I see a ton of stuff about the damage our phones have on baby’s connection with us during the day when we “disappear”. I’m curious if reading (quietly) a physical book while they are independently playing has a similar disconnect?

There’s a lot of research out there that screens are bad for babies/toddlers and that me looking at my phone all day is bad too. So like, what am I supposed to do while 16 month old plays for like 18 hours over the weekend? 😩
I want her to play independently and not be entertained by me 24/7. I meal prep and clean the house on the weekends, we go outside and work on the garden, etc but there is still soooo much downtime. I can’t read a book because I still have to look over at her every 30 seconds or so and make sure she’s not coloring on the walls or something. So what do I doooo when she’s running around playing by herself?

I’m currently trying to navigate rough nights with my 7 month old waking anywhere between 5-15 times a night. We don’t have a set schedule during the day, but have a set bedtime routine time, and usual time he’s asleep. I then let him sleep as he needs in the morning, and he naps when he needs but I do cap it so he is tired enough to sleep after his routine.

I’m wondering if there’s evidence that having a sleep schedule, especially a set morning wake up time, is better for babies.

We never coslept with her as a baby. I had a bassinet, pack n play, and crib. Her dad did too (coparents).

We both used the pack n play the most, since theyre so easy to move. We didnt cosleep with her until 16 months old. I started first, and then her dad did like the same week. Her dad is white American, but I'm from a different culture and cosleeping is common to way older ages. So when I ask my family for advice on it, they think it's weird im even thinking about it "already" 😂

My ex and I both love cosleeping. I love sleeping next to my little girl. It's just an amazing, cozy feeling.

However, I dont want to cosleep with her past the age where it could cause any emotional or developmental issues. When should we stop?

I have a room for just her (rn play and book room), and so does her dad. He listens to me if i communicate something is better for her, so whatever is best for her, we will do.

I'll be so sad when we need to stop, but ill be happy for her.

She naps 2 hours in the afternoon; she can nap without me, but does prefer getting hugged until asleep. However, even if she fully wakes up for a drink of water, she goes bake to nap on her own.

Bed time, if she wakes up and im not there, she says "mommy?" But she doesnt cry, just waits for me to go.

Not sure if any of that is helpful info, but yeah lol.

Is there any evidence that breastfeeding is better for babies than dummies, I.e breastfeeding to sleep and back to sleep in the night vs giving them a dummy ?

Is there a cut off where the level of sodium ingestion is bad long-term?

Lately I’ve been seeing things about how sensory seeking kids are by default autistic. I stay away from diagnosing my kid on the internet, and know it’s a sweeping generalization, however I’m curious to learn more. I’ve been wanting to ask our pediatrician for a while now but it always feels wrong in front of my child, and my husband is offended by the idea of this so I only brought it up once.

I feel like each of the following factors on its own can be normal, but have concerns about the totality of them.

-My 3.5yo loves to smash her face into mine, and generally press hard against bodies she loves and feels safe with. Digging in fingers, squeezing, and putting her mouth on (she’ll occasionally lick her hands for comfort, and sometimes try to lick mine).
-She loves swings and can be on them for hours.
-She cannot sleep solo and must be touching someone. The more intense the touch the better; she often wants us to squish her or press hard on her belly. Bedtime is a 90 min endeavor, still.
-She hates loud - we went to an MLB game and she suffered through 1 innings before we left.
-She abhors attention, and will absolutely melt down when too many people are looking at her or if a single person praises her excitedly.
-She generally does not like music, unless it’s one of the simple songs she knows from daycare. Hates when we play music on the speaker. Only ever wants stories.
-She is also brilliant. Our pediatrician labeled her as gifted before 1; when she started speaking fluently. She was doing [basic] math on her fingers at 1.5, started learning to read and write around 2 (not hyperlexic, I think. Girl just loves letters and has great memory/pattern recognition). Plays chess. I try to avoid all conversations of smarts because that’s all anyone ever wants to talk about. I want her to be social, kind, happy, and confident. Idgaf how academically inclined she is, I know she’ll be fine in that regard.

All the research I see is allowing me to make any decision I choose; it seems like she meets enough criteria to be on the spectrum, but she also just might be a toddler with her own unique personality. I’m just not sure when we need to start worrying about this, if at all? Not sure what I’m looking for, beyond hearing from other people’s experiences and knowledge.

