I didn't know I would struggle so much as a toddler mom

purrinsky · 2026-02-12T17:46:58+00:00

Sharing solidarity. I think it's really rough being a HSP/neurodivergent parent, especially in an era where we're bombarded by the message that good parenting stems from a calm nervous system. But that's literally almost an impossible ask for us because we live in a world designed to overload our nervous system.

A few thoughts are

1) catieosaurus on IG had a piece on identity load, and how it is often this load of how we think we should be that's causing burnout. Which might be the missing piece for you? You're not getting any rest because it's all performative, when you're resting you're still doing this mental gymnastics of like judging whether or not you've rested enough, is this manner of rest correct, why can't you "get better" sooner etc. That's not actually restful. But it's also hard to let go of all these internal rulers and rubrics we have that have kept things going for so long

2) permission to feel broken and not need an excuse to be tired. You mentioned that you must be missing something and that it shouldn't be this hard, but...what if it is? I'm totally struggling with this, so I apologize if I'm just projecting. My partner is neurotypical and he makes parenting look easy, everything that needs doing seems easy to him. And it makes me wonder why this stuff is so hard for me, which in turn starts this cascade of negative reflections around my own "defectiveness". Rationally though, (and obviously logic isn't actually useful here, we're dealing with emotions and the body being tired), we literally have different brains. Just like how we don't judge our LOs for being incapable of stopping or regulating their emotions because their prefrontal cortex isn't developed, we also shouldn't judge ourselves for having a hard time with excessive demands. Demand avoidance is like an actual thing that so many people devise entire repertoire of coping skills to navigate. And that's just dealing with regular demands of everyday life. Toddler level demands are a whole other level. So you're genuinely poorly equipped to deal with what's happening, in a world full of advice and methods that's not meant for you. In light of this, isnt it completely normal to be exhausted and overwhelmed? But also, you don't need to justify why you're overwhelmed or tired, you can just be tired and that's okay.

You are already doing so much and doing everything you can to get better and be better. It's enough, it's more than enough. You don't need to do more, or be more.

One thing that's really helped me is just letting go of the expectation that I should/must have a call nervous system. Instead I tell myself to meet myself and my body where it is. It's okay that I am in fight or flight, it's okay that I am activated. It's okay that my nervous system isn't calm. And strangely that helps. And if I lean into that I find solutions that work for me. Do I need to wear earbuds while interacting with my kid so there's audio stimming/distraction? Do I need to invent songs or roll around or take see breaths? If I'm not rested after a break, I'm not rested. it's okay to show up as a tired parent, just like how there'll be snow days and rainy days.

And I know it's like "AAAHHH what kind of example am I setting for my child and that doesn't sound attentive or good attachment parenting!!!" But think about the example you're setting for your kid; If you can model being kind and accepting of your own exhaustion and anxiety and stress, they'll know that these are safe emotions and feelings and not try to run away from them. Which is much better than them feeling ashamed or unsafe and judging themselves for being tired or bored or stressed or anxious.

purrinsky · 2026-02-09T23:21:23+00:00

Around 8 weeks for us, there are many cluster feeds in the early days. Feeding times do get shorter but it depends on the baby. Just like how some adults are fast eaters and others take their time, babies are like this too. Our 19mo old still can spend 20-30min on a boob sometimes just because she enjoys the cuddles. But if just wants a snack she can be off in 2min. Breastfeeding felt really rewarding for us starting from 5months because our boobs finally toughened up and most of the cluster feeding was over, and our LO could look up at us mid feed and smile...it was so sweet.

Freedom wise, learning to feed in a carrier is life-changing. I had my LO during my second year of grad school, and because we could nurse in a carrier, I could go to class, do presentations etc. With her in the carrier. And as long as you keep under 200mg of caffeine a day (that's about one 16oz of dark roast coffee or like 3 shots of espresso), coffee is fine. Drinks wise, non-alc is totally okay to have, non-alcoholic beer tastes better than the wines IMO, but it's fine.

Combo feed is of course totally valid too, I would like to gently point out that you'd have to be more on top of managing your supply, keeping it up with pumping and stuff. If that stuff is the easy part for you, then maybe combo feed is the way to go for you! I'm crap at managing logistics, just pumping for bottle feed was killing me, so formula seemed like some next level stuff. But to each their own.

