My son has been and is very high needs since birth in what seems like every way. Horrible sleeper, not a fan of eating, can't figure out how to drink water consistently without getting choked up, hates the car if it's not nap time, hasn't let me leave the room he is in for months without a meltdown, hardly lets me sit him down next to me while I do any chores without meltdown. Upset badly at diaper change time, after bath time sometimes. We've struggled at times with him biting, pinching, hitting me a lot out of what seems to be excitement but also sometimes frustration. He had 8 teeth by the time he was like 8 months old so that contributed. He's at the top of the growth charts so wearing him constantly isn't simple anymore, I can't see what I'm doing and he tries to grab everything. Logically attachment parenting makes sense to me, emotionally and in reality it's extremely difficult most days to stay calm through it all. Is there a point where even the most high needs babies start being a little more chill? I know I need to work on staying regulated regardless of the situation because me getting frustrated all the time isn't helping, but a lot of days I'm at my wits end. Things have definitely improved over the last few months but I thought we would be tipping the scales to where I could say we had a good day more often? Are my expectations too high? I'm afraid that my exhaustion/lack of ability to cope has already done damage attachment wise.

For context if it helps:

-just turned 12 months old

-we have coslept since 5 weeks old (has slept more than 4 hours in a row maybe 3 times ever, usually awake every 3 hours or less and wants to nurse constantly if I'm sleeping next to him. Won't nap on his own more than one sleep cycle, needed bounced vigorously to go to sleep most of his life etc etc his sleep needs it's own post, recently changed a lot and saw improvement from hourly wakes at night at least so I'm shelfing that)

-breastfed except one bottle of formula at night for the past couple months so that I can pump + give his dad a bottle of fresh milk to give him so I can get a stretch of sleep in another room and pumped milk while I'm at work

-I'm a sahm who is home with him for about 10 hours a day most days by myself before his dad gets home (I do have family nearby, babysit my niece some and go to work 2 days a month while my sister+mom watch him and he does fine there. His dad is also very helpful.)

-just learned he has low iron, started supplementing (hoping that helps things all around)

-crawled right at 6 months, pulled up right before 8 months, has been surfing ever since but just now started standing and thinking about walking. Won't follow me around crawling most of the time, wants held.

-had a rough start- c section to NICU, had to be on bottles at first for pacing because he would stop breathing if at the breast or fed too quickly

-we also lost our first son at 8 months old, he was born at 25 weeks, we lived in the hospital for his entire life. I'm sure this has contributed to my emotional/mental state with this son, especially starting off in the NICU again unexpectedly and not getting the "more natural" bonding experience I hoped for

I know that's a lot of info and honestly I think I'm partially posting this for myself to just get all of it off my chest and maybe help someone else not feel alone if they're struggling as well. He's also hilarious, loves music and dancing and is very happy in between his hard moments-I have to give him credit and love him so much through all this.

I mostly need to vent, but I also genuinely want some reassurance/perspective from other parents who believe in attachment parenting.

I have an 11-month-old baby and I made the decision to stay home with him until he's around 1.5 years old. It was a conscious choice. I wanted to have this time with him while he's still so little and be the one caring for him for these early years rather than rushing back to work.

I know daycare isn't bad and I have nothing against parents who use it. Everyone has different circumstances and choices. But for me personally, I really wanted to be there during this stage.

I have a friend whose baby is around 14 months. Her baby has been going to daycare every day from around 6am until 7pm. She's also currently buying a house.

Lately I feel like she makes comments that shame me for being on a break from work and staying home with my baby. It feels like she's portraying herself as moving forward financially while I'm sitting at home with a baby and not progressing.

And I hate that I've started comparing myself. I was actually very happy with my decision before this. Now whenever she talks about the house or work, I start wondering if I'm being irresponsible or whether I've somehow put myself behind.

What I'm really wondering is:

Does my baby actually benefit from me choosing to be home with him during this first 1.5 years?

I'm not expecting anyone to tell me daycare is bad or that staying home is automatically better. I know children can thrive in both situations. I'm just wondering whether having that extra time with a parent during these early years has meaningful benefits, especially from an attachment perspective.

