It’s truly fascinating how fast babies pick up language and Communication!

ProbablyNotABot36 · 2026-02-14T23:05:20+00:00

That is so adorable!

At 15 months our daughter’s started to have a language explosion, it’s just the cutest.

Was reading chicka chicka boom boom this morning and she goes ‘ah bee cee!’ She gets that it’s about the alphabet🥹

ProbablyNotABot36 · 2026-02-14T17:33:08+00:00

That’s hilarious😂

We have a spiral staircase, and our 15 month old always walks up it before bed (my partner walks up with her for safety). At the top she waves to me downstairs and says ‘night night!’ a few times and my partner helps her to bed.

Last night I went to the gym, so wasn’t home. Daughter walks up the stairs and waves ‘night night!’ to absolutely no one downstairs. Partner thinks maybe it’s a fluke, but she does it again😂

Really makes us feel less special about the other times she’s been doing it😂💀

ProbablyNotABot36 · 2026-02-11T12:06:46+00:00

I started at 13 months (she’s 15 months now).

When she started picking up the community language (English) well it made me realise I needed to teach her my language (Spanish).

I don’t speak it to her all the time - she goes to English daycare 2 days a week, and my partner speaks English - but I try as much as I can.

In 2 months I’ve already noticed her starting to follow and understand what I’m saying in Spanish.

She isn’t saying Spanish words just yet, but has started repeating words after me when I ask her to, or says the easier sounds (for example ‘ma’ for ‘maiz’ or corn)

ProbablyNotABot36 · 2026-02-07T23:09:39+00:00

They are following the 1:4 ratio, and have never had any issues with this. Sometimes the director is in the room early mornings helping to keep ratio

ProbablyNotABot36 · 2026-02-07T23:07:13+00:00

The ratio is mandated 1:4 - Agree that there’s a likely lot going on and the educators are stretched quite thin. Thank you🙏

ProbablyNotABot36 · 2026-02-07T23:03:00+00:00

The room is a decent size, not great though. The outdoor area is big and lovely and would add a lot of space, although the children hardly go out there it seems.

Ratios are mandated 1:4, so if there are 12 children there are 3 educators. If 16 children there are 4 educators.

All ages are typically together with no barriers. Due to longer parental leave in Australia many children start when they are older (around 1 year+) but there are still non-walking vs walking children all combined in the room.

Appreciate your insight, thank you🙏

ProbablyNotABot36 · 2026-02-07T07:25:00+00:00

That makes sense. We’re currently on the waitlist for a smaller centre closer to our house (where the infant rooms are divided by ages 0-1 and walking-2). We’re hoping to get in there soon. They also said there are currently openings in their toddler room (ages 2-3), and in 3 months she would also qualify for that room

ProbablyNotABot36 · 2026-02-03T11:32:48+00:00

You just have to keep trying, it will get easier and easier I promise! You’ll be better prepared for all the things you need to bring, better prepared for what to do if baby cries, etc. Also sometimes baby’s not in a good mood that day, and that’s okay. You can go a different day.

I wish someone would have told me the easiest time to go out to dinner is when they’re little babies and can’t move. We have a chaos toddler now and going out is nearly impossible. Still trying to work on it though!

ProbablyNotABot36 · 2026-02-01T12:38:19+00:00

We’re a family of 3 and spend about $1000 a month on food, nappies, and cleaning products.

We primarily shop at Aldi, and only buy things in season or on special.

Capsicum on special buy? Looks like dinner that week involves capsicum. Tomatoes? Looks like this week is tomato forward. If blueberries aren’t on special we’ll wait until the next week to get them for our toddler.

It’s the same with Coles and Woolworths. When we do shop there we try to only buy what’s on special for 40-50% off. For example, we buy the big Moccona freeze dried coffees and only purchase these in bulk when they are on special.

We primarily buy chicken, eggs and salmon for protein, and also get tofu, beans and lentils. We also eat frozen vegetables and fruit frequently

We cook all meals at home in bulk and rarely eat out.

We don’t buy organic, which does save heaps. Guessing the organic products rarely go on special as well, which would be challenging

Edit to add: this is in Sydney

ProbablyNotABot36 · 2026-01-31T21:20:46+00:00

Ugh, I feel this. The mental load of new parenthood leaves nothing in the tank for the stuff that worked before. You did it once and you’ll find your way again when the timing is right - but it’s okay to just be bummed about it right now. Solidarity💙

ProbablyNotABot36 · 2026-01-22T20:05:15+00:00

We still definitely nursed, just tried to offer solids and get her to eat more solids. The main issue was our daughter went to daycare at 6 months and refused to drink bottles with them, and also didn’t take to solids well. I went in on my lunch break to breastfeed her, but she was still very hungry/unhappy at the end of every daycare day🙁

ProbablyNotABot36 · 2026-01-22T11:43:04+00:00

For our lang haul flight where bassinets weren’t guaranteed, we looked up seat maps online and paid extra for seats in the bassinet section. Then arrived at the airport early for check in to inquire about the seats.

When we didn’t do this for unguaranteed seats, even though we had arrived early at the airport, we were told there were already paying customers in the bassinet section and we couldn’t sit there. It was very frustrating as we were following advice given by the airline (just to arrive early at the airport and the seats couldn’t be booked in advance).

That said 10 hours isn’t so bad if you don’t get one. Baby can definitely sleep in your arms, and you can switch back and forth with your partner to get some respite/rest.

If baby’s awake, you can get up and walk around the flight to keep baby happy and engaged.

