We have a neighbor girl that is around 7 years old who plays with our other neighbors daughter that’s around 3-4. My son is 1.5 years old and we have a play ground in our backyard. The 7 yo knocks on the door at least 5 times a week to ask if my son can come outside and play. Sometimes he’s napping, and our dog goes insane which wakes him up. He’s not even 2, so obviously has a handful of years until he can play in our fenced in backyard alone. When I tell her no, it’s a “why” party. She saw we had a bounce house and asked if she could jump on it. I told her we went on it saturday and not today. She said well I wasn’t here Saturday can you blow it up. Then “why why why” It’s minimum a 4 minutes conversation when she knocks on the door. Any advice on how to politely get this to stop? If he was older and it was his choice it would be one thing. But my husband and I both work full time so really just want to spend family time together with our baby. We can’t go outside without them running to the fence to ask why she can’t come over.

Thanks in advance!! Not trying to be a grumpy old lady lol but just want to spend time with my child not everyone else’s :-) plus being a first time mom I’d love to hear how others would handle it if it were their daughter in the situation.

Do you ever look at pictures of your kids then start crying? I do this often. I look at pictures of my kids, think about how cute they are, how much I love them, and what a wonderful life they have full of love… then I start crying… it’s like an unconscious wave of sadness and grief that I never got to experience this love. Oh what life would have been like to have felt loved by my mom/family.

If you’re reading this, I hope you’re breaking the cycle. I hope you give your kids the love that you‘ve always yearned for. I hope they love you back as much as you love them. ❤️

We have too much stuff and I’ve snapped. We live in a 2000 square foot house that was built in the 60s and I’m tired of tripping over everything my children own. I’m in the process of getting rid of all the toys in their bedrooms, the extras in our toy rotation because I don’t have time to switch them out anyway, and they can be down to what fits on the toy shelves in the playroom. The problem is my parents. My dad loves buying his grandkids toys and I hate to deprive him of that joy but one Christmas they got so many gifts from my parents that we found more that hadn’t been opened the next day. Birthdays aren’t much better. My oldest is turning 7 at the end of the month and we’ve already gotten three packages of gifts (multiple!) for her in the mail.

To that end I was thinking of asking them to keep it to consumables like play doh or art supplies, to expand the collections of toys they already have (we never seem to have enough magna-tiles) or or give things like a zoo membership or tickets to a local show. Am I the worst for wanting this?

my 13 yo daughter has a pinwheel phone which enables me to read all her texts. She hates this but this is the only way I’m comfortable with her having a phone and I don’t actually read all her texts - there are far too many, so I just take a peek here and there.

This is how I came upon a text from one of her friends that I don’t know at all stating that her “suicidal thoughts are coming back.” my daughter expressed sympathy and said she was around to talk, and then the other kid said she was fine.

I saw this on a Sat, about 12 hours after the exchange. I immediately screenshotted this whole thing and sent it to the school’s guidance department. since it’s a long weekend, I also sent a Safe to Say report, allowing anonymous reporting of that kind of thing in PA. I was just uncomfortable knowing my email wouldn‘t be read until Tuesday.

I am not comfortable contacting the other kid’s parents. I don’t know them at all.

My daughter is upset. I had a talk with her about why this had to be reported (in addition to my concern about the girl hurting herself, professionally, I’m a mandated reporter). I explained that the minute suicide comes up, it’s more than “drama,” it’s a serious situation and an adult needs to be told immediately. my daughter is pissed I read the text, but to me this is exactly why I need to check her texts. she was in over her head and I needed to know.

She’s also worried about this other girl being mad at her. I told her to blame it on me and even pull the mandated reporter card - “my mom had to do that or she could get fired.”

But I’m kind of at a loss re: my daughter‘s fear that she‘s going to face social backlash. She says her friends will stop texting her now that it’s clear I read her texts. I know I did the right thing and all I can say is her friend will need to get over it which seems very insufficient.

