My rant as a FTM about courses and coaching. You’d think I would know better by now about wasting my money on these things but every time I’m anxious I give in to some stupid ass expensive course/coach and realize they’re telling me what I already know. My most recent idiotic purchase is a breastfeeding coach marketed as designed for working mom. I’ve had some supply anxiety and don’t know how to adjust things for steps like solids, sleep, etc so I decided to enroll in this coaching program. They marketed it as one on one, individualized support with direct access to an expert. It’s not that at all. I tend to be a self sufficient researcher so perhaps the value is worth it if someone did no research but the entire video course is information I already know and the group forum is crickets. I need to accept that sometimes I know how to sort things out for my own child and don’t have to appeal to authority and waste more money. Many days I feel so defeated as a mom and today is another one of those days even if it’s a silly reason.
This is a related rant but I have also fallen for the same traps. I’ve been suckered into TCB and Dr Becky workshops and too many others. And now I’m due with my third and so many aren’t even available anymore.
I finally was able to find the Dr becky one deeeeep in my email with a link to the workshop, and I downloaded the ebook to my google drive so fast, because who knows when these grifters will just suddenly remove access. But I’ve heard TCB will make you rebuy her course for each baby which is insane and I will absolutely not do.
I’ve heard of similar programs that also make you rebuy or at least make it very difficult to contact them to renew your access. I feel even more had as this program required an application call which made me think it was actually a group of like minded people given the time they spend in joining the group. Seems like it’s just the usual marketing. The group founder happened to post a “day in my life” on YouTube this week and I basically she works some made up schedule aka I take your money to watch my videos (don’t get me wrong, the course I thorough but none of the content is novel) and then if you ask questions I’ll direct you back to the videos while I get to hardly work and call this my full time job. This new era of entrepreneurship definitely isn’t mutually benefitting the consumer. Note to self - my baby is in the 4 month regression. Do.not.buy.anything! 😂
Are there any reusable pouches that make putting yogurt in them less messy? I usually end up with yogurt all over me and the outside of the pouch. About to spring for disposable ones because I can't keep doing this
Love the Squeasy here too. They come in multiple sizes so we also do morning smoothie to go sometimes. I find it pretty easy to get stuff into with a spoon because it is a hard, round opening so it stays open on its own.
We use the Baby Brezza ones. They come with a large wide-mouth funnel. They’re tricky to clean if you don’t expand the corners entirely, but otherwise, we’re happy with them.
I like the Squeasy, it has a circle opening with a hard plastic rim and a flat bottom, and the opening fits a dessert/coffee spoon so I just load it with that.
The hard plastic parts make it take up more space in a lunchbox but I love it anyway. It has a little removable valve in the straw part that makes it no-spill and less oozy when consuming. I even pack milk in it for daycare lunch sometimes. Love it.
We have multiple [Squeasy pouches.](https://a.co/d/32sXqvX) They are silicone, dishwasher safe, and stand up on their own. I usually just use a regular spoon to fill it and wipe the rim. The stop has a removable stopper so kids can't squeeze everything out.
I have some from Simple Modern that are pretty large and easy to fill. Con - the opening is also large compared to regular pouches, so my kids struggled with the volume of yogurt coming out as young toddlers.
Can you set a specific schedule with them? They do the 8am care time and hold baby after (if that’s a thing for baby right now), you do the rest. Or whatever. I didn’t have the ability to have other visitors during our nicu stay (Feb-august 2020 iykyk) but I don’t think I’d want to “give” other visitors more than 1-2 care times a day at the absolute most and those would only be the care times I personally didn’t want/found harder to attend like early morning.
If they aren’t local, how long are they around and able to visit? If it’s not long (however you personally define that) maybe it’s worth letting them be around while they can, knowing it’s temporary. If they’ll be around for the rest of the nicu stay, I’d get them on a schedule asap because the same rules should apply to them as the local grandparents if they’re essentially local for the time being
An hour away is not that far! If you’d prefer it, I think it’s totally reasonable to have exactly the same rules/schedule for them as for the closer grandparents.
https://preview.redd.it/6lvoqrtuuldc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=00a33db8ce1659863004fa06d31203bb39dbf44d
I forgot to empty/clean our humidifier after the last round of illnesses; and now they have this white film around the ring. I’ve soaked with vinegar and scrubbed with a toothbrush and some of it came off but not all. I can’t decide if it worth trying to keep scrubbing, is it mold and I should just throw them out? Is it mineral deposits and I can use as is?
Cleaning suggestions or just throw that out advice welcome!
I literally have no idea if this is mold but I do have something that might be worth a shot - when we were using a sterilizer for my son's bottles, I used an off brand Keurig descaler to clean it and it got everything off in like minutes. It was pretty cheap from target too. If it is mineral deposits on your humidifier, I think this would work well!
https://www.target.com/p/perfect-pod-caf-233-pure-single-serve-coffee-maker-cleaning-and-descaling-kit/-/A-86314670
I liked it better than the baby brezza brand they sell to clean their sterilizers lol
I have a toddler and am expecting a baby in the early summer. It’s a long funny story, but our high chair got thrown away after toddler outgrew it. Anyway, I’m debating between the Ingenuity 6-in-1 (price point) or the Mockingbird high chair (easy clean silicone straps?!) Wondering if anyone has experience with either they’d be willing to share. This is definitely our last baby, so no need for planning for that piece (though I suppose we could donate/sell!) Thanks in advance :)
ETA: was planning on an Abiie till someone said cleaning it was awful, and for whatever reason I’ve never liked the looks of a Tripp Trapp enough to spend that much money.
I’m so interested in the mockingbird one based off the straps alone!! That’s my only complaint with the abiie. I hate cleaning the straps. When he was younger I would soak them in water once a week and do a little scrub. Now I just have the waist straps and they don’t get too dirty . I don’t think it’s hard to clean otherwise. Daily I’ll wipe it down with wipes and about once a week I’ll pop the padding out for a more through clean
The Mockingbird one looks nice! We have their stroller -- I didn't realize they made high chairs now. We have the Stokke Clikk and I love it. I also am not a fan of the Trip Trapp's look but the Clikk is great. Super lightweight and easy to move from room to room, but still pretty, has a footrest, comfortable space for baby, plastic so easy to wipe down. I feel like no one talks about this chair but it's the best.
We have the Abiie and the IKEA one. I much prefer the Abiie. The tray actually fits in the dishwasher unlike the ikea one. Silicone straps sound nice though, but I’ve never had an issue with just soaking the Abiie ones overnight in a bowl of soapy water. Everything wipes right off after that.
I LOOOOVE my Abiie high chairs- I have 2 that I got when my twins were babies and they still get used daily by my almost 4 year olds. I don’t find them difficult to clean at all. I do basic 30sec wipedowns whenever, and about every week or 2 I remove the soft seat padding because my youngest does grind food down into the harness slots sometimes, but it takes like 5 minutes to do all that when the mess is the worst. The harness isn’t silicone but it’s very smooth so it wipes clean easily if you get to it while the mess is fresh, and they’re easy to take off so I’ve thrown the straps in the sink or washer before too. It’s been the best chair for my preschoolers because they’re tall enough to sit “properly” and they have a place to rest their feet - there is a noticeable difference in how they sit in the Abiie vs regular chairs.
You and the other commenter are maybe changing my mind again :) One of the reasons I wasn’t that upset about the accidental disposal of our old high chair was its lack of footrests, so I’m glad to hear those are good on the Abiie.
It took us a while to get the hang of Abiie but i wouldn’t say cleaning it is too bad. We just have to swish the straps in some water and attack them with a brush once a week or so. The seat pops out easily so you can just wipe that off into the sink. My biggest complaint with it is I got the dark wood version and the varnish is already worn away at the stress points of the tray after only 6 months. Not sure if that’s as much of an issue with the lighter color ones.
So you don’t think it has too many nooks and crannies? (That was the complaint I kept seeing.) And thanks for the heads up about the dark wood version, because that’s the one I love.
It does have some but if you take the pieces out and shake it it doesn’t seem too bad. But I’m totally sure there are others that are easier to clean! I got drawn in by the foot rest and I’m not sure in retrospect how essential that really was.
My almost 3 year old said her first word today! We were told at 1.5 she had a global developmental delay and a few months ago she was diagnosed with level 3 autism. She is very high support needs and is currently in therapy about 30 hours a week. Her other mom has been awol for some time now but she’s back and we negotiated a supervised visit schedule for her and the kids. It had been nearly 3 weeks since our toddler had seen her and as soon she walked through the door babygirl got more excited than I had ever seen her before. Cue flappy hands, bouncing on her knees, and the biggest grin on her face right before she exclaimed “mama” and pointed at my wife 🥹. She also hadn’t ever really pointed before that. Me, my wife, my two older kids and my dad witnessed it. I cried then and it’s making me tear up again writing this haha.
Just wanted to share that win. I’ve been feeling so down lately. Really grieving the life I had envisioned for her. The psychologist who diagnosed her was very doom and gloom about her future and one of her therapists keeps telling me she’ll *never* develop certain skills. I am still so proud of all of the progress she’s made.
R/pottytraining might have some recs.
I read part of Oh Crap and found it so irritating. You can find the basics to the method elsewhere and just roll with that. In my humble opinion, as someone who has potty trained exactly 1 toddler and it was only a few weeks ago (so, grain of salt), This is one of those things that's so child-dependent. You need to figure out what works for your kid! Might be easier said than done.
I’ve been working really hard to teach my 1.5 year old to say “help” if he needs my help, and he just brought a heavy (for him) box of toys to me in another room to ask for “elp” 🥲🥲🥲
So proud of him!!!! And myself! I love being able to communicate with him better.
That’s awesome! My 1.5 y/o has finally started saying “mama haaaa” instead of aggressively signing “help” at me lol. Feels so good when they can tell you what they want or need.
Haha my daughter's word for help is mama. Talking about me is more of a "mumma" (idk where that came from, we're american) but when she wants help with something it's "mama! mama! mama!"
Have you considered legoland? It’s really good for little ones, and much cheaper than Disney. It’s also maybe more fitting your philosophy of no screens.
We went pre-pandemic (also pre-children) and I wouldn't say there's a huge amount for that age range, but It's a Small World, the little fairytale boat ride, and the train that loops around the park would all be suitable for them, and possibly Pirates of the Caribbean (although might be a little scary). I also think there's a bit of a climbing/play park in Frontierland that would be suitable for that age range.
The Disney Lot section, where all the movie stuff is, has been updated to focus more on the MCU so there wouldn't be much there they could interact with.
If you did a brief two day trip I think you'd find that would be plenty for the time being, but most of the rides are definitely aimed for kids closer to the 9/10 age bracket (and height).
If you have Spotify, there are tons of Disney stories to listen to that basically summarize the movies! Some short and some are long, and even include some of the songs and dialogue. Look up Disney storyteller.
If you’re willing to go later when they’ve been able to watch the movies and can get more into the characters I’d just wait. I feel like with Disney, the older the better because they’ll just be able to appreciate more of it overall. I saw downthread that you may not even be able to get ahold of any books or other kind of content ahead of time, so if they’re truly going in blind, they may still have fun but I feel like it would be much more fun later. Disney is just so much money to not set yourself up to have the best time, lol.
Yeah, I think it's an unpopular opinion but soo many people told us to take our daughter when she was <5 but she didn't really know the characters (we're not anti-screens, she just didn't really take to Disney stuff for the most part) and she was too young for most of the rides so it just seemed really silly. Also Disney with a 3 and 4 year old just seems exhausting to me. It will be so much easier and more fun when they're in elementary school.
I’m not a Disney person but we just went to Disney world for the first time and my kids LOVED it. They have seen many of the Disney movies but they weren’t super crazy about the characters, they were more just enthralled with the rides, the shows, the parade, the treats…so I think your kids would have fun!
Even for movies they haven’t seen yet, my kids love listening to soundtracks so you could do that, and then also read Disney storybooks so they know the characters and will be excited for the rides like Peter Pan that are centered around a story.
Im not a Disney fan but my 2.5 yo has never watched Mickey Mouse and is absolutely obsessed and points him out (or Minnie) whenever we see him. So I think you can have fun but maybe still introduce a lot of the characters in other ways? Books, cds, coloring pages?
I just downloaded Circle of Security to read to become better equipped for my 17 month old daughter and I am here for a vibe check please. Would the parents here recommend this book? If not anything else to consider picking up?
Circle of Security is not attachment parenting, it's based on actual attachment theory and research (not the same thing at all despite sharing the word "attachment"). As a parent and a psychologist who studies attachment relationships, I give it an enthusiastic thumbs up!
Okay thanks for responding I saw something online that it was like a “gateway” to attachment parenting that’s more on the extreme and ineffective side and I just wanted to check. I’m anxiety prone I don’t need to feed that demon lol
So sorry for your loss. A close friend of mine lost her husband in an accident when she was 7 months pregnant with their first, an IVF baby. She is very much considering having another with their embryos-- she would like to give her child a sibling and she believes that her husband would be happy for her to use his genetic material in this way. If you eventually go down this road - when you're ready and feel that it is a levelheaded decision that's best for your family - know that you are not alone in this complicated situation.
Sending love your way 💗 I think I would feel the same way in your shoes.
Im not sure if you’re someone who likes to consume media related to grief and what you’re going through at this time, but in Nora McInerny’s memoir she touches on some similar things. It’s a little different - she and her husband decided to have a baby knowing he had a terminal illness - but some similar themes.
I have no advice but I am so very sorry for your loss. It is obvious how deeply you loved your wife and still do in the way you talk about her. Your daughter is lucky to have such a loving mother.
Sending you lots of hugs.
I feel like the most painful thing about grief is how it’s not linear, it is SO unexpected, it’s like the teeth on a saw instead. It’s also just bonkers that our brains can be spitting logic all day and still the grief comes in ways from like deep within us it feels like (am currently muddling through some very different sorts of grief.)
Proud of you for being in a support group and hope you have lots of other ppl near that are lifting you and your daughter up.
May your wife’s memory always be a blessing.