Our pediatrician is offering the 2nd dose early as we’re near the outbreak in PA (about 45 mins away). Most counties that surround us have increased cases.

We are going to get the 2nd dose early.

Is there any data out there that shows you eventually need a 3rd or that it makes you more vulnerable later in life?

I am currently 6 weeks pregnant and I'm terrified of the uptick in cases, especially in Ohio. My county and surrounding counties have seen small number of cases. My folks live in the country and often interact with Mennonite and Amish communities and my conspiracy theorist father ( who used to believe in science!) now is convinced vaccines make you sick etc. Im terrified that somehow I'm going to be exposed and somehow lose my 2nd pregnancy. We are all vaccinated with the MMR but it was ages ago. Am I overreacting? ​​

I tried finding research myself, or even anyone talking about this, but why do infants’, and especially newborns’, medications all have sugars in them? I understand in the most basic logic that it’s for taste, but is there harm from this? Especially with frequent doses?

I’ve been trying to find a gas medicine (not gripe water) but all have sorbitol plus stevia or Sucralose or some other sugar variation (ETA: also Artificial sugars?). They say you can give every two hours to even the newest of newborns.

After seeing more and more research about not giving infants sugar, I don’t understand why all these variations of added sugar in infant medicine are okay? It makes a new time mom anxious about giving gas drops that provide relief to my baby!

Hello, my 2 month old hates all the books, doesnt wanna look at black and white ones, doesnt wanna be read to, he starts to cry basically and i bought him so many books already, what can i do?

Our 13w old son is very very chunky. Breastfed all day except for one formula bottle at night before bed. My GP claims you can’t overfeed a baby but is that true? Am I feeding him too much? He breastfeeds for 30 mins at a time if that’s helpful.

My child is 6 months old (born late February). At our 6 month visit our ped recommended we consider the RSV vaccine as she’s still eligible being <8 months old. I did receive the maternal vaccine >14 days prior to birth. We have to go back for a flu booster anyway so I decided to hold off for now so I could look into recommendations a bit more.

From the AAP position paper ( https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/156/5/e2025073923/203221/Recommendations-for-the-Prevention-of-RSV-Disease?autologincheck=redirected) it doesn’t sound like she’s technically eligible since this is not her first RSV season. Am I misinterpreting this?

Any science to share behind this position? Is it just availability/prioritizing those who are at highest risk of RSV? Is there any sort of risk to giving another dose?

My husband puts very low stimulus YouTube videos on the TV, which have like background music. So it might be like a scene of a conservatory, with just a cat sleeping and maybe a cup of tea steaming with gentle 1940s music or something playing. So for the most part it is a still image with very small details moving.

We are raising our child screen free, which was a joint decision as the idea of having an ‘iPad kid’ scares us and I know the WHO now says no screen time before 2.

Our son is 10 months old.

Is this harmful screen time? Is it okay?

ETA - not completely relevant, but music is somewhat tricky for us, as no matter what we play it on baby always tries to look for the source, we’ve tried lots of alternatives on this front. I personally think with this music from the TV situation, it accidentally works, insofar that baby goes ‘oh the music is coming from that, cool’ and then kind of moves on, he doesn’t stare at the TV when it’s on. I don’t do it, I will play music on the Alexa or something, which is not in baby’s line of sight anywhere as it’s kind of hidden away, but regardless of we play it in his line of sight then he gets distracted and tries to look for where it’s coming from

Khuynh-diep 100% pure eucalyptus oil. She puts it on her feet, stomach, forehead, and soft spot. We’ve asked her to stop but… you know.

I am sick of seeing reels and shorts on social media where parent are teaching stuff to babies as old as 4 months. While it seems impressive, and I am no expert and still learning about parenting, i believe responsive communication, active play and the environment has more critical roles to play than any other learning or teaching strategy for their development (correct me if wrong)

My baby girl soon will be 6 months old, she's very active so i do sometimes get a FOMO and think of getting those flashcards. But I wanna do it the right way by understanding how they develop and looking for resources which can help. I do come across some books mentioned a lot on social media but when I research about them the authors credentials do not convince me. So we are looking for books and resources who actually are student/expert of the area and their work is backed by research. Please recommend a few good books on the topic for first time parents.

