She’s 25 and recently married. Her husband is upset that I ”delayed the plan” I reiterated that THEY ASKED ME and this is none of my business beyond the scope of the conversation we had at my parents house. All I said is, you won’t know until you know. You could have an easy child or you could have a horrifically difficult one for any number of reasons: colic, just not a happy baby, they might be medically and psychologically complex etc. I have 1 of each. My second is very chill. I’m genuinely surprised at myself for even having a second because my 1st has been hard since day 1 and keeps getting harder (severe combined type ADHD, we’re in a lot of therapies - language group because he can’t focus long enough to form coherent sentences some time, behavioral and feeding for AFRID) we are also home schooling him because he needs it. School was a nightmare. I am mostly exhausted by parenting him - there are days where I am downright miserable and question why I chose to reproduce but it’s not like I can go back so onward we march. Doesn’t mean I love him less. ADHD also runs in our family. Our other sisters have boys with ADHD and Autism. My sister knows this but I’m not sure she clicked on the genetic link until I said it.

I DID talk about the nice times, I only ever share happy things about my son and his sister because that’s what we do. But you also asked about all of it and I shared my experience.

I took my kids (9 and 7) on vacation this week. We went on a tour of the Southwest, spending time at the Grand Canyon, Moab, and Roswell, NM. Beautiful trip. The issue is I forgot cigarettes before setting out driving through rural Utah and didn't have any nicotine patches either. We get to our cabin near Moab and I'm already irritable and withdrawing a bit. I didn't sleep that night because I was sweaty and just in a shit mood. That carried over into the next morning when I was feeling like garbage and I was just in a withdrawn and snappy mood until I finally got some nicotine in me the next afternoon.

It's not fair to them that I was in such a snappy mood on our one yearly vacation and I feel like a shit mom for putting them in that spot. I've been a smoker for over a decade. I quit during my pregnancies and stayed smoke free for about a year after my daughter was born before starting again. I have a high stress, high stakes job (I'm a cop for my city's PD) and got divorced three years ago and I just look forward to cigarettes as my stress reliever.

But I can't be ruining a nice time with the kids because I don't have enough nicotine in my system to avoid being an irritable mess. They deserve better than that. We're home now. They said they had a good time but they're polite kids. I need to do better.

I am mid thirties with a 5 and 1 year old. I’ve slowly realized my husband and I are just incompatible, and I have been essentially functioning as a single married mom since I was pregnant with my first. He’s recently “changed” to be better but I just can’t get past it all.

I plan to file for divorce. I’m so scared but I am so tired of being so miserable. I feel as though when he travels for work it is easier because he’s not around. I have just mentally checked out.

My ask….give the good the bad and the ugly. Would also love to hear some positive stories of someone who was in similar situations. I have been gaslit that I am going to ruin my children, and that I will never find love again, and it’s just so hard to get that out of my head.

I read once that kids are more likely to have their mother's coloring, which ended up being true for both of my children. It's a bit of a shame because my husband has this really beautiful dark brown hair, whereas mine is more of a blah-light brown (sorry babies), not that it really matters at all in the grand scheme.

What about you? Is this actually a thing?

​

I'm fed up. We have 3.5 year old boy (he is in daycare 5 days a week) and almost 3 month old girl (always at home). My husband recently returned to work after 3 month parental leave. I'm still on maternity leave.

He is always angry - it doesn't matter if it's a weekday or a weekend. Same was during his leave, same , maybe a bit better, when we only had 1 child. He doesn't want to go anywhere, doesn't plan anything, he looks pissed at every "daddy, why", every "daddy, look at me", every "i don't want that food". Every weekend he asks me what do I want to do as if he fully embraced slaves mentality, basically - "what did my manager/tormentor planned for today?".

Today toddler asked for me during his bedtime (my husband usually does his bedtime after our girl was born) so my husband had to hold our 3 month old girl because she cries every time she is put to her crib. I hold her every single day. Basically, during the day she screams every time I go to toilet, eat or leave her in any way. Sometimes I get lucky and she fells asleep in her crib. So anyway, my husband held her 30min and was even more pissed off, refused to talk to me later. Doesn't he understand that it's normal? I cannot do both. Well I could, but toddler has a cough and if baby gets sick we'll have to go to emergency. I prefer to avoid that.

He does chores, we have no family help, we hire cleaners every 2 weeks. I understand it's tough for both of us, but his bad mood is way worse for me than 2 kids screaming at the same time.

I don't think he has made peace with the fact that he has to be a father now, that he has to model life for kids, that he has to show kids that life is not a torment, that life is a gift full of fun things a person can do.