Does anyone else feel drawn to a more village type set up with parenting? When I’m with friends and all our kids can play together while we converse and prepare meals etc it’s like a breath of fresh air and feels like yeah this is the way it is supposed to be. I dislike the nuclear family unit in the way we have it set up for that reason- it breads isolation. I feel many have more kids than they can realistically handle thinking that will solve the isolation issue when it doesn’t. Life is meant to be shared in community with others outside of our immediate unit, not just when schedules align but in daily life. I guess just wanting to start a conversation about this and seeing where everyone’s thoughts are, if you share them or disagree with me.

So I’m at the point in my life where all my friends are having babies. It’s so fun and exciting and I love to see these amazing women become mothers. But part of me is so heartbroken.

I had my boy before the “baby boom” of the mid twenties at the ripe age of 23. It was a rough pregnancy, rough delivery and rough postpartum. My husband was across the country for most my pregnancy and majority of the first 3 months of my son’s life. I went through an emergency c-section with only a coworker (she’s now one of my besties) for support. Postpartum for me was a lot of crying, dark feelings, and loneliness. I stopped eating, didn’t sleep at all, and had to care for a brand new baby plus three dogs on my own. Not to mention it was December so too cold to enjoy outside anything. Postpartum depression and anxiety completely hijacked the first 6 months of my son’s life.

I feel so ugly being upset when I see my friends thriving with their brand new babies. They look so happy and put together. One friend in particular constantly posts about how much she loves being a mom and how easy it’s been, and how happy she is and I honestly had to stop viewing her stuff being I don’t want to be malicious in thoughts.

Am I wrong for feeling this way?? I hate comparing my motherhood journey to others, because I know if I had had some support, things wouldn’t have been as bad as it was, but I find myself constantly doing it.

It’s thanksgiving in Canada, so we all have the day off. No classes for me, no work for hubby, no daycare for our little man. I got out of bed at 7:30 and my little guy woke up not long after, so he got breakfast, coloured for a bit, and we looked at some books. My husband didn’t get out of bed until about 8:30 ish, and maybe 10 minutes later I turned on a movie for my son. Husband proceeds to go downstairs and play videos games, leaving us alone upstairs.

It irks me because he’s choosing to go downstairs and do a personal activity instead of watching the movie with us, and I can’t even imagine just walking downstairs to do my own thing if my son is awake. But of course he doesn’t think about being a parent if I’m home.. there’s no way I’m the only one in this situation, right?

Have anyone’s husbands fixed this kind of mentality? I just hate that he doesn’t consider anything I’m doing to be work (I’m also in school full time) and he doesn’t see a problem with doing his own hobbies while our toddler is awake, while I would never be able to do that because our toddler would come looking for me.

Baby will be 7 months old. My husband is having knee surgery and will need to rely on crutches. Im thinking about just scrapping trick or treating all together. She cant eat the candy anyways.

We cant hand out candy, we dont live in an area that it makes sense.

I cannot be totally pissed, because I actually needed my mother to Watch my Children this evening, as i had a work Event.
It was only an Hour and a half and I asked her to make them (6 and 4yo) dinner and get them ready for bedtime.
When I came home my 6yo whispered into my war’s that grandma gave her TWO ice cream for dessert. Half an Hour before bedtime. On a school night.
They were awake for much longer and i totally blame the sugar for this.
Just why? Apparently the kids
only asked for a milk After Dinner. My mum just offered.

So I work two days a week, Mondays and Tuesdays. My husband’s schedule is all over the place and is different every week. My mother in law is a nurse so her schedule changes too. My mom is retired. So if my husband and my mil are working on my work days, we depend on my mom to babysit. Normally my mom only needs to babysit a couple times a month only. We have both my mom and my mil come to our house to babysit my 19 month old. Simply because we have everything he needs here, and he was particular with where he slept for a while. Hes a little better now though. My mom lives 20 minutes away so it’s not far either.

