Parenting Contents Archive

Gift Suggestions for Wife Ending Breastfeeding Journey

My wife and I have a 4 year old and our youngest turns 1 in just a few weeks. My wife is winding down her breastfeeding/pumping journey with plans to stop around the end of the month. Breastfeeding and pumping is so difficult and time consuming that I’m really proud of her and all she’s sacrificed for our boys. I’d like to do something nice for her to kind of bookmark this chapter of life for her, whether it be a gift, memento, or whatever. Any Moms have any ideas for what might be a nice gift? Or Dads who have done this before, what did you get your wives/girlfriends/significant others?

Are parents of toddlers allowed to have free time?

Father of a 22 month old girl. Wife is stay at home. I am fortunate enough to have a chill job that gets me home by dinner (not always the case in my country). Now, while I enjoy spending time with my daughter, wife is quite demanding of my time—expects all my time to be dedicated to playing with or reading to my daughter, who hasn’t been introduced to media yet. Also can’t really read yet although she tends to play on her own quite a bit. And daughter refuses to go to bed until at least 11pm. I am wondering if this is normal or wife being a bit demanding. Am I allowed to have some time to myself, to read a grown up book or play videogames? Or must everything be focused in the child while she is awake?

What do Mom’s REALLY want for Mother’s Day?

Hey mom’s, I am legitimately asking what is something you actually want for Mother’s day, or even suggestions. There are many people, husbands/wives that can benefit from great discussion and ideas. My situation: 38m, 40f, 2.5f. I don’t want to just get something cliche or a piece of jewelry - so I come here for feedback from real moms. Also, I like realistic items, so if you know an associated cost, include that as well as it can help us create the best day possible for the women than make our families so much better. Thanks!

Best recommendations for 7-8yo boy Chapter Books please!

Looking for recommendations for my son who loved the Bad Guys, Dog Man and Cat Kid books. Does not like Dragon Masters, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Mysteries A to Z, or Treehouse books. I can't figure out why he likes one book, but not the next. To me, a lot of these books seem interchangable. I just want to keep the reading momentum up. Plus, he is way better at settling down for the night if he's actually reading vs pretending to read/skimming a book because it's boring to him or too difficult to read. He just started "Trapped in a Video Game" and I have high hopes, but I'm a little worried it's slightly too difficult for him. We will see... Anyone's kid sound like mine? What did your kids read? Thank you.

My teen wants to talk to me!

This is my first post here. My teen wants to talk to me. It's adorable and I really do appreciate it. The problem I'm having is that he doesn't want to have a conversation with me. He wants to tell me facts about everything under the sun, and he acts hurt when I'm doing something and can't give him my undivided attention. I get frustrated by this - it feels like he's not respecting me as a real person, and is seeing me as a passive audience with nothing better to do with my time than listen to facts about mountain bike trails in Portugal. I love this kid - I want to be a supportive mom and I love that he wants to share his passions with me. BUT, I also want to shove a biscuit in his mouth and tell him to stop talking.

Just a shout out to all the parents who manage to get their kids out of the house in matching socks

I can never resist the multicolor packs and I'm not looking through 20 pounds of clean laundry to find the right one. Don't judge me, folding clothes is at the bottom of the totem pole 😂

This starts at FIVE?!

I just dressed my normally fairly pleasant 5 year old daughter to attend Kindergarten Roundup at her school this evening. I just dressed her in a long top with flowers and a pair of jeans and put her hair into pigtails with flower clips, and her unedited commentary was as follows: "I think you think I'm into things that I'm totally not into" "I don't think you get me" "These pants are lame" (they're jeans???) "I look like a 2 year old" And my personal favorite "Thanks. I feel like a giant lump of embarrassment." I've got a kid entering senior year in August who has never given a single crap what clothes I buy him. My 8 year old daughter wears whatever I lay out. I've gotten one child completely through school and THIS is what apparently lays ahead of me? RIP to my liver.

We did the math...

