Parenting Contents Archive

Guy filming us as my son is screaming

I have 4 kids. My youngest is Autistic. She has suddenly started biting and pulling hair She has a therapist, speech therapist, and physical therapist. We've been trying to get her to stop. My husband was taking me to work and we stopped to get gas. My youngest one started pulling her brothers hair. My son started screaming at the top of his lungs. Yelling stop. I turned around and managed to pry her fingers from his hair. She stopped but when we started to leave I saw a guy holding his phone up filming us. And when we went by I saw him bend down and get our license plate number . I'm worried he was thinking we were abusing them. Never in a million years would I hurt my babies. I'm thinking he probably heard my son screaming but I'm freaking out right now. I'm a worry wort and I'm worried about this. My kid's therapists know what my daughter does and I have done nothing wrong but I still worry if he calls someone. I've heard horror stories about it

Where is this fabled blissful baby smell?

Among the smelly diapers, yogurt breath, and neck cheese, I cannot for the life of me find this cryptid level euphoric baby smell. Where on the baby should my nose be???

Idk how to dress myself anymore

I just don't know my style anymore or what suits me. I never feel that comfortable in my body anymore even if i'm back to my pre pregnancy weight. The bags under my eyes are not doing me justice. I feel like i don't have a sense of style and I used to love getting dressed up or wtv. It's like I lost my identity or something. I'm sure i'm not the only one who feels this way. It's just annoying. Side note: I love being a mom i feel like that's what I was meant to be and i'm very much enjoying it. Just little things that I miss.

Questions about white noise and babies.

Hello everyone, I was told that using white noise would help my baby sleep and stay asleep and so far it’s helped in my experience but my partner was reading The Brain that Changes Itself and the author shared a study claiming, “White noise can have adverse effects of infants are exposed at a young age as it causes many neurons to fire simultaneously - what is often found in autism”. Has anyone come across any studies/research on the topic? I’ve tried researching myself but I’m having a hard time finding a clear answer on if white noise impacts neural plasticity. Thank you in advance for you time.

Overwhelmed and overworked

I’m getting really overwhelmed and really resentful. I work my ASS off all fucking day with Spec Ed kids and my husband just sits home all day and does nothing. (He’s medically retired, but fully functional 🙄). Child is in school. Sometimes he sweeps… but he leaves the dirt pile in a corner for me to clean up???? WTF?? He cooks dinner… but he doesn’t clean up after himself and messes up so bad that it makes my job harder. I spend all weekend cleaning only for him to fuck it up all week while I work. And I’m too fucking EXHAUSTED to do much during the week. It’s not fair. I feel so defeated. Also, we we’re almost finished paying his car off… and he goes and trades it in for an expensive truck… if it weren’t for the $500/month payment we wouldn’t be so FUCKING STRAPPED for money!!!! And we CANNOT seem to CLAW THE FUCK OUT OF DEBT. What the fucking fuck. 😩😩😩 I just need to complain. 😔 I am sad.

I appreciate all the mothers who bring ATTENTION to the lack of effort, intentional neglect, endless excuses, lack of responsibility, lack of accountability, gaslighting, mansplaining and the constant inconsideration for overwhelmed mothers that comes from the majority of men today.

Thank you for your refreshing honesty. Keep speaking out and letting these men know women are not slaves, robots, superhuman. Women are present because they care. Men are not because.......(insert any male excuse) The bullshit has to come to an end. The jig is up

Out of the box gift ideas for new parents?

I’m looking for out of the box suggestions for gifts for some of my relatives that are first time parents. Or will be in late summer. They’re going to register and all that, and I know all the basic baby supplies (I’m a parent, too). But I’m looking for suggestions that are out of the box that are super helpful or nice that aren’t commonly thought of. One example I thought of is getting new mom a gift certificate for a high end spa to get a full treatment after baby and healing time. What else? Useful is definitely great, but any ideas that aren’t necessarily useful but would probably be really appreciated (like a massage) would be great! Thanks in advance!

