Is anybody experiencing pain in calves? It feels like precramping pain. Sometimes it’s just one leg at a time, sometimes it’s both. It would stay for a few days and go away then come back. I’m 3 months postpartum and I have benign fasciculation syndrome.

My LO just turned 10 weeks old today. My wife and I are wanting to add a book to our nighttime routine. We use soft books during the day as a playtime activity. Currently our routine is diaper change, pajamas, sleep sack, white noise, feed (breast fed) and rock to sleep before placing in bassinet. It has worked well so far and luckily we have a good sleeper. Where should we add a book/bedtime story? Before the entire routine starts? before the last feed? or after the feed before we place into bassinet? We are having a hard time deciding as we want baby to engage with the book but feel that would also serve as a distraction when we are trying to wind down. I have also suggested me reading the story out loud while baby feeds as to not disrupt the current routine but still have some “story time”.

Side note: I know baths help with a nighttime routine also but am worried it would dry their skin out. Do you use soap every time or just get them wet? Sorry for all the questions, I’m new to this!

Thanks in advance for any help or suggestions!

Like I wouldn’t put dirty underwear on after taking a shower and don’t want to put a diaper on her that she’s already worn after she’s just had a bath but at the same time diapers cost money as we all know here and I’d hate to throw away a diaper that’s still dry so my solution has just been to wait for a wet diaper first. Please tell me I’m not crazy for this

We have a 4 month old and we’re on the 4 naps/day schedule. Usually we try to have the last nap ends at 530-6 for 730-8 bedtime with 2ish hours wake window. Sometimes his 3rd nap is at awkward times like 3-330 to 4-430. In this case, is it better to have a 4th quick nap at 6-630 and put him down for bedtime at 9-930? OR skip the 4th nap and put him down early at 6-630?

Idk if this is normal but I got the final bill for both my baby’s NICU stay and my labor

For my birth is was almost $70k (THANK FUCK INSURANCE COVERED IT) and for the NICU is was like $90k for a week

WHAT THE FUCK, from the bottom of my heart, truly WHAT THE FUCK

I got laid off so don’t work and my partner and I aren’t married so the state essentially paid for my birth and NICU minus $3k because I’m on state insurance but from the bottom of my heart whhyyyyy wtffff who tf can pay this???? Why is it this much???? Who has this money just laying about????

Is this really how much this cost??? Am i insane for thinking this isn’t normal?????

My third child is 16mo and barely talks. It took forever to get to “mama” and “dada”. He doesn’t label either of us, he just says them for anything. Even when he cries, it’s just crying, not asking for anyone. He can also say “nana”, “gaga”, and “gog”.

He also knows a few signs but they are meshed together. “Help”, “more”, “and “milk” are all the same sign. “Please” is a chaotic Wheels On The Bus motion.

If you ask him where the car/ball/keys are, he will look for them and maybe go get them. If you say to give a kiss/hug, he might do it. If you say “outside”, he goes to the door.

He points to his nose, ears, belly button, and fingers when asked.

But “gog” is EVERYTHING. If it’s because of a dog, it is a very distinct “Gah-g”. But everything is “gog” too. Cow, car, ball, book, shoes, ect. If you ask him to say xx, he says “gog”.

Is this remotely close to normal? I’m stressed out. I know I shouldn’t be but admittedly, my anxiety is worse with this kiddo.

Thank you in advance.

My mom meal prepped for my first and it was a huge help when I had a c-section. My second is due in early January and will be a second c-section. It’s a little different this time as my mom won’t be able to do the prep for me and I have a toddler. For those who have meal preped for postpartum, what were the family faves? bonus if it landed well with a consistenly inconsistent picker eater.

I’ll keep it simple since there’s no way around it. The hospital, Memorial Hospital down in FL, is charging us $27k for delivery our baby. The hospital is out of network for the baby but the hospital was in network for mom for the c-section.

Bottom line, apparently we had to find a hospital that was in network for both mom and baby prior to any of this so that we could get covered by both companies. As a surprise to no one we did not know that and now we are being billed $27k.

