My husband was supposed to take our son (3) to the doctor this morning. Little boy hasn’t been feeling well (he tested positive for strep two weeks ago and I was worried it came back) and his daddy offered to be the one to take him to the doctor because I’ve been really busy at work. He told me to make an early appointment because he had more flexibility in the morning, so I made it for 8:50. Knowing that he had volunteered for this, my husband decided to stay at his office all night and didn’t get home until 4:30 am. I had my misgivings (and I should’ve listened to my intuition) but he’s gone to bed really late and still gotten up early to make it to things before. This morning around 7:15 when I went to leave I couldn’t get my husband to wake up for me to tell him bye and remind him about the appointment. I was still trying to give him the benefit of the doubt and left a note about the appointment wrapped around the phone and slipped out. I’d like to mention that my son was still asleep at this point and we are pretty lucky because he will sleep until around 8 if nobody wakes him up, so I figured it was ok that they were both still asleep. When I got to work at 8 I texted my husband to let him know the baby’s backpack was packed and there was a fresh water bottle in the fridge in case he was able to go to daycare. No response. That’s not unusual for him so I tried to let it go. Then around 8:30 I texted him to ask if he was up. No response. At 8:50 I texted him again to see if they’d made it. No response. At 8:55 I called the doctor’s office to see if they’d checked in and the girl said they had not. I started to panic because my son was probably awake and if his daddy was still asleep that hard then he was basically alone. I called my husband, he didn’t pick up. I called again, nothing. It’s 9:15 at this point and I text him to tell him I’m about to send my parents to the house to check on our 3 year old son. I give him 5 minutes to tell me not to but no response. I call my dad (my parents live 10 minutes down the road and I work 30 minutes away so sending one of the was faster) and he says he’s happy to go check it out. That was at 9:30, my dad had to get dressed and drive over to the house so he gets there at 9:50. He said when he walked in there was no movement until he got to my baby’s room and he was sitting on his bed crying. My dad got him changed, grabbed a sippy cup and his backpack and took him back to their house. I let my boss know what was going on and he said I was fine to go get my child and work from home. I go flying out to my house first, throw our front door open, and start screaming. By this point it is 10:50. It scares my husband enough that he finally wakes up and jumps out of our bed and I ask him if he knows where our son is. This is then followed up by me calling him irresponsible (this is not the first time he’s stayed out late like that) and told him if he wants to be at the office so badly then he should probably start sleeping there and that he better not still be at the house by the time I got back with our son. All I could focus on was that our 3 year old was essentially by himself for an hour and it would’ve been longer if my dad hadn’t been able to go get him and there are so many things that could’ve gone very badly in that time. Did I overreact?

I’d like to note that I do not think my husband is cheating on me and that isn’t the point of this story anyway.

TLDR; my husband volunteered to take our 3 year old to the doctor in the morning while I was at work, then stayed out until 4:30 am and was asleep so hard that my child was basically home by himself for about an hour and I lost my shit on my husband when I could finally get back to my house.

My son did great with the 2 and 4 month vaccines (besides a little GI upset from the rotavirus). However, he just got his 6 month old vaccines on Monday and spiked a high fever within 3 hours. I was blown away how fast he reacted.

It has now been 24 hrs and we are keeping a close eye on him bc he has fluctuations between 101-104° . We're doing meds, cool baths, cold milk, and resting cool damp wash cloths on him.

Our doc says it's no big deal and to just use Tylenol q 4 hrs and Motrin as needed if Tylenol didn't work.

My poor guy is miserable I feel terrible.

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 feel like a zombie starting around 4 as I count down the hours to bedtime ZzZzZz Has anyone found something to ease the transition?

I’m 6 weeks pp with 2nd baby. My oldest started TK so suddenly she’s gone everyday and I’m home with a baby. I find myself missing my old life with my oldest so much. I’m way more sad this time than I thought and then to top everything off I had to put my dog down today. Nothing feels real I’m just in a fog! My life doesn’t feel like mine right now. When will this cloud lift off of my life?! I don’t exactly regret having a 2nd baby but I’m having a harder time connecting this time around. My first baby was so magical and I felt bonded right away. Has anyone else experience this with second baby?

Gearing up for a long couple weeks with my now 6 week old. Pediatrician mentioned it gets tough weeks 6-8 so just curious what everyone’s experience has been.

We just started my 4yo daughter in a new preschool. We were happy at her old school but my employer sponsors a center and so we switched.

I’m concerned how they handle naps and not sure if I’m overreacting. They have a 2 hr nap period and the children are expected to lie on their mats the entire time whether they sleep or not. My daughter hasn’t napped in months. I asked if she could do some quiet activity and the teacher told me they couldn’t. I raised it with the director and she told me they could do puzzles or draw as long as they stayed on the mat. But when I followed up with the teacher about those specific activities, she reiterated that no activities were allowed and she could have a second stuffie but that’s it. Her old school didn’t do it this way. They had a short quiet time but kids could do quiet activities if they didn’t nap.

