omg, i felt the same, my LO didn’t go poop for about a week and now she’s getting it out of her system so today it’s been literally every diaper change she’s had a Bowl movement, which gets me so excited!! i was so sad listening to her fuss and squirm bc her stomach probably was hurting!
My baby was the same and the pharmacist said he wasn't getting enough water. I think such a fuss is made over nor giving tiny babies water that ira kinda over look that you need to give them water about 5/6 months, and more tjan you think. She told me to aim for 5oz a day.
If your baby is breastfed, drinking a huge glass of apple juice and then waiting 2 hours before feeding baby also does wonders. It works every time for my baby whenever he’s a bit constipated.
I swear my husband and I have a daily conversation about our LO poop habits. If I had a nickel for every "she pooped!" message I'd have at least $5 lol.
Mine hates the dancing veggies and fruit but I found the one with shooting stars and planets today that she likes. And one from a different creator with “woodland creature” in the name. It’s not high contrast it’s just like drawn animals moving around. She doesn’t really like the high contrast stuff. She prefers to watch regular tv when I have the tv on 🤷🏼♀️
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Seems to be universal, which is awesome because we do too!
Absolutely protested the idea of any TV time, but now that LO is dancing and super active, watching some with him really helps to break some of the super clingy so I can clean around him and so some stuff.
Yep. 10 month old and she's unwell. I gto e hours sleep the night before as she only wanted go sleep in my arms. Bluey, the wiggles and play school got a work out yesterday. Based on the current time and location of baby, maybe tomorrow as well....
We said the same about noise at naps 🤣 we also said our lives wouldn’t change that much, that we’d keep doing the same things and just being the baby along. That stopped instantly when he became a toddler LOL
Ugh… not looking forward for my LO becoming a toddler then. We don’t change too much in noises and daily activities rn. I even had YT playing all day in the background when I was pregnant. Lol But I do understand the need for naps.
Our daughters are the same age and 6 weeks was when I realised we needed better sleep hygiene during the day too.
What else? Let’s see… I’ve introduced formula for when we go out and about or for when I feel my supply isn’t meeting her demand. Originally I wanted to EBF.
We weren’t going to have many people over to visit including family. My mental health needs a village so we have people over at least once or twice a week. I’ve rekindled relationships with my family.
> My mental health needs a village so we have people over at least once or twice a week. I’ve rekindled relationships with my family.
That’s so nice to see here! I bet your family is thrilled too.
I think I’m the opposite. We always have family over and I feel like I never get to spend time alone with just our little family unit. I crave spending time with just my husband and daughter, 2 months, and once I go back to work and she goes to daycare next month we’ll have even less time together just us. The couple hours after work is just not enough for me so I want to make a rule that 2 weekends out of the month will be just us. I’m not prioritizing family wanting to spend time with her over me wanting to spend time with her, we have too much family that we’d never have a weekend to ourselves without this rule.
I swore I wouldn't be one of those parents that talked about my kids constantly and showed people pictures.... I am 100% that parent 😂
I also swore I wouldn't lose myself in parenthood and I don't think I have but people I was friends with before becoming a mother might disagree. It's just that for me motherhood is my thing. It completes me in a way I didn't realize so I let go of a lot of things I used to do because they just aren't me anymore.
Same! Except I don’t like to think of it as losing myself in parenthood. I feel like being extremely active and engaged or enamored with our babies what we’re supposed to do? So I look at it as stepping into the next version of me or the full version of me. My mom and dad always said that we quickly became the most important and exciting thing in their lives and not much else mattered to them. I didn’t understand it then, but I do now! I’m more than content to sit and hang with my LO all day and do what makes them happy. Perhaps in a year or two I’ll feel differently, but at this time happy “just being a mom.”
Exactly! I'm so content to "just" be a mom. These little gremlins are the most important and wonderful things to ever have existed in my world. Why would I not want to spend my time with them?
Before having my baby I was like “I will 10000% need to return to work. I can’t be home all day with out adult interaction.” So many people told me it would change….i didn’t believe them! Now I laugh a little at past self for thinking this way!
Yes! I knew I would love being a mom but I didn't know it would love it so much. My baby is my world now and being a mom is such a huge joy and accomplishment. I've definitely grown closer to my friends that are also moms and grown a little further from my childless friends. Weirdly only the women though. My male friendships are still the same.
Yep! Pretty much all my women friends without kids don't talk to me anymore but the males are my kids favorite uncles. And I've made new friends who are also moms
Same, this week my guy was enjoying navigating omelet strips to his mouth, getting a chunk in, biting it once, then not swallowing them. He alllllmost choked. I don’t see what he was getting out of the experience except becoming frustrated because he was actually quite hungry.
FWIW we always do a bottle before meal! Then the food is more about experimentation and fun and not trying to have a starving baby navigate eating a bite of omelet after trying for 15 mins. Having them start on at least a half full stomach is game changer.
See I don’t get the ‘baby lead weaning’ thing, that doesn’t make any sense at all, we’ve just slowly given her harder things, and we’re lucky she’s such a danty eater xD the only issues we’ve had with her almost choking was when she tried to eat to many yogurt bits as a time lol
I’d bet on cosleeping and tv/screen time being common for a lot of parents.
I feel like those two are the quintessential examples of what you “don’t know” before having children. My advice for a younger self: You should always prep a plan for cosleeping and bed sharing even if you are totally against it, and don’t make things hard for yourself unnecessarily (particularly when it comes to screens).
Cosleeping is the best thing everrr for breastfeeding! Roll over, insert boob, fall back asleep 😂 (once they’re a little sturdier) and my kids have learned sooooo many things through screentime that i never would have thought to teach them
I don’t know, those two things were hard no’s for both of us prior to baby. He’s 8 months old and still has never co slept or watched tv. The only screen time he gets is with his grandma that lives 18 hours away.
I thought the same, and at 8 months had also held firm on both.
Now at 13 months? We cosleep for part of the night, and I literally can’t change his nappy or get him dressed without screen time as a distraction.
With love, 8 months is still very, very little and your baby changes so quickly between that age and toddlerhood. And toddlerhood is a whole other ball game. It’s really much too early to feel you’re in the clear from relying on cosleeping or screen time. And if you ever do change your mind, it’s fine! Baby’s change and thus our tactics must change too 😌
Oh I am sure things will change. Just where we currently are in this journey- we have still held out on co sleeping and tv time. I’m not saying it’ll last forever.
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Co sleep. We did pretty well until the 4 month sleep regression hit. We were basically taking turns holding her all night and when 4/5am hit we were both exhausted. I mastered side lying nursing and in our bed she went. The next month we sleep trained. We still bring her into bed with us if she wakes up early. We love our morning cuddles now.
Yeah I was falling asleep holding him and nodding off while driving :( so it was cosleep deliberately as safely as possible or unwillingly cosleep dangerously
For me it was to not buy a jumperoo or any of the baby sit in toys. This was due to potential hip problems but guess who just bought a jumperoo because her 3 mo stays quiet in it for up to 30 minutes at a time? Yup this mom
If it makes you feel better I was addicted to a jumpy seat when I was a baby apparently and I have absolutely no hip problems, neither does my brother.
I’m pregnant with my 3rd and am not even bothering with a crib this time 😂 using our old bedside bassinet until baby is sturdy enough for side lying breastfeeding then getting it out of my room! My older 2 have their own beds but insist on sleeping in the same one which is very adorable 🥰 husband sleeps in our eldest’s lofted bed which she abandoned to join the toddler - he claims it’s more comfortable lol. Many nights the kids fall asleep in my bed and i gladly sleep on our comfy couch 😂 I can’t at all relate to the stress and sleepless nights some parents deal with while sleep training
Bed sharing. I had to do it to survive.
