Parenting Contents Archive

My son has some developmental delays and people are blaming me saying it’s because I hold him all the time.

Like the title says, my 6mo old son is having some developmental delays. He hasn’t even attempted to roll over, has a hard time grabbing things, and isn’t anywhere close to sitting up on his own. We are in therapy right now and are headed in the right direction but if one more person tells me that it’s my fault for not setting him down more I might lose it. First, not every baby is the same. I don’t care that your child was walking at 8 months old and mine just lays there like little lump (a cute lump albeit). Also, he’s a baby. He loves his momma and if I wanna hold him I’m gonna hold him. Anyone have any snide comments or remarks I can make when people blame me?

Newborn prefers me over husband

Our baby is only 1 month old. Over the past week, my husband has made multiple comments about how it makes him sad that our baby visibly prefers me. I’ll be sleeping in bed and wake up to hear the baby screaming bloody murder in the living room while my husband is changing him or waiting for a bottle to warm up. It happened this morning and I asked him to bring baby to me. I wrapped him in my blanket, held him, and gave him his pacifier. He fell asleep within minutes. My husband is just feeling really sad and defeated. I tried to explain to him that my voice and smell was all our son knew for so long. That it’s not personal and he isn’t capable of having true “preferences” like that. Also reminded him that he will go through phases where dad is the “favorite” parent. Has anyone else gone through this at the infancy stage? Our baby screams with him in a way he never does with me. Is there anything I can do to help my husband feel better or help baby be more comfortable with him?

What should I talk to my 2 month old about?

I’m a new mum with a 2 month old daughter. She’s sweet and lovely, and in general, things seem to be going well… but I have no idea what to talk to her about. It probably sounds silly - I know we’re not about to start having a two-way conversation or anything - but you’re supposed to talk to your babies all the time, right? To expose them to language? Problem is, I’ve always been more of a listener than a talker and with her not having a huge amount of chat at this age, I’m kind of stuck for what to say. My mum’s advice was to narrate whatever I’m doing. Well, often, I’m just sitting and looking at my baby, trying to think of what I should talk about. I’ve tried singing nursery rhymes but they’re all so short! I can go through all the ones I know in about two minutes. How do you talk to someone who can’t talk back?

All those tiny pieces

For many years now I have been begging everyone to please please not get my child things that consist of a million little pieces. For many years now everyone has ignored me and done whatever they wanted (don't even get me started on toys and cards that make noise). Latest culprit is my MIL who sent a whole-ass giant Lego set. Yesterday the child, home for the summer, asked to open the Lego set, and I gave up and let him, though with a warning that I would not be able to help because I was trapped in work calls all afternoon. Bromos, this kid spent 4 hours \*silently\* following all the instructions to build the entire kit all on his own. He got it done with only a few spare mystery parts, then played with the set all evening. We are apparently in a new era where I will happily spend all my money on fancy Legos and all the random pieces floating around the house be damned. Shows me.

When did you honestly feel like you were in love with your baby? I’m not there yet and it’s kind of worrying me…

I have an 8 month old baby girl. I’m an excellent mother and she is cared for in every way. Both my partner and I go above and beyond for her. BUT I’ll be honest and say I just don’t have that overwhelming “in love” feeling everyone says you eventually get. The kind that curls your stomach in warm knots when you think of them. I had that for my cats in the past but not my daughter. WTF? I will say that I love love love sleep and the sleep deprivation has been devastating. I know it’s not her fault (she’s a baby) but she’s the cause of it so I feel like I’m harboring some unfair resentment. Also, I have historically never liked babies or kids. I worry over her well being, obsess over her safety, have all of the protective “keep this creature alive” instincts and then some…just not that gooey loving feeling. Will it come? If I don’t have it now is that a bad sign it never will?

So tired of baby thinking his bed is lava

I am so tired.. each time i put my baby in his bassinet he always wakes up and cry. I have done the arm test and follow videos on how to smoothly transfer him to the bassinet but each time I try to drop his head onto the bassinet he opens his eyes and cry. Day and night, but more prominent during the day!

What’s going on with my girl??

Has anyone had their kid go through a phase where they just wish you weren’t their parent? Out of the blue my 7 year old decided she doesn’t like me. She doesn’t quite know why but the latest reason is my face. She thinks I’m ugly. I wanna laugh but it really hurts. I don’t know what to do because you can’t really distance yourself from your own child, but I’m tired of feeling like she just doesn’t want me. She’ll even get teary eyed telling me these things because she knows it’ll hurt me and it makes her “nervous”. She’ll say crap like “I love you but I don’t like you”. She’ll tell me I’m boring or not like her friends’ moms even though I plan so much for her and do so much for her. And it feels like a dagger in my heart every day. She’s never been like this till just a couple of months ago. I don’t know what to do.