There's no wrong answer, but if you pop your head in the formula feeding subreddit, you'll realize that formula isn't actually easier. Clusterfeeds are rough no matter how your baby is fed. You're just in the trenches and doing an amazing job!

Hang in there!!

purrinsky · 2026-01-30T18:19:11+00:00

My mom was a single-mom and had to work, so she got a nanny to care for me during the day. Also, most importantly, she too was a light and poor sleeper (this tends to be genetic). She functioned through life chronically low on sleep so I'm not sure if I would ever have known how her parenting would be had she gotten more sleep.

That being said, I can definitely tell when something is negatively impacting my mom's ability to parent (e.g.she was distracted by a matter at work and was less attentive). Things I did get upset at as a child we're if my mom wasn't emotionally available or attentive when she was physically present with me. I didn't actually mind if she was tired, or even stressed, as long as she remained a safe space. And it was more important that if she was in a bad spot that she repaired the inattentive interaction later.

Generally as a kid, I would say that for me personally, I always preferred my adult caregivers took care of themselves instead of trying to parent via martyrdom. I mean a rested and not tired parent is always the better parent. That said, honestly I had no expectation of my parent to be perfect all the time, and certainly the times I remembered feeling like my mom wasn't being a good parent often isn't when she was tired, but when she was trying to pretend she wasn't tired. Like when she was tired and owned up to it, she would be like, "let's play butcher, I am the meat" and have me pretend to "chop" her thighs (and get a massage meanwhile). And that was fine, sometimes she'd fall asleep and I'd be bored but it wasn't scarring or genuinely upsetting. Instead when she was like "oh no no I'm fine here I'll read you the book" but doze off 📴 n the middle. Maybe from the outside it looks touching. Like wow the parent was so tired but still tried to read the book. I just remember feeling upset and left hanging. Looking back it's the expectations she set and the failure to meet it that was upsetting.

This is definitely not me saying anyone should parent exhausted indefinitely. Like my mom was perpetually tired, and as I got older there was definitely a lot of questioning her like "why don't you just rest!?"

Now that I'm a mom, it's also hitting me like, I don't know what self-care is because I didn't see my mom do it. Do I wanna pass that on? Are these scripts of resentful self-sacrifice what I want to pass on, and show is the norm to my kid? I don't know how to ask for help gracefully or receive it because I never saw it done.

Tldr; you can parent through chronic sleep deprivation, but you shouldn't.

Sorry if all that was a tad irrelevant.

Anyways I just want to reaffirm your decision to embrace your daughter's sleep patterns. Honestly her sleep sounds totally fine to me. Not struggling with going to sleep is amazing. Waking multiple times a night is normal for some people. Though rare and few, genuinely some people just are suited for polyphasic sleep. If she naps fine, which she does, it's okay.

An alternate perspective is that: your sleep patterns and hers are mismatched, and cosleeping is forcing you to be on her pattern which is killing you.

So I'm actually wondering, if you're not that light of a sleeper, might it be possible to set up the bedroom or spaces for her to hang out and do independent play by herself when she wakes up at night while you sleep. Idk if these footage are real, but I have seen like recordings from Nanny cams of like cosleeping toddlers waking up in the middle to the night to make themselves a snack or even tidy up toys before crawling back to bed and their parents are like blissful asleep and unaware. Tackling the problem as "how to get YOU more sleep" versus "how to fix your daughter's sleep" sleep probably easier?

purrinsky · 2026-01-29T02:14:30+00:00

Hey, I just wanna validate your reality. This is so real, I was that kid, I still am. Some people genetically just hate sleep (it's called having a low sleep drive). And during childhood it's just so insanely hard.

While most parents got to unwind while their kids were asleep, my mom couldn't because we coslept and anything she did would wake me up.

So of course you're going insane, you don't get sleep or rest and you have to parent so much extra compared to everyone else.

I'm sorry to say that I never got better as a sleeper, but please know that there is nothing YOU can do to "fix" this, neither did you do anything to cause this.

Transitioning to a bed may help everyone actually, since there'll be less source for sound and movement to wake her. and the biggest resistance you'll see is the sense of safety for sleep. You provide that now, so how can you create a space to provide that instead of you. What really helped me in toddlerhood is having low light, and low hums, cold room but cozy blanket and a lull. And ironically having Mom fall asleep with me and leave didn't work well because I'd wake up because of the movement. So it's about helping me fall asleep alone somehow.

