Hey fellow dads! Lego and Gaming is a great thing if you be a dad, i think🥰

If you like zelda, we also made a video from it with all the sound, music and bit of a story🥳

https://youtu.be/YDes6mTK4U4?is=wM31k6H_Q8HSDRDo

With the great day of candy acquisition approaching, I'm genuinely begging you all to stop driving to the "nice" neighborhoods to trick-or-treat if at all possible.

I've lived in three different neighborhoods in my city. All were perfectly safe, walkable, and had a decent mix of families and people of all ages. None have had any trick-or-treaters in years. Because everybody drives to one of three wealthier neighborhoods across town.

We now live on the outskirts of one of those neighborhoods, so we get to witness the other side of this from 2 blocks away. And I've got a few gripes.

• The traffic is ridiculous.

Every road is packed with cars, both from across town and from smaller communities outside the city. And probably half the people out there aren't even getting out of their cars. They're just slowly cruising the streets while their kids hop out to hit houses. It gets so congested that it's just straight up unsafe.

• You're screwing over your own neighbors.

This is my biggest gripe. At every house we've lived in, we've decorated, bought candy, and gotten maybe one or two knocks all night. My wife loves holidays, and it genuinely guts her every year.

And I know we're not the only ones. There are people in your neighborhood who would love to hand out candy, see the kids in costumes, and participate in Halloween. But after a few years of nobody showing up, why would they keep bothering? Then fewer people decorate, fewer people buy candy, and the neighborhood becomes even less appealing the next year. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

• The candy jackpot is mostly a myth.

The whole "go to the rich neighborhood for full-sized candy bars" thing is overblown. I can think of maybe one house in our town that does it, and they're out by 6 p.m. anyway. After that, you're getting the same miniature candy you could've gotten anywhere else.

• It's gotten so bad that some neighborhoods are doing their own pre-trick-or-treating.

At least around here, some of the popular neighborhoods have started doing early Halloween activities just for their own kids because they know the rest of the city will show up an hour later.

You can call that exclusionary if you want, and I wouldn't necessarily disagree. But it's pretty sad that a neighborhood feels like it has to carve out a private window for its own children just to enjoy Halloween before the crowds arrive.

Halloween isn't a "rich-neighborhood"-exclusive holiday. Odds are good that if this stopped happening, your neighborhood might just be worth trick-or-treating in, too.

Sure, your kids might come home with a few more off-brand Jolly Ranchers and Tootsie Rolls instead of Snickers and Sour Patch Kids. But do we really think they care that much? They're little kids in costumes getting free candy from their neighbors, that's the whole point.

It might take a couple of years to turn things around. Neighborhoods that haven't seen trick-or-treaters in a decade aren't going to magically bounce back overnight. Maybe organize a block party or get a few neighbors together to decorate? I don't know.

Caveat: I'm talking about a solidly suburban city of about 100,000 people, where perfectly walkable neighborhoods are being bypassed for a handful of popular destinations. If you live somewhere genuinely unsafe or so spread out that walking door-to-door isn't practical, obviously that's a different story. But when 20,000 kids descend on a neighborhood of roughly 300 homes, maybe we've collectively lost the plot a little.

Son has to get his tonsils out in a few weeks so any tips or food suggestions for after is appreciated. Kid hates mashed potatoes and cant think of anything else besides that and pudding. Any other tips or suggestions or a heads up are also appreciated.

I’m traveling alone with my 7 child soon and I want to make sure I’m prepared and being responsible. We'll be around for about 4 weeks and we'll be having a flight but driving to some places too so I’m packing a few familiar things to help keep the change in routine easier for them. I’m also a little worried about them picking up bugs while we’re away, especially in crowded places. What do you usually bring to keep your kids comfortable and help them stick to healthy habits while traveling? Any tips for managing long travel days solo with a child would be appreciated

i have a policy through work and was about to get a term policy for myself. shes leaving her job in march when the baby comes. a coworker said we need coverage on her too even though she wont have an income, which honestly i hadnt thought about. is that a real thing or is it overkill?

Tell without telling that we live in a rural county. If my child ask what a flask is, do I get one out and show her, or wait until she goes to college and learns herself? 😂

we used huckleberry with our first mostly to log naps and feeds. the sweetspot suggestions were hit or miss, so after a while i stopped looking at them and just used it as a diary.

curious what other dads actually get out of these apps long term. do you follow the predicted windows, or do you end up ignoring them and just tracking by hand?

not looking for a product rec, more what stuck for you after a few months.

Hello, fellow dads.