This seems excessive to me. I’d be bored if I was lying around for 2 hrs. I would be fine if the rest time was shorter, or if she was allowed to do some quiet activities while other kids napped. But it’s 2 hrs of lying around with nothing to do.

I also don’t like how the director and teacher are communicating different things. The director actually told me the teacher must have been confused when I asked about nap time and doing quiet activities and she said that wasn’t allowed, because their policy is to allow quiet activities. It felt like she was blowing me off and makes me lack trust in the facility. I tried really hard to approach the question from a place of curiosity and not seem critical.

What do you all think? Am I overly concerned about this or would it bother you?

I just need to vent. I write this as I lay defeated on the couch while my toddler climbs on me like a jungle gym. I have an almost 2 year old and I’m currently 8 months pregnant. We’re going on 6+ weeks of my toddler being sick. No one in the house has slept in what feels like forever. Her cough has gotten worse and now she has diarrhea, so I took her back to the pediatrician. She’s terrified of shots and taking her to the doctor is a nightmare now. I have to put her in a “restraint hug” so the doctor can quickly examine her. She’s flailing- screaming, kicking, crying- while the pediatrician is trying to listen to her lungs and look in her ears. She has a new virus and her ears are still infected from the last virus. The antibiotics didn’t work, despite the torture it was to get her to take them. We are prescribed stronger antibiotics to treat the ears, which will likely worsen the diarrhea. Which will likely worsen the diaper rash she already has. Lovely.

She finally calms down and I waddle her to the car. It starts raining and, of course, our umbrella is MIA. I get her in the car seat and she starts crying again. We start to drive home and it’s now down-pouring. The car is yelling at me to get gas. I’m not going to make it home, so I need to stop somewhere. My toddler is screaming, I’m trying to calm her down, my unborn child is kicking me the sh*t out of me, it’s pouring out, and I can barely see the road. To say I’m overstimulated is an understatement. I pull into the gas station and thoroughly scrape the side of my car on one of those concrete pole barriers. Awesome. I have an audience of people at the pumps watching this happen. I waddle out to see the damage. Not terrible, but definitely not pretty. I’m pumping gas and simultaneously trying to feed my overtired screaming toddler cheddar bunnies so she will settle. The screaming kid probably didn’t help the onlooker situation. I don’t even care, I just power through so we can get home for nap.

We finally make it home, I look back, and she’s asleep. Not good. It’s still drizzling and I waddle up to the house with her bundled in my sweater. I change her, get her settled, give her some milk and put her down for a nap. We’re both exhausted and she only slept for maybe 5 minutes in the car. Surely she’ll take an actual nap? HA! Nope! She’s wide awake and bouncing around the crib. I give it some time before giving up and taking her out. Nap time is definitely not happening today.

So here I am- waving the white flag and fighting to stay awake until my husband gets home to take over. She’s climbing on me like a jungle gym, watching Ms. Rachel, and littering my living room rug with crushed cheddar bunnies. We’re definitely ordering pizza tonight.

Send thoughts and prayers 🫠

I have 4 kids, 5, 4, 3, 18 months. I work from home full time (because everyone always lectures me about working and parenting….yes-my boss knows my kids are home, no- they don’t care lol) I work 8-10 hour days and it feels like working 2 full time jobs simultaneously. I also do school drop off and pick up for both my son and 3 of my nieces because they live in our neighborhood and go to the same school. My husband has to be at work at 5am so I wake up at 5, get myself ready, pack lunches, snack, make breakfast, wake up all 4 of my kids, dress them/ help them get dressed, shoes on, breakfast fed, teeth brushed and out the door by 7 to pick up the girls and head to school by 7:20. By the time I get home, I have 20 minutes to finish situating my kids that aren’t in school and ensuring that they are content before I clock in at 8. My lunch hour is spent picking the kids up from school so I usually just eat at my desk and by the time I’m off work at 5 I have to cook dinner, referee while they eat, do baths and spend maybe 30 (if I’m lucky) of quality time with my kids before it’s the bedtime routine. I’m exhausted by the end of the day and usually only have an hour to relax and watch tv before I’m falling asleep myself (kids still wake up and try to sneak in our room through the night too because of nightmares and just because so I’m waking up several times a night too)

Here’s my question. Do any other moms wait until their kids go to bed and just order food and relax and watch tv? The past few months my husband and I have either been eating our food later or just ordering instead so we can relax for that hour and eat in peace watching tv. I was talking to a couple friends and my cousin yesterday and casually mentioned what we were going to watch while we ate and they asked “wait, you don’t eat with your kids, you just sit with them while they eat?” Full judgment. Granted, 2 of them don’t have kids and one only has 1 and the other 2 but they are older. Am I a bad mom for waiting until my kids go to bed to eat dinner and just sitting with them feeding/ refereeing while they eat? We used to eat as a family but with 4 kids so little, our food would end up cold and the kids would always be done before us and it was chaos, this way we can focus on making sure they eat, talk to them, ask them about their day while my husband is helping them and I’m feeding our youngest/ preventing them from making a mess. Anyone else?

