My wife is a full-time stay-at-home mum looking after our 3-year-old son. She's decided to co-sleep with him and not vaccinate him, which means he's missing out on childcare/kindergarten due to vaccination requirements in our country.

As a result, she's with him almost 24/7, and I understand how overwhelming that can be. I do contribute at my fullest capacity to look after our son.

However, she screams at our son almost every day over things like not sleeping on time, refusing meals, or not following instructions.

Whenever I try to step in and remind her not to yell over these little things, it creates tension between us. I genuinely feel that the constant yelling is more damaging to our son's emotional well-being than him occasionally skipping a meal or sleeping late.

I know my wife loves our son and is doing her best, but I'm worried about the long-term impact this might have on him.

Has anyone been in a similar situation? How did you approach this with your partner without making them feel attacked? How do you support an overwhelmed spouse while also protecting your child from constant yelling?

Dad and I separated when she was 3. I’m all she knew for 5 years in terms of mom and mom’s house. 2 years ago, I met my partner and we’ve adapted to our new dynamic. I’m now 8 weeks pregnant and want some ideas or advice on how to tell her she’s gonna be a big sister at mom’s.

She has a little sister on dad’s side and she adores her. I’m not too worried she’ll be upset, I’m more looking for cute and special ways to tell her.

She’ll have a big blended family who loves her and she’ll be big sister for both siblings.

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My 10 year old was recently caught stealing in school. She took a sticker book from a classmate and didn't own up to it for 2 days while the boy was distraught. She only admitted to it in front of the teacher when another kid saw the sticker book with her. I had a long chat with her about why stealing is wrong and the inportance of being honest even when she's made a mistake.

Now 2 weeks later, she took some stickers again from another kid but this time she admitted it almost immediately when the teacher asked. I brought her home and while I appreciated that she was honest, I told her she would have consequences for the repeated stealing and that I had to cancel her birthday party because I didn't feel like she was really appreciating the value of honesty or understanding the difference between right and wrong. She was quite understandably devastated and with a little prompting she admitted to stealing several small items from other kids in the last 2 to 4 months which she never got caught for.

Now I'm really at a loss how to handle this. Any advice, tips, anything from experienced parents who have handled this situation before?

I knew labor and delivery would hurt, as well as the early stages of breastfeeding. I was not prepared for the ongoing injuries and pain inflicted by my sweet children. Baby heads thrown backwards so fast into my jaw. Toddlers and kids with elbows made of daggers that poke you in the most sensitive parts of your body. Kids "tickling" you which feels more like someone scratching at your neck and throat.

This past week my lip bled because my 1 year old was shaking a book around and it caught my lip and cut it.

Anyone else with any recent injuries from their sweet little babes?

My son really enjoys playing games like trouble, kerplunk, matching games, bingo etc. He is almost 5 so I’m looking for recommendations on games with similar difficulty or maybe a bit more. Bonus if it’s educational or can help him with the beginning of reading

TIA!

My son just got his own room for the first time. He immediately wrote and hid books about watching people use the bathroom, which I found under a pile of his clothes.

I don’t think he’s actually doing these things, but is it something worth bringing up? He’s a smart kid, and I know he didn’t want me to find this. I want to make sure I do everything I can so that he understands boundaries and bodily autonomy. See below for photos of his drawings.

Just what the title says. My daughter(5) is constantly having tantrums because she doesn't want to miss out on the most mundane things. It's absolutely absurd.

If I say, I'm going to go take out the trash. She wants to come..fine, as she's getting her shoes on, if I so much as take two steps towards the door she's on the floor screaming because she thinks I'm going without her. (I'm not)

If she's taking forever to decide what she wants to eat, or wear, and I walk away while she's thinking, (to go to the bathroom, let the dogs out, get my socks, blow my nose....) she's losing her mind because she thinks I'm doing something without her.

I have 4 kids total. No one else has ever acted like this or felt left out. Idk if this is a phase, or just her personality but it's making me feel so claustrophobic I want to rip my eyeballs out!

