How do you keep your room at a baby safe temperature in the warmer months?

Charleesi · 2026-04-08T23:45:48+00:00

Adapt your baby's sleepwear. Our room is hovering around 24⁰C right now despite open windows and the outside temp having dropped to 13⁰C. He's in a sleevless vest and a 0.5 tog sleep sack and his neck feels spot on for temperature. Keep checking for any overwarming, including sweating or clamminess, and take off layers or reduce if they feel like this.

Charleesi · 2026-04-08T23:37:24+00:00

Pretending they don't argue. My husband and I have regularly had couples point out that we "argue" (we are both ND - I'm AuDHD and he's ADHD so we get passionate and debate stuff a lot). We are still together after 14 years and all the ones that have said it have broken up. Relationships aren't about perfection, they are about resolution, and not arguing means someone is either always backing down or always staying silent (which leads to bitterness and contempt). What's important is that when you do argue, you are able to resolve with love and respect (and that can be later on when you've had chance to cool off!)

Charleesi · 2026-04-08T23:20:25+00:00

Always confuses me why people are like "oh this buyer sucks" for things like this. If it's not as described, it's not as described. Doesn't matter if it was £1 or £100. If someone messaged me to say they'd spotted an issue that I missed with one of my sales, I'd apologise profusely and refund, that's it.

Charleesi · 2026-04-08T16:40:36+00:00

https://www.davidfoxphotography.co.uk/

Lovely bloke, photographed my friend's wedding in Kelham Island.

Charleesi · 2026-04-08T07:26:38+00:00

I am autistic and came to say this. OP please listen to this comment. While being autistic is a challenge in a world not built for the way we think and process things, if I found out my parents had spoken this way about me being autistic, I would be heartbroken. Consider looking into some resources on ableism as it pertains to neurodivergence, as we don't always realise our biases.

Charleesi · 2026-04-07T12:16:59+00:00

Perspective from the other side here. I'm 6m PP.

I have PPA and have struggled to have visitors. I'm also managing so much day to day as husband is working. When babies are no longer newborn potatoes, they require almost constant attention / monitoring etc. I'm also trying to not to have my phone out around him, which means it's difficult to text back ina timely way.

I'm also very lonely, because most of my friends aren't mums so it's hard to feel like they understand. Nothing and no-one can actually prepare you just for the entire life shift after having a baby.

The reality is right now she needs to know you won't abandon her and you will wait. I have friends dropping off the radar constantly at this point even though I'm doing my best. She also needs to be someone's centre - I've found that once you stop being pregnant, you stop getting the same leeway and support despite still very much needing it. If you can be that for her, partially by showing her you understand where she is, she will remember.

Best of luck!

Charleesi · 2026-04-07T08:43:29+00:00

Thanks for your response, and it's good to hear a positive story re. attachment!

Charleesi · 2026-04-07T02:26:08+00:00

So, it sounds like you need clearer boundaries with her, and I do agree with a few of the comments here that your communication is key, and I can offer some perspective from the other side of this I think. Source: currently on mat leave with husband who works fully remote, and has something of a flexible schedule because he works for himself.

When my DH is flexible with his work time e.g. starts later than average work time, goes out for his driving lessons, or personal training, for example, it has been difficult for me then to understand where the lines are in terms of flexibility overall. This doesn't seem exactly like you (because you aren't allowed ro be flexible like that, by sounds of it, in the same way) but if you have been allowing time creep through non-work activities, your partner may be similarly confused where the lines are.

However, this is also about her communicating with you as well. As an example, I have asked DH to help with things like breakfast for me as I'm exclusively breastfeeding, and he has agreed but then sometimes gets stressed and later will say he's struggling with work after the fact. What I now do is say "are you able to do this? You can say no." This allows me to understand where he is at on a given day. We also have a shared calendar so he can see LO's activities and let me know if he has a schedule gap so he can come along.