One of our silly little phrases we tell our 6 month old is that we are going to 'give him 1 million kisses' (then proceed to shower him with kisses and tickles). We decided to do the math on that quota... If we wanted to accomplish 95% of our goal before he turns 8 (and stops allowing us to give him obnoxious tickle/kiss sessions) We'd have to average 325 kisses per day- not TOTALLY impossible considering any little kissy face kiss counts... But then we'd still have to AVERAGE 2.8 kisses per day until we were 84 to hit our quota!! TLDR: 1 million kisses is actually a lot.

Is it worth writing up and having a baby/parenting guide for yourself?

I know this is probably going to sound crazy and I accept that. I am the type of person who is crazy over prepared about everything. Probably to a bit of an extreme degree but I digress. Anyways we are planning on starting our family soon and over the past year or two I have been learning so much stuff. From tricks to help you breastfeed, post partum care, to how to cloth diaper, to gentle parenting, and literally so much more. I know how tired and probably borderline a little insane we will be after having a baby and I know there’s no universe where we can remember it all so I was thinking about creating almost like a baby guide for everything we learn to help us so rather than remembering what we always need to do or know what milestone’s we need to hit or whatever we can refer back to what we had researched prior. Am I crazy? Or would something like this help you or your partner?

Pros and cons of delaying kindergarten a year for a mid summer birthday boy.

My guy is extremely social and pretty confident so I’m not worried about that aspect. I am however, worried he will lose confidence when he realizes he’s repeating pre-k. His maturity is a little lacking to me for kindergarten and all the work required now but I’m not sure if holding him back would be beneficial or detrimental and I’m a nervous wreck so I’d love to hear others’ experiences.

Tell me I’m not messing up my baby

We had a rough night last night. My daughter fights sleep so hard. She didn’t go to sleep until 2:30am. She’s been fussy all day and really needed a nap. Breastfeeding is the only thing that soothes her. I fed her and she fell asleep but immediately woke up once she was in her crib. We constantly go through this cycle. I feed her, she falls asleep, I put her in her crib, she wakes up, she’s hysterical, I feed her to comfort her, repeat the entire cycle. I spend HOURS trying to get her to sleep everyday. I couldn’t do it. I left her crying in her crib. I started a timer on my phone and said I wouldn’t let her cry longer than 10 minutes. She fell asleep after 9 minutes. I kind of hate that it worked. I don’t want the only way for her to fall asleep is to scream in her crib. I feel like I messed up somehow.

Any socks that actually stay on?

Does anyone know any magical baby socks that actually stay on?

Microplastic Free Staw Cups

Hello all! I'm looking for your favorite straw cup that doesn't need to scare the crap out of me because of microplastics. Ideally it would be stainless steel with a stainless straw that is covered in silicone or just a fully silicone straw. My baby is just learning how to use straw cups and my 5 year old could use some new ones as hers are mostly plastic and getting old. So what is out there? Bonus points if they won't cost me $35/cup lol

How much focused time do you spend with your kids?

How much focused time do you spend interacting with your kids? This means time that you’re not spending doing housework, cooking, commuting, getting them ready for bed and getting up in the morning, etc. A recent post where I was talking about after school activities made me question and feel guilty about whether I’m spending adequate time with my kids. I wonder if I’m getting 2-3 hours of time at most with them per week. Out the door for work/daycare by 7. I get home at 5:30 and we start then bedtime routine at 6pm. On the weekends, I get maybe an hour of structured activities like soccer or swimming each day and then maybe another 30 mins of unstructured play at home each day. Otherwise there’s always a meal to cook, something to clean, or something in the house that needs maintaining. Is this normal? Am I doing things wrong ?

Anger outburst

My son is 4 in July. This evening he refused to come out of the bath, he took the shower head and sprayed it all over the floor. I took him out as enough is enough. He went mad. Never seen him so angry. He bit me so hard and wouldn’t stop hitting me. I think he’s tired and hungry as he didn’t eat his tea. Just wanted to ask should I be worried about the anger outburst? In particular the biting and hitting.