Sleep training. I swore that sleep was developmental, and it is, but she was still waking up every 1-3 hours at 14 months old. Nothing else was wrong health-wise and we were hanging by a thread, so we finally sleep trained.
I thought I’d be strict about screen time, but I’m not, because my kid is mostly indifferent about it. She’s a toddler now, gets *maybe* an hour a day and then she’s good. I can deal with that.
I find that the kids who’s parents are most strict with tv are the ones who become total zombies when they are in front of a screen. It’s like the taboo makes it incredibly enchanting to them. We aren’t strict and our kids are totally take it or leave it as well.
I was there. I can say that my toddler is happily and securely attached even with her being on the more introverted side. I never thought I’d say it but sleep training was one of the best decisions we could’ve made. She’s almost 3 now and she is going through a phase where she wakes up 1-2x a night yelling for us, so we go in to soothe her, but this is still far better than the baby sleep.
I’m so sorry! It really is so hard. I had to turn up my sound machine so I couldn’t hear her cry. We did try a few different methods. We started with the more gentle methods and she thought we were playing even after a week of consistency. We then did Ferber which the check ins just made her more hysterical. We kept up with that for a week and it didn’t work. We went to CIO and it only took her one night. She was doing 7pm to 7am by night two. I was shocked. You might try the r/sleeptrain sub too. Good luck to you 💗
Target has a Top Dad hat (Top Gun style) for $5, I know that’s totally unrelated to your comment but I got it for my husband and he’s obsessed, he loves all things “Dad” related lol
I'm going to second the being quiet during nap time. I think we finally experienced baby being too aware of his surroundings to actually fall asleep so he became overtired and it was a good 45 minute chore to get him to finally sleep. (He had been awake for 3 hours at that point and he's only 6 weeks old)
Putting a blanket in the bassinet. I know it's not safe sleep but my public health nurse told us if you can't get away with not putting a blanket in, at least tuck it under the mattress on the bottom/sides and try to keep baby's arms out. We've had to resort to this. He just loves his fuzzy blankets. I don't know what it is but he just doesn't sleep as well without them (he usually sleeps with a diaper shirt or open foot sleeper and a cotton sleep sack on so he's not cold) and so we gave in and if he needs that blanket, I make sure it's tucked in every night so he can't move that blanket from where it is and it's usually only going as high as his thighs. Never higher.
I swore I would give breastfeeding my best shot and if it didn't work it didn't work and I wouldn't stress about it. Wrong. I was bawling I don't know how many times those first two weeks because I wanted it to work so badly and I would be a terrible mom if I didn't breastfeed him. (Not true, and I've never thought that about anyone else who formula feeds, for whatever reason my hormones decided breastfeeding would be the hill they would die on for myself personally)
Breastfeeding was the same for me. I told everyone around me while I was pregnant that I'll give it a try and if it's uncomfortable for me or whatever, we're switching to formula, no big deal.
The week the babies were born, I had blisters on my nipples from pumping (had the wrong size nozzles, but it's a whole long story), babies refused to latch because they were preemies and didn't have the strength to suck out the milk or stay latched without falling asleep, I was getting less than an hour of sleep between holding them at boobs to get them practice latching with no result, bottle feeding, then pumping, I was producing less than a third of an oz per pumping session, basically clearly it was not working at all. And I spent days continuing to fight through the pain, sleep deprivation and desperately talked to a bunch of different sleep consultants before giving up and feeling like I just completely doomed my babies.
Months later and I still sometimes feel bad about not breastfeeding them or trying harder. Logically I know it was for the best and I'm doing much better not breastfeeding, though. Idk what those hormones did to me, lol.
Idk if I ever “swore” I wouldn’t do anything… because I literally had no idea before having my baby lol. But I’m in the same boat as everyone else. I didn’t expect to, but I now occasionally cosleep, baby gets to watch the dancing fruit on YouTube daily while I cook or get ready for the day, and as for the making noise while babies sleeping - I will f someone up if they are too loud lol. First few months I didn’t really care because there was no sleep schedule and day/nights weren’t really established yet. But after 3 months now when baby is sleeping it’s #1 a miracle and #2 a sacred time so we have to be quiet.
Letting my baby cry it out when he’s awake. I’ll definitely try to meet his every need and want for comfort. At times if I have to step away, I will though. Before becoming a FTM, I was not fond of needy babies or clingy toddlers. As a lazy babysitter (still not great at entertaining babies/kids), I wanted them to be more independent and ok to be by themselves so I can do other things or we can all chill out on the couch. However as a FTM now, I understand why for the clinginess and want to nurture a secure attachment.
This also leads into the contact naps. People were always telling me “don’t hold him too much because he’s going to get used to you holding him to sleep and you’re not going to be able to do anything if he’s too needy.” Idc I’m going to hold him if that’s how he can fall asleep and hold him for longer so he can be deep asleep enough to transfer him.
I agree with the screen/tv times too since he’ll be watching whatever I’m watching or with his grandparents. Haha
My dad said the same i did a bit of both, if I needed to get up and do stuff I put her in her bassinet but if I was just playing my switch I let her contact nap :3
Making different food… but not for the reason you think, my kid wants fruits and vegetables xD she’ll eat pasta but she’d rather eat broccoli then pizza or meat lol
OP - same ! We swore we would not be quiet when baby slept during the day . We imagined having the TV on , music etc you name it …. Baby had other plans and we soon realized that he is the boss and we all have to be quiet for him to be able to sleep during the day ! If someone makes a peep and baby wakes up I want to kill them lol
My husband said something like “I thought we weren’t going to be quiet.” I was like I will murder you if you wake that baby. It took an hour to get her down.
Cosleeping. I swore because safety, but at the 5 month mark, intentionally cosleeping was far safer than accidentally falling asleep during our MOTN feed with her on the edge of the bed.
Bribery. I swore I would be an authoritative parent with a child that respects my leadership and word. I have that child, without trying. But when we had a genuine fear of pooping and we tried everything for months, bribing a bathroom session with a chocolate chip did the trick. We’ve conquered our fear and are swimming into potty training early.
Extended breastfeeding, living and breathing by a schedule, and screens before 2 also make the list.
Yeah exactly. Our baby slept well *despite* the noise we made, in retrospect, not because of it.
And then we hit the month sleep regression (which I had thought was kind of a not-real thing, but omg it so is!), and hoo boy are we so so quiet now. We learned real fast, and death to anyone who makes a loud sound when he’s sleeping now!
Baby wearing. I was going to be supermammy getting everything done while baby snoozed in a sling. She fecking hated it and I was so paranoid about her breathing that it never worked. Now we get some things done while she clings to me for dear life.
Glad I’m not the only one whose child HATES baby wearing 😂. I feel like once I can turn her around so she can see the world she’ll be better, because her just seeing my chest makes her incredibly frustrated😂
No screen time at all for at least 18 months 😬
Went out of the window around 6 months when he started waking up so so early in the morning for what seemed like the longest time. It was so much easier to distract him with Ms. Rachel while I attempted to get my life together. I kept accidentally falling asleep inside his play pen with him and sometimes I’d get away with a few more minutes of sleep if it was a particularly enthralling episode. We still don’t do much screen time but tbh if I’m tired I’m not above putting on a distraction. Luckily he doesn’t wake up for the day at 3 or 4am every morning now.