He spends time with toddler, changes our baby girl but I don't think he likes them. He says to me that he wants to be left alone. Toddler loves him, probably more than me. When I suggest my husband go somewhere alone, he refuses because he doesn't want to leave me in this hell.

During the argument, he said that he might be depressed, when I pressed to talk to his doctor about it, he said he did and that he prescribed him sleep medicine that could fix his mood (I do night wakings, he sleeps in another room). I don't think that medicine worked.

At days like this, I think low energy men should not have children. It's really hard for me to have any affection for a man when I think he doesn't like our babies. He does what he has to do with them, but I wish he could enjoy being a dad. I really wish.

Rant over.

My son Elijah is 10 weeks old, and I’m struggling a bit.

I’m a single mom without any help, and I can’t leave him alone for more than 5 minutes without him crying. I need to be able to shower, eat, clean, do laundry, and just get a few basic things done without him crying the entire time.

I really want him to take a pacifier because I feel like it might help soothe him when I can’t hold him, but he absolutely refuses. I’ve tried about four different brands, and he won’t take any of them. He is exclusively breastfed.

I’ve also tried waiting until he falls asleep before putting him down, but that doesn’t work either. He’ll sleep for maybe 10 minutes if I’m not next to him before waking up crying. So, please, “just wait until he falls asleep” isn’t a solution for us. 😭

I’m not expecting hours of freedom. I just want 20 minutes at a time to shower, eat a proper meal, or get something done around the house without feeling like I have to rush because he’s crying.

Has anyone else had a breastfed baby who refused every pacifier? Did you find a particular brand, technique, or alternative that actually worked?

I’d especially appreciate advice from other moms who were doing this alone without anyone available to hold the baby while they got things done.

I love my boy to bits, but I also need to be able to function as a human being. 😅

I never got out-of-pocket comments while pregnant (though i never made it past 29 weeks), so maybe that had something to do with it. But now my baby is almost 5 months old adjusted, and i get the wildest comments from older folks and family members!!!!

“you’re spoiling your baby when you hold her too much”

“put her on her tummy while she sleeps and she’ll sleep through the night”

“you know, every time she cries, she realizes you will pick her up. she’s manipulating you!”

I never want to create tension or arguments with people but it takes everything in me to not make snarky remarks back😭

i expected the physical healing to be hard, i expected to be sleep deprived, i expected to miss intimacy with my husband, but i didn’t expect everybody to treat me differently after giving birth. my daughter is only a month old and i don’t know how i am going to continue to cope with this change.
i only get texted about the baby. when i walk into a room with her, everyone sees her and not me. when my family texts it just feels like im the middle man between grandparents and their grandchild. friends and family stop by and expect to get to hold the baby and only ask me about her and how she’s doing. these people never made this much effort to see me before i had my baby. i know they all love me, but i feel more invisible than ever.
does it keep feeling like this? will my family and friends eventually settle in and see me as a person again or will they always see my baby before they see me? this has by far been the hardest part of postpartum. please tell me i’m not alone and it gets better!

My 12 year old had a freak accident at school and somehow managed to crack his femur in half. We've been in the hospital since Thursday morning. He had surgery to repair it last night. He is doing really well, considering the injury. I am beyond proud of him right now. I also haven't slept since Wednesday night, my clothes are filthy, and I feel like collapsing into a heap of defeat. His dad is around, but he doesn't help much (with the mental load or finances). I'm the one talking to the doctors, therapists, and social workers. I'm the one about to take unpaid leave from my work as a special ed TA (which will mess with our class routine, and set things back for all of us). I'm the one planning with his teachers, setting up home medical equipment, transportation (we don't have a car), and a million other things. Luckily we are poor enough for low income housing so we will have a place to live, no matter how bad it gets. I  have a few family members around, but they are mostly elderly, and I don’t have any close friends that live near me, so there isn't really anyone to help with his care. I was sort of hoping he could go to a rehab for a few weeks until he can get around a bit better, but I don't think that is an option. Our apartment is 2 floors, and cramped, and the bedrooms and bathroom are upstairs. So, I have to figure out a way to fit his bed, and a comode in our teeny tiny living room. I have had problems with adhd, ocd, depression and anxiety since childhood. I'm now in perimenopause, feeling like I can't get anything done outside of work. I struggle with simple tasks at home. I have no idea how I am going to help my son through his recovery! I have no social life outside of work and no friends to sit and vent to. My coworkers have all sent such lovely, supportive messages telling me to reach out if I need anything. But, I don’t know them well enough to be able to tell if they mean it, or if they're just saying what people say in times like this. Anyway, I know I babbled, and I appreciate anyone reading this. Being in a children's hospital and hearing codes being called all day has made me hyper aware of how lucky I am to have my son here, recovering and healing. I know there are people out there that can relate to these feelings, so I'm posting it in hopes that we can feel less alone in this world.