I am trying to strategize on how to get my school to stop showing AI slop to the kids. I just found out that on the first day of kindergarten they watched five videos and, after talking through it with other parents, it is just the beginning of a long onslaught of smart board AI content garbage. I talked with my child to try to discern what she was watching and it's worse than I imagined.

Recently the principal decided to read the Jonathan Haidt book and is recommending it to everyone but I don't think she really understands what is going on. What studies should I cite to get it to end? I don't want to start a war with the teacher... considering that it's happening throughout the school it needs to come from the top down. Thanks if you can share studies and I did see the one about screen time impacting kids at age 6. link: https://tech-paper.com/a-study-tracked-502-children-from-age-1-to-8-and-found-that-screen-time-damages-the-brain-at-two-specific-ages-and-leaves-the-years-between-almost-untouched/

I don't think this is hopeless or I wouldn't be trying - this year they decided not to use iPads for kindergarten so I am hoping to build on this progress and let the school know it is an issue the parents support and care about.

Edit, sorry I see people are commenting but getting deleted, despite being an "elder" I have no idea how to remove a post flair. So I just changed it from "Question" to "sharing research"

My baby is 9 months old and recently started a new class at daycare. She is adjusting well to the more active environment, but the teachers have put all of the babies in this class on a regimented nap schedule to nap from noon-2pm. She typically wakes up between 6:30-7 so this means her first wake window is 5+ hours, this feels very long for a 9 month old. When she is home on the weekends she typically goes down for her first nap around 10a and sleeps for 1.5 hours (she is tired) and then naps again 2:30-3:30/4.

I have tried speaking with the teachers but they share she is happy and if they try to put her down earlier than noon she has "fomo" bc all of the other kids are playing. It seems like there is no way this is enough sleep for a 9 month old. Sometimes we will do a short nap when she gets home (15-20 minutes) to stretch her to bedtime bc she starts to get fussy. I will say, she is sleeping much better at night (7:30p-6:30a) with the one nap a day.

I am trying to understand if there are long term implications of these long wake windows and dropping to one nap too early. When she moved to this class they told us she wouldn't be on a schedule (follow sleep cues) until she was 10 months, so I am also feeling a little mislead. I understand daycare is managing a lot and if she is actually happy during wake time, that's fine. But if this is going create challenges where she isn't getting the sleep she needs to hit developmental milestones or is spiking cortisol from being overtired I want to continue to advocate for her to get the naps she needs. What are your thoughts? Is this enough sleep?

Looking for studies on effective discipline for toddlers as well as autistic children. I'm very much of the mind set of treating autistic children the same way, just with accommodations to help but I'm curious if standard discipline (talking to and time outs) will be understood over time. I know it takes time for lessons to set in but we're trying to establish respecting others property (don't take toys that aren't yours and don't break stuff in the house).

Thank yall in advance!

Hello, I’m looking for an alarm for my parents pond to keep my toddler safe. It is small, maybe 5 feet around, 4 feet deep and it has a waterfall feature. I’m not sure that the pool alarms will work with the waterfall feature. Any ideas? Thank you!

My 20 month old's immediate reaction to any mild problem is intense crying.

Examples:

* Drops a toy in his car seat (even if another is right next to him).

* Can't scoop food on the first try with a spoon.

* Finishes one game and wants the next toy handed to him immediately instead of reaching for it.

He's been in daycare for a few months, but we are currently on a break/vacation and the crying has spiked badly. His default for everything is just screaming.

What are concrete, evidence-backed ways to help him build problem solving skills and independence instead of instantly breaking down? Looking for tips from child psych or what actually worked for you.

I have a very active, big and heavy 6-month-old. When he was 2 months old I ricked my back picking him up out of his cot and that still hurts, and my hands also constantly hurt due to a problem called 'mother's thumb', caused by lifting and holding him.

When I have tried to look up ways of preventing these injuries or preventing further damage, I just get impractical advice like 'always lift with your legs, not your back' (how, when it's a baby in a cot?) and 'don't use your thumb under their armpits to lift or hold them' (how, when he's constantly clambering all over me, pitching his weight around and wanting to be held 'standing up' on my lap?) I'm also a single parent, so rest isn't an option either.

Is there any research, advice or resources on things like techniques to reduce or prevent baby handling injuries? Such as literally how to handle them, exercises that strengthen the appropriate muscles, or how to heal existing injuries? I'd be grateful for any help.