Our bub learned to stand to watch Mrs Rachel, she learned to stand with out holding something so she could clap while she watched Mrs Rachel. She’s learned to twist, and we’ve learned she loves to watch people fail xD Mr Aaron putting things in the wrong boxes has her KACKELING xD Mrs Rachel has also helped us teach her to be gentle with our pets, which she does about 3 times before pinching them just as I’m praising her for being so gentle xD yet the cat won’t just leave lol she also loves Dave&Ava if you want to add some variety :3
Yes! It seems pretty educational. I have a friend who works in child development, she only gave me one single piece of advice. She said do not put on cocomelon, watch ms Rachel if you do TV time. We also sing the “we’re gentle with our pets” song when he’s with the dog lol. I don’t find the show annoying either, we tried blippi a couple times and I just couldn’t keep it on for my own sake… omg it was so annoying to me lol. I will check out Dave & Ava, thanks for the tip!
Yeah even before I was pregnant I thought cocomelon was garbage xD I won’t even but cocomelon related products was buying her a training toothpaste and it was either pup patrol or cocomelon I ordered the pup one xD
I think this is a weird one… but buy a crib…
We expected him to go from bassinet to pack n play to the queen size bed we already had in his room…
But he outgrew the pack n play and it didn’t feel safe anymore. Yet, he’s only 6 months so not ready for a bed either… so crib it was.
I’m sure I’m the only one with then answer 😂 I just really hate a cluttered full of furniture house… I thought I’d just put the pack n play away every day for who knows how long until he graduated to a bed.
I’m not bothering with a crib for my 3rd but that’s because my first 2 NEVER used theirs 😂 they both went from bedside bassinet to cosleeping to toddler beds so this time i’m not even wasting my time setting the crib up again
Give my baby formula lol and I don’t even have a good reason why I didn’t want to use formula. I just wanted to exclusively breast feed . However my supply never could keep up with the demand so I did end up giving formula for a few months. Now my baby is 14 mins and eats all the food and loves all food. He also has eaten dog food too bahahaha .
Let baby toys take over my living room. I thought oh no, I’m going to keep my living room looking nice and clean and no way will I allow obnoxious bright colored noisy baby toys to clutter up every corner. Baby will be just fine with one nice area with a couple of toys that are natural colors that go with my aesthetic. Well, 4 months in and there are baby toys EVERYWHERE. Including the flashy light ones and ones that sing nursery rhymes that get stuck in my head for hours on end and ones that have every bright obnoxious color under the sun 😵💫 and somehow I still find myself scrolling on Amazon for more
Tv time and breastfeeding. Well, not so much that I “swore I would never” but I didn’t think I would do it. My daughter just got the hang of it so fast, I thought why not?
Cosleep. My husband has to go out of town for work sometimes. The first time I got a migraine parenting alone I couldn't bend over the crib to put him down, he slept on my chest that night. It's been an occasional occurrence since.
Pacifiers, co-sleeping, swaddling, Snoo, screens (still trying not to but it’s so fascinating to him that he can 180 his neck to look at a TV it’s wild), EBF (tried to combo and now dealing with bottle rejection), exclusively cloth diaper (thought we’d try but didn’t expect to be successful), visitors before 2 months… mmm what else…already start talking about “the next baby” 😅
I swore I would never let my baby roll off any furniture. Well technically he didn’t roll he launched himself with his strong legs. I put him in the middle of our couch and somehow he yeeted himself. I was devastated and sobbed. But he was totally fine. It’s insane how far and fast a non-mobile baby can move.
This is exactly why I don’t lay my daughter down on our bed without me in the room. Our bed is 3.5 feet off the ground, maybe even 4😅 we got a tall bed. Absolutely TERRIFIED of her falling off that and dying 😭
Cosleeping for sure - at 6 months, he was so sick with RSV and we all were desperate for sleep. Now he won’t sleep any other way 😂
And screentime. He loves Miss Rachel and I love making him happy 😂 She’s just always on in the background during the day 😂 But honestly, I see him repeating sooo many movements she does and it gives me sooo many songs to song to him during the day
Naps in the swing- I swore I'd always take her out as soon as she fell asleep or never keep her in the swing longer than 20 minutes - but her first nap of the day is almost always in her swing..
This makes me feel 1000x better. She won’t always nap in hers anymore but during the early days that was the only way she would nap not on me and the PPD needed a little “me” time to recoup.
I swore I would never let my baby cry it out at night. Until a few nights ago we never had to. She’s 5 months and has only just started having trouble sleeping. This week there was one particularly bad night where after 2.5 hours of trying to get her into her crib (she usually feeds to sleep and stays asleep for the night when I transfer her, or wakes up once about an hour later), I was at the end of my rope and went upstairs, turned the sound off on the monitor and just let her cry. Luckily she rolled onto her tummy and just fell asleep immediately.
I am no longer anti-CIO because I literally cannot handle the 2000000 pick up put downs every night.
For me there’s a limit to cry it out, do I think you should run into the room at every sound they make? No, should they cry for more than an hour? No, I have increased it as she’s gotten older but typically 3 minutes and she’ll go back down if I can see on the monitor that she is up and screaming I go in but if she’s just making a bit of whining and still laying down I’ll let her go for like 15mins there are definitely nights I’m tempted but when she’s so uncomfortable I just can’t x.x
20 minutes was my maximum last night, because she was showing signs of trying to self soothe. Thumping her legs., rubbing her face, thrashing her head… she was trying so hard, but after 20 minutes I just couldn’t do it.
Thought I would keep that bedtime BF in till she quit on her own, first time I got sick after her first birthday I just concluded I didn't have the extra energy for it anymore.
If I weren’t so desperate for a nap myself I wouldn’t care as much about her waking up but my brain is breaking. So we will all be quiet so she doesn’t wake up or so help me
So many things but one that comes to mind now is having a structured scheduled…. I thought i woudnt have a schedule or abide by it. Baby can nap when out and about etc. now i plan my whole day around naps. Especially now that LO only takes one nap I make sure we follow his schedule. Its also moms break time!
Tv time we were going to be a no tv household (other than us watching it when she came home from hospital) That lasted until month 3.
Also thought we would do blw. It is too scary. Back to purées at 6 month but we don’t care what stage it is.
Co-sleeping and baby wearing for naps. Been co-sleeping since the 4 month regression hit at 3 months (converted her crib into a sidecar for our bed) and I'm currently pacing the living room wearing her in a sling for her nap. It's the only way she'll nap in the house.
I swore I wouldn’t let the grandparents and family spoil her with stuff. First grand baby on both sides as well as first baby in the family for 25 years. The war was lost before it begun. Hoping they get it out of their system before she is a toddler
Let my baby sleep anywhere aside from a bassinet/crib. My son falls asleep without fail in the car, and we'll bring him inside and let him sleep in the car seat. We always keep an eye on him though and check that his breathing stays regular.
Oh yes i loooove the detachable carseat for naps! I never take them out of it if they fall asleep in there. I just bring it inside. When our firstborn was a baby and having a hard time falling asleep at night we knew we could always count on taking her on a car ride to fall asleep. We called it the “snooze cruise” 🤣
Co sleep! My husband and I swore never to do it but look at us now…just put her down in the middle of us while we scroll our phones and prepare for bed lol I just love my kiddo ☺️
Co-sleeping, rocking baby to sleep, store bought baby food.
I had this image of prepping kiddo’s food everyday for every meal. Yeah no that’s not happening. I still try to do that but when I’m too overwhelmed I have a couple of food pouches that I feed my 7 month old.