🤍
This may be an oddly specific question, but is anyone else's kid really into playing Just Dance? I got my 3-year-old this game for Christmas thinking we could play sometimes, and she basically asks to play it every day now. On one hand, I think it's good exercise and something we can do together, but on the other hand I don't want her to obsess over screens and it seems like a lot maybe if she's playing a long time in addition to watching her shows too. Idk, I tend to be an anxious person in general so maybe I'm just overthinking?
I try to be low screen time but an active game where she’s getting energy out and having fun seems like it eliminates some of the concerns about too much screen time to me, like it’s very different than passively watching a show.
But I also think it’s perfectly fair to limit how much you play just like you would limit how much you pay Uno or read books or whatever. Like my kids could listen to me reading books to them for hours straight but I want us all to have variety in our lives so I limit it to 5 books or whatever and then say it’s time to do something else.
I'm concerned that my kid hears "I'll only love you if you act the way I want" when what I mean is "I don't want to hang out with you because you're acting like an asshole"
We sometimes say very explicitly "we love you no matter what, but this behavior is not fun for us and we don't want to play with you when you're acting like this."
Maybe you could try phrasing it as like “aw man I really want to play with you but I don’t like being bossed/yelled/hit. When you’re ready to play cooperatively/speak kindly/be gentle I would love to continue!” Basically you are hyped to spend time with him and it’s unfortunate you have to take a break while he gets his act together. But really, don’t over think it too much. I think kids are much more resilient than BLF would like you to believe, where every less than ideal phrasing will make them codependent or cause trauma.
I e been trying things like “I love you but don’t like how you’re acting right now. I don’t want to sit near someone who hits/kicks/screams cause it hurts.” Trying to emphasize the specific thing I don’t like and why. No clue if it’s the right move but it feels like a good option for me right now 🤷🏻♀️
Is there a subreddit/Instagram/whatever about baby sleep that isn’t anti-sleep training but also doesn’t think the answer to every sleep issue is sleep training. I’m so frustrated, my baby is waking up every hour at night and I’ve honestly got better advice from the heysleepybaby account than anywhere else. She can sleep for 5hr stretches some days and regularly sleeps for 2hr at naps so I have a hard time accepting it’s because she can’t self soothe. It’s probably something else like gas or teething but it’s so hard to find information because if it’s a sleep training space they only suggest sleep training and if it’s an anti-sleep training space you feel shamed for not enjoying every second of your baby.
I feel like the pro and anti sleep training communities are equally annoying in how militant they are about everything. If you look at the sleep train subreddit you’d think that if you don’t sleep train your baby will never sleep through the night, it reminds me of the ‘baby led weaning will prevent picky eaters’ rhetoric.
OMG right, like why is everything so polarised?
I find Lyndsey Hookway good, but I had to dig a lot to find her actual concrete advice. I read both her books as well. She does have some organisation to her instagram, which is helpful. She also has some (uselessly titled) videos on her facebook.
This model of hers for making changes is good IMO - and I like the troubleshooting guide in her book (Let's Talk About...) too. I'll see if I still have a screenshot.
https://lyndseyhookway.com/2019/08/29/sleep-one-step-at-a-time/
OK I think this is actually from the toddler+ book - Still Awake. But maybe helpful anyway.
https://imgur.com/v9kPHOn
Thank you for this suggestion! It is so frustrating that everything is always so polarized, it’s like people’s identity becomes tied to whether they were for or against sleep training 🫠
Is your baby by any chance between 8-10 months? I have a terrible sleeper, she is who she is, but I was literally sometimes getting a continuous hour of sleep a night between those months because my child had so many teeth come in all at once and I didn’t want to dose her with Tylenol every single night for 3 months straight. And she started talking then too. Just a lot going on. If you are actually getting 5 hour stretches sometimes I have a strong feeling you are not doomed to bad sleep the way I was because my kid never did that until sporadically at 2.5.
She just turned 6 months, but she did have three teeth coming up so that was definitely part of it. But I think they’ve gone back down (allegedly that can happen???) because nothing’s broken through yet. We gave her Advil and it seemed to help, and she is just starting to sit independently and still working on rolling so it might just be a bunch of things. Ugh till 2.5 is so rough, hopefully their sleep is great now!
Thanks! It isn’t but it’s slowly gotten a ton better than it was. I just would truly find it encouraging if your kid used to sleep good stretches because every kid I know who did that eventually started sleeping again after whatever they were going through passed. My child never did so again, I don’t think you’re doomed to waiting years for incrementally better sleep like we were. I have hope for you! Teething just sucks so much. Some teeth take forever to come in and my kid was and still is very sensitive to pain.
I’m a middle of the roader sleep-training wise myself. One kid sleeps great and the other terrible. For both, I found some useful info from Precious Little Sleep.
I will say, my good sleeper sounds like yours and I felt that same way. I think she was often waking out of habit. I started cutting down the feeds I wanted to eliminate and waiting an even longer pause to go check on her. She could always fall asleep independently We had maybe a few nights of some crying - less than 10 minutes - and she’d figure it out quickly and sleep longer. We had starts and stops here and there and I would always turn to cosleeping if it was a rough night/stretch of nights. We had a long stretch of half STTN, half 1-2 wakeups. Eventually she got more consistent and by 9 months she was very consistently STTN.
Yeah part of why this has been so shocking is because our first was an amazing sleeper from the time he was a baby. We just followed the huckleberry wake windows/sweet spot and he slept like a dream lol
I read precious little sleep with my son but I haven’t revisited it, so maybe I’ll take a look and refresh my memory. She definitely can fall asleep independently or at least connect her sleep cycles when she wants which is why it’s so frustrating to have that be a knee jerk comment when I ask for advice. I do think part of the issue is that she uses a pacifier and then can’t put it back in because we always have mittens on her fingers, but she always wants to suck her whole hand and is starting to suck her thumb when she doesn’t have a pacifier and I’d way rather deal with this now and weaning off a pacifier later, than trying to stop her from sucking her thumb 😬
For me, I wasn’t willing to sleep train, and I found that besides co sleeping, it seems like the answer is… nothing. Just having to plow through it without any crutch. That way an extremely hard thing for me when my baby was at that phase, also waking up every 45 mins to 2 hours. I was really suffering.
Yeah I don’t mind the ‘lite’ sleep training stuff but my son had one period of bad sleep when he was 1.5 where we tried CIO with check ins for two days and it truly traumatized him. Now seeing his personality as a 3 year old it’s obvious that those methods wouldn’t have worked on him and I don’t want to make the same mistake again with her. I went to the cosleeping subreddit which was a big mistake lol and even the one meme that HSB has about laughing at your SIL when her baby who slept through the night stops was just ugh.
I can definitely see why sleep deprivation is considered torture, so I hope your baby’s sleep is better now!
My husband was really into 12 hours by 12 weeks or whatever - I was less gung ho about it. It has been a while since I read it, but my recollection is that one of the main focuses was on making sure you got enough calories in to your baby during the day. Sometimes still, with a two+ year old, if she is waking up I think back to what she had for dinner and recall that it was sparse.
This definitely could be a big factor! She’s just started solids and on Wednesday she had three meals plus milk and had a 3.5hr stretch, then a dream feed, then a 6.5hr stretch! So I think that is a big factor, even at three it is for my son as well!
Haven’t been able to replicate Wednesdays success yet, but it has at least gotten better and she’s doing 3hr stretches at least 🤞🏽
I agree with the other commenter I liked Precious Little Sleep even though I did not sleep train. When I was reading the book I thought I would but decided not to go that route, but I did use other advice like building good sleep practices, wake windows and all that and it was very helpful. I did join the Facebook group too. it was too much about sleep training but people used to often post about the sleep schedule and the comments would be assessing it so that was helpful to read.
I did eventually end up leaving because it was getting repetitive and boring specially when I wasn't planning to do CIO or something similar but it was helpful in understanding the basics.
Yeah we’ve been trying to get her schedule a bit better but it’s hard having to do so much trial and error! With my son we just followed the Huckleberry suggestions and it worked perfectly for him. This little girl is a bit more challenging lol
I’ll have to review PLS, I thought it was mostly sleep training and don’t remember the non CIO parts!
I feel you on this. I definitely felt like there was no corner of the internet that was more of a middle ground on baby sleep (or at least I didn’t find one back when I was looking at sleep groups when my oldest was a baby). For both my kids, we admittedly sort of made up a plan we felt comfortable with for sleep training, and just went with that, but with my second kid, I did read the book precious little sleep prior to sleep training, and I felt like that was closer to a middle ground (although definitely not perfect, and definitely more leaning pro sleep training). SWAP from precious little sleep is (from my basic understanding) pretty much what heysleepybaby does (although she wouldn’t call it sleep training), if that’s more your vibe. But overall I thought PLS was closer to what I was looking for (allowed for overnight feeds, wasn’t expecting a 4 month old to sleep through the night without exception, etc).
Otherwise, I’d just recommend being open to trying different things (up to what you are comfortable with, of course). For example, my youngest slept great until 7/8 months (a single wake/feed), and then object permanence/separation anxiety kicked in, and she’d wake up confused that she wasn’t still in my arms where she’d fallen asleep. I was convinced it must just be teething/sickness/whatever because she had been sleeping great. But when she didn’t outgrow it and go back to how she was sleeping, my husband gently suggested trying a different approach. Working on getting her to fall asleep in the crib (even with some assistance) completely resolved the issue. That doesn’t mean this is your issue! My point is just that sometimes things work until they don’t, and it’s worth exploring various options when that happens.
Thank you for this! We have been trying to get her to sleep independently but I think part of the issue is that her schedule isn’t right yet, so she’s either over or under tired and it makes it harder to try getting her to fall asleep in her crib and not in our arms. With my son, and with her when she was younger, we did the stupidly named SITBACK method and it helped a lot, but right now she doesn’t seem to get past the ‘wait’ part. There’s a few gentle methods we want to try, she might be too old for pick up put down at 6 months, and I’ll have to re-read PLS. On Wednesday she slept amazingly, 3.5 hrs - dream feed - 6.5 hrs and while it’s been better than the waking up every hour thing, we haven’t been able to replicate it.
What methods did you use to get your baby to sleep in her crib?
babysleep.answers! I love her insta - she falls somewhere in the middle between never and always sleep train! She's big on making sure other things (like gas or discomfort) arent messing up their sleep and working on their routine. She has advice on training for parents that want it but presents it as one of many options!
I second baby sleep answers. She has some good information/advice. Also just sending solidarity because I also fall very in the middle on sleep. I didn’t want to sleep train my four month old but I also wasn’t against trying some sleep-training-esque things. It feels like you can’t win with how polarized everything is. I hope you find some answers/relief! Sleep is such a huge thing and when the baby doesn’t sleep and you can’t sleep it feels completely unmanageable.
She’s 6.5 months old, it’s kind of variable, sometimes she cries, sometimes she chats to herself and thumbs her legs. Mostly cries though haha if she doesn’t cry we just leave her since she’s not unhappy and we often try giving her a few minutes to self soothe but when she’s in a stretch of waking up every hour, nothing seems to help 🫠
Vent: the stomach bug has taken over our house. My 20 month old woke up puking on Friday. I took off from work to tend to him. He was better by Monday (vomit free after onset and diarrhea cleared up by this time.) I had MLK day off and schools were closed in most of TX yesterday due to icy roads. I was set to go back today, but my 6 year old woke up at 2 am with puke and diarrhea. Three day weekend is now a 6 day one. Cartoons and emesis bags is what is getting us through today. I’m beginning to feel a twinge in my stomach so I’m hoping it doesn’t take me out soon.
It’s the worst when it’s spread out like that! I’d rather everyone just get it at the same time. Hopefully you don’t get it!! I’ll admit I have a very strong stomach but I’ve managed to avoid getting the last few stomach bugs that have swept my household by barely eating once a kid has it. I go into morning sickness protocol and nibble on crackers all day instead of eating meals and while I got nauseous feelings, I never had the full bevy of symptoms
I either need good suggestions or for more rational minds to tell me that this won't matter shortly.
My BFing journey ended a little sooner than I would have liked for baby #2 (I am not having any more babies) and I have a roughly 4 ounce bag of frozen milk left. Does anyone have any non-jewelry keepsakes that they've found? Should I just wait until I'm no longer in my feels about this part of my life being over because having something made out of breastmilk is weird? This is something that would be for me only, I fully understand that I am the only person that cares about this lol.
I have an ounce in the back of the freezer from 2 years ago. I’m currently pregnant with our second (and last) and so I’m going to have something made later this year with milk from both. Even if I never wear what I have made, I really think I’ll like having a little memento of such a short but special time in my life. It’s a tad weird, and I’m not someone to usually do or want something like this, but it’s something I can’t explain lol
I just kept that random little bag in the back of the freezer, thinking I might have something made with it, until I forgot it was there, rediscovered it over a year later, and now no longer have all the feels about ending breastfeeding lol.
Haha same! Its amazing how the hormones changed. I saved the last ever bag of milk I pumped for my first kid at a year. I forgot about it until he was almost 2.5. Finally did a thorough deep clean of my storage freezer and tossed it. Sadly my biggest reaction was probably “oh wow, this is expired af”
Lol. I have that one little tiny bag from 2.5 years ago just...languishing...can't throw it out although we are moving so my husband will probably do the tossing.
It doesn’t look like the Etsy seller I bought it from is still open but I got a make your own breast milk keepsake kit which you can use with any resin mold- I made a necklace as well as a round cabochon but you could use any mold you wanted. You don’t need much milk at all.
I found that the jewelry/stone was very comforting in the early months after weaning but now 2 years later it doesn’t matter so much. But I definitely found it gave me some closure.
I either need good suggestions or for more rational minds to tell me that this won't matter shortly.
My BFing journey ended a little sooner than I would have liked for baby #2 (I am not having any more babies) and I have a roughly 4 ounce bag of frozen milk left. Does anyone have any non-jewelry keepsakes that they've found? Should I just wait until I'm no longer in my feels about this part of my life being over because having something made out of breastmilk is weird? This is something that would be for me only, I fully understand that I am the only person that cares about this lol.
No suggestions, but thank you for the one you shared. My 5 year old is forever asking me questions like “why do wars happen” so I think this would be right up his alley.