I also want to know if anyone else has made a similar choice and then felt insecure when seeing friends financially getting ahead.

I don't want to spend my baby's first years constantly wondering whether I'm falling behind everyone else. I chose this time with him because it mattered to me. I just need some perspective because lately I'm questioning myself.

Im 19yo Mom who has 7months preemies they were born 33weeks and theyre identical twins. Honestly on preemie and newborn stages they were really calm. They ate well slept always all the time. Ant then about 2-3months came. And they started eating worse sleep worse. Im not single my man works at home so he helps me much. But still i feel too overwhelmes. We started feeding them solids. For about 3months now. Pediatricion said we can. Their adjusted age is about 5 months and a half. I make them food 3 times a day because they dont drink milk as much like i dont remember last time they drank all of their dose. Then i need to clean house because its always a fking mess i need to make ourselves something to eat. Every day i walk at least 15k steps. I have this thing about ed im getting better though. And honestly everythings feels like work. They dont sleep at night they dont sleep on day time. And i find myself super overwhelmed when they scream. And sometimes it was more often before then it stopped and now i find myself screaming at them like some wild animal. I feel like im a bad mom like they didnt do anything bad to deserve someone like me for a mom im always negative always on the edge (when theyre not eating or crying) what do i do i dring ashwaganda it kind of helps though but i really want to be better mom and give them best emotions. What do i do?

It starts in 2 weeks. My almost 8-month-old twins will start daycare together.

Apparently your baby will cry when you leave. You're supposed to leave anyway. Then they'll be fine, they say, they'll start playing.

Except I don't know how I'll physically be able to leave them if I see them cry. It keeps me up at night.

Positive experiences please?

My son is 5 years old. Dad and I have had a couple of months of arguing and some has been in front of our son. How can we do this in the least traumatizing way possible? I am heartbroken for him.

Just a bit of a vent

My daughter has always been extremely clingy to me and is EBF so she literally never left my side and used to cry when I leave the room etc. we have co-slept since she was 3 months old (she is 9 months old now) but as of recently she has not been so clingy, she has been playing in her playpen alone and even sleeping the first stretch of the night in her cot on her own and has even started settling herself in between sleep cycles- I let her in the bed with me when she wakes, for ease when feeding during the night.

This sounds silly me even typing it now but she’s been breastfeeding less as we have introduced 3 meals a day. This has unexpectedly made me so sad, like she doesn’t need me as much anymore. I know she will always love and need me because I’m her mum, but now she is much more accepting of her dad and other family members i feel kinda like I’ve had my nose pushed out.

I know that our bond has created a secure attachment for her so she feels safe enough to explore now, but is anyone else feeling the same way? It’s so bittersweet, it’s going way too fast and I’m sure this feeling will only get worse as she grows up.

Hi all! My daughter is 20 months old and has always been bottle fed (long story, but I had to exclusively pump until 6 months and then combo fed). It’s been a really drawn out process weaning her from bottles of whole milk at night. I used the water technique (replaced each ounce with water for a couple of weeks) but here’s the problem: now she wants a 5 oz baby bottle of just water before bed. Has anyone had this issue? I know that I should wean her from this because it’s apparently bad for speech/tooth development but it’s been SO hard. Last night I tried giving her water from a sippy cup instead and she screamed for an hour in my arms. She loves sippy cups during the day. I know this isn’t super common since we didn’t breastfed, but wondering if anyone has advice. Thank you!

Hello, I’m seeking advice to help support my 10.5 month old and myself to get some decent sleep. I have always been responsive to her crying overnight, despite my partner wanting her to CIO. I had successfully used gentle sleep training to teach her to sleep relatively independently until she was 7 months old. She would fall asleep with my hand on her, then wake once over night for a feed and easily go back to sleep. At 7 months we went traveling for 5 weeks where we co-slept. Upon our return we continued to co—sleep until about 8.5 months, where we decided to try the gentle sleep training again because she is too active in bed and im still not sleeping well with her next to me.

