Looking too far into father's comment ?

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I've been staying at my parents house over Xmas. I have two small children. The youngest is 8 months.

She's always had some issues with CMPA/ reflux etc. HV and GP completely refused to help, as she was growing well and gaining weight etc. the usual story.

After trying a few times, I saw a private doctor who prescribed some special milk and medicine to help etc. again, the usual story. Her skin got better straight away, but she still vomits, even now. Crying is generally better.

However, she's a baby ! When you put her down in her crib, she always cries. She needs to be fed, rocked, white noise and then she might fall asleep. But some days she just doesn't straight away ( same for naps ). I have an older baby and it was similar. Some days she cries a bit longer or wakes up more often and I assume she's not feeling so good those days, or maybe she's teething. Sometimes I give her Calpol. I don't think any of it is very unusual.

She's also got croup at the moment, so she's a bit out of sorts. Last night she just wasn't settling. I kept trying and trying, but she wasn't. I brought her into the living room and she calmed down. My mother and father were trying to find ways to help her be more comfortable. She was just refluxing and we were cleaning her up and just comforting her. I stepped away and heard my father say that he doesn't think I've helped her enough / tried to find enough solutions for her and that she's clearly really uncomfortable and that's why she cries a lot. He then says, a mum should always be trying to find solutions to help her baby. Anyway, it's not a big thing, but makes me a little sad. I feel like I'm just maybe looking into it too deeply.

But I actually don't think he thinks I'm a very good mother. Because sometimes he sees me get frustrated when the baby has been very very challenging. For the last week, she's been awake constantly in the night, also because she's been unwell.

Also regarding my baby and what I've done to help her. We've seen a private doctor several times now and she's still growing well. I've also seen a specialist where my parents live. Everyone has suggested we are doing all we can and she will grow out of it. So, I'm not sure what am else I could do. Anyway, I'm probably over reacting. But because my dad is traditional, I just think he thinks women should never show their frustrations and that it makes them bad mothers. That a woman should ' do it all with a smile '. It pisses me off that he would think I wouldn't do everything I can to help my baby too.

Anyway! Christmas hey !

That would absolutely have cut me to the core, totally understandable that it got to you. I wouldn't want you to feel like you had to justify yourself to your dad, but do you have the sort of relationship where you could talk about what he said and how upsetting you found it?

You are doing everything in your power. Sometimes there's not a solution or you have improved things as much as you can. Your dad's comment is coming I'm guessing from a place of frustration and overwhelm but blaming you is not fair.

I've had a reflux cmpa baby and its tough. What formula and reflux meds did they put baby on? Sometimes you do have to play around with things as it can be common for cmpa babies to have other allergies also. My ds is also allergic to soy and certain beans used for thickening foods

Time to pass the baby to him for 24 hours and have a refreshing break. The sleepless nights and constant care is exhausting, he clearly has t a clue

You are a great mum x

Nutramigen and omeprazole. I did see the doc not long ago who didn't think it was necessary to swap onto an amino acid one. Baby is super chubby and generally happy. I think the night time and nap settling is just because she's a baby and hasn't learnt yet to go to sleep. She does settle reasonably quickly if she's actually tired, has a full belly and is rocked with white noise a bit.

If baby is still experiencing reflux then I'd look into changing to an amino acid formula. My baby never had an issue gaining wright either but the difference on the amino acid formula was day and night.

Where's baby's father in all this? Did he come in for the same criticism?

I tried with the doc a few weeks ago. I said are you sure we don't need to switch ? She said it's completely normal to still be refluxing and if the crying is a lot less, then she doesn't need to switch. Should I just push for it? I don't know what to do. She was so adamant that my baby is looking well and growing well.

The refluxing is a bit better in the sense that we aren't constantly covered in big sick and neither is she.

However she's crawling now and I have to constantly clean the floor as she's been sick during her travels. It's stressful because it leaves sticky residue all over the floor. If you don't notice immediately that she's done it, she starts crawling in it and putting her hands in it..

What my dad actually said, at the end of the sentence I described was ' she needs to to something. It's not like dad cares '...

Dad has been asleep with toddler in a different room all holiday. Usually I deal with both kids alone, so it was a welcome break in that sense..

Those words would cut deep. You sound like you are doing so much. You should be able to show frustration in front of your parents. You deal with it 24/7 356 days and. If I didn't feel I could say something I probably would have left at that point. How was he as a father? How much support have you had from him with all this?