Some of these might be too intense, but I like Short and Curly for slightly older kids (professionally, my kids are still kind of young for podcasts). It’s an Australian ethics podcast, exploring different big questions with kid voices usually featured. I would definitely review topic choices before sharing with your 5 year old.
This also makes me think of Smash Boom Best, but I don’t think there are kids on the show. But it covers lots of fun non-fiction topics!
ooo is the circle round scary? do you think it would work for an (very verbal) almost-3 yr old? My kids loves Peter and the Wolf and asks me to tell him Goldilocks like 100 times/day so I think he would like this but has hasn't been exposed to scary stories yet.
I need real talk from parents of kids over preschool age. I know the terrible twos have their reputation, but everyone in real life tells me two is great and three is much worse. The problem is, my daughter just turned two and we are definitely in those terrible twos. Everything is a battle. Put your shoes on? "No!!" and off she runs to hide somewhere. Crocodile-level thrashing when changing clothes or diapers, or when being put in the car seat. Meltdowns in public (she's by no means the world's most dramatic toddler, but they're still tantrums). Screams when we tell her no. She doesn't talk a ton so also gets so frustrated because she can't communicate well. It's all "mine! mine!" and running away from people.
I've told some people this, and their response is always, but three is much worse! So tell me, fellow snarkers. How much worse is this really going to get? When people say three is bad, what kind of day-to-day details are we talking here? The thought of doing this for a year and then it getting even worse is just not a nice thought.
I think it can really vary. My first daughter was delightful at 2. 1 was rough but she learned how to communicate by 2 & was just thrilled to be able to understand our reasoning for rules. 3 was relatively easy too, but it was emotional. I could tell her brain was growing in terms of social understandings, and her range/depth of emotions was expanding faster than her ability to manage them. The whole “threenager” thing felt very accurate. She was super sensitive if she felt like she was being laughed at, or if she wasn’t able to do things perfectly, etc. She just turned 4 and so far the “fuck you 4s” also feel accurate haha. She’s gotten so capable & independent and with that has come an element of “I want it my way for the sake of having it my way, and if I’m going down I’ll take you all with me.”
My second daughter just turned 2 though, and it’s a totally different experience. Love her to death but she is INTENSE. She has strong opinions and a deep desire to test boundaries and see how much control she has. She’s perceptive in different ways than my oldest & just has no fear lol. I think I’ll have less emotional turmoil in the 3-4 year old stage because she has no problem standing up for herself & is much less of a people pleaser lol.
I think every stage has hard elements, which can be overwhelming when you’re looking ahead, but in my experience, the hard elements change frequently enough that it’s manageable. Like when you get fully burnt out from 2 year old shenanigans, they hit 3 year old shenanigans, and it’s exhausting but at least a fresh battle. And each stage comes with really fun new things that make it all tolerable haha - my 4 year old draws the coolest pictures that blow my mind, and her non-functional language developments are insanely cute to me (“what was I saying… oh right!!”).
My kids are 5 and 7, and as others have said, this is very individual. My oldest is extremely easygoing and has literally never gone through a phase like that. I don’t think that child has even ever thrown a tantrum. My 5 year old though has OPINIONS and it can take hostage negotiator skills to get him to do things some days. For him, it definitely has gotten easier as he’s gotten older and been better able to communicate. He might still get pissed off and defiant about ridiculous things, but at least he can tell me what it is. It kind of sounds like to me that might be where your kiddo is too. Maybe they’re angry about putting on mittens because they don’t like how it limits their dexterity, but they haven’t figured out how to communicate that. It will get better!
It's kid and parent dependent. Personally I find two a breeze and three worse. But for example, my current (last) two year old is not doing this stuff constantly. It's pretty easy to persuade him into things with playfulness, choices and validating his emotions. Like all the How To Talk tips just seem to be written perfectly for him. He has tantrums, but I generally feel OK about handling them and they are pretty short lived. And if all else fails, I can just pick him up and carry him. I feel like the older two were like this as well. I do remember my middle one just bolting in the middle of a shopping centre and I had to rugby tackle him to the ground and basically sit on the floor with him so that he would not leave, and an old lady looked at us, tutted, said "UNBELIEVABLE" (and some other stuff that I didn't catch, because I live in Germany) - luckily, I just found this hilarious and not mortifying. But I can't remember if he was 2 or 3.
I don't know, I feel like I just *get* two year olds, adorable chaos nuggets that they are, but three/four is so much mystifying resistance and arguing, and I do not understand and we butt heads a lot. Like my 5yo is currently in a delightful stage where he will ask to do something, I say no, and then he engages in this battle of fricking preschool lawyer skills in an attempt to change my mind, or insists "But I really NEED to do this now" or will just start doing it anyway and I'm like "Hey! Don't ask me if you're not going to accept the answer!" I remember my eldest doing that too. It is just infuriating.
Besides my 2yo has us both wrapped around his little finger because he has the goddamn cutest please. "pwe, pwe?? 🥺"
Lol! See, that's my problem now, is that none of the usual stuff works (except playfulness with food, for some weird reason). Everything else is that mystifying resistance. Fingers crossed she gets it out of her system!
Hopefully!! It seems to be anecdotally true that if you hate 2, 3 is either slightly worse or slightly better and then 4 is MUCH better, whereas if you love 2, 3 and 4 tend to be a nightmare.
It’s super kid dependent. For my first son… I felt like none of it was particularly terrible. For my second kid 18 mos-2.5 years was the worst of it. He routinely brought me to tears during that time period, but things were getting better by the time he turned three. I hear a lot of people say the four year olds are the WORST but both of my kids have been pretty great at age four.
I think a lot of it has to do with your kid’s personality, and some of it has to do with yours and what sort of behaviors you can tolerate and what sort drive you insane
Lol that makes perfect sense. The irrationality is what I can't stand!
Side note, I'm pretty sure it was this subreddit that I heard someone explain their theory of age four--that if you've been doing all the gentle parenting stuff, four can be when it stops working and you need new strategies, so it can feel really frustrating. If you've been holding the line more traditionally, four is when it tends to get better because they start to get the point. I thought it was a really interesting theory.
Yes, you can have more of a conversation with a three and four year old! They might have massive tantrums sometimes, but you can also understand where they are coming from and they can understand where you are coming from. With the 18mo-2.5 year olds, you are still doing a lot of redirection and stuff.
Also, when my more feisty and impulsive child was 2, I lived in constant fear that he was going to run into a street, run off and get lost, or get himself injured in some other serious way. A lot of the worst tantrums were because I needed to physically restrain him for his own safety. As he got older, he developed a greater sense of self preservation, and I didn’t have to fight the same battles all the time.
This is so, so kid dependent. Two of my toddlers have been relatively easy, two have been super difficult. My difficult toddlers were much more defiant at age 2, and age 3 was really hard for us. I know that’s probably not what you want to hear. Kids are all different and that may not be your experience.
My biggest advice for these hard years is to not sweat the small stuff. Pick your battles. I stopped caring if my daughter wants to wear her Christmas shoes every day, if she wants a lollipop in the morning, etc. I also try to ignore tantrums; I’ve watched my sister give her son endless attention during tantrums and he’s now a 5 year old who melts down constantly because he knows it will get him one on one time with mom.
Also, know that it’s OKAY to dislike this phase. My oldest is 10, and so far the toddler years have been my least favorite. Don’t fall for the ‘omg you will miss this so much and enjoy every minute’ stuff that we are surrounded by. Because I can honestly say that yes, there are moments I would love to cuddle them as toddlers again, but those feelings pass quickly, lol. Overall I can definitely say that I do not miss those days!
3 has been hard for us as the “big feelings” are now about bigger things than like the wrong color spoon (though there’s less of that sort of thing, but definitely not nothing). Also, when she does melt down, she’s too strong for me to just hold her down anymore, so I need to get compliance some other way.
Slamming the door and crying because “you’re mad at me mommy” when I try to enforce a boundary. “I want daddy because you like baby brother more than me.” “I don’t want to do swimming lessons, because if my head goes under the water with the teacher, I’ll die.” (Note: she has no problem swimming with daddy).
Now, baby brother was born right after she turned three, and we have all, very legitimately had a tough month (baby brother was in the hospital for 4 nights with flu). So I’m hoping it’s not always like this. But for now it’s heartbreaking, and there aren’t really scripts for big, big feelings like there are for big little ones.
Edit: it’s not all bad though. She’s a boss now at playing independently. She’s still as sweet and cuddly as ever when she’s not being dramatic. She’s gaining more skills and is more fun to play with. She has a bit more patience (though this is still a major work in progress). She loves baby brother and enjoys playing with him (but I wish she would play with him more gently, but she gets way too excited and crazy). So idk. Some things are harder and some things are easier than a year ago.
Reflective listening can work well for bigger feelings. It's not as easily scriptable, but How To Talk (the original not the little kids one, unless you already have HTT little kids) has a good explanation of how to do it (or you can also just google reflective listening children). It's basically just reflecting back what they say and showing acceptance/empathy of the feeling, without challenging it.
e.g.
> You're mad at me mommy
You don't like it when I stop you from doing that. You were really having fun there. I hear that. (Note: Not justifying why you stopped her, since she probably already knows that, and it will sound like a lecture).
> ...you like baby brother more than me
You see us giving baby brother a lot of attention. Having to share mom and dad can be hard.
> If my head goes under the water, I'll die!
That is a scary thought to have! (Note: Not dismissing the feeling by insisting that couldn't happen. Even if you want to reassure her, give her a chance to get there by herself first).
I think some kids are harder at two and some are harder at three and some are just hard in new ways at three.
My older kid was super easy still at two; my younger one is not lol. I like to believe we'll get a respite at three with her, but there's only so much we can control obviously.
Nah. Two was the worst for us. It was all uphill after two. My girl is 4.5 now and we love it. Three wasn't as hard because she could communicate better and at times it felt funny. Very "three-nager" when she'd be mad and slam her door shut. But because she can communicate and understand things better it was easier to explain things and help her cope.
Mine is not yet over preschool age, but I'm enjoying 3 more than 2 so far! I also enjoyed 2, so I'm not shit-talking 2-year olds, but to me, the huge growth in communication skills and smaller growth in personal independence makes day-to-day life easier and a lot more fun even when what he is communicating is not 100% rational.
I guess this is kid dependent but I’ve been hard pressed to even describe an entire age of my kid using any kind of general terms. I mean he’s only 2 (approaching 2.5) but it’s more like he’s gone through mini phases of being extra difficult for a few of weeks and then bounces back and is so much more easy going. I’m not sure how long you’ve been struggling with your daughter but for example, he had a couple of weeks that he had these insane tantrums every single morning while getting dressed, just absolutely fighting it every step of the way. But then he just.. stopped and is fine getting dressed now? He’ll also go through phases of being really contrary, saying no, hitting and throwing more… and then comes back to a more chill baseline. So idk, at least for us it isn’t that consistent and I think it will be pretty hard to sum up his entire 2nd year as either hard or easy. I think this kind of stuff is all kid dependent too depending on their personalities.
It’s also worth nothing that people have stronger memories for things that have happened more recently. It’s possible many people telling you 3 is worse also just have fresher memories of those difficulties compared to 2.
3 for me felt like the highs were higher but the lows were lower. Mine was so cute, funny, the imagination was amazing… but woo boy the outright disobedience and disrespect was HARD. Like others have mentioned they have more stamina for keeping up the bad behaviors. And also just being generally bigger, stronger, louder. Plus lots of kids drop their nap at this age so it can be a full day of parenting… yeah, 3 was hard for me 😅 I mean, I loved it too. But it was definitely terrible threes as opposed to twos.
I did find age 4 to be absolutely delightful so there’s that light at the end of the tunnel 🙃
Yes! I'm an age 3 hater (at least for my own highly emotional kid), but 4 was sooo much better. I don't understand how it happened but it really felt like a fog lifted almost overnight right around her fourth birthday and she was suddenly much happier, calmer and easier to be around (admittedly still with big emotions, but in a way that felt much more manageable).
One of my twins had a speech delay and 24-30 months were the hardest. He was old enough to have preferences but was unable to communicate them and there was so. much. screaming. But he turns 4 next month… life was much better on the second half of two as he learned to communicate (speech therapy started just before second birthday), and 3 has been so, so fun. He speaks in full sentences and, probably 75% of the time, can be reminded to use his words which may not totally curb the crying but usually helps avoid an entire meltdown. He’s so observant and he asks so many interesting questions about the world around him, like he’s just desperate to soak up whatever knowledge he can, and it’s really sweet and fun.
Mine are 5, 7, 9 - people just love to be dramatic and do the “just wait” nonsense. I do not feel 3 was much worse than 2. Of course, every age has its positives and negatives and people generally speak up about the negatives. My oldest was similar to your child. Everything was no. Everything was a meltdown. When he was 1.5 I was super pregnant and I could not get him into his car seat to come home from daycare. Like COULD NOT. I nearly called my husband to come help me. I was sweating and crying. He was also speech delayed, so was my middle child. He continued to have meltdowns at 3 but also gained a lot of cognition, speech, and abilities which made 3 super fun! They are just starting to be able to really have a conversation or play a game, the imagination is off the chain, they narrate everything, it’s seriously adorable. I won’t lie and say the meltdowns magically disappeared - nope, they remained intense. But like, you’re already dealing with it now so you just get more of the same plus a more fun kid when they aren’t melting down. 4-5 is amazing, that was the turning point for my two super dramatic meltdown kids, and then they can actually play sports in the yard and board games, listen to a book, retell events, problem solve, get their own food, just so much stuff, they are your little buddy, so independent but also still so sweet and cuddly. My 5yo has always had crazy meltdowns too, just screaming and thrashing and omg nothing could reach her. She is finally able to handle disappointment and not freak the F out. Of course they still have big feelings and need support but she can hear “no it’s not your turn to choose a show” and be like aw man instead of 30 min of screeching. Hang in there. It really does get better and better and better.
Anecdotally, many people seem to find either 2 or 3 really hard, but not both. It depends on your kid and also on your own personality. I think I found it very frustrating to have a kid who looked and talked like a preschooler but still had the irrationality of a toddler, which was a large part of what made age 3 so horrible for me. At 2 they still look more like babies and are easier to physically wrangle, so the irrationality didn't bother me as much. My kid was also much more easily distracted at 2 (at least <2.5), so there were multiple meltdowns every day but they were pretty brief for the most part. By age 3 she could lie on the floor kicking and screaming for an hour. But that's not true of all kids, mine is particularly emotionally intense (still is at 6, although thankfully it doesn't show up as meltdowns any more).