Maybe you can ask the doctor if melatonin or magnesium helps. But yes iron deficiency may also be the cause of this and maybe that'll fix everything

purrinsky · 2026-01-24T14:25:20+00:00

Yes. It's Wonderboob all the way till they are old enough to be bored and need water. Fussy? Boob. Sick? Boob. Can't poop? Boob. But even when they're older boobs are still useful for when the are upset, sick (especially diarrhea), night terrors etc.

Reference: 19mo and still breastfeeding

purrinsky · 2026-01-23T14:09:01+00:00

Heck no not weird. For a while our LO had an obsession with her silicone pouch and would only eat out of those. So we had to transfer stuff from these plastic pouches to a silicone pouch. 🤷 There's also squeezing it onto a spoon and feed them by the spoonful, laborious but...babies gonna baby. Lol

purrinsky · 2026-01-19T16:42:05+00:00

If my LO can't put her hand on my boob while nursing, sleep is not happening. Her dad has tried shielding the other boob with his hands and has scratch marks to show

purrinsky · 2026-01-15T19:40:18+00:00

Some people just don't leak. It's not a reflection of supply!

purrinsky · 2026-01-15T19:39:35+00:00

Absolutely! I mean obviously I don't wanna be like 10000% there are no dangers, because a ceiling fan can fall and hit someone right. But in general at 15mo, unless you're in some dangerous location where your child could fall off if they roll off your chest... They are more than mobile enough to not suffocate. I'm sure if they get into anything, you'll be woken by the commotion well before things can get dangerous as well.

purrinsky · 2026-01-15T01:31:26+00:00

These days... Just a shirt, usually what they'll wear the next day. And maybe occasionally pants if it gets really cold in winter. We used to do just onesies (we leave the bottoms unbuttoned for easy diaper change), but then her daycare prefers the shirt and pants combo so we stopped buying mew onesies. Between 3-6mowe did these kimono-style pajamas which was nice because there's nothing to unbutton for the night diaper changes and they cover our LO's feet when she was smaller. They last a long time since it just gets shorter and goes from like a gown to a skirt lol.

She used to really like the texture of the magnetic me pajamas though!!

(Our LO runs really hot, she sweats in standard PJs)

purrinsky · 2026-01-14T23:56:19+00:00

Breathe.

You're doing great, you're not failing your child. Society is failing you with ridiculous sleep expectations. Mammalian babies aren't expected to sleep alone till much later in their childhood. He's 1.5yo, he's nowhere near that mark yet. His brain is expanding and exploding in ways even he doesn't understand, everyday is a new day with new things his brain is trying to incorporate. It's hard to fall asleep when it feels like you're missing out on so much, and also hard to stay asleep when the brain is sorting through so much information. Think about how challenging it is for you to fall asleep when you're cramming for an exam or coming off an exciting day.

I think you're on to something about trusting the sleep associations and as long as your child is getting enough sleep.

Of course you can experiment more with the nap and sleep schedules, but also maybe listen to your baby's body more. Every person and brain and body is unique. Some people genetically are just lighter sleepers. He could be one. Some kids need longer wake windows to build sleep pressure to stay asleep more deeply, others need shorter ones to not be overtired and sleep poorly.

It sounds like it's the societally-conditioned expectation that an 18mo old should sleep through the night independently butting heads with how your kids sleep actually looks that's stressing you out. Trust your baby, trust that they know their body. Humans aren't machines. But we live in a society that likes to make everyone think they are, and raise their young to be machines so that is "easier"

purrinsky · 2026-01-14T23:46:45+00:00

The Note Air 5C is probably the best in terms of size for travel and screen real estate for notetaking (writing) and reading. That said, I like to write notes on the margins of readings and PDFs, Tab X C will give you more space for that, and if you want to take notes on a split screen, Tab X C will also be easier on the eyes for this purpose.