We already sent an appeal to the insurance which got denied, the hospital just points back at the insurance, and we have no idea what else to do. Looking for any advice from people in similar situations.

Also, out of curiosity, in a situation like this, what are you supposed to do during birth? Get the c-section at the designated hospital and then somehow convince the doctors to transport the baby to a different hospital that is in network for them?? Genuinely, this is baffling, i think i would have been better off sending my wife away to canada or something for the 9 months and then have her come back after everything was done 🫩

My mom came to help with baby for three weeks after the birth and ever since then she’s been acting so weird. She takes everything personally and it’s all about her.
Baby is two months now and she’s complaining that she never hears from me. I’m like come on lady I barely have time to shower so you’re lucky if I remember to send you a photograph here and there. I don’t know what to do about her. I don’t really feel like I need to be managing her emotions when I have so much else going on.
I’ll be forty years old in October and I feel like she doesn’t remember what having a newborn is really like. Also on my plate is managing my husbands visa process after we moved back to my other passport country so paperwork has been plentiful.

So my three best friends and I all had babies within a couple months of each other (which has been amazing!). Our babies currently range between four and six months old.

I’ve always been the biggest baby person in our group. But it’s like something happened to me postpartum where I just do nooooot care at all about anyone’s baby but mine. Obviously, I’d never tell them this or make it known in any way. But these are friends I’ve had for 20 years; they’re the closest thing I’ve ever had to sisters. I really thought I’d feel more of a bond toward their children.

Did anyone else experience this? Did it go away?

I really didn’t think I could experience gender disappointment. But I found out we are having our second boy. We only want two kids, so this is it for us. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t incredibly disappointed and grieving the daughter I thought I would have. I don’t doubt I will love this baby boy so much, just like my first; but I cannot pretend I’m not insanely disappointed and sad that I will never have a daughter. I have a great relationship with my mom and wanted to have that with a daughter.
Those who have boys; what did you do to help you overcome your gender disappointment? What are things I can look at as positives moving forward knowing I’ll be a boy mom?

Hi everyone,

Mum to an 11 day old baby, and sadly I’ve got 0 breastmilk supply so he’s exclusively bottle fed. We’ve been using ready made formula, and now have a Nuby cool system to move to powdered formula.

My question: the scoop for actimel powder doesn’t nicely empty into the Nuby powder dispenser. Are there any recommended tips and tricks to make that easier that anyone’s aware of?

Thanks so much, love this community, it’s been so helpful so far 💜

Hey guys, I’m getting the itch to take my 6 week old camping. The thought makes me excited but then I think about all the things we need to bring and get a little overwhelmed… please tell me all the products you brought and or bought for your baby that made your life easier for camping.

Hi all, I’m a first time mom and don’t know if my baby is delayed.

She’s not rolling yet from either way (she rolled from belly to back weeks ago which seemed to be an accident, and rolled once from back to belly).

She cant sit assisted while holding herself up with her hands. If I try to have her use her hands she has them in fists so she doesn’t put weight on her hands.

She still keeps her hands in fists a lot of times, with her thumbs tucked in. So she doesn’t really reach for things. But sometimes if I hold something in front of her she does try to touch it.

She doesn’t let out an actual laugh, just big smiles.

She has really big social smiles, good eye contact, tracks toys really well. She does really well in tummy time and can hold it for 10 minutes at a time. Shes in physical therapy for torticollis and they say she’s doing really well overall but they still do mentioned her not rolling / sitting assisted.

I thought she was still a bit young for those things but I guess not.

Please let me know your experiences! I’ll be asking her doctor at her 4 month appointment in 2 weeks.

Thank you!

Lowkey going insane! I’ve never been a sweaty person (I’m still not a sweaty person at all). Prior to postpartum I never EVER had BO, then I had my baby, the first few weeks were awful I felt like no matter what I did I always smelt like an onion and it drove me insane. I’m now 16 month PP and still breastfeeding, I’ve always EBF since she was born. At the beginning I chalked it up to all the hormones and things did get better after a bit but definitely no where near pre-baby levels. I’m still at a point where I literally need to shower like every 6 hours and if I don’t I have terrible BO. I’m on mat leave still so I shower every 6 hours but doing this for the last 16 months has been exhausting, I’ve finally decided that this can’t just be hormone related and it’s driving me nuts. I’ve just purchased antibacterial body wash and I’m home it will change things for me… has anyone else experienced this?! Will I ever go back to never having BO? Or am I just stuck like this forever? Please share your experiences and what has helped if anything!