It happens out in the wild too. If we're at the library story time and the librarian calls on someone else while her hand is up, she's in tears. If she is trying to get to the front of the line and ends up second... tears.

On the other hand, she shares wonderfully, is emphatic, kind.. I know thats contradicting, but it's the instant response to something, not necessarily her overall outlook. If that makes sense??

For example, let's say she IS first in line. And someone younger comes up behind her, she'll happily let them in front of her. But if its a race to get there she's freaking out she'll miss her chance.

Idk if that even makes sense. She doesn't act like a spoiled brat most of the time. But really struggles if she thinks she's going to miss something.

Please note I am speaking this as someone whose first (now 5 years was a great sleeper & never experienced any regressions) & now have a toddler who’s way more sensitive…

Maybe…

- they need a schedule adjustment

- they’re teething

- they’re going through a temporary sleep disruption & it’s just something you have to ride out for a couple weeks or so

- they’re genuinely sick

It is exhausting, I 1000% agree but it is absolutely not a defiance issue. You cannot tell a toddler’s brain to shut off on command just b/c it’s the time they “should” be going to bed.

My daughter is turning 10 in a couple months. She wants a sleepover party and we got a low-key expedition booked to a nearby yurt. We invited two of her friends who are the same age. Turns out my wife who was going to come, now has to work and will be out of town so now, it will be me, 41 M, my birthday girl, her younger sister (also my bio-daughter) and my birthday girl’s two friends, also girls. I’m going to tell the kid’s parents about the change so they are aware and have time to make a decision if they and their daughters feel comfortable with this new plan of having one male chaperone.

I don’t see the big deal, because we know these kids, we know their family, they know us. It feels safe to me. If it doesn’t sit well with the kids or their parents there is plenty of time to plan something else. My wife wants to call the whole thing off because she is worried about the optics of it and if someone ever made up a story,,,,ugh. I can see her point and maybe if we didn’t know these folks I would be more reluctant to move forward. But we’ve had a few sleepovers with these kids before so we are all pretty comfortable with each other.

What’s the right move here? Am I being naive?

6 yo son. 1.5 yo daughter.

I see other parents with kids closer in age. They know how to play together. They are relatively independent.

But here I am feeling like neither kid knows how to play independently. 6yo is saying he’s bored and will beg me to play while my daughter is screeching for attention. Sometimes 6yo will figure it out with legos or something. 1.5 yo will get into random stuff. But playing together doesn’t happen often.

When they do want to play with the same thing.. I coach my kids heavily on how to take turns and not snatch stuff from each other. Trying to teach 1.5 yo how to respect special creations. Etc.

It is exhausting to monitor their interactions. I really just want to make sure they learn how to play kindly together. 6yo son is not naturally… accommodating.

But I feel like I’m doing it wrong. I’m doing too much all the time.

Do you have the same gap? How do you manage it. What activities do you do that they can do independently? Especially inside during rainy winter season.

I need new ideas.

I been with our baby for 11 months, and I started working 2 weeks ago, I understood before that he needed time to decompress after work, but now that I’m working too, I don’t get how he can get back from work and tell me he needs to shower, he needs to go for a bike ride (sometimes) .
when do I get a break? I’m working now and the minute I finish I’m with the kids after, why he thinks he deserves a break but I don’t ? I think it’s completely unfair

My son is about 2.5 months old and he cries A LOT. He’ll have periods almost every day where he’s inconsolable for 10–20 minutes, and on his bad days he can cry for about an hour and a half in the evenings.

I have a 3 year old daughter who was a much calmer baby, so this has been a bit of an adjustment for me. I know every baby is different and I’m definitely not expecting my son to be like his sister, I’m just mentioning it because this experience has been very different from what I’m used to.

He does have periods where he’s happy/content, feeds well, has wet diapers, etc., but it feels like so much of our day revolves around trying to calm him down.

It has even gotten to the point that my daughter is always telling me “We need to teach him how to be happy”

I know this is a phase and that babies eventually grow out of it, but honestly, I’m feeling really discouraged lately. Some days it feels like the crying is never-ending, and I’m just exhausted from constantly trying to figure out what he needs.

