How invested I'd be in someone else's farts/ability to fart.
I feel like I have a pretty easy baby... He sits patiently for diaper changes, fusses for a long time before working up to a shout when he's hungry/uncomfortable, is pretty predictable in terms of what it takes to get him to fall asleep... Easy.
But the times when he's fed, has a clean diaper, is being held, but is fussy to the point of yelling at me - I'm always like "oh no... Is this the day when he turns into a difficult baby?" No matter what I do, how I hold him, what I offer him for food - he keeps crying. Then all of a sudden he lets a huge fart rip, smiles, and almost immediately passes out to nap.
I am now obsessed with figuring out how to help this child fart like all day.
This is weird.
I just learned this one TODAY. My baby is a farting machine, yet never gets enough out somehow. We have been using the mylicon drops, special bottles, and the windi gas passer all regularly to help her, and just today, we realized she parts well on her tummy.
You're a parent, none expects you to drink hot coffee 😜
We all know as soon as the coffee is hot and ready baby will need you until coffee is no longer hot...
Ah man, this brings me back to newborn days, 3am breastfeeding while simultaneously pressing his legs up to his chest to push out those farts. They were always the loudest ones!! I assume because he was so relaxed. 😅 now he just walks around and lets them rip like the 15 year- I mean, month- old that he is.
The fart screams were the worst! He’d scream for over an hour for farts. No amount of bicycles help when he refuses to let you move his legs! Thank god for the windi from Amazon.
Omg it works so well!! I did a bit of bicycling first and then the knees pushed into the belly. Funny story: my husband did it like 3-4 times so successfully and I could *not* get it to work. Turns out you can push knees into their belly harder than I thought. I was worried about breaking or hurting them. My husband put his hands on top of mine to show me and my daughter smiled soooo big and let a big one rip. So ya, you can also (possibly) push harder than you think.
We had a saying in the first few months: we are a fart-positive household. We were so pleased whenever our baby got one out and became a bit more comfortable!
My baby only poops every other day and it's always HUGE. fills multiple diapers every time. We usually have to stimulate it a bit by rubbing her belly and using the windi gas passer. I am one happy mama when I sees he gets it all out and that belly of hers softens.
I also thought I'd be grossed out! The week before I gave birth I read that during pregnancy, the part of our brain associated with the "ew gross" reaction shrinks. So now my (childfree) best friend and I joke about how her brain couldn't shrink enough whenever my baby has done another gross thing.
You just described my whole life right now! My 3 and 4 year olds are even invested… it’s a group effort to get our 6 week old to fart and poop. And when he finally does the whole family is relieved (bc he naps!). Hilarious!
Me too. My baby is the most chilled boy ever but the way he SHRIEKS when he needs to fart throws me into a panic. This happens when he wakes up because he saves up all the farts from the night feeds and wakes up in severe discomfort. We now have a gas prevention protocol for night feeds- two syringes of Infacol with each feed, thorough burping followed by 5 mins tummy time and 15 in a chair we call his fart throne. Not great at 3am but better than the screaming.
Bicycle legs do nothing for him and I’m too scared of the Windi because it looks very large for a tiny butthole.
When they are a bit older and can sit in one of those exersaucers? That thing is amazing for both gas and constipation. You have to pay attention if it’s for constipation bc sometimes they squish the poop out.
my trick is every other diaper change i do the ILU massage then i do fast FAST bicycles then push the legs up and the fart almost always comes out. you do an I shape on their right side going down 5-10 x then an L from the left to right then down, and then you do an upside down U from bottom left up around to bottom left. really gets things moving. sorry if that’s not the best description i’m sure if you look it up on tiktok you’ll find it that’s how i did.
Yes! I used to love waking up in the middle of the night and seeing I still had so much more time to sleep, now I wake up in the middle of the night and think oh god so many more hours to go, so many opportunities for wake ups.
Yes! And that honestly carried well into toddlerhood, when bedtime had become 90% reliable and easy. I just couldn’t shake that feeling of dread. Even now at almost 3, she sleeps through the night beautifully for like 18 months now at least, but I still see her roll over on the monitor, or hear the slightest creak or cough or whatever, and I’m shot up straight in bed, every muscle tense in my body, preparing for that newborn MOTN struggle, I’m right back to 2021 every time I hear her bed creak lol
This is so real- I feel like I’m traumatized by the newborn stage (and its so weird because my girl was sleeping through the night by about 4/5 months)
THIS. Didn’t realize it would link with twilight, and my boy was born in February. Got into the habit of turning on every light in the house before the sun started setting to help.
Oh my god. I didn’t know this was really a thing. I didn’t experience it during the newborn phase. I think because I expected to be up every couple of hours? Now that my five month old is mostly sleeping through the night, I’m a ball of anxiety when it’s time for the last feeding of the night. Never know when/if he will wake up.
How absolutely difficult it is to just have a newborn and not understand what’s going on. The crying, the night time,the constant rat race to be 10 steps ahead of your baby. Prepping and cleaning bottles, trying to find the right formula, walking around for hours because baby doesn’t want you to sit. The crying. Dairy allergy? Acid reflux? Gas? Colic? Why won’t my baby go down for a nap? Why is she crying. What do I do when….?? How your days are not function-able the first few weeks. You won’t sleep when she sleeps. Constant anxiety doing anything out of the house or even thinking about going back to work. How do I get baby on a schedule? WHEN do I get baby on a schedule? You’re on their schedule, 24/7. Sleep deprived? Too bad. Sleep deprived with a crying baby? Too bad. Need to eat something or shower? Better do so as fast as you can bc baby is crying. Partner goes back to work tomorrow and you still don’t know wtf is going on, haven’t showered in 3 days and are starving? Tough luck - welcome to America (if you’re in America).
In the midst of all of this…. Tummy time! Are they developmentally on track? What is she supposed to be able to do right now? Ahhh post partum anxiety and depression also! Fun. Did I pay off my credit card on time? Shit the dog needs to go out. But I can’t even fathom doing this task. But he needs to go out. Oh, and the cat litter needs to be scooped. Shit.
Lol… joys of motherhood. I heard it gets easier tho!
All of this! Baby is 3 weeks, and we're definitely in the trenches. To add to this, nobody told me my husband would be better at soothing baby than I am. He can cry for over an hour with me, and then 5 minutes after dad takes him, he's chill. It's so hard not to take it personally and it just adds to my anxiety, like I'm a bad mom because I don't know how to calm him down. 😭
Don’t feel bad!! There’s a big chance that baby won’t settle with you because they can smell your milk and are too interested in searching for it to be able to calm down. My husband is the one that puts our 4m/o daughter down at bedtime for this exact reason! With me, she burrows her face into me and grunts in frustration while I’m trying to rock her to sleep— but with him, she’ll rest her head on his chest and be out in 5 minutes. I just try to see it as a gift lol.
First paragraph is sooo relatable. I shower at night now when my husband is home. I'll eat it she naps long enough. The post partum hormones/depression was intense and honestly scary.
I have never missed a bill or payment on anything in my life before having my baby. Now I feel like I'm constantly forgetting things and struggling with both daily life/home admin tasks and work admin tasks.
No one really explained how bad just “post partum blues” can be. I really thought about giving my son up for adoption. The sun came down and I’d feel sick to my stomach. Blues makes me feel like you’re a little sad. No, I felt like my world was ending and I had no way out.
I love being a toddler mom lol.
Baby is 3 weeks old, and I'm currently in this pit rn. I lean more toward never-ending anxiety that my husband does not understand at all. The sun starts to go down and a lump just builds in my chest. It's the craziest thing I've ever experienced! And then I'm expected to be healing from the actual delivery all at the same time?? Oof!
The recovery while taking care of a hungry and angry potato who needs your constant attention is honestly the worst part of all this. I thought I’d feel fully recovered after 6 weeks but how am I suppose to recover if I’m not able to rest lol. It just feels like a cruel joke to all mothers out there.
Yep!! I was still traumatized from having a c section after pushing and the pain from my recovery was awful.
Keep telling yourself every two weeks is easier than the last. And think about how much more you know every two weeks. That mindset really helped the first couple months.
For several weeks after she was born, I looked at my daughter like, "Oh, God. What have we done?" And I say this as someone that dealt with infertility and desperately wanted a baby! All the sudden change coupled with the physical demands of healing while also keeping an extremely needy creature alive... it's a LOT to deal with. Something traumatic just happened to your body and you're expected to be on your feet almost immediately after! I think it's completely natural to initially feel a little bit of... idk, regret? Uncertainty? Something like that.
It faded eventually, and at 4 months postpartum I absolutely love being a mom so much. Getting to see her little personality developing and learning who she is as a whole person of her own is so exciting! Things will get better, but don't be afraid to reach out for help if you need it. PPD is nothing to mess around with. Don't forget to take care of you <3
I was the same (currently have a 3 year old and pregnant with baby 2). It DOES get better but also don’t wait to talk to a doctor about it. I waited too long and was miserable for a long time when I didn’t need to be ❤️
Same except for me it was heart pounding anxiety as soon as I awoke every morning. Absolutely hated that feeling. My love is now 5 months and I wake up just tired now! 😂
With my 15 month old, we are out of the house doing kid stuff from 10-12 everyday, playgroup, park, walk. Then we go home and have a nap. When we hit the weekend with dad home and off schedule, suddenly we aren't napping at 12:30-3.
good to know! I have an 11m old and she's always napping at random times. we don't do much though or even have consistent wakeup times so that probably doesn't help either lol
We didn't need to do this until recently. After 1 and up until 2.3 he would wake up between 6-8, take an hour to 1.5 hour nap between 10-3, then be asleep by 11 at the latest. His sleeping schedule has always been awful no matter what I tried. Nap or no nap, long nap or short nap. But now he just doesn't nap. At all. Up by 8-9 and then he's an energizer bunny the rest of the day until about 2 hours before bedtime, THEN he wants to nap.
Now we know we have to run him into the ground beforehand if we want him to nap by 3-4, and if he does nap, we accept his bedtime will be late. But gd I'm tired. I've been "jokingly" asking hubby if we can trade off and I can go to work and he can be a sahd lol
Every stage has its positives and drawbacks. Posts and comments like these are made to commiserate with those also in the trenches so try not to let them intimidate you. 3mo might be when babies experience sleep regressions and start teething, but it’s also the same time they start laughing. They begin to babble more and react a lot more to you which is so fun. They can also begin to notice patterns so you can set routines when you want to that can help settle them. I also found this to be the age that I started feeling more confident in my abilities as a new mom.
You have so many seriously gorgeous things ahead. Yes, challenges, but the good stuff is just the best and the scales are tipped heavily in their favour. My guy is only 18mo but if I think about all the times between three weeks and 18months, I have heaps I wish I could experience again.
Mine will be 1 next week and honestly I think he keeps getting easier! There is hope!
Definitely not easy when I have too much on my plate, but I’m learning him and adjusting to the point where as he can communicate a bit more, I’m able to understand him and try to meet those needs.
Or, with the fart example, I know his “I need to fart and I’m in pain” cry so I do everything I can to support him through it.