This time around the gentle sleep training did not go well, she was still waking multiple times overnight and had developed a sleep association to holding my hand to fall asleep. So I moved a bed next to her cot so I could easily support her overnight and get more sleep myself. After 2 weeks of illness she was still having nights where she would scream until co sleeping, but also some nights where she slept great in the cot and only 1-2 wakeups where she was easily comforted back to sleep.

After too much sleep deprivation my mental heath has been struggling and recurrent fatigue headaches I gave in to my partner to try CIO. I’ve been so tired I even completely passed out the other morning. Nights 1 & 2 were tolerable as she only woke once each night. But night 3 she woke 4 times distressed over 3 hours. I brought her into bed with me after this as her nervous system seemed way too disregulated.

Her naps yesterday and today have not allowed me to put her down for sleep like normal as she awakes with screams when I put her down. I feel the CIO is disregulating her nervous system and making her separation anxiety worse.

I am juts looking for suggestions on how to help my baby and myself sleep. I’m not opposed to safe co-sleeping but I don’t know how to remedy not sleeping due to her active sleep. Also, what does this look like in 1-2 years will she always expect to sleep with me and refuse to sleep in her own bed? Thanks for the help.

Hi all! Looking for success stories/tips! I’m 41 and need to wean to get my cycle back so we can try for another. My son has slept in bed with me since a few weeks old and has always nursed to sleep and through the night. We day weaned a few months ago but have been dreading the night weaning! I tried one night of the Jay Gordon method last night and it was rough! He must have woken ten times and was screaming after each unlatch. I think being allowed a little milk and then none until the next wake up was more confusing for him. Tonight we are going to try him in a floor bed in the hope he will wake less and then I’ll begin weaning again in about a week - this time I think I’ll stretch out the times vs reducing time. Overall looking for a gentle approach but do need to wean ASAP! Thanks in advance!

Does anyone else feel like their whole day revolves around getting the baby to sleep??

By the time I get baby fed, changed, rocked/held and finally asleep, the nap is over 😂

Then I start all over again.

Nighttime isnt much better. Baby wakes up and usually needs feeding or rocking to go back down, and some nights it feels like I'm barely sleeping at all.

And the worst part is seeing all the different advice online and wondering if I'm creating some horrible habit without even realizing it.

I know I'm probably overthinking it but man... I'm tired.

What part of baby sleep is wearing you down the most lately?

I have never considered myself someone who gets physical with other people but there are times when my 2.5 year old is tantruming and screaming at the top of his lungs bc he isn’t getting his way and he will grab my hair or try and pull me to what he wants or throw his entire weight on me, head but me in the nose. I have acted in ways I am not proud of and didn’t know was possible until I had a child. Can anyone else relate???

If he really starts to hurt me I have pushed him off of me before, not to the point where he hurts himself, but to the point that I can’t believe I actually used force with him. I’ve snatched him up aggressively once bc he had been screaming in my face for a half hour over a nap and I was just so mad he wouldn’t go to sleep. I wanted him to know I was mad. After it happened I felt crazy and I apologized. Or forcing him into his car seat. Does anyone else just find it fucking repulsive and anger inducing to have to force them into their car seat at this age? They are so strong and it feels so wrong to have to do.

It almost always happens at nap or bed time and he sleeps on a floor bed and I refuse to leave him in the room to cry alone. I step out if I feel the rage coming on, but I usually only step out for a minute. I have learned I become extremely disregulated when anything physical is happening to me during his tantrum, be it “intentional” on his part or not. It’s only happened a handful of times but every time it happens I am just in disbelief that I can feel this way toward him.

Does this mean my mom handled me roughly when I was a toddler? I understand why I’m raging but I am shocked at my capacity for it as I never had a temper prior to becoming a mother.

We’ve stopped napping him bc it’s just not good for me and him to have to go through that anymore.

I’m probably venting and just looking for someone to say, me too.

I work three days a week and my 13 month son has a nanny that comes those days. 2 of the 3 days I only work 9-3. So I’m home with him a lot and we cosleep, still breastfeed, lots of baby wearing. I’ve tried really hard to be a responsive caregiver and his pediatrician at his 9 month appt said she could tell he had a secure attachment by the way he would look to me for reassurance and wasn’t afraid of the stethoscope etc?

