My husband does this thing at dinner time where he rewards our toddler (2.5yo boy) for eating. He has all sorts of reasons why he thinks our toddler should eat, like he won’t be tall as an adult etc. Our toddler does seem to be picky at dinner time and doesn’t eat as much. My husband has started rewarding eating, like he’ll say, “I’ll turn the song on once you start eating,” “If you stop eating, the song goes off,” “Big bites, mate,” etc. I can’t tell you how much it frustrates me because I don’t agree with it!!! I’ll speak up calmly at the dinner table like, “He’s probably not hungry,” “Don’t make him eat if he’s not hungry,” “It’s not good to make him eat like that.” I’ve spoken to my husband about this afterwards in private.

He's only recently started doing it but he hasnt stopped. He thinks our toddler is 'just being difficult'. My toddler just loves his dad and wants to please him so i'm worried he's making himself eat when he doesnt really want to. Im with my toddler all day as a SAHM so dinnertime is all about dad.

It happened again tonight, and I eventually left the room to eat my dinner somewhere else because he hasn’t listened to me and i was so pissed off!

I don’t know what to do. Financially, im not in a position to just leave him so please dont suggest divorce. I also dont know what to do right now about it

My oldest is in 6th grade and one thing I’ve noticed over the years is that it’s the same people over and over helping out at the school in any volunteering capacity and a very large portion of the parent population are not engaged at all. It’s a big school and there are lots of opportunities to get involved and they’re always asking for help with basic school stuff— chaperones, decorations for events, order a permit, basic clean up, etc etc. All kinds of hours, all levels of commitment available. The older the kids get, the less likely the school can get volunteers.

I guess I’m just surprised. I thought for most people helping out at the school is a thing you know you gotta do sometimes? Like we all want our kids to have a good community? I know some people have circumstances where it’s really not possible; I am not talking about people who cannot. I’m talking more about how hard it is to find volunteers and how many people could that do not. Some of my favorite events at the school beg for help from people and nobody raises their hand. But people love to go to said events every year …

For those of you who have experienced gender disappointment, how were you realistically able to get over it? I feel so, so guilty for feeling the way I do, but I physically feel heartbroken. I feel like I’m mourning something I never had and that’s really troublesome to me.

I was obviously wanting a girl this time around. I wasn’t letting myself even fall to the idea that it could be because I just knew it would be a boy and I didn’t want to be in the position I’m currently in.
My husband got exactly what he wanted, again, and I’m trying to just be happy with a healthy baby. And I’m very happy that we’re blessed with another baby, but we agreed this was our last one. We had one more shot. I feel like such an a-hole for feeling this way. But I can’t stop my tears when I think of the experiences I’ve been so excited about since I was young, knowing I’ll never have them.

3 boys will be fun. Exhausting, but fun. I know I need to look at the positives. But I just feel lost right now. Sorry for the dramatics - I know I’m not the only one to go through this by any means.
My oldest son wanted a baby sister so bad. I’m really not looking forward to telling him he’s going to have another baby brother 😅😂 he might take it harder than me!

Edit: I also had a miscarriage (too early to tell gender) when my second son was 6 months old. I will always wonder if that was “my girl” or not. So I’m just in my head a little extra about it.

I had my first baby during COVID, and my mom died before my second. My MIL has never helped me unless explicitly asked. My younger SIL (husband’s little sister) just had her first baby and there’s so many things that I’m curious about. I would love some other perspectives.

To begin, my MIL (who doesn’t drive on highways) was present for almost the entirety of labor and birth (arriving a few hours after water broke). When it turned into a c-section, the husband left and my MIL accompanied SIL to the c-section. The husband specifically said he did NOT want to cut the cord, but my MIL did.

Then, my MIL stayed the entire night with my SIL, BIL, and new baby on the first night.

Am I reading into this because I never got this chance with my mom? Am I sensitive because my MIL never gives me the time of day unless I ask? Or is this as abnormal as it feels to me?

ETA: this is SIL’s first baby, but the third grandbaby.

ETA2: since people are asking, no I wouldn’t have wanted my MIL at my birth, but I gave birth at a different hospital with MUCH stricter rules about visitors.

MIL has been going to help prep for the baby by cleaning and cooking and all kinds of things, but I need to very specifically ask for help (can you wipe the table?) before she does anything. I often ask for help, but unless I say something very specific, she doesn’t do anything.