For parents who had really fussy/crying babies around this age, does it eventually get better?

My 2 year old learned b****. For the record we don’t say that in my house and we already talked with those he got it from.
One thing lead to another and although I tried to not give attention he has learned that this word is a word to say when I’m upset and not getting my way and he says it directly to whoever is disciplining him. Be it me, his aunts, grandma, and dad.

It’s getting worse and more frequent.
So far I’ve tried time out- I tell him all the time that his mouth is for saying nice and kind things and when he is not kind, he can’t be around me
And I put him in his crib for like a minute or two, but I don’t see a decrease in the behavior. I see it happening even more so what do I do?
I also give him a ton of praise for when he is saying kind words. I’ve also given him replacement behaviors “I’m mad” instead of saying b****
But it’s not working

Help

** edit to add thank you
That was very fast.
Will be telling this to the rest of the family as the game plan.

Our daughter is 5½ and in kindergarten. She has known a boy in her class for two years, since they were in the same daycare and pre-K together, and she considers him her best friend.

Over the last two months she has told us that he often tells her what to do, and when she doesn’t comply, he gets upset, screams, and cries. She tends to give in to avoid the conflict. Recently she wanted to go on the slide, but he told her not to, so she didn’t. She came home sad that she missed her chance.

We’ve encouraged her, sometimes gently and sometimes with a firmer voice, to make new friends and play with other kids. She has other friends and mentions them by name, but she won’t play with them.

For the past two days, I’ve been talking to her at drop-off, suggesting she play in a bigger group, where she could still include him. When we ask afterward whether she played with other kids, she first tries to hide the answer, then admits she only played with him. When I asked why she doesn’t listen to us and whether she wants us to feel sad, she said, “I want to do what my brain tells me to do.”

How can we communicate with her about this? Has anyone dealt with something similar, and what worked for you?

It is 6:20 pm right now. My 5 year old son fell asleep in the car ride over to his brother’s tutoring. The tutoring gets out at 7. Dad is traveling for work so I had to bring all the tag alongs with me for brother’s tutoring.

He is still asleep.

Do I:

1. wake him up, knowing he’ll still have over 30 minutes of waiting

2. Let him sleep, knowing this is the devil’s nap?

His 7 year old brother is also here, happily and quietly entertaining himself, if that matters!

Wondering how often are other 4yos swinging from normal to whiny to normal to yelling to singing to sassy?
1. Many times a minute?

1. Many times an hour?

2. Many times a day?

3. Can hold multiple moods at once?

Hi everyone,

We’re in a classic, even cliché, situation. Even so, we don’t know what to do, and I wanted to see what you all actually do in practice.

To keep it short: there’s a household in the equation that sets no limits whatsoever on screens, bedtime, food, etc., and only sees my son (11) during school holidays (an important detail, I think, because it adds to the freestyle vibe while he’s there). On the other side, ours: age-appropriate screen access with limits, homework always done, we eat home-cooked food but go out to restaurants now and then, a lot more outdoor activities, a fixed bedtime, etc. So, pretty classic.

The problem comes when he gets back from his stay there: bad behavior, exhaustion, a tendency to talk back, a tendency to demand things he knows aren’t allowed, etc. In short, we end up being the bad guys every single time.

We’re at the end of our rope because it keeps getting worse and worse, but at this age, how do you explain why we do what we do, that it’s in his interest, that it’s actually for him? All he wants is a phone like his cousin’s over there (with no limits, of course), and to go to bed at 2 a.m. on weekends. I absolutely don’t want to get into a competition with the other parent. I just want his return to go more smoothly, and for him to understand, as much as possible, that we’re not the bad guys but his parents who love him and want the best for him, and that sometimes that does mean setting limits on things he likes.

So, what do we do? Hold firm and wait it out? Targetted concessions? Long discussions seem to do nothing, he just sits and waits until we're done basically (and to be fair, what 11 year old like getting lectured by their parents?). Punishment immediately after getting back creates a really bad correlation as well, conscious or not. I'm just stumped here.