I have been putting off sending him to the nursery at church because I’ve been worried about how he would respond when I leave him. I’ve tried keeping him with me but he just wants to be able to run around which I get. Trying to keep him occupied during the sermon is hard.

So I’ve taken him twice now, and his reaction has me worried maybe he doesn’t actually have a secure attachment? Both times I dropped him off he didn’t cry at all. I just handed him to the ladies and he was fine. Obviously I don’t want him being upset but I had read that that was normal for a securely attached baby to do. He would briefly fuss every morning I left for work up until about a month ago, and now he’s just happy to read books with the nanny while I leave.

The first day at Sunday school they said he fussed on and off but not enough to call me. The second time they said he did good but started to get upset when another baby got picked up (I was the second parent to get there for pickup.) Also of note, it was completely different volunteers this week vs a couple weeks ago when we went.

When we got home he absolutely lost his mind when I left the room to put away my shoes. He never freaks out like that. He’s normally fine to play independently if I pop out of the room briefly.

When I picked him up both times it wasn’t a big happy reunion or anything, it’s just his already worried face continued to look worried until I had him in my arms and then he looked relaxed and back to normal.

I guess my worry is twofold. Number one that this is showing he actually doesn’t have a secure attachment. And number two I’m dropping him off for 45 minutes once a week with strangers and it might just keep being strangers because it’s a rotation amongst a bunch of volunteers. Very nice people, but unfamiliar. Will this further damage things? Sorry for the long post, my mind feels scrambled right now.

I’m feeling absolutely heartbroken and could really use some reassurance from parents who’ve been through this.
My little one has only had one week of nursery so far, going 2–3 days this week for a few hours each day. She absolutely hates it. She refuses milk and food, doesn’t really settle, and screams when I leave. When I pick her up, she cries and reaches for me too.
I’m due back at work after tomorrow, and from next week she’ll suddenly be doing 9 hours a day, 4 days a week.
I feel SO guilty and stressed about it. I’ve barely been sleeping because I’m terrified that I’m going to traumatise her or somehow change her personality by putting her through this. 😭
I know separation anxiety is normal and that it can take time to settle, but seeing her so upset makes me question everything.
For those whose babies/toddlers struggled badly with nursery at first: how did it turn out? How long did it take them to settle? Did they eventually start enjoying it?
And if you have any advice for making the transition easier for her (or for me 😂), I’d really appreciate it. ❤️

My 4mo will soon outgrow her bedside bassinet. We want to keep her in our room until she's 1yo, but the room is small. The only place where a crib might fit is adjacent to our bed, but away from the wall, because that's where our wardrobe us. This means that, when she's able to stand, she'd be able to climb the cribs walls if we attach it to our bed with her mattress at the same level as ours.

I'm wondering if something like pictured on this link would be safe? Or should we just keep the crib's fourth wall? I love being able to touch my baby when I wake up at night to feel if she's alright, so it makes me a bit sad to keep the fourth wall.

Baby sits up multiple times a night

Anyone else’s baby do this? Or did this? I have literally never heard of it before. He sits up several times all night while seemingly still sleeping, then falls over. I’m talking like 5-10x in a row and several times through the night. We cosleep so a lot of times he falls over onto me or dad. Last night I thought he broke my nose. This has been going on for months and I thought we’d be over it by now but it doesn’t seem to be getting better.

My son has started refusing to go to sleep, all of his sleeps. He’s fighting naps (especially with me but now with dad too) and in the last 2 ish weeks he’s taking over an hour or more to go to bed at night. Nothing in our routine has changed and last night we even tried a later bed time to see if he just wasn’t tired enough. We co sleep and he does nurse for a little bit right at bedtime just to help him get calm and sleepy. Normally we go up to brush teeth and put on pjs at 7:45 and he’s asleep a little past 8. Last night he didn’t go to sleep until 11:30 and I can’t function like this. He’s always been a bad sleeper, waking up a few times a night but luckily easily resettled. He’s night weaned and only taking his 1 normal midday nap for about 2 hrs. I know there’s a regression somewhere between 18m-2y but what do we do? We’re so tired 😭 My parents are telling me to do CIO but obviously that’s not happening

I’m not sure if I messed up in the early stages with our baby because I’ve been so adamant on no sleep training and responding to her needs.