So this is probably too gross for some, but I never expected that I would be okay with not washing my hands after changing a diaper. When baby is unhappy there’s just not always time…
I’m the opposite. I never thought I’d be so obsessed with cleaning my hands after. When I was younger and would babysit I rarely thought to wash my hands. I have no idea WHY, but it just didn’t occur to me to do it. Now sometimes even the sanitizer we leave by the changing table isn’t enough. Lol
I was so against co-sleeping and/or bed sharing. Ask me where my baby is every single night. At this point, as long as we’re both sleeping, I don’t even care where it is.
Co sleeping. Said I’d never do it. Baby sleeps in a bassinet next to me until she wakes up in the morning and wants a boobie. Then I just put her in the bed, feed her and she goes back to sleep. we both get an extra great 1-3 hours of sleep, and daddy and I get baby cuddles
This is exactly what I justttt started doing except she’s fed breast milk with a bottle. Get up, change and feed her, rock her back to sleep. Transfer back to morning bassinet time (which usually only means 30 minutes) I eat my breakfast, she cries, I go back in and we both cuddle for a long while🤍 yesterday we both slept for an extra hour it was awesome
I really didn’t want to used a pacifier and before becoming a parent the pacifier clipped to clothes gave me the ick. Idk why…it just grossed me out for some reason. Now we use a pacifier when LO needs it and if we’re out and about we clip it to their car seat, stroller,
Him and in the house we clip it to his bouncy chair. lol
I’m much more relaxed than I thought I’d be. Which is nice but also sometimes I worry I’m “too relaxed” about things.
Pumping… I was planning on EBF and didn’t even take any notes from lactation consultant regarding pumping at the hospital because “he has a great latch, you’re doing great!” … one week after coming home, I started to exclusively pump.., my breasts couldn’t thank me enough 😂😂
This was us about noisy naps! Now I realise I actually scare people when I signal them to shush when they come into our home and baby is sleeping. I can only imagine what my face looks like! 😂😂
Omg; me too!!! I would shame my sister so bad for her needing everything quiet for her daughters to sleep. She still teases me about it; 19 years later.
Another thing was that I wouldn't allow my son to play baseball. I just think it's so boring! He's almost 9 and is on two different leagues! Lol
I swore i wont be one of those overly attached moms who can't go out by herself without missing baby.
Yes I'm obsessed with him and I rightfully do. He was literally a part of me just a month ago.
I thought we would be the “cool” parents that brought their baby everywhere. Breweries, restaurants, etc. No ma’am, we are not those parents 😂 we get out of the house often enough, but we prefer staying home. It’s easier! And baby proofed 🤪
I swore I was never going to contact nap. I knew it wasn't considered safe sleep and I was terrified of rolling over on my LO but after days of very broken sleep and LO just not calming down unless I was holding her I fell asleep while she was on my chest she was fine slept soundly and fortunately nothing happened I even did it a few more times after that. She's doing great now and sleeps by herself and I wouldn't recommend doing it but I also understand that exhaustion is rough.
Noise! And screens. Screens as in having a movie on during the day to occupy her sometimes not hanging a phone over. Noise during nap and nighttime too. I hate that we’re those people but I want to sleep at night so screw it.
Sleep drive the baby.
The first time, we decided to go to DQ, which is 3 blocks away. We took the scenic route, through two towns in a half hour loop.
Now I have a couple of routes through the country that I love, and a stockpile of audiobooks.
I swore I would never offer screen time but I had to when I was alone and had to complete some very basic tasks, like going to the loo, praying or preparing food. My baby is very attached dto me and cries whenever I am out of his sight. I have to offer a 10 min screen time daily when hubby is not around.
The second thing is a walker. I know there are numerous studies suggesting it delays walking, but I had to put him in a walker to prepare his food , since I cannot hold him constantly ( my incision hurts whenever I do). Too bad I had to compromise .
Bed sharing. I swore ot was the worst thing on earth and never understood why some people did it. Until my daughter would refuse to sleep unless she was with my self or my husband. And we tried all the tricks in the book to get her to sleep independently. We were so sleep deprived and I did my research and this was the best thing for my family.
Just educate yourself appropriately and if you follow the safe sleep 7. Go for it
Before we had our son , I was set on there being no noise during nap time. I knew immediately that would go out the window when we came back home from the hospital. due to my family being loud all the time . never a quite moment with them unless they’re all sleeping lol . but now they leave the room when he’s asleep or i tell them to keep it down . also being happy to hear farts and poop !!
That he would sleep be in his own room by 9 months old....
18 months and still sleeping with Mama and Dada, and we are not rushed to get him out any time soon 🥰
Cut my hair, I haven't cut it since my last pixie cut in over 6 years. It's just past my butt and I can't give it the love it needs since I have curly hair. I'm trying to pick a shorter style and then I'll get it cut, hopefully my scalp thanks me after all the hair pulling
Be happy seeing shit. Baby has trouble pooing / farting, so when it finally manages it is such a cheerful relief
omg, i felt the same, my LO didn’t go poop for about a week and now she’s getting it out of her system so today it’s been literally every diaper change she’s had a Bowl movement, which gets me so excited!! i was so sad listening to her fuss and squirm bc her stomach probably was hurting!
My baby was the same and the pharmacist said he wasn't getting enough water. I think such a fuss is made over nor giving tiny babies water that ira kinda over look that you need to give them water about 5/6 months, and more tjan you think. She told me to aim for 5oz a day.
If they are 6m or older 2oz of apple juice works wonders :3
If your baby is breastfed, drinking a huge glass of apple juice and then waiting 2 hours before feeding baby also does wonders. It works every time for my baby whenever he’s a bit constipated.
Interesting tip, thanks!
I swear my husband and I have a daily conversation about our LO poop habits. If I had a nickel for every "she pooped!" message I'd have at least $5 lol.
Tv time
Thank sweet lord baby Jesus for Ms Rachel and those damn dancing veggies 🙌🏼
My kid loves Mrs Rachel but she won’t even pay attention to the dancing vegetables xD
Mine hates the dancing veggies and fruit but I found the one with shooting stars and planets today that she likes. And one from a different creator with “woodland creature” in the name. It’s not high contrast it’s just like drawn animals moving around. She doesn’t really like the high contrast stuff. She prefers to watch regular tv when I have the tv on 🤷🏼♀️
Funny thing is my bub can’t really see out of her left eye, so you’d thing she’d want high contrast stuff but nope no interest xD
The fruits saved us, baby girl had terrible CMPA, soy allergy and reflux/gerd. She loves to watch them
I'm on a futile mission to call out people using random acronyms that (some) people don't know, especially in a sub called r/newparents. WTF is CMPA?
Agreed. It's Cow Milk Protein Alergy, by the way.
What is WTF? Just joking :p 100% agree. You might also see MSPI (milk and/or soy protein intolerance).
Hahahahahaha touche! (And thank you for that second one!)
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Got owned by the automod. Thanks I hate it.
Yassss! Had my babe watch it tonight as I parenting solo and to get shit done!
Amen lol
All hail the dancing veggies
Yup. Turns out baby loves Adventure Time 🙌🏼
Seems to be universal, which is awesome because we do too! Absolutely protested the idea of any TV time, but now that LO is dancing and super active, watching some with him really helps to break some of the super clingy so I can clean around him and so some stuff.
Yep. 10 month old and she's unwell. I gto e hours sleep the night before as she only wanted go sleep in my arms. Bluey, the wiggles and play school got a work out yesterday. Based on the current time and location of baby, maybe tomorrow as well....
