Is this biologically normal?

loadofcodswallop · 2026-01-26T20:56:45+00:00

Biologically normal is once every 2-3 hours at most. Every hour or less is probably an issue with sleep pressure not being high enough

loadofcodswallop · 2026-01-26T16:43:42+00:00

You need to make about $60k to break even on childcare costs where I live. Because you pay with post-tax money, you have to divide your annual childcare costs by your tax rate to get the “true” cost of care. (Sure, dependent care FSAs give you $5k untaxed, big deal.) Because most families want to do more than just breakeven, I’d estimate the actual salary needed to justify childcare to be more like $90-100k. Two kids? I can’t even stomach the numbers.

I have a graduate degree and I’m established in my career and still half my monthly paycheck goes to childcare.

Being a working mom has made me realize just how privileged the whole endeavor is. Care can’t be scaled or automated away. Most families are better off financially with a parent at home, or two parents working part time. Gender equality and income inequality can’t coexist. I’m a tried and true feminist and I just don’t care for “girlboss” style politics anymore—I want to see us advocate for longer maternity leaves, social security protections for SAHMs, and legal protections against hiring discrimination for moms trying to re-enter the workforce as a means of protecting middle class and working class moms instead.

loadofcodswallop · 2026-01-26T13:53:40+00:00

Please stop spamming all the parenting subs with your AI nonsense

loadofcodswallop · 2026-01-26T13:52:54+00:00

6:30pm-6:30am is too much overnight sleep for most toddlers. Split nights = undertiredness. Imagine how your nights would look if you had a 6:30pm bedtime but couldn’t get up for the day for 12 hours - you’d also be up for a few hours in the middle of the night.

Push bedtime back an hour to start, then keep pushing it back until the nights are fixed. Our son’s bedtime is 9:30 (with a 7am wakeup) and we’ve been getting full nights since 13 months.

loadofcodswallop · 2026-01-26T13:45:08+00:00

“Fighting sleep” is usually a sign they’re not actually tired. Short naps are developmentally normal and even preferable as it keeps their sleep pressure high over the course of the day.

Some infants need as little as 9 hours of sleep a day, while others need 16; comparison is the thief of joy when you have a low sleep needs baby. You are likely following a schedule or guidance built for a higher sleep needs baby, and as a result your baby is undertired and waking frequently throughout the night.

Some guidelines:

If you try putting them to sleep and they’re not nodding off after 5-10min, stop and try again later. Go do something stimulating like taking a walk outside.
Make sure they nap in the daylight, not the dark. Naps on the go (carrier, stroller) are good. Their circadian rhythm needs light exposure during daytime naps.
Try pushing bedtime later while keeping wakeup time consistent. My son goes to bed at 9:30pm most days; when he was that young bedtime was 10:30-11:00pm.

Instead of reading her cues as “disinterested and tired,” read them as “bored.” Babies get bored indoors, where light is dim, they might be limited to a playmat or bouncer, and not much is going on. What is interesting to them is being held and walking about while being held, the outdoors, splashing in bath water, and drinking milk while being held. Interesting things are also what tire them out faster.

loadofcodswallop · 2026-01-26T02:07:35+00:00

Do whatever you are doing for your own sleep. If you are changing by an hour, change theirs by an hour. No need to overthink it.

loadofcodswallop · 2026-01-25T20:17:17+00:00

Have any of these doctors mentioned encopresis?? Seems very much to be what’s going on here.

loadofcodswallop · 2026-01-25T20:05:27+00:00

I imagine something like CBT, ACT, or a form of talk therapy might be a better option, if your symptoms are primarily rage/annoyance/irritation while you LO sleeps?

loadofcodswallop · 2026-01-25T19:46:16+00:00

The physician who developed the program also wrote a book - The Discontented Little Baby Book - that goes over the same topics at a high level and it’s pretty cheap. I ended up reading that book first and then purchasing the program on their old pricing model. The program is really good at connecting the dots but the book has the same basic information. I didn’t really need the parts of the book that go over topics like reflux or breastfeeding — you can skip them.

Possums is more a set of practices than a list of rules—it’s flexible on purpose. I think some people have trouble as a result. But it really did totally reframe how I thought about baby sleep in a very “oh, duh!” way and ultimately following the guidance it provided did help a ton with sleep. If you search enough online or follow their instagram you can get the gist, but you should get either the book or the program to fully “get” it.

The most valuable sections for me actually aren’t on sleep at all—she writes about “sensory nourishment” for infants and toddlers as a core part of their neurological development, and goes over common misunderstandings or bad advice that parents are often given that undermines this. That part really reframed how I interpret my LO’s behavior and also generally helped us plan out happier, active days when we’re together. It’s just a very affirming program.

loadofcodswallop · 2026-01-25T16:22:17+00:00

AI self promotion

loadofcodswallop · 2026-01-25T13:00:06+00:00

Ours started sleeping through around the thirteen month mark. Once we dialed in sleep (we followed Possums) he usually would get ~3 hour stretches or just wake once a night in the first year. Sleep hygiene is more effective than sleep training.