I always wanted to be the family that ate together every night, but it’s admittedly really hard to come up with adult meal plans every week that my kids (6, 6, 3) will also eat. I just can’t be bothered a lot of the time. It’s so much easier to make them kid meals and then figure something else out for my husband and I. We try to do at least one dinner all together a week so that makes me feel better. Just wondering what others do, and if you do eat together most of the time, what are you making that the whole family can/will eat?

My family has moved across the country. We are currently in temporary housing in an airbnb. We have purchased a house but won't move in for another month.

Our daughters starts school on Tuesday.

My husband starts his new job on Tuesday as well.

We have one car available to us while our cars are being shipped over.

My husband's job is 30 minutes from our current location.

We will need to leave at 6:45am to drop him off.

Our daughters school will allow for drop off at 8:45am, at the earliest.

So to drop my husband off and return to rental, we would get back by 7:45(ish) then we would have to head out to the school at 8:30am. Would you go that route or would you stay out and play at a playground or something and then go for school drop off? I have a very energetic child, going into Grade 1. Just trying to crowd source opinions as they both seem to equally suck.

Edit: We have no extra funds/budget for an extra car or a taxi/Uber. We should have both vehicles by September 24th. So, just over 2 weeks of this.

My mom watches my 4 year old one or two times per week. He's sick today and I told my mom, but she says she doesn't mind watching him and isn't worried about catching anything.

She's always said this and has come over and taken care of him before (i work from home). I think she loves taking care of him. She brings him a new blanket, popsicles, soda crackers, all the sick stuff. Rubs his feet, and sits with him while hes out of it.

Working from home, it wouldn't be that hard (I have done it and its hard, but I mean its manageable for my job) for me to take care of him but I think its a special experience for both of them. He always talks about grandma taking care of him when he was sick and the special things she brings. Anyways, my mom is almost 70, and I worry about her even though she tells me not too. Would you let your mom watch your feverish 4 year old? I'm supposed to tell her in the morning my decision.

Told him the time needed to leave/ pick up son from school because I’ve done it 200 times and never been late.

He gets him there 5 minutes late. Says it’s no big deal.

But it is to me. I guess all the times on was on time mean nothing to him and he thinks is “fine” to be late and “I’m freaking out and being anxious about nothing” arghh

Sure 5 minutes is not the end of the world but it’s just the principle of it.

For context my daughter just started kindergarten a month ago. I do drop off and pick up everyday. Last week there were multiple incidents of another student being inappropriate towards my daughter while they had a substitute (all has been reported). I kept her home the next day until they could give me a plan to ensure her safety going forward.

Today I got the automated "your child was absent from school" message. I dropped her off. So I called and asked what was going on. It took them 10 minutes to find her. In that time I grew more panicked.When I finally got a confirmation that they had eyes on her, I was not a pleasant person to them. I don't think I yelled but I wasn't nice. I told them that 10 minutes was an unacceptable amount of time to not know where my child is. I don't know if I overreacted about the automated message but as a whole I think I'm upset that no one seems to know what's going on.

How would you have handled this?

I see so many online conversations about how hard labour and childbirth are, but why does barely anyone talk about how awful pregnancy itself can be? 😭

Constipation is driving me insane. I’ll go multiple days without being able to go at all. My stomach blows up like a balloon. And when I finally do need to poop, I’m scared to push too hard. I genuinely don’t know what else to do.

Everybody says motherhood is hard, but that means something different to each individual. I don't want to needlessly suffer from a "hard" that isn't normal. Basically, I want to know if the following struggles (as a whole) can mostly be attributed to my unmedicated ADHD (official diagnosis), or if neurotypicals struggle with the same amount of basic things at the same frequency. (Note: I have a husband with unmedicated ADHD, a toddler, and a baby).

Here are my struggles (most have been happening for several years):

-        30+ minutes late to daycare almost every day.

-        Bank account runs dry several times a year without us noticing for several days. We have the means to easily transfer more funds, but still…

-        Bookkeeping records for our family business are full of tons of missing information every year. I just can’t seem to grasp accounting concepts, and also I’m unmotivated to regularly note the source of each expense before we forget what the expense was.

