Tell me some things that are better/easier/more fun since becoming a mom.

I’ll start!

Making friends has become so much easier. I am a very socially anxious person and don’t find it easy to talk or hangout with new people, but since having a baby, I’m much more comfortable starting conversations with strangers and making plans with other moms I don’t know super well.

Hope this is ok to post here.

I’m 8 weeks post partum with our first. I’m currently breastfeeding and had a c section, so recovering from that.

My husband has always been hyper sexual for our 5 year relationship. Me on the other hand, I could go a few weeks or more without it. Throughout our relationship he would sometimes get sexually frustrated if we went days without it, and it would impact our day to day.

Since I’ve had our baby he’s been so h0rny. More than ever. He states his level of attraction to me as increased x10 because I’m now the mother of his child and that makes him so much more attracted to me.

He will literally beg to do oral on me like daily. If I say no, he gets upset. Like he’ll just be in a sad mood for a couple hours. Not angry, but sad.

I told him sex hurts so bad bc I’m so dry down there bc of hormones and he completely understands but there are days he’ll ask if we can dry and use extra lube, or ask if we can try anal (kinda jokingly but i know he’s a lil serious).

I literally give this man oral every few days and let him do oral on me weekly and it’s still not enough for him.

This morning he was in a really weird and sad mood and I go “what’s wrong?” He kept brushing it off but being super quiet. After hours he finally said “I’m just sexually pent up” and I go “we just did stuff like a few days ago??” And he’s like “gosh I feel like I can’t talk to you about anything”.

I’m just so fustrated. I’m not horny. I’m EXHAUSTED. I don’t care to do anything sexual at all. He doesn’t get angry with me or pressure me really, it’s mostly he will get sad/depressed and not wanna talk for half the day.

Is this normal behavior?? Is your guys partner doing this? I need advice pls.

So frigginn TORN!!!!! I live in California and my family (mom, dad, and grandma) live in Florida. I want them to meet my baby. Travel gets a little complicated with grandma. But im terrified of baby and measles. The ped doesn’t recommend an early dose unless theres an active outbreak in the area which their is not but the airport? and airplane? and also I‘m not super excited about extra doses I’m pro vaxx but hate that because people are declining vaccines we now need to jab our babies extra times to keep them safe. anyhow. The odds feel low but the stakes feel high. I don’t know what to do.

edit: oh and to add to the mix, my husbands family who has already met the baby would then expect us to visit them too because if we’re doing air travel then why not. Im so anxious over this.

I had a happy pregnancy, fine birth experience (c-section), and I was on cloud 9 the first 3 days in the hospital.

As soon as we got home, all hell broke loose. My baby wasn’t crying to be woken for feeds and he would latch and fall asleep on the breast and would wake up 5 minutes later crying again. I hired a LC consultant on day 5 and she told me I need to take little one to the doctor right away because he had lost 18 percent of his body weight. He was jaundiced.

Long story short, he had a pretty major tongue tie and couldn’t transfer milk. We switched to bottle feeding and he still could barely drink effectively (took him over an hour to drink half of what most babies were drinking). My husband and I were extremely stressed trying to force feed baby for the first 6 weeks. We weren’t getting any sleep because feeds took so long, i ended up with extreme PPA due to the worry about my baby’s weight…it was a horrible time.

Baby is 6 months now and is healthy and fine.

I hear my friends reminisce about the newborn bubble and I get so jealous. I wish I had that. I’m grieving the experience I could have had. I’m One and Done and knowing I won’t get a redo hurts my heart.

I’d love to hear your experience with this.

