in distress over anything. I think this is him testing the action-reaction pattern, and seeing what gets mommy’s attention! I just find it so interesting! Anyone else?

My son is 8 months old (since June 18th), and since about 7 months we have been trying to transition from 3 to 2 naps. But it’s been a struggle. We also recently sleep trained him with a sleep consultant using a modified Ferber with check ins, and it worked wonders for nighttime sleep. We went from 4-5 overnight wakes to 1, and he most often will fall back asleep on his own! He now falls asleep independently for all naps and nighttime.

The schedule we now follow (as per our consultant’s recommendation) is this: 3/3/3.5. Problem is, this child almost always wakes up from naps between 37 and 55 minutes. We’ve had about 3-4 miracle naps where he did 1.5 hours on his own, so I know he can do it but I just can’t figure out the recipe! I try to rescue the short naps as much as I can, and often I’ll be successful for one out of the two. So usually he’ll get a 1-1.5 hour nap and one of around 40 minutes. This means that we don’t ever make it to what I would call a reasonable bedtime (I’d like him to go down around 7pm), since his naps are so short we often have to put him to bed between 5:30-6:30. What then happens is he wakes up at 5 am, and we have to fight him to get him to sleep until 6 ish. According to my huckleberry this baby does not need more than 10.5 hours overnight (pretty sure he is lower sleep needs), hence why I want a slightly later bedtime to bring him to a 6 am wake time.

I know people suggest doing a third catnap, but when I try he will often refuse it, or he’ll nap but then our bedtime has to be around 8pm which I find too late…

What should I try ? Stretching wake windows ? Stop rescuing his naps and embracing the 3 short naps life?! I’m just so so scared of undoing all the progress from sleep training if I change anything.

As title says! I’m a former co-sleeper, sleep training skeptic who has finally reached breaking point and is gonna start sleep training tonight. I’m terrified of it going horribly, and I want to hear success stories.
Reassure me that your babies are all happy and thriving and still sleeping well! Also any tips or advice on how to cope with hearing my baby cry is appreciated ❤️

For context the method we’ll be using is a sort of modified Ferber with 6 minute intervals, and in-crib soothing. Baby is 8 months old and quite fiery. After months of cosleeping and hourly wakes we started having him sleep in his crib, and for the past week we worked very hard and he now falls asleep with bun pats in his crib (whereas before it was arms and rocking only!) so at least we’re not starting from 0!

Basically like the title says! Riddle me this: how do you guys make finger foods such as nuggets/pancakes/tater tots that are soft enough for my 7 month old not to choke on but also that stick together enough so that they don’t crumble when he grabs them?! My poor baby wants to bring food to his mouth, but he just ends up crushing it with his hands and barely any crumbs make it to his mouth! Or is it just normal because his fine motor skills that are lacking still? I just get annoyed because he wants to eat clearly, but barely anything makes it to his mouth!

I’ve found my people!! I watched both neverland movies when they came out on HBO back in the day. I already knew MJ was a creep and certainly touched kids, but the Neverland documentaries were an appalling confirmation of everything I believed. I told anyone and everyone to watch them if they weren’t sure about MJ’s guilt. Now I want to rewatch them, but I can’t find them anywhere! I know the Jackson estate sued HBO and had them taken down (which says a lot), anyone have links to the documentaries? Specifically the first one as I have found a link for the second one ‘n

Hi all first post here! My son will be 7 months on Monday. He is a very active and happy baby. We started solids a bit late, because we were away on vacation and it just wasn’t worth the hassle and I wanted to do it properly and it the right setting. So anyways it’s been about 2 weeks since we first started. I’m a bit weary of choking so I’m trying to do a mix of purées and solids, but no matter what I do food goes from the tray, straight to the mouth, without even so much as a layover in my baby’s mouth. He will maybe put the dirt spoon/chunk on his lips or in his mouth but after that it’s straight to the floor. Is this a common experience?! Is it normal? Am i supposed to just keep giving him food for him to throw or do I end the session after he’s clearly not interested in putting food in his mouth?

I know we’re early still, and it’s meant to be exploration and fun, but he’s not even tasting anything, so I’m concerned he won’t ever get enough of a taste to become more interested. Plus he is high risk for allergens and Im already late on introducing the top 9 (only eggs and dairy have been done so far) and I’m worried he won’t even put enough of the allergen in his mouth to have an effect…

I’m just baffled because this child will put ANYTHING in his mouth, but food? Nope!
Any tips or reassurance is welcomed!