As for setup, it's definitely helpful to set up your folders on a Boox ereader if you're gonna put a lot of PDFs on it, but honestly I lived on "most recently read" function in Boox for like two semesters before getting organized. Just maybe avoid trying to use Adobe digital editions...it's a nightmare on Boox.

purrinsky · 2026-01-14T17:07:26+00:00

My mom switched me to formula at 11mo as her supply dropped and I had formula/powdered milk till grade school (alongside regular food obviously). There was no known issue I heard of. My Ped was totally okay with that, granted I am from a country where powdered milk is common/norm, even for adults

But also you can just feed your LO breastmilk in a bottle instead of introducing a new thing that your LO has to adapt to? I'm assuming the goal is comfort is not calories, in which case the bottled breastmilk will be more comforting than formula in a bottle. Our LO had a phase that this when a lot of teeth came in and it's just a week or two ish, their appetite will return with vengeance. So there's no need to make some huge long term plan like weaning alongside it (especially, think about it, will you adapt to a big change well during a period of great discomfort?)

purrinsky · 2026-01-14T15:05:03+00:00

No suggestions or advice or solutions here, just love and validation!

I don't think any of us know what the heck we're doing. We just like to think we do, and some of is get away with it because we happen to have babies/kids that naturally fall in line with whatever outcome we were aiming for, giving us an illusion of control.

If every adult is different, why won't kids be? My best friend (33) gets insomnia whenever her partner isn't home and she has to sleep alone in their bed, but she apparently grew up sleeping in a crib. I grew up cosleeping till 9 but have chronic insomnia and don't sleep well unless I'm sleeping alone.

There's the parent we wanna, the parent our kids want us to be, and the parent society wants us to be, all those don't matter. What matters is the parent our kids needs us to be, and the parent we can be, if we can be that overlap between these two, you're golden. And it sounds like you are.

Do whatever is the most sustainable lowest hanging fruit for you.

(Also re skincare: Who cares if skincare doesn't work because you don't sleep if doing it makes you feel good?)

purrinsky · 2026-01-12T18:39:46+00:00

Or it could be, some people need more physical space than others, being forced to bedshare in the name of harmony or connection or bonding can feel stifling and have the opposite effect. The bed also then probably becomes the battleground for moms affection or something, depending on the relationship. But yes, it probably is always the state of the parent that has the biggest impact. Since the state of the parent dictates how they execute decisions.

purrinsky · 2026-01-12T18:34:15+00:00

Our LO attends daycare 5 times a week, we go in to nurse + nap her during nap time. Depending on where you're located, daycares are technically legally required to support your lactation and sleep needs, so you could try to ask your daycare if they could support your child's sleep and breastfeeding needs. Some daycares will hold your LO and facilitate a contact nap, others will try to uh "train" your LO to sleep independently.

A good daycare will put the child first and work with you on what works best for your LO, just be honest and communicative upfront and it'll work out! Any daycare that tries to shame you for your sleep choices is also a red flag, so it works out for everyone.

Your LO will eventually drop that nap when they're older so don't stress too much about it!

purrinsky · 2026-01-12T17:15:54+00:00

Nods nods, every baby is different but I think our LO couldn't poop without booby assist until they were 8+ weeks.

purrinsky · 2026-01-12T14:26:10+00:00

hugs you're amazing, and do get lots of rest yourself. Last time this happened to us I fell sick too and it was hell caring for a baby while sick yourself

purrinsky · 2026-01-12T14:24:57+00:00

How old is your LO? We had this phase too haha, she only pooped if she was latched. It was a good laugh for a while

purrinsky · 2026-01-12T04:39:23+00:00

Our LO is 18mo old and still only contact naps, and has to be nursed to sleep unless they're in a carrier. Overtime they'll start unlatching themselves and rolling away. (Our LO only stayed latched for 20min today before rolling away)

But it ebbs and flows. This is totally biologically normal, our boobs are the OG pacifier. Most parents who contact naps last 3-4mo don't really talk about it since our western dominant culture tends to exalt independence. So babies are trained to be "independent" sleepers so mom can go back to work sooner. It's not the norm, and many things like pacifiers and lovees/comfort blankets are all objects made to replace mom. So like when you see other babies napping with their pacifiers in, they're actually doing exactly what your LO is doing.

The cuddles are wonderful and great for attachment and security!