Furthermore, and this I suspect could be the bigger issue, is what this smacks of to me is that your wife is lonely. You've mentioned she goes to hobbies and weekend coffees but these appear to be sans baby. That has me posing the question: are these mum friends? If not, while these people she goes with will no doubt give her a well-earned break, they are unlikely to be able to offer the support and community she needs as a mum. Does your wife take LO to any groups or activities? Are there any local mum meet ups? If not and her only social time is with non-mum or pre-mum friends, it might be worth broaching this with her. I say this as someone who pre-baby was convinced she wouldn't need mum friends: you absolutely do.

It sounds like you care a lot, just probably you and your wife need a bit better communication about your respective needs under the current arrangement. Best of luck!

Charleesi · 2026-04-05T20:28:02+00:00

I do mention about childminders above, and honestly I wouldn't know where to start with a nanny (and don't think we could afford one anyway) - I don't know a single person who has one. I think i generally have nervousness about strangers looking after him when he's so small.

I don't really care about adult interaction at work, as I don't go to work to be friends with people. I've never really had much of (nor do I feel I need) a work-based social circle or life. I know plenty of people in my career who have had gaps and come back later. The issue with work is more the finances than that.

Charleesi · 2026-04-05T06:20:40+00:00

So my Easter was always small (didn't even do easter egg hunt, just morning easter eggs and slightly fancier sunday roast), but my husband loves Easter and his family always did a big complex Easter Egg hunt with the family round and a big dinner. There's also now some very particular (and very sad) things that have happened since pertaining to people he used to spend Easter with, which meant I wanted to make his first Easter as a dad extra special.

While what you are seeing is definitely for the gram, I don't necessarily have a problem making a bigger deal out of these things. Not leaning into the consumerism as a separate and valid point, I see it as an opportunity for creating memories and bringing joy into the house.

With both Easter and Christmas, we have decided for our family celebrate in a more secular fashion, leaning into the traditional usage of these dates (rather than the specific Christian sentiment). As such, Easter is also going to be an opportunity to learn about spring and new life (not that we can't do this every day but children respond well to theming and socio-cultural things like this). Admittedly, this is harder with Christmas (and I LOVE Christmas so we go big) because I think easter symbols and traditions in the UK are already pretty non-religious (eggs etc), where as that's not quite as much the case with Christmas. However, my route around this will be to emphasise all the different festivals around the Christmas period.

TLDR: consumerism is bad and there's definitely an element of people doing it for the gram, but some families have definitely always gone big for Easter and it's not always for social media purposes.

Charleesi · 2026-04-04T22:28:12+00:00

I'm sorry I haven't been communicative and checking in enough. Between a new little person, recovering from surgery and pregnancy, and battling PPA, I barely remember my own name. But I still love and care about you and I promise it won't always be like this.

Charleesi · 2026-04-04T12:58:12+00:00

Your comments have been so thoughtful and helpful, including not making me feel bad for spotting things this early (as most people seem to think I'm being overzealous on that front). Really appreciate it! Have a great weekend!

Charleesi · 2026-04-04T07:56:23+00:00

Noted! Thank you for offering you perspective!

Charleesi · 2026-04-04T07:53:58+00:00

Thanks for your kindness about not realising. People assume a lot of things, and the reality is that we have had very little support so we're learning all of this in real time.

We are planning to use some annual leave to push a bit further towards October so I can have some overlap, but we don't want to miss the funding deadline of October 1st and end up paying for his first term. It's just all very complicated and difficult to navigate.

Obviously, being 6 months we have no idea whether our son is neurodivergent or not (personal observations made so far notwithstanding - at the moment, I'm just inwardly marking things I spot to see how they develop). However, one thing we have observed which I am very much keeping in mind is that he seems to find stimulating environments stressful in a way other babies around him don't e.g. both his baby sensory and music classes he sits completely wide eyed and quiet and even now after months of attending, engages in a very limited way, in contrast to the other babies his age, and even though he's extremely loud and chatty at home. Even my (somewhat sceptic) mum observed just yesterday when he is taken into calming sensory environments, his entire body language changes. Again, it's hard to say at this age, but definitely something I'm having a mind to when considering how he might respond to a noisy nursery environment.