-        Regularly try to squeeze in two or more time-consuming social engagements per weekend, even though I know it’s a tight fit and also know that social engagements naturally involve desserts/sugar, which I hate my toddler to eat too much of.

-        Regularly work less than 6 hours per day even though I am a FT salaried employee. With baby #2, I’m now averaging 4 hours per day. The reason has always been that I feel like so many tasks in my personal life are super high priority. I can’t kick the feeling that everything is an emergency.

-        Our two dogs and cat get little to no attention in terms of walks and cuddles. This has been going on (to a lesser extent) even before kids.

-        Every day, our kitchen is chock-full of dirty dishes for at least half the day. Dishes are my least favorite chore.

-        I receive an average of one Amazon package per week. Add that up over 5+ years and you have a house full of clutter, most of which never gets used because I didn’t need those things anyway. They were practical at the time, but they were for fixing a one-time anxiety.

-        I can’t imagine adding any more self-care tasks to my already-overwhelming morning and nighttime routines because my brain already feels overloaded as it is. This means that I rarely or never do morning teeth brushing, makeup, moisturizer, or jewelry. I do the basic stuff, but still…

-        Same with my toddler’s routine. Bath is 1-2x per week, morning tooth brushing is never, morning hair brushing is never, washing face is a couple times a week.

-        I snooze my morning alarm for 15+ minutes every day, even before kids.

-        Don’t get me started on the amount of food waste. This isn’t just me being naïve about “use by” dates. These are things that have legitimately gone bad.

-        There’s probably more, especially when you add my husband’s struggles, many of which overlap with mine.

Do most people struggle with such a wide breadth of things? It seems like a rather long list to me, but I have no frame of reference. I was diagnosed with ADHD about a month ago, and I'm now paranoid that the things I thought were normal may not be.

So my oldest is 7 F and Im looking at getting her one of those wifi phones, the pinwheel is my top pick right now. I dont plan on buying into the service yet so the phone would basically only be able to call other pinwheels if i understand what the site says. Im on the fense about the subscription. If we buy the phonee for our daughter we plan to buy one for her cousin so she has at least one person she can call. Part of my justification is I want her and her sibling to have easy access to 911 and to be able to call friends like we did as kids without the distraction on a tablet or using my phone. AND I dont want 100 robo calls a day.

I want opinions on these phones from parents who have them or have researched wifi phone or landlines. Is it worth going without the subscrition? Should i just opt for the land line? Have you got one your kid and you love?

Thoughts?

I’m expecting baby #2, and my daughter will be 16 months old when they are born. I don’t have much of a village, and I will be a SAHM. Am I screwed? I’m having so much guilt about having another baby while my girl is still a baby and needs my attention. I guess I’m just looking for some advice/positivity.

Also, if you had babies close in age, were they the same or different genders? It seems everyone I know with 2 under 2 has either two girls or two boys. Just curious. :)

Wondering if anyone has any experience with a long labor and vaginal delivery with their first and elected to be induced with their second?

My second is measuring 2 weeks ahead on ultrasound (plus it's a boy so theyre bigger) so i am hoping to be induced at 39 weeks and 2 days. No GD though which the ultrasound techs keep asking. This timing is bc its a friday and I want the grandparents to take less time off work to watch my first born lol

Anyone have anything similar? Im really hoping for a vaginal delivery and feel like bc my body went through one, im less reluctant to be induced.

Feeling embarrassed and stressed and just want to vent. I had my baby in June. We put our kid on my health plan, and decided to start contributing to a dependent care flexible savings account, or DCFSA. He starts daycare October 5. I can’t believe we didn’t realize this, but my benefits end on 9/30 and resume 10/1, so we’ve been contributing to this account and we will have nothing to spend the money on. It can’t go towards the deposit, because the plan will only cover “services rendered”. I think this is where our math failed us. The account currently has about $1550, and only $660 will roll over into next year’s plan on October 1. Never mind the fact that I will be on unpaid leave for the month of September, so I have to pay for my benefits out of pocket this month, including this FSA that I CANNOT use. I’m sick over this. Learn from my mistakes. If you think you’re being very careful and methodical while planning out your benefits, just dial up the intensity one notch.