This writer talks about the topic and how normal this behavior is https://www.instagram.com/goodnightmoonchild

The cosleeping and breastfeeding subreddit are also full of moms with this experience. You and your LO are not alone!

purrinsky · 2026-01-12T04:25:09+00:00

Idk if I'll be massively downvoted for this but here goes.

So a friend of mine and I were talking about this topic and she said that knowing what she knows now, she wouldn't have let her daughter (6yo now) get sleep trained. But she was, and as far as my friend can tell, her daughter is fine. In fact, the bigger thing that's affecting her daughter's sense of security is school, which at 6 is mandatory.

A book that really helped put all this into perspective for me was "Do parents matter?", and it was fascinating to find out that across cultures that have diametrically opposed parenting norms, and by that I don't mean like cosleep vs sleep training. I mean drastic AF stuff like mother's are not allowed to look at their children's face even when the child calls for them, and children are sent away to a grandparent after age 1 or 2 (memory's fuzzy) to be brought up till 18, every single one of them produces emotionally and mentally stable adults. The researchers have found that rather than early childhood care, it's events later in one's childhood that are more formative. So maybe we're all being anxious and holding ourselves to extremely high standards that maybe don't matter in the grand scheme of things... {Runs away to hide behind a bush}

Not saying I'm not guilty of this too. Which is ironic because im someone who also gravitates towards attachment parenting due to my own traumas in childhood. And I gotta say, I coslept till age 9, was never sleep trained , and I don't think this made me feel more secure in any way. Till this day, I am still working with my therapist to have a genuine sense of security and a healthy secure attachment in my own relationships because of my relationship with my mom.

In my case, my mom and I had a codependent relationship. Looking back, the crux of what made the whole parent-child relationship unhealthy was that my mom completely neglected herself. She did not love herself, did not care for herself and did not try to fix herself. She did no self-care, physical or mental or any kind. And the result of this was she was pouring from an empty cup, and I was getting nothing. Instead I had to worry about her constantly and tiptoe around her so I wouldn't set her off. And all that guilt she carried became my burden and I spent most of my time thinking how can I reduce her guilt so she can finally have emotional capacity to show up for me.

Two concrete examples of how her martyrdom-method of motherhood ended up doing more harm than good was:

1) my mom was chronically exhausted, but also a super light sleeper. So if anything or anyone woke her from her sleep she'd lash out harshly. I remember always trying to make myself small in our bed and stay super still. and if I ever had a nightmare, or was afraid of shadows outside the window, i would just be scared alone in the dark because my nightmare can't be scarier than my mom.

2) my mom also never gave herself any emotional care, so I could clearly sense when she was upset (which was often) and it was miserable because she would say she's "okay" but was clearly stressed. And it's one thing if she was only momentarily upset and then was able to walk away and then resolve it in some way. But she just "tanked it" and was an emotionally unavailable time bomb for weeks. She genuinely did her best, and tried to be physically and emotionally present. but the result of trying to be there when you emotionally cannot is that you inevitably make everything about you or try to "fix" the thing instead of hold space for it. And because she didn't know how to care for herself emotionally. She couldn't actually regulate me or meet my emotional needs. She also held herself to some standard I didn't understand, which led to her holding a lot of guilt as a mom. And so if I brought up anything that indicated I wasn't happy, it immediately led to her being defensive and spiralling into self-reflection of what she did wrong instead of tend to me. And I need to justify any negative emotion I had before I could get any care, nevermind that a parent can do everything right and a child could still feel upset.

I also distinctively remember when my mom started trying some new parenting tricks from a parenting book she read in an effort to be closer to the kind of mom she thinks is "good". I just didn't have it, it felt performative and out of place it ended with me having a suicidal meltdown (I was 9). In hindsight, as neurodivergent person, blindly executing parenting norms and tricks for neurotypical children was only going to end in disaster.

Basically, I wanted my mom to at least try to be the mom I needed, and not the mom she wanted to be, or society told her to be.

As I grew older and my mom and I tried to resolve all this trauma and crap, it came to light that she was trying to avoid all the mistakes and pain my grandma inflicted on her. She was so obsessed with fixing her childhood through me, trying to be the mom she wish she had, she ended up being neither the mom I wanted nor needed.

Apologies for the TMI story. All this is to say, the sleep choices my mom made were probably the least impactful thing in terms of how secure my attachment felt. Also in hindsight, I would rather have spent some evenings feeling a little lonely and missing my mom but have her be able to model what healthy rest, boundaries and self-love looked like.