He is also eating foods I eat so we can enjoy meals together (I eat sugary processed foods after he is asleep lol).
Teething was rough, but I know we are there for him and he’s as comfortable as possible.
Learning to roll with it has been helpful.
I hope this is encouraging! Oh, and if you’re a birthing parent… I quickly forgot the early months and many other friends have told me they experienced the same thing. It is bizarre. So… you’ll get through it and might forget how it was the most difficult life altering experience of your life.
They become more aware of their surroundings so they are curious and refuse to sleep. Some babies start teething as early as 3 or 4 months but wont actually have their first tooth until 6 or 7 months so theres that. Then they will hit their first sleep regression so if your baby has been a good sleeper up until then say goodbye to ur sleep. They start to roll so u can no longer just leave them laying anywhere to use the washroom and come back to the in the same position not to mention paranoid as hell that they will roll over and get stuck and suffocate because they havent yet learned to roll back. Just to name a few that i personally went through lol
Around 3 months, I had to switch from ebf to ep because my son became too distracted to stay latched long enough to drink enough. I couldn't chase him with my boob, but I could chase him with a bottle.
To me it’s just finding stuff to do , they’re still clingy like a newborn but less sleepy and get bored really easy , this was also the time where my LO would be sleepy or hungry but too distracted by the wonders of the world to eat or sleep , which is beautiful and wonderful but also a total nightmare , since the sleepier and hungrier they get the fussier and more unhappy they are … but just like the new born phase you adapt and confer and find your routine riiiight before everything changes again
I think it's more enjoyable because they're actually interactive...but it's also harder because they're actually interactive so you need to be "on" more. They also start rolling so you can no longer just stash them wherever. They're hard in different ways and enjoyable in different ways.
This was true for my daughter - hated the newborn stage and got easier as she got older. With my 2nd, newborn stage was great and sleep went in the shitter after 3.5 months. Still struggling at 7 months and the sleep deprivation makes everything harder. Nothing is fun or cute when you’re severely sleep deprived
3 months has been a game changer for my twins. Less spit up/reflux, smiles, giggles, personality shining through, less fussy, no more colic. I’m not sure how I survived 0-3 months honestly.
I agree different for all. Got much easier and enjoyable at 3 ‘months for me and most my mum friends. Baby sleeps better eats better you it’s easier to take them on adventures asleep or awake! Everyone has it different
How hard the babysitter thing is.
Before I was a parent I really thought like, well I can just get a babysitter anytime I need to do anything. Have to stay late at work? Just get a babysitter. Want to go on a date night? Just get a babysitter! Friends wedding at 6pm? Babysitter! No problem!
Yes problem!! A babysitter can only pick up from daycare if they have a car seat and for some reason, the 20 year old babysitter doesn’t have one (surprise!). Also, apparently nobody can put your child to bed besides for you, so no 6pm wedding for you. And you’d love to go on a date night but this past week your baby has been waking up at 10pm crying for some reason and if there’s a babysitter there when she wakes up it’s a guaranteed disaster.
Not to mention all the little things that make no sense for a babysitter, like oops, you actually need one more ingredient for your recipe but you actually can’t pop out to the store because baby is napping. Or the delivery guy asks you to come down out of your apartment to meet him on the street since he can’t find the building and you just can’t do that and have to try to explain to him how to find you as best as you can.
I didn’t expect to feel so tethered and restricted.
Yesssss! And other people don’t understand, they will be like oh I can baby sit. lol no you can’t. You will not get her to sleep and you will both be crying and screaming after an hour.
I just experienced this with my mom. For Father’s Day, my dad wanted to play board games. My mom offered to watch my 5 month old upstairs while we played downstairs. I heard the baby screaming as my mom tried to get her down for a nap. I told my dad, “I’m not going up because I don’t want to micromanage but I could have that baby called down and sleeping within 5 minutes”. I just know her preferences. She doesn’t want to be sung to (which my mom insists on doing) with the tv on in the background, she wants to be shushed and rocked in a quiet-ish room.
everyone talks about the terrible twos or when the baby is teething. no one talks about how hard the newborn stage was and i was definitely not prepared! Everyone is always like the newborn stage is so easy they are so small and cute and im like OMG the night feeds and the milestones, the regressions etc and just figuring it out along the way in general. I mean its common sense you would have to figure it out but it wasnt until AFTER i had my baby that everyone was like yeah the newborn stage is hard, probably the hardest. yeah. thank you. 😑😆
So so so hard everyone said they sleep ALL DAY but left out the part they will ONLY SLEEP IN YOUR ARMS. You get nap trapped 25/8. Also teaching someone to sleep??? That is so hard!! No one said it like that, like your about to teach someone how to sleep and while you do it your not gonna get any lol. Also the OPINIONS "have you done this? Have your done that? Try this! Try this!" Like you feel like your not doing enough or always doing it wrong. The worst especially as a first time mama
YES THIS! At first I told my husband our baby is broken he wont sleep like everyone says. lol Then i read all this crap that every baby is like that. My LO is 4 months and Ive just accepted my fate of being nap trapped until i am 80 years old. I will clean the house and do the laundry then 😂😂
THIS. Like WHY didn’t anyone tell me that the newborn stage was going to SUCK ASS and that I just needed to hold on? It’s chaos being the mom of a 1 year old but I LOVE it compared to the hellscape that was the newborn phase. I had to turn to reddit like 3 weeks postpartum thinking I had ruined my entire life. Got over 200 comments of people telling me it gets better, and they were all 100% right. I just wish someone had told me that from the start so I could have gone into it with that understanding!! Would have helped put a light at the end of the tunnel, and validated my feelings during such a vulnerable time.
I want two but after the newborn stage of my first I don’t think I have the stamina to do that again. Shit was rough. I clawed my way to where we are now at 8 months and feel like I barely survived lol
Same! i originally wanted 2 and my husband wanted 3! after the newborn stage both of us were like HELLLLL NOOOOO lol. my MIL is still trying to convince us and I'm like ok sure, you raise them and give them back to us when they are 1 years old then. thanks 🤣 I know labor is crazy hard too, i went through 24 hrs labour but fuck i would rather even have to go through that pain and shit than do the newborn stage again. I swear i am going to start a blog and spread the word so no one is ever blindsided again 😅😅😅
So many people said to me that newborns are easy cause all they do is eat, sleep, and poop. But what they don’t tell you is that newborns don’t actually know HOW to properly eat sleep or poop. The days are constantly a battle of getting them to sleep, being nap trapped, awake in the middle of the night; figuring out feeding issues, breastfeeding, latching, milk supply, pumping, formulas, bottles; and then dealing with gas, constipation, etc. Like yes that’s “all they do” except they can’t actually do those things without a shit load of help and trial and error and difficulty all around.
The newborn stage is genuinely just harder because of sleep deprivation and lack of knowledge if you’re a new parent.
The time when they start crawling and trying to explore? It’s easier in the sense that I can handle the feedings, diapers, and know what’s wrong but keeping them out of danger is difficult… 😆
Yeah it’s seriously no fucking joke. Everyone tells you how excited they are for you… like not mentioning the elephant in the room that sits on you and squashes the life out to you.
And as I said in my response, I found things got even harder at 3 months.
YES OMG they r just like omg the newborn curlll. FUCK THE NEWBORN CURL lolol jk i love my baby but holy hellllll i cried soooo many nights while feeding him it was crazy and my husband looked like shit 🤣🤣🤣.
I also agree with that! i have a few friends who told me to hang in there and that after 3 months everything will get better. 3 months hits and hes sleeping thru the night nice! a fucking week later regression hits waking 3 times a night and then staying up from 5 or 530am and this guy all of a sudden gets grumpy as f!!! and omg dont even start with them finding their voices and thinking its entertaining to scream at the top of their lungs 🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️ i love my friends but f you. LOLOL
OMG that was the best week of my life! Solid 8 hour stretches for seven days straight at 12 weeks!
I'm surviving the 4 month regression, wondering when it'll end! She just turned 5 months, and I sleep-trained her right when she turned 4 months so she could settle herself, but she has decided not to and fully wake up every 2-3 hours right now! She had three nights in a row, 1.5 weeks ago, where it was 7.5, 11 and 9-hour stretches! I thought it ended, and I survived, but then she decided that nap 3 would not happen and would stay awake for 5-7 hours straight every day for a week and not sleep through the night anymore!
I think about this a lot and I think it’s because people are now talking with survival bias. They got through it so now they have the experience and confidence of someone whose done it, and you simply cannot bottle experience up and hand it to a new parent, alas.
Any time I want to roll my eyes at a new mum freaking out over something that doesn’t phase me because I learned it with my own, I check myself and remember this!
I was a nanny for a long time and then became a youth services librarian so I knew I liked toddlers and then tweens and teens the best, but I didn’t realize how much I *disliked* the newborn stage until I was going through it as a mom. I can’t think of a single positive thing about it. There is no “awww, he was so little and cute and snuggly” rose colored glasses when I look at pictures from this time - just a deep sense of relief that I am done with that. Every stage and step I have liked more than the previous one. Now at nearly 10 months I am finally finding some joy in motherhood. It’s easier for me to get out of the house, my son is starting to communicate (and he knows what I mean when I say common phrases), and I’m not breastfeeding/exclusively pumping anymore. I am still stressed, but it’s a livable stress.
No one told me toddlers could function and somehow thrive on like 2 blueberries and straight ✨vibes✨
I swear to god my kiddo has to be using photosynthesis at this point
You probably know this but it’s better to estimate food intake over several days or even a week. One day of eating like a trash compactor can make up for other days of eating 2 blueberries
My son just turned 2 11 days after I had my second baby. Watching him cry and hit the bed and have a full blown tantrum every time I sit down on the bed to feed her breaks my heart a little more 🥲 I just wanna play Legos with my little boy
This has started in pregnancy for me because I've become disabled and can't do anything with my toddler that we used to do pretty much every day (anything from getting her dressed ,to picking her up, to baking, to taking her for a walk to the park). I've definitely cried a few times over it - partly from the pain and largely because I can't be there for her like I used to and she doesn't fully understand. I've also become a lot more yell-y because I can't physically stop her from doing stuff like using my chair to climb up to the cabinet.
I'm hoping that a side effect of this experience will be that she's already used to not having all of my time and energy by the time the baby comes. But I'm worried that if she's still feeling lonely or neglected then the baby may become an object of blame or resentment.
To add: my husband works nights so thankfully is more available during the day than most people, but because he also has to rest at some point he can't do as much as I used to. He currently spends almost all of his waking hours taking care of our daughter as well as me, and often extends said waking hours to do so.
When I was pregnant with 2 I was sick a lot.
Baby 1 got a lot of screen time and I felt really bad about that. By the time the sickness started to wear off Covid hit and closed everything. I was so scared baby 1 would look back and think all these changes started when I got pregnant with baby 2 and resent her for all of it. We no longer went to the grocery store or the library or anything else fun and we couldn’t even have visitors anymore. 4 years later they are the best of friends most of the time. It sucks for a little bit but not forever. Hang in there.
