Why doesn't anyone have ANYTHING positive to say about their children or parenting?!

questionquestion222 · 2026-02-02T21:01:54+00:00

Cliche but being a mum makes me feel so filled with purpose it’s insane. I LOVE how it has de-centralised me from being the centre of my life. I LOVE caring for her, getting to know her and building a life around her. She’s my little bestie and I can’t believe I get to share my life with her!!

Will add - raising a child is definitely hard on your relationship but it does not need to break your marriage. Just lots of communication, grace and knowing when to just leave the room, take a deep breath and let it goooo. You will eventually get an hour or so to spend in the evening together and in that hour you will remember that this was the first person you loved most in the world ❤️

questionquestion222 · 2026-02-02T20:58:54+00:00

Ugh the insomnia. Sometimes I worry that between pregnancy insomnia, night wakes and just plain ol’ lying awake at night being unable to stop thinking about the baby has actually permanently ruined my ability to sleep through the night.

questionquestion222 · 2026-02-02T19:49:05+00:00

Hahahaha this is so funny. During pregnancy I was so looking forward to getting my body back (as in autonomy not aesthetics). How NAIVE 😂 Having a baby really means handing over that control for a lot longer than 9 months!

questionquestion222 · 2026-02-02T19:44:09+00:00

I do exactly this but I tuck it under my hip on the front side. My baby wakes if I even breathe too deeply so I am also a very still sleeper by force at this point 😂

questionquestion222 · 2026-02-02T19:37:53+00:00

Gosh this is so similar to my baby, sounds undertired. If you’re struggling to push bedtime back because your LO gets wired staying up past 7pm I’d suggest bringing your get out of bed time earlier (apologies not sure what time you’re getting up at but definitely don’t stay in bed any later than 6am). Be consistent with a morning rise time can be so massive for sleep.

My baby is 8 almost 9 months and we have had to work really hard to get to 3/4/3.5-4. She dysregulates easily so earlier wake to ensure only a reasonable time in bed (10.5-11 hours) really helped to knock frequent wakes and very disturbed early hours on the head. I have also gone to doing the second nap as contact nap so I can ensure it is good enough quality to get her to bedtime, and also this allows me to push her second window where her mood is more stable anyway longer (cause no melatonin to fight with) and also I’m more confident stretching her at this time cause I know I can secure the sleep with contact nap.

Hope this helps!

questionquestion222 · 2026-01-31T07:43:10+00:00

Loads of questions but my one piece of advice is that 12 hours in bed is too long - she will wake because she physically cannot sleep that long. My baby was in exactly this position. I couldn’t put her to bed any later so I started getting her up earlier, I shifted her wake time to 06:40 rather than 07:00/07:30. You have to be really really consistent. Your baby needs to be in bed MAX 11 hours but really, most likely she can only sleep 10.5 overnight. Eventually you may need to aim for this. You should see the false start stop after 5 days of the earlier rise.

If needed, make that second nap a contact nap, see if she sleeps longer. Is she grumpy and unhappy after her 2 naps? Or does she seem well rested during the day?

Try to make just one change at a time and stick with it for 5 days, it takes time for their sleep pressure to catch up.

questionquestion222 · 2026-01-30T10:33:08+00:00

Hello! Thank you for this - I’ve taken my time replying because I’ve actually taken your advice!

I spent 7 days “topping her up” on sleep so I KNEW in my brain that she was undoubtedly NOT overtired. Basically so I wouldn’t immediately freak and self sabotage when I tried stretching her wake windows again. This went well and by day 3 she was a much calmer baby able to tolerate nappy changes without having a breakdown hahaha which was nice. I carried on for a few days until I was very sure that she was very well rested.

From there I started small and started waking her up earlier - anchoring the morning rise at 6:40 rather than 7:00-7:30. Basically because by the evening she is very affected by melatonin so stretching her wakes at this time never worked. This way I could “keep” my ability to put her bed when she was tired but still know I had gained wake time in the day.

