u/littlepinkroses

Parents of Reddit, do you include a warm bath as part of your night time routine, and have you noticed if it helps your baby sleep better?

Hi!!! My baby has mild plagiocephaly according to his pediatrician. He’s 4.5 months. Im doing everything I can! Tummy time, carrier… he barely sits in the bouncer and he only lies on his back for the kicking toys. Unfortunately he’s stuck in the car seat an hour everyday because I take him along while picking up older siblings. He likes to sleep on his side and sometimes his tummy or back.
Mamas who had flat head babies— did their heads really get rounder overtime??? Pediatrician is not concerned and says helmet won’t be covered because it is not severe. But I’m so anxious and feel terribly guilty!!!

I’m at the age where a lot of my friends are having kids soon. Having had two young kids recently, I have a closet full of clothes, some hand me downs and some bought. I have offered them to a couple friends and have washed and organized and packed them away. However, now that the date is near to give them away, I find myself very sentimental and wanting to keep a couple items for myself, even though I know I will not have any use for them. I also realize that I had a change in mind after my husband told me these friends are wealthy, and have lots of family who also have young kids. I suppose the biggest hesitance in my mind is because I cherish these clothes dearly as they are filled with memories and well loved, and I don’t want to give them away to someone who will not appreciate them. Someone who will already receive nicer, newer clothes for example.
But at the same time, I know I will not be having another baby and our closet space is tight enough as it is. I don’t want to become a hoarder. If I keep them, I doubt I will have many chances to even look at them.
Moms of Reddit, how should I address these feelings and internal turmoil?

Moms of newborns/small babies, if you are doing it all, how do you not resent your partner for it?

My husband and I are in our early thirties. We both had a successful career prior to having children but I gave up mine after having my first child (I gave up my own business and started working part time at a smaller company after maternity leave) as she was sick a lot and the stress took a great toll on me since I was the default parent.

Now, I have a second child. I take care of him almost 24/7 since birth. Even the first days after we came home from the hospital my husband never helped during the night, because my toddler cosleeps, and, due to my having severe mom guilt for not being able to be with toddler, I didn’t want her routine disrupted so my husband continued to put her to bed and cosleep through the night. So he basically sleeps 9pm to 6:30am each night. He works full time and is gone 7am to 7pm due to commute.

My baby is now 3 months old. I never get a break. He is stuck on me all the time, so much so that he now rejects my husband and will cry and scream angrily when he tries to put him to sleep (he almost never cries with me). We had tried switching in the middle of the night (early morning around 4 or 5am actually) so I could at least get some sleep in before waking up for the day but he cried so much I couldn’t even fall asleep, so we gave up on that.

I love my kids but years of buried resentment is starting to build up towards my husband. My whole identity including my career, my mental health, my body image and my brain have suffered, whereas my husband just gained another title “dad.” He is not a terrible person and he is great with my toddler, he cooks and cleans most of the time, but I feel like the problem is his sacrifice and contribution come nowhere close to mine, and he does not recognize this fact.

It’s not that my husband refuses to help, but how can he, when the baby just cries when he tries to hold him?
And even though my husband never refuses to help, at the same time he never really offers to help or offer any solid plans on how to help me get more rest. So I feel very stuck.
The other day he woke up early to go work out. I was so upset because how come our lives are so different when we live in the same house? He can sleep at 9pm and have enough energy to wake up early and work out, but I’m barely getting enough rest to wake up and take care of my kids in the morning? He can continue self care and hobbies whereas I am with the kids ALL the time and barely have time to shower and eat?

I am sorry if this post is incoherent and long, but I have been running on 4-5 hours of broken sleep for three months.

Please, any insights and advice welcome.

I am so heartbroken over this news. I first read it on a facebook post from a “recommended” page that I don’t even follow (thanks, fb algorithm), I didn’t even believe it at first because of how horrifying it was. After looking it up on more reliable news pages, it’s true— physical and sexual abuse on a baby that wasn’t even a year old…
I felt extremely disturbed and distraught. My heart aches for what that little baby had to endure. I get anxiety when my baby cries for more than five minutes I cannot imagine what that little baby Preston had to go through. I mean you hear about sexual abuse in minors who are kids and prepubescent teens but… a baby?! A defenseless, completely innocent baby? Not to say crimes against older kids are less heinous but this… I cannot even comprehend how anyone can do this to a little baby.
I hope the those two evil human beings rot in jail and then burn in hell for all eternity.

I’m not sure why I am sharing this but I’ve just been in such distress since I read about it last night. Please, please, moms, hold your babies extra close to you today.