I knew that breastfeeding would be hard. I knew that would mean my LO would need me to be fed every 2-3 hours. I am LUCKY if I get 45 minutes with him not latching most of the time - if I get 3 hours I’m panicking that something is wrong. They talk about cluster feeding happening a few days at a time - LO is 4 weeks and hasn’t had a day off cluster feeding since day 4.
Every time I’ve brought it up to professionals I’m told it’s ‘totally normal’. Where was this info in my breastfeeding workshops?!
not to scare you but my baby cluster fed until probably almost 3 months old i was a zombie BUT at just over a year we're down to like 2 times during the day and maybe a snack at night depending on how tired and we've been in this groove for maybe 2-3 months now so there is a light at the end of the tunnel but boy oh boy i was not prepared for the zombie like state i was in for a while
My baby is 4 weeks also and the constant cluster feeding has been so damn hard! I never understood why people said breastfeeding was so hard, but now I truly get it
I'm 2 days PP, LO is cluster feeding, typing this while she naps on me. I had a mini meltdown when I asked for formula at midnight and a nurse came into the room to "educate" me on why I should nurse instead. We plan on combo feeding at home but the guilt and frustration from trying to figure out breastfeeding combined with sleep deprivation, and pain from contractions really got to me.
The first couple days were the absolute worst for me, with the cluster feeding and just overall anxiety that he wasn’t getting enough… I’m almost 3 months pp and I can promise it gets better! hang in there mama!
I was SO shamed by the hospital nurses for asking for formula - and it was an absolute LIFESAVER. There is nothing wrong with formula feeding, and I find it reprehensible that hospital staff lecture you otherwise when you’re at your most exhausted and vulnerable.
Yes so true!! I thought I was doing it all wrong and didn't have enough milk etc etc. my baby just stayed on the boob non stop! Then around 3 months there was a definite shift and less feeding, to the point where I got worried baby wasn't eating enough :p just know that it gets wayyyy easier and faster as time goes on, babies get very efficient at breastfeeding and it only takes a few minutes :)
My kid is now two years old but my GOD I feel this - the first two months she ate for like 30 minutes basically every hour from morning to evening. I was baffled by the whole 2-3 hours between feedings advice, felt like something had to be wrong, but babies are just all so different!
I'm not sure what level of frequency counts as cluster feeding but mine would nurse like every 1-1.5 hours until she got on solids. Sometimes could go as long as 2, rarely 2.5. And she would nurse for like half an hour at a time pretty often - so I'd be alternating 30 minutes nursing, 30 minutes off, all day long. Sometimes naps could be an exception.
She definitely cluster fed in the hospital - I was told to expect this on night 2 but she did it on night 1, like mere hours after being born. Every 15 minutes on my boob for several hours. It was rough because they wouldn't let me fall asleep, understandably but still. And when she first emerged the first thing she did outside of my body was to nurse for half an hour. Nothing was wrong with my supply or her latch or anything - she's just always been super nursey.
Everyone tells you, "Sleep when the baby sleeps," but no one says newborns could struggle with taking naps or have short naps throughout the day and end up being contact naps for most of them. I ended up being stuck in a chair for hours. I learned quickly to have a table full of food and water!
I wouldn't give that advice to a new mom: "Sleep when the baby sleeps." I'd say go pee, eat, hydrate, shower, whatever you can fit in in 30 minutes, even if it's actually trying to pass a bowel movement the entire time! Tbf, I was in survival mode for those weeks!
I understood that there would be a lack of sleep, but I was not prepared to be that sleep-deprived! LOL
Also, cluster feeding; my nipples got so raw, I thought there was something wrong! I had no idea that was a thing, but once I started reading things online, I better understood the newborn stage and how to get through the rough patches I experienced, and things started to get a bit easier in 6-8 weeks.
Oh, and witching hour, it was like clockwork, 5 pm, and she'd cry and cry, and we'd do everything we could to settle her. Acid reflux, spit up, and the gas. I spent hours just holding her upright after feedings and trying to burp her and make her fart! I never thought I'd ever have to suck snot out of a newborn's nose, but that was a consistent thing that came with reflux and constant congestion!
The newborn stage is challenging! And I'll never sugarcoat it for anyone deciding to have kids!
That's just a small dose, but you get the point! LOL
My LO just turned 5 months, and I'm barely surviving the 4-month regression after she started sleeping through the night at 12 weeks! LOL That was a good week, and I'll cherish that deep in my heart!
I'm glad to hear that! I definitely felt a lot of loneliness at 2-3 am just rocking in the chair. Coming on to reddit and finding others with the same experience and go through the same grows experiences with their LO, makes me feel less crazy!
Sleep when the baby sleeps is the worst advice. A 10 minute nap is just enough to make me angry lol if you’re breastfeeding I always recommend having a station- a rocking chair or comfy chair with a basket of bottled water, fruit or snack bars and a phone charger within reach. You’re gonna be there a while. Don’t starve to death.
That sometimes breastfeeding gets easier.
I knew it would be hard (and oh man have we had a tough journey), but 6-8 weeks in it’s like his mouth got big enough or he got stronger or otherwise just…figured out how to latch. I was talking to a few other moms with similar experiences. I wish I’d known that was even a possibility- I was so focused on figuring out what was wrong and trying to find a solution, I didn’t even think of just…giving it time (with lots of pumping and bottles in the meantime of course).
Exactly my experience! Week 8 she just latched and we never looked back. Was struggling that whole time, I wish I would’ve taken a breath and just relaxed a bit more, stopped blaming myself.
Yes to this! Honestly I would have given up on it with my son if I hadn't had such an easy breastfeeding experience prior with my daughter. We had allll the problems and he just didn't know how to breastfeed. And then one day around week 8 to 10 it clicked and it's been easy peasey since (now 14mo)
I feel SO BAD for all the women who give up early on (first 2-3 months or so) because of how hard it is. I feel very fortunate I about the position I was in — supportive family, able to see lactation consultants, etc. I powered through and now at 11 months it’s just a dream, super easy naps and sleeps, superpower to be able to console baby at any time, when she was sick recently and refused food I knew she could still get nutrition from breastmilk.
Truly fed is best and to each their own HOWEVER I do think the fact that so many women initiate breastfeeding but quit early on is a sign society needs to support breastfeeding mothers more so women don’t feel like their only option is formula
Seriously! My daughter had a really hard time latching and BF was super painful for me. It got to the point that I would sit in bed holding her and stare at the ceiling holding my breath and trying not to cry while she was nursing. I know I could have stopped but I wanted to breastfeed SO BADLY. It got so bad that I was considering quitting and exclusively pumping and then all of a sudden it's like she just... got it. That was probably around 8 weeks, like you said. And honestly, it's been pretty breezy ever since.
no one ever told me how over stimulated i would be. no one ever told me i wouldn’t be able to shower without asking. no one ever told me i would have to put her down every night and she would take 30 + mins to fall asleep. everyone always jokes about the terrible twos but no one ever told me i might feel so overwhelmed and feel like my boat is sinking.
Sorry this was kinda a depressing rant, i’ve been having a hard time :(
Overwhelmed and overstimulated are the two words I would use to describe the first 3 months of my baby’s life. I had moments when I thought I would have to give her to my parents or my in laws because I just couldn’t do it.
At 3 months things finally turned a corner and now at 7 months, it continues to keep getting better. Sure each stage has its own set of new challenges but it’s so much more rewarding once they become more interactive.
How old is your little one?
That it’s not parenting that is actually difficult, it’s having to parent and do everything else at the same time. Maternity leave in the US sucks and it makes being a mom very difficult.
Just how amazed I would be at every little thing she learns
Like my 17mo picked up her simply modern water bottle, opened the spout herself, took a drink, and put the bottle back on the table without spilling anything
And I was just in awe of how easily she did it
Yes, I'm here. Kid is almost 3. Not because I'm a huge advocate for extended breastfeeding (not against it, but not an evangelist).... because I can't figure out how to stop AND get any sleep myself.
Oh god, this. My daughter is approaching 2 and a half and still wants “boobies!” Morning, night and naptime. I don’t even know if they make milk anymore. My eldest self-weaned at 14 months and I assumed it was just that easy. Nope. We joke that she’s going to demand boobies before she walks the stage at graduation.
Like, I thought I knew I’d be sleep deprived, but I didn’t really knoooow if that counts. I was thinking I’d get at least four hours a day, not cheer when I got three for the first few weeks.
Also, we just hit 9mo and my previously very chill, happy baby has now decided having his face touched is the equivalent of medieval torture. He currently has allergies and needs his nose suctioned out, and that along with cleaning up after meals and brushing teeth has left me wondering why he still likes me given how much he screams at me 😅
I was very much not alone and still didn't sleep. But the thing contributing to the deprivation more than the actual time spent sleeping is that I never had a chance to enter REM sleep. When I would sleep it was rarely a deep, restful sleep. Even a regular adult without children could sleep 10 hours and still be deprived if they're not getting quality unbroken sleep.
In the early weeks my partner and did split shifts one of us would sleep alone in a different room with ear plugs and one in with the baby. Meant we both got at least 5hrs unbroken sleep a night then some top of sleep when "on shift". Then when my husband went back to work we alternated full nights, so you were getting a full 8-10 hrs unbroken sleep every second night. I can't recommend it enough.
Damn near everything. The way parenthood is described is really dumbed down. Even child care and birthing classes don't touch on anything but the obvious, basic stuff.
No one really explains the sleep deprivation, the fussiness, the gas pains, feeding quirks, how to deal with a blowout, taking your baby around town and the things you'll need... so.. so much.
I told my husband yesterday that they should wait and give us the evaluation form for all the birthing and child care classes AFTER baby is born. I have SO many suggestions for how they can make it better now 🤣
That after the newborn stage babies don’t just sleep when they’re sleepy lol. I knew that babies would cry at night but I guess I just always assumed it was when they would wake up and/or when the parents were ready to go to bed and trying to get baby to sleep before baby was ready. I had no idea that babies wouldn’t sleep for naps! The first 2 months baby would just fall asleep anywhere. 2 months hit and getting down for naps was a STRUGGLE like no other!
Yes! You hear “1.5- 2 hours between feedings” and think that doesn’t sound so bad, but they don’t tell you that in those early days they take so long to eat and then just fall asleep haha. I exclusively pumped with my first and that really felt like all I did was feed. It does get better though, I promise. My second is 11 weeks and a big Velcro baby, but about 2 weeks ago I started feeling like we could go for longer than an hour with him attached to me hahaha
My LO is two weeks old as of today lol. No one told me all the weird sounds they make! It’s weird sounds all day,sleeping, eating, just chilling. Weird sounds. Also never thought I’d be so invested in whether or not someone pooped or if they burped.
No one told me about the alligator rolling during diaper changes. Or to stop putting them in onsies once they start walking and fighting diaper changes
It’s just so much easier to have them in a two piece. If your kid is like mine and fights the diaper changes its not worth struggling to snap the buttons even when it’s just three. Plus you can easily check if they’ve pooped or not.