Edit: we can't discuss this with the other parent, they are pretty uncooperative. We tried once a few years ago and were told essentially that it's not our concern what happens in their house.

My son is only 3 but we’re in CA so he will start TK next year and I am spending so much time stressing about what to do. I need some advice. For some background I am a teacher but taking a few years off to be at home with my 3 and 1 year old so we are currently one income and my history as a teacher also gives me a unique perspective for public school, some of which is positive but a lot of which is negative. Okay so options:

1. Stay in our current home and send child to our neighborhood school. School is not terrible but below average. I could continue to stay at home and school is only a 3 min drive away.

2. Try to open enroll in the school where my in laws live that is higher rated but a 20 min drive away. Stay in our current home and continue to be able to stay at home.

3. Go back to work at a nicer school and hope my son is able to get a spot there. Downside is younger son would need daycare and I really don’t want to go back to the classroom.

4. Get a job teaching virtually (which is what I really want to do) and move to a nicer neighborhood with a great school. But our mortgage would go up considerably because we have such a great rate now.

What I’d like to do is try to get them in my in laws school and go back to work in a few years but I’m wondering if the 20 min drive and not living in the same neighborhood as friends would be really hard??

I also feel like I have this unrealistic notion that I want my kids in the same school system tk-12 so they can have lifelong friends and be with the same kids in a way that I didn’t get to be…thoughts??

I can’t wait to experience motherhood. Like it’s my sole purpose in this life. But I fear of being a disappointment to my baby. It will break me soo bad if break my baby’s little heart. Which is probably why I am slowly leaning towards to not being one.
I’d be selfish to want my baby cus it makes ME happy. And Id also be selfish to not want my baby, cus it might break ME.
I’ll only know if I try! Yes, isn’t that how all of us do it? What if I run away from certain responsibilities and events that mean the world to them without giving it much thought? You cannot undo hurting someone, especially in their early stages. It becomes a part of them. I wont be able to handle the aftermath if I do all the things I possibly know to keep them happy, but it translates differently to them, and they just won’t get it, cus I chose not to see the world like they do. Maybe it’s cus I still don’t know what love feels like. Maybe motherhood will show it to me. But Im way too afraid. The fear has consumed me. The uncertainty of this world and how I work, is way too scary to deal with.

I want to ask those of you who are parents, those who chose not to have children, and those who have struggled with this same fear:
How did you come to terms with the fact that you will inevitably make mistakes as a parent?
How do you know whether your desire to become a parent comes from a healthy place, rather than from a need to fulfil something within yourself?
If you grew up with emotional wounds, how did you learn to trust yourself enough to raise a child differently?
And for those who decided not to have children because of these fears, how do you feel about that decision today?

I’m genuinely trying to understand whether this fear is something I can work through, or whether it’s telling me something I need to listen to.

I wish it came easier to me, and my heart knew how to feel without complicating things, and my mind knew what to do with all of it.

Oh how much I want to be the best mom and a wonderful friend to my baby. But also I bet I already love them way too much to not be bringing them to this world even I struggle to survive on.

It’s black and white for me. I wish I could feel the colors in between and forget the rest.

(God, help!🤍)

Hi all!

I’m posting as a parent of a 6 year old (oldest child) navigating trick or treating as he gets a smidge older.

Some quick context:
- He is very tall for his age. Like genuinely, as tall as a 4th grader. He also is fairly well spoken & loves to play sports. These things combined, he’s been sort of scooped up by some of the older boys/boys his size in our neighborhood.
-He does have a handful of boys and girls his age in the neighborhood as well. Some of the older boys are the siblings of his same age friends.
- I live in an LDS neighborhood and we don’t go to their church. The parents are clicky. This context does matter. Halloween basically looks like husband stays home and hands out candy, I walk w my son. Then we all hang out and pass our candy to the big kids later at night.

Here’s the dilemma this year. He REALLLLLY wants to impress the bigger boys and hang out with them. I let him walk ahead of me on our street (sun was up) last year and go with them. When we rounded the block they surprisingly were cool with me trailing along the road and wanted my son to keep up. He trick or treated all night with them. Boys were 8-10 years old.