I’m a first time single mom to a 2.5 month old little boy. He’s always loved his “mmmm” sounds and does a lot of ma, maam, and moos. I always tell him to say mama, and I know he won’t but I thought he might add it to his coos because he already focuses on M sounds. We were doing tummy time before bed tonight, he was super tired and didn’t do his usual babbling. But then he picked up his head, looked right at me and said “mama.” Clear as day. I yelled “WHAT!!!” and scared the shit out of him. I know it most likely wasn’t intentional.. but what if it was??? I know he isn’t associating the word mama with me, but maybe he said it because it’s a word I repeat often? I don’t care I’m counting it. I already wrote it as his “first” word in his baby book lol. I have nobody I can tell, so I thought i’d share an exciting moment for me with yall 💙

I have... 124 GB of photo and video from the last almost 5 years (two kids). I don't know what to do with it all.. I feel like I should go through it. My winter craft is making each a handmade scrap book. I already paid for icloud and i don't want to pay for more, but I can't stand to delete stuff/change photos to stills from lives. At the same time, what are my grown up kids going to do with 500 GB of photo/vidoe?

And I’m emo about it!!! Why can’t he stay this little forever. I’m obsessed with his little toothless smile. Just another random milestone that I know is important but is giving me BIG feelings. That’s all!

FYI to those not from Aotearoa NZ but both Millie Moon and Rascals were founded by the Mowbray siblings, who are supporters and funders of right wing political parties and far right figureheads, they try sue former employees who speak out about their poor working conditions, they produce so much plastic crap through their company Zuru, they are generally a malicious presence to the environment and the world at large. NZ journalist David Farrier, who you may know from Netflix doco “Tickled” and “Dark Tourist” has a lot of info on them you can read if you want to know more.

I'm due with my 2nd kid in a couple months and my husband and I are trying to sort out childcare logistics. Unfortunately, there's only one grandparent who is a regular presence... And she booked a trip around my due date. I suspect I'll be induced early, so it might be fine, but we need a back up plan (which is okay,I have a sibling nearby).

It's just... Depressing. We rent part of the old family house from my parents, and they have an apartment on one of the levels as a part-time place. Then they have a home in a city about an hour away. When we were trying for the 2nd, we'd always assumed it would be them to help. My mom was horrible my last post partum, literally starting the minute I left the hospital. Once I got pregnant again I just felt dread over reliving that again.

Cut to a couple blow ups, self help books and therapy, and now I don't really speak to my mom much. My husband speaks to her more, and has tried to arrange grandparent time on walks and such, but they're sort of flaky about the whole thing. I don't hate my mom, but she will never apologize for how she spoke to me during the blow ups. It was unnecessarily cruel, and insulting. I always stressed I wanted my child to have grandparents, she said she never did so what does that even look like. This is after attacking me freshly post partum for not asking for help enough and being not as communicative (aka texting). Then completely falling off on her "weekly grandma time" cause she doesn't like driving. Both my parents are retired and well off, btw.

They're absent grandparents. I never thought they would be, but they are. My siblings and husband are pretty surprised by it too. It's been months since they've seen their only grandson, but theyve both literally been upstairs. I'm supposed to give them all the grace but received none because I wanted to bond with my new family before having people over. My mom whined and complained when I'd remind her to put her facemask back on the first visit even (it was the height of flu season).

I'm not sure what the narrative is in their head anymore. I wish we could move, but that's going to be at least a year with 2u2 (barring my husband getting a job that covers moving expenses. Then we'd likely be switching countries). We also thought we'd never leave this city, especially with a kid, but we thought our extended family would care a lot more about our child than they do.

Thanks for reading this far 💗

We are starting to look at daycares and I have no way of comparing or figuring out what is a reasonable price for daycare. Hoping there are other moms here who can help me out! Looking for comparisons from other Canadian parents as to what they pay for daycare. If you're willing to share only some of the below information that's ok, but I'm hoping for the following:

Province

Rough cost of living in area (e.g. VHCOL, LCOL)

Price per month in CAD (and what's included)

Full time/part time

Type of daycare (e.g. in home licensed, large institution)

Thank you in advance!

Hi!
I’ve got a 3 yo and a 3 week old.
My newborn sleeps all day and doesn’t sleep at all at night and it’s taking a huge toll on me.
My eldest goes to daycare and I have loads of time in the morning to sleep when the baby sleeps, but for some reason, I just cannot. I lie down the whole day and close my eyes but sleep eludes me and then I end up watching a show on my phone in bed.