So for context l was nursing my daughter to sleep (6m) and I was on FaceTime with my mother and sister.

Baby girl had been nursing about 10 minutes and was pretty much sleeping at this point. All of a sudden I look at her onesie and see a black spider on her back very close to the neck line.

I said “oh my god” and then literally ripped my baby off my boob by her arm and scared the shit out of her. She’s crying hard and I’m just trying to take the damn onesie off so the spider doesn’t hurt her or go anywhere else on her.

I just feel so bad because baby girl wasn’t crying because of the spider she was crying because I literally ripped her off my boob while she was sleeping and scared the absolute shit out of her. Her arm was okay and she wasn’t hurt but I just feel so bad because I’m sure I could’ve handled that way better. Has anybody else done something like this before?

And my sweet baby is just fine we cuddled, changed her, and now she is sleeping peacefully on my chest.

My children attend Silver Rail Elementary in Bend, Oregon. Many people have asked what they can do to help. If you or your kids are feeling this way, here's a relatively easy way to bring some love to our school community: We'd love to collect letters and pictures from all over the US (world?) to show them that there are good people everywhere. 💜

Silver Rail Elementary PTO

61141 S. Highway 97, PO Box 433

Bend, OR 97702

https://www.instagram.com/p/DelTFp_Sy0N/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Baby boy born on the 10th (happy one week 🥹) I had no significant tearing and am doing great myself for a week pp

Besides to the hospital little man hasn't been outside yet. I'm a bit anxious as a ftm.

But Halloween is my favorite holiday and I was thinking about taking an early evening walk out as a family. There's a little park nearby having a neighborhood kids party (kind of like a trunk or treat but no cars)

Is it unrealistic to bundle the boy up (he has a bear winter onesie coat so I was thinking I could do scarecrow makeup and husband could be a lion and we could be part wizard of oz lmao) and bring a bag of candy and get a few pictures?

Is Halloween too risky or overstimulating? I can't tell if I'm overthinking this

Sort of an update but we have a meeting Monday and the story of being woke up by sister yelling "Wakey, wakey!" While jumping on the bed and then making noises in 6 year old face is at least part of it because the child advocate asked me not to talk to 6 year old about it because it could bring up trauma. My hopes are I can write down everything the kids have said and done in regards to what's happening at dad's and the advocate and police will not only be interviewing about siblings bickering. The older child is 15. She has never once injured the 6 year old. However paternal grandma decided due to their age gap the bickering isn't normal so started telling 6 year old all sorts of weird stuff. Now for instance after 6 year old hits 15 year old for no reason and out of the blue when I ask 6 year old why she tells me she just has to defend herself against getting hurt by her sister. So there you have it. I have a kid getting negative remarks from school nearly every day dad has her, two little girls asking not to go to dads, 48 hours of meltdown after getting home from dad's and dad having his third arrest for DUI in the last few years and now this. My only hope is she is totally honest with the team interviewing her and they take my heads up about grandma putting words in her mouth. They have dealt with before Im sure. Any advice at all I would appreciate.

My baby will be 10 months at Christmas so this is a non issue till probably next year, but my growing up, my parents had a tradition of celebrating Christmas with Santa on Christmas Eve. My mom has already started talking about Christmas with the baby and Christmas Eve traditions and I already know she wants Santa to come to their house and have the same traditions I had as a kid. My husband and I want to do Christmas morning and to do Santa at our house, but I don’t want to hurt my parents feelings. I do very much want my parents to be part of the “Christmas magic with kids” thing but I don’t think Santa should come twice.

Are there any fun traditions we can celebrate on Christmas Eve so my parents don’t feel left out?

Edit: my mother is emotionally immature so I don’t expect this to be an easy conversation.

My twins born in 2014: Ages 2-4 had me on the phone with crisis hotline and seeking therapy. They screamed and cried about e v e r y t h i n g but at least listened to and loved me.

My current 3 year old: Doesn’t listen to a damn thing I, her dad, or her teachers say; flails and fights, hits, yells, copies her older sisters’ bad habits, doesn’t nap, won’t sleep in her own bed, makes up little white lies.

Meanwhile dealing with her neurodivergent older sister who is overcoming self-harming, is ADHD, anxious, and depressed.

I’m drowning, here.
I tried to do everything right.

Our nanny left our toddler in the bath for 3+ minutes… while she went outside. I found out cause my meeting was done earlier so I sat with him. Her reasoning was “oh I didn’t think it was a big deal cause he’s so smart”. What would you do?

Single parent family here. I don’t always have the means to afford everything and this upcoming Halloween is hitting me hard in the feels. I want to be able to get him a $40 costume but that seems like a far away concept.

