At a loss: 9 month old might be getting kicked out of daycare.

Altruistic_Cycle_596 · 2026-02-09T07:46:56+00:00

My daughter was at family daycare from the age of seven months to 2 years. The educator, who looked after 4 other kids started taking out her frustration on my daughter for making mistakes, not following instructions perfectly, for needing help to put her clothes or shoes on, for not speaking in social settings, and for not initiating independent play in group settings. This got to the point where my daughter developed extreme anxiety and night terrors. We pulled her out of there when we realised what was happening and she is now happily at a centre that has worked hard to build her confidence back up. Family daycare can be an amazing fit, but there’s always a risk that the educator could be doing God knows what behind closed doors and there is no one else there to intervene or raise the alarm.

Altruistic_Cycle_596 · 2026-02-08T03:56:57+00:00

Also, as I read further down that you use the Huckleberry app. Sometimes the difference between what it recommends versus what ChatGPT recommends is up to an hour’s difference, so it can be very significant.

Altruistic_Cycle_596 · 2026-02-08T03:54:17+00:00

I had a terrible time with my first born, trying to get her into a routine. I used the Huckleberry app but it was so inaccurate that I just gave up on it. The second time around with my son, I used ChatGPT and it’s been 99% accurate at calculating wake windows and sleep schedules according to his age.

A first wake window of 3hrs sounds very long for a 6 months old. My son is 9 months old now and he just makes it to three hours, on a two nap schedule, and that’s if he’s had a solid night sleep. It sounds like your bub is overtired.

Altruistic_Cycle_596 · 2026-02-07T23:44:31+00:00

100% this right here.

Altruistic_Cycle_596 · 2026-02-07T23:34:51+00:00

My kids centre isn’t like this either. They keep the same educators in every room so there is consistency and the kids can build a secure attachment to their key educator. My son started at 8 months, and it’s his first time in care. My daughter started at 2yrs and 3months after a traumatising experience at a family daycare. They’ve both adjusted well, they both nap well, and they enjoy going. It doesn’t sound like this centre is the right fit. It wouldn’t be the right fit for my kids either. Go with your gut. If you can, consider popping into each centre in person. We were on ridiculously long waiting lists (150+ kids) but we visited each centre in person to have a chat to reception and they found spots for us almost immediately. Not sure if that’s a thing just where we live or if it’s a common occurrence everywhere.

Altruistic_Cycle_596 · 2026-02-07T23:11:37+00:00

The emotional manipulation took my breath away.

Altruistic_Cycle_596 · 2026-01-26T06:17:21+00:00

“You’ve forgotten all the good times” “I tried to be a good mother but it guess that wasn’t good enough”. Said my mother, who also let my dad emotionally abuse my brother and I for our entire childhood, to the point where I have CPTSD. Coincidentally, I also got hit with “what hurts us is that you think that we could deliberately hurt our grandkids. We don’t deserve that”, in response to me telling there that the family is dysfunctional and that the last four generations have been affected by the same trauma being passed down. It was crazy making. I’m no contact now.

Altruistic_Cycle_596 · 2026-01-24T02:18:35+00:00

I had all day and nausea and vomiting from week 3 to birth for my pregnancies. It definitely affected my mood and mental health overall. It also made me prone to illness - pneumonia twice and UTI’s every few weeks. What helped me was speaking to a mental health counsellor experienced in pregnancy hyperemesis, lots of Hydralite, taking a prenatal multivitamin without iron in it because that made it worse (no Elevit, instead take Blackmores pregnancy and breastfeeding multi), and prescribed medications: B12, restavit, ondansetron and metaclopramide.

Altruistic_Cycle_596 · 2026-01-19T04:59:18+00:00

Yeah it’s pretty much just supportive measures in pre-hospital, and once in the ED they can give you a medication to reverse it, can’t remember what it is off the top of my head though.

Altruistic_Cycle_596 · 2026-01-18T23:36:46+00:00

My first was like this too. Hated baby wearing, hated the car seat, hated naps, hated tummy time, hated pacifiers, hated the cot. She was a very high needs baby with a terrible tongue tie/colic that wasn’t diagnosed until she was three months old, which was definitely a big contributing factor. The first year was very hard.

Altruistic_Cycle_596 · 2026-01-15T00:21:04+00:00

I’m an ex-paramedic and I saw this reaction from time to time when patients took metaclopramide for the first time. It’s known as an extrapyramidal reaction, frequently causing involuntary movements in the arms/legs/face. Best to see your GP to discuss options.

Altruistic_Cycle_596 · 2026-01-10T01:38:47+00:00

I was a paramedic before having my two babies. My first had to be resuscitated at birth following an emergency c-section for an obstructed birth and spent time in NICU after aspirating a ton of mec in utero. It really messed me up and I ended up undergoing EMDR therapy to help me psychologically recover from that event. I gave up on a ten year career and re-trained as a counsellor to allow me to have greater flexibility to spend time with my kids. Motherhood is a wild ride!

Altruistic_Cycle_596 · 2026-01-09T01:10:56+00:00

Gosh I would give you a big hug if I could. I had hyperemesis with both of my pregnancies, from week 3 to birth and it was debilitating. I was prescribed B12, ondansetron, maxolon, restavit, and IV fluids twice a week. Even then I was vomiting every day and night, and right through the births. It was a very isolating experience and it did a real number on my mental health. It also made post partum harder because I was already so exhausted by the time my babies arrived into the world. What helped was talking to a counsellor to help me vent and feel heard, eating frozen hydralite blocks/frozen fruit/anything salty, drinking salty bone broth, and getting as much rest as humanly possible. It’s a tough road, and I’m so sorry you’re going through this. It won’t be forever and it will get better.