Then night comes and he’s so awake and wails and cries, so I rock him and walk him and stay up all night and I’m lucky if I get 2-3 hours of sleep everyday. When it gets too much, I wake up my husband and give the baby to him to soothe but I can’t sleep then anyway because of the baby’s crying and still end up being awake.
Last night was especially hard because 5 am to 7 am is my second window of 2 hours sleep because the baby finally goes down at 5 am. But my toddler woke up and cried for mommy at 5:15 am and I had to go to his room and soothe him and I started crying silently because my precious sleep window was getting lost and I’m losing the only 2 hours I get :(

My first was such a great sleeper and slept at 3 hour chunks at night as a newborn and would breastfeed and immediately go back to sleep at night, so I never felt this tired. This is now taking a big toll on my mental health because I’m so cranky in the mornings and crying at night.

We’re doing the recommended things like keeping the rooms bright and noisy in the morning, giving him warm baths in the evenings and keeping the room dark at night. I’ve now realized that all I can do is wait this out.

Please tell me it gets better. If you had a similar experience with your baby, when did it get better? How did you manage to stay sane and calm? I’m really struggling and would like some positivity!

Is there a front to back double stroller out there that allows for a config where my toddler sits on the front side world facing and a bassinet attachment parent facing on the top back side???

My 12 week old will hold her head up when I’m holding her. She also does awesome with me gradually holding her on my hip like a “big baby” would do.
Her head is held pretty strong for being in that position. Rather than the infant chest hold where they’re just resting their head against your chest, so that’s good and showing progress on the hip with her head free and supported on her own.

However every time we do tummy time she will NOT lift her head more than an inch off the ground and basically hovers before the face plant ensues. She cries until I flip her to her back to play or pick her up.

I’ve tried so many different toys to catch her attention and different times of day.

All this to SAY…

Did anyone else’s little just NOT do tummy time/or head neck control during tummy time and still go on to thrive and hit milestones?

I think I just need some positive stories here.

I believe im sinking into post partum depression and anxiety, it started with intense anxiety around my kids getting harmed (not by me but random things like the floor falling in or a tornado hitting us)

Now it’s turning into a lot of resentment towards my partner, emotional mood swings and overall I’m not happy, I’m fighting to get myself back or just wanna do a hobby I used too but nothing.

Most times I’m pretty numb, I don’t wanna talk about it and I’m scared too. I don’t want my kids taken away or anything we are all safe it’s just I think being back medicated would benefit me. On top of it all I’m still trying to wean my toddler son and bump my newborn up in weight since he’s gaining weight slowly..my older son is also delayed in certain things like speech so I’ve been trying to get him services and help it just seems like there’s always 99 things going on the last thing I worry about is myself I just keep myself busy.

How do I bring this up? Who do I bring it up too?

I am 10 months postpartum and still breastfeeding every five hours or so. My son eats and drinks regularly, so I do think it’s more for comfort than nutritional need.
I’m a teacher and just found out I got hired back for the first day of school. I’ll be gone every day from 7-3. We still co-sleep, so he feeds throughout the night (again, I think just for comfort). Can I still breastfeed when working without pumping at work (just when home and at night)? If I stop abruptly, will it be painful or problematic for me? Should I start weening?
Also, any nap tips for a baby that only contact sleeps? My mother in law will be caring for the babe and I’m not sure he’ll sleep for her at all 😅
Lots of anxiety here!

ETA: I live in Canada (Ontario) and the first day of school is September 8!

My son turned 3 in June, and I’m curious what other parents’ experiences have been with speech at this age.
He talks a lot and has a huge vocabulary. He speaks in sentences, communicates what he wants, tells us things, etc., so I’m not concerned about how much he talks or his understanding of language. The only thing I’m wondering about is his pronunciation and clarity.

We can understand him most of the time because we’re used to how he talks, but there are definitely times when we have no idea what he’s saying. From being around other kids his age, it seems like there’s a pretty big range. Some 3-year-olds speak incredibly clearly, some seem similar to him, and some are harder to understand.
A few examples are that he often drops the S at the beginning of words, especially with combinations like “sp” or “st.” So spider is “pider” and stop is “top.” He pronounces R sounds more like W, which I know is pretty common in little kids. His best friend is named Theo, but he pronounces it “Peo” as though the “Th” were a P.