She was never really a poor night sleeper - though we’ve never gotten a full night which I know is normal - we were at 1 waking a night which was manageable!

but 8 months hit and I feel like it’s been a disaster - we had 1 week where she was up every 45-90 min and I had to call in sick from work because of exhaustion.

Powered through it though and were at about 2-4 wake ups per night - some nights are better than others! We’ve gotten a 7 hour stretch shot every 3 weeks or so. But I just keep reading about babies sleeping through the night by now, my in laws seem shocked that our daughter still wakes up & I still nurse her.

I’m not sure if I missed a window in teaching our baby to fall asleep on her own, if we’ve done a disservice by rocking her to sleep or resettle, or nursing to soothe.

I felt strongly that babies shouldn’t be expected to fall asleep on their own and parents should be there help them (and I still do) - but I’m not sure if I’ve caused the sleep struggles! The only people that support me is my husband and my mom around the no CIO approach

Hey guys, my pride and joy turns one in 2 weeks, which is so exciting, but frankly I’m really struggling mentally right now. From birth she has needed a lot of support to sleep, and has woken frequently. I think once she had a five hour stretch and that felt like a luxury.

I’m startling to feel quite burnt out after over a year of broken sleep. When she wakes overnight I have started feeling angry at her, which I am so ashamed of. It takes a lot of rocking, shushing and feeding to sleep to get her to go to sleep in the first place, then she wakes anywhere between 3-10 times overnight and sometimes stays awake for an hour or so. She also needs me for naps- I literally can’t leave the bed, she has to stay latched the whole time. She only wants me overnight so my husband can’t help.

I’m at a loss for what to do. We have always coslept out of necessity, which I would be so happy to continue doing if she just slept a bit more. She always wakes when I hop into bed and I wonder if I disturb her, but I haven’t successfully been able to put her to sleep in her cot.

I’m considering going to an overnight sleep school where they teach responsive settling. I’m just worried she will get distressed and it will affect our bond. I just want what’s best for her but I can’t really continue like this.

Has anyone been in a similar situation? Any advice? 😔

Hello everyone,
I’m a first time mom, and our 16 mo started daycare a month ago.
Our kid seemed quite independent and always ventured away and explore leaving us behind.
We started daycare, and we are in Germany doing a in home carer which has a very long and gentle settling in period.
We did visit their home a before for him to get accustomed and used to the carer and to their home. And he seemed to love it and is quite comfy with the carer.
My partner started the settling-in period.
First week just staying there with the parent.
Second week they started longer separations and our boy was actually staying there alone from 8:30 to lunch time.
Then thirst week started and he was very pissy. Turns out next afternoon he had fever and got roseola and did not get to day care the rest of the week.
My partner had to start preparing for work, the week after being sick both times he tried to separate, baby was inconsolable and my partner about to breakdown.
Now I have to go there because partner needs to work and is less flexible, I also need to work but I can change a bit my hours. And… it’s worse. Baby has much more trouble to separate from me.

Rest of last week we tried small separations like going to the toilet or 20 min getting and he was inconsolable.

I’m now trying to do micro separations at home going to the toilet or stepping out leaving him with his father and he cries a lot but gets better after 5 min with his father.
I’m really on the verge, I am quite an impatient person and not seeing visible improvements is making me on edge and I am trying but all I read are things that are ok, or we do then and I don’t know what else to do!
Any advise would be welcome!

I’ll also add some more info:
\-when I’m there he ignores me and plays with the kids and the carer super excited
\-When we go there he is not clingy he enters the place super excited
\-he sleeps super good at home we leave
him in bed and he falls asleep on his own
\- he is a happy child
\- I say goodbye super excited, explain when I’m coming back and quickly - but immediately he starts to cry