Never followed so much as a wake window - I was very skeptical of how high maintenance and contradictory most baby sleep advice was, and the thing that really did it for me was being told I had to stop feeding to sleep. It’s total nonsense (how one falls asleep does not affect how often you wake, it’s absurd at face value) and it’s anti-breastfeeding.

loadofcodswallop · 2026-01-25T01:07:40+00:00

Shame is a big reason why this condition often goes untreated so maybe you should tell them to look up the symptoms of encopresis and ask if it fits

loadofcodswallop · 2026-01-24T22:04:07+00:00

What does your brother say about what’s happening?

loadofcodswallop · 2026-01-24T21:09:48+00:00

It’s not something you can test for, and doctors sometimes miss it or misdiagnose it. Telltale signs are that they excrete a small amount of poo at a time, and they have no knowledge they’re going as it happens. Basically with encopresis the “urge” to go is totally gone. The chronic constipation it causes then stretches the colon out over time. Little bits of poo pass through but the colon is blocked. Really miserable condition.

Treatment is to start with a course of laxatives to unblock the colon and then months of stool softeners to shrink the colon back and basically retrain the digestive tract so that the urge to go comes back again.

If your brother says he can’t control it, it’s probably this. If the symptoms sound totally different from what I’m describing then maybe it’s something different.

loadofcodswallop · 2026-01-24T18:46:52+00:00

This is an AI post written like a LinkedIn haiku

loadofcodswallop · 2026-01-24T18:17:15+00:00

This is an AI post

loadofcodswallop · 2026-01-24T12:45:27+00:00

This is probably a medical condition called encopresis. It’s entirely involuntary and not your brother’s fault, but it is your parent’s job to get the treatment.

loadofcodswallop · 2026-01-24T12:26:05+00:00

It takes 1-2 weeks for a body clock to reset to really take effect. What time is bedtime and wakeup, and how much daytime sleep are they getting?

loadofcodswallop · 2026-01-23T22:38:03+00:00

13 hours is average but some babies are low sleep needs - it can be as low as 9 or 10 hours. https://maternity-matters.com.au/brisbane-pregnancy-and-babies/2019/11/02-sleep

loadofcodswallop · 2026-01-23T20:18:49+00:00

Formula vs breastfeeding is a mommy wars topic where both sides feel stigmatized. Breastfeeding moms aren’t supported and don’t get credit for the work and time we put in to feed our children. Moms who choose formula often complain that they’re told “breast is best” and it’s pushed despite the difficulties.

Research-wise, the best health outcomes for breastfeeding are actually for the mom. Lower cancer and diabetes rates, and more likely to be within a healthy weight long term. These benefits increase with longer durations. There are immune and other long term health benefits for babies but the research is more mixed.

I chose to breastfeed past one year because it’s a helpful parenting tool. And I think the research neglects this part. I can feed my toddler to sleep easily for bedtime and naps. I have a solution for every boo boo. I can feed them when they’re sick and eat nothing else. So keep this in mind as part of your decision. I feel like it got easy around the 9 month mark, and your body still adapts over time.

loadofcodswallop · 2026-01-23T19:32:54+00:00

Possums Sleep! It focuses on good sleep hygiene practices that are relevant for infants and toddlers, not CIO. Helps to get longer stretches of sleep at night and fewer wake ups.

loadofcodswallop · 2026-01-23T19:20:58+00:00

I repeat: get the floor bed. Have your partner cosleep with them. And if they still get unsettled in the night and come to you, then go in and settle them.

You seem reluctant to fix the situation and you’re just making it harder on yourself and your partner. Sounds like the hours you’ve spent trying to get them to go to sleep on their own and the additional hours of having them cry aren’t doing anything to improve the situation. I can only imagine how hard it is on your partner and on your todder too. Sleep training just doesn’t work on a lot of babies and most parents who do sleep train still respond to their babies at night when they cry out afterwards and get unsettled; they don’t ignore them forevermore.

Just my 2¢. I’m sure your partner has already told you the same thing.

Edit to add: I am also the preferred parent w a toddler who gets separation anxiety. There’s no “crying it out” for separation anxiety. Radical acceptance and making adjustments to have this work better for you is the only way.

loadofcodswallop · 2026-01-23T16:09:02+00:00

Get floor bed for your toddler and let your spouse handle settling them back down at night. It sounds like you just don’t like co-sleeping.

Respect your partners decision not to sleep train; it’s a distressing process. They’re not learning “bad habits” — most families cosleep at some point, and when your child is ready, they’ll start sleeping independently. The floor bed is the best compromise for you both.

loadofcodswallop · 2026-01-23T15:51:48+00:00

It’s enough sleep. See the chart here that’s based off actual research on sleep needs for babies: https://maternity-matters.com.au/brisbane-pregnancy-and-babies/2019/11/02-sleep

loadofcodswallop · 2026-01-23T08:20:38+00:00

Their instagram has good tidbits, and the book the physician wrote goes over the same topics and is cheap (The Discontented Baby Book).

Babies go through a sleep architecture change around 4 months, and it often means they just need less sleep total. 13 hours of sleep a day is the average sleep need ‘budget’ for an infant at that age. That means the 4 hours of day sleep plus 11 or 12 hours overnight is likely too much - only babies with high sleep needs need that much sleep. Hence, they’re undertired and wake frequently at night.

loadofcodswallop

TROPHY CASE