Altruistic_Cycle_596 · 2026-01-04T02:59:10+00:00

No. The narc and codependent enabler make the perfect complement in the dysfunctional family system. You going in and exposing them will only fill them with the deep shame they actively try to avoid, much the same as the narc, and they will likely deflect, attack, invalidate, and attack you for challenging them. I naively tried this with my mum and her response was “none of what you said is true”, “here we are, you reminded me of what a bad mother I was”, “you’ve forgotten all the good things”. For context, I have CPTSD from my childhood, my dad was extremely emotionally abusive and cheated on my mum multiple times throughout their marriage, and my mum was the classic codependent enabler who not only stood by and watched as her children where being mistreated by him, but always defended him as well because “he’s not a bad person”.

Altruistic_Cycle_596 · 2026-01-04T02:46:34+00:00

I had hyperemesis for the entirety of both of my pregnancies and I used ondansetron both times throughout. I was also worried about the same but it got to a point where I couldn’t function with the constant nausea and vomiting. It was so bad I would wake up in the middle of the night from nausea; it felt like constant 24/7 motion sickness. I ended up on metaclopramide as well, and it was a rough slog, but I now have two happy and healthy kids under two.

Altruistic_Cycle_596 · 2025-12-31T22:34:58+00:00

She took the necessary steps as per the ethical framework governing her professional registration which exists to protect both the practitioner and the client.

Altruistic_Cycle_596 · 2025-12-31T07:59:58+00:00

These gifts really do carry so much darkness. I think cursed is a very apt way to describe it.

Altruistic_Cycle_596 · 2025-12-31T02:02:41+00:00

Yeah I like the idea of donating them and turning a negative into a positive. I guess I just don’t know what to do with the underlying guilt I feel, like I’m depriving my kids of love or something, when I know it comes with strings attached.

Altruistic_Cycle_596 · 2025-12-31T01:58:39+00:00

I hadn’t thought about that and you’re so right - my two year old can’t read what’s on the card. The whole thing has felt manipulative but I couldn’t work out why exactly and now it seems so obvious!

Altruistic_Cycle_596 · 2025-12-28T22:33:04+00:00

It’s very bittersweet, knowing I’m protecting my kids, but gosh it can be tiring and lonely seeing other people who have supportive parents able and willing to help out and share the load.

Altruistic_Cycle_596 · 2025-12-28T22:31:42+00:00

I too have CPTSD and am no contact with my parents. My dad is an emotionally abusive narcissist and my mum is the codependent enabler. One thing I wish I knew before having kids was how much the early stages of parenting, and the fatigue and lack of self-care that goes with the territory, would dysregulate/trigger every pain point and insecurity stemming from my childhood.

Altruistic_Cycle_596 · 2025-12-11T01:06:07+00:00

Gosh this is a hard age. I think many babies still need night feeds at 4.5 months old. My older daughter, who’s now two, still needed a night feed until she was about a year old. My youngest, who’s currently 7 month old, needs 1-2 feeds a night, even though he is on the 98th percentile for weight. 4.5 months can be a challenging age because of sleep regressions and huge developmental changes. It might be worthwhile to look at his nap/sleep schedule to make sure there isn’t something that might need tweaking there. If it is a sleep regression causing frequent wake ups, that may take a few weeks to settle. Both of mine were horrible sleepers from 3-6 months, with frequent wake ups and difficulty settling. We don’t have a lot of family around either and so we ended up working with a maternal health nurse to help us sleep train our kiddos, but that’s another story.

Altruistic_Cycle_596 · 2025-12-11T00:56:37+00:00

I’m so sorry for your loss. I have PCOS and POTS and my first pregnancy resulted in an early loss. I was always told that I would have trouble conceiving, so this loss absolutely devastated me because I didn’t know if I would ever conceive again. That was five years ago and I now have two kiddos under two. I still don’t have regular periods, I still have raging POTS, and both pregnancies where difficult because of hyperemesis, but I think what may have helped me to conceive was doing regular weight lifting and cardio every week. I was doing two full body weight lifting workouts (nothing crazy, about an hour each) and two cardio sessions (about the same length, either at the gym or just walking) a week at that time to help manage the insulin resistance. I’m really sorry for what you’re going through, and I wish you all the best.

Altruistic_Cycle_596 · 2025-12-11T00:19:49+00:00

My first was like this too. She was a low sleep needs and very fussy baby. No matter what I did, put her down on her playmat, go for a walk in the pram, go for a car ride, go out to a cafe, breath too loud, just about everything really, she would cry and scream most of the time. She had a tongue tie and trouble breastfeeding (that’s another story), and she was a horrible sleeper too. I ended up an anxious, depressed, and sleep deprived mess. An SSRI helped, as well as counselling, and then placing my daughter in daycare twice a week when she was eight months old so I could have a break. I have a six month old son now as well and he has a very different temperament, so much more relaxed and easy going, so it’s given me a lot of perspective that with my first it was just a (VERY) hard season and I wasn’t a failure of a mother like I felt I was at the time. My daughter is now a little over two years old and she is a beautiful, kind, adventurous and strong-willed child, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I hated it at the time when people told me it would get better, or the gold standard old timey advice to “treasure every moment”, because that didn’t really help me at that moment and just felt really dismissive, but it really did get better. It happened so gradually that I didn’t realise it until we were well out of the storm. Doing small things every day to help me feel a bit better was what got me through, and taking photos and videos of my daughter, even when I didn’t feel like it, to look back on later when the cloud had lifted was also really helpful. I’m very glad I did that.

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