Starting in April of 2026, I began reading again for the first time in more than a decade and have since completed more than 30 books or, perhaps better put, over 20,000 pages. The kicker is that I don’t really have much of anyone to talk about with these stories. My wife and I share many similar interests, of course, and we share one or two series in common, but the vast majority of our passions differ when it comes to reading. Moreover, I think it is important that partners find hobbies outside of their intimate relationship the same as they should hobbies shared with said intimate person. Unfortunately, I’m about to hit 40, and as I’m sure many of you and certainly many news articles can attest to, the “male loneliness epidemic” has not treated me very kindly.

In light of the above, I would like to start or join a small but committed group of similarly-minded individuals to combat both the “male loneliness epidemic” as well as the “male reading epidemic” or however else those two issues might be coined. I don’t seek people who agree with me in everything, of course, but I will state a few admittedly personal things about myself and welcome any direct/private messages of interest.

Age: 39
Religion: Agnostic
Residence: United States
Political Ideology: Liberal (for an American)
Literary Preferences: “Speculative Fiction” (Science Fiction, Fantasy, LitRPG, etc.), Philosophy, Historical Fiction, and Science (Theory or Case Study)

Thank you for your time and consideration.

- Khan

There was a post on here a while ago about dad shoes. Somebody mentioned these bad boys. They are on Amazon for 25% off right now. Sensible deal.

As soon as I slipped them on, I felt the uncontrollable urge to subscribe to Consumer Reports. I made a comment to my wife about when my neighbor was thinking about starting to work on the leaves in his yard. I felt compelled to announce that the days are getting shorter.

Join me brothers

Skipping ahead, he's fine.

Basically, my wife and I went to the cinema with friends. Trusted baby sitter is with him and my 2 year old. She clearly thought he was asleep and was getting the youngest to sleep. He crept downstairs, unlocked the door and went outside topless and with no shoes. All the way down the road.

I literally only saw him because the doorcam notification popped up on my phone as the movie was starting and I thought it was a bit late. Called the baby sitter immediately and the road WhatsApp group. Baby sitter found him 1 minute later.

He's not thick, but he is diagnosed as autistic but is very high functioning and social, just clearly lacking in common sense.

How do I react/explain what he did is wrong? Please bear in mind I've already told him don't answer the door to strangers, don't go outside without mummy or daddy etc.

Edit- thank you for all the suggestions. I've had a talk with him about it. Not sure how much went in, so I've also ordered some child locks for the front door

Just went with my wife to the doctor and we got confirmation that we will have a healthy baby boy. I'm so excited but I'm sure I am not yet comprehending the magnitude of the moment.

She's three and a half, close to four. She has a cold and is coughing a great deal when she lies down to the point she continually wakes herself up. It's all the mucus running into the throat. I'm not here to talk about her though, it's me that needs support.

Every time i hear her cough on the monitor I hate it so much. I don't know how I'll get any sleep at all tonight. Every time she coughs badly I feel so sorry for her it's stressing me out. And I can't turn the monitor off because what if she needs me!

Honestly, it's ruining her sleep but it's ruining mine worse. I just want her to be well and stop coughing so she can sleep.

I need to get over this somehow. I know it's not a reasonable reaction to an otherwise well child with a cold but it bothers me so much. She's not terribly ill. Two hours ago she was running round shouting "I'm energy girl!". It's just when she lies down. I'm fully aware there are children much sicker than her.

Does anyone else feel like this, and how to you manage?

Don't be afraid to make noise when you're kids are sleeping. My wife and I have never once turned down the tv/music/our own voice while the kid was sleeping. We got her a sound machine for her and just do what we would as normal. Yeah we woke her up a few times, and yeah that sucks. But shes slept like a rock since she was very little.

I play Forza and watch movies at theater level with an 7.4.2 sound system and she doesn't flinch. I play my electric guitar at mid levels and she's fine. All this from across the hall with the doors open. She's 13 now and still doesn't bother her.

My brother and sister in law used to tip toe around their house. They would invite us over and we'd have to watch a movie on closed caption. It was miserable and I swore I wouldn't do that.

YMMV of course, but it worked for me.

Gonna rant but need some advice on how to turn the ship around. We have a 2 year old girl (she’ll be 3 in December) and a 9 month old girl. We moved a little over a year ago to be closer to my family and my wife quit her job to make the move. She’s been a stay at home mom for the first time (plan to return to work fully next September).

Since this new baby I’ve been getting consistent feedback from my wife that I care more about the girls than her. In an essential way, that’s true, but they’re also babies and therefore need more love and attention. It’s showing up in moments where I have no more patience to give, or co-parenting nit picks or comments that simply make me respond with sarcasm and a terse tone.

I’ve been chewed out for this both in and out of couples counseling sessions (my idea btw) but it happened again just now after I was short this morning. Our 9mo has been sick 7 of the last 8 weeks as her immune system builds and we’re not sleeping well. So in the mornings I try to let my wife sleep in while I prep everything and juggle the girls. She asked me some questions this morning during handoff and I didn’t snap but I wasn’t levelheaded, and man…I’m just tired of it all.