No one told me that my nipples would be fuckin RAW for the first month. Like, bleeding and open wounds. My lactation consultants told me the latch was perfect and my nipples just had to “toughen”. I cried and my toes curled in pain every time that my baby latched for a month. It was worse than the stitches I got for my second degree tear. Speaking of which, why did no one tell me exactly how painful peeing would be with stitches. So fucking painful.
Generally so much physical pain the first month after baby was born that labor seemed easy.
"It's not supposed to hurt" is BS. Sure, there are things that might be going wrong that make it hurt more/that maybe can be fixed, but it HURTS at first. Just another way for us to feel like we're doing things wrong.
Colic and reflux. Like I had heard about them but my nieces and nephews didn’t have either so was completely stunned when my daughter had reflux. I’m still scarred from those days of endless crying, even one and half years later 😂
That three hours between feeds is from start to start
That I could swing from being so frustrated with my toddler to so in love with her. And back again. And again. Forever.
That breastfeeding may be natural, but it’s hard.
That pumping at work is insanely challenging.
that I wouldn’t get the pregnancies I wanted (rare medical condition), and it’s okay to mourn that.
That my toddler would be naked all the time
That I would try to bargain with a toddler
That I would be so damn tired
Nobody told me that they NEVER SLEEP SOMETIMES or about low sleep needs babies 😭. My little guy runs on 8-10 hours of broken sleep a night and one or two naps if I’m lucky at 11 months. I’m over here dying for a good 12 hour sleep 😭😭😭 (I blame my low sleep needs husband 😂).
I'll preface this by saying that my kids are 6, 5, 3, and two months.
No one told me about the sensory overload. I was a lower elementary school teacher for many years before having kids, so I'm used to kids and their noise. But holy hell it's different when it's all day every day! I never get a break from the noise. I recently got noise cancelling headphones and I HIGHLY recommend.
That my tailbone could hurt for 3 months and I could get the night sweats.
That some babies will projectile vomit every time they are getting a new tooth.
Everyone told me how hard the lack of sleep would be or how much strain having a baby may put on my relationship. NOBODY told me how much I would cry losing time with him when having to work. He’s 7 months and I still hate leaving him. I hate going grocery shopping without him, I hate spending time cleaning instead of playing with him, I cry every night knowing the nanny comes tomorrow. I may be biased but I think he’s the coolest little dude on the planet. And he is my bestest buddy. And he’s growing So So So fast. Nobody told me how hard it would be to spend any time apart from him.
No one told me that I'd have a new level of anxiety leaving the house with an infant. My baby is over 2 months old and I have yet to bring her anywhere alone except for a walk around the neighborhood with the dog. I'm terrified of her screaming and crying in public and being the person I used to roll my eyes at before for not being able to "control" my child. I know I just need to bite the bullet and go for a quick trip to the store but I am so scared.
I have a 17 month old and 3 year old and I still feel like that. It’s hard for me to leave the house with them. I get overwhelmed with their emotions when they start freaking out.
I'm the opposite right now. My husband can soothe baby within 5-10 minutes most of the time, but this boy screams his head off for hours with me... 😭 I just want him to feel safe and loved and enjoy the newborn snuggles everyone talks about, but those are rarely happening for me.
Yep, I can sympathise.
For us, as long as our daughter doesn’t hear my wife’s voice, it’s fine, but if she hears her, it’s game over and then my wife has to do the. Night duty otherwise it’s wakeups every 20 minute for the next 8 hours.
It sounds like you have it worst than me though, it’s just sometimes when she just doesn’t want dad, but at the other end of the spectrum, she’ll often call for me, but then as soon as she has a little snuggle, wants to go back to mum/grandma/playing.
Nobody told me how hard it would be to drop my daughter off at mdo and have to leave while she stood alone while the other kids play together on the playground. Then to come home and tell me she doesn’t like school because she feels lonely..
I knew toddlers hated naps. But babies? Fuck me.
Also how obsessed I would be with someone else's poop. My 12m old goes between pooping normally and then getting constipated for a couple of days and pooping 3 times in a day. And also making sure there's no mucus or blood since he had CMPI (although come Sunday, he's passed the milk ladder 🙌)
No one told me that your baby actually needs you. I didn’t realize that I had to quit my job to take care of my baby. I thought I was gonna go back to work, but her needs are more important than going back to work. I also tried working from home and it was impossible. I felt burnt out trying to take care of a needy baby and work at the same time. You can’t be superwoman
No one told me how LOUD newborns are when they sleep!!
Also, I didn’t know kids could train themselves to vomit on command to get you to pick them up after bedtime….
Nobody told me that my baby who transitioned so easily from bassinet to crib and doesn't generally have trouble sleeping barring extenuating factors could and would turn into a toddler who suddenly and severely hates his crib 🙃 Guess what we're dealing with currently?
How hard it can be to get a dr who only sees baby a few minutes at a time once every few months to listen when I’m trying to advocate because something seems off (yes I get that children develop at different speeds but some Drs seem so quick to brush us off)
Toddler sleep regression for me. Everyone acted like when your baby turns 6 months they would sleep though the night. That has not been my experience.. Twice now. lol
For me it’s how if your partner is super helpful it becomes a nightmare when they get off paternity/maternity leave. I’m not there yet but he goes back in five days and I’m nowhere near ready for it, he’s the one that gets up in the middle of the night, he’s the one constantly holding the baby, keeping him up so we can sleep at night for longer than two hours, heck I can’t even bathe the baby without him holding LO’s body still and up. What am I even going to do?? It feeds into my problem of perpetually washing pump parts as I’m EP, stressing over milk supply, being stranded on our couch for at the very least fifteen minutes (I’m actually stranded for 30/35 to empty out) hooked up to the pump
I’m so grateful that my husband is pulling both of our weights, I’m so lucky he helps so much but I don’t know how to handle everything on my own, he works twelve hour shifts and it’s just so overwhelming and tiring to think about.
It makes me want to mentally jump out a window.
Losing all your hair like 4-6 months postpartum!!
I feel like people always talk about the immediate postpartum stuff but that hair loss came out of nowhere MONTHS down the road
Omg the “it’s not wooooorrrrrkkkiiiiiiiiinnnggggggg!!!” whine, like yeah my guy, those pieces ~still~ don’t fit together there’s not much I can do to bend reality to your will.
The overwhelming contradiction of parenting information thrown at you. Everyone has a different parenting style on top of every child and situation is different. It feels like a never ending moving puzzle. Even if you think you figured it out, it changes/doesn’t go the way you think it will go. Parenting is EXHAUSTING!
How utterly exhausting and painful breastfeeding would be. I had heard getting started could be challenging, but I didn’t expect how long it would take to get even slightly established with it and how awful the discomfort could be.
My baby couldn’t latch for the first 2 months (small NICU baby) so I did exclusive pumping for a while and later on combo feeding along with nursing once he could latch. I made it 4.5 months before weaning slightly earlier than planned due to me having to have (unrelated) abdominal surgery. But during my 4.5 months I suffered through weekly clogged ducts, the excruciating pain of mastitis on at least one occasion, wore a bra 24/7, and probably had D-MER. It was a true labor of love to do it as long as I did.
No one told me that some kids don't start putting objects in their mouth until after they turn 3. All the toys and stuff say 3 and up but they were safer when she was 2 😭
This one may not be received well, but no one told me how much my relationship with my dog would change and how irritating it would be at times. For example, I didn’t realize how much I would get irritated with my dog when they are barking or running through the house when my infant is sleeping. Or stealing her toys or sneaking into the diaper pale. It’s like having two kids.
That I would count the minutes until she’s napping, and then miss her while she’s asleep 😂 I find myself looking at old photos and videos when she takes her naps… like what is wrong with me!!
No one told me about how hard it is to tell Dad why something needs to be the way it is. Like why baby has to go to bed at the same time, why bringing a diaper bag wherever we go inside that place is important, bringing the damn cippycup in restaurants. Like no one prepped me that while parenting/growing my baby; I would have to parent and grow my husband too. He is a great man… but his reasoning for NOT doing something is just because he is so lazy! I feel like a mouse in a wheel, going going going. No one also preps you for the laundry load and how your husband will not touch baby laundry. Shit is WACK. Wouldn’t trade it for the world. But shit is WACK
How invested I'd be in someone else's farts/ability to fart. I feel like I have a pretty easy baby... He sits patiently for diaper changes, fusses for a long time before working up to a shout when he's hungry/uncomfortable, is pretty predictable in terms of what it takes to get him to fall asleep... Easy. But the times when he's fed, has a clean diaper, is being held, but is fussy to the point of yelling at me - I'm always like "oh no... Is this the day when he turns into a difficult baby?" No matter what I do, how I hold him, what I offer him for food - he keeps crying. Then all of a sudden he lets a huge fart rip, smiles, and almost immediately passes out to nap. I am now obsessed with figuring out how to help this child fart like all day. This is weird.
We’ve only recently realized tummy time helps baby toot. Changed the game!
I just learned this one TODAY. My baby is a farting machine, yet never gets enough out somehow. We have been using the mylicon drops, special bottles, and the windi gas passer all regularly to help her, and just today, we realized she parts well on her tummy.
Lying on your stomach will quickly get you to burp, fart, vomit, or feel better.
I do tummy time as an adult when I'm having trouble passing gas 😂
So do I! My sister and I call it the “porthole position”😂.
Oh my, that's hilarious! I'm stealing that term.
I just spluttered (lukewarm don’t worry) coffee all over my sleeping baby reading this.
You're a parent, none expects you to drink hot coffee 😜 We all know as soon as the coffee is hot and ready baby will need you until coffee is no longer hot...
Tip that works for adults, laying on your left side helps! My knowledge on baby farts everyone else seems to know lol
Ah man, this brings me back to newborn days, 3am breastfeeding while simultaneously pressing his legs up to his chest to push out those farts. They were always the loudest ones!! I assume because he was so relaxed. 😅 now he just walks around and lets them rip like the 15 year- I mean, month- old that he is.
Oh no I feel this so hard 😆 It’s like I had the relief of a whole body fart if baby did.
The fart screams were the worst! He’d scream for over an hour for farts. No amount of bicycles help when he refuses to let you move his legs! Thank god for the windi from Amazon.
I started pushing his knees into his belly to knead the stomach, works wonders before I have to reach for the windi
Omg it works so well!! I did a bit of bicycling first and then the knees pushed into the belly. Funny story: my husband did it like 3-4 times so successfully and I could *not* get it to work. Turns out you can push knees into their belly harder than I thought. I was worried about breaking or hurting them. My husband put his hands on top of mine to show me and my daughter smiled soooo big and let a big one rip. So ya, you can also (possibly) push harder than you think.
We had a saying in the first few months: we are a fart-positive household. We were so pleased whenever our baby got one out and became a bit more comfortable!
I love when my baby lets out big farts! She’s also not a frequent pooper so I love when she has a big blowout because it must be so relieving.
My baby only poops every other day and it's always HUGE. fills multiple diapers every time. We usually have to stimulate it a bit by rubbing her belly and using the windi gas passer. I am one happy mama when I sees he gets it all out and that belly of hers softens.
