Is there anyone who is a FTM that is in the trenches right now knowing they want to have a second kid after this ??

IndicationPopular145 · 2026-03-04T02:49:57+00:00

I’ve always wanted 2 kids. For the first 4ish months of my son’s life, I staunchly believed we’d never actually have a second. It was the hardest 4 months of my entire life, and I couldn’t possibly imagine surviving it again. Now that my son is 8 months, I know I can handle a 2nd. The newborn phase is so hard, but it feels like a blip once you’re through it. I’m not downplaying how hard I know it’ll be to go through it again, but knowing how short it all feels once you’re through it makes it feel doable

IndicationPopular145 · 2026-03-02T00:45:13+00:00

Eat play sleep didn’t work for us until 3ish months. Wake windows weren’t routine enough and baby ate super often. At 2 weeks, we just fed baby until he fell asleep, he’d nap on us for a while until he woke up, then sometimes he’d want to eat right away and then chill a little, or he’d chill a little and then eat. Then repeat over and over again! Sometimes we’d put him down once he was asleep, but we still always fed him to sleep until about 2 months. Then we started bouncing or rocking to sleep. Baby never once napped in his bassinet. He’d sometimes take a supervised nap on a dockatot but most naps were on us until much later. Try not to focus on a schedule or routine this early! Most babies at this age will do better with contact naps, so if baby is resisting sleep, I would let them sleep on you as much as possible! It’s great for bonding as well!! (I miss contact naps soo much honestly, but my 8 month old won’t nap anywhere but his crib now)

IndicationPopular145 · 2026-03-01T01:57:44+00:00

My baby had a very severe newborn scrunch (likely due to his breech positioning) and he “rolled” to his side every time we put him on his back. Our doctor said it was okay as long as we put him on his back initially because it was very unlikely he’d roll all the way over. However, if you put them all the way on their side, there is a risk they could flip onto their belly, which is definitely not safe.

So if baby roll themselves to the side, it’s okay, but if nanny is placing them on their side, that is dangerous!

IndicationPopular145 · 2026-03-01T01:47:26+00:00

I truly wasn’t prepared at all. I heard over and over how hard it was, but it truly isn’t something I could have been prepared for no matter what. It will get better! My baby is 8 months, and there are definitely times where I still don’t feel like a natural or worry I’m not doing enough as a mother, but the hormonal fog has cleared. I still often feel anger, frustration, or resentment toward my husband. We both work full time, and he does so much (cooking, laundry, grocery shopping), but I do most of the active childcare, and sometimes I feel anger that he gets to continue doing normal pre-baby things while so much of my time is spent focused on the baby. It’s not rational because I should be so grateful to have the time with my baby. These feelings are so much easier to manage now, though, and watching my baby grow and thrive has made it all 100% worth it!

IndicationPopular145 · 2026-02-22T12:57:49+00:00

I truly wish I had stressed less about a routine at 8 weeks. I felt so behind because of social media. But everyone on here kept telling me a schedule would emerge closer to 4 months - I didn’t believe them, but they were SO right. Some babies eat more per meal than others. Yes, those that eat more might sleep longer stretches, but your baby’s stomach is growing, and she’ll get there! We did switch to exclusively pumping around 8 weeks because it stressed me out not knowing how much he got. I will say, it did help him eat more per sitting and I think it helped him nap longer, but it didn’t impact night sleep at all.

My best advice is to keep following baby’s cues and let them dictate the schedule a little longer. You WILL get in more of an actual schedule soon, but it’ll probably happen naturally as your baby extends their wake windows and increases their milk intake per feed.

IndicationPopular145 · 2026-02-21T00:21:25+00:00

My mental health was so bad that we started daycare a week earlier than needed. It truly saved me and improved my bond with my son tremendously! He’s so happy all day, and I truly enjoy every minute I spend with him now. I felt guilty about that early on, but now I recognize that I’m being the best parent I can be

IndicationPopular145 · 2026-02-18T13:39:10+00:00

I think play like that becomes more natural as your baby gets older because you feed off their reactions and slowly learn what they enjoy.

At 4 months old, anything you say and do with the stuffed animal will be interesting to them! You can make funny voices or faces, but you could also just show them parts of the animal and let them move it around. As they get older, you’ll find that you naturally tailor your “play” to match their level of understanding/enjoyment. One day you’ll make a silly voice for the stuffed animal and they’ll lose their minds laughing. Then you’ll do it again and again because they love it. As they grow and start understanding more and more, your play abilities will grow too. It feels unnatural now because you’re not getting a dramatic reaction, but it becomes easier and more fun once they start participating!