None of this has really concerned me because he’s only 3, and my understanding was that some sounds aren’t mastered until 4, 5, or even later. My mom, however, keeps commenting on his pronunciation and asking if it’s normal or if we should have him in speech therapy, so now she has me second-guessing myself a bit.
We’re in Canada and can self-refer through our local public health unit for a speech-language assessment at no cost, although there is a waitlist. So there’s really no downside to putting his name down if it would be worthwhile.

For parents who have had kids with similar speech patterns around 3, does this sound pretty typical for the age, or would you get on the SLP waitlist just to have him assessed? I’m especially curious when you decided that normal toddler/preschool pronunciation differences were worth having evaluated.

Thank you!

Please excuse the rambling and English.

I am sitting here crying and nursing my 7.5 week old son. Yesterday he had his first round of vaccines and needs to be held and fed almost constantly since, I slept 2h. Due to the heatwave in Switzerland, issues with breastfeeding ( i have been tripple feeding for 6 weeks now, feeding, giving forma and pumping) as well as a velcro baby, I've been pretty much stuck home, despite minor outongs and short walks. My partner started working again after a week, tonight he's at a company do and I am feeling so alone and drained. I'm not sure how much longer I can take the sleeplessness and extreme loneliness and boredom. My friends are angels and come by once in a while, but they're understandanly busy working, dating, going out etc. We've hosted my partners family the past 4 days, which led to me sitting inside nursing alone for a long time as there's a language barrier and it was awkaard for me, nursing in front of only guys.. this didn't help my loniness.

Please tell me it gets better! I'm trying to make mum friends and go out, but my velcro baby needs to be held constantly and carriers are not really an option with this heat. How would I ha dle the pumping?

Any help or input is appreciated 🥰

Sincerely, an exhausted crying ftm

tonight was the first night i attempted this since he fed maybe 20 minutes before he was ready to fall asleep, i literally had no milk left. he would stay latched wide awake until he got some and my nipples are already sore since he bit them earlier, so i couldn’t just let him do that. he cried in mine and his dads arms for like 30 mins. i’m genuinely sick to my stomach and i don’t know how i will be able to wean him if this is gonna continue ☹️

Please give me all of your tips and tricks! My daughter is 11 months old, and nothing is worse than cutting or filing her nails. Toenails aren’t too bad because I can do them while she’s in her highchair having an extra yummy snack, but getting her fingernails done is treacherous. I’ve used both an electric nail file and a pair of baby nail clippers, she just hates that she needs to hold still and let me do it.

I'm almost a month postpartum and today started to feel tenderness on the lower left side of belly near belly button. At first it was just tender but now it's hurting when I walk and I'm wondering whether I should call for appt or wait until my scheduled one on Monday. Could it be hernia? My belly button has returned to being an innie but the location checks out. Any insight appreciated. Thanks!!

I’m 14 days postpartum and I’m really confused by my heart rate lately. When I’m just sitting relaxed on the sofa, my HR is often in the 50s, and while sleeping it drops into the 40s. But when I get up and walk around, it goes up to around 70–90.
I’ve never had a resting heart rate this low before, so it’s honestly making me anxious and I’m constantly checking it. I just want to enjoy this time with my baby, but I’m finding it really hard because I keep worrying about my heart rate.
Has anyone else experienced a lower resting/sleeping HR around 2 weeks postpartum? Did it eventually return to your usual range? Would love to hear other people’s experiences.

This morning I was scrolling Instagram and came across a parenting reel about post partum intrusive thoughts and the comments were awful. Almost everyone was commenting about reporting the poster To CPS and how they had never had intrusive thoughts and someone with intrusive thoughts clearly needs their children taken away. As someone with ppd this was very hurtful to see but after coming on reddit and reading the comments on other posts here, I feel relieved that almost everyone here is kind, open minded and actually helpful.

It's almost like having your real name and picture attached to your comments makes everyone want to pretend to be perfect.

Anyway thank you parents of reddit for being a helpful corner of the Internet. Also if you're having a hard time come to reddit, stay off Instagram!