I am not asking for help or funding but asking how to deal with the embarrassment of it. Thanks

Edit: thank you everyone for great suggestions! I don’t have Facebook and am not interested in making one but I will have a friend check with theirs. Otherwise to the thrift store I will go!

Does anyone have any recommendations for a baby keepsake book for an 18 month old? I never wound up starting the one we got when she was born and it asks like what the weight and length was every month and I dont know that...... I guess I am looking for a very low maintenance baby keepsake book that I can start now at 18 months without feeling super guilty. Does anyone have any recommendations on a goos one?

hi! it’s been 2.5 years since I had my kiddo, but I need postpartum core/pelvic floor program recommendations. I did the Nancy Anderson one when I was freshly pp, but I still have leaking issues when I cough or jump on a trampoline.

has anyone tried Restore Your Core or anything else that worked for them? (i saw a pelvic floor PT initially, but I couldn’t keep paying that much out of pocket).

thanks in advance!

I know it shouldn’t be that serious I hate being in the rain and cold. We live in CA the Central Valley and I was hoping it did not rain in October!! My son is turning 8 and this is our first birthday party we are throwing him. Hard to not be annoyed by the weather /:

We already have a canopy booked outside, tables and chairs , a bounce house , portable restrooms, a taco person for food , and well already 15 kids coming (not including parents!!)

I had hoped to have the kids be playing in the bounce house , trampoline , and kids playground we have on the side of our house , and then play some games. It’s a Halloween theme party.

& no this party cannot be inside my home.

Rain is expected to be 40% chance but when you click the weather to see the times it says 15-20% chance between the hours of our party.

I also came on here a few weeks ago asking for advice on Saturday vs Sunday party … we decided to go with Sunday due to sports and the Saturday weather is looking more promising 😭 I’ll keep an eye and see how it changes but darn just has to vent about it I know it’s not that serious

UPDATE: The accursed man was apparently in problem-solving mode when he broke the news to me and did a terrible job communicating. He called in the cavalry (the in-laws) and I'm going to have help while he's gone! (We've never lived close enough to family for that. I've been hospitalized while he was on a work trip and it was his boss and our dear, sweet landlady who watched our kids while I was in the ER overnight.) Long story short, I'm ready to send the flock of man-hating birds on to the next person 🦜🐦‍⬛🪿

Thanks everyone for your support while I was losing it. You guys are amazing and I know to never get on any lady's bad side here

My husband is a wonderful, kind man. But right now all I can think about is that a friend told me birds in captivity tend to have female handlers and therefore hate men, and I just want to set a flock of captive birds loose on him.

He travels a lot for work, and we move a lot for that same work. This summer, we left the only place where I've truly loved living to move for his job again, even though it was an option to stay. I got pregnant with our third kid because this new assignment is supposed to be basically a straight 9-5 with zero travel. I also started classes again because I'm ready to move away from being a SAHM.

Now, he got an opportunity to go on a work trip that would supposedly make him more relevant back at our old location and increase the likelihood we can go back later. I talked myself into agreeing to this TEN DAY transatlantic trip because he was supposed to be back in time for Thanksgiving break and I'd have a week to recuperate.

They just rescheduled the trip. He's going to miss the 20 week anatomy scan (the one appointment I told him was important to me for him to be there) and I l have a 40-min presentation AND a giant paper due. Was he upset about this when he broke the news to me? Nooooooo. It's all hunky-dory for him. (Turd.)

When he called my two year old was screaming for more oatmeal "Mooooore oat PLEEEEASE!" (He's not being neglected, he's just going through a growth spurt and knows there's a lag between asking for and receiving oatmeal. He still had egg in his mouth while yelling.) Then my cat got closed out of the room with the litterbox and peed into a basket of jackets while making eye contact with me.

I just got a notice that this was flagged as a possible sob story/panhandling. It is a sob story, but don't send money. Please instead send any captive, man-hating birds you have my way. All I want is for a misandrist toucan to crap on his head, and then I can feel better.

I think I am just dealing with regrowth but the baby hairs around my hairline/temple area look crazy. Is there anything that helps? I’ve been wearing a headband a lot but I know that can cause some damage long term🥲Any advice welcome!

Im a stay at home mom of two (3 and 1). I have a friend who is also a sahm and has children my kids age but she’s currently in nursing school so she’s really busy. I went to her house the other day, and no shade no tea, but it was a mess. I didn’t say anything but I’d really like to help her out because yeah I have two kids too, but I have time to help. Would it be rude to bring it up? Or should I not say anything.

To add context: we are new friends. like we met earlier this year but feels like we’ve known each other longer. I want to help but not overstep.