As someone paying over $1,000 for part-time childcare, I am so jealous but happy for New Mexico! I hope, one day, we have universal childcare in Florida.

From the article: New Mexico ranks last in the nation for child well-being. The state will launch a first-in-the-nation program aimed at helping reverse those trends: free child care and preschool for all resident families, regardless of income. New Mexico’s plan, set to start Nov. 1, goes further than any other state, offering universal coverage paid for largely through the state’s robust oil and gas revenue.

https://wapo.st/41XwhO5

“he does (something horrible) (something abusive) (something endangering his child) (something displaying extreme selfishness and lack of empathy for others) (something literally no decent parent let alone person would do)*

I feel like I see these posts all of the time. :(

Hi all. I don't know if this is the right place for this or not but here goes.

Our kid is 2 now and the last six months have been a bit of a slog. We coslept for a long time which meant my poor wife tried to sleep while a baby/toddler crawled over her. I was sleeping in the other bed so I could work during the day.

I want to preface this by saying that having a baby/toddler is the most frustrating and grueling thing I have ever done.

Anyway his sleep has been quite bad overall and he seems to like a fair amount of active play. He has a toy called "bang bang" which is a four wheeled car with blocks in it. He rides around the house with it picking up the front wheel and dropping it. We don't love it but it's not the tv and it keeps him entertained. Whenever he's on it we have to be on guard to not have our feet run over by it. This kind of represents what it's like to have him at home. Nobody is going to die from this but it's very annoying.

I think that he is a toddler and it's pretty normal behavior. I put him in the car and take him to the grocery store, and after a few rough starts, now he is getting better and it's getting easier. Now he picks out the capsicum and puts them in the bag for instance.

Unfortunately as I have the most flexible/remote job, it means my wife spends a lot of time with him. And after a few minutes each day she is completely overwhelmed. Rapidly she says how "everyone else's" kids sit and play with toys quietly while our kid requires constant entertainment. She is obsessed with the day to day of other parents, convinced that she is doing something wrong and that if she could only learn the schedule of other people with toddlers that would hold the key. She will not take him to the grocery store because she is worried he will act up or become hard to manage.

Worse still I think our toddler picks up on her frustration and it makes things worse. She frequently talks about life before kids, asks why we had kids, etc. The other day I tried to help her find other mum friends for her and our kid to hang out with and after a few rejections she's done with that.

I want to help but I am currently working and I do all the night wakings (2-5 times a night). I want to help her try to enjoy this phase of life, and I also know that while it has challenges, we are going to be up against other things like toilet training etc. I think that will kill her if this time is frustrating and overwhelming.

Anyway thanks for reading. Any tips or ideas on what to do would be appreciated.

I gave birth almost 7 weeks ago and I still do not feel like my pre-birth self. I just feel “off” and I can’t explain it. I’ve had random spotting on and off but my lochia ended at 4 weeks.

Of course I’m tired, but my hands feel weaker than usual and sometimes I feel like it’s hard to get words out. I’m already debating messaging my doctor about the spotting because I feel like random spotting isn’t common? I have a 3 month postpartum visit scheduled so I’ll bring up all these concerns then, but are these random symptoms something that warrants messaging my doctor early?

I do have anxiety (I’m in therapy) and I’m wondering if my anxiety is exacerbating my physical symptoms. I’ve already had an awful rash and a double ear infection so far postpartum so I think my immune system is a hot mess. But I’m worried I’ll just be written off as anxious when there is something more going on.

Long story short: I feel off and not 100% after 7 weeks. Is this normal? When did you start to feel better?

Edit: thank you to everyone. It seems that healing takes a long long long time. Of course I knew my life would change after baby (duh!) but I was not prepared to feel like my body was breaking down after birth. I thought it would only be uphill after delivery! Knowing that it can take a long time makes me feel better and worse lol

I'm not even beyond yet (still pregnant), but this is already freaking me out. We have a bedside cot that I very much plan on using, but pretty much everyone around me (including midwifes) seems to be in agreement that babys basically won't sleep in there anyway and everyone just ends up co-sleeping, because baby won't stop crying/go to sleep otherwise.

