Parenting Contents Archive

Swimming safety reminder

From your friendly neighborhood lifeguard! Reminder as swimming season is coming closer, *DO NOT BUY YOUR CHILD A BLUE SWIMSUIT.* It will blend in with the water and make them so hard to see if they accidentally go under. With a pool full of kids, it can be nearly impossible to spot a child under the water. Bright colors like neon are best 🌊 Stay safe loves ❤️ that blue Elsa/frozen swimsuit, is the biggest NO for safety 💙

Date Nights

My wife refuses to go on date nights bc she won’t leave out 7 yr old with a babysitter. She keeps saying she is not ready. We have had two nights alone without our daughter since she was born. Our Daughter was with wife’s older sister who has four kids of her own. Both times she was so anxious about our daughter that she couldn’t enjoy the time alone. What do I do? I feel lost. Please let know if there is a better place to ask this

Grandparents want to see baby but only alone

Does anyone else deal with grandparents that only want to visit baby when they have them alone? We are finding many comments that we can “just drop LO off” too many times to count. No effort to visit LO at home. I’m at the point where I don’t know what to say. It is my MIL and my husband does say yes we know you are available and leaves it at that. The comments just keep coming. She is local to us (15 mins) and retired but makes no effort to come over. She wants us to come to her and leave our child with her to spend time. It is a big fat NO from me because even though I know she loves her I don’t trust her. She did watch her a few times and didn’t feed or change her diaper for a long period of time. It is just annoying at this point.

Black Toast Three

My 3 year old kept on repeating that she wanted to try Black Toast Three - very slowly and carefully pronouncing the words clearly when I was confused and asked her to repeat herself. I repeated back to her ‘Black Toast Three?’ and she said ‘Yes!’ I was still confused while I began to pour her a glass of flax milk for snack, and she repeated again, “I want to try the black toast three milk at preschool.” We usually bring in our own non dairy milk due to allergy, but they also have a basic LACTOSE FREE variety available for kids whose parents forgot or who don’t want to/can’t bring in their own. I truly love how kids brains work trying to process words they’re not familiar with. Anyone else got some good ones?

He thinks it is not feminine to cough to clear phlegm

Long story short, I have some allergy for days and I'm absolutely miserable. In the first few days I had a lot of phlegm and I had to cough and eventually let it get out but I was obviously using tissues for that. At some point I couldn’t avoid doing it when my husband was at home and he seriously looked at me and told me “Could you please act like a woman? You look like my colleagues from work”. Well, he wasn’t even joking. I told him I couldn’t avoid doing it at some point but I would go somewhere else. I don’t know what to think about this seriously.

Ignoring him & google supports me lol

Been separated since 2011 and divorced finalized in 2016. This isn't fresh but When he randomly decides that he's in charge of me, he'll send demanding texts "you need to call me" "you need to answer me" and he talks down to and attempts to trigger my fight or flight and he antagonizes me through our kids, which my eldest hates. Anyway I haven't replied to any of those texts since 2/28 based on my therapists recommendation that "not all texts need immediate replies or any reply at all. You don't owe him a speedy reply. If it's urgent, surely he'll call you." He just keeps asking if I am going to acknowledge him. He hadn't called despite telling me that it's urgent and important that I call him ASAP. It's only urgent and ASAP because our kid told him he was a deadbeat and now he wants to threaten me and make accusations about my parenting. Last time he texted, Google suggested some auto-replies and they were "No, I'm not," "no," "nope," and "not now." Googles gets me! Lol

Middle school issues

I have 11 year old daughter. She is in middle school(6th grade) and hangs out with 3 other girls. One of them is her good friend since 3rd grade and my daughter considers her best friend. My daughter comes home often crying now days saying they always exclude her from conversations, in group projects they don't make her partner and they don't let her sit with them in school bus. Last week she got super upset and in anger she yelled on them in school bus. She felt very bad afterward and apologized as well. But the girls are still not talking to her. Yesterday after school at bus stop they left her alone for crying. They were talking about sleepovers in front of her. I am suggesting her to try to make new friends but she is saying it's very hard to make new friends. What should I do in this situation. It's very hard to see her crying every night. I know some of the parents. Should I talk to them about it?

Long "vacations" with kids

So my pregnant wife and I are thinking about going on a 3 week vacation in 2024. We will be 2 adults and 3 kids (0, 3 and 5) and I was wondering if any of you have done something similar, and would be willing to share your experience? I am fully aware that vacation with kids will be a lot of work, and the idea is to stay some place where we can go for a short hike every day, visit playgrounds, go swimming etc. Think it can work out, or will we end up tired and disappointed? We are thinking about Lake Garda in Italy in may/june 2024 right as it's getting warm (we Live in Scandinavia and would like to go somewhere less chilly).

Allowances

Curious as to people’s opinion on allowances. What age did you start? How much? My kid is 2 1/2 so not quite ready for it, but I’ve seen so many say no allowances because having a roof over their head and food is their allowance. I find that absurd given those are basic necessities that should be provided and aren’t a privilege.

What age do children benefit from the zoo?

My girl is 14 months now and I want to take her to the zoo but I dunno how much she'd get out of it or if there's anything to even be gained by going to the zoo. Thanks!

Is it OK to bathe a baby in a regular bathtub once they can sit up on their own?

Like just sitting them in the big tub, no baby tub, no bath chair or any other kind of apparatus. Mother thinks it could be dangerous, but I don't see the harm? I've done it a number of times now, and he seems totally fine, he's 10 months and can sit up perfectly well on his own now. I fill the tub up with just a few inches or so of water, about up to his waist and he seems very content. It is honestly much easier for me, too, I found the baby tub I had extremely awkward to be honest. I am of course always within arm's reach and NEVER leave him alone. It hasn't happened yet, but if he were to faceplant in the water, I'd be right there to catch him.

Clothing for 12-18months - onesies or separates?

I’m looking to buy some clothes for 12-18 months which will likely take us from May/June to November in the PNW. For this age group, do most people prefer a onesie with pants/shorts or separates (t-shirt + pants)? My girl is VERY active and difficult to pin down for diaper changes and getting dressed.

I kicked my husband out of our room at night and he’s not happy about it

So LO is teething right now and has had some rough nights, waking like 3-4 times a night but settles relatively quickly so I don’t find that part too bad. My husband doesn’t help with night wakings because he finds it too difficult to get up for work, which is fair enough I guess but he’s continued this even on days off, which whatever I’ve just been dealing with it. But he’s a restless sleeper, wakes me up, wakes LO up and between the two of them I’m literally not sleeping for more than an hour consecutively. So last night after being awake from 10pm -3am I asked my husband to move to the spare room if he is going to keep waking me up but not help with LO because I am honestly so exhausted. He got mad with me because our spare bed “isn’t as comfortable” and got grumpy this morning with me because he got no sleep… Am I over reacting here? Should I just let him sleep in our room?

First pool day of the season

And I’m so unhappy 😢 I’ve never been fatter in my entire life and the idea of squeezing into a swim suit is killing me. My baby is 8 months old so I feel like I shouldn’t be this big but post partum hunger is a bitch

Should my toddler still be using a sippy cup?

My 2y9mo old has milk morning and evening from a sippy cup with silicone spout, not like a baby bottle that he sucks its age rated 9mo-18mo. Water and juice he either drinks with a straw or from an open cup. I'm reluctant to switch because cleaning milk out a straw is a pain and open cup is just asking for everything being covered in milk! Is it a big deal I've just been assuming as he is developmentally able to use the other cups for everything else then it's not problematic but am I wrong and should I just suck it up and deal with the extra cleaning?