Coming to terms with this major life shift

I absolutely adore my LO, but I find it so hard to come to terms with the fact that I will likely never be the same as “old me” again. She’s six months and I’m not sleeping well. My day consists only of keeping her entertained. I pump throughout the day, so even when I put her down for a nap, I need to go pump and then do a million other things. My identity seems to have shifted too. I no longer see myself as a “woman,” but as a mother and as someone who’s older now. My husband and I’s relationship is good mostly. He helps a lot but I feel resentment for going through an extreme change that he didn’t seem to go through at all. I used to love sleeping in, having lazy days, watching shows and traveling. I can’t do much of that with my baby who is low sleep needs, does not want to let go of me, and needs to be entertained most of the time. Again, I enjoy most of it, but sometimes (esp at night as I await to be awakened by her), I’ll cry into my pillow.

Does daycare class size impact illness frequency?

We’re looking at two in home daycares for my 19 month old. One’s a little closer (walkable) but a little more expensive, the other is a littler further (not walkable) and a little cheaper. The other big difference is class size. The closer one has a class of 12, the further has 6. We’ve been in a center with 12-14 kids in a class, and I’ve been sick constantly. My kid hasn’t even been that sick really, but passes everything on to me and inevitably I have it for 3x the time she does. I’m not going to lie, if there’s any possibly of a smaller class leading to less illness… might make the decision for me. I can’t handle being sick any more? So… what’s the thought. Will a smaller class mean less illness?

What happens to your kids if you have a medical emergency while they are under your care?

My husband will be leaving for work for a long period of time (deployment) and it will just be me. I do not have any current emergency contacts nearby since we moved a few months ago. What would happen to my young kids if I needed to go to the hospital? Do they go to CPS? Something happening to me while I’m alone is my biggest fear for my kids.

Tired of sleeping in separate rooms

Our daughter just turned 2 months and my husband and I have slept in separate rooms to wake up with her in shifts throughout the night. She is a LOUD sleeper, and I am, unfortunately, an extremely light sleeper. During my “shift” I hardly sleep at all as I listen to her grunts and yelps and try to decide which ones mean she’s waking up. I feel like my husband and I hardly get any time together anymore and now we sleep in separate rooms and I’m wondering if it will ever get better. Every once in awhile we try to share our own bed and keep the baby monitor on but I sleep like crap when we do this. Anyone else wake easily and have advice for how to sleep better with a LOUD baby? Will my husband and I ever get to sleep in the same bed again? 🙈

3w old can undo any way I swaddle her?

We just finished our growth spurt, and now she’s getting out of every swaddle Swaddle me baby- hand comes out the bottom if I put it straight down, top if I cross them Halo - arms out the top in seconds Blanket- breaks it apart and it ends up over her face (have stopped using for independent sleep after seeing this) Sometimes she still needs one to get to sleep. I don’t have any different ones nor can I afford it. What am I doing wrong??

Is it OK to talk about your kid in front of your kid?

My 3yro was being 3 yesterday... she kept throwing rocks after I asked her to stop. I finally told her we were going inside and she threw a fit, screaming, yelling, hitting, kicking... she even bit me. This is abnormal behavior for her. She will yell and screan and hit but she has never bitten me or anyone before. I was telling my spouse about her behavior while I was in her room waiting for her to go to sleep. She stared at me while I told her dad about the day and I felt weird and bad for talking about it with her there listening. Is it bad to do that? I wasn't like shit talking her or anything, just explaining what happened and how it was handled. She ended up falling asleep while listening...

Baby has not pooped in 28 hours

Hi All, my 1 week old baby has not pooped in 28 hours, is it normal or should I be worried? She is having a good appetite, good sleep and having both breastfeed and formula milk

Fuck duck fucj

My bathtub faucet was leaking. My thought: hey, let’s call my grandpa to come look at it and replace the washer in it so it’ll stop leaking before I go on vacation Saturday. He gets here, unscrews the faucet, and says oh that looks weird and old, but I should just need to switch this part out. He switches it out, we turn on the water, and it starts spraying water into the fucking wall. We turn off the water. Now I have no shower or tub, water damage in the wall and the floors on the other side of that wall, and am going to have a $1k deductible I can’t pay for because I work part time to watch our 8 month old and we can already barely pay the bills On top of that, I have to try desperately to get a HELOC because my roof is now 24 years old and has to be replaced, but with our smaller income since we bought our house & increase in cc debt I’m scared I’ll get denied. I’m over one year sober & want about 16 bottles of wine and a pack of cigarettes.