to be worried about a friend and her baby?

[LeftOfTheMiddle]

Have namechanged because friend knows I'm on MN. I'm not hiding from MNers, but please don't mention my usual name if you recognise my posting style as I don't want this to be searchable. Am being a bit cheeky posting here I admit, but just need a high traffic area for some advice.

The friend has no routine with her baby whatsoever. She thinks she does, but it's more like it's what she intends to do but just doesn't. She regularly has the baby out until quite late at night, sometimes this stretches past midnight. I'm not sure if this is a reasonable concern on its own, but friend does this without a second thought, so baby often goes without her evening food (solids) and bath as well as her cot. It is also not unusual for the baby to not have her solids for breakfast so she can sometimes go without two of the three daily meals. I suspect the baby is being given 'unsuitable' foods as well. I don't know if I'm looking for signs that things are wrong, but tbh the baby never seems to look clean. She is in a problem period at nights at the moment (not a huge surprise really), and my friend is not coping with that at all, going to pieces if there is a prolonged period of crying. I don't think for a moment that my friend is intentionally doing anything wrong, it's all coming from sheer not knowing.

I don't know if I'm being unreasonable to be concerned or not. The baby is just over six months so only just on solids as it is, so probably not so used to having solid meals, but it's the combination of things.

What, if anything, can I do?

I have been asking her how she's doing, and she has started to open up to me, which I am really glad about.

I've wondered if this could be PND, we have had a discussion about it, but she's emphatically said she felt lucky she hadn't been affected because of what she'd been through in the past.

She has said things in the heat of the moment which are quite horrid, but I don't think she really means them.

I hope I'm being silly to be concerned, I really feel that my friend adores her baby, I just can't shake the feeling that something's not right.

Your friend sounds a lot like me! At least that's how I approached parenting my firstborn. I never had much routine in my life pre-kids, worked shifts, ate when I was hungry etc. My DD got by OK, sometimes one meal per day sometimes four. I did extended bf on demand so this made up for the gaps in nutrition. We travelled the whole world and had a fabulous time. In hindsight I think we both would have benefitted from a stricter routine e.g. my DD didn't sleep through the night 'til she was over 3y.o. and prefers snacks to proper food.

Now that she's at school we naturally have more routine in our lives, and my baby DS is benefitting from that. His days are much the same as each other, he's the least fussy baby I know of (unlike DD!). The downside is that we have much less spontaneity, every day it seems like there's loads of things we can't do as e.g. it's time for lunch before nap before pick-up DD. He's only once been on a 'plane, DD had been to 4 continents by the time she was one, and had a frequent flyer card! I miss my crazy days with baby DD!

sounds normal to me - mine third didn't really have much in the way of solids until he was about a year old - just didn't like them - had loads of milk though. And I figured that too much bathing was bad for their skin - it can't be natural to submerge your baby every day, can't see caveman doing it anyway

i think if you feel something is not right and you are concerned then you should try and talk to your friend. i had pnd probably for 6 months before i realised it was pnd.

I was getting stressed / anxious / frustrated with alot of things which i felt was perfectly normal under the circumstance of having a new baby, no sleep not much support from dp.

it was only when i started feeling really anxious about the baby that it dawned on me that it might be pnd.

i had counselling through contacting MIND. the gp just wanted me to take tablets which i didn't want to. counselling really helped - cured me

My babies dabbled with solids at 6 months but didn't really eat them as proper meals til 10 months.

She does sound like she is struggling with a routine though but wouldn't worry till they were a tiny bit older to be honest. I know a 2 babies who had a similar up bringing with really late nights and now aged 8 and 10 they find it hard to drop to sleep b4 11. Getting up for school is murder and they are always looking exhausted and run down. It's like a bad routine was ingrained into their system and I'm sure the sleep problems will continue into adulthood.