A few hours ago I had my 6 week checkup. I was cleared for everything, but when I came home and peed I saw blood dripping into the toilet. I haven’t really bled since 4 weeks post partum. They did do a pelvic exam and she checked my cervix. Is this normal?

I’m 6 weeks postpartum and have continued having bright red bleeding. My OB did an ultrasound and found a retained placental fragment.
They’re having me try Cytotec (misoprostol) first to hopefully get the remaining tissue out and avoid a D&C. I was prescribed 200 mcg orally twice a day for 5 days.
I’m honestly really scared to take it. I’ve read so many Cytotec experiences online, but most of what I’m finding is related to miscarriage/abortion rather than retained placental tissue after a full-term delivery, so I don’t know how comparable those experiences are.
Has anyone here taken Cytotec several weeks postpartum specifically for retained placenta/RPOC?
What was it actually like for you? How bad were the cramps and bleeding? How quickly did you notice something happening after taking it? Did you actually see/pass the retained tissue? And most importantly, did it work, or did you end up needing a D&C/hysteroscopy anyway?
I know everyone responds differently and I’m following my OB’s instructions. I’m mostly looking for firsthand experiences because I’m really anxious about what the next few days are going to look like. 😭

I was on the fence about going to this postpartum baby yoga class near me because it's pretty expensive, $30 for an hour whereas all the other classes at this studio are $20 for 90 minutes. And money is really tight right now. But I thought, what the hell, I'll treat myself to one class and see what it's all about.

Class was at 10:45 so I started to get ready around 9 am. Got myself showered and dressed while baby was napping. Baby woke up at 9:45, I changed her, fed her, got her dressed in this cute little outfit to show her off, put her down under her baby gym while I ate breakfast. She was in a great mood and I was feeling proud of myself for leaving plenty of time to get ready. Got all her stuff together, diaper bag, change of clothes just in case, grabbed my yoga mat. At 10:40 just as I was getting ready to put her in her carrier and walk out the door (later than I was hoping to leave but the yoga studio is just down the street) she starts crying and rooting. I'm not proud to say, I immediately burst into tears.

I considered trying to show up late -- surely since she had just eaten 45 minutes ago this would be a short feed -- but that didn't pan out because she ended up staying on the boob until 11:20. I emailed asking if I could move my reservation to next week but I'm not hopeful since I didn't get my email out until after class had started.

So now I'm out $30 and my baby is all dressed up with nowhere to go. I feel like a complete idiot for thinking this was a good idea. Learn from my mistakes, don't try to go to mom & baby activities before 6 months. Save your money and stay home.

So for context my baby is 9 months old and just barely getting her first tooth and I still haven’t gotten past the 2 fingers wide and long rule that I made for her which is basically anything we give her has to be two fingers thick and two fingers long so she won’t choke. I’ve gotten okay with giving her like fries and sweet potato fries. We’ve given her like a “chicken nugget” where we just cut the chicken breast into chunks but they’re still pretty large.

Well now she’s apparently behind in her fine motor skills with her pinching because I don’t give her small toys or food because I’m so scared of her choking. Recently I’ve gone back to school so my grandma has been watching her and I know she’s been introducing things like macaroni and yogurt melts she said she wants to get a box of cereal for her to start snacking on but I’m so scared she’s gonna choke! We’re basically baby led weaning at this point because I’m too scared to put her in the high chair and feed her. She won’t let me spoon feed her and if I give her to spoon she just throws it everywhere unless it’s big chunks of food she can hold and suck/chew on. I know I need to get over this but i don’t know how and I don’t know where to start either. We just got the okay to stop fortifying formula so I know we need to up her calorie intake via solids to keep her weight steady I just don’t even know what to cook a baby when you’re too scared to give them anything small :/