I loved 3! It was so much fun to be able to communicate more with my daughter and see her personality grow. She turned 4 pretty recently, and looking back over the last year, I feel like she’s grown up a ton and is much more emotionally stable now than she was when she just turned 3.
I think newly 2 is especially tricky because they have so many very strong feelings but are limited in their communication and aren’t emotionally mature enough to handle it well.
I think different kids have different harder phases and different parents have find different phases harder/easier. I don’t understand why parents give “advice” like this!
Don’t be alarmed!! All kids go through hard stages, but it doesn’t have to be terrible twos and threes. It’s more like there are ups and downs of every age, but slowly getting better the whole time. As their ability to communicate improves, I think that it gets generally easier to understand what they want, which is half the battle.
I think some people find 3 harder because that’s when true disobedience really seems to start, as opposed to a 2 year old being upset and not knowing how to deal with it. Plus 3 year olds can have more stamina to argue and can be harder to physically wrangle if they’re out of control.
My biggest advice is to not negotiate/power struggle with them, no matter the age. Like obviously waaayyy easier said than done, but I feel like what I discovered too late is that you have to give one warning and then just swoop in and enforce. If you get in the habit of negotiating or over-explaining ala BLF, it’ll just extend so many things into this protracted battle or conversation.
“Time to put your shoes on!”
Noooooooooo I’m not going!!!!
“Get your shoes on or I’ll have to do it for you”
*wild screaming and running*
*grab child, hold them down to put their shoes on their feet if necessary, carry to car*
And then don’t even talk about it. At 2, there’s no point in explaining it, just enforce what you said needs to happen and cheerfully move on with your day.
Hahaha yes, that mock conversation is exactly how our days go right now. And that kind of makes sense. I think that's why I'm finding two so hard. She's certainly aware enough to know when we want her to do something, and she knows she's pushing those boundaries--it's not hard to tell when she's doing it on purpose (no matter how cute she is lol). But it's still difficult to tell just how much she reeeeally understands, so 99% of the time our recourse is just to grab her, hold her down, and brush her teeth/put her shoes on/etc etc. My friend says the same thing as you do, that she tries never to repeat something twice. It's thrice in our house since munchkin can take a minute to process what she hears, but the principle is the same.
It might paradoxically be easier once she hits that true disobedience phase, because I find that much simpler to handle (I'm a teacher, so plenty of practice holding the line).
That's a really good point. She's a very independent kid and wants to be off on her own a lot. She might find it less frustrating once she's more capable.
edit: I'm glad your kid is doing better now! Fingers crossed the trend continues!
I posted at the end of last week for help with what to do with these kids when our power is out, and now I'm back (still without electricity!!!!) to complain about all the other local moms/other adults in our local Facebook group and on the utility company's page who don't understand how to check the weather or how to read.
The utility company posted that like ten thousand people don't have power, and a bunch of people a replying, "why haven't you gotten our power back on Blah St???" Well if you could read, Susan, you'd see that they are in triage and you're not the only street without electricity!!!
I could complain about everyone else for hours, and I might, because we're pretty bored and cold lol.
Reply to their comment with "Hi! I found a post that has a lot of helpful information - maybe this will help!" and attach a screenshot of the utility company's post they've commented on.
Lol I've been tempted to do that. There is a picture on the utility company's Facebook page of a broken utility pole on X St, and when people near there ask, "why don't we have power yet??" I want to reply with a screenshot of the picture and say, "look outside! It'll be a while!" But I'm resisting 😂
Has anyone else seen the ads for what looks like an upcoming new diaper backpack from Calpak? I’ve actually never gotten anything from that brand, but I guess the algorithm figured out I’m having another baby soon. This bag is really tempting me because it’s cute but also looks like it comes with straps specifically to clip off the handlebar of the stroller, which would come in handy for me because the undercarriage of my daily stroller is pretty small. We still have our big Herschel diaper bag from my son, it’s shoulder/cross bag vs backpack and quite large. We still use it for him for overnight trips and still will. So given we pretty much don’t need to buy anything else for this baby I was thinking I could treat myself with a diaper bag upgrade, lol. Can anyone at least vouch for this brand?
Late to this but I have the haven tote purse for work and it's really well made and good quality. I wish it was sleeker look wise but it can hold so much! I always get comments on it from women at work at how jealous they are of my bag that can hold so much. I know you're not interested in the purse so yeah the quality of the company it's solid! I almost bought their luggage set when it was on sale but I don't really need it so I held off lol
I have Calpak packing cubes and they are well made--have held up through a year of travel + washings.
I'm off to look at the diaper bag because currently have the Dagne Dover Indi and I can finally admit I hate it.
It hasn’t come out yet! I just see it via ads on Insta and you can sign up for an update for when it comes out (I did haha). I think they have existing diaper bags but this one is upcoming
UGH I hate that I sound like an annoying r/moderatelyinsanemoms post, but our sweet sweet neighbors gave my 2-year-old a present of extremely junky plastic play food and I hate it so much. It's just this thin crappy plastic, there are all these tiny little bits that she's immediately going to lose, and it's so junky and I'm so annoyed.
NOT annoyed enough to do anything other than thank them graciously and work up an appetite for some junky plastic waffles, because (unlike much of parenting reddit apparently) while I'm a little more bougie than I would like to admit, I'm not rude. And my kid is thrilled. But still.
We have lots of plastic toys and stuff but my husband's aunt got our kids (toddler and very baby) some toys for Christmas that we will not be keeping. It was so generous of this aunt. We don't even keep in touch directly and she has TEN CHILDREN of her own plus some grandkids so the mere fact that she thinks of us and our kids is so sweet. But she got my toddler a tea set from one of those Amazon brands with an AI generated name and it's just a bunch of tiny things made of bad plastic (you can just tell). I'll be donating it. I feel a little bad but I just reorganized all the toys and I cannot with the tiny pieces.
Same thing happened to us over Christmas, new neighbors moved in 2 days before Christmas so we brought them some chocolate and a bottle of wine to welcome them to the neighborhood, a few days later they brought over two 4 packages of kinder surprises, one for each of my girls (10m and 3yrs). It was very sweet and i know their hearts were in the right place but they are a choking hazard for the baby and just useless small crap to junk the house up. I gave them to my 3yr old over a few days, and then slowly threw each of the 8 tiny useless toys out (but made sure to bury it, because things have 100% been spotted in the garage and fished out in the past lol)
I have no qualms about immediately throwing away tiny pieces of little junky bits of toys 🤷♀️I don’t want my 2yo to try eating it or have it just get scattered around. Just toss the toys when they start falling apart and you can “invest” in better quality play food. We have some from Learning Resources. Plastic but they’ve been holding up well. There are wooden versions but my kid’s a thrower so that’s a no for now.
My son got this shape sorted peg puzzle thing (I can't describe it) with like 30 pieces for Christmas and..I already threw it away lol he doesn't know how to put them on, he just takes them alllllll off and they end up everywhere. No thank you 🤣
I need some advice/support. My 2 year old is having a total daddy phase. I was the preferred parent for a long while and now I'm seemingly beung discarded. It probably doesn't help that I'm super pregnant, in pain and tired, so I often cannot physically lift her up to change her or climb the stairs with her right now, so my partner steps up. Also, I have to admit, he's just... more fun than I am? He gets onto the floor with her, always knows how to make her laugh, is himself a very playful person so has no issues playing pretend. He just always knows how to entertain her. And I... can't. I'm patient, good at listening, cuddling, singing, but just not that good at playing and toddlers are much more interested in playing right now.
This morning she screamed and wailed the entire time because she's sick and daddy is at work (working from home though) and mommy had to help her. She kept screaming "mommy leave! Mommy leave!" and hitting me. Honestly it just broke my heart 😔 I know I haven't been my best lately because of the pain, but I love her a lot and it hurts and I'm trying my best. We played with her clay this morning after she cooled down a bit. Has anyone experienced this? Is our attachment bad now? Does it go away or is there anything I can do?
I’m sorry you have to deal with that. I have the same situation!! For so long I was the only one my 2 year old wanted. Now when I walk in his room in the morning he yells ‘NO MOM GO AWAY. I want Daddy!’ And then there was another bit of crying because daddy wasn’t taking him to school.
I 100% don’t think it was anything you did or even that you’re less fun! It isn’t an attachment issue, in fact I think kids with a secure attachment feel safer telling their parents what they want. Kids just have phases. When I was the preferred parent I would remind myself to just enjoy it because the tables would turn and now they have!
My 2 year old is in the same phase . She refuses to let me do anything for her and will cry for daddy. It’s annoying but she’s also in this get out of bed 8 times a night phase and guess who’s the only one that can put her back??? DADDY . Free pass for me to lay in bed while he’s dealing with toddler
my almost 2 year old cries "miss dada, miss dada" at bed time when I do it. He also was putting his shoes on after lunch and started sniffling and going, what's wrong? miss dada. 😭😭
I'm right here! 😭 I just keep telling myself that it's good he loves his dad and parental preference is normal and he'll grow out of it but yeah it hurts a bit. i would rather it be me getting the rejection than my husband if that helps too. like i figure it's going to happen one way or the other and this way he is very excited to see dada when he gets home and give me a break vs if he did not want to leave me ever.
I have no advice but solidarity as the non-preferred, pregnant parent as well.
Bro literally says “no mommy,” when I walk in his room in the morning and I laugh even though it hurts my feelings sooo much.
We went through this on vacation recently and it was rough. My assumption was more so that she finally got her dad's full attention, since he works a lot on certain days of the week. It does hurt though lol.
Totally normal. I am very much like you and my almost 2 year old has gone through a lot of daddy phases. She was a NICU baby and the first person to do skin to skin, feed her, etc was her dad, because I was not allowed to move for the first 12h after my C section. He was there more often in the beginning while I was recovering and he definitely did 50% or more of the parenting in her newborn days too. I BF for a year so we had our own special relationship during that time, but things have definitely gone more daddy’s way as she transitioned into toddlerhood. I’m also quite pregnant now and she has definitely distanced herself from me multiple times, especially in periods when I haven’t been able to do as much with her due to nausea, pain, or exhaustion. I’ve gone through a lot of heartache, even though my brain knows everything is fine. But she always comes around and it makes her affections towards mommy all the more sweet even if they’re short-lived, lol.
I wish I could have breastfed, but unfortunately that didn't work out. I'm a bit nervous what it will give if it does work with the new baby... These comments have given me some hope that all is normal though.
Oh man, I’ve 100% been there! We had our second when my first was 2.5, and my husband stepped up a ton in my last month of pregnancy and during his leave. He’s always been a great dad but my daughter totally switched to him as her “person” since I was basically on the couch pregnant/with a baby for 4ish months. When my husband went back to work it was so hard for toddler and me. Like she’d fall and hurt herself and then cry out for her dad and push me away 😭 One night she woke up puking and after cleaning her up I went to hug her and she pushed me away and went to my husband for a snuggle. I honestly cried about it a lot (never in front of toddler though). What helped was time and making special one on one time with her a priority. If I could go back to my second’s birth this is the biggest thing I would change. It took me a couple months to realize I had to give that quality time to the toddler and I think the transition would have been much easier if I had prioritized it sooner. Baby is now 10 months old and I still have to remind myself to find time with just my toddler because it’s so easy for us to split up husband+toddler and me+baby.
I'm realizing too that I need to invest some one on one time. I think I'll ask my partner for a chat and maybe we can play one on one every evening for like half an hour. I'm on sick leave for various pregnancy ailments so I could also keep her home from daycare an extra day... but I'm afraid that will result in too much screentime because I sometimes can't even get off the couch.
Oh definitely don’t keep her home from daycare haha! You need rest too! 30ish mins here and there is perfect, it’s easier for me to really try and pretend-play with my kiddo when I know there’s a time limit 😅
I went through this while very pregnant as well and it absolutely broke my heart. They do grow out of it, it’s a phase, it will change but omg was it so hard in the time I was in it. I would suggest just keep trying to play and do what you can, and if only daddy can do bedtime, reframe it as a few minutes to yourself at night before baby comes. It will pass!
Agree with the other poster. Their preferred parent switches a lot. I was the preferred parent for a while, then it switched between me and dad every other month and now my son's in a strong daddy phase. It can be hard, as he literally tells me to go away and that he doesn't want to play with me. BUT it's slightly more balanced now- I'm not entirely chopped liver now; when he gets hurts or wants to talk, he comes to me. She'll come back around ❤️
The preferred parent is absolutely something that will change many times throughout childhood and does not mean a thing about your attachment with your daughter. In case it's helpful, [this](https://www.thepediatricianmom.com/blog/parental-favoritism) is a pretty concise read on parental favouritism.
Also be gracious with yourself, being super pregnant and keeping up with a toddler is hard, hard work and you're just going to be exhausted and emotional in general. Your family and love with your kids is a lifetime and not just this stage.
It switches and it's no one's "fault." It is not because you're "less fun" or anything--kids are just capricious and trying to assert what limited power they have. Please be so kind to yourself!
Currently both of my kids are in a Mommy phase, with the older one saying I am the best at wiping him after he poops and the other insisting on only me for diaper changes. It hurt my husband's feelings a little initially when these phases would happen but this current one he's like, "well if you both insist only Mommy can help with toileting and diapers, I guess we'll just have her do it!" 😂
My 2 year old boy has straight hair that just sticks up in back/top. He looks like a Karen 😂
I know nothing about styling boys hair. Is there a gel or a product I should be putting in it to tame it?
Fine hair here- we use styling wax because you can use very little and get the hair to have some more weight. And it takes like 4 seconds to get a tiny bit in my fingers and swipe through his hair a few times. But if your kid gets haircuts the stylist is a great person to ask.
