Parenting Contents Archive

I can't handle the Five Little Ducks song

How could NONE of the 5 little ducks come back?? That poor mother duck 😭😭

PSA: Avoid child-free bosses if you can

They’ll think daycare is easy and affordable to obtain, they’ll schedule work trips with little notice, they’ll think all you do is get distracted by your child, they’ll think babies won’t get sick and need to see a pediatrician, they’ll think working straight through 8-5 is reasonable……. I could go on. I WFH and got chewed out for not having my 10 month old in daycare when in reality if I did have him in daycare I’d be living paycheck to paycheck. Time to start job hunting I suppose.

Little kids (babies and toddlers) attending funerals

My husband's grandmother is unexpectedly and quickly nearing the end of her life. This has started the conversation of funerals and how we, as parents to young children, should navigate. We have an 8 month old, 2 year old (rambunctious and speech delayed), and 9 year old (who we aren't worried about). We don't want to disrupt the service or constantly have to remove the children. I want to support my husband no matter what. I think our best option would be to attend the wake and possibly the dinner afterwards if they're up to it, but have my mom watch them during the funeral and burial. It'll be a full catholic funeral, but we aren't religious at all, and the kids have never attended church besides holidays with family who are so they aren't at all used to being forced to sit for over an hour.

The wake up stretch and fart

That’s the best, when they wake up with arms stretched and a big fart 🤣💚

Nursery Bluetooth Speaker Disaster

A note to parents, if you have a teething 9 month old and you're turning on some calming baby music for them before bedtime- remember to turn your Spotify station away from System of a Down BEFORE connecting to their full volume speaker. Apparently it takes more than 10 seconds to switch stations and that's enough for disaster. 😆

Fisher-Price Reannounces Recall of 4.7 Million Rock ‘n Play Sleepers After 70 Additional Fatalities

The amount of time children have for unstructured free play has been declining for decades. Today's children spend about half as much time playing outside each week as their parents did. @saragregory @The74 https://t.co/Qz1e9cWkfo

Does anyone else have a code word or phrase with their kids?

My kids have a REALLY hard time telling their friends that they're bored or they're annoying or just that they want to go home so we came up with a code phrase. My 9yo will ask if we have plans (we never have plans) and I'll tell her yea and that she needs to come home or I'll come get her. My 10yo tells me that he's craving guacamole (🤢🤢) so I'll tell him he either needs to come home or I'll go get him. My 15yo says he has laundry he needs to do. Do any other parents do this or is it just me??

Is this weird?

My 1 year old makes a big mess when eating (as any 1 year old would do) and when we’re in restaurants I clean up after her. I take a napkin and try to get as much chicken nugget pieces off the floor in one sweep. We were out to eat with my dad and stepmom recently and after I did this she gave my dad a look. He asked her about it and she said she didn’t say anything. I’m not close to her at all so I couldn’t decipher what she meant by the look. Is it weird to clean the floor under the high chair in a restaurant? I spend less than a minute doing this and do it in the hopes of making the job a little easier on whoever has to clean up after us.

Wine rant

I went my entire pregnancy having no alcohol (obviously) and I really didn’t miss it. But as soon as this baby came out I just want wine so bad!! But I’m EBF. A glass of wine in the evening just sounds like such a nice thing. Ugh. Not asking for advice, just wanted to put this out there haha

AITA for wanting to prioritize vacations over visiting out of state family?

My partner and I work hard and want to travel and take vacations as much as we can while it’s affordable (while baby doesn’t require their own plane ticket). My parents have never visited me - I’ve spent over $20k visiting them every year since I moved across the country (I could have saved up for a house!) and now they want me to spend all of my PTO visiting them so they can see the baby. I think this is unfair and that they should come out to us. AITA?

Do morning people exist?

I was hoping that once I had kids, I would naturally become a “morning person”, since I would regularly be forced to be up early. Instead I’m just always tired. As far as I can remember, I tend to have the most energy starting in the late afternoon. Prior to this time, I feel like I can lay down and fall asleep at any given moment. I hate this and feel guilty that I don’t really feel alive/alert most of the day. Any tips for being more energized/waking up more easily? I would LOVE to be that person that even wakes up before the kids to get some self care done, but I just absolutely loathe when the alarm goes off in the mornings ugh. I know this is not groundbreaking - I just want to not feel so tired all the time

He left us for his AP and now I'm raising a 3 month old alone.

Did anyone else have to go through this? I'm seriously taking it 1 day at a time. It was so unexpected. I never saw it coming. I know it gets better with time, but I'm just so unsure as to how I can muster the strength to take care of my baby through all of this pain. On top of it I'm sick. How do you learn to be a new parent and a good parent through intense pain? I feel so guilty not being present.

Is it normal for a 1 year old to only sleep for 8 hours a day?

My 1 year old takes a 1 hour nap every day. At night, she sleeps from 8pm-midnight. Then she is wide awake until 4:30am until she finally sleeps until 7:30-8am. It has been going on for a week now and I have no idea how to break the cycle. The room is comfortable, I change her and keep the lights very dim while I change her and when she wakes up at midnight. Whether I give her warm milk or not, she still will be wide awake. Is this just a sleep regression that will go away?

During the night Roomba smeared poop all over the house

Husband stays up late and locks puppy in his crate before going to bed... but puppy had pooped in the house and husband didn't clean it up (since he sees that as my job), and Roomba smeared it all over during the night. I mean ALL over. Just had to share.