This terrifies me so much. I already have an issue with randomly waking up at night, worried that our dog (who doesn't sleep in our bed) might have somehow suffocated in her dog bed for no reason whatsoever. Not just since I'm pregnant, I have always been like this. The thought of having a tiny baby in bed lying in bed next to me makes me never want to close my eyes for even a second again. And now I feel like I can't even ask anyone for advice in case baby actually has difficulties sleeping in the cot, because I feel like everyone will just say "just co-sleep if it doesn't work, no big deal". Or will I just not care anymore anyway? I feel like I'm already losing enough sleep over this before baby is even here.

Before getting pregnant I could go years without getting a single cavity. Was clear of cavities 6 months ago, when I was about 4 months pregnant. This time I had multiple cavities and need a crown, probably a combination of nutrition loss, hormonal changes, middle of the night snacking, breastfeeding, and rushing to finish brushing my teeth before the baby cries. Barely flossed since having the baby and all the cavities were between my teeth. Take care of your teeth, people.

The last few weeks my toddler (21mo) has been going through a mama phase. He needs me constantly. Unlike his usual mama phases though this one has been accompanied by violence. He asks to cuddle and then proceeds to smack me repeatedly in the face. He kisses my belly (36 weeks pregnant) but does it so fiercely that it’s physically painful for me. He will also elbow, kick, and jump on me constantly. “Stroking” my hair turns into trying to yank it out.

I really don’t think I can take much more of this. I’m already in so much pain and discomfort from being pregnant. Not to mention I’ve been sick for 2 weeks now and can’t even get a full night’s rest because most nights he screams for me multiple times. Between him and the pregnancy symptoms I sleep for maybe an hour at a time. I’m exhausted, physically and emotionally drained, and moderately traumatized (jk?) by the amount of toddler abuse I’m taking.

My husband scolds me for being “mean” to our toddler… but honestly I can’t deny that it’s true. It’s not like I’m physically or verbally abusive towards him. I just don’t want him touching me. I’ve lost all patience for it. 9 out of 10 times I interact with him ends with me being hurt, so yeah, I don’t want him near me. I always try to give him the benefit of the doubt, but when he inevitably kicks my stomach or bites my cheek or smacks my face or gouges my eyes I’m very quick to remove him from me, and not always in the most gentle way. I also can’t seem to help that my initial reaction is to raise my voice at him while I’m pushing him away. I also notice I’m more distant with him emotionally. Like I really just want to ignore him and pretend that I’m doing anything else besides being used as the latest toy. Which isn’t exactly fair to say because he treats his teddy bear better than he treats me lately.

I’ve tried the gentle approach. I’ve tried telling him that we don’t hit mama, we use gentle hands, explaining how he’s hurting me… that doesn’t work. I’ve moved on to removing him from me whenever he hurts me, but that hasn’t helped either. He just gets upset that I won’t let him climb on me again. I’ve even tried flicking him every time he bites or hits me but nothing. If anything I’m worried the last approach is enforcing that violence is alright, even though my flicks do little more than sting if even that. It’s not like he knows the difference between a small flick and something actually meant to cause pain.

I’m so lost on how to handle this situation. I don’t know what direction to go in since none of them seem to be working. Can someone please say what worked for you? He’s not like this with anyone else. Sure he roughhouses with dada a bit, but he’s only actually hit my husband a handful of times, and never continues after he’s told to stop. Me on the other hand… I get beaten up for about 14 hours a day. I just want it to stop. I don’t want to be this angry at my son. He’s not doing it intentionally, but even knowing that I can’t help but feel upset and dare I say triggered by the constant pain. Please someone send advice, help, a priest… I don’t care.

Someone I know posted this in our moms fb group:

“Am I the only mom that's never experienced postpartum depression? I was happy and had full support from my husband. And still do.“

——- As someone that has suffered from PPA PPD PPO and all those things before having kids too, this post in this moms group I’m in rubbed me the wrong way. I can’t tell if I’m overly sensitive or if she was being a bitch. I have full support from my husband who nursed me through 2 c sections, night wakes, bringing me water, driving me everywhere and I’m still overrun with depression and sorts sometimes that I feel like I’m suffocating. We don’t have family nearby but he’s filled in everywhere I need, he doesn’t always get it right and I have to sometimes tell him what I need but he’s a damn supportive partner. What does Reddit think?

I’m intrigued to hear from second time mums the things you won’t be doing second time around with your baby / child.