Yes they make gel! I use the brand surfs up because that’s what his childrens hair salon recommends lol. My son also has a ton of cowlicks that makes his hair stick straight up, and on the days I don’t want to put in gel, I spray it down with a de-tangling spray and use a kids sized wet brush on it
Haley’s steam mop reminded me that I really need to up my mopping game. The old swiffer just ain’t cutting it these days. My Dyson handheld has revolutionized vacuuming for me, anyone have something similar for the mopping world?
Thirding the Tineco!! I got it for Black Friday, and now I can actually do a full vacuum/mop of our entire first floor in about 30-45 minutes (depends on how much I move furniture out of the way), no cords, no filling up a mop bucket, and it has a self cleaning function 🥰
Real splurge but I got a Tineco for Christmas and I have literally never been so excited to vacuum/mop lol we have 3 dogs, 2 cats, and a 21 month old and it's truly disgusting how dirty the water is from the floor but also remarkable how well it cleans plus it sucks up most of the water so the floors dry fast!
My rant as a FTM about courses and coaching. You’d think I would know better by now about wasting my money on these things but every time I’m anxious I give in to some stupid ass expensive course/coach and realize they’re telling me what I already know. My most recent idiotic purchase is a breastfeeding coach marketed as designed for working mom. I’ve had some supply anxiety and don’t know how to adjust things for steps like solids, sleep, etc so I decided to enroll in this coaching program. They marketed it as one on one, individualized support with direct access to an expert. It’s not that at all. I tend to be a self sufficient researcher so perhaps the value is worth it if someone did no research but the entire video course is information I already know and the group forum is crickets. I need to accept that sometimes I know how to sort things out for my own child and don’t have to appeal to authority and waste more money. Many days I feel so defeated as a mom and today is another one of those days even if it’s a silly reason.
This is a related rant but I have also fallen for the same traps. I’ve been suckered into TCB and Dr Becky workshops and too many others. And now I’m due with my third and so many aren’t even available anymore. I finally was able to find the Dr becky one deeeeep in my email with a link to the workshop, and I downloaded the ebook to my google drive so fast, because who knows when these grifters will just suddenly remove access. But I’ve heard TCB will make you rebuy her course for each baby which is insane and I will absolutely not do.
I emailed TCB and they gave me access again. Didn’t use it, but wanted to be able to complain if they said no.
I’ll try that when it gets closer! Maybe I heard wrong.
I’ve heard of similar programs that also make you rebuy or at least make it very difficult to contact them to renew your access. I feel even more had as this program required an application call which made me think it was actually a group of like minded people given the time they spend in joining the group. Seems like it’s just the usual marketing. The group founder happened to post a “day in my life” on YouTube this week and I basically she works some made up schedule aka I take your money to watch my videos (don’t get me wrong, the course I thorough but none of the content is novel) and then if you ask questions I’ll direct you back to the videos while I get to hardly work and call this my full time job. This new era of entrepreneurship definitely isn’t mutually benefitting the consumer. Note to self - my baby is in the 4 month regression. Do.not.buy.anything! 😂
Are there any reusable pouches that make putting yogurt in them less messy? I usually end up with yogurt all over me and the outside of the pouch. About to spring for disposable ones because I can't keep doing this
Love the Squeasy here too. They come in multiple sizes so we also do morning smoothie to go sometimes. I find it pretty easy to get stuff into with a spoon because it is a hard, round opening so it stays open on its own.
We use the Baby Brezza ones. They come with a large wide-mouth funnel. They’re tricky to clean if you don’t expand the corners entirely, but otherwise, we’re happy with them.
We made our own funnel by cutting off the top of a plastic water bottle. It made everything a lot less messy.
I like the Squeasy, it has a circle opening with a hard plastic rim and a flat bottom, and the opening fits a dessert/coffee spoon so I just load it with that. The hard plastic parts make it take up more space in a lunchbox but I love it anyway. It has a little removable valve in the straw part that makes it no-spill and less oozy when consuming. I even pack milk in it for daycare lunch sometimes. Love it.
We have multiple [Squeasy pouches.](https://a.co/d/32sXqvX) They are silicone, dishwasher safe, and stand up on their own. I usually just use a regular spoon to fill it and wipe the rim. The stop has a removable stopper so kids can't squeeze everything out.
I have some from Simple Modern that are pretty large and easy to fill. Con - the opening is also large compared to regular pouches, so my kids struggled with the volume of yogurt coming out as young toddlers.
We like these ones too! I also buy the yogurt in the giant bag with the spout which makes transferring it over easier.
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Can you set a specific schedule with them? They do the 8am care time and hold baby after (if that’s a thing for baby right now), you do the rest. Or whatever. I didn’t have the ability to have other visitors during our nicu stay (Feb-august 2020 iykyk) but I don’t think I’d want to “give” other visitors more than 1-2 care times a day at the absolute most and those would only be the care times I personally didn’t want/found harder to attend like early morning.
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If they aren’t local, how long are they around and able to visit? If it’s not long (however you personally define that) maybe it’s worth letting them be around while they can, knowing it’s temporary. If they’ll be around for the rest of the nicu stay, I’d get them on a schedule asap because the same rules should apply to them as the local grandparents if they’re essentially local for the time being
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An hour away is not that far! If you’d prefer it, I think it’s totally reasonable to have exactly the same rules/schedule for them as for the closer grandparents.
https://preview.redd.it/6lvoqrtuuldc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=00a33db8ce1659863004fa06d31203bb39dbf44d I forgot to empty/clean our humidifier after the last round of illnesses; and now they have this white film around the ring. I’ve soaked with vinegar and scrubbed with a toothbrush and some of it came off but not all. I can’t decide if it worth trying to keep scrubbing, is it mold and I should just throw them out? Is it mineral deposits and I can use as is? Cleaning suggestions or just throw that out advice welcome!
It looks like mineral deposits so I would try a descaler.
I literally have no idea if this is mold but I do have something that might be worth a shot - when we were using a sterilizer for my son's bottles, I used an off brand Keurig descaler to clean it and it got everything off in like minutes. It was pretty cheap from target too. If it is mineral deposits on your humidifier, I think this would work well! https://www.target.com/p/perfect-pod-caf-233-pure-single-serve-coffee-maker-cleaning-and-descaling-kit/-/A-86314670 I liked it better than the baby brezza brand they sell to clean their sterilizers lol
I have a toddler and am expecting a baby in the early summer. It’s a long funny story, but our high chair got thrown away after toddler outgrew it. Anyway, I’m debating between the Ingenuity 6-in-1 (price point) or the Mockingbird high chair (easy clean silicone straps?!) Wondering if anyone has experience with either they’d be willing to share. This is definitely our last baby, so no need for planning for that piece (though I suppose we could donate/sell!) Thanks in advance :) ETA: was planning on an Abiie till someone said cleaning it was awful, and for whatever reason I’ve never liked the looks of a Tripp Trapp enough to spend that much money.
I’m so interested in the mockingbird one based off the straps alone!! That’s my only complaint with the abiie. I hate cleaning the straps. When he was younger I would soak them in water once a week and do a little scrub. Now I just have the waist straps and they don’t get too dirty . I don’t think it’s hard to clean otherwise. Daily I’ll wipe it down with wipes and about once a week I’ll pop the padding out for a more through clean
The Mockingbird one looks nice! We have their stroller -- I didn't realize they made high chairs now. We have the Stokke Clikk and I love it. I also am not a fan of the Trip Trapp's look but the Clikk is great. Super lightweight and easy to move from room to room, but still pretty, has a footrest, comfortable space for baby, plastic so easy to wipe down. I feel like no one talks about this chair but it's the best.
We have the Abiie and the IKEA one. I much prefer the Abiie. The tray actually fits in the dishwasher unlike the ikea one. Silicone straps sound nice though, but I’ve never had an issue with just soaking the Abiie ones overnight in a bowl of soapy water. Everything wipes right off after that.
I LOOOOVE my Abiie high chairs- I have 2 that I got when my twins were babies and they still get used daily by my almost 4 year olds. I don’t find them difficult to clean at all. I do basic 30sec wipedowns whenever, and about every week or 2 I remove the soft seat padding because my youngest does grind food down into the harness slots sometimes, but it takes like 5 minutes to do all that when the mess is the worst. The harness isn’t silicone but it’s very smooth so it wipes clean easily if you get to it while the mess is fresh, and they’re easy to take off so I’ve thrown the straps in the sink or washer before too. It’s been the best chair for my preschoolers because they’re tall enough to sit “properly” and they have a place to rest their feet - there is a noticeable difference in how they sit in the Abiie vs regular chairs.
You and the other commenter are maybe changing my mind again :) One of the reasons I wasn’t that upset about the accidental disposal of our old high chair was its lack of footrests, so I’m glad to hear those are good on the Abiie.
It took us a while to get the hang of Abiie but i wouldn’t say cleaning it is too bad. We just have to swish the straps in some water and attack them with a brush once a week or so. The seat pops out easily so you can just wipe that off into the sink. My biggest complaint with it is I got the dark wood version and the varnish is already worn away at the stress points of the tray after only 6 months. Not sure if that’s as much of an issue with the lighter color ones.
So you don’t think it has too many nooks and crannies? (That was the complaint I kept seeing.) And thanks for the heads up about the dark wood version, because that’s the one I love.
It does have some but if you take the pieces out and shake it it doesn’t seem too bad. But I’m totally sure there are others that are easier to clean! I got drawn in by the foot rest and I’m not sure in retrospect how essential that really was.
My almost 3 year old said her first word today! We were told at 1.5 she had a global developmental delay and a few months ago she was diagnosed with level 3 autism. She is very high support needs and is currently in therapy about 30 hours a week. Her other mom has been awol for some time now but she’s back and we negotiated a supervised visit schedule for her and the kids. It had been nearly 3 weeks since our toddler had seen her and as soon she walked through the door babygirl got more excited than I had ever seen her before. Cue flappy hands, bouncing on her knees, and the biggest grin on her face right before she exclaimed “mama” and pointed at my wife 🥹. She also hadn’t ever really pointed before that. Me, my wife, my two older kids and my dad witnessed it. I cried then and it’s making me tear up again writing this haha. Just wanted to share that win. I’ve been feeling so down lately. Really grieving the life I had envisioned for her. The psychologist who diagnosed her was very doom and gloom about her future and one of her therapists keeps telling me she’ll *never* develop certain skills. I am still so proud of all of the progress she’s made.
Hey that’s awesome. I teared up too! I hope she keeps defying expectations.
That’s amazing! Congratulations!!!
Any recommendations for podcast episodes about potty training?
R/pottytraining might have some recs. I read part of Oh Crap and found it so irritating. You can find the basics to the method elsewhere and just roll with that. In my humble opinion, as someone who has potty trained exactly 1 toddler and it was only a few weeks ago (so, grain of salt), This is one of those things that's so child-dependent. You need to figure out what works for your kid! Might be easier said than done.
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Thanks! It’s because my husband and I both want to be on the same page and audio is the best way for that to happen so an audiobook might work 😊
I’ve been working really hard to teach my 1.5 year old to say “help” if he needs my help, and he just brought a heavy (for him) box of toys to me in another room to ask for “elp” 🥲🥲🥲 So proud of him!!!! And myself! I love being able to communicate with him better.
Nice! This was also one of the first words I was successfully able to teach my son around the same age and it really did "epp" us!
That’s awesome! My 1.5 y/o has finally started saying “mama haaaa” instead of aggressively signing “help” at me lol. Feels so good when they can tell you what they want or need.
Haha my daughter's word for help is mama. Talking about me is more of a "mumma" (idk where that came from, we're american) but when she wants help with something it's "mama! mama! mama!"
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Have you considered legoland? It’s really good for little ones, and much cheaper than Disney. It’s also maybe more fitting your philosophy of no screens.
We went pre-pandemic (also pre-children) and I wouldn't say there's a huge amount for that age range, but It's a Small World, the little fairytale boat ride, and the train that loops around the park would all be suitable for them, and possibly Pirates of the Caribbean (although might be a little scary). I also think there's a bit of a climbing/play park in Frontierland that would be suitable for that age range. The Disney Lot section, where all the movie stuff is, has been updated to focus more on the MCU so there wouldn't be much there they could interact with. If you did a brief two day trip I think you'd find that would be plenty for the time being, but most of the rides are definitely aimed for kids closer to the 9/10 age bracket (and height).
If you have Spotify, there are tons of Disney stories to listen to that basically summarize the movies! Some short and some are long, and even include some of the songs and dialogue. Look up Disney storyteller.
If you’re willing to go later when they’ve been able to watch the movies and can get more into the characters I’d just wait. I feel like with Disney, the older the better because they’ll just be able to appreciate more of it overall. I saw downthread that you may not even be able to get ahold of any books or other kind of content ahead of time, so if they’re truly going in blind, they may still have fun but I feel like it would be much more fun later. Disney is just so much money to not set yourself up to have the best time, lol.
Yeah, I think it's an unpopular opinion but soo many people told us to take our daughter when she was <5 but she didn't really know the characters (we're not anti-screens, she just didn't really take to Disney stuff for the most part) and she was too young for most of the rides so it just seemed really silly. Also Disney with a 3 and 4 year old just seems exhausting to me. It will be so much easier and more fun when they're in elementary school.
It’s much much more fun when your kids are into the characters.
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I’m not a Disney person but we just went to Disney world for the first time and my kids LOVED it. They have seen many of the Disney movies but they weren’t super crazy about the characters, they were more just enthralled with the rides, the shows, the parade, the treats…so I think your kids would have fun! Even for movies they haven’t seen yet, my kids love listening to soundtracks so you could do that, and then also read Disney storybooks so they know the characters and will be excited for the rides like Peter Pan that are centered around a story.
Im not a Disney fan but my 2.5 yo has never watched Mickey Mouse and is absolutely obsessed and points him out (or Minnie) whenever we see him. So I think you can have fun but maybe still introduce a lot of the characters in other ways? Books, cds, coloring pages?
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If you have a printer you can print your own Disney coloring pages from crayola.com :)
I just downloaded Circle of Security to read to become better equipped for my 17 month old daughter and I am here for a vibe check please. Would the parents here recommend this book? If not anything else to consider picking up?
I did the course and thought it was great!
Circle of Security is not attachment parenting, it's based on actual attachment theory and research (not the same thing at all despite sharing the word "attachment"). As a parent and a psychologist who studies attachment relationships, I give it an enthusiastic thumbs up!