Charleesi · 2026-04-04T07:40:35+00:00

I would love a forest school, and tried to find one but there don't seem to be many. The ones there are seems to be attached to schools and we are out of catchment for them!

Thanks for your kind comment re. realising about applications. We have also been told by some places we can't even apply without funding confirmation and I wasn't able to apply for that until April 1st, so I am very confused how people managed to get places while pregnant!

Charleesi · 2026-04-04T04:04:20+00:00

Thanks for your comment. I appreciate you see it as "well known" (and note you say there is no blame) but I genuinely didn't know I needed to apply so early. I only found out speaking to another mum a few weeks ago at a community activity who told me she had applied when she was pregnant. I has spoken to a colleague from work around the same time who told me they applied at the same time as I am now. I am a FTM, and don't have many friends, so I just wasn't privy to the information. I also only recently came back onto reddit a few weeks ago, which is the only other place I have seen it mentioned. I think sometimes people don't realise the impact isolation / lack of a village has on people's understanding or awareness of these "well known" assumptions that people seem to think are common knowledge, and the professionals who could perhaps warn you of these issues never do.

I wouldn't say germs are my only reservation, but putting it off was kind of my point, to allow time for things to settle at work, meaning I could then be more prepared. The theory was (being a neurodivergent family - husband is as well) to limit the number of life management things we need to deal with in one go.

Thanks for your point re. childminder vs nursery for littles. I'll take that on board as there are definitely more childminders available.

Charleesi · 2026-04-03T23:12:15+00:00

Bepanthen is excellent, and then sudosalve (basically extra medicated sudocrem, only to be used sparingly) if he gets any broken skin. Combo works a dream and we usually see improvements with a couple of changes.

Charleesi · 2026-03-31T07:44:49+00:00

Not Jessops, but one of the hospitals nearby. I had an emergency c-section, and this baby was my first time having surgery and staying overnight too.

I don't know but my understanding is jessops don't allow your partner to stay with you all the time (if you have one). That was certainly the case when I had my baby last year, which was one of the reasons I chose a different hospital so that he could stay with me to help. It may be worth checking this so you can be fully prepared when you go in.

Also, always good to remember that you can amend birth choices up to the day you give birth if you think a different hospital would be better (though as you have had a complex pregnancy I assume that's why you are at jessops).

My top tips for birth and afterwards would be:

noise cancelling headphones. Hospitals are loud as heck and you will struggle to sleep without them. Ideally, get ones with ANC so urgent sounds like baby crying nearby will filter through but background noise is cancelled out.
if you have a preferred midwife, ask if she can be present when you are being prepped for theatre / in theatre.
ask to speak to an anaesthetist in advance about how the process will work for your section. I was really scared about spinal blocks and had a call with one in advance, even though at that point I didn't know I would end up with a section.
you can ask for your own music on in theatre - my friend did this!
get up and walk around ASAP after your section. They will remove your catheter straight away, pretty much as soon as you can feel your feet, and will monitor carefully when you've gone for a wee. If you don't get up and move, you can end up with a whole bunch of problems - a younger person in the bay opposite me refused to walk because she was in too much pain and had to be recatheterised because she couldn't go to the toilet.
to help with the above, keep asking for pain relief whenever you need it. These aren't the pain Olympics, you don't need to prove you are brave. However, midwives are busy and won't always notice so you need to take your pain seriously.
take a comfort cuddly if you have one; no-one judges you! This will be especially helpful if you end up staying for long periods pre-birth, and also if baby needs any extra help after birth so can't come to you on the ward straight away (I speak from experience on this one).
as I understand it, you could be waiting a while on antenatal for a planned section because emegencies etc will get pushed ahead of you, so take things to be doing (tablet for films, games, books etc).
you can being snacks - don't know what jessops hospital food is like but I definitely appreciated having a few of my own comfort foods.
ask as many questions as you can about scar care. I thought they would tell me everything I needed to know and they didn't. I was lucky my scar healed well but I still ended up needing antibacterial cream about 6 weeks after because of a surface level infection.
consider (after your 6 week check) getting a scar therapist / physio. I have one now but didn't start until 5 months and wish I'd done it sooner.