So today after I picked my twins up from their dad not even 5 mins later he sends this self righteous text about the messiness of my car. It’s not that bad for starters. I’ve had worse. But I literally cart around twin toddlers who sometimes throw their food on the ground and there’s been a heat advisory so cleaning it out isn’t my top priority.

Anyways he’s all like “don’t you care about their long term health?” After mentioning all the things wrong with my car on the inside. We went back and forth for a while and he just straight up said “clean your car” like dude who are you to think you can tell me what to do anymore anyways? I’ll get to it when I get to it. They can’t get anything on the floor for they are in car seats. Idk what the issue is. It’s not a health hazard. He just nitpicks everything I do now. He recently called DCS on me claiming I’m “too impaired” to take care of the boys. Everything he does is perfect apparently and everything I do is wrong. 🤷‍♀️

My 2 yo is sleeping in her big girl bed for the first time tonight, for the last two years she's either slept with me or with her bed right next to mine.... shes still in the room just a couple feet away but man she feels so far away. I love that she's brave enough to sleep that far away from me but I'm so sad that I'm missing out on those cuddles.

Im staying at my brothers place with my baby for 2 weeks and they have a 4year old and a 10month old. I have a 6month old. Ive been enjoying maternity leave as my baby is very chilled, peaceful and just a joy to be around. Now im not saying that it is or always will always be 'easy' with her but she is the cutest baby and laughs a lot and barely cries

Ofcourse i love my brothers kids but they are so loud.. the younger one screams sooo loud and high pitched multiple times an hour (my eardrums are ruined for life), the older one whines and complains all the time and you have to constantly tell her 'no'

Im honestly scared of ever having another baby as my brother and his wife seem so tired and exhausted all the time, im not sure they are actually enjoying life right now.

How do you mummas with more than 1 kid do it? Are you happy and enjoy your kids? Do you have fun or are you just dying inside? Ive always wanted 2 kids but oh my lord im so done after less than a week

I think I hate my husband. And I fucking hate that I feel this way.

I want to be a good team. I want to appreciate his efforts. I want to see him as a wonderful father. But I don't. I see glimpses that give me hope. But overall, we fight about stupid useless things *constantly*.

I'm constantly having to double check that he put the diaper on correctly, or that he's giving our one year old age appropriate foods (why do I have to keep saying no raw apple or cucumber or a whole ass pickle??!), or that he put the harness on correctly in the car seat, or that he packed what's required for a daily outing. Then 9/10 times I have to fix the diaper, fish a chunk of raw apple out of baby's mouth, tighten &/or untwist the carseat harness, repack the bag with weather appropriate clothing and enough diapers and etc etc. And his phone OH MY GOD THE PHONE for fucks sake. It seems like every day I have to tell him to put his phone down and watch the baby, then I hear the baby crying and turn around to see husband on his goddamn phone. Like hello???? Your baby is crying and reaching for you and you're too busy to notice. What the actual fuck. He also can't seem to spend time with our little one without headphones in - listening to a podcast or audiobook. The lack of ability to be present is pissing me off.

The thing is, we've been together for almost half our lives. We had an almost 15 year relationship before having a kid, and it was an amazing relationship. I genuinely thought we'd be great together as parents. We've been talking about it for years - the kind of parents we wanted to be, the parenting styles we like/don't like, what our family would be like. And like I said before, I see glimpses of this version of him, but I need more of this. I feel like I have 2 toddlers sometimes.

Anyways I just needed to rant. Please tell me if I'm in the wrong, I'd like to do what I can to make this work and to be a better parent & partner. And please share if you've been in a similar situation and what you did to make things better.

Just trying to get a feel for everyone else’s threshold for when to keep older children home from school if they have a cold.

Of course if they have a fever or strep or are coughing uncontrollably, or losing sleep from the symptoms, I’ll keep them home.

Beyond that, I struggle with making the call to keep them home. Colds are uncomfortable but an annoying part of life, and can last 7-10 days.

If they don’t have covid or strep, I’ll send them with some ibuprofen and cough drops and tea in a thermos, and just prioritize sleep for the following week.

Wondering if folks do the same for middle school kids or if I’m off base.

Hi! I am about to trade my Jeep Gladiator for an EV mom car. I live in Texas so I try to get light colored interiors to help with the heat, but with a baby on the way I’m worried that it would stain and look bad. Does anyone have recommendations if it’s better to get a black interior for messes or a light interior for the heat?