I have an almost 9 week old EBF baby, ever since he graduated the sleepy newborn phase, he’s only ever nursed around 4 min on each side. For the last week or so, he stopped nursing on the second boob, so now he is only nursing about 4 minutes per feed!
I have tried using a nursing cover because I thought he was getting distracted, but at this age he’s not really supposed to see much at all?? Anyways that didn’t help much.
My mom anxiety is causing me to nurse him more frequently (around every 1.5 to 2 hours or so) because I’m worried he’s not eating enough, but is this backfiring on me and causing him to only “snack” on the boob?
Also, my baby never really gave very obvious hunger cues, except maybe the first few days of life where he was truly hungry (my milk took awhile to come in), so that doesn’t help either!!

He had his peds visit (2 month check) last week and Dr is happy with his weight gain and overall growth. But he’s not a big baby only the 20th percentile for weight.

My husband’s sister gave birth to a baby boy a month before I did (also baby boy). From the moment I found out she was also pregnant I already knew this was going to happen, but no amount of mental preparation would make this any less annoying to me.

It started when we were in the third trimester, she would make us stand side by side for pictures, compare our baby bumps, ask about our weight gain, etc etc. She even needed to know the estimated weight from ultrasound, even though we don’t even do ultrasounds at the same weeks??

Then came the delivery, her needing to know all the details (literally the first question she asked me was if it was a “natural” birth or c section?) how may hours was labor, blah blah blah.

Fine, whatever. But the MOST annoying part is her comparing our babies. Of course my baby is going to be smaller, he’s a whole month younger. But that doesn’t stop her from constantly asking for the babies’ height and weight. Well when my baby is one month old the other baby is literally double his lifetime on earth??! I almost don’t want to send her pictures of my baby because she’ll comment on their skin tones, the amount of hair (which bothered me because I was already sad about my baby losing some hair due to cradle cap).

AIO?! It’s not like she says anything truly mean about my baby but it’s soooo annoying. Is there anything I can say besides telling her to kindly eff off?! Honestly it’s straining my mental health quite a bit and I avoid her as much as I can already.

EDIT: I acknowledge that I am very protective of my baby boy and I do indeed think of the future where he probably will continue to face comparisons from friends/family simply because he has a cousin so close to his age. I even thought about how their first birthday parties will be so different (SIL is a big party person, invites everyone and their moms. Also a big spender. My husband and I, however, are introverted and prefer small gatherings)
My husband obviously thinks I’m overreacting and says that his mom’s just excited to have two grandsons at once. So I’m asking Reddit AIO? Is this my postpartum hormones messing with me? Or is this a real problem that other people have experienced also.

Moms of reddit, am I crazy?
I have a 6 week old newborn baby whom I’ve been raising pretty much by myself. Husband works full time and takes care of toddler when he’s home. Toddler goes to preschool but I also do the pick up and drop offs and take care of both kids before husband gets home (so it’s not like I take care of baby and he takes care of toddler, a lot of times I’m doing both).

The problem is, I feel soooo possessive over my baby, in more than an overly protective or deeply bonded sense.
I’m possessive because I feel like I’m doing all the hard work— I barely eat, barely sleep, hardly have time to shower or use the bathroom, I look like (and feel like) a giant mess just so my baby can be well fed and well taken care of, so why should anyone else enjoy his cute little smile, chubby little cheeks and adorable little coos?!
I’m going crazy! To the point where I honestly don’t even want to share his pictures or FaceTime him with anyone… let alone let anyone else hold him.

I don’t know if this makes any sense. Please let me know if it makes sense. Please help validate my feelings. Is this PPA? Does anyone else feel this way?

First off just wanted to say I absolutely love my boy, he is only four weeks and I can already tell he’s going to be the sweetest, kindest soul. But man was I in over my head when I thought I was ready for a second.

I just feel like I’m raising this child all by myself, he’s glued to me 23 out of 24 hours in a day, I barely get any help and it’s making me really angry at the people I expected help from (maybe I am entitled, idk. But my mom lives 20 minutes away and had promised to help when I was pregnant, but now she is always complaining that she’s always tired).
My husband went back to work and is living his merry life like nothing has changed. He would hold the baby once in awhile so I can eat but other than that, he barely takes care of the baby.

But the worst part is I miss spending time with my toddler SO MUCH. My life has revolved around her for 2.5 years and now I barely get to interact with her. I also feel like she has lost the discipline that I worked so hard to install because dad just lets her do whatever she wants. It is so frustrating.

I look back and honestly feel like I would have been happy having only my daughter. I’m stretched so thin and I love my kids but I’m angry at my husband and angry at my mom even though I really have no right to be.
I know it’s so unfair to baby boy and I do love him but I feel like I would be in such a happier place right now if I didn’t get pregnant again altogether. Sometimes I’m just so sad.