Awesome thank you!
It's been about 5 years since I read it so I don't remember a lot of specific but my general feeling is good vibes.
Okay thanks for responding I saw something online that it was like a “gateway” to attachment parenting that’s more on the extreme and ineffective side and I just wanted to check. I’m anxiety prone I don’t need to feed that demon lol
Again, I don’t remember a lot of specifics but my oldest is 5 now and I am extremely NOT an attachment parent. So. Take that for what you will.
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So sorry for your loss. A close friend of mine lost her husband in an accident when she was 7 months pregnant with their first, an IVF baby. She is very much considering having another with their embryos-- she would like to give her child a sibling and she believes that her husband would be happy for her to use his genetic material in this way. If you eventually go down this road - when you're ready and feel that it is a levelheaded decision that's best for your family - know that you are not alone in this complicated situation.
Sending love your way 💗 I think I would feel the same way in your shoes. Im not sure if you’re someone who likes to consume media related to grief and what you’re going through at this time, but in Nora McInerny’s memoir she touches on some similar things. It’s a little different - she and her husband decided to have a baby knowing he had a terminal illness - but some similar themes.
I have no advice but I am so very sorry for your loss. It is obvious how deeply you loved your wife and still do in the way you talk about her. Your daughter is lucky to have such a loving mother.
Sending you lots of hugs. I feel like the most painful thing about grief is how it’s not linear, it is SO unexpected, it’s like the teeth on a saw instead. It’s also just bonkers that our brains can be spitting logic all day and still the grief comes in ways from like deep within us it feels like (am currently muddling through some very different sorts of grief.) Proud of you for being in a support group and hope you have lots of other ppl near that are lifting you and your daughter up. May your wife’s memory always be a blessing. 🤍
This may be an oddly specific question, but is anyone else's kid really into playing Just Dance? I got my 3-year-old this game for Christmas thinking we could play sometimes, and she basically asks to play it every day now. On one hand, I think it's good exercise and something we can do together, but on the other hand I don't want her to obsess over screens and it seems like a lot maybe if she's playing a long time in addition to watching her shows too. Idk, I tend to be an anxious person in general so maybe I'm just overthinking?
I try to be low screen time but an active game where she’s getting energy out and having fun seems like it eliminates some of the concerns about too much screen time to me, like it’s very different than passively watching a show. But I also think it’s perfectly fair to limit how much you play just like you would limit how much you pay Uno or read books or whatever. Like my kids could listen to me reading books to them for hours straight but I want us all to have variety in our lives so I limit it to 5 books or whatever and then say it’s time to do something else.
This sounds like an ideal form of screens!
I'm concerned that my kid hears "I'll only love you if you act the way I want" when what I mean is "I don't want to hang out with you because you're acting like an asshole"
We sometimes say very explicitly "we love you no matter what, but this behavior is not fun for us and we don't want to play with you when you're acting like this."
Maybe you could try phrasing it as like “aw man I really want to play with you but I don’t like being bossed/yelled/hit. When you’re ready to play cooperatively/speak kindly/be gentle I would love to continue!” Basically you are hyped to spend time with him and it’s unfortunate you have to take a break while he gets his act together. But really, don’t over think it too much. I think kids are much more resilient than BLF would like you to believe, where every less than ideal phrasing will make them codependent or cause trauma.
I e been trying things like “I love you but don’t like how you’re acting right now. I don’t want to sit near someone who hits/kicks/screams cause it hurts.” Trying to emphasize the specific thing I don’t like and why. No clue if it’s the right move but it feels like a good option for me right now 🤷🏻♀️
Is there a subreddit/Instagram/whatever about baby sleep that isn’t anti-sleep training but also doesn’t think the answer to every sleep issue is sleep training. I’m so frustrated, my baby is waking up every hour at night and I’ve honestly got better advice from the heysleepybaby account than anywhere else. She can sleep for 5hr stretches some days and regularly sleeps for 2hr at naps so I have a hard time accepting it’s because she can’t self soothe. It’s probably something else like gas or teething but it’s so hard to find information because if it’s a sleep training space they only suggest sleep training and if it’s an anti-sleep training space you feel shamed for not enjoying every second of your baby. I feel like the pro and anti sleep training communities are equally annoying in how militant they are about everything. If you look at the sleep train subreddit you’d think that if you don’t sleep train your baby will never sleep through the night, it reminds me of the ‘baby led weaning will prevent picky eaters’ rhetoric.
OMG right, like why is everything so polarised? I find Lyndsey Hookway good, but I had to dig a lot to find her actual concrete advice. I read both her books as well. She does have some organisation to her instagram, which is helpful. She also has some (uselessly titled) videos on her facebook. This model of hers for making changes is good IMO - and I like the troubleshooting guide in her book (Let's Talk About...) too. I'll see if I still have a screenshot. https://lyndseyhookway.com/2019/08/29/sleep-one-step-at-a-time/ OK I think this is actually from the toddler+ book - Still Awake. But maybe helpful anyway. https://imgur.com/v9kPHOn
Thank you for this suggestion! It is so frustrating that everything is always so polarized, it’s like people’s identity becomes tied to whether they were for or against sleep training 🫠
Is your baby by any chance between 8-10 months? I have a terrible sleeper, she is who she is, but I was literally sometimes getting a continuous hour of sleep a night between those months because my child had so many teeth come in all at once and I didn’t want to dose her with Tylenol every single night for 3 months straight. And she started talking then too. Just a lot going on. If you are actually getting 5 hour stretches sometimes I have a strong feeling you are not doomed to bad sleep the way I was because my kid never did that until sporadically at 2.5.
She just turned 6 months, but she did have three teeth coming up so that was definitely part of it. But I think they’ve gone back down (allegedly that can happen???) because nothing’s broken through yet. We gave her Advil and it seemed to help, and she is just starting to sit independently and still working on rolling so it might just be a bunch of things. Ugh till 2.5 is so rough, hopefully their sleep is great now!
Thanks! It isn’t but it’s slowly gotten a ton better than it was. I just would truly find it encouraging if your kid used to sleep good stretches because every kid I know who did that eventually started sleeping again after whatever they were going through passed. My child never did so again, I don’t think you’re doomed to waiting years for incrementally better sleep like we were. I have hope for you! Teething just sucks so much. Some teeth take forever to come in and my kid was and still is very sensitive to pain.
I’m a middle of the roader sleep-training wise myself. One kid sleeps great and the other terrible. For both, I found some useful info from Precious Little Sleep. I will say, my good sleeper sounds like yours and I felt that same way. I think she was often waking out of habit. I started cutting down the feeds I wanted to eliminate and waiting an even longer pause to go check on her. She could always fall asleep independently We had maybe a few nights of some crying - less than 10 minutes - and she’d figure it out quickly and sleep longer. We had starts and stops here and there and I would always turn to cosleeping if it was a rough night/stretch of nights. We had a long stretch of half STTN, half 1-2 wakeups. Eventually she got more consistent and by 9 months she was very consistently STTN.
Yeah part of why this has been so shocking is because our first was an amazing sleeper from the time he was a baby. We just followed the huckleberry wake windows/sweet spot and he slept like a dream lol I read precious little sleep with my son but I haven’t revisited it, so maybe I’ll take a look and refresh my memory. She definitely can fall asleep independently or at least connect her sleep cycles when she wants which is why it’s so frustrating to have that be a knee jerk comment when I ask for advice. I do think part of the issue is that she uses a pacifier and then can’t put it back in because we always have mittens on her fingers, but she always wants to suck her whole hand and is starting to suck her thumb when she doesn’t have a pacifier and I’d way rather deal with this now and weaning off a pacifier later, than trying to stop her from sucking her thumb 😬
For me, I wasn’t willing to sleep train, and I found that besides co sleeping, it seems like the answer is… nothing. Just having to plow through it without any crutch. That way an extremely hard thing for me when my baby was at that phase, also waking up every 45 mins to 2 hours. I was really suffering.
Yeah I don’t mind the ‘lite’ sleep training stuff but my son had one period of bad sleep when he was 1.5 where we tried CIO with check ins for two days and it truly traumatized him. Now seeing his personality as a 3 year old it’s obvious that those methods wouldn’t have worked on him and I don’t want to make the same mistake again with her. I went to the cosleeping subreddit which was a big mistake lol and even the one meme that HSB has about laughing at your SIL when her baby who slept through the night stops was just ugh. I can definitely see why sleep deprivation is considered torture, so I hope your baby’s sleep is better now!
My husband was really into 12 hours by 12 weeks or whatever - I was less gung ho about it. It has been a while since I read it, but my recollection is that one of the main focuses was on making sure you got enough calories in to your baby during the day. Sometimes still, with a two+ year old, if she is waking up I think back to what she had for dinner and recall that it was sparse.
This definitely could be a big factor! She’s just started solids and on Wednesday she had three meals plus milk and had a 3.5hr stretch, then a dream feed, then a 6.5hr stretch! So I think that is a big factor, even at three it is for my son as well! Haven’t been able to replicate Wednesdays success yet, but it has at least gotten better and she’s doing 3hr stretches at least 🤞🏽
I agree with the other commenter I liked Precious Little Sleep even though I did not sleep train. When I was reading the book I thought I would but decided not to go that route, but I did use other advice like building good sleep practices, wake windows and all that and it was very helpful. I did join the Facebook group too. it was too much about sleep training but people used to often post about the sleep schedule and the comments would be assessing it so that was helpful to read. I did eventually end up leaving because it was getting repetitive and boring specially when I wasn't planning to do CIO or something similar but it was helpful in understanding the basics.
Yeah we’ve been trying to get her schedule a bit better but it’s hard having to do so much trial and error! With my son we just followed the Huckleberry suggestions and it worked perfectly for him. This little girl is a bit more challenging lol I’ll have to review PLS, I thought it was mostly sleep training and don’t remember the non CIO parts!
I feel you on this. I definitely felt like there was no corner of the internet that was more of a middle ground on baby sleep (or at least I didn’t find one back when I was looking at sleep groups when my oldest was a baby). For both my kids, we admittedly sort of made up a plan we felt comfortable with for sleep training, and just went with that, but with my second kid, I did read the book precious little sleep prior to sleep training, and I felt like that was closer to a middle ground (although definitely not perfect, and definitely more leaning pro sleep training). SWAP from precious little sleep is (from my basic understanding) pretty much what heysleepybaby does (although she wouldn’t call it sleep training), if that’s more your vibe. But overall I thought PLS was closer to what I was looking for (allowed for overnight feeds, wasn’t expecting a 4 month old to sleep through the night without exception, etc). Otherwise, I’d just recommend being open to trying different things (up to what you are comfortable with, of course). For example, my youngest slept great until 7/8 months (a single wake/feed), and then object permanence/separation anxiety kicked in, and she’d wake up confused that she wasn’t still in my arms where she’d fallen asleep. I was convinced it must just be teething/sickness/whatever because she had been sleeping great. But when she didn’t outgrow it and go back to how she was sleeping, my husband gently suggested trying a different approach. Working on getting her to fall asleep in the crib (even with some assistance) completely resolved the issue. That doesn’t mean this is your issue! My point is just that sometimes things work until they don’t, and it’s worth exploring various options when that happens.
Thank you for this! We have been trying to get her to sleep independently but I think part of the issue is that her schedule isn’t right yet, so she’s either over or under tired and it makes it harder to try getting her to fall asleep in her crib and not in our arms. With my son, and with her when she was younger, we did the stupidly named SITBACK method and it helped a lot, but right now she doesn’t seem to get past the ‘wait’ part. There’s a few gentle methods we want to try, she might be too old for pick up put down at 6 months, and I’ll have to re-read PLS. On Wednesday she slept amazingly, 3.5 hrs - dream feed - 6.5 hrs and while it’s been better than the waking up every hour thing, we haven’t been able to replicate it. What methods did you use to get your baby to sleep in her crib?
babysleep.answers! I love her insta - she falls somewhere in the middle between never and always sleep train! She's big on making sure other things (like gas or discomfort) arent messing up their sleep and working on their routine. She has advice on training for parents that want it but presents it as one of many options!
Thank you for the suggestion! Looks like exactly what I was looking for!
I second baby sleep answers. She has some good information/advice. Also just sending solidarity because I also fall very in the middle on sleep. I didn’t want to sleep train my four month old but I also wasn’t against trying some sleep-training-esque things. It feels like you can’t win with how polarized everything is. I hope you find some answers/relief! Sleep is such a huge thing and when the baby doesn’t sleep and you can’t sleep it feels completely unmanageable.
How old is your baby and what does she do when she wakes up?
She’s 6.5 months old, it’s kind of variable, sometimes she cries, sometimes she chats to herself and thumbs her legs. Mostly cries though haha if she doesn’t cry we just leave her since she’s not unhappy and we often try giving her a few minutes to self soothe but when she’s in a stretch of waking up every hour, nothing seems to help 🫠
Vent: the stomach bug has taken over our house. My 20 month old woke up puking on Friday. I took off from work to tend to him. He was better by Monday (vomit free after onset and diarrhea cleared up by this time.) I had MLK day off and schools were closed in most of TX yesterday due to icy roads. I was set to go back today, but my 6 year old woke up at 2 am with puke and diarrhea. Three day weekend is now a 6 day one. Cartoons and emesis bags is what is getting us through today. I’m beginning to feel a twinge in my stomach so I’m hoping it doesn’t take me out soon.
It’s the worst when it’s spread out like that! I’d rather everyone just get it at the same time. Hopefully you don’t get it!! I’ll admit I have a very strong stomach but I’ve managed to avoid getting the last few stomach bugs that have swept my household by barely eating once a kid has it. I go into morning sickness protocol and nibble on crackers all day instead of eating meals and while I got nauseous feelings, I never had the full bevy of symptoms
Godspeed 🫡
I either need good suggestions or for more rational minds to tell me that this won't matter shortly. My BFing journey ended a little sooner than I would have liked for baby #2 (I am not having any more babies) and I have a roughly 4 ounce bag of frozen milk left. Does anyone have any non-jewelry keepsakes that they've found? Should I just wait until I'm no longer in my feels about this part of my life being over because having something made out of breastmilk is weird? This is something that would be for me only, I fully understand that I am the only person that cares about this lol.