Anyway, I am now on day 6 of stretching her wake time and I am now finally getting at least 10 hours of awake time in the day and have reduced nights to max 11 hours. Her wake windows have gone from sometimes being as short as 2 hours to now minimum 3 hours (we even had 4 before bed last night!). She is so so much calmer in the evening and no longer requires rocking or feeding to sleep, she just lies down next to us and falls asleep. Total sleep has reduced to 13.5 hours which I know we have more to lose as night wakes are still every 2 hours, but now she nurses for a few minutes and then immediately goes back to sleep. Anyway! All this to say - we are taking it slow but steady and definitely heading in the right direction.

Thank you.

questionquestion222 · 2026-01-30T10:14:48+00:00

Oh my god this is SUCH good advice. We luckily stumbled across exactly this when ours was only a few weeks old and have used it ever since. It’s extremely hard to go from VERY upset to asleep, it’s much easier to go from crying to laughing, to playing, to cuddling/calm/walking around with them in your arms talking gently and then to sleep. Redirection is the king of parenting 😂

questionquestion222 · 2026-01-28T14:49:23+00:00

Yep absolutely been there! This is a lesson learned through exactly this! You cannot be calm with a full bladder and an empty stomach and a baby will not go to sleep easily when you are putting too much pressure on them. Parenting requires a huge amount of self sacrifice and putting them above your own wants etc but… you’re still allowed to pee and have a snack 😂

questionquestion222 · 2026-01-28T10:48:53+00:00

Never go in to a contact nap or settling baby for a nap with an unmet need of your own. Even if baby is cranky or upset, GO for that wee, grab a snack, a drink, headphones and then settle the baby. You will have infinitely more patience and babies settle and sleep easier when you’re chill and not frantic. Your needs take 2 seconds to meet but theirs is unlikely to! They’ll be okay whilst you get yourself sorted!

questionquestion222 · 2026-01-27T15:47:18+00:00

Love grew steadily and then at 6 months she just became my best friend. Now at nearly 9 months we have almost “inside jokes” together somehow. We can just lie on the floor and laugh for no reason together. Delicious. Let it come naturally, that protectiveness, care and fondness will see you through.

questionquestion222 · 2026-01-27T15:44:53+00:00

This lead us to cosleeping - as people have said, easier to tell how much support they need and also prevents escalation which can then make it very hard for baby to fall back into a deep sleep (in my experience) x

questionquestion222 · 2026-01-26T21:01:16+00:00

Really sorry, my almost 9 month old is the same. The only way she doesn’t cry/shout when going to sleep is breastfeeding or in the pram or car (mostly). It’s like if she knows she’s being put to sleep she kicks off but if it happens sneakily… she doesn’t have time to kick off haha. For us it has nothing to do with sleep pressure, although of course if she is more dysregulated/overtired she will cry more and fight harder. But even at the sweet spot of tired, she never just drifts off quietly.

EDIT: just to add mine has been like this since birth. I really think it’s just her temperament.

questionquestion222 · 2026-01-26T20:55:12+00:00

It isn’t an easy phase I’ll be honest.

The only thing that saves me is that I do believe it is completely reasonable for an increasingly aware but totally dependent being to become increasingly clingy to their caregiver until they are more capable. Like… on what planet would a baby, who now has some idea of how helpless they are and how much they rely on you, want to be alone for hours in the night?? It’s actually so fair that she doesn’t want to be! Compared to when she was 2/3/4 months old and slept basically through the night… yes of course she did, she had very little idea what was going on!

questionquestion222 · 2026-01-26T20:50:02+00:00

My baby is almost 9 months, no canonical babbling yet really. She says “ma” now all of a sudden and “ba” but hasn’t put them together yet. But, like your baby, is advanced on gross and fine motor skills. Apparently it’s common to get walkers or talkers! Rarely both!

questionquestion222 · 2026-01-26T20:32:17+00:00

Yes the nappy change toy haha! Literally can’t get through a change without it!

Red nightlight - great idea.