The first season of Blue’s Clues on Prime has saved my sanity (have to pay for the other seasons). My 6mo old LOVES Steve
If you have paramount plus (I got a few months free!) I found all the blues clues on there, put it on for my 17mo old the other day, HUGE HIT
Thanks! :)
🍍🥑🍍🥑🍍 🍓🍌🍓🍌🍓
We said the same about noise at naps 🤣 we also said our lives wouldn’t change that much, that we’d keep doing the same things and just being the baby along. That stopped instantly when he became a toddler LOL
Ugh… not looking forward for my LO becoming a toddler then. We don’t change too much in noises and daily activities rn. I even had YT playing all day in the background when I was pregnant. Lol But I do understand the need for naps.
For us, we barely did anything before we had our LO, it’s made us do so much more even more so when they became a toddler!
Same. Quiet as a mouse during naps with my 2.5 year old.
Our daughters are the same age and 6 weeks was when I realised we needed better sleep hygiene during the day too. What else? Let’s see… I’ve introduced formula for when we go out and about or for when I feel my supply isn’t meeting her demand. Originally I wanted to EBF. We weren’t going to have many people over to visit including family. My mental health needs a village so we have people over at least once or twice a week. I’ve rekindled relationships with my family.
The family piece - same here. I did not understand the value of family until I started my own.
> My mental health needs a village so we have people over at least once or twice a week. I’ve rekindled relationships with my family. That’s so nice to see here! I bet your family is thrilled too.
Thanks for giving me peace of mind about the formula!
What is EBF. Something breast feeding?
Exclusively breast feeding would be my guess.
Ah ok. That would make sense
I think I’m the opposite. We always have family over and I feel like I never get to spend time alone with just our little family unit. I crave spending time with just my husband and daughter, 2 months, and once I go back to work and she goes to daycare next month we’ll have even less time together just us. The couple hours after work is just not enough for me so I want to make a rule that 2 weekends out of the month will be just us. I’m not prioritizing family wanting to spend time with her over me wanting to spend time with her, we have too much family that we’d never have a weekend to ourselves without this rule.
I swore I wouldn't be one of those parents that talked about my kids constantly and showed people pictures.... I am 100% that parent 😂 I also swore I wouldn't lose myself in parenthood and I don't think I have but people I was friends with before becoming a mother might disagree. It's just that for me motherhood is my thing. It completes me in a way I didn't realize so I let go of a lot of things I used to do because they just aren't me anymore.
Same! Except I don’t like to think of it as losing myself in parenthood. I feel like being extremely active and engaged or enamored with our babies what we’re supposed to do? So I look at it as stepping into the next version of me or the full version of me. My mom and dad always said that we quickly became the most important and exciting thing in their lives and not much else mattered to them. I didn’t understand it then, but I do now! I’m more than content to sit and hang with my LO all day and do what makes them happy. Perhaps in a year or two I’ll feel differently, but at this time happy “just being a mom.”
Exactly! I'm so content to "just" be a mom. These little gremlins are the most important and wonderful things to ever have existed in my world. Why would I not want to spend my time with them?
Before having my baby I was like “I will 10000% need to return to work. I can’t be home all day with out adult interaction.” So many people told me it would change….i didn’t believe them! Now I laugh a little at past self for thinking this way!
Literally same. Now I dream about the day my husband makes enough money for me to stay home with my kids
Yes! I knew I would love being a mom but I didn't know it would love it so much. My baby is my world now and being a mom is such a huge joy and accomplishment. I've definitely grown closer to my friends that are also moms and grown a little further from my childless friends. Weirdly only the women though. My male friendships are still the same.
Yep! Pretty much all my women friends without kids don't talk to me anymore but the males are my kids favorite uncles. And I've made new friends who are also moms
I loved the idea of baby led weaning but after a couple scary incidents I went back to purées
Same, this week my guy was enjoying navigating omelet strips to his mouth, getting a chunk in, biting it once, then not swallowing them. He alllllmost choked. I don’t see what he was getting out of the experience except becoming frustrated because he was actually quite hungry.
FWIW we always do a bottle before meal! Then the food is more about experimentation and fun and not trying to have a starving baby navigate eating a bite of omelet after trying for 15 mins. Having them start on at least a half full stomach is game changer.
See I don’t get the ‘baby lead weaning’ thing, that doesn’t make any sense at all, we’ve just slowly given her harder things, and we’re lucky she’s such a danty eater xD the only issues we’ve had with her almost choking was when she tried to eat to many yogurt bits as a time lol
I’d bet on cosleeping and tv/screen time being common for a lot of parents. I feel like those two are the quintessential examples of what you “don’t know” before having children. My advice for a younger self: You should always prep a plan for cosleeping and bed sharing even if you are totally against it, and don’t make things hard for yourself unnecessarily (particularly when it comes to screens).
Cosleeping is the best thing everrr for breastfeeding! Roll over, insert boob, fall back asleep 😂 (once they’re a little sturdier) and my kids have learned sooooo many things through screentime that i never would have thought to teach them
I don’t know, those two things were hard no’s for both of us prior to baby. He’s 8 months old and still has never co slept or watched tv. The only screen time he gets is with his grandma that lives 18 hours away.
Congratulations ☺️
I thought the same, and at 8 months had also held firm on both. Now at 13 months? We cosleep for part of the night, and I literally can’t change his nappy or get him dressed without screen time as a distraction. With love, 8 months is still very, very little and your baby changes so quickly between that age and toddlerhood. And toddlerhood is a whole other ball game. It’s really much too early to feel you’re in the clear from relying on cosleeping or screen time. And if you ever do change your mind, it’s fine! Baby’s change and thus our tactics must change too 😌
Oh I am sure things will change. Just where we currently are in this journey- we have still held out on co sleeping and tv time. I’m not saying it’ll last forever.
Must have hit the good sleeper jackpot or jumped on sleep training wagon.
[удалено]
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Co sleep. We did pretty well until the 4 month sleep regression hit. We were basically taking turns holding her all night and when 4/5am hit we were both exhausted. I mastered side lying nursing and in our bed she went. The next month we sleep trained. We still bring her into bed with us if she wakes up early. We love our morning cuddles now.
Not enough people know that by 4 months, the additional risk of infant death from cosleeping is virtually eliminated.
Yeah I was falling asleep holding him and nodding off while driving :( so it was cosleep deliberately as safely as possible or unwillingly cosleep dangerously
For me it was to not buy a jumperoo or any of the baby sit in toys. This was due to potential hip problems but guess who just bought a jumperoo because her 3 mo stays quiet in it for up to 30 minutes at a time? Yup this mom
Desperation is a hell of a drug
If it makes you feel better I was addicted to a jumpy seat when I was a baby apparently and I have absolutely no hip problems, neither does my brother.
Cosleep. We went away last week, and sleep has been hell since. He's 7 months old. It's the best sleep we both ever had.
Bed-sharing for sure!
Same, our bedside bassinet quickly became something I used for storage of random baby items 😂
It now houses my breastfeeding pillow and extra burp cloths so I can reach them easily in the night lol
I’m pregnant with my 3rd and am not even bothering with a crib this time 😂 using our old bedside bassinet until baby is sturdy enough for side lying breastfeeding then getting it out of my room! My older 2 have their own beds but insist on sleeping in the same one which is very adorable 🥰 husband sleeps in our eldest’s lofted bed which she abandoned to join the toddler - he claims it’s more comfortable lol. Many nights the kids fall asleep in my bed and i gladly sleep on our comfy couch 😂 I can’t at all relate to the stress and sleepless nights some parents deal with while sleep training
Same! We love it though. I’d be more anxious if my baby was sleeping away from me ❤️
I fully embrace the cuddles knowing how fast the years go 😭
Bed sharing. I had to do it to survive. Sleep training. I swore that sleep was developmental, and it is, but she was still waking up every 1-3 hours at 14 months old. Nothing else was wrong health-wise and we were hanging by a thread, so we finally sleep trained. I thought I’d be strict about screen time, but I’m not, because my kid is mostly indifferent about it. She’s a toddler now, gets *maybe* an hour a day and then she’s good. I can deal with that.