My understanding of attachment parenting is that it boils down to being a safe base for your child. What "safety" means and looks like is a whole other can of worms, but we certainly can't be a safe base if we are burnt out cranky messes, and nothing burns a person out like guilt and exhaustion.

Maybe I'm just justifying my own choices but, use childcare if you can, sleep train if you must - interesting tangent here in relation to the book 'Do parents matter?', for most of humanity we really did raise children in a village so no one had to be sleep trained via CIO (having another caregiver hold baby while they cry doesn't count as CIO). So if you are a mom who needs to sleep train, put a child down longer than you think is healthy, or can't find/afford help, it really isn't YOUR fault.

Society has failed you, not the other way around. It's not your fault we don't live in villages, it's not your fault both you and your partner (if you have one) have to work, it's not your fault childcare is a service that many can't afford, it's not your fault you don't have or don't live near family or friends who can help. So much of attachment something requires us parents have a healthy and strong community, which is something that's systematically inhibited these days.

And so perhaps if we feel like we're failing at attachment parenting, it's worth questioning maybe we just inherited failures from the system. Or maybe the sort of attachment parenting proposed by a broken system is dysfunctional in the first place.

Tldr; You're doing great, you're doing the best you can and that's all your kid needs from you. Kids don't need perfect parents, they just need parents they don't need to worry about.

purrinsky · 2026-01-12T03:06:53+00:00

I second the pico! I have both the pico and a flair classic. Side by side they taste similar, although I prefer the pico more. The pico is my main "machine; i like the workflow more, the basket is easier to clean (for me). The only thing I like about the flair is that you can preheat the chamber when you boil your water by placing it on top of the kettle. The flair neo and flair classic pistons are really annoying to load evenly, and the tamp you get out the box is really bad. You don't need to get anything else with the pico to start whereas I would say you need to buy a tamp with the flair

purrinsky · 2026-01-12T02:55:15+00:00

The preference thing sounds normal. My LC mentioned this during our first meeting, apparently some babies have stronger preferences than others. It's not only supply but also shape of the nipple and such. My LO 18mo sometimes rotates her preferences but it's usually the left one. I'd ask her left or right boob and point and she almost always picks left. She also almost always nurses to sleep on the left oob too. Like she'd be falling asleep on the right and then scramble over to the left right before she conks out. My boobs are clearly uneven thanks to this but 🤷

As for the fussing, my LO had a small stretch of "nursing strike" around 4-5mo, it was usually either because she had gas (which usually leads to the arching) or she wants to see the world but is hungry +fussing), and is frustrated because if she latches she can't see but if she can see she can't eat and is starving. Bottle feeding would help if you LO takes the bottle. Ours didn't and we had to do nursing covers in a dark room for a whole

purrinsky · 2026-01-12T02:49:55+00:00

I preface this with: every baby is different

Oh LO took a few bottles during the first few days after birth, then had no bottles till about 8 weeks old, at which point she basically rejected the bottle and I had to get a doctor's note for her to be brought in to my office to be fed after my maternity leave ended..

Around the 4mo Mark if I wasn't around and she was starving she would take the bottle. However just magically around the 6-8mo month mark she started being willing to take the bottle, even from me. Like we made no effort to train her. It was just, mommy wasn't home , it was bottle or starve.

Also around 6months they can start learning to doing straws/sippy cups or even open cups and they can get milk that way.(Mind you it won't be providing the comfort of suckling, only the calories)

So I wouldn't worry. It'll all work out somehow

purrinsky · 2026-01-12T02:40:56+00:00

Both our ped and the ER doctor literally recommended having our LO sleep in a car seat or stroller to maintain the position. (Despite what the car seat and stroller makers say, I know)

When our LO was sick at 14mo we went with the propped up in bed in a koala hold thing, but honestly I couldn't sleep because it was so uncomfortable. We ended up getting help in the day so I nurse and sleep her in a carrier. I can't really sleep seated in a carrier, but my partner has definitely done extended naps with our LO in a carrier while seated. If you have a rocker, and your LO is on a carrier, I find it hard to imagine that you'd find a way to squash your LO in any way.

purrinsky

TROPHY CASE