26 December 2025 · Roshni Mahtani Cheung
Cofounder, Little Rei · Mother of one
10 Times to Trust Your Mama Intuition
Intuition is a slightly unhelpful word for this. A parent spends more hours watching one particular child than any professional ever will, and builds a detailed picture of that child's normal: how they hold themselves, what their cry sounds like, how they feed when they're well. The feeling that something is off is that picture registering a change before you can put it into words. It's data, gathered by the only person in a position to gather it.
1. When your child seems unwell and you can't say why
This is the most important one, and the one parents are most often talked out of. Clinical guidance on serious illness in children lists a parent's concern that the child isn't themselves as a warning sign in its own right, because it comes before measurable signs often enough to count. If your child is unusually floppy, drowsy, unresponsive, breathing differently, unusually pale or mottled, or simply not themselves in a way you can't pin down, seek medical advice. Use the words "this isn't how my child normally is". Clinicians take them seriously.
2. When feeding doesn't feel right
Pain that's dismissed as normal, a baby who feeds constantly and never settles, or weight gain that has slowed. Many feeding problems have clear, fixable causes. If you have a strong sense that something is wrong with feeding, take it to someone who will look, a lactation consultant or a doctor, instead of settling for another round of general reassurance.
When something feels wrong
3. When development feels stalled, and not merely slow
Charts are wide, and being late with one thing rarely means much. A parent who feels a child has stopped moving forward, or has lost something they could do, is describing a pattern, and that's exactly the distinction that counts clinically. Ask early, since the answer is usually reassurance.
4. When advice doesn't fit your child
General advice is written for a population, and you have one specific child. If a method meant for everyone is clearly making your child worse over a long stretch, it isn't the right method for that child. Safety guidance is the exception, because it isn't a matter of preference. Almost everything else is.
5. When someone dismisses a concern without examining it
That's different from someone disagreeing with you after looking. If a concern is waved away without anyone checking, it's reasonable to ask again, or to ask someone else. Pushing is uncomfortable, and once in a while it's what catches something.
6. When a person or situation feels wrong
A carer, a setting, an arrangement everyone else is happy with. You don't need to justify a discomfort you can't yet explain before you act on it, and changing the arrangement almost always costs less than overriding yourself.
7. When your child tells you something without words
A sudden refusal to go somewhere, regression, a change in how they are around a particular person. Young children show through behaviour what they can't put into words, and behaviour that changes sharply is a message to read, not a habit to correct. I'm not sure how sharp the change has to be, and Shan changed what I'd have said about that.
8. When you know your child is capable of more than they are being given
Or less. You see the whole child across every setting. Anyone else sees a slice. Say that out loud to a teacher or a doctor, because the professional view is never the complete one.
9. When you are at the end of your capacity
The feeling that you can't keep going like this is information too, and it's the one parents ignore longest. Lasting exhaustion, dread, numbness or frightening intrusive thoughts need raising with a doctor. Perinatal mental health problems are common and treatable, and naming them isn't a weakness.
10. When everything is fine
The under-used version. If your child is thriving and you feel calm about it, you don't need to adopt a system because someone online is sure of it. A calm sense that things are going well is as much a signal as an alarm.
Ten years is a long time to sit on an observation
This is the part I have most to say about, and it doesn't reflect especially well on me. I knew something was going on with Shan for years before I could name it. Not a diagnosis, I didn't have one then and I'm not qualified to make one now, only a persistent sense that the sleep problem wasn't really about sleep, that she was reacting to something none of us could see. I didn't push it, because as a first-time mother it's very easy to hear some version of "she's just a fussy baby" so often that you file your own observation under anxiety and get on with the week. That's what I did.
It took until she was ten, and by then the thing I'd been noticing since she was a few months old proved to be the thing.
The lesson I'd draw isn't the usual one. It isn't "always trust yourself", because sometimes you're wrong, and the entire point of a doctor is that they're better at this than you are. It's narrower and duller than that: an observation you keep making, over months, about your own child, is information. Write it down. Take it to somebody. Don't let it become the thing you only understand ten years later.
And when to check it
Instinct is a signal, not a verdict, and it can go wrong in known ways. Be more careful with it when:
- It contradicts evidence-based safety guidance. Back-to-sleep, car seats, medicine doses and allergen introduction aren't areas where a feeling should win.
- You're exhausted. Lack of sleep reliably makes threats feel bigger, which is a reason to ask somebody, never a reason to dismiss the feeling.
- It's a broad, general anxiety and not an observation about something specific. "Something is wrong with his breathing" and "something terrible might happen" are different signals.
- It arrived from an algorithm. A worry that started twenty minutes ago in a feed of frightening posts isn't the same thing as noticing your own child.
The answer to all four is the same: instinct tells you to look, and evidence tells you what you're looking at. Following the first by seeking the second isn't a lack of confidence. It's the whole method.
Questions I had
Is mother's intuition real?
Yes, in the sense that counts. A parent spends more hours watching one child than anyone else, and the sense that something is off is their picture of normal registering a change before the words arrive. Clinical guidance treats parental concern as a warning sign.
What should I say if a doctor dismisses my concern?
Describe the change and not the worry: what your child normally does, what they are doing now, and when it changed. "This isn't how my child normally is" carries clinical weight. If a concern is dismissed without anyone examining the child, asking again or asking someone else is reasonable.
When should I not trust my instinct?
When it conflicts with evidence-based safety guidance, safe sleep, car seats, medicine dosing, allergen introduction. Also treat it carefully when you're severely sleep-deprived or when the worry is broad and free-floating, with no specific observation about your own child underneath it.
This guide is general information, written to help you understand a topic and ask better questions. It is not medical advice and does not replace your own doctor, midwife or paediatrician. Anything that worries you about your baby belongs with them.