FYI I’m looking at the Ioniq 5 if anyone has input on EV mom cars.

Thanks for your thoughts!

My daughter will be 10 in October. She just started 4th grade and is still such a kid, which I love don’t get me wrong, but she’s getting older and it’s still a battle to have her shower and actually wash her hair properly. She also refuses to brush her hair or have it brushed. She’s a level 6 gymnast so she needs to shower whenever she has practice, which is basically daily, and because it’s already such a battle to get her to shower (she’s getting a bigger attitude, talks back, moans and groans, etc), I don’t even bother with brushing her hair. So it’s always tangled and stringy and she’ll just tie it in a low pony for school/gymnastics and call it a day. I thought the influence from other girls at school and gym who are literally into Sephora, skincare, makeup, etc would rub off on her but it hasn’t and she just does not care about any of it. Again, not mad that she wants to be a kid, just wish she cared more about hygiene and not sure how to get her to?

5 month old has been battling a cold over the last couple days, but doesn't have a fever so dr said it's fine to let him fight it off for now. I fed him his bottle tonight and he seemed fine and then as I was walking him to bed he spit/threw up the entire bottle. I gave him a bath and offered him a little more, he didn't seem to want it. He's asleep now, curious should I plan to feed him at sine point tonight? Not going to wake him, but will follow his lead if/when he wants food. I know if he refuses the bottle then it might be time to bring him in.....what do yall think?

Every year, we take my baby on a trip to a new city or state for his birthday. When he turned one, we took him to Corpus Christi and spent his birthday weekend at the beach and aquarium. For his second birthday, we went to San Antonio, where we took him to SeaWorld and Schlitterbahn and explored the city.
I'm now planning his third birthday, and I really want to go to Colorado because I love the idea of being out in nature and seeing all the mountains, especially since we're stuck in the city. But my husband says there isn't much to do with a toddler. My husband really wants to go to Disney, but I feel like it would be a waste of money since my toddler wouldn't be able to go on all the rides.
Does anyone have any ideas for nice states, places, or cruises that don't travel to Mexico?
We're from Texas, but we don't mind driving or flying!

For the past six months, my husband has been deployed. Previous to his deployment I had a three month old baby and a two year old.
Since he’s been gone, obviously my baby is now nine months old and our oldest is 2.5. We had to put down our family dog unexpectedly while he’s deployed. I’ve struggled a lot with postpartum and grieving the dog as well. I don’t get a lot of help even though my family is fairly close by. (My dad lives 15 minutes away and my mom is 45 minutes, and my sister is 20 minutes)
By saying I need help I’ve asked my family multiple times if they could help me come to the grocery store while I was potty training my two-year-old and nobody really wanted to help. I’ve also been having to go to pelvic floor therapy and mental health counseling finding childcare that is impossible unless I hire someone.
I had a mental breakdown after putting down our dog. Got onto antidepressants and hired a babysitter. My babysitter comes over on Mondays and Wednesdays for about four hours a week.
For the past seven months, my dad has watched the kids by himself four times. (Two of those times were right before and the day of that I put down my dog.)
My mom tries to help out as best as she can and I’m so grateful that she tries her hardest to see the kids everyday weekend.
My sister just had a baby back in May so my expectations are very low. But she sees my mom and we all see each other which does pour into my cup.
Needless to say my dad and I talked on the phone today about my youngest son‘s first birthday. And I’ve had a determined that I’m not celebrating a birthday with my family. Or anyone in general.
My youngest son’s first birthday is going to be about him, my oldest son, and I. I plan on baking cake with both of them and having a fun dinner that we make at home.
The main reason is, I’ve had A LOT of lows this year and barely had any help.
My dad’s sense of helping is me coming by with my children and his wife making dinner. The food is typically never food and it throws off our schedule.
I’ve always viewed me going over to his house is something for him and the children rather than myself.
If I wanted to have an “easy”, I would stay at home, put a frozen pizza in the oven and turn on a movie.
But anyways, he had a lot of pushback and said I was being selfish. But, I’ve been the only one to feed my kids, provide healthy meals, a consistent routine, and harvest the best environment for them to flourish in.
I think his first birthday is gonna be huge milestone for me and I don’t want or share that moment with anyone else.
Am I being selfish? Am I only thinking of myself?