So onto what happened. My mom was babysitting for us this morning. Sometimes my sister, who’s 19, comes with her. She didn’t come today though, because my mom had to come early and was only needed for a few hours. She meant to bring food that she wanted to give us though and forgot it. She asked my sister to drive over to bring the food. She stayed here at my house until my mom was good to go. On their way home, my sister got in an accident. She is a new driver (less then a year) and I guess she just didn’t look properly and it was her fault. Her car is totaled. My dad is mad at this, and is blaming my mom for asking her to come to my house. And so, he told my mom she can no longer come over to babysit for us, if we want her to babysit we need to bring our son to her house. Now, this is doable, just inconvenient for my husband as he would need to be the one to drop him off before he goes to work, but it’s doable. However, it just makes me mad that my sister gets in an accident and I’m the one who’s getting punished by no longer being able to depend on my mom to come over anymore. I’m annoyed that this is my dad’s reaction and is controlling my mom on coming over to help me out. He also banned my sisters from coming over to my house (they usually come every other weekend to hang out).

What would you do in this situation? Am I being unreasonable for being mad at this? I usually go over to my parents house every Sunday for lunch, but I’m planning on no longer going over anymore because this whole thing just makes me mad. I’ll only be going over now to pick up my son. Am I overreacting to this? I voiced my annoyance to my mom and all she does is apologize. She feels that it is her fault that my sister got in an accident. I understand my dad probably feels stressed from this situation, but how he’s dealing with it is not okay in my opinion.

Tonight the baby woke up for 2 hours, he kept trying to just force her to sleep with us (She is crib trained but sometimes if she wont sleep she co-sleeps)but she had a poopy diaper and it took me to fully wake up to grab her and smell it, she was very fussy and it was his shift, so he angrily got up to help.. well he decided to stay in the room and passive aggressive slam things around to keep me awake. He was FINALLY changing her diaper on the floor and went to go throw away the diaper, his phone was on the ground and she grabbed it, he came in and yelled at her and stanched it so hard out of her hand that she fell and hit her head...

That upset meheavily, but what upset me more was he said she deserved it. That she did it to herself because "why is she grabbing my phone at 3am when she should be sleeping" the audacity to get mad at a child for grabbing something to stimulate their curious mind?

I don't know what came over me but I saw red the way I reacted was probably so awful but I don't care because that is my baby...

I poured water all over him and the bed, went into our guest room and cuddled her until she calmed down and locked us in. I've never seen him like this, he has always been so sweet and we have a camera in her room, I never picked up him doing anything but honestly.. this could be it for us.. it's been an hour since it happened but I can't sleep thinking about it.

I can honestly say I have gotten mad, to the point that I literally start pulling my hair out in the newborn stage.. but I learned I could leave her safely somewhere. we are now almost 9 months in, I have gotten used to the sleep issues.. and it's just I can't imagine every layer of a finger on her with the intent to hurt her. She is so beautiful and precious and deserves the whole world and I just need to know if I'm being dramatic because she honestly is the only thing/person that's keeping me from going in that room and tearing it upside down on him. I finally got her to sleep cuddling right now, and I feel like this is my fault cause I should've just taken over.. but he has been super lazy this weekend, I got no sleep and I meal prepped for 8 hours today while his mom took care of her and he played his video games...

Edit (9:52am) : my grandma is taking me back to my state, I wrote a letter informing him of my leaving and where the baby will be staying so he can't report her missing. I also wrote down what he did and asked why. I'll write it at the bottom how it's stated. My dad and best friend will be getting all my stuff and the babies stuff! This is extremely hard for us so please refrain from the constant judging of me..

The note: (our daughters name) And I will be going back to my parents for a long while. It would be in your best interest if you not come and give some space for a while. (Our daughters name) Never deserved to be hurt even if it wasn't intentional, why even get aggressive with her in the first place?

I have an almost 3 year old. She’s pretty chill and listens well, but she’s a toddler. Great kid. But my gawd, I’m exhausted. What’s the age I don’t need her to be asleep to feel like I can rest and have one cohesive thought?! Yes, my husband is super involved. But we have no village. My mom is around but she’s older and not as hands on as I would have expected. I just need an age or a sliver of hope.

Just something silly that’s been bothering me lately:

Have you changed your style so you won’t necessarily stand out at the pick-up from school?

Our school (starting at 4) lets parents say goodbye to their children at the play yard and say goodbye outside their classroom window so we all are quite connected every day for at least 30 minutes (bringing and picking up).

My clothing style (before children) used to be mostly dresses, skirts and heels.