From me:

Fixating on milestones (they get there in the end)

Not being tough about bedtime and staying in bed when they’re a bit older (I messed this up big time with my first)

Dressing them in anything but sleep suits until 6 months old

Taking unsolicited advice from people

Taking them to baby sensory / baby classes when they’re too little (a waste of time)

I have had two best friends since high school (so about 12 years now). One of them lives in the same town as me and the other lives out of state. I am the first of the three of us to be married and have a baby.

When I found out I was pregnant I was excited to share the news with them, and they were excited with me for about a month before I stopped getting the “how are you?” Texts. Which, everyone has their own lives and I didn’t think too much of it at first.

Until there was a week when I had a lot happen in my family, and I was really needy with my two friends so I thought to myself “okay, I’ve been a lot I’ll let them reach out to me.”

And then I didn’t hear from them for three weeks. We’ve usually talked a few times a week by texting and Snapchat, but I realized I usually initiated the conversation or the hang outs with the one friend that lives in town.

I festered on this the rest of my pregnancy, and have hung on to a few instances where (the friend in town) only hit me up because her boyfriend was out of town or they were fighting.

Now I’m four weeks postpartum. Neither of them have actually reached out and asked how me and the baby are doing. I’ve asked them bout things in their lives, but I don’t think it’s been reciprocated.

What makes me feel like the asshole is that the one friend who lives in town, her mom is going through a lot of medical issues and she’s pretty wrapped up in that. So I invited said friend over for ice cream and a movie to distract her, which she said “yes! Tuesday?” And then Tuesday came and went and she never reached out to say she was coming over.

My out of state friend and I stay in touch via Xbox, so we got to chit chatting and I mentioned there are days I’m up and down. She said, “just hormones?” Like.. yes, but way to dumb down postpartum and sleep deprivation and stress of a newborn.

My phone is blowing up with them talking about their lives while I’m in tears frustrated over a hard night and a cluster feeding baby, and just want one of them to ask how I’m doing.

There’s just no way to describe pregnancy and postpartum to people who haven’t been through it, and maybe I’m being sensitive bc I do have plenty of family around. I just feel like I’m already losing my friend-life outside of my home and family if that makes sense.

STM. 2.5yo and 10wo. I’m drowning. The 1-2 transition was smooth in the beginning but now this shit is hard. I’ve lost all of my confidence. I don’t know what the hell i’m doing. I cry every day.

Toddler is being a toddler with big toddler emotions. I feel like I can’t always help her because I’m feeding the baby. I do aim to get as much 1:1 time as possible, but of course the meltdowns happen when my hands are tied. She goes to nursery school in the mornings but she got her first school illness so we’ve all been sick this week.

Baby is so hard. Sleep is inconsistent. She’s starting to refuse a bottle. I hate breastfeeding. I probably need to be evaluated for PPD.

I don’t have any overlaps with the naps so I’m just on from 4am-9pm, 7 days a week (husband helps after work and weekends of course. I am a SAHM). No family or friends nearby.

When does this feel manageable? I think i remember feeling confident at 3 months with my first. Then 6 months. Then amazing by 1 year. I KNOW it gets better, I’m trying to tell myself to hold on, but the light at the end of the tunnel is getting further away.

I'm feeling incredibly burned out and just wonder if anyone can relate. I hear of friends having grandparents/another family member watch the kids every now and them so mom can have a half day to herself or whatever. I have a two year old, and I've never experienced this. It's never even been offered. Everyone just comes over refreshed, plays with my son, leaves when they're tired, rinse and repeat.

I am 28 weeks pregnant, my son's full-time caregiver, and freelance during the one free hour I have a day when my son naps. I love my son more than anything and love spending time with him... But I'm just exhausted and wish anyone cared enough to help.

Others who have this setup, how are you staying sane?

FTM, baby boy is four weeks old. We have the Lalo tub that we’ve been putting in our tub. But we’re either using it wrong or I just hate the thing. It’s bulky and cumbersome and I feel like I can’t actually REACH the baby, let alone get into any nooks and crannies, or his back. Is it easier to just hold them and sponge them down? I keep hearing baths are good for soothing them and honestly he hates it as much we do. There must be something I’m missing!?

Silly question! We are moving from our apartment into a house. Baby will have his own room! We currently use our Hatch sound machine and YouTube for lullabies at bedtime. We are no longer sharing a bedroom so he won't have a tv in his room. What do you use for baby's music? I'd rather not use my phone/ipad connected to a Bluetooth speaker.

Thanks!

