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Sleep. Bedtime is generally fine but motn wake ups are becoming more frequent with more and more screaming and it seems almost impossible to get him to back to sleep. Naps are shortish too. LO is 5 months.

Sleep - especially inconsistent napping! I think it just makes every day unpredictable. I never know how long they will nap, when they will nap or whether they'll nap at the same time!

Parenting while battling depression/anxiety.

My sons gas! He's 8 weeks and is constantly grunting, straining, and crying. I feel like he would sleep longer stretches (around 3-3.5 hours right now) if he wasn't waking himself up struggling! I hate seeing him in pain

Potty training #1 -- After 4 months we're still not at 100%. She's fine with a timer, but when we try to take away the timer, she won't remember to go on her own, and she doesn't mind her undies getting a little wet.
Also, having her to agree to something on the first try. I feel like some kind of salesperson with my daughter. I have to make a convincing "pitch" for everything we need to do in our day. Otherwise she just says "no, no, no!" and refuses to do things.

Communication. At 10 months DS is in a difficult in between stage where he is very clear in his mind about what he wants and doesn't want, but he is unable to communicate this to me a lot of the time. He has suddenly become very aware of his own independence, and throws a wobbler every time I defy him! So lots of tantrums going on in this house at the mo!

Eating/sleeping/battling others opinions on those topics (can that be one thing or is it three? lol).

A lot of people around here know about the challenges we've had with LO's eating/food refusal and while they have improved and continue to improve ever-so-slowly... she is still a very hard baby to feed. We absolutely cannot ever feed her anywhere outside the house, which means we can't ever go anywhere for more than a very short period of time. And right now her eating is still very tied to her sleeping (particularly that if she is too hyper or too sleepy she won't eat) which means we HAVE to manage naps well in order to get her to eat-- oh and she will only sleep on me and only at home. So again-- we can't ever go anywhere really for more than 1-1.5 hours max. Traveling is about impossible. Me thinking about going back to work stresses me out hugely because a few weeks ago when I had a wedding to shoot for 8 hours she didn't sleep or eat the entire time I was gone because she doesn't like eating or sleeping for anyone else. And everyone keeps pushing me to really push her boundaries to try to "force" her into eating and sleeping like a "normal baby" but I'm terrified of traumatizing her (again) and having her go back to food refusal, and also the days where her schedule gets messed up and she doesn't eat or sleep well she is a BEAR to deal with and then has a horrible up-all-night night and I'm the only one who can deal with her on those nights since she won't let my husband calm or rock her. So yea its easy to say at 3pm I should just do this or that, but they're not the ones who are up with her at 3am when she's screaming because she's hungry because her schedule get messed with and she didn't eat enough during the day but she won't eat at night because she just refuses to. sigh.

@Mrs. Bee: same! 5 y/o won't listen and my 2 y/o saves #2 for her nap diaper but is potty trained otherwise!

@Adira: I had something like this around 13 months - I would be making dinner and LO would be in the kitchen begging for food and just being underfoot - not safe and took forever to make dinner. My super experienced mom friend broke it down for me - she was like "sandy, I know C...she is smarter than you think - she completely understands you." She told me to basically tell LO "mama is making dinner in the kitchen and it's not safe so you need to stay in the playroom until I'm done" and walk her to the playroom. And my friend said to repeat this as many times as necessary without getting mad, not taking forever to leave her in the playroom (I.e. Don't stay and play) and to be super crazy consistent. Like me she subscribes to a lot of the supernanny methods. I thought LO wouldn't get it - It took me 2 times of telling her she needed to stay in the playroom and she stayed the entire time I prepped dinner. This was life changing and it worked for all meal prep times or times I just needed her to be in the playroom. My friend said she doesn't have her playroom on the main level so she has a little rug and puts books and toys there and her LO would sit there nicely while she made dinner. Maybe try it

@sandy: I'm going to give this a try with DS who is also underfoot while I'm cooking! Thanks for the advice.

For DS, our biggest challenge has been how meltdowns and tantrums when I say no or don't give in about something.

For DD, it's the dreaded 4 month sleep regression.

Sleep! My son was doing so well for several months but now he is having wake ups and difficulty putting himself back to sleep. I'm hoping two year molars are to blame and it will resolve once they come in fully but who knows. I'm so tired and imagining dealing with this when our daughter comes is very daunting.