Parenting Contents Archive

I medicated my child for ADHD and I cried… tears of joy

Because for the first time she made friends. For the first time she was able to listen to her teacher and finish her work. She collaborated with her peers. She no longer elopes from the classroom or does cartwheels in the middle of class. She’s in kinder. She said to me ‘Mom I love school now, I don’t know why I didn’t like it before. The girls want to be friends with me now too.’ I cried tears of happiness for for her and bit of sad ones for me because my parents never bothered to get me diagnosed until far too late. I too could have made friends and not have failed all my classes up until age 17. I’m so glad she will never have to go through what I did. So screw all the naysayers of meds for kids (and adults), and the stigma surrounding it. Just like a mom wouldn’t be shamed for medicating her child with diabetes, there should be no shame in medicating for ADHD. She can now live life to her fullest, isn’t that what every mom would want?

Hey Bear Sensory

To the person that mentioned Hey Bear Sensory on YouTube, thank you! If you don’t know what this is, go find out! Im definitely not the person who wants their kid in front of a screen all day, but these little videos are damn fascinating for 10-15min when I HAVE to do something. It’s allowed me to make lunch, for me and DH to have a nice pizza dinner (not joking, he’s Italian and makes bomb pizza), and I even took a shower this morning with her in a bouncer on the floor and my laptop on the toilet. - FTM to a 2 month old.

4 week old drank ready to drink milk that was already opened 1+ week ago.

I'm coming here for some advice, me and my gf went out for a family emergency and her sister sat in with our child, we had already fed him just before leaving and were only going to be gone for 2 hours or so, so we thought he would be fine anyway, but we had left an aptamil ready to feed bottle on the side that we had intended to throw away, the bottle had already been open a week or so earlier and used but had been sitting in his baby bag for around a week, there was some left over. My sister in law gave him some of it because he seemed hungry. Should i be overly worried about this? I don't want him to get ill from drinking milk he shouldn't have had? Thanks in advance for any advice.

50 words at 18 months ??!!

Ok so I keep seeing on YouTube that an 18 month old should speak 50 words! That seems insane to me. Mine speaks about 10-15. Am I missing something? Do we need a peach therapy? How many words is your 18 month old saying?

Online support and not fitting in

23 weeks pregnant with my first baby I post on r/babybumps and I feel like I legit do not fit in there. I get downvoted immediately in every post. I post about struggling physically, creating boundaries with family members, and baby registries. I've seen others say very similar things and get positive responses Feels bad. Like really bad. Everyone else seems to fit in fine. I don't have any mom friends irl so an online group would be really helpful. I know I might be the problem. But I don't know how, unless maybe I'm too negative and they don't like that. However, like I said, there are lots of other negative posts. I thought it was a support group. This makes me really sad and frustrated. Also, yes I know this post is ironically negative.

Why are they so sharp tho?

How old to date?

My daughter is a freshman in high school and recently started “dating” a boy in her class. They talk on the phone, sit together at football games and he’s been to our house a few times (supervised). I’ve gotten a surprising amount of feedback from grandparents, my husband, acquaintances and friends (mostly the more religious ones) that she’s too young and it’s inappropriate for her to have a boyfriend. It’s not like I’m getting them hotel rooms. I guess my feeling is that I’d rather be less strict with her and know what’s actually going on than forbid it, knowing she’ll constantly be around this boy, and have no conversations or insight into what she’s doing. I know what I was doing when it was her age. Yikes. I think my husband will never feel like his little girl is old enough. Thoughts?

MIL is overstepping AGAIN!