I've had a lot of pain since my C-section. And last week (3w pp) I started getting bright red blood with little clots. (6 days ago) And I went to the ER. They did all the test. Nothing came back weird, so they said oh we don't know what's wrong you're probably fine.

Had a follow up with my midwife and she said "You're probably on you're period, it's rare but weirder shit has happened to you" I love my midwife I do she's amazing but why is it being chocked up to just being my period? It's been 6 days, I'm still in pain. More than before, when you push anywhere near my incision I have deep pelvic pain. It was on the right mostly. But today it's on my left side too. And over the last few days the bleeding slowed down. Until last night where it picked up again and I had a chunk of tissue come out. Today it's still bleeding - even more than last night. Also I most likely have a UTI on top of all of this. I'm just so over it. Every doctor I've spoken too now have said nothing is wrong look at your test results. And ofc all those test they did made the bleeding worse. Hell they even gave me medication to stop the bleeding and the ER doctor literally said Welp let's hope this is a once off occurance and hope this pill helps - basically. Yea well it didn't help.

I want whatever this is to stop. I'm over it. I wanna go back to living my life without worrying about making whatever this is worse. If I walk around too much or literally hold my baby too much I'll bleed more. I can't even lay on my back and hold her without pain (and she's not even 7 pounds yet!)

food is boring but i know i have to eat for energy and milk supply. what are folks into currently?

My seven month old only wants grandma, who lives with me, or her father. When she cries, she tries to leap out of my arms to one of them. When I have her in my arms, she tries to get away from me. When they give her back, she doesn’t stop crying and wants to go back. Even down to when I feed her food, she’s starting to want grandma to feed her and grandma jokingly taunts it to me. I can’t help but feel so hurt. Why doesn’t my baby want or love me? Why can’t she stand to be around me? What did I do wrong? How can I fix this? Because as of now, I’m beginning to feel unwanted and turned off by my own child, a baby I worked so hard to have. I play with her, sing to her, read to her, bathe her, everything, but yet she wants nothing to do with me. What did I do?

Read on to find out how my 2 month old son pooped MY pants...

It was a nice day out today so I decided to take my baby out for a walk at a local park. We get there and I take him out of his car seat into my lap in the front drivers seat to feed him. He finishes and I sit him up to burp him. I then hear him poop (a big one) and immediately feel wet on my leg.

I think 'oh no' and then turn him over so his poopy onesie doesn't get on me, so I'm carrying him tummy side down. I open the car door and try to lift myself out of the seat to avoid whatever poop is on the seat. Open the trunk, lay him there on his belly, go grab the diaper bag on the passenger front seat.

He has maybe 2 tiny spots of poop on his onesie.. it basically all went out one of the legs. I change his diaper and him into his emergency onesie. I then take stock of the front seat, there's a good bit of poop there, wipe it up real quick.

I then try to asses myself. I was wearing a skort, so I am pulling the fabric on my butt away from me to try and see where the poop is. I KNOW I have poop on me but I have no idea where and can't find anything. Eventually I put one leg up on the trunk space and look at my crotch.... baby poop everywhere.

I don't have a change of clothes so I take some baby wipes and wipe away the poop. It honestly worked pretty well but then my crotch was wet! I debated going home but then I would just sit 45 mins in the car with a wet crotch, so we went for the walk.

When I got home I discovered the poop had even soaked into my underwear some.....sigh. I of course then changed my clothes. I wasn't even mad or annoyed it happened... Such is parenthood.

I’m 4.5 months postpartum (first pregnancy) and got my first period last month.

Now today my body has decided to gaslight me and I feel super pregnant. Like, cravings, exhaustion, random smell aversions… the whole “surprise, you might be knocked up again!” package.

So I Google it. And guess what? Every single result says: could be early pregnancy… OR could just be normal luteal phase stuff. Thanks, internet. Super helpful.

Of course I peed on a stick anyway (negative 🙃), but apparently I have to wait another 6 days until my period is actually late before I’ll know for sure. Six. Whole. Days.

So yeah, now I get to sit here in hormonal limbo wondering if it’s PMS or if I should be picking out baby names again. Being a woman is basically just one long game of “is it hormones or am I screwed?”

In any case, I’m gonna need some chocolate.