To sum up what has happened today…

We had a slow morning with both my 2yo and my 4mo. The baby actually slept in today, I got my toddler breakfast. We all got ready to go to the library for story time, everything was great.

Not even 5 minutes at the library and we have a medical emergency, my toddler split her eyebrow on a table corner. Call 911 and my husband because I cannot juggle both the toddler who is TERRIFIED of doctors and the 4mo. It’s 9:30am.

Go to the hospital. 1cm gash. Deep. Needs stitches. 4mo is being an absolute trooper, but there’s one problem. I only packed 1 bottle for her and I don’t have a breast pump. She doesn’t nurse. The hospital has ready to feed formula but she REFUSED to eat it. Oh well you won’t starve.

So note to self, always pack 2 bottles of milk and have a hand pump. Kids are fine, I’m fine, husband is fine. We got McDonald’s after 🥲

We're on day 4 of quitting bottles cold turkey. The past three nights have been pure hell. She screams bloody murder and won't even let us touch her or try to soothe her. She was waking up several times a night before and getting her bottle with milk so I know it's a comfort thing. She still has her other comfort items but the bottle one is hard for her to let go of. She does eventually let us soothe her and falls back asleep but within an hour to an hour and a half, it's the same cycle on repeat.

We tried the diluting thing but she was doing the same thing. She wanted milk in her bottle. Her baby doctor agreed that we should try going cold turkey. But it's been torture. Neither my husband or I have been able to sleep for more than an hour a night. We're both at our limits but I don't want to stop now because then it feels like we just forced her for a few days and that seems kinda cruel. And we would still have the issue of her waking up several times a night. She was barely eating food during the day too. The past few days she's been eating so much which is good.

I just don't know how to finish this. My husband and I can't seem to agree on what to do and are just arguing all the time now.

For anyone that did cold turkey on bottles, how long does it normally take?

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. 🤷‍♀️

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.

Hi everyone, it's my first time posting here. I think I just want to vent or see if anyone can relate.

I have been working from home full time while taking care of my baby since she was a couple of months old. Over the months, I added part time nanny care about 4-10 hours a week. Since my baby turned 12 months, we got her into a daycare infant center since she was needing so much more care that my husband and I couldn't give. My husband doesn't have reliable WFH days so it was mostly me and I was getting completely burnt out.

This week is week 3. Last week was partial because she was sick. Well today, I got a message that they're having a hard time with her because she's very emotional when they tend to the other kids. She wants to be held and wants attention. I was asked if I hold her a lot. Idk what's considered a lot. I don't hold her hours long. I couldn't even if I wanted to.

She doesn't have cousins and we're not around kids. We have a weekly baby class but it's just a couple hours a week. Does it get better?

Hi everyone, it's my first time posting here. I think I just want to vent or see if anyone can relate.

I have been working from home full time while taking care of my baby since she was a couple of months old. Over the months, I added part time nanny care about 4-10 hours a week. Since my baby turned 12 months, we got her into a daycare infant center since she was needing so much more care that my husband and I couldn't give. My husband doesn't have reliable WFH days so it was mostly me and I was getting completely burnt out.

This week is week 3. Last week was partial because she was sick. Well today, I got a message that they're having a hard time with her because she's very emotional when they tend to the other kids. She wants to be held and wants attention. I was asked if I hold her a lot. Idk what's considered a lot. I don't hold her hours long. I couldn't even if I wanted to.

She doesn't have cousins and we're not around kids. We have a weekly baby class but it's just a couple hours a week. Does it get better?

I know they say 3s are harder than 2s but holy cow idk if this is normal. How many tantrums does your kid have a day and over what? This is my only child. I know it’s hard to regulate emotions at this age but every little thing turns into a tantrum or constant whining. If we’re leaving the park, gymnastics, something fun, it’s a whole spiral for an hour. Any basic task like washing hands is a battle. I worry what the neighbors are thinking because how do I explain she’s having a major melt down all because she didn’t want her banana cut up. She’s extremely intelligent, was talking in sentences by age 2, overall very healthy. Sometimes I wonder if we’re just not challenging her enough. We do arts and crafts, work books, play in the backyard. We try to do all sorts of fun stuff with her but her meltdowns make it not fun for anyone. We do time outs, no tv, I’ve even thrown some toys away (with warning) after tantrums. How else can we discipline her? I’m not a fan of yelling or shouting as it doesn’t work, I give her options such as, “please take some time to take a deep breath and settle down, if not you’ll be in a time out” we’ve tried the reward chart. 3 strikes you’re out etc nothing works 😩

I never thought I’d consider this, but hear me out. I have a 2.5 year old, and the last few vacations with her were anything but relaxing. She would often wake up at 5am because she’s not sleeping at home, plus a lot more whining. It’s true when they say it’s parenting in a different place; I feel more relaxed when I work and she’s at daycare than traveling with the her, tbh. Plus, there’s many things we can’t do with her - like dinner and drinks at a later time, going on a hike, etc. I’m also pregnant again (and exhausted!) so I’m considering this even more.