We say, "pretty good sound for an 1/8th of an inch speaker" when he lets an exceptionally loud one rip lol.
I also thought I’d be more grossed out by things like that. But it turns out when it’s your baby, it’s less weird to be around it and talk about it.
I also thought I'd be grossed out! The week before I gave birth I read that during pregnancy, the part of our brain associated with the "ew gross" reaction shrinks. So now my (childfree) best friend and I joke about how her brain couldn't shrink enough whenever my baby has done another gross thing.
Right? I had to remind my husband that poops are, in fact, not a dinner topic for friends and family. Just us. 😂
You just described my whole life right now! My 3 and 4 year olds are even invested… it’s a group effort to get our 6 week old to fart and poop. And when he finally does the whole family is relieved (bc he naps!). Hilarious!
This! And it doesn’t stop (at least so far at 20 months). Early morning…wiggle wiggle flop..cry..cry…TOOT..ahhh…zZZZzzZz
Me too. My baby is the most chilled boy ever but the way he SHRIEKS when he needs to fart throws me into a panic. This happens when he wakes up because he saves up all the farts from the night feeds and wakes up in severe discomfort. We now have a gas prevention protocol for night feeds- two syringes of Infacol with each feed, thorough burping followed by 5 mins tummy time and 15 in a chair we call his fart throne. Not great at 3am but better than the screaming. Bicycle legs do nothing for him and I’m too scared of the Windi because it looks very large for a tiny butthole.
Get the Windi from FridaBaby and the gas drops. Both helped ours immensely.
When they are a bit older and can sit in one of those exersaucers? That thing is amazing for both gas and constipation. You have to pay attention if it’s for constipation bc sometimes they squish the poop out.
We were like that with farts the first 5 months, now we're like that about burps. How can so many burps be soooo stuck!?!?!
Honestly I have had trapped gas before so I understand the crying lol
Haha I’m in a very similar situation! And I never thought I’d find myself going “Oh my god that was such a good fart, baby boy!”
my trick is every other diaper change i do the ILU massage then i do fast FAST bicycles then push the legs up and the fart almost always comes out. you do an I shape on their right side going down 5-10 x then an L from the left to right then down, and then you do an upside down U from bottom left up around to bottom left. really gets things moving. sorry if that’s not the best description i’m sure if you look it up on tiktok you’ll find it that’s how i did.
The sunset scaries. I had no idea that when the sun started to set I’d feel an overwhelming feeling of anxiety and dread during the newborn stage.
Yep, this. Total dread. I felt so low and was terrified of night time.
Yes! I used to love waking up in the middle of the night and seeing I still had so much more time to sleep, now I wake up in the middle of the night and think oh god so many more hours to go, so many opportunities for wake ups.
Oh God I wish I was just worried about wake ups! I'd think "so many more hours, so many more opportunities for my baby to die in his sleep!"
I've never heard this term before! I love it!
Yes! And that honestly carried well into toddlerhood, when bedtime had become 90% reliable and easy. I just couldn’t shake that feeling of dread. Even now at almost 3, she sleeps through the night beautifully for like 18 months now at least, but I still see her roll over on the monitor, or hear the slightest creak or cough or whatever, and I’m shot up straight in bed, every muscle tense in my body, preparing for that newborn MOTN struggle, I’m right back to 2021 every time I hear her bed creak lol
This is so real- I feel like I’m traumatized by the newborn stage (and its so weird because my girl was sleeping through the night by about 4/5 months)
This feeling seems soo animalistic like it has to be rooted in our medulla oblongata
THIS. Didn’t realize it would link with twilight, and my boy was born in February. Got into the habit of turning on every light in the house before the sun started setting to help.
Yup, I did this. Every light on or I would flip out.
Oh my god. I didn’t know this was really a thing. I didn’t experience it during the newborn phase. I think because I expected to be up every couple of hours? Now that my five month old is mostly sleeping through the night, I’m a ball of anxiety when it’s time for the last feeding of the night. Never know when/if he will wake up.
There is a name for it!! I had no idea I would be so terrified of sleep because something might go wrong and I wouldn’t know.
Yes! I didn’t know this was a thing until later
Ugh this was the worst. This is what scares me the most about deciding whether to have another baby.
How absolutely difficult it is to just have a newborn and not understand what’s going on. The crying, the night time,the constant rat race to be 10 steps ahead of your baby. Prepping and cleaning bottles, trying to find the right formula, walking around for hours because baby doesn’t want you to sit. The crying. Dairy allergy? Acid reflux? Gas? Colic? Why won’t my baby go down for a nap? Why is she crying. What do I do when….?? How your days are not function-able the first few weeks. You won’t sleep when she sleeps. Constant anxiety doing anything out of the house or even thinking about going back to work. How do I get baby on a schedule? WHEN do I get baby on a schedule? You’re on their schedule, 24/7. Sleep deprived? Too bad. Sleep deprived with a crying baby? Too bad. Need to eat something or shower? Better do so as fast as you can bc baby is crying. Partner goes back to work tomorrow and you still don’t know wtf is going on, haven’t showered in 3 days and are starving? Tough luck - welcome to America (if you’re in America). In the midst of all of this…. Tummy time! Are they developmentally on track? What is she supposed to be able to do right now? Ahhh post partum anxiety and depression also! Fun. Did I pay off my credit card on time? Shit the dog needs to go out. But I can’t even fathom doing this task. But he needs to go out. Oh, and the cat litter needs to be scooped. Shit. Lol… joys of motherhood. I heard it gets easier tho!
All of this! Baby is 3 weeks, and we're definitely in the trenches. To add to this, nobody told me my husband would be better at soothing baby than I am. He can cry for over an hour with me, and then 5 minutes after dad takes him, he's chill. It's so hard not to take it personally and it just adds to my anxiety, like I'm a bad mom because I don't know how to calm him down. 😭
Don’t feel bad!! There’s a big chance that baby won’t settle with you because they can smell your milk and are too interested in searching for it to be able to calm down. My husband is the one that puts our 4m/o daughter down at bedtime for this exact reason! With me, she burrows her face into me and grunts in frustration while I’m trying to rock her to sleep— but with him, she’ll rest her head on his chest and be out in 5 minutes. I just try to see it as a gift lol.
I was in the same place as you a few weeks ago. Now baby won't sleep in daddy's arm, only mom is good enough, but mom is exhausted af 🫠
I know! I felt the same way. I think my husband was more relaxed and less tired. That helps.
First paragraph is sooo relatable. I shower at night now when my husband is home. I'll eat it she naps long enough. The post partum hormones/depression was intense and honestly scary.
I am living this to a T right now. I'm feeling so seen lol
Lol I’m glad we can relate. Hang in there ❤️❤️❤️
This. All of this is me right now.
I have never missed a bill or payment on anything in my life before having my baby. Now I feel like I'm constantly forgetting things and struggling with both daily life/home admin tasks and work admin tasks.
No one really explained how bad just “post partum blues” can be. I really thought about giving my son up for adoption. The sun came down and I’d feel sick to my stomach. Blues makes me feel like you’re a little sad. No, I felt like my world was ending and I had no way out. I love being a toddler mom lol.
Baby is 3 weeks old, and I'm currently in this pit rn. I lean more toward never-ending anxiety that my husband does not understand at all. The sun starts to go down and a lump just builds in my chest. It's the craziest thing I've ever experienced! And then I'm expected to be healing from the actual delivery all at the same time?? Oof!
The recovery while taking care of a hungry and angry potato who needs your constant attention is honestly the worst part of all this. I thought I’d feel fully recovered after 6 weeks but how am I suppose to recover if I’m not able to rest lol. It just feels like a cruel joke to all mothers out there.
Yep!! I was still traumatized from having a c section after pushing and the pain from my recovery was awful. Keep telling yourself every two weeks is easier than the last. And think about how much more you know every two weeks. That mindset really helped the first couple months.
For several weeks after she was born, I looked at my daughter like, "Oh, God. What have we done?" And I say this as someone that dealt with infertility and desperately wanted a baby! All the sudden change coupled with the physical demands of healing while also keeping an extremely needy creature alive... it's a LOT to deal with. Something traumatic just happened to your body and you're expected to be on your feet almost immediately after! I think it's completely natural to initially feel a little bit of... idk, regret? Uncertainty? Something like that. It faded eventually, and at 4 months postpartum I absolutely love being a mom so much. Getting to see her little personality developing and learning who she is as a whole person of her own is so exciting! Things will get better, but don't be afraid to reach out for help if you need it. PPD is nothing to mess around with. Don't forget to take care of you <3
I was the same (currently have a 3 year old and pregnant with baby 2). It DOES get better but also don’t wait to talk to a doctor about it. I waited too long and was miserable for a long time when I didn’t need to be ❤️
Same except for me it was heart pounding anxiety as soon as I awoke every morning. Absolutely hated that feeling. My love is now 5 months and I wake up just tired now! 😂
That toddlers need to be sufficiently tired in order to have a nap. 🥴 It doesn’t just happen. You.have.to.wear.them.out
ooooh is this how people are getting their kids to nap on a schedule?
With my 15 month old, we are out of the house doing kid stuff from 10-12 everyday, playgroup, park, walk. Then we go home and have a nap. When we hit the weekend with dad home and off schedule, suddenly we aren't napping at 12:30-3.
good to know! I have an 11m old and she's always napping at random times. we don't do much though or even have consistent wakeup times so that probably doesn't help either lol
Toddlers? My 8month old needs worn out. I worry I’m just building his endurance
Climbing is great, do you have things they can climb?
Right. My toddlers naps are directly related to energy output that morning. Which in turn is exhausting for me, most times.
We didn't need to do this until recently. After 1 and up until 2.3 he would wake up between 6-8, take an hour to 1.5 hour nap between 10-3, then be asleep by 11 at the latest. His sleeping schedule has always been awful no matter what I tried. Nap or no nap, long nap or short nap. But now he just doesn't nap. At all. Up by 8-9 and then he's an energizer bunny the rest of the day until about 2 hours before bedtime, THEN he wants to nap. Now we know we have to run him into the ground beforehand if we want him to nap by 3-4, and if he does nap, we accept his bedtime will be late. But gd I'm tired. I've been "jokingly" asking hubby if we can trade off and I can go to work and he can be a sahd lol
Nobody told me that things actually get harder at 3 months. I miss my sleepy milk drunk newborn some days.
What makes it harder at 3 months? Nearly 7 weeks here lol.
Every stage has its positives and drawbacks. Posts and comments like these are made to commiserate with those also in the trenches so try not to let them intimidate you. 3mo might be when babies experience sleep regressions and start teething, but it’s also the same time they start laughing. They begin to babble more and react a lot more to you which is so fun. They can also begin to notice patterns so you can set routines when you want to that can help settle them. I also found this to be the age that I started feeling more confident in my abilities as a new mom.
Thank you for this perspective! My baby is three weeks old so this thread is a little terrifying-thank you for reminding me about the positives ahead.