The same group has invited him again. If I had “mom friends” in the neighborhood I’d totally just keep up in the street without hovering and let the night play out. Walking by myself does start to feel a bit like a hover. We’re at an age where all of our friends and cousins also want to be in their own neighborhoods w their friends or I’d invite them (this is what we’ve done up until last year and traded off neighborhoods).

So - what would/have you all done? To me - 6 is too little to be without an adult, but plenty old enough to be valid in wanting to be with friends. I want to set his expectations that this may or may not workout how he’s hoping if they run off without parents.. AND if that happens, we may not know where his other friend groups his age are in the neighborhood.

Thanks yall!

Looking for recommendations for a gift book club subscription for new parents. They're having a girl soon and I'd like to have books delivered to them for 6 months or a year, depending on price. I'd like the option for them to select the books, or a plan where they can exchange the books easily via mail. Any ideas?

My daughter is 5 yo and has always been quick to anger, more than other kids her age.

She's a loving and sweet kid, truly. Loves playing outside and doesn't have very much tv time and no tablet time. She has the tools to calm down, but won't use them when she snaps.

In an instant she can go from happy and playing to throwing herself on the ground and kicking. Daycare clued us into this being an issue earlier this year and we started her in therapy. Since starting kindergarten she has been doing very well academically but struggling with behaviors. She will kick other students' chairs and not listen to the teacher.

She was having a rough time this morning getting ready for school and I knew it was going to be one of those days. Lo and behold, she got into it with another kid during gym and he got a bloody nose. She was separated from the kid and kept kicking and throwing herself to the ground.

I immediately reached out to her therapist for a consult and will follow up with the pediatrician, but I feel so alone and like I'm failing her and those around her.

For reference, she is adopted but has been with us since she was 2 days old. We know her parents had some cognitive struggles, but nothing like this.

Please help me help my kid.

My 2.7 yo started having meltdowns multiple times a day.

We are pretty firm parents, we don't buckle to tantrums (we still dont) when we say no we mean no.

We thought she was doing ok and learning to accept being told no.

But this past week she has been screaming and crying so often.

Today's meltdowns (and i mean screaming, trashing)

- she woke up just before 7, didn't want her mum to be the one to open her room door

- wanted a milk bottle and to go back to sleep (she had a solid night and had to get ready for school)

- we offered a milk pack, she wanted us to just poke a hole so she can put the straw in herself

- we finished showering, she wants to play her usual game of pickaboo and for mum to carry her away (mum was too tired and needed a break) (this one i understand its a change from routine)

- we didn't let her press the water dispenser a second time

What the hell is going on?!

Could it be teething? She's due for her last four molars. But there's no night wakings.

.

My partner and I feel like we’re at a loss on what to do with our picky eater. For example, if my 5-year old comes to the table and doesn’t like the way dinner looks they will go “EW thats disgusting!” And/or will lick the food and say the same thing.

The other huge issue is our 2-year old (who is not a picky eater) will repeat exactly what our 5-year old will do which results in both kids not eating. This is almost every night.

We do not offer extra food. They have to eat what’s on their plate. They cannot have anything else. I DO offer a safe food on the plate. And I do try to repeat dinners my kids like. But my kid does not always eat it — even if it’s a safe meal. They also have “dessert” every night (which I ABSOLUTELY hate that we started) so we have to say “no dessert” if they don’t eat their dinner. (Also dessert is like a small piece of candy or popsicle…nothing excessive)

It is a constant push and pull with my 5-year old at dinner time. Typically they will eat some of the dinner but it comes with a lot of whining.

I’m exhausted. I know I am 100% creating a bad experience for food for my kid. ESPECIALLY with rewarding or taking away sweet treats. I don’t know how to undo it. I am trying to be so conscious of it because I struggle with a ED of overeating AND food noise and I am in therapy because of it so it is constantly triggering my ED as well.

Any advice is appreciated. I’m so tired of it being a constant struggle every night.