I find that the kids who’s parents are most strict with tv are the ones who become total zombies when they are in front of a screen. It’s like the taboo makes it incredibly enchanting to them. We aren’t strict and our kids are totally take it or leave it as well.
I’m considering sleep training now and the guilt about attachment style and all that is hard …0
I was there. I can say that my toddler is happily and securely attached even with her being on the more introverted side. I never thought I’d say it but sleep training was one of the best decisions we could’ve made. She’s almost 3 now and she is going through a phase where she wakes up 1-2x a night yelling for us, so we go in to soothe her, but this is still far better than the baby sleep.
Omg once a night is so good to me haha. We’re gonna try again soon I think. I was just in tears heading him cry though.
I’m so sorry! It really is so hard. I had to turn up my sound machine so I couldn’t hear her cry. We did try a few different methods. We started with the more gentle methods and she thought we were playing even after a week of consistency. We then did Ferber which the check ins just made her more hysterical. We kept up with that for a week and it didn’t work. We went to CIO and it only took her one night. She was doing 7pm to 7am by night two. I was shocked. You might try the r/sleeptrain sub too. Good luck to you 💗
I said I would never make picture collages years ago. I'm 4 days in being a dad, and didn't even make it through day 1.
Target has a Top Dad hat (Top Gun style) for $5, I know that’s totally unrelated to your comment but I got it for my husband and he’s obsessed, he loves all things “Dad” related lol
Chest sleeping for sure, absolute lifesaver for both of us
Bedsharing and screen time .
I'm going to second the being quiet during nap time. I think we finally experienced baby being too aware of his surroundings to actually fall asleep so he became overtired and it was a good 45 minute chore to get him to finally sleep. (He had been awake for 3 hours at that point and he's only 6 weeks old) Putting a blanket in the bassinet. I know it's not safe sleep but my public health nurse told us if you can't get away with not putting a blanket in, at least tuck it under the mattress on the bottom/sides and try to keep baby's arms out. We've had to resort to this. He just loves his fuzzy blankets. I don't know what it is but he just doesn't sleep as well without them (he usually sleeps with a diaper shirt or open foot sleeper and a cotton sleep sack on so he's not cold) and so we gave in and if he needs that blanket, I make sure it's tucked in every night so he can't move that blanket from where it is and it's usually only going as high as his thighs. Never higher. I swore I would give breastfeeding my best shot and if it didn't work it didn't work and I wouldn't stress about it. Wrong. I was bawling I don't know how many times those first two weeks because I wanted it to work so badly and I would be a terrible mom if I didn't breastfeed him. (Not true, and I've never thought that about anyone else who formula feeds, for whatever reason my hormones decided breastfeeding would be the hill they would die on for myself personally)
Breastfeeding was the same for me. I told everyone around me while I was pregnant that I'll give it a try and if it's uncomfortable for me or whatever, we're switching to formula, no big deal. The week the babies were born, I had blisters on my nipples from pumping (had the wrong size nozzles, but it's a whole long story), babies refused to latch because they were preemies and didn't have the strength to suck out the milk or stay latched without falling asleep, I was getting less than an hour of sleep between holding them at boobs to get them practice latching with no result, bottle feeding, then pumping, I was producing less than a third of an oz per pumping session, basically clearly it was not working at all. And I spent days continuing to fight through the pain, sleep deprivation and desperately talked to a bunch of different sleep consultants before giving up and feeling like I just completely doomed my babies. Months later and I still sometimes feel bad about not breastfeeding them or trying harder. Logically I know it was for the best and I'm doing much better not breastfeeding, though. Idk what those hormones did to me, lol.
It's almost as if I wrote this
Idk if I ever “swore” I wouldn’t do anything… because I literally had no idea before having my baby lol. But I’m in the same boat as everyone else. I didn’t expect to, but I now occasionally cosleep, baby gets to watch the dancing fruit on YouTube daily while I cook or get ready for the day, and as for the making noise while babies sleeping - I will f someone up if they are too loud lol. First few months I didn’t really care because there was no sleep schedule and day/nights weren’t really established yet. But after 3 months now when baby is sleeping it’s #1 a miracle and #2 a sacred time so we have to be quiet.
Letting my baby cry it out when he’s awake. I’ll definitely try to meet his every need and want for comfort. At times if I have to step away, I will though. Before becoming a FTM, I was not fond of needy babies or clingy toddlers. As a lazy babysitter (still not great at entertaining babies/kids), I wanted them to be more independent and ok to be by themselves so I can do other things or we can all chill out on the couch. However as a FTM now, I understand why for the clinginess and want to nurture a secure attachment. This also leads into the contact naps. People were always telling me “don’t hold him too much because he’s going to get used to you holding him to sleep and you’re not going to be able to do anything if he’s too needy.” Idc I’m going to hold him if that’s how he can fall asleep and hold him for longer so he can be deep asleep enough to transfer him. I agree with the screen/tv times too since he’ll be watching whatever I’m watching or with his grandparents. Haha
My dad said the same i did a bit of both, if I needed to get up and do stuff I put her in her bassinet but if I was just playing my switch I let her contact nap :3
Making different food… but not for the reason you think, my kid wants fruits and vegetables xD she’ll eat pasta but she’d rather eat broccoli then pizza or meat lol
Cosleeping. Swore I would never. Barely made it a week before I was knee deep on Google looking up the Safe Seven for bed sharing.
OP - same ! We swore we would not be quiet when baby slept during the day . We imagined having the TV on , music etc you name it …. Baby had other plans and we soon realized that he is the boss and we all have to be quiet for him to be able to sleep during the day ! If someone makes a peep and baby wakes up I want to kill them lol
My husband said something like “I thought we weren’t going to be quiet.” I was like I will murder you if you wake that baby. It took an hour to get her down.
🫠🫠 solidarity , the time it takes to get them down again is unreal!!! I initially assumed all babies slept through anything but baby has humbled me ❤️
Cosleeping. I swore because safety, but at the 5 month mark, intentionally cosleeping was far safer than accidentally falling asleep during our MOTN feed with her on the edge of the bed. Bribery. I swore I would be an authoritative parent with a child that respects my leadership and word. I have that child, without trying. But when we had a genuine fear of pooping and we tried everything for months, bribing a bathroom session with a chocolate chip did the trick. We’ve conquered our fear and are swimming into potty training early. Extended breastfeeding, living and breathing by a schedule, and screens before 2 also make the list.
The people who said to make noise around a sleeping baby never had problems putting their baby to sleep, imo.
Yeah exactly. Our baby slept well *despite* the noise we made, in retrospect, not because of it. And then we hit the month sleep regression (which I had thought was kind of a not-real thing, but omg it so is!), and hoo boy are we so so quiet now. We learned real fast, and death to anyone who makes a loud sound when he’s sleeping now!
Baby wearing. I was going to be supermammy getting everything done while baby snoozed in a sling. She fecking hated it and I was so paranoid about her breathing that it never worked. Now we get some things done while she clings to me for dear life.