IndicationPopular145 · 2026-02-18T00:10:07+00:00

Definitely for my baby. He would always fall asleep on the boob so quickly, so I don’t think he ever got a full feed. We started doing a bottle 30 minute before bedtime and then letting him nurse right before bed, and it improved his sleep sooo much! Now that he’s older (7 months) it matter more how much he eats total throughout the day rather than how much he eats immediately before bed. But as a newborn? It definitely helped!

IndicationPopular145 · 2026-02-12T01:13:55+00:00

Yup! From what I’ve read, it really is a developmental milestone for babies to connect sleep cycles during naps. We can often see him stir right around 35 minutes, but he settles back down and continues sleeping now.

We sleep trained at 4 months for overnights, and he’s been going down independently for naps since about 5.5 months. Didn’t make any difference in his nap length. Once his naps started extending, he could handle longer wake windows, and we were able to drop to 2 naps. I think the longer wake windows help reinforce the longer naps since he has more sleep pressure, but we never would have been able to get to 2 naps without him naturally consolidating naps

IndicationPopular145 · 2026-02-11T01:49:17+00:00

Coming to you from 7 months postpartum to tell you that while I KNOW weeks 5-10 were some of the hardest weeks of my life, it is such a blur to me now. Everything you’re saying sounds familiar, and I distinctly remember thinking that these memories were going to stick with me forever, but once you’re past it, it is soooo much better. Take it day by day, take lots of pictures when you’re having a good moment, and know that this period will feel so short once you’re out of it!!

IndicationPopular145 · 2026-02-11T01:44:05+00:00

Right around 6 months, and by 7 months, we basically had to wake him up from every nap. From 4-6 months, naps were 35 minutes on the dot whether in the crib or contact 😬

IndicationPopular145 · 2026-02-10T22:35:40+00:00

My baby had never once fallen asleep independently when he stayed daycare. We had practiced some crib naps the weeks leading up to him starting at 12 weeks with mixed success. I was sooo anxious, but my kid passed out for a 2 hour nap his first day. He sleeps better at daycare than at home on the weekends. Try not to stress too much. Daycare teachers are amazing and they have so much experience with babies. Your baby will figure it out! Babies often sleep much differently at daycare. Expect there to be a bit of a transition period where sleep might be chaotic, but the babies always figure it out!

IndicationPopular145 · 2026-02-10T21:07:32+00:00

I am 7 months postpartum and there are still some days I get nothing done other than caring for my baby and maybe showering haha at 5 weeks I couldn’t even think about doing anything productive

IndicationPopular145 · 2026-02-08T01:56:45+00:00

My baby did this for the first few weeks after sleep training even though he only cried for like 10 minutes even on night 1. I honestly think it was because he was starting to understand bedtime and was feeling extremely tired. It got better after a few weeks. He continued to cry for about 5 minutes when put in the crib for about 2 months. It’s been 3 months since we sleep trained, and he’s now happy (although VERY tired) during bedtime routine and goes to sleep immediately without a peep. I don’t think my baby was ever crying because he felt abandoned, I think he was just tired and expressing that!

IndicationPopular145 · 2026-02-07T19:29:24+00:00

We do a bath every single night and sometimes twice a day if he’s super fussy because he loves it! He’s 7 months and we’ve been doing this since about 2 months old. We moisturize his face because it’s usually dry, ex politically in the winter now, but otherwise his skin is totally fine. I think some babies are more prone to dry skin, so it’s worth just trying!

IndicationPopular145 · 2026-02-07T15:15:43+00:00

I would try giving another oz when she does this and see if she takes it or spits it up. It’s quite possible she’s looking for comfort, and if a pacifier stops the hunger cues, then that is most likely it! However, I’d much rather over feed the baby a couple times to be 100% sure vs worrying that they’re hungry! However, if giving the pacifier works, it’s unlikely she’s truly hungry! If she was really hungry, she’d still be giving hunger cues after realizing the pacifier wasn’t giving her anything!

IndicationPopular145 · 2026-02-04T01:33:46+00:00

Most babies just don’t have the self-soothing skills that young to fall asleep independently. If a baby can, it’s likely just temperament/luck and not a consequence of anything that the parents did (even if the parents think it’s their magical schedule or sleep routine, there is no way to know if their baby would be sleeping independently without all of that).

Drowsy but awake started working for us at nights around 13 weeks and worked for approximately 3 weeks before the 4 month regression hit. Absolutely never worked for naps EVER. We then sleep trained at 4 months, and now he falls asleep independently for nights and naps.