Why do people no use umbrella strollers?

My husband and I have a standard stroller we use for our baby. It takes up quite a bit of space in the trunk though. My in-laws suggested using an umbrella stroller. I feel like I never see people using them though. We go on walks all the time and I have never seen someone using one. Everyone always has joggers or standard strollers like us. Umbrella strollers are so cheap, why are they not more widely used?

Tips for dealing with volunteer-regret and feeling over-committed?

I'm finding that if I want my kids to be involved in anything, then I'm expected to volunteer a lot of my time for them to have fun opportunities. This season, I've definitely over-committed myself being involved in 3 committees (2 are just municipal-planning related and 1 is soccer-related) and also coaching my daughter's soccer team 2 nights a week with games every Saturday until June while also having an intro to dance class that runs until the end of May on Friday evenings. It should hopefully be better if I can just get through to June when soccer is over and then I'm never doing this to myself again but I just need some tips or advice to get through these next few months because my anxiety levels are at an all-time high and I'm just super frigging stressed and it's only the first week of our season *Inhale exhale* so yeah. Any advice, words or support would be much appreciated because I kinda just want to retreat into a cave in the mountains and never return at the moment.

Is anyone divorced and/or separated but living together? And how's that going?

So the background is my husband of 11 years and I have been quietly separated for about 2.5 years . We are very good friends we are at a very good place in terms of continuing on as friends and have been dating outside of our marriage. There's no hard feelings there, no jealously. We want each other to be happy and can recognize we just aren't each other's people romantically. We are co-parents continuing to live together and this has not been the easiest. I think in part because we still continue to appear as a married couple to our children. We have only told our friends and I have most recently told my parents. We have a therapy session scheduled and our goal is to continue to live together but to let our families know we are separated and let our children know and see if we can live authentically together. Is anyone doing this? How's it going?

Having breakdowns over my chunky baby

I have a 7 month old. At his most recent doctors appointment he weighed 29 lbs. he is in the 99th percentile in height and weight and wears 3T clothing. He is half breast fed and formula and I give him purées for dinner. The doctor told me not to be concerned as some babies are just large. But I’m still upset. Baby clothes don’t fit him and he can’t use a walker or jumperoo because he exceeds the weight limit. Idk what to do I feel like he isn’t getting to live his best life and I am failing as a mother. Has anyone experienced anything like this? What toys / activities can I do to keep him entertained. Any toy ideas for us to use outdoors? I appreciate any advice.

Are equal partnerships even possible?

Or will men only ever be capable of the bare fucking minimum? Even though they truly believe they are doing *half* the work (hilarious!)??????? Sincerely, A sleep deprived mother who hasn’t had time to scratch her own ass for about a year now. P.S. please don’t come at me with your stories about your awesome husbands. I only want to hear the whinges about the shitty ones because misery loves company and id love some company on this lonely ass island.

How did you make your baby smile/laugh today?

I need new tricks :)

What table to get my 1 y.o.?

My child ages very quickly, they're basically a 5 y.o. at this point so please refrain from judgment. I just want a good tablet for videochatting and netflix for my child.

When one parent go on a short trip alone, how often do they ask to talk to the kid?

My husband went for a trip (one week) alone to see some good friends and I stayed taking care of our 5 year old. On the first day of the trip, my kid asked about his dad and I called him so they would see each other. It has been 3 days since they last spoke and my husband just shortly texts me what he did that day and that's it. Timezone, connection, data package etc are not an issue btw. And tbh I think he won't ask to talk to our kid at all. On the other hand, I am the primary caregiver and very much attached to our son. Like, I wouldn't go a day without checking on him. So my husband and I are opposites in this matter and I need some insight from other people to help me figure out how to process some feelings. How is it for you guys when one of the parents go away for a travel? How often do you ask about your kid or try to talk to them?