Now after having two that obviously isn’t practical so it’s mostly now more comfy clothes(jeans/sneakers) but I am still loving my old style. But, I
Can’t imagine walking up the school yard like that (nothing scandalous but I would stand out instantly) so every time I am shopping for myself I caught myself thinking: is this school yard proof 😬🤷🏼‍♀️. I hate that it feels like I’ve to blend in, I was never like that… wondering if anyone has a similar experience and how are you dealing with this?

Why are all kids clothes, nursery, big items, all tan, brown, or white? Is this just a new trend? Its hard to find anything fun for kids anymore. I even seen one lady bashing character backpacks at Walmart in favor of a $60 pottery barn one. What is the logic behind all of this?

Ok so why TF did GoGo squeez just switch around all the dinos on their packages?! For 2 years it has been known that my 4 year old does not like the Triceratops one (I think it’s peach) and now they put the freakin triceratops on the Rawr berry flavor so now he refuses to eat that one too! WTF Gogo squeez?! Read the room! Do you even know your target audience is completely unreasonable toddlers?!

at this point, there’s no point in him getting out if time out. he touches the xbox, he hits his sister, he screams when he’s told no, he grabs cell phones & throws them down the steps… pretty much, he won’t stop doing shit wrong! everyone always says how much they love the toddler phase, WHY ? i’m constantly getting my little boy in trouble. i feel bad bc he’s fun and goofy and silly but he doesn’t listen to shit and no matter what i do (genuinely) he does NOT listen. soft voices, reminders, one & done, time out, clean it up, apologize, yelling, stern voice, take a toy, lose a privilege, raised voice, blah blah blah. i’ve tried it all. i’m specialized in infant (0-3) mental health for my masters courses & i have 3 children and 21 nieces/nephews, so im not new to kids.

what the f do i do?

adding: he does get screen time, not a lot but he does get a screen each day in some capacity. i haven’t been outside much but his dad usually takes him out- there’s no difference in his mood energy or sleep either way. i’ve been carving out time each day to make sure he runs around and gets energy out. he eats okay, not the worst not the best.

My 12 month old son has always been eating solids well, porridge, meat, vegetables, eggs, pasta etc. And suddenly, at 12 months and 1 week old he decided to stop eating solids except for Cheerios, biscuits, cookies and some bread and peanut spread. He has absolutely refused everything else. That said, he is breastfeeding more. To be specific, he doesn’t eat and spit the food out. He literally clamps his mouth shut and turns away. I’m going bonkers trying to figure out what happened and although I booked a paediatric appointment, the doctor would very likely give standard advice like try more varieties and all, but I’m very certain as his mum he clearly sticks to his Cheerios and breastmilk for a good reason. I hope parents who may have been through this share what could possibly be happening! I’m going bonkers here as this has gone on for 4 days already and I’m mad worried about his nutrition and iron and key nutrient intake..

Our 4 year old has been awful since his twin siblings were born in May. He turned 4 in August, and his defiance, outbursts, screaming, and attitude have gotten increasingly worse.

He kept getting out of bed after being walked back to bed Saturday night. He starts screaming and hollering when we tell him to go back to bed, almost waking up the babies in their rooms over and over again. So, we told him he’d be locked in his room if he couldn’t stay in there and go to sleep. Of course, he tried to sneak in the living room again, and he got put back to bed and locked in his room. We do not want to do this, but what can we do when he won’t do what he is told, and we have 2 other littles?

The next morning, we discovered he had used his t-ball bat to put a hole in his door. I open the door, see the debris and hole on the backside of the door, and he has the balls to say, “That’s what happens when you lock me in my room.” He found the bat in his closet where we had put his tball set his grandpa got him for his bday.

I’m talking to the pediatrician about him tomorrow (so I can be honest without him there) and probably taking him to see her on Wednesday. He doesn’t sleep well, which I think is contributing. His Nanit camera (we still have it in there to make sure he’s safe) picks up him moving all night like he’s restless. That - and his dentist said his tonsils/adenoids were enlarged a few months ago. I’ve also requested an OT evaluation.