It feels like there’s no time for a relationship and I don’t have the patience to be a loving and kind husband. My cup is just empty. Anybody feel this way?

I need to preface this is my friend’s situation right now, not mine. My girl is only 2 and I have no idea how I would approach this problem. Keep in mind this is all info I’m getting from him.

My buddy’s daughter Kate is 11. She recently had a falling out with her best friend Sara involving a new friend Kate made. Neither parents are really sure what happened because both girls have different stories. Long story short Sara claims Kate and the new friend are making fun of her, Kate claims Sara got really weird and jealous and now wants to get her in trouble. Both sets of parents agree that Sara hasn’t taken it well and was acting a bit controlling when this all started.

My buddy is saying the other parents keep contacting him about harassment, but problem is there’s no evidence. Kate says she’s trying to ignore Sara, but Sara says Kate is mocking her at school. He doesn’t want to punish his kid when there’s no evidence. He says he’s talked to her and believes her. He suggested the girls get together and talk, but Kate nor Sara’s parents want to do that.

How exactly does one handle this? No one wants to think their kid is lying- and you certainly don’t want to dismiss a kid who seems to be in distress- but it seems like doing nothing isn’t really addressing the problem.

My son is almost 15 months and he’s starting to talk a little more. Words like duck, ball, dada, dog, manny lol - my lizards name. The question is tho is that he won’t say mama unless he’s crying. When he’s happy and sees mom he still says dada, he says it for both of us. He said mama first but once he started saying dada he stopped saying mama. Anyone else have this issue or is this not really an issue at all? Thanks!

Hey y’all, my wife and I are expecting in April! I’ve been a 95% pc gamer for many years. I recognize my time sitting at the desktop rig will be greatly reduced, and it’s been dwindling naturally anyways over the past few years with home maintenance, longer commute, etc.

Did any PC gamers switch to a handheld, laptop, or something else to fit in some gaming when possible? What did you find worked well? Anything you tried and didn’t like?

I recently tried XR glasses + moonlight/apollo on my phone and it worked alright but not quite smoothly or comfortably enough, the glasses are probably getting returned. Handhelds are hot right now but it seems like it’s tough to get performance and value for the price. Laptops seem like a better value but aren’t quite as convenient as the handheld idea.

If relevant, I normally play fairly recent single player games on Steam or Epic, but nothing my AMD 6700 has struggled with yet.

Daughter has been dealing with some constipation issues that had made her regress a bit on the potty training when it comes to poop.

She constantly holds her groin and looks like she’s in discomfort but then doesn’t need to poop and doesn’t pee. We tried feeding her a bunch of broccoli, prunes, water, everything to help. Now it’s coming out loose so I think she doesn’t feel it and she has an accident (small one, streaks, not a turd).

She’ll say she’s itchy so we took her in for a UTI screen and she came back clear. Doctor said to give it a few more days, maybe a little miralax, but it doesn’t seem to be letting up. We don’t know what to do!

Do we keep softening the stool so she poops but then more accidents? Do we try to go back to normal diet so she has a solid poo and not a runny one? Could it be something other than a UTI?

Any thoughts??

Title might seem harsh, and let it be known that I LOVE my 6 week old son. I would do anything for him and readily rise up at my most tired to make sure he’s clean fed and healthy. I’d empty my bank account at a pin drop to make sure he’s healthy and not think twice.

But he is very annoying. The loud cries that turn him purple for the slightest inconvenience , keeping me up all night and forcing me to hold a siren directly to my face, the constant guessing what’s wrong, worrying about breathing and chest movement when really all he is doing is trying to pass some gas, he won’t take a bottle anymore for some reason, he overreacts, squirms and makes terrifying noises in his sleep, the list goes on.

I don’t even feel guilty about thinking my little cub is annoying. He isn’t supposed to be easy. I hear about people’s angelic perfect babies and don’t even get jealous, mine just kinda stinks at being a baby and that is okay.

If you kinda think ur baby is super annoying and don’t look foward to every second with them I think that is A-Okay. I’m not raising a baby, I am raising a man who just happens to be a baby right now. And I think it’s okay to let yourself feel annoyed.

I love this little baby but I fantasize everyday about him being older, and I see this as the trial I have to persevere through to get to my little man.

Hold on dads. This one may be a tear jerker. Proceed at your own risk.

This October marks the 17th anniversary of my daughters mothers death. She was killed by a drunk driver in her early 20’s. Because of work, I wasn’t around for a decent part of my daughter’s early years. After her mom’s death I wasn’t sure how to raise her. Best I could think of is to raise her as her mother would’ve. Do my best not to fuck up what she started. Her mom was an amazing person.