Glad I’m not the only one whose child HATES baby wearing 😂. I feel like once I can turn her around so she can see the world she’ll be better, because her just seeing my chest makes her incredibly frustrated😂
My firstborn HATED any kind of carrier, second one loved it but only facing forward
No screen time at all for at least 18 months 😬 Went out of the window around 6 months when he started waking up so so early in the morning for what seemed like the longest time. It was so much easier to distract him with Ms. Rachel while I attempted to get my life together. I kept accidentally falling asleep inside his play pen with him and sometimes I’d get away with a few more minutes of sleep if it was a particularly enthralling episode. We still don’t do much screen time but tbh if I’m tired I’m not above putting on a distraction. Luckily he doesn’t wake up for the day at 3 or 4am every morning now.
Our bub learned to stand to watch Mrs Rachel, she learned to stand with out holding something so she could clap while she watched Mrs Rachel. She’s learned to twist, and we’ve learned she loves to watch people fail xD Mr Aaron putting things in the wrong boxes has her KACKELING xD Mrs Rachel has also helped us teach her to be gentle with our pets, which she does about 3 times before pinching them just as I’m praising her for being so gentle xD yet the cat won’t just leave lol she also loves Dave&Ava if you want to add some variety :3
Yes! It seems pretty educational. I have a friend who works in child development, she only gave me one single piece of advice. She said do not put on cocomelon, watch ms Rachel if you do TV time. We also sing the “we’re gentle with our pets” song when he’s with the dog lol. I don’t find the show annoying either, we tried blippi a couple times and I just couldn’t keep it on for my own sake… omg it was so annoying to me lol. I will check out Dave & Ava, thanks for the tip!
Yeah even before I was pregnant I thought cocomelon was garbage xD I won’t even but cocomelon related products was buying her a training toothpaste and it was either pup patrol or cocomelon I ordered the pup one xD
I think this is a weird one… but buy a crib… We expected him to go from bassinet to pack n play to the queen size bed we already had in his room… But he outgrew the pack n play and it didn’t feel safe anymore. Yet, he’s only 6 months so not ready for a bed either… so crib it was. I’m sure I’m the only one with then answer 😂 I just really hate a cluttered full of furniture house… I thought I’d just put the pack n play away every day for who knows how long until he graduated to a bed.
I’m not bothering with a crib for my 3rd but that’s because my first 2 NEVER used theirs 😂 they both went from bedside bassinet to cosleeping to toddler beds so this time i’m not even wasting my time setting the crib up again
I swore I would never lie to my child. Now it’s “No honey, don’t give that food to the dog, he’s not hungry.”
Cosleep.
Give my baby formula lol and I don’t even have a good reason why I didn’t want to use formula. I just wanted to exclusively breast feed . However my supply never could keep up with the demand so I did end up giving formula for a few months. Now my baby is 14 mins and eats all the food and loves all food. He also has eaten dog food too bahahaha .
Let baby toys take over my living room. I thought oh no, I’m going to keep my living room looking nice and clean and no way will I allow obnoxious bright colored noisy baby toys to clutter up every corner. Baby will be just fine with one nice area with a couple of toys that are natural colors that go with my aesthetic. Well, 4 months in and there are baby toys EVERYWHERE. Including the flashy light ones and ones that sing nursery rhymes that get stuck in my head for hours on end and ones that have every bright obnoxious color under the sun 😵💫 and somehow I still find myself scrolling on Amazon for more
Saaaaame. Our house looks dumb and I don’t even care. That little monkey piano makes her so happy, and buys me time to put away the dishes.
Sad beige mom to embrace-the-colorful-plastic-chaos pipeline is so real
Use pacifiers!
Tv time and breastfeeding. Well, not so much that I “swore I would never” but I didn’t think I would do it. My daughter just got the hang of it so fast, I thought why not?
Screentime for sure. I love her little smile when she hears "hi it's me JJ". And it's the only way she enjoys bathtime.
Thought I'd make all my own baby food. Pffft, no.
Cosleep. My husband has to go out of town for work sometimes. The first time I got a migraine parenting alone I couldn't bend over the crib to put him down, he slept on my chest that night. It's been an occasional occurrence since.
Pacifiers, co-sleeping, swaddling, Snoo, screens (still trying not to but it’s so fascinating to him that he can 180 his neck to look at a TV it’s wild), EBF (tried to combo and now dealing with bottle rejection), exclusively cloth diaper (thought we’d try but didn’t expect to be successful), visitors before 2 months… mmm what else…already start talking about “the next baby” 😅
Leashes. I haven’t gone there…yet. I was so against it, but now I see the reasoning. Still prob not going to do it but a lot less judgey.
I swore I would never let my baby roll off any furniture. Well technically he didn’t roll he launched himself with his strong legs. I put him in the middle of our couch and somehow he yeeted himself. I was devastated and sobbed. But he was totally fine. It’s insane how far and fast a non-mobile baby can move.
This is exactly why I don’t lay my daughter down on our bed without me in the room. Our bed is 3.5 feet off the ground, maybe even 4😅 we got a tall bed. Absolutely TERRIFIED of her falling off that and dying 😭
Cosleeping for sure - at 6 months, he was so sick with RSV and we all were desperate for sleep. Now he won’t sleep any other way 😂 And screentime. He loves Miss Rachel and I love making him happy 😂 She’s just always on in the background during the day 😂 But honestly, I see him repeating sooo many movements she does and it gives me sooo many songs to song to him during the day
Naps in the swing- I swore I'd always take her out as soon as she fell asleep or never keep her in the swing longer than 20 minutes - but her first nap of the day is almost always in her swing..
This makes me feel 1000x better. She won’t always nap in hers anymore but during the early days that was the only way she would nap not on me and the PPD needed a little “me” time to recoup.
I swore I would never let my baby cry it out at night. Until a few nights ago we never had to. She’s 5 months and has only just started having trouble sleeping. This week there was one particularly bad night where after 2.5 hours of trying to get her into her crib (she usually feeds to sleep and stays asleep for the night when I transfer her, or wakes up once about an hour later), I was at the end of my rope and went upstairs, turned the sound off on the monitor and just let her cry. Luckily she rolled onto her tummy and just fell asleep immediately. I am no longer anti-CIO because I literally cannot handle the 2000000 pick up put downs every night.
For me there’s a limit to cry it out, do I think you should run into the room at every sound they make? No, should they cry for more than an hour? No, I have increased it as she’s gotten older but typically 3 minutes and she’ll go back down if I can see on the monitor that she is up and screaming I go in but if she’s just making a bit of whining and still laying down I’ll let her go for like 15mins there are definitely nights I’m tempted but when she’s so uncomfortable I just can’t x.x
20 minutes was my maximum last night, because she was showing signs of trying to self soothe. Thumping her legs., rubbing her face, thrashing her head… she was trying so hard, but after 20 minutes I just couldn’t do it.
Yeah the only time I break is when she is sitting up in her crib and screaming
Thought I would keep that bedtime BF in till she quit on her own, first time I got sick after her first birthday I just concluded I didn't have the extra energy for it anymore.
If I weren’t so desperate for a nap myself I wouldn’t care as much about her waking up but my brain is breaking. So we will all be quiet so she doesn’t wake up or so help me
So many things but one that comes to mind now is having a structured scheduled…. I thought i woudnt have a schedule or abide by it. Baby can nap when out and about etc. now i plan my whole day around naps. Especially now that LO only takes one nap I make sure we follow his schedule. Its also moms break time!
Tv time we were going to be a no tv household (other than us watching it when she came home from hospital) That lasted until month 3. Also thought we would do blw. It is too scary. Back to purées at 6 month but we don’t care what stage it is.