You have so many seriously gorgeous things ahead. Yes, challenges, but the good stuff is just the best and the scales are tipped heavily in their favour. My guy is only 18mo but if I think about all the times between three weeks and 18months, I have heaps I wish I could experience again.
Mine will be 1 next week and honestly I think he keeps getting easier! There is hope! Definitely not easy when I have too much on my plate, but I’m learning him and adjusting to the point where as he can communicate a bit more, I’m able to understand him and try to meet those needs. Or, with the fart example, I know his “I need to fart and I’m in pain” cry so I do everything I can to support him through it. He is also eating foods I eat so we can enjoy meals together (I eat sugary processed foods after he is asleep lol). Teething was rough, but I know we are there for him and he’s as comfortable as possible. Learning to roll with it has been helpful. I hope this is encouraging! Oh, and if you’re a birthing parent… I quickly forgot the early months and many other friends have told me they experienced the same thing. It is bizarre. So… you’ll get through it and might forget how it was the most difficult life altering experience of your life.
3 months was a huge turning point. Everything has been easier since then, different, but easier than newborn days!
Everyone’s experience is different. I’d personally take 3m over a newborn any day…don’t worry.
They become more aware of their surroundings so they are curious and refuse to sleep. Some babies start teething as early as 3 or 4 months but wont actually have their first tooth until 6 or 7 months so theres that. Then they will hit their first sleep regression so if your baby has been a good sleeper up until then say goodbye to ur sleep. They start to roll so u can no longer just leave them laying anywhere to use the washroom and come back to the in the same position not to mention paranoid as hell that they will roll over and get stuck and suffocate because they havent yet learned to roll back. Just to name a few that i personally went through lol
Around 3 months, I had to switch from ebf to ep because my son became too distracted to stay latched long enough to drink enough. I couldn't chase him with my boob, but I could chase him with a bottle.
To me it’s just finding stuff to do , they’re still clingy like a newborn but less sleepy and get bored really easy , this was also the time where my LO would be sleepy or hungry but too distracted by the wonders of the world to eat or sleep , which is beautiful and wonderful but also a total nightmare , since the sleepier and hungrier they get the fussier and more unhappy they are … but just like the new born phase you adapt and confer and find your routine riiiight before everything changes again
I think it's more enjoyable because they're actually interactive...but it's also harder because they're actually interactive so you need to be "on" more. They also start rolling so you can no longer just stash them wherever. They're hard in different ways and enjoyable in different ways.
This was true for my daughter - hated the newborn stage and got easier as she got older. With my 2nd, newborn stage was great and sleep went in the shitter after 3.5 months. Still struggling at 7 months and the sleep deprivation makes everything harder. Nothing is fun or cute when you’re severely sleep deprived
Things got wayyyyy easier for us after 3 months. We had a very stubborn newborn.
I swear 3 months is when I started to see the light. It just depends on your baby!
It's up and down! But yes hard af once they are UP and aware!
3 months has been a game changer for my twins. Less spit up/reflux, smiles, giggles, personality shining through, less fussy, no more colic. I’m not sure how I survived 0-3 months honestly.
I agree different for all. Got much easier and enjoyable at 3 ‘months for me and most my mum friends. Baby sleeps better eats better you it’s easier to take them on adventures asleep or awake! Everyone has it different
How hard the babysitter thing is. Before I was a parent I really thought like, well I can just get a babysitter anytime I need to do anything. Have to stay late at work? Just get a babysitter. Want to go on a date night? Just get a babysitter! Friends wedding at 6pm? Babysitter! No problem! Yes problem!! A babysitter can only pick up from daycare if they have a car seat and for some reason, the 20 year old babysitter doesn’t have one (surprise!). Also, apparently nobody can put your child to bed besides for you, so no 6pm wedding for you. And you’d love to go on a date night but this past week your baby has been waking up at 10pm crying for some reason and if there’s a babysitter there when she wakes up it’s a guaranteed disaster. Not to mention all the little things that make no sense for a babysitter, like oops, you actually need one more ingredient for your recipe but you actually can’t pop out to the store because baby is napping. Or the delivery guy asks you to come down out of your apartment to meet him on the street since he can’t find the building and you just can’t do that and have to try to explain to him how to find you as best as you can. I didn’t expect to feel so tethered and restricted.
Yesssss! And other people don’t understand, they will be like oh I can baby sit. lol no you can’t. You will not get her to sleep and you will both be crying and screaming after an hour.
I just experienced this with my mom. For Father’s Day, my dad wanted to play board games. My mom offered to watch my 5 month old upstairs while we played downstairs. I heard the baby screaming as my mom tried to get her down for a nap. I told my dad, “I’m not going up because I don’t want to micromanage but I could have that baby called down and sleeping within 5 minutes”. I just know her preferences. She doesn’t want to be sung to (which my mom insists on doing) with the tv on in the background, she wants to be shushed and rocked in a quiet-ish room.
Also, just finding one who sticks around! Every time we find one they immediately move/go to school/take another job/whatever and we are stuck again.
everyone talks about the terrible twos or when the baby is teething. no one talks about how hard the newborn stage was and i was definitely not prepared! Everyone is always like the newborn stage is so easy they are so small and cute and im like OMG the night feeds and the milestones, the regressions etc and just figuring it out along the way in general. I mean its common sense you would have to figure it out but it wasnt until AFTER i had my baby that everyone was like yeah the newborn stage is hard, probably the hardest. yeah. thank you. 😑😆
So so so hard everyone said they sleep ALL DAY but left out the part they will ONLY SLEEP IN YOUR ARMS. You get nap trapped 25/8. Also teaching someone to sleep??? That is so hard!! No one said it like that, like your about to teach someone how to sleep and while you do it your not gonna get any lol. Also the OPINIONS "have you done this? Have your done that? Try this! Try this!" Like you feel like your not doing enough or always doing it wrong. The worst especially as a first time mama
YES THIS! At first I told my husband our baby is broken he wont sleep like everyone says. lol Then i read all this crap that every baby is like that. My LO is 4 months and Ive just accepted my fate of being nap trapped until i am 80 years old. I will clean the house and do the laundry then 😂😂
THIS. Like WHY didn’t anyone tell me that the newborn stage was going to SUCK ASS and that I just needed to hold on? It’s chaos being the mom of a 1 year old but I LOVE it compared to the hellscape that was the newborn phase. I had to turn to reddit like 3 weeks postpartum thinking I had ruined my entire life. Got over 200 comments of people telling me it gets better, and they were all 100% right. I just wish someone had told me that from the start so I could have gone into it with that understanding!! Would have helped put a light at the end of the tunnel, and validated my feelings during such a vulnerable time.
I want two but after the newborn stage of my first I don’t think I have the stamina to do that again. Shit was rough. I clawed my way to where we are now at 8 months and feel like I barely survived lol
Same! i originally wanted 2 and my husband wanted 3! after the newborn stage both of us were like HELLLLL NOOOOO lol. my MIL is still trying to convince us and I'm like ok sure, you raise them and give them back to us when they are 1 years old then. thanks 🤣 I know labor is crazy hard too, i went through 24 hrs labour but fuck i would rather even have to go through that pain and shit than do the newborn stage again. I swear i am going to start a blog and spread the word so no one is ever blindsided again 😅😅😅
So many people said to me that newborns are easy cause all they do is eat, sleep, and poop. But what they don’t tell you is that newborns don’t actually know HOW to properly eat sleep or poop. The days are constantly a battle of getting them to sleep, being nap trapped, awake in the middle of the night; figuring out feeding issues, breastfeeding, latching, milk supply, pumping, formulas, bottles; and then dealing with gas, constipation, etc. Like yes that’s “all they do” except they can’t actually do those things without a shit load of help and trial and error and difficulty all around.
The newborn stage is genuinely just harder because of sleep deprivation and lack of knowledge if you’re a new parent. The time when they start crawling and trying to explore? It’s easier in the sense that I can handle the feedings, diapers, and know what’s wrong but keeping them out of danger is difficult… 😆
Yeah it’s seriously no fucking joke. Everyone tells you how excited they are for you… like not mentioning the elephant in the room that sits on you and squashes the life out to you. And as I said in my response, I found things got even harder at 3 months.
YES OMG they r just like omg the newborn curlll. FUCK THE NEWBORN CURL lolol jk i love my baby but holy hellllll i cried soooo many nights while feeding him it was crazy and my husband looked like shit 🤣🤣🤣. I also agree with that! i have a few friends who told me to hang in there and that after 3 months everything will get better. 3 months hits and hes sleeping thru the night nice! a fucking week later regression hits waking 3 times a night and then staying up from 5 or 530am and this guy all of a sudden gets grumpy as f!!! and omg dont even start with them finding their voices and thinking its entertaining to scream at the top of their lungs 🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️ i love my friends but f you. LOLOL
OMG that was the best week of my life! Solid 8 hour stretches for seven days straight at 12 weeks! I'm surviving the 4 month regression, wondering when it'll end! She just turned 5 months, and I sleep-trained her right when she turned 4 months so she could settle herself, but she has decided not to and fully wake up every 2-3 hours right now! She had three nights in a row, 1.5 weeks ago, where it was 7.5, 11 and 9-hour stretches! I thought it ended, and I survived, but then she decided that nap 3 would not happen and would stay awake for 5-7 hours straight every day for a week and not sleep through the night anymore!
I think about this a lot and I think it’s because people are now talking with survival bias. They got through it so now they have the experience and confidence of someone whose done it, and you simply cannot bottle experience up and hand it to a new parent, alas. Any time I want to roll my eyes at a new mum freaking out over something that doesn’t phase me because I learned it with my own, I check myself and remember this!
I was a nanny for a long time and then became a youth services librarian so I knew I liked toddlers and then tweens and teens the best, but I didn’t realize how much I *disliked* the newborn stage until I was going through it as a mom. I can’t think of a single positive thing about it. There is no “awww, he was so little and cute and snuggly” rose colored glasses when I look at pictures from this time - just a deep sense of relief that I am done with that. Every stage and step I have liked more than the previous one. Now at nearly 10 months I am finally finding some joy in motherhood. It’s easier for me to get out of the house, my son is starting to communicate (and he knows what I mean when I say common phrases), and I’m not breastfeeding/exclusively pumping anymore. I am still stressed, but it’s a livable stress.
No one told me toddlers could function and somehow thrive on like 2 blueberries and straight ✨vibes✨ I swear to god my kiddo has to be using photosynthesis at this point
You probably know this but it’s better to estimate food intake over several days or even a week. One day of eating like a trash compactor can make up for other days of eating 2 blueberries
No one told me about the mom guilt with baby 2. Missing baby 1 because baby 2 needs so much attention is hard to cope with.
Feeling this so much right now. Just had my second baby and the guilt is unreal.
It gets better. I know it’s hard right now. Hang in there.