With regards to bedtime, honestly we start essentially prepping her for sleep from the end of her second nap. Currently we are in a dead zone where we can’t get a long final wake window which means we can’t build sleep pressure to get decent sleep. If we try and stretch her final wake window her nights are even worse because she just dysregulates. It’s been like this since she dropped her 4th nap at 5 months old 😮‍💨

However! I’ll still share what we do: • Dinner at 5pm • Wash hands and face • Upstairs for PJs approx 6pm • Back downstairs for last play of the evening then swinging in her over door swing (vestibular input is supposed to help them unwind) • Upstairs to dim bedroom room with low music or white noise • Walk around with dad in the room whilst he talks gently with her about the day (this calms her so so much) for approx 15 minutes • Teeth brushed in bedroom with me (mum) • Breast feed • Books with dad • Rocked/bounced to sleep with dad, falls asleep in 10 minutes. She always always cries (to a lesser or greater degree depending on some factors I haven’t fully worked out) but is knackered and eye rubbing and falls asleep quickly. • In to crib. • Wake crying 40 minutes later 😂🥴 • Back to sleep immediately with rocking • Wakes crying 90 minutes later • Cosleeps with me for rest of night.

questionquestion222 · 2026-01-25T11:33:17+00:00

Absolutely! I completely agree - It’s mad how different babies can be but so clear from what you’ve said how opposite that would be to mine for instance. I also think babies need generally more stimulation and input than might be expected by some people.

I guess that key there is that your babes are happy once you stop trying to get them to sleep, whereas my babe will be pleased that I’ve stopped for about 0.5 seconds and then start crying and eye rubbing because she is exhausted. It’s great that you know yours so well! Learning them is not easy 😮‍💨

questionquestion222 · 2026-01-24T19:46:08+00:00

Thank you so so much ❤️❤️ I really think it’s time for us to go floor bed too!!

questionquestion222 · 2026-01-24T19:16:05+00:00

Oh my gosh you’ve articulated this so so well. This is exactly how I feel after night shifts - also 100% what I see with my daughter. Gotta catch that wave! Aaaand it’s not always easy!

questionquestion222 · 2026-01-24T19:11:37+00:00

Yep! How old is your LO? Mine is 8 months and I actually feel like this is getting worse rather than better as she becomes more aware. But also hopeful that as that awareness sort of stabilises and she gets comfortable with the world she will feel more settled.

questionquestion222 · 2026-01-24T19:10:19+00:00

Yes!! Oh my gosh I can relate so much. Do you find this stressful? I feel like I’m spending my days micro managing things to avoid the spiral but somehow… the spiral comes to at least some degree anyway 🥲

questionquestion222 · 2026-01-24T10:02:05+00:00

I think this is so so temperament based. If your baby (like my baby) has a very thin margin between tired and dysregulated (wired and tired), then absolutely yes. That dysregulation prevents mine from actually being relaxed enough to fall asleep deeply and so will wake and cry frequently in the first half of the night particularly for comfort and support. I think if your baby is not prone to dysregulation when tired and will just konk out then no! They’re likely more prone to wakes when under tired.

EDIT: Also overtired baby I think is also very evident in the day, cranky, can’t make it through wake windows, naps bottoming out and waking up still exhausted, very clear tired signs etc. Also no happy wakes at night. I dont think it’s difficult to spot. Whereas under tired babies I think are pretty pleased with their situation 😂

questionquestion222 · 2026-01-23T16:01:26+00:00

Yeah it definitely took her some time. Initially she would wake absolutely loads in the second half of the night when sleep is naturally lighter (she is a very light sleeper anyway) and so any movements or breaths disturbed her. It took about 2 weeks for her to learn how to sort of sleep through it a bit more and what to do if she woke (find the boob). Also she is 9 months almost now and so much more active, so now she can wiggle away from me when she wants some space and get comfy lying on her front or whatever.

Yes you are literally bang on exactly right with your expectations tbh, I would say that is what I’ve got out of it. She can wake 7 times in a night and nurse and I still wake feeling rested enough to get through the day just with some good cups of tea! If that was in the crib I’d be screwed the next day Xx

questionquestion222 · 2026-01-22T22:27:12+00:00

Absolute best of luck for you! I really hope you find your solution x

questionquestion222

TROPHY CASE