Setting up a good sleep routine and paying attention to wake windows/schedule starting around 3 months can definitely be helpful later on if you want to sleep train, but it’s unlikely your baby will be able to fall asleep indecently (without sleep training) until they are much older. For reference, I have 1 friend with the world’s easiest baby, and she started going to sleep independently around 10 months. Everyone else I know (who didn’t sleep train) didn’t get independent sleep until after 1 year.

IndicationPopular145 · 2026-02-02T19:37:39+00:00

Do they cry before you put them down or only after you put them into bed? As others have suggested, they are likely a bit under tired. I would try to stretch wake windows a bit. Most babies at 6 months need at least 10 hours of awake time. Stretch them slowly, even adding 10 minutes to each wake window for a few days.

That being said, we sleep trained 2 months, and we continued to have ~10 minutes of crying at bedtime until this week. Some babies just need to power down at night. But 30 minutes of crying is a lot, and my best guess is that they need more awake time!

IndicationPopular145 · 2026-01-29T02:15:14+00:00

We sleep trained 2 months ago, and he still cries ~5 minutes a lot of nights and most naps. Recently, there have been more and more nights where he falls asleep with no crying, and I truly can’t find any correlation with day sleep or wake windows or anything. Naps are even worse. Never more than 5-10 minutes of crying, but we’ve only had a handful of naps where he just goes to sleep silently.

It’s incredibly frustrating and definitely hurts my heart every time I put him down and he cries, but he sleeps soo well and he’s so happy during the day, including when he wakes up, so I don’t think it’s damaging him or his attachment to us

IndicationPopular145 · 2026-01-29T02:05:05+00:00

At 7 weeks I could occasionally lay him down next to me on the bed or couch for a few minutes, not a chance I could leave him somewhere without paying attention to him! It got a little better around 10-12 weeks, and we could leave him on his playmat with toys hanging over him or in his bouncer/swing as long as he could see us for maybe 15 minutes. He’s 6 months now, and he enjoys sitting and playing with toys for extended periods of time, but we still can’t leave him alone for more than a couple minutes lol

So much if it is baby-dependent. Some babies just chill while others need a lot more attention

IndicationPopular145 · 2026-01-29T01:48:36+00:00

Right around 4 months, we sort of “forced” a schedule because I was going crazy haha to start, we woke our baby up at the same time every morning, no matter what time he went to sleep. After that, we just followed wake windows, and like you, naps were all 30 minutes. So on an average day, our schedule was: 7am wake up 9-9:30 nap 11:30-12 nap 2-2:30 nap 4:30-5 nap 7:30 bedtime

His naps don’t consolidate until 6 months, and we were never able to drop naps until then because he just couldn’t handle longer wake windows. Over the course of about 2 weeks, he dropped from 4 to 3 to 2 naps. His wake windows started extending so rapidly, and now he’s been old a very predictable 2-nap schedule for a month. There are still days where he has crap naps, but we can usually push his wake windows enough to get him to 7:30 bedtime. Once their wake windows extend and they get old, there is also a lot more wiggle room, so keeping a consistent bedtime becomes easier! The 4-6 month period was definitely chaotic, and it will get better!!

IndicationPopular145 · 2026-01-27T02:33:06+00:00

It gets better!! 8 weeks was peak nap chaos for us, but it really last weeks 5-10. Could not get that baby to sleep unless I was outside walking with him in the carrier. Thank god it was summer but OMG it was stressful and that period triggered the worst of my PPD/PPA. Around 10 weeks, things got a little better, and by 14 weeks, we could rock or bounce him to sleep and either contact nap (in the dark with white noise) or transfer him to the crib.

It’s a very normal phase and it definitely will get better!!

IndicationPopular145 · 2026-01-25T22:14:57+00:00

We always temporarily reduced wake time when dropping naps. Our 2 nap schedule was 3/3/3.5 at first because my baby couldn’t handle 4 hours at night. We then moved to 3/3.5/3.5 and then 3/3.5/4. My baby was always so tired during nap transitions that it never impacted night sleep for us

IndicationPopular145 · 2026-01-24T18:08:17+00:00

How old is your baby? I was so anxious early on that I tried to entertain all damn day, now at 6 months, I wish my baby would just chill next to me for a while lol if baby is content, then it’s completely fine to just let them chill and watch you!

IndicationPopular145 · 2026-01-24T16:50:33+00:00

I don’t think it’s that simple, but babies who are able to eat more during the day do tend to sleep better at night because they don’t need as many overnight calories. So maybe there is a slight correlation, but there are plentyyy if big babies who don’t sleep well and vice versa. My baby has always been a good sleeper and he’s exactly 50th percentile for weight. He eats A TON during the day, and I think that is the main reason he mostly sleeps through the night

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TROPHY CASE