Music was always special to her mom. She enlightened me on the finer points of rock music. Everything from Beatles to System of a Down and Ozzy. After her death I made sure to include various music genres as much as I could in our lives.

As my daughter got older, I started taking her to concerts. Eventually she began buying her own tickets and attending concerts out of state by herself or with friends.

Last Christmas I gifted her 2 tickets to the Sick New World in Texas so she could take anyone she wanted. She. Chose. Me.

So at the concert, System of a Down began playing Aerials. This song always held a special memory for me and her mom. I shed some tears during a metal concert. I wished the three of us could’ve attended it together.

I honestly feel like I did it. I raised a fantastic person. One her mom would’ve been so proud of. I managed to not screw up what her mom started. I’m sitting on an airplane next to strangers right now balling. This weekend had so much emotion for me and I don’t know who could truly appreciate this wave other than other dads.

For those struggling, keep at it. It gets better. There is no greater success than raising a great person.

Also, this post contains way too much personal information but I wanted to share it anyways. I’ll just delete it in a week or so. Thanks for listening.

My son has unfortunately reached the “I want this toy!” stage of toddlerhood and it’s making going to target quite hard since he wants to first, see the monster trucks, then he wants to of course buy one when we leave.

We have like 20 trucks already at home, don’t need more.

This of course leads to a tantrum as we say no and then have to rush out the store/check out with a crying 2.5 year old.

Any tips on how to get him to understand that he can’t get a new toy every time we have to go to the store?

Talking about Shingles.

While not directly contracted shared with love from my kids like the usual suspects (Flu, RSV, MFM) I’m sure they are at least partly responsible.

General consensus is that the dormant virus is reactivated in times of stress…but I don’t know what I could be possibly be stressed about between my wife, two kids (6/2), job, house repairs, car repairs, health insurance, other bills, the holiday gauntlet of Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas….and Winter is coming….

Seriously ever had been going fine. Stable on all fronts for a long while so this did kind hit out of nowhere.

Any other Dads get hit with this gem of a virus? For the record I’ve caught pretty much every other thing from my kids since my oldest was born. Still relatively early in its progression but this isn’t the top of the list (yet).

Edit - for backstory so I don't have to rehash it multiple times in the comments. Started as a deep aching in my mid-to-low back just at the bottom of my ribs for like 1-2 days. Nothing helped it, turned into more of a throb by the end of day 2 which is when I knew it was something weird and not just my usual soreness from work/exercise/life. Day 3-4 really sensitive band of skin wrapping from my spine around my right side under my ribs to my midline. Day 5 splotchy rash formed mainly in back right with a few spots around to the front. When to urgent care and got the anti-virals and here we are....

Honestly much respect on the random Ramen seasoning packet. 😂😂

Middle schoolers, man

Winter is on its way to the North-East before too long, and that means outside time with the baby (almost 6 months!) Is about to be deeply limited from the cold, dry air and inevitable snow/ice. I decided it would be a fun idea to put a bucket swing in the warm basement for when the little gremlin gets bored during the day or fussy in the evening/night and little squeals and sing-screams wont bother neighbors or anyone in the house (wife works from home on 1st floor, no office door).

Wife loved it and got excited and ordered the little bucket swing. I told her I was going to make a trip to the store for a set of carabiner clips and a pair of swivel plates, maybe some wood anchors if I didn't have the right size.

She said "I ordered those too, the hardware stores on either side didn't have the right size." I was surprised neither had them but told her "Nice, good job checking. I'll get it all put up when they come in." Didn't think anything of it, went down stairs and decided where I'd put it up and put laid out the foam safety pads to secure the swing path for falling.

3 days later, swing shows up, about a pound and a half of a plastic bucket swing and little ropes. Nice.

The next day, a little box also shows up, about the size of a football. Swivel plates and anchor bolts. About +8lbs worth of metal. She bought an iron ductwork suspension anchor kit! Not expensive, but look at the photo! These things are bonkers! Its for a 19lb baby! 10in by 1/2in anchor bolts!

I thought it was a misorder. I went and showed her what showed up going "Gee whiz, look how fat they think our baby is!" She tells me that she did order that size she wanted to be safe, she said it was for max 300lb in case we use the for a bigger swing in the future. She goes to show me her phone, each anchor is rated for securing 2,000lbs.

I said "Its for a baby swing, not mooring in cargo ships!" and she just started giggling. It was a rough week so this was a genuinely funny interaction and we both needed a little laugh. Just gonna run out before afternoon nap for some eyebolts instead.

First time soldering a circuit board like this. Baby monitor speaker connector came off. It works!!

Ive soldered simple easy stuff before but nothing like this. Very pumped.