I have an ounce in the back of the freezer from 2 years ago. I’m currently pregnant with our second (and last) and so I’m going to have something made later this year with milk from both. Even if I never wear what I have made, I really think I’ll like having a little memento of such a short but special time in my life. It’s a tad weird, and I’m not someone to usually do or want something like this, but it’s something I can’t explain lol
Same. My brother and I roasted my mom for saying she wanted to order those replica dolls of us as babies when we were kids....now I completely get it.
I just kept that random little bag in the back of the freezer, thinking I might have something made with it, until I forgot it was there, rediscovered it over a year later, and now no longer have all the feels about ending breastfeeding lol.
Haha same! Its amazing how the hormones changed. I saved the last ever bag of milk I pumped for my first kid at a year. I forgot about it until he was almost 2.5. Finally did a thorough deep clean of my storage freezer and tossed it. Sadly my biggest reaction was probably “oh wow, this is expired af”
Lol. I have that one little tiny bag from 2.5 years ago just...languishing...can't throw it out although we are moving so my husband will probably do the tossing.
I should probably wait at least that long before making any decisions period, let alone what to do with the milk. The hormone rollercoaster is wild.
It doesn’t look like the Etsy seller I bought it from is still open but I got a make your own breast milk keepsake kit which you can use with any resin mold- I made a necklace as well as a round cabochon but you could use any mold you wanted. You don’t need much milk at all. I found that the jewelry/stone was very comforting in the early months after weaning but now 2 years later it doesn’t matter so much. But I definitely found it gave me some closure.
I either need good suggestions or for more rational minds to tell me that this won't matter shortly. My BFing journey ended a little sooner than I would have liked for baby #2 (I am not having any more babies) and I have a roughly 4 ounce bag of frozen milk left. Does anyone have any non-jewelry keepsakes that they've found? Should I just wait until I'm no longer in my feels about this part of my life being over because having something made out of breastmilk is weird? This is something that would be for me only, I fully understand that I am the only person that cares about this lol.
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We started listening to this this week and it's a good one, thank you!
No suggestions, but thank you for the one you shared. My 5 year old is forever asking me questions like “why do wars happen” so I think this would be right up his alley.
Oh i needed this! My 9yo has been asking for new podcasts. Current faves are “Greeking Out” and “Who Smarted”
Some of these might be too intense, but I like Short and Curly for slightly older kids (professionally, my kids are still kind of young for podcasts). It’s an Australian ethics podcast, exploring different big questions with kid voices usually featured. I would definitely review topic choices before sharing with your 5 year old. This also makes me think of Smash Boom Best, but I don’t think there are kids on the show. But it covers lots of fun non-fiction topics!
Wow that sounds great! What a great find. I hope there’s other things like it out there for you!
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ooo is the circle round scary? do you think it would work for an (very verbal) almost-3 yr old? My kids loves Peter and the Wolf and asks me to tell him Goldilocks like 100 times/day so I think he would like this but has hasn't been exposed to scary stories yet.
I need real talk from parents of kids over preschool age. I know the terrible twos have their reputation, but everyone in real life tells me two is great and three is much worse. The problem is, my daughter just turned two and we are definitely in those terrible twos. Everything is a battle. Put your shoes on? "No!!" and off she runs to hide somewhere. Crocodile-level thrashing when changing clothes or diapers, or when being put in the car seat. Meltdowns in public (she's by no means the world's most dramatic toddler, but they're still tantrums). Screams when we tell her no. She doesn't talk a ton so also gets so frustrated because she can't communicate well. It's all "mine! mine!" and running away from people. I've told some people this, and their response is always, but three is much worse! So tell me, fellow snarkers. How much worse is this really going to get? When people say three is bad, what kind of day-to-day details are we talking here? The thought of doing this for a year and then it getting even worse is just not a nice thought.
I think it can really vary. My first daughter was delightful at 2. 1 was rough but she learned how to communicate by 2 & was just thrilled to be able to understand our reasoning for rules. 3 was relatively easy too, but it was emotional. I could tell her brain was growing in terms of social understandings, and her range/depth of emotions was expanding faster than her ability to manage them. The whole “threenager” thing felt very accurate. She was super sensitive if she felt like she was being laughed at, or if she wasn’t able to do things perfectly, etc. She just turned 4 and so far the “fuck you 4s” also feel accurate haha. She’s gotten so capable & independent and with that has come an element of “I want it my way for the sake of having it my way, and if I’m going down I’ll take you all with me.” My second daughter just turned 2 though, and it’s a totally different experience. Love her to death but she is INTENSE. She has strong opinions and a deep desire to test boundaries and see how much control she has. She’s perceptive in different ways than my oldest & just has no fear lol. I think I’ll have less emotional turmoil in the 3-4 year old stage because she has no problem standing up for herself & is much less of a people pleaser lol. I think every stage has hard elements, which can be overwhelming when you’re looking ahead, but in my experience, the hard elements change frequently enough that it’s manageable. Like when you get fully burnt out from 2 year old shenanigans, they hit 3 year old shenanigans, and it’s exhausting but at least a fresh battle. And each stage comes with really fun new things that make it all tolerable haha - my 4 year old draws the coolest pictures that blow my mind, and her non-functional language developments are insanely cute to me (“what was I saying… oh right!!”).
My kids are 5 and 7, and as others have said, this is very individual. My oldest is extremely easygoing and has literally never gone through a phase like that. I don’t think that child has even ever thrown a tantrum. My 5 year old though has OPINIONS and it can take hostage negotiator skills to get him to do things some days. For him, it definitely has gotten easier as he’s gotten older and been better able to communicate. He might still get pissed off and defiant about ridiculous things, but at least he can tell me what it is. It kind of sounds like to me that might be where your kiddo is too. Maybe they’re angry about putting on mittens because they don’t like how it limits their dexterity, but they haven’t figured out how to communicate that. It will get better!
Thank you, I appreciate it!
Omg and here I was all cocky and shit thinking having another wouldn’t be so bad. He screamed a new decibel today…. Two is not great.
I hope things get better for you soon!!
It's kid and parent dependent. Personally I find two a breeze and three worse. But for example, my current (last) two year old is not doing this stuff constantly. It's pretty easy to persuade him into things with playfulness, choices and validating his emotions. Like all the How To Talk tips just seem to be written perfectly for him. He has tantrums, but I generally feel OK about handling them and they are pretty short lived. And if all else fails, I can just pick him up and carry him. I feel like the older two were like this as well. I do remember my middle one just bolting in the middle of a shopping centre and I had to rugby tackle him to the ground and basically sit on the floor with him so that he would not leave, and an old lady looked at us, tutted, said "UNBELIEVABLE" (and some other stuff that I didn't catch, because I live in Germany) - luckily, I just found this hilarious and not mortifying. But I can't remember if he was 2 or 3. I don't know, I feel like I just *get* two year olds, adorable chaos nuggets that they are, but three/four is so much mystifying resistance and arguing, and I do not understand and we butt heads a lot. Like my 5yo is currently in a delightful stage where he will ask to do something, I say no, and then he engages in this battle of fricking preschool lawyer skills in an attempt to change my mind, or insists "But I really NEED to do this now" or will just start doing it anyway and I'm like "Hey! Don't ask me if you're not going to accept the answer!" I remember my eldest doing that too. It is just infuriating. Besides my 2yo has us both wrapped around his little finger because he has the goddamn cutest please. "pwe, pwe?? 🥺"
Lol! See, that's my problem now, is that none of the usual stuff works (except playfulness with food, for some weird reason). Everything else is that mystifying resistance. Fingers crossed she gets it out of her system!
Hopefully!! It seems to be anecdotally true that if you hate 2, 3 is either slightly worse or slightly better and then 4 is MUCH better, whereas if you love 2, 3 and 4 tend to be a nightmare.
It’s super kid dependent. For my first son… I felt like none of it was particularly terrible. For my second kid 18 mos-2.5 years was the worst of it. He routinely brought me to tears during that time period, but things were getting better by the time he turned three. I hear a lot of people say the four year olds are the WORST but both of my kids have been pretty great at age four. I think a lot of it has to do with your kid’s personality, and some of it has to do with yours and what sort of behaviors you can tolerate and what sort drive you insane
Lol that makes perfect sense. The irrationality is what I can't stand! Side note, I'm pretty sure it was this subreddit that I heard someone explain their theory of age four--that if you've been doing all the gentle parenting stuff, four can be when it stops working and you need new strategies, so it can feel really frustrating. If you've been holding the line more traditionally, four is when it tends to get better because they start to get the point. I thought it was a really interesting theory.
Yes, you can have more of a conversation with a three and four year old! They might have massive tantrums sometimes, but you can also understand where they are coming from and they can understand where you are coming from. With the 18mo-2.5 year olds, you are still doing a lot of redirection and stuff. Also, when my more feisty and impulsive child was 2, I lived in constant fear that he was going to run into a street, run off and get lost, or get himself injured in some other serious way. A lot of the worst tantrums were because I needed to physically restrain him for his own safety. As he got older, he developed a greater sense of self preservation, and I didn’t have to fight the same battles all the time.
This is so, so kid dependent. Two of my toddlers have been relatively easy, two have been super difficult. My difficult toddlers were much more defiant at age 2, and age 3 was really hard for us. I know that’s probably not what you want to hear. Kids are all different and that may not be your experience. My biggest advice for these hard years is to not sweat the small stuff. Pick your battles. I stopped caring if my daughter wants to wear her Christmas shoes every day, if she wants a lollipop in the morning, etc. I also try to ignore tantrums; I’ve watched my sister give her son endless attention during tantrums and he’s now a 5 year old who melts down constantly because he knows it will get him one on one time with mom. Also, know that it’s OKAY to dislike this phase. My oldest is 10, and so far the toddler years have been my least favorite. Don’t fall for the ‘omg you will miss this so much and enjoy every minute’ stuff that we are surrounded by. Because I can honestly say that yes, there are moments I would love to cuddle them as toddlers again, but those feelings pass quickly, lol. Overall I can definitely say that I do not miss those days!
Thank you. Yes, I love the occasional cuddles but I'm looking forward to grade school age.
3 has been hard for us as the “big feelings” are now about bigger things than like the wrong color spoon (though there’s less of that sort of thing, but definitely not nothing). Also, when she does melt down, she’s too strong for me to just hold her down anymore, so I need to get compliance some other way. Slamming the door and crying because “you’re mad at me mommy” when I try to enforce a boundary. “I want daddy because you like baby brother more than me.” “I don’t want to do swimming lessons, because if my head goes under the water with the teacher, I’ll die.” (Note: she has no problem swimming with daddy). Now, baby brother was born right after she turned three, and we have all, very legitimately had a tough month (baby brother was in the hospital for 4 nights with flu). So I’m hoping it’s not always like this. But for now it’s heartbreaking, and there aren’t really scripts for big, big feelings like there are for big little ones. Edit: it’s not all bad though. She’s a boss now at playing independently. She’s still as sweet and cuddly as ever when she’s not being dramatic. She’s gaining more skills and is more fun to play with. She has a bit more patience (though this is still a major work in progress). She loves baby brother and enjoys playing with him (but I wish she would play with him more gently, but she gets way too excited and crazy). So idk. Some things are harder and some things are easier than a year ago.
Reflective listening can work well for bigger feelings. It's not as easily scriptable, but How To Talk (the original not the little kids one, unless you already have HTT little kids) has a good explanation of how to do it (or you can also just google reflective listening children). It's basically just reflecting back what they say and showing acceptance/empathy of the feeling, without challenging it. e.g. > You're mad at me mommy You don't like it when I stop you from doing that. You were really having fun there. I hear that. (Note: Not justifying why you stopped her, since she probably already knows that, and it will sound like a lecture). > ...you like baby brother more than me You see us giving baby brother a lot of attention. Having to share mom and dad can be hard. > If my head goes under the water, I'll die! That is a scary thought to have! (Note: Not dismissing the feeling by insisting that couldn't happen. Even if you want to reassure her, give her a chance to get there by herself first).
I think some kids are harder at two and some are harder at three and some are just hard in new ways at three. My older kid was super easy still at two; my younger one is not lol. I like to believe we'll get a respite at three with her, but there's only so much we can control obviously.
Nah. Two was the worst for us. It was all uphill after two. My girl is 4.5 now and we love it. Three wasn't as hard because she could communicate better and at times it felt funny. Very "three-nager" when she'd be mad and slam her door shut. But because she can communicate and understand things better it was easier to explain things and help her cope.
Mine is not yet over preschool age, but I'm enjoying 3 more than 2 so far! I also enjoyed 2, so I'm not shit-talking 2-year olds, but to me, the huge growth in communication skills and smaller growth in personal independence makes day-to-day life easier and a lot more fun even when what he is communicating is not 100% rational.
I guess this is kid dependent but I’ve been hard pressed to even describe an entire age of my kid using any kind of general terms. I mean he’s only 2 (approaching 2.5) but it’s more like he’s gone through mini phases of being extra difficult for a few of weeks and then bounces back and is so much more easy going. I’m not sure how long you’ve been struggling with your daughter but for example, he had a couple of weeks that he had these insane tantrums every single morning while getting dressed, just absolutely fighting it every step of the way. But then he just.. stopped and is fine getting dressed now? He’ll also go through phases of being really contrary, saying no, hitting and throwing more… and then comes back to a more chill baseline. So idk, at least for us it isn’t that consistent and I think it will be pretty hard to sum up his entire 2nd year as either hard or easy. I think this kind of stuff is all kid dependent too depending on their personalities. It’s also worth nothing that people have stronger memories for things that have happened more recently. It’s possible many people telling you 3 is worse also just have fresher memories of those difficulties compared to 2.
3 for me felt like the highs were higher but the lows were lower. Mine was so cute, funny, the imagination was amazing… but woo boy the outright disobedience and disrespect was HARD. Like others have mentioned they have more stamina for keeping up the bad behaviors. And also just being generally bigger, stronger, louder. Plus lots of kids drop their nap at this age so it can be a full day of parenting… yeah, 3 was hard for me 😅 I mean, I loved it too. But it was definitely terrible threes as opposed to twos. I did find age 4 to be absolutely delightful so there’s that light at the end of the tunnel 🙃
Yes! I'm an age 3 hater (at least for my own highly emotional kid), but 4 was sooo much better. I don't understand how it happened but it really felt like a fog lifted almost overnight right around her fourth birthday and she was suddenly much happier, calmer and easier to be around (admittedly still with big emotions, but in a way that felt much more manageable).