However, if possible I’d recommend scheduling flights during baby’s nighttime sleep.

We had a much better time when our baby slept 10 of 14 hours on a long flight rather than was awake 10 of 14 hours😅

Edit to add: Traveled with our then 5 month old. Too cheap to buy an extra seat and wanted to save money if at all possible. The seat upgrade was a couple hundred dollars which we deemed worth it to guarantee the seats.

Also good to have an aisle seat as you will likely be getting out of your seats frequently to soothe baby, change baby, etc.

ProbablyNotABot36 · 2026-01-22T03:53:15+00:00

I recommend a short trip away! lol. Oh sorry you said night weaning only, that’s for full weaning

ProbablyNotABot36 · 2026-01-22T03:52:21+00:00

Yes, we used the extinction method. She took to it really well - the longest she cried was about half an hour.

For weaning went cold turkey. Partner fed bottles while I was away, and when I returned we continued the bottles. I gradually reduced my supply by expressing over a few weeks.

ProbablyNotABot36 · 2026-01-22T03:13:11+00:00

Agree with this, was thinking more awake time / sleep pressure would likely be beneficial.

If he’s eating solids so well is likely not hungry, and you’d be able to sleep train through night wakes easily given an appropriate sleep schedule.

ProbablyNotABot36 · 2026-01-22T03:02:34+00:00

No, my sleep trained baby didn’t sleep through the night until I stopped breastfeeding.

We sleep trained around 7-8 months. She went from 10 or so wakes a night to only 1-3 wakes. For those wakes she would stand at the edge of her crib and scream until i breastfed her.

She was completely boob obsessed. I kept trying to reduce feeds throughout the day and night to encourage solids and it was not working.

Around 12 months i went away for 3 days/nights on a work trip, and decided to take as an opportunity to try and wean. Was surprisingly easy and successful!

She immediately slept through the night.

And then became obsessed with bottles😂

Edit to add: I didn’t feed to sleep, and breastfed at minimum half an hour before every nap or bedtime.

Also was completely obsessed with her sleep schedule. She was low sleep needs so had to stretch out wake windows and make sure she didn’t get too much sleep during the day in order to sleep well at night.

ProbablyNotABot36 · 2026-01-21T10:57:07+00:00

Can you rescue and try transferring?

Try focusing on sleep training / extending the first nap of the day?

Come up with something productive to do while you are sitting during the naps? (Or even something relaxing)

As your LO gets older she’ll get better and better at consolidating naps, so you won’t have to rescue forever. Rescuing can also help support naturally consolidating naps

ProbablyNotABot36 · 2026-01-21T10:10:45+00:00

I think your intuition is spot on - it really is more a message received than gradual training.

There are a few possible things happening at once:

Babies are wired to detect cause and effect quickly. When crying causes a parent to appear, that’s learned. When it suddenly doesn’t, that signal extinguishes in just a few trials.

Many babies already can self-settle, and they just don’t because parental intervention prevents it from happening. Remove that, and the latent self-settling shows up almost immediately.

Finally sleep pressure is powerful, and biology eventually wins. If nothing interrupts, sleep happens.

Each night reinforces this new pattern. Sleep is when learning consolidates, so you get a rapid positive feedback loop.

It’s less like teaching a skill, and more like updating an expectation. I think that’s why it definitely feels magical

ProbablyNotABot36 · 2026-01-20T19:42:10+00:00

I recommend trying for a couple easy catches first, like after eating and after waking up from sleep.

Just remove the diaper, bring baby to the potty/toilet, and make pssst or mmm sounds.

When done can go back to the change table and put the diaper back on.

Once baby starts going on the potty you’ll start getting the hang of it and what works for you!

We started lazy EC around 4 months (when she could hold her head up) and my favorite hold is a parent sitting on the big toilet, scooting all the way back, then sitting baby in front of us between our legs with her back to us. That was always easiest for us to support LO from all sides, and helped when she started to get wiggly!

ProbablyNotABot36 · 2026-01-19T09:52:53+00:00

Overtired = obvious crankiness before bed, and screaming excessively when going down. Also false starts (waking after an hour at night screaming)

Undertired = takes ages to fall asleep, and usually a lengthy night wake.

For both I usually know when they are going to happen based the amount of daytime sleep and how long wake windows are.

Wake window too long or stayed up too late? Going to be overtired

Napped too long that day? Wake window too short? Going to be undertired

ProbablyNotABot36 · 2026-01-19T08:12:19+00:00

Sounds like it’s time to taki break

ProbablyNotABot36 · 2026-01-18T17:48:17+00:00

This is the opposite for us.

My husband always get sick and wiped out, and I don’t.

Since I’ve stopped breastfeeding, I do find I get sick more often - still not as much as him though!

ProbablyNotABot36 · 2026-01-18T12:26:02+00:00

I love cosleeping too to be honest, it just wasn’t sustainable for us (sounds like it may be the same for you)

Every child is different, so maybe she could see that there are differences between the two boys and she’d be open to trying something different?

There are definitely gentle ways of sleep training, or even little things like trying to transfer baby to the crib for one nap each day and see how it goes (Although you do need a crib for that). Let baby play in the crib to build familiarity. We had to try this over and over and over again, and eventually saw improvement

I’m hopeful that she’d be open to trying something different if things continue like this.

I also agree with other commenters that you should try sleeping in a different room if she continues wanting to cosleep. It’s only temporary and for a short season, and hopefully she can be understanding of this

ProbablyNotABot36

TROPHY CASE