He screams like he’s being stabbed to death when he gets a bath. Like I’m surprised the neighbors haven’t called the cops. It doesn’t matter what we do to rinse his hair. Sprayer. Cup. Laying down. Head back. Nothing works. He freaks out. Then, he thrashes around and freaks out if you do manage to get him to let you rinse his hair, gets soap in his eyes as a result, and screams more. It’s awful.

If he doesn’t like what you tell him or gets angry/upset, he will whine, scream, cry so loud. Like blood-curling screaming.

He also didn’t get off the bus today. I get out there a little late (he rides the bus to my school where I teach), and he knows to get off with the other kids and wait for me with the other adults. I hightail it to where the other kids/adults are, and he’s not in that room. We had to call the bus driver (thankfully my coworkers have her number), and he was just chilling on the bus. He wouldn’t give me a straight answer as to why he didn’t get off. He said he forgot, and then he said he didn’t want to get off. I thought maybe he fell asleep, but the bus driver said he wasn’t.

We are not perfect parents, but we are at our wits end. He’s never been this bad, emotional, disobedient, aggressive, explosive, etc. It’s like a switch has flipped. I just want our sweet little boy back. We are tired of being growled at, screamed at, lied to, and dealing with stuff like this. Any advice?

Our relationship is already shit for other reasons. I take care of our toddler (22 months) basically 24/7. He gets like two hours with him at night if that. Even with that setup, if I tell our son no, he does the opposite every time. Kid’s already figured out he can just wait and ask the other parent.
Tonight he drops that he’s going to see a friend two hours away tomorrow, leaving right after work, and he’ll be gone all night and the next day. Only thing he asked me was if he should come home first or go straight there. Trip’s already happening either way. I told him just go after work because I don’t even want to see him right now.
This isn’t the first time with the short-notice disappearing acts. I’m already the one with the kid all day every day, he barely has a couple hours, and he still treats these overnight trips like they’re locked in with zero real notice. Then on top of it he undercuts me with our son every chance he gets. I’m over it.
Anyone else deal with this combo? The parenting inconsistency plus the last-minute “I’m gone for a full day and night” shit when you’re already doing all the childcare and the relationship is already bad? How’d you handle it?

Basically, my 12 year old is nerdy. And not smart but cool nerdy. A bit shy, a bit weird nerdy. He struggles socially and I am so sad for him that it’s hard. I wasn’t the most popular but I had my friends and was generally pretty happy. I worry about him- he’s sensitive and kind and really wants to be friends with everyone but the other boys can tell he’s a bit weird. Even the kid who was his close friend seems to have drifted. I am SO worried about next year and lunchtime when they pick their own tables and what happens if he has nobody. I just don’t know what to do. I feel like I made a huge mistake keeping him back in k (he’s a summer bday) because all of the neighborhood boys went forward and are a grade ahead of him- at least he’d have had them. I really regret it so much even though I know academically it was what he needed at the time. I don’t think he has any friends in his class and I’m just so sad.

ETA- parenting is hard even after 12 years.

I would pay extra for this setting not gonna lie. He is some kind of hidden phone finding Olympic champion.

Baby is 14m and my relationship with my husband is next to nothing. I sleep in my baby’s floor bed and have done all of night wakes since birth. Baby is still ebf and wakes every 1-2 hrs at night.

We both work full time. Husband isn’t much of a baby person so he gets bored with engaging with little one. He’s also a bit lazy and goes in spurts of feeling the need to clean. He handles things food related for the most part - cooking or buying dinner, grocery shopping. I handle the rest.

At the end of the day I’m exhausted and have no desire to have intimacy. We barely kiss hello any more and at this point he’s my roommate.

Am I alone on this? Does it get better without therapy?

Game time is game time no doubt but i would be a lot happier if i knew that part of their screen time is dedicated to effective learning. Maybe a fun kids' show that teaches them history at the same time, or a knowledge game that's also fun to them? Artsy apps that enhance artistic skills and imagination, or games that teach valuable lessons such as solidarity and collaborativeness?

I think there are great things to learn while also being in front of a screen and since it's part of their daily life i would like to take advantage of it. At least introduce it to them and see if they enjoy it. Any ideass?