Let me preface by saying my MIL is great (now.) She is so helpful, and would do anything for us really, BUT she refuses to respect my wishes as a mother. When my 5 year old was a baby we had problems, a lot of problems. She never respected that I was the mother and would push every boundary I set always saying she had 3 kids and never killed them. Since he’s gotten older we still don’t see eye to eye on everything but I am able to look past it. Now that I have another baby though the respect issues have started again. She knows dang well my baby JUST started solids but I just caught her giving him lemonade and trying to give him mac n cheese. He is barely 6 months and gags on anything even remotely thick. I COULD SCREAM! She doesn’t see the kids all that often so I’m trying to remain calm but it’s the disrespect. I am the mother. I do and say things for a reason. There is a method to my madness, just go with it.

Newborn wakes up after we put him in crib / only his mother is able to calm him down

Hello there, new dad here. We have a 3-week-old baby. He was delivered 2 weeks earlier with section because my wife started to have a high blood pressure. Our boy is healthy, everything is fine according to docs. The first issue is that as soon we put him into his crib, he wakes up after few seconds/minutes. The second problem is that only my wife is able to calm him down. I'm worried, because my wife haven't slept in a while and I can't help her because the only thing what calms my boy down are my wife's breasts. I have no idea what to do. He is not hungry, his diaper is clean, it can't be his tummy because he cries differently if this is his problem.

My mom just told me women on their period can’t hold the baby

What does she expect me to do? Ask any female family member or friend if they’re on their period? Edit: this is in reference to my baby

I love watching my daughter sleep because I know she has the rest she needs, and it relaxes me

Everything is on the title. I’m fascinated by watching my 9 weeks daughter sleep. Not because i think she’s cute (of course I do) but because when I see her in her deep sleep, I know she’s able to rest and for a strange reason, it relaxes me so much. I can FEEL the sensation of a very good sleep after a long day with a lot of activities and I keep thinking « she’s so lucky to have that sleep. That must be an awesome feeling ». Knowing she’s able to have that sensation relaxes me a lot, I don’t know why. Anyone’s the same ?

Anyone have heaters in their toddlers bedrooms?

Our daughters room is always chilly. Her room has the shortest HVAC vent and our bedroom is furthest away. We try to keep it around 72F for her, but that means our room is about 78F. I’m looking into getting one of those Amaze-Heater 400w room heaters from Amazon. Anyone have experience with them? Other option is a Dyson heater/cool purifier.

My 7month old just wants to beat the s**** out of me as a form of play

I try to introduce her to toys but she then wants to use them to hit me. She loves yanking my hair and trying to gouge my eyeballs out when she can. She’s such a ball of energy idk what to do. I try to teach her no but she LAUGHS at me and thinks it’s hilarious. (Fyi it’s not constant but it’s a majority of her play) and no I won’t hit my kid or spank her. Any advice is much needed plz lol she’s also a more advanced baby and is almost walking so it may be her just growing with her newfound mobility but man she is MEAN lol

Other parents have started Christmas shopping….right?!

Having read all the articles about shortages and supply chain issues and seeing the arrival of a certain toy catalog, we decided to go ahead and do the bulk of our Christmas shopping before things got crazy. We’ve got about 75% for kiddo done and my parents - the only people we buy for. My parents are also super early shoppers and I can remember many a Halloween where my sister and I scurried off to trick or treat as my parents headed to stores to Christmas shop. Y’all. The things I read only about it being just *too early* and it being ridiculous to shop so early are just baffling. Some of us are on a budget trying to make it work! Some of us just really love Christmas! I AM BOTH OF THESE PEOPLE! Hallmark Christmas movies start on Friday and you can bet your bottom dollar I’ll be sipping hot cocoa and wrapping gifts.

What to teach next??

I'm not sure if I'm dealing with a next level toddler or a pandemic baby but.... I have a 2y5m old that is smart. So far she knows - shapes, colors, letters (by sight & alphabet), numbers (by sight & can count items up to 12), songs, and many more context things like, "what's an automobile?" Her answer - "a car!!" She cleans up after herself and is overall a fairly well behaved child. All her other measured milestones have been met. She knows letters make words but we are too soon for spelling/reading. So, what should we learn next? What is simple, foundational learning for a toddler that we can be built upon?