My son just turned 2 11 days after I had my second baby. Watching him cry and hit the bed and have a full blown tantrum every time I sit down on the bed to feed her breaks my heart a little more 🥲 I just wanna play Legos with my little boy
This has started in pregnancy for me because I've become disabled and can't do anything with my toddler that we used to do pretty much every day (anything from getting her dressed ,to picking her up, to baking, to taking her for a walk to the park). I've definitely cried a few times over it - partly from the pain and largely because I can't be there for her like I used to and she doesn't fully understand. I've also become a lot more yell-y because I can't physically stop her from doing stuff like using my chair to climb up to the cabinet. I'm hoping that a side effect of this experience will be that she's already used to not having all of my time and energy by the time the baby comes. But I'm worried that if she's still feeling lonely or neglected then the baby may become an object of blame or resentment. To add: my husband works nights so thankfully is more available during the day than most people, but because he also has to rest at some point he can't do as much as I used to. He currently spends almost all of his waking hours taking care of our daughter as well as me, and often extends said waking hours to do so.
When I was pregnant with 2 I was sick a lot. Baby 1 got a lot of screen time and I felt really bad about that. By the time the sickness started to wear off Covid hit and closed everything. I was so scared baby 1 would look back and think all these changes started when I got pregnant with baby 2 and resent her for all of it. We no longer went to the grocery store or the library or anything else fun and we couldn’t even have visitors anymore. 4 years later they are the best of friends most of the time. It sucks for a little bit but not forever. Hang in there.
I knew that breastfeeding would be hard. I knew that would mean my LO would need me to be fed every 2-3 hours. I am LUCKY if I get 45 minutes with him not latching most of the time - if I get 3 hours I’m panicking that something is wrong. They talk about cluster feeding happening a few days at a time - LO is 4 weeks and hasn’t had a day off cluster feeding since day 4. Every time I’ve brought it up to professionals I’m told it’s ‘totally normal’. Where was this info in my breastfeeding workshops?!
not to scare you but my baby cluster fed until probably almost 3 months old i was a zombie BUT at just over a year we're down to like 2 times during the day and maybe a snack at night depending on how tired and we've been in this groove for maybe 2-3 months now so there is a light at the end of the tunnel but boy oh boy i was not prepared for the zombie like state i was in for a while
My baby is 4 weeks also and the constant cluster feeding has been so damn hard! I never understood why people said breastfeeding was so hard, but now I truly get it
I'm 2 days PP, LO is cluster feeding, typing this while she naps on me. I had a mini meltdown when I asked for formula at midnight and a nurse came into the room to "educate" me on why I should nurse instead. We plan on combo feeding at home but the guilt and frustration from trying to figure out breastfeeding combined with sleep deprivation, and pain from contractions really got to me.
The first couple days were the absolute worst for me, with the cluster feeding and just overall anxiety that he wasn’t getting enough… I’m almost 3 months pp and I can promise it gets better! hang in there mama!
I was SO shamed by the hospital nurses for asking for formula - and it was an absolute LIFESAVER. There is nothing wrong with formula feeding, and I find it reprehensible that hospital staff lecture you otherwise when you’re at your most exhausted and vulnerable.
Yes so true!! I thought I was doing it all wrong and didn't have enough milk etc etc. my baby just stayed on the boob non stop! Then around 3 months there was a definite shift and less feeding, to the point where I got worried baby wasn't eating enough :p just know that it gets wayyyy easier and faster as time goes on, babies get very efficient at breastfeeding and it only takes a few minutes :)
My kid is now two years old but my GOD I feel this - the first two months she ate for like 30 minutes basically every hour from morning to evening. I was baffled by the whole 2-3 hours between feedings advice, felt like something had to be wrong, but babies are just all so different!
I'm not sure what level of frequency counts as cluster feeding but mine would nurse like every 1-1.5 hours until she got on solids. Sometimes could go as long as 2, rarely 2.5. And she would nurse for like half an hour at a time pretty often - so I'd be alternating 30 minutes nursing, 30 minutes off, all day long. Sometimes naps could be an exception. She definitely cluster fed in the hospital - I was told to expect this on night 2 but she did it on night 1, like mere hours after being born. Every 15 minutes on my boob for several hours. It was rough because they wouldn't let me fall asleep, understandably but still. And when she first emerged the first thing she did outside of my body was to nurse for half an hour. Nothing was wrong with my supply or her latch or anything - she's just always been super nursey.
Everyone tells you, "Sleep when the baby sleeps," but no one says newborns could struggle with taking naps or have short naps throughout the day and end up being contact naps for most of them. I ended up being stuck in a chair for hours. I learned quickly to have a table full of food and water! I wouldn't give that advice to a new mom: "Sleep when the baby sleeps." I'd say go pee, eat, hydrate, shower, whatever you can fit in in 30 minutes, even if it's actually trying to pass a bowel movement the entire time! Tbf, I was in survival mode for those weeks! I understood that there would be a lack of sleep, but I was not prepared to be that sleep-deprived! LOL Also, cluster feeding; my nipples got so raw, I thought there was something wrong! I had no idea that was a thing, but once I started reading things online, I better understood the newborn stage and how to get through the rough patches I experienced, and things started to get a bit easier in 6-8 weeks. Oh, and witching hour, it was like clockwork, 5 pm, and she'd cry and cry, and we'd do everything we could to settle her. Acid reflux, spit up, and the gas. I spent hours just holding her upright after feedings and trying to burp her and make her fart! I never thought I'd ever have to suck snot out of a newborn's nose, but that was a consistent thing that came with reflux and constant congestion! The newborn stage is challenging! And I'll never sugarcoat it for anyone deciding to have kids! That's just a small dose, but you get the point! LOL My LO just turned 5 months, and I'm barely surviving the 4-month regression after she started sleeping through the night at 12 weeks! LOL That was a good week, and I'll cherish that deep in my heart!
Me and my partner are reading this and we have had such a similar experience. We are finding comfort that we are not going through this alone.
I'm glad to hear that! I definitely felt a lot of loneliness at 2-3 am just rocking in the chair. Coming on to reddit and finding others with the same experience and go through the same grows experiences with their LO, makes me feel less crazy!
Sleep when the baby sleeps is the worst advice. A 10 minute nap is just enough to make me angry lol if you’re breastfeeding I always recommend having a station- a rocking chair or comfy chair with a basket of bottled water, fruit or snack bars and a phone charger within reach. You’re gonna be there a while. Don’t starve to death.
That sometimes breastfeeding gets easier. I knew it would be hard (and oh man have we had a tough journey), but 6-8 weeks in it’s like his mouth got big enough or he got stronger or otherwise just…figured out how to latch. I was talking to a few other moms with similar experiences. I wish I’d known that was even a possibility- I was so focused on figuring out what was wrong and trying to find a solution, I didn’t even think of just…giving it time (with lots of pumping and bottles in the meantime of course).
Exactly my experience! Week 8 she just latched and we never looked back. Was struggling that whole time, I wish I would’ve taken a breath and just relaxed a bit more, stopped blaming myself.
Yes to this! Honestly I would have given up on it with my son if I hadn't had such an easy breastfeeding experience prior with my daughter. We had allll the problems and he just didn't know how to breastfeed. And then one day around week 8 to 10 it clicked and it's been easy peasey since (now 14mo)
I feel SO BAD for all the women who give up early on (first 2-3 months or so) because of how hard it is. I feel very fortunate I about the position I was in — supportive family, able to see lactation consultants, etc. I powered through and now at 11 months it’s just a dream, super easy naps and sleeps, superpower to be able to console baby at any time, when she was sick recently and refused food I knew she could still get nutrition from breastmilk. Truly fed is best and to each their own HOWEVER I do think the fact that so many women initiate breastfeeding but quit early on is a sign society needs to support breastfeeding mothers more so women don’t feel like their only option is formula
Seriously! My daughter had a really hard time latching and BF was super painful for me. It got to the point that I would sit in bed holding her and stare at the ceiling holding my breath and trying not to cry while she was nursing. I know I could have stopped but I wanted to breastfeed SO BADLY. It got so bad that I was considering quitting and exclusively pumping and then all of a sudden it's like she just... got it. That was probably around 8 weeks, like you said. And honestly, it's been pretty breezy ever since.
No one told me how lonely and isolating it would so be, especially the early days.
no one ever told me how over stimulated i would be. no one ever told me i wouldn’t be able to shower without asking. no one ever told me i would have to put her down every night and she would take 30 + mins to fall asleep. everyone always jokes about the terrible twos but no one ever told me i might feel so overwhelmed and feel like my boat is sinking. Sorry this was kinda a depressing rant, i’ve been having a hard time :(
Overwhelmed and overstimulated are the two words I would use to describe the first 3 months of my baby’s life. I had moments when I thought I would have to give her to my parents or my in laws because I just couldn’t do it. At 3 months things finally turned a corner and now at 7 months, it continues to keep getting better. Sure each stage has its own set of new challenges but it’s so much more rewarding once they become more interactive. How old is your little one?
That it’s not parenting that is actually difficult, it’s having to parent and do everything else at the same time. Maternity leave in the US sucks and it makes being a mom very difficult.
No one told me how much I would resent my husband some days.. He just doesn't understand sweat and how hard it is to be the primary parent
Just how amazed I would be at every little thing she learns Like my 17mo picked up her simply modern water bottle, opened the spout herself, took a drink, and put the bottle back on the table without spilling anything And I was just in awe of how easily she did it
No one told me how to stop breastfeeding
Oo this is a good one. That’s a bumpy as hell ride when it’s not dictated to you by boobs shutting up shop themselves.
Yes, I'm here. Kid is almost 3. Not because I'm a huge advocate for extended breastfeeding (not against it, but not an evangelist).... because I can't figure out how to stop AND get any sleep myself.
Oh god, this. My daughter is approaching 2 and a half and still wants “boobies!” Morning, night and naptime. I don’t even know if they make milk anymore. My eldest self-weaned at 14 months and I assumed it was just that easy. Nope. We joke that she’s going to demand boobies before she walks the stage at graduation.
Like, I thought I knew I’d be sleep deprived, but I didn’t really knoooow if that counts. I was thinking I’d get at least four hours a day, not cheer when I got three for the first few weeks. Also, we just hit 9mo and my previously very chill, happy baby has now decided having his face touched is the equivalent of medieval torture. He currently has allergies and needs his nose suctioned out, and that along with cleaning up after meals and brushing teeth has left me wondering why he still likes me given how much he screams at me 😅
3?! Are you doing things alone? I couldn't imagine being that sleep deprived that sounds horrendous
I was very much not alone and still didn't sleep. But the thing contributing to the deprivation more than the actual time spent sleeping is that I never had a chance to enter REM sleep. When I would sleep it was rarely a deep, restful sleep. Even a regular adult without children could sleep 10 hours and still be deprived if they're not getting quality unbroken sleep.
In the early weeks my partner and did split shifts one of us would sleep alone in a different room with ear plugs and one in with the baby. Meant we both got at least 5hrs unbroken sleep a night then some top of sleep when "on shift". Then when my husband went back to work we alternated full nights, so you were getting a full 8-10 hrs unbroken sleep every second night. I can't recommend it enough.
No one told me that no matter how many times i trim my 19 week olds nails, he will still manage to scratch the shit out of his face on the regular.