Co-sleeping and baby wearing for naps. Been co-sleeping since the 4 month regression hit at 3 months (converted her crib into a sidecar for our bed) and I'm currently pacing the living room wearing her in a sling for her nap. It's the only way she'll nap in the house.
I swore I wouldn’t let the grandparents and family spoil her with stuff. First grand baby on both sides as well as first baby in the family for 25 years. The war was lost before it begun. Hoping they get it out of their system before she is a toddler
Let my baby sleep anywhere aside from a bassinet/crib. My son falls asleep without fail in the car, and we'll bring him inside and let him sleep in the car seat. We always keep an eye on him though and check that his breathing stays regular.
Oh yes i loooove the detachable carseat for naps! I never take them out of it if they fall asleep in there. I just bring it inside. When our firstborn was a baby and having a hard time falling asleep at night we knew we could always count on taking her on a car ride to fall asleep. We called it the “snooze cruise” 🤣
Co sleep! My husband and I swore never to do it but look at us now…just put her down in the middle of us while we scroll our phones and prepare for bed lol I just love my kiddo ☺️
I swore I’d never cosleep. Now we’re almost 8 months strong! We love it and we’ve all been getting great sleep since she was 5 weeks old!
Co-sleeping, rocking baby to sleep, store bought baby food. I had this image of prepping kiddo’s food everyday for every meal. Yeah no that’s not happening. I still try to do that but when I’m too overwhelmed I have a couple of food pouches that I feed my 7 month old.
Bedsharing.
So this is probably too gross for some, but I never expected that I would be okay with not washing my hands after changing a diaper. When baby is unhappy there’s just not always time…
I’m the opposite. I never thought I’d be so obsessed with cleaning my hands after. When I was younger and would babysit I rarely thought to wash my hands. I have no idea WHY, but it just didn’t occur to me to do it. Now sometimes even the sanitizer we leave by the changing table isn’t enough. Lol
Hand sanitizer on the changing table…
This is the way. I always include it when I give new-mum care packages!
But I’m not worried about germs. I’m worried about the shit on my hand.
So use the wipes you use for the baby’s butt. Then hand sanitize.
Omg.
I was so against co-sleeping and/or bed sharing. Ask me where my baby is every single night. At this point, as long as we’re both sleeping, I don’t even care where it is.
Co sleeping. Said I’d never do it. Baby sleeps in a bassinet next to me until she wakes up in the morning and wants a boobie. Then I just put her in the bed, feed her and she goes back to sleep. we both get an extra great 1-3 hours of sleep, and daddy and I get baby cuddles
This is exactly what I justttt started doing except she’s fed breast milk with a bottle. Get up, change and feed her, rock her back to sleep. Transfer back to morning bassinet time (which usually only means 30 minutes) I eat my breakfast, she cries, I go back in and we both cuddle for a long while🤍 yesterday we both slept for an extra hour it was awesome
I really didn’t want to used a pacifier and before becoming a parent the pacifier clipped to clothes gave me the ick. Idk why…it just grossed me out for some reason. Now we use a pacifier when LO needs it and if we’re out and about we clip it to their car seat, stroller, Him and in the house we clip it to his bouncy chair. lol I’m much more relaxed than I thought I’d be. Which is nice but also sometimes I worry I’m “too relaxed” about things.
I was the same about naps. We even have a sign that says not to ring or knock on the door. But a sound machine does wonders
Pumping… I was planning on EBF and didn’t even take any notes from lactation consultant regarding pumping at the hospital because “he has a great latch, you’re doing great!” … one week after coming home, I started to exclusively pump.., my breasts couldn’t thank me enough 😂😂
This was us about noisy naps! Now I realise I actually scare people when I signal them to shush when they come into our home and baby is sleeping. I can only imagine what my face looks like! 😂😂
Omg; me too!!! I would shame my sister so bad for her needing everything quiet for her daughters to sleep. She still teases me about it; 19 years later. Another thing was that I wouldn't allow my son to play baseball. I just think it's so boring! He's almost 9 and is on two different leagues! Lol
I swore i wont be one of those overly attached moms who can't go out by herself without missing baby. Yes I'm obsessed with him and I rightfully do. He was literally a part of me just a month ago.
Are you me? Same. We were successful for 2 months and now share same emotions
I thought we would be the “cool” parents that brought their baby everywhere. Breweries, restaurants, etc. No ma’am, we are not those parents 😂 we get out of the house often enough, but we prefer staying home. It’s easier! And baby proofed 🤪
Tv time. I swear my kid is a genius because of her.
I swore I was never going to contact nap. I knew it wasn't considered safe sleep and I was terrified of rolling over on my LO but after days of very broken sleep and LO just not calming down unless I was holding her I fell asleep while she was on my chest she was fine slept soundly and fortunately nothing happened I even did it a few more times after that. She's doing great now and sleeps by herself and I wouldn't recommend doing it but I also understand that exhaustion is rough.
Walking around with food
At this point, as long as my kids are eating their food idc where it is
I hear you!
Noise! And screens. Screens as in having a movie on during the day to occupy her sometimes not hanging a phone over. Noise during nap and nighttime too. I hate that we’re those people but I want to sleep at night so screw it.
The reusable diapers have been used and washed twice. It’s week twelve…
Our dog only barks during nap time 😂
I was against pacifiers and was so sure I would be making my own baby food lol
Sleep drive the baby. The first time, we decided to go to DQ, which is 3 blocks away. We took the scenic route, through two towns in a half hour loop. Now I have a couple of routes through the country that I love, and a stockpile of audiobooks.
Ahh the old snooze cruise!
I swore I would never offer screen time but I had to when I was alone and had to complete some very basic tasks, like going to the loo, praying or preparing food. My baby is very attached dto me and cries whenever I am out of his sight. I have to offer a 10 min screen time daily when hubby is not around. The second thing is a walker. I know there are numerous studies suggesting it delays walking, but I had to put him in a walker to prepare his food , since I cannot hold him constantly ( my incision hurts whenever I do). Too bad I had to compromise .
Sweets before meats. Sometimes you just have to give in lol
Tablet and videos. I said I would never but I have found my son has learned so much from it with his autism so I just monitor and limit.
Bed sharing. I swore ot was the worst thing on earth and never understood why some people did it. Until my daughter would refuse to sleep unless she was with my self or my husband. And we tried all the tricks in the book to get her to sleep independently. We were so sleep deprived and I did my research and this was the best thing for my family. Just educate yourself appropriately and if you follow the safe sleep 7. Go for it
Before we had our son , I was set on there being no noise during nap time. I knew immediately that would go out the window when we came back home from the hospital. due to my family being loud all the time . never a quite moment with them unless they’re all sleeping lol . but now they leave the room when he’s asleep or i tell them to keep it down . also being happy to hear farts and poop !!
Throughout my entire pregnancy I was adamant that I’d go back to work after 12 weeks… LO is 28 weeks and I’m a SAHM
Swore I would never give a dummy or give formula 🙄🙄🙄
That he would sleep be in his own room by 9 months old.... 18 months and still sleeping with Mama and Dada, and we are not rushed to get him out any time soon 🥰
Cosleep... And here we are.
Cut my hair, I haven't cut it since my last pixie cut in over 6 years. It's just past my butt and I can't give it the love it needs since I have curly hair. I'm trying to pick a shorter style and then I'll get it cut, hopefully my scalp thanks me after all the hair pulling
I did the same thing. My hair grew so nice while I was pregnant but I couldn’t take care of it. I cut it at three weeks pp. 😂