Seriously any advice is welcome just please be kind. I never grew up around kids ever, my daughter is the first baby I’ve ever experienced, my mom doesn’t live nearby and my grandma is still stuck in her ways so I’m kinda figuring this out on my own with my fiance. I really don’t wanna mess her up or cause her harm and it feels like with the whole eating thing I have to choose one or the other. I can either let her be behind developmentally and weight wise or I can risk her choking and getting hurt. Both sound like bad choices :/

hello!

i am currently 4mo pp vaginal delivery no complications. after about a month i started going on walks ~3x week and after 2 months i tried to go daily (really just when baby allows) about a month ago, i started working out again. i’m trying to lose weight for my brothers wedding in november but making sure to eat enough to keep my supply up.

about a week ago (the day after my husband and i had sex), i saw some tissue like stuff when i peed and had a light pink discharge for a couple days, then it turned into darker red (not quite bloody like a period, more slimey). that happened for about 2-3 days. it started calming down, then just yesterday i passed a quarter (ish) sized clot thing when i peed.

i am also getting some lower abdomen pain when i go for simple walks after about 10-15 minutes. i just switched insurance so i am trying to set up an appointment asap but wanted to hear if anyone else has experienced something similar.

im not convinced it was my period, but it could have been. i’m not sure if im working out too hard, or maybe sex stirred up some loose stuff i had in there. i have no idea. but the pain while walking is what concerns me.

edit: spelling

I’m still pretty freshly postpartum (5 weeks) and I’m exclusively pumping. I’m 25 pounds heavier than my pre pregnancy weight and although I’m trying not to stress about it right now, the number on the scale is in the back of my mind. Is it even possible to lose weight while breast feeding? I want to get back to lifting weights and I do go for nightly walks with my family. I know my body did an amazing thing and is still doing an amazing thing by breast feeding but I’d also like to feel good about myself.

Our first baby is about 6 weeks old. Due to a lot of factors we are currently triple feeding him.

Therefore, he gets a lot of cold formula and pumped breastmilk out of the fridge unheated.
Several times now while family has been over they’ve seen me get a bottle straight out of the fridge and give it to him. They act like they’ve seen a second coming of Christ and can’t believe he’ll drink a cold bottle.

Before having the baby we saw all the bottle warmers and such and figured babies probably preferred warm ones but never thought too hard about it.

Is this really that big of a deal? Are we unknowingly really lucky not having to heat milk/formula up at 3 am or while we’re out in public?

I would love to hear from others about their experiences with cold vs. warm feedings.

Now that my baby is out of the newborn stage, I've started pushing him outside of his comfort zone a little bit. That means no cosleeping, more tummy time, no container toys, and capping naps. He's taken to all of it really well, but we just got his shots done yesterday and the next few days are all about pampering him! Contact naps, baby wearing all day, sitting in his swing, no tummy time, multiple warm baths and massages throughout the day, etc etc. Whatever baby wants he gets until he starts feeling better

Hoping to queue up some kindle books and audio books or podcasts for night time feeds and nap traps. What did you enjoy the most or read in the past and recommend now?

Hey everyone, curious if anyone has advice or experience with my particular situation. My first born will turn 2 y/o one month before my scheduled c section for my second.

I was considering doing a joint 2nd bday and sprinkle. Just close friends and family, maybe 20 people max including children.

Does this sound tacky? I would probably advise guests that gifts are not necessary but ask that if they wanted to be generous, to please consider contributing to either 1st borns 529 account, or toward a "new baby fund" (we plan on buying everything we need ourselves, and would put any monetary gifts toward those purchases, and diapers).

I think the absence of physical gifts would reinforce that it is a celebration of baby #1 and baby #2, and not a money grab. But also offering practical ways to gift if anyone feels inclined to.

Would being invited to something like this rub you the wrong way? Does this sound practical? Any advice would be helpful, thank you so much.

Edit: im only considering joint because of how close the birthday and c section are. I figured it was easier to schedule 1 day rather than 2 so close together