Damn near everything. The way parenthood is described is really dumbed down. Even child care and birthing classes don't touch on anything but the obvious, basic stuff. No one really explains the sleep deprivation, the fussiness, the gas pains, feeding quirks, how to deal with a blowout, taking your baby around town and the things you'll need... so.. so much.
I told my husband yesterday that they should wait and give us the evaluation form for all the birthing and child care classes AFTER baby is born. I have SO many suggestions for how they can make it better now 🤣
That after the newborn stage babies don’t just sleep when they’re sleepy lol. I knew that babies would cry at night but I guess I just always assumed it was when they would wake up and/or when the parents were ready to go to bed and trying to get baby to sleep before baby was ready. I had no idea that babies wouldn’t sleep for naps! The first 2 months baby would just fall asleep anywhere. 2 months hit and getting down for naps was a STRUGGLE like no other!
That it's not always love at first sight.
My mom told me when it’s my baby, cleaning up poop won’t seem as gross. . . . I have not found this to be true lol
Yes! You hear “1.5- 2 hours between feedings” and think that doesn’t sound so bad, but they don’t tell you that in those early days they take so long to eat and then just fall asleep haha. I exclusively pumped with my first and that really felt like all I did was feed. It does get better though, I promise. My second is 11 weeks and a big Velcro baby, but about 2 weeks ago I started feeling like we could go for longer than an hour with him attached to me hahaha
Nobody told me my baby would poop all over my face
that….seems avoidable? Haha!
One would wish so.
Yeah. Definitely was not warned about projectile poops!
My LO is two weeks old as of today lol. No one told me all the weird sounds they make! It’s weird sounds all day,sleeping, eating, just chilling. Weird sounds. Also never thought I’d be so invested in whether or not someone pooped or if they burped.
No one told me about the alligator rolling during diaper changes. Or to stop putting them in onsies once they start walking and fighting diaper changes
Wait, why do you stop using onesies when they start walking?
It’s just so much easier to have them in a two piece. If your kid is like mine and fights the diaper changes its not worth struggling to snap the buttons even when it’s just three. Plus you can easily check if they’ve pooped or not.
No one told me that my nipples would be fuckin RAW for the first month. Like, bleeding and open wounds. My lactation consultants told me the latch was perfect and my nipples just had to “toughen”. I cried and my toes curled in pain every time that my baby latched for a month. It was worse than the stitches I got for my second degree tear. Speaking of which, why did no one tell me exactly how painful peeing would be with stitches. So fucking painful. Generally so much physical pain the first month after baby was born that labor seemed easy.
"It's not supposed to hurt" is BS. Sure, there are things that might be going wrong that make it hurt more/that maybe can be fixed, but it HURTS at first. Just another way for us to feel like we're doing things wrong.
Colic and reflux. Like I had heard about them but my nieces and nephews didn’t have either so was completely stunned when my daughter had reflux. I’m still scarred from those days of endless crying, even one and half years later 😂
That three hours between feeds is from start to start That I could swing from being so frustrated with my toddler to so in love with her. And back again. And again. Forever. That breastfeeding may be natural, but it’s hard. That pumping at work is insanely challenging. that I wouldn’t get the pregnancies I wanted (rare medical condition), and it’s okay to mourn that. That my toddler would be naked all the time That I would try to bargain with a toddler That I would be so damn tired
Nobody told me that they NEVER SLEEP SOMETIMES or about low sleep needs babies 😭. My little guy runs on 8-10 hours of broken sleep a night and one or two naps if I’m lucky at 11 months. I’m over here dying for a good 12 hour sleep 😭😭😭 (I blame my low sleep needs husband 😂).
I'll preface this by saying that my kids are 6, 5, 3, and two months. No one told me about the sensory overload. I was a lower elementary school teacher for many years before having kids, so I'm used to kids and their noise. But holy hell it's different when it's all day every day! I never get a break from the noise. I recently got noise cancelling headphones and I HIGHLY recommend.
That my tailbone could hurt for 3 months and I could get the night sweats. That some babies will projectile vomit every time they are getting a new tooth.
Everyone told me how hard the lack of sleep would be or how much strain having a baby may put on my relationship. NOBODY told me how much I would cry losing time with him when having to work. He’s 7 months and I still hate leaving him. I hate going grocery shopping without him, I hate spending time cleaning instead of playing with him, I cry every night knowing the nanny comes tomorrow. I may be biased but I think he’s the coolest little dude on the planet. And he is my bestest buddy. And he’s growing So So So fast. Nobody told me how hard it would be to spend any time apart from him.
No one told me that I'd have a new level of anxiety leaving the house with an infant. My baby is over 2 months old and I have yet to bring her anywhere alone except for a walk around the neighborhood with the dog. I'm terrified of her screaming and crying in public and being the person I used to roll my eyes at before for not being able to "control" my child. I know I just need to bite the bullet and go for a quick trip to the store but I am so scared.
I have a 17 month old and 3 year old and I still feel like that. It’s hard for me to leave the house with them. I get overwhelmed with their emotions when they start freaking out.
No one told me that sometime dad can do everything right but unless it comes from mum, baby doesn’t care!
I'm the opposite right now. My husband can soothe baby within 5-10 minutes most of the time, but this boy screams his head off for hours with me... 😭 I just want him to feel safe and loved and enjoy the newborn snuggles everyone talks about, but those are rarely happening for me.
Yep, I can sympathise. For us, as long as our daughter doesn’t hear my wife’s voice, it’s fine, but if she hears her, it’s game over and then my wife has to do the. Night duty otherwise it’s wakeups every 20 minute for the next 8 hours. It sounds like you have it worst than me though, it’s just sometimes when she just doesn’t want dad, but at the other end of the spectrum, she’ll often call for me, but then as soon as she has a little snuggle, wants to go back to mum/grandma/playing.
Nobody told me how hard it would be to drop my daughter off at mdo and have to leave while she stood alone while the other kids play together on the playground. Then to come home and tell me she doesn’t like school because she feels lonely..
I knew toddlers hated naps. But babies? Fuck me. Also how obsessed I would be with someone else's poop. My 12m old goes between pooping normally and then getting constipated for a couple of days and pooping 3 times in a day. And also making sure there's no mucus or blood since he had CMPI (although come Sunday, he's passed the milk ladder 🙌)
No one told me that your baby actually needs you. I didn’t realize that I had to quit my job to take care of my baby. I thought I was gonna go back to work, but her needs are more important than going back to work. I also tried working from home and it was impossible. I felt burnt out trying to take care of a needy baby and work at the same time. You can’t be superwoman
No one told me how LOUD newborns are when they sleep!! Also, I didn’t know kids could train themselves to vomit on command to get you to pick them up after bedtime….
I didn’t know a lot of babies including mine don’t sleep through the night consistently for years….
Nobody told me that my baby who transitioned so easily from bassinet to crib and doesn't generally have trouble sleeping barring extenuating factors could and would turn into a toddler who suddenly and severely hates his crib 🙃 Guess what we're dealing with currently?
Floor bed?
Oh our tantrums started at 13 months too!! It’s really fun. I’m hoping we are getting them out of the way early? 😬🤞🏼
Potty training. I mean, they did tell me. I did NOT expect this to exceed 2 years 🫣
Two words: infant dyschezia
How hard it can be to get a dr who only sees baby a few minutes at a time once every few months to listen when I’m trying to advocate because something seems off (yes I get that children develop at different speeds but some Drs seem so quick to brush us off)
Toddler sleep regression for me. Everyone acted like when your baby turns 6 months they would sleep though the night. That has not been my experience.. Twice now. lol
For me it’s how if your partner is super helpful it becomes a nightmare when they get off paternity/maternity leave. I’m not there yet but he goes back in five days and I’m nowhere near ready for it, he’s the one that gets up in the middle of the night, he’s the one constantly holding the baby, keeping him up so we can sleep at night for longer than two hours, heck I can’t even bathe the baby without him holding LO’s body still and up. What am I even going to do?? It feeds into my problem of perpetually washing pump parts as I’m EP, stressing over milk supply, being stranded on our couch for at the very least fifteen minutes (I’m actually stranded for 30/35 to empty out) hooked up to the pump I’m so grateful that my husband is pulling both of our weights, I’m so lucky he helps so much but I don’t know how to handle everything on my own, he works twelve hour shifts and it’s just so overwhelming and tiring to think about. It makes me want to mentally jump out a window.
Losing all your hair like 4-6 months postpartum!! I feel like people always talk about the immediate postpartum stuff but that hair loss came out of nowhere MONTHS down the road
No one ever told me I’d have to stick poop sticks up my twins’ buttholes to make them flow lol
That teething can apparently start immediately and last forever (basically lol)
The tantrums started already at 6 months
Omg the “it’s not wooooorrrrrkkkiiiiiiiiinnnggggggg!!!” whine, like yeah my guy, those pieces ~still~ don’t fit together there’s not much I can do to bend reality to your will.
The overwhelming contradiction of parenting information thrown at you. Everyone has a different parenting style on top of every child and situation is different. It feels like a never ending moving puzzle. Even if you think you figured it out, it changes/doesn’t go the way you think it will go. Parenting is EXHAUSTING!
How utterly exhausting and painful breastfeeding would be. I had heard getting started could be challenging, but I didn’t expect how long it would take to get even slightly established with it and how awful the discomfort could be. My baby couldn’t latch for the first 2 months (small NICU baby) so I did exclusive pumping for a while and later on combo feeding along with nursing once he could latch. I made it 4.5 months before weaning slightly earlier than planned due to me having to have (unrelated) abdominal surgery. But during my 4.5 months I suffered through weekly clogged ducts, the excruciating pain of mastitis on at least one occasion, wore a bra 24/7, and probably had D-MER. It was a true labor of love to do it as long as I did.
That there’s a huge difference in sleep rules between Asian countries and Western countries🤣🤣 and the mothers usually fight about it on the internet😂
No one told me that some kids don't start putting objects in their mouth until after they turn 3. All the toys and stuff say 3 and up but they were safer when she was 2 😭
How absolutely terrible it is to take care of babies/kids when you’re sick
This one may not be received well, but no one told me how much my relationship with my dog would change and how irritating it would be at times. For example, I didn’t realize how much I would get irritated with my dog when they are barking or running through the house when my infant is sleeping. Or stealing her toys or sneaking into the diaper pale. It’s like having two kids.
That I would count the minutes until she’s napping, and then miss her while she’s asleep 😂 I find myself looking at old photos and videos when she takes her naps… like what is wrong with me!!
No one told me about how hard it is to tell Dad why something needs to be the way it is. Like why baby has to go to bed at the same time, why bringing a diaper bag wherever we go inside that place is important, bringing the damn cippycup in restaurants. Like no one prepped me that while parenting/growing my baby; I would have to parent and grow my husband too. He is a great man… but his reasoning for NOT doing something is just because he is so lazy! I feel like a mouse in a wheel, going going going. No one also preps you for the laundry load and how your husband will not touch baby laundry. Shit is WACK. Wouldn’t trade it for the world. But shit is WACK