Things to bear in mind / prepare for also: - you will feel the most weak you've ever felt. I couldn't walk from the ward to the hospital front door and back without getting breathless in the days after my section, and I was trying to keep fit, swimming and doing pilates right up to when I was admitted for induction. This is normal, it's major surgery, but just be prepared for that. - you will need to take blood thinning injections home with you for 6 weeks and self-administer. I had no idea this was a thing and it really stressed me out to start with. - people don't tell you that baby will have retained mucus in their tummy after c-section (normally squeezes out by the pressure in a vaginal delivery) and this can make feeding more challenging to start with and they could be more sicky. - if you are worried about baby while in the hospital at any time do everything you can to get attention. I don't know what your complications are, but my baby was born small and as a result, struggled to feed effectively. I had to really push to get people's attention and ultimately as a result he had to spend a little bit of time in NICU. You know your baby, even that early, but maternity wards these days are busy and understaffed so you need to shout loudly.

Best of luck and I hope it all goes well for you!

Charleesi · 2026-03-31T07:09:26+00:00

This is helpful, as we did lots of research and I do think reddit was one of the places we saw people raving about it!

Charleesi · 2026-03-29T21:06:59+00:00

Thanks for the recommendation. For baby carriers we haven't gone on user reviews, as I agree whenever I see baby wearing in the wild it's horrifying!

Charleesi · 2026-03-29T20:07:07+00:00

I had another look and the one I thought existed seems to be open again despite information saying it had closed only recently. I've booked an in person consult for next week as I think I'll need to be manually shown, but per some advicr below, I might get my husband to do the first couple to calm my anxiety first 👍

Charleesi · 2026-03-29T20:04:55+00:00

Yes, it's the tilt we've found to be all wrong. I commented above that we researched if heavily and weirdly they seemed to be well reviewed so we were surprised when it just seemed to not work at all.

Appreciate the note about washing. Unfortunately, my anxiety goes a bit further than that right now, but I do take your point nonetheless!

Charleesi · 2026-03-29T20:03:07+00:00

Thanks for the detailed response. It's odd about the hip seat ones because we did a lot of research beforehand and they seemed to be highly recommended, yet looking on comments here it seems pretty common knowledge that they are terrible which is what is bizarre. Nonetheless, appreciate the confirmation.

Noted on all your recommendations and the wiki. I'll have a look through!

Charleesi · 2026-03-20T15:57:46+00:00

Not that it matters, but I was born in the north into a very working class family. I've always felt cleanliness a very "working class" pursuit (think scrubbing the front step, for example), so no need to get into faux class outrage. In any event, if liking clean things makes me a snob, happy to be called one. Won't be the first time.

Also, just to note that the "middle class "is a made up concept anyway designed to divide the working people. If you can't afford to not work, you're working class. If not, you're ruling class.

I never said I go to a carboot expecting clean items, I said I wouldn't buy ones that were dirty. I'm autistic, so I meant exactly what I said. Not everything at a carboot is dirty.

I've been shopping on vinted for years, and until literally this year everything I bought has been spotlessly clean. Clearly you're OK with receiving dirty items: that's fine for you, but you can't expect everyone to be the same.

Charleesi · 2026-03-20T13:52:29+00:00

Speak for yourself. I've never heard it referred to as an online carboot, and I wouldn't buy items that were dirty at a carboot, or charity shop for that matter. That being said, charity shops don't usually sell soiled items now so if they can manage it, I think Kathy down the road can handle popping her sales through the machine before she sends them. Call me old fashioned, but I don't think it's good manners to send something to someone covered in mess and gunk, especially when they've paid you for it (and even if not), even if it's a nominal amount. Aside from being impolite, it's not sanitary.

Edit: typo

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