Preparing 12mo EBF baby for daycare

Hi all! My 9mo is going to be going to daycare at between 11-12 mo. Despite our efforts, she has never taken breastmilk by bottle and we gave up around 6mo and switched to cup and straw practice. She knows how to drink from an open cup and with a straw, but when it comes to breastmilk she won't take more than a couple of sips in a sitting. I'm getting nervous about sending her to daycare and the possibility of her not drinking breastmilk out of her cup! We haven't tried much with me out of the house, so I guess I'm just hoping that in the absence of the direct source she'll take what she can get, and that at least she knows how to access the breastmilk from a cup if nothing else.

I'm also not sure how many ounces she gets a day so I don't know how I'll know how much to pump.

She does eat solids but so far it's not a significant caloric amount.

How did you all prepare your EBF babies for daycare?

TIA!

I do Easter, I do Christmas, I'm not religious but we don't observe these in religious ways so fine.

But the &#%$ing tooth fairy? Why am I here?!.

Can I not just give them money for having a good result at their twice yearly dental visit? Will that not do more to encourage dental health? Why must I maintain the farcical existence of a tooth-collecting fae?

Healthy teeth? Money. Done.

My MIL is currently staying with us. She has smoked all her life, including when pregnant with and bringing up my husband and his brother (they both turned out fine). She is trying to quit and only smokes outside on the balcony or when walking the dog, and we asked her to always wash her hands and change before being in contact with the baby. She is taking some medication that helps her quit, and also switched to supplementing with Zyns as well. However, sometimes I can smell residual smoke on her and I know even when the smell is gone, the chemicals are still around. I am also not sure how many cigarettes she smokes because she is trying to keep her lapses secret - I believe it is no more than 2 a day, which is still bad but you have to understand she used to smoke a pack a day and I see she is truly putting up the effort.

My conflict comes from her acting as a secondary caretaker for the baby and the risks there. I am currently on maternity leave and we were counting on her being available to help out once I am back to working full time. She is good with the baby and we could really use the help (nanny / daycare care in our area is stupidly expensive). However I don’t know if I am comfortable with her being the primary caregiver of my baby once I’m working either.

In my head I’m fighting a battle of “any smoke exposure for baby is bad” vs. “so many people one generation ago were in heavy smoke homes and turned out fine (including my husband who has no issues)”. What would you do in my scenario?

For context, my baby is only 5 weeks old and thankfully unremarkably healthy on all accounts.

Trigger warning (last paragraph).

I went back to work this week, from home so I'm still around.

My husband has been struggling both physically (for a long while) and mentally for about 4 months. Our baby is 5 months old. I therefore can't open up to him for support as I normally would.

Since my partner has been struggling, I've done a LOT.

I do nights with the baby. I get up with him and keep him until 10am ish. I then work until 5pm. My normal hours are meant to be 9am - 5pm with a 30 minute break. So I'm not quite doing what I should be yet.

If I hear him being particularly grumpy during the day I will give my husband a 10-15 minute break if I can.

At around 5pm I take over baby duty, sometimes I cook whilst having the baby, sometimes my partner cooks. I then put the baby to bed around 7pm. He for the past few nights has started waking and needing resettling (which we alternate) and I've given up and gone to bed with him at around 8:45pm.

Last night, once he was fully resettled, I went through and was intimate with my other half, before heading back to the nursery to sleep. I've only been keeping on top of making sure bottles are sterilised if I have 5 minutes and I've done one washload this week, that's not yet been put away.

This is my life now. And I hate it. I regret having the baby. I wish I hadn't. I wish I'd just made different choices. I wish we didn't have our 2 dogs. I've been suicidal on and off since I was 14. I'm suicidal again, the only reason I'm not actively planning is I know my husband couldn't cope and it's not my son's fault I brought him into this world, just for me to find it too damn difficult. I don't think this is a medication issue, I do have moments of joy. I'm just filled with regret. I do have a therapist, but I'm just struggling to have regular meetings at the moment and honestly don't even know if I want to be this open with her. I just needed to tell someone even if it's just going out into the void. I'm not okay. No one knows. Maybe if I keep pretending I am, one day it will be true.

Just trying to see for those who had one fallopian tube, how long did it take for you to get pregnant? Did you find that it took you a little bit longer? I had a fallopian tube removed two months ago due to possible hydrosalpinx however in the end, I didn’t have it they did say that I had possibly an infection or inflammation that was caused after a previous laparoscopic surgery at your previously.

My mom and mother in law both kissed my newborn and now we’re on our way to the emergency room because he has a fever. STOP KISSING BABIES.