So, has anyone here ever hired a nanny or babysittter abroad? How did this work out for you, and how did you find them? I’m thinking something like 4h a day, that the nanny/babysitter either spends fully with all of us, so she’s basically just another set of hands, and/or 4h of her keeping our toddler busy while my husband and I do something for ourselves (hike, sightseeing, massage, sleep etc).

I don’t know what this would look like in real life because can I even trust someone that I just met? Will I just constantly worry? Or will my toddler be absolutely unhappy with another person there? Please share your experiences. Thanks!

My son is six and he’s been a YouTube obsessed kid for probably a year or so. Mostly gamers (Minecraft and Mario type stuff), but he’s gotten into some weird stuff and his behavior has been bratty and impatient and too much like his most watched YouTubers.

Anyway, mostly just looking for reassurance from those of you who have cold turkeyed YouTube also.

Looking for recommendations. It would be great if I could find one that would be safe for baby but also works for mine and my husband’s clothes. Not sure if that’s possible though because my husband’s work clothes needs something that really works for smell.

I work 4 days a week in the office. I am about a year post partum, have been back in the office for 5 months, and I'm running into the problem where I have a lot of downtime in the office, and the old things that used to get me through the day before baby (reading, scrolling, watching tv, reselling) aren't doing it. I think of all the things I could be doing at home, but I'm stuck here.

I usually do my grocery shopping online while at work and make to-do lists for when I get home, but is there anything else I could be doing that would help with home life?

Yes, I realize how privileged this sounds. I am getting paid to just be a body in a space, but I am starting to spiral a bit. I have been using PTO for days I really know will be slow, but I would rather find things to do at work that will help me feel productive.

Ladies. I just need to vent somewhere and get this off my chest. And maybe have someone tell me they’ve been through it too and everything turned out fine.

My 3 year old was running around the house today, as kids do, and then slipped and smashed her face into the hard base board of the couch, followed by the most gut wrenching cry I’ve heard and lots of blood. One front tooth immediately fell out and the other one was hanging very loose.

Long story short, dentist says loose tooth is definitely coming out too and they recommend putting her under general anaesthesia and doing a cast for dentures since it’s still another 3-4 years before the adult teeth come out.

This is going to affect her eating, her speech…hubby is concerned about her getting ridiculed and teased in school about the dentures (she’s still home with me). Nevermind the trauma of probably holding her down to get the IV needle in for anaesthesia. And we’re both just so heartbroken over this. She doesn’t deserve this. No kid does.

Tell me it’s all going to be okay?!

My first baby is 15 months old and built like a swimmer, his height and head size have been in the 90-99th percentiles since birth and he also has very broad shoulders and massive hands and feet. He towers over everyone in his daycare class, and is larger than some of the older toddlers as well.

I'm currently 30 weeks pregnant with my second boy, I had a growth scan yesterday and he is measuring surprisingly average. My first was already flagged as LGA at this point in my previous pregnancy and his head size was also borderline concerning (he was completely fine, I was not).

I know growth scans aren't always accurate, and at 30 weeks he still has time to grow and change, but what are the odds he will be significantly smaller than my first, and I won't have to birth a 99th percentile head again?

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.

A little back story.. I was up with my daughter (2.5 years) most of last night due to her getting a cold. I don’t current have 2 kids but I’m expecting baby #2 early next year.

Being up with her so much last night started to raise my anxiety about being able to juggle taking care of her (or the new baby) in the middle of the night when either or both get sick at the same time. My husband can help but he occasionally works nights. I plan on exclusively breastfeeding the new baby.

Thankfully, when my daughter isn’t sick, she’s a really good sleeper. Not gonna lie, baby #2 has brought me a little stress at the idea of logistics. I know it’s all temporary and it will pass. Please tell me it will all be ok 🙃

Mainly just a rant, but every time I manage to get a really solid workout routine going and stay consistent in the gym for a few weeks, I end up getting sick and have to take a week off! I have a toddler ( 1.5 year old) who consistently goes to Sunday school, and I swear we're fighting a cold at least every 2 months, if not more often. 😅 Anyone else experience this? Is it normal to get sick this often with a toddler? I assume it is, but maybe I need to get better about taking vitamins.