From Burp Cloths to Towels: What I Wish I Knew With My First Baby

At first, I thought I just needed more burp cloths.

Then I realized I had gone through almost 40 so quickly that I couldn’t keep up with the laundry. So I started using towels.

Eventually, my baby was basically living in nothing but a diaper because I was changing her clothes so frequently that it didn’t seem worth putting another outfit on her.

That was my reality.

She spit up constantly—not the normal baby spit-up. It was a huge amount and had plastered our floors and the changing table wall. She was uncomfortable, noisy, and seemingly miserable when I tried to lay her down.

I was exhausted from sitting upright and burping 24/7. It was like a nonstop loop, like a 24/7 car wash, but with milk instead of water and more like a 1–3 hour milk bath after every feed.

I remember thinking, Something has to be wrong.

But at the same time, she looked good in her stomach, and she was having normal diaper output, although it was explosive. When she was in the NICU, the only thing they told me was that she improved with reflux formula and that the cause was unknown.

I kept getting told that everything was fine.

And that was the beginning of a journey I didn’t even know existed.

I Didn’t Know This World Existed

If you had asked me before having my first baby what I knew about tongue ties, oral restrictions, feeding issues, or bodywork, I would have had absolutely no idea what you were talking about.

None.

I wasn’t researching tongue ties while I was pregnant. I wasn’t looking for a specialist. I wasn’t part of some secret mom group where everyone knew what to look for.

I was just a tired new mom trying to figure out why my baby was struggling.

It took a doctor and multiple specialists before we finally started getting closer to an answer. I even came close to getting an answer when a pediatrician casually said she was tongue-tied but didn’t direct me further on what to do. (I will get into this later…and why this happened.)

And honestly, I can’t talk about how we eventually figured things out without talking about my mom.

My mom was the person who kept looking when I was too tired to function.

She had a friend who knew much more about this world than either of us did. That friend had a connection to a facility owned by someone she had known for more than two decades, and eventually my mom just took action, called, and set up an appointment.

I was exhausted from appointments by that point. I was tired of explaining what was happening and wondering if I was overreacting.

I was tired of being told, in one way or another, that my baby was okay when everything inside me was screaming that something wasn’t right.

So when my mom suggested another appointment, I basically thought, Okay. Sure. I’ll go.

And that appointment changed the direction we were going.

The Hardest Part Was the Second-Guessing

I think one of the hardest parts for a new mom is that your brain is already completely scrambled after having a baby.

You’re sleep-deprived. You’re recovering. You’re learning a completely new person.

And then your baby makes noises all night long because they’re uncomfortable.

How are you supposed to sleep through that?

I couldn’t.

I would lay her down and hear her making these little noises, moving around, struggling to get comfortable, and I would immediately be wide awake.

And when you’re already exhausted, you start second-guessing yourself.

Is this normal?

Do all babies do this? I am sure they don’t…none of my siblings did this.

Am I being dramatic? Or does every house have spit-up on the walls? Thank goodness we did the nice, super-easy-to-wipe paint in the nursery.

Maybe I’m just tired…

That constant questioning was almost as difficult as the physical exhaustion.

And then there was the contradiction that really stuck with me.

At one point, doctors were looking at her because of the vomiting and checking to make sure there wasn’t an anatomical problem with her digestive system.

And I remember thinking:

If we’re looking for something that could be causing this, how can we simultaneously say there’s nothing wrong?

My baby was projectile spitting up. She couldn’t comfortably lie down. She was making noises all night. I was going through burp cloths like they were disposable.

Something wasn’t adding up.

My First Baby: We Didn’t Know What We Didn’t Know

With my first baby, we were learning everything for the first time.

That’s important because I think it’s easy to look back and wonder, Why didn’t I recognize it sooner?

The truth is: I didn’t know what I was looking for.

I didn’t know what a tongue tie could look like, that a baby’s feeding issues could involve more than just whether they were gaining weight, or how many different things could be connected.

And I definitely didn’t know that identifying a tongue restriction wasn’t necessarily the end of the process.

Our first baby eventually had two releases. Karma is comical because our second one ended up having two releases also…that story is soon to come…

The Tongue Release Wasn’t a Magic Bullet

One of the things I kept hearing from other moms was that their child’s tongue release was like a magic bullet.

And I understand why they describe it that way.

When you’ve spent months watching your baby struggle and then suddenly things improve, it can absolutely feel magical.

But I don’t think the release itself tells the whole story.

For some babies, there is a lot of work that happens before and after a release, when prescribed:

• Feeding support

• Oral-motor work

• Bodywork

• Exercises

• Stretching or wound care

A baby has been developing and learning how to use their tongue with a restriction for over seven months in utero and then continues using it to feed for months after birth. Helping them learn how to use their tongue differently can be part of the journey.

Every journey is different. My two babies are probably the best example I could give you of that.

That’s why I don’t think there is one universal tongue-tie story.

There isn’t one checklist that perfectly describes every baby, and there certainly isn’t one treatment that guarantees every baby will have the same outcome.

Once We Started Talking About It, Other Stories Came Out

The strangest part of this whole experience was what happened once I started talking about it.

My mom started talking about it.

And then suddenly, stories started appearing everywhere.

A mom would tell me about her baby struggling to feed. Someone else would mention reflux. Someone would talk about a baby who hated turning to one side.

Another mom would tell me about months of appointments before someone finally evaluated their baby’s mouth.

And then there were the stories where a release was part of the solution and the family finally started seeing improvements.

It made me realize how many moms are quietly going through things they don’t understand.

Not because they’re ignoring their babies.

Not because they’re not advocating.

But because they don’t know what they don’t know.

I certainly didn’t.

What My First Baby Taught Me

My first baby taught me to listen to that little voice that says:

Something isn’t adding up.

Not every symptom means something is wrong.

Not every baby who spits up has a tongue tie.

Not every feeding issue has the same cause.

And not every tongue tie needs the same approach.

But I learned that it matters who you ask your questions to and what their training is. It’s okay to get another opinion.

From Towels to Questions

When I think back to those first months, I can still picture the towels. The piles of laundry. The baby in nothing but a diaper because I couldn’t keep changing her clothes.

The sleepless nights.

The appointments.

The uncertainty.

Googling, Are tongue ties real?

The feeling that I was somehow missing something.

But I also think about what happened once we finally got onto the right track.

That’s why I’m sharing this.

Not because I think every baby who spits up needs to be evaluated for a tongue tie. Not because I think a tongue release is a magic solution. And definitely not because I think a mom should diagnose her own baby from something she reads online.

I’m sharing it because I wish someone had told me that this world existed.

I wish I had known what questions to ask.

I wish I had known that getting an answer isn’t always the end of the process—and that preparation, support, and follow-up can matter too.

Most of all, I wish I hadn’t spent so much time wondering whether I was imagining what I was seeing.

Because sometimes a mom’s intuition isn’t an answer.

But sometimes it’s the reason she keeps asking questions long enough to find one.