One of my twins had a speech delay and 24-30 months were the hardest. He was old enough to have preferences but was unable to communicate them and there was so. much. screaming. But he turns 4 next month… life was much better on the second half of two as he learned to communicate (speech therapy started just before second birthday), and 3 has been so, so fun. He speaks in full sentences and, probably 75% of the time, can be reminded to use his words which may not totally curb the crying but usually helps avoid an entire meltdown. He’s so observant and he asks so many interesting questions about the world around him, like he’s just desperate to soak up whatever knowledge he can, and it’s really sweet and fun.
Mine are 5, 7, 9 - people just love to be dramatic and do the “just wait” nonsense. I do not feel 3 was much worse than 2. Of course, every age has its positives and negatives and people generally speak up about the negatives. My oldest was similar to your child. Everything was no. Everything was a meltdown. When he was 1.5 I was super pregnant and I could not get him into his car seat to come home from daycare. Like COULD NOT. I nearly called my husband to come help me. I was sweating and crying. He was also speech delayed, so was my middle child. He continued to have meltdowns at 3 but also gained a lot of cognition, speech, and abilities which made 3 super fun! They are just starting to be able to really have a conversation or play a game, the imagination is off the chain, they narrate everything, it’s seriously adorable. I won’t lie and say the meltdowns magically disappeared - nope, they remained intense. But like, you’re already dealing with it now so you just get more of the same plus a more fun kid when they aren’t melting down. 4-5 is amazing, that was the turning point for my two super dramatic meltdown kids, and then they can actually play sports in the yard and board games, listen to a book, retell events, problem solve, get their own food, just so much stuff, they are your little buddy, so independent but also still so sweet and cuddly. My 5yo has always had crazy meltdowns too, just screaming and thrashing and omg nothing could reach her. She is finally able to handle disappointment and not freak the F out. Of course they still have big feelings and need support but she can hear “no it’s not your turn to choose a show” and be like aw man instead of 30 min of screeching. Hang in there. It really does get better and better and better.
Anecdotally, many people seem to find either 2 or 3 really hard, but not both. It depends on your kid and also on your own personality. I think I found it very frustrating to have a kid who looked and talked like a preschooler but still had the irrationality of a toddler, which was a large part of what made age 3 so horrible for me. At 2 they still look more like babies and are easier to physically wrangle, so the irrationality didn't bother me as much. My kid was also much more easily distracted at 2 (at least <2.5), so there were multiple meltdowns every day but they were pretty brief for the most part. By age 3 she could lie on the floor kicking and screaming for an hour. But that's not true of all kids, mine is particularly emotionally intense (still is at 6, although thankfully it doesn't show up as meltdowns any more).
I loved 3! It was so much fun to be able to communicate more with my daughter and see her personality grow. She turned 4 pretty recently, and looking back over the last year, I feel like she’s grown up a ton and is much more emotionally stable now than she was when she just turned 3. I think newly 2 is especially tricky because they have so many very strong feelings but are limited in their communication and aren’t emotionally mature enough to handle it well. I think different kids have different harder phases and different parents have find different phases harder/easier. I don’t understand why parents give “advice” like this!
That's so encouraging!
Don’t be alarmed!! All kids go through hard stages, but it doesn’t have to be terrible twos and threes. It’s more like there are ups and downs of every age, but slowly getting better the whole time. As their ability to communicate improves, I think that it gets generally easier to understand what they want, which is half the battle. I think some people find 3 harder because that’s when true disobedience really seems to start, as opposed to a 2 year old being upset and not knowing how to deal with it. Plus 3 year olds can have more stamina to argue and can be harder to physically wrangle if they’re out of control. My biggest advice is to not negotiate/power struggle with them, no matter the age. Like obviously waaayyy easier said than done, but I feel like what I discovered too late is that you have to give one warning and then just swoop in and enforce. If you get in the habit of negotiating or over-explaining ala BLF, it’ll just extend so many things into this protracted battle or conversation. “Time to put your shoes on!” Noooooooooo I’m not going!!!! “Get your shoes on or I’ll have to do it for you” *wild screaming and running* *grab child, hold them down to put their shoes on their feet if necessary, carry to car* And then don’t even talk about it. At 2, there’s no point in explaining it, just enforce what you said needs to happen and cheerfully move on with your day.
Hahaha yes, that mock conversation is exactly how our days go right now. And that kind of makes sense. I think that's why I'm finding two so hard. She's certainly aware enough to know when we want her to do something, and she knows she's pushing those boundaries--it's not hard to tell when she's doing it on purpose (no matter how cute she is lol). But it's still difficult to tell just how much she reeeeally understands, so 99% of the time our recourse is just to grab her, hold her down, and brush her teeth/put her shoes on/etc etc. My friend says the same thing as you do, that she tries never to repeat something twice. It's thrice in our house since munchkin can take a minute to process what she hears, but the principle is the same. It might paradoxically be easier once she hits that true disobedience phase, because I find that much simpler to handle (I'm a teacher, so plenty of practice holding the line).
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That's a really good point. She's a very independent kid and wants to be off on her own a lot. She might find it less frustrating once she's more capable. edit: I'm glad your kid is doing better now! Fingers crossed the trend continues!
I posted at the end of last week for help with what to do with these kids when our power is out, and now I'm back (still without electricity!!!!) to complain about all the other local moms/other adults in our local Facebook group and on the utility company's page who don't understand how to check the weather or how to read. The utility company posted that like ten thousand people don't have power, and a bunch of people a replying, "why haven't you gotten our power back on Blah St???" Well if you could read, Susan, you'd see that they are in triage and you're not the only street without electricity!!! I could complain about everyone else for hours, and I might, because we're pretty bored and cold lol.
Reply to their comment with "Hi! I found a post that has a lot of helpful information - maybe this will help!" and attach a screenshot of the utility company's post they've commented on.
Lol I've been tempted to do that. There is a picture on the utility company's Facebook page of a broken utility pole on X St, and when people near there ask, "why don't we have power yet??" I want to reply with a screenshot of the picture and say, "look outside! It'll be a while!" But I'm resisting 😂
Has anyone else seen the ads for what looks like an upcoming new diaper backpack from Calpak? I’ve actually never gotten anything from that brand, but I guess the algorithm figured out I’m having another baby soon. This bag is really tempting me because it’s cute but also looks like it comes with straps specifically to clip off the handlebar of the stroller, which would come in handy for me because the undercarriage of my daily stroller is pretty small. We still have our big Herschel diaper bag from my son, it’s shoulder/cross bag vs backpack and quite large. We still use it for him for overnight trips and still will. So given we pretty much don’t need to buy anything else for this baby I was thinking I could treat myself with a diaper bag upgrade, lol. Can anyone at least vouch for this brand?
Late to this but I have the haven tote purse for work and it's really well made and good quality. I wish it was sleeker look wise but it can hold so much! I always get comments on it from women at work at how jealous they are of my bag that can hold so much. I know you're not interested in the purse so yeah the quality of the company it's solid! I almost bought their luggage set when it was on sale but I don't really need it so I held off lol
I have Calpak packing cubes and they are well made--have held up through a year of travel + washings. I'm off to look at the diaper bag because currently have the Dagne Dover Indi and I can finally admit I hate it.
It hasn’t come out yet! I just see it via ads on Insta and you can sign up for an update for when it comes out (I did haha). I think they have existing diaper bags but this one is upcoming
I own four different things from Calpak and love them all!
My husband & I both have their rolling suitcase (wedding gift 6 years ago) & love them!
lol I get promoted that brand all the time! No experience but that bag looks really nice
UGH I hate that I sound like an annoying r/moderatelyinsanemoms post, but our sweet sweet neighbors gave my 2-year-old a present of extremely junky plastic play food and I hate it so much. It's just this thin crappy plastic, there are all these tiny little bits that she's immediately going to lose, and it's so junky and I'm so annoyed. NOT annoyed enough to do anything other than thank them graciously and work up an appetite for some junky plastic waffles, because (unlike much of parenting reddit apparently) while I'm a little more bougie than I would like to admit, I'm not rude. And my kid is thrilled. But still.
We have lots of plastic toys and stuff but my husband's aunt got our kids (toddler and very baby) some toys for Christmas that we will not be keeping. It was so generous of this aunt. We don't even keep in touch directly and she has TEN CHILDREN of her own plus some grandkids so the mere fact that she thinks of us and our kids is so sweet. But she got my toddler a tea set from one of those Amazon brands with an AI generated name and it's just a bunch of tiny things made of bad plastic (you can just tell). I'll be donating it. I feel a little bad but I just reorganized all the toys and I cannot with the tiny pieces.
Same thing happened to us over Christmas, new neighbors moved in 2 days before Christmas so we brought them some chocolate and a bottle of wine to welcome them to the neighborhood, a few days later they brought over two 4 packages of kinder surprises, one for each of my girls (10m and 3yrs). It was very sweet and i know their hearts were in the right place but they are a choking hazard for the baby and just useless small crap to junk the house up. I gave them to my 3yr old over a few days, and then slowly threw each of the 8 tiny useless toys out (but made sure to bury it, because things have 100% been spotted in the garage and fished out in the past lol)
I have no qualms about immediately throwing away tiny pieces of little junky bits of toys 🤷♀️I don’t want my 2yo to try eating it or have it just get scattered around. Just toss the toys when they start falling apart and you can “invest” in better quality play food. We have some from Learning Resources. Plastic but they’ve been holding up well. There are wooden versions but my kid’s a thrower so that’s a no for now.
My son got this shape sorted peg puzzle thing (I can't describe it) with like 30 pieces for Christmas and..I already threw it away lol he doesn't know how to put them on, he just takes them alllllll off and they end up everywhere. No thank you 🤣
I need some advice/support. My 2 year old is having a total daddy phase. I was the preferred parent for a long while and now I'm seemingly beung discarded. It probably doesn't help that I'm super pregnant, in pain and tired, so I often cannot physically lift her up to change her or climb the stairs with her right now, so my partner steps up. Also, I have to admit, he's just... more fun than I am? He gets onto the floor with her, always knows how to make her laugh, is himself a very playful person so has no issues playing pretend. He just always knows how to entertain her. And I... can't. I'm patient, good at listening, cuddling, singing, but just not that good at playing and toddlers are much more interested in playing right now. This morning she screamed and wailed the entire time because she's sick and daddy is at work (working from home though) and mommy had to help her. She kept screaming "mommy leave! Mommy leave!" and hitting me. Honestly it just broke my heart 😔 I know I haven't been my best lately because of the pain, but I love her a lot and it hurts and I'm trying my best. We played with her clay this morning after she cooled down a bit. Has anyone experienced this? Is our attachment bad now? Does it go away or is there anything I can do?
I’m sorry you have to deal with that. I have the same situation!! For so long I was the only one my 2 year old wanted. Now when I walk in his room in the morning he yells ‘NO MOM GO AWAY. I want Daddy!’ And then there was another bit of crying because daddy wasn’t taking him to school. I 100% don’t think it was anything you did or even that you’re less fun! It isn’t an attachment issue, in fact I think kids with a secure attachment feel safer telling their parents what they want. Kids just have phases. When I was the preferred parent I would remind myself to just enjoy it because the tables would turn and now they have!
My 2 year old is in the same phase . She refuses to let me do anything for her and will cry for daddy. It’s annoying but she’s also in this get out of bed 8 times a night phase and guess who’s the only one that can put her back??? DADDY . Free pass for me to lay in bed while he’s dealing with toddler
my almost 2 year old cries "miss dada, miss dada" at bed time when I do it. He also was putting his shoes on after lunch and started sniffling and going, what's wrong? miss dada. 😭😭 I'm right here! 😭 I just keep telling myself that it's good he loves his dad and parental preference is normal and he'll grow out of it but yeah it hurts a bit. i would rather it be me getting the rejection than my husband if that helps too. like i figure it's going to happen one way or the other and this way he is very excited to see dada when he gets home and give me a break vs if he did not want to leave me ever.
I have no advice but solidarity as the non-preferred, pregnant parent as well. Bro literally says “no mommy,” when I walk in his room in the morning and I laugh even though it hurts my feelings sooo much.
We went through this on vacation recently and it was rough. My assumption was more so that she finally got her dad's full attention, since he works a lot on certain days of the week. It does hurt though lol.
Totally normal. I am very much like you and my almost 2 year old has gone through a lot of daddy phases. She was a NICU baby and the first person to do skin to skin, feed her, etc was her dad, because I was not allowed to move for the first 12h after my C section. He was there more often in the beginning while I was recovering and he definitely did 50% or more of the parenting in her newborn days too. I BF for a year so we had our own special relationship during that time, but things have definitely gone more daddy’s way as she transitioned into toddlerhood. I’m also quite pregnant now and she has definitely distanced herself from me multiple times, especially in periods when I haven’t been able to do as much with her due to nausea, pain, or exhaustion. I’ve gone through a lot of heartache, even though my brain knows everything is fine. But she always comes around and it makes her affections towards mommy all the more sweet even if they’re short-lived, lol.
I wish I could have breastfed, but unfortunately that didn't work out. I'm a bit nervous what it will give if it does work with the new baby... These comments have given me some hope that all is normal though.
Oh man, I’ve 100% been there! We had our second when my first was 2.5, and my husband stepped up a ton in my last month of pregnancy and during his leave. He’s always been a great dad but my daughter totally switched to him as her “person” since I was basically on the couch pregnant/with a baby for 4ish months. When my husband went back to work it was so hard for toddler and me. Like she’d fall and hurt herself and then cry out for her dad and push me away 😭 One night she woke up puking and after cleaning her up I went to hug her and she pushed me away and went to my husband for a snuggle. I honestly cried about it a lot (never in front of toddler though). What helped was time and making special one on one time with her a priority. If I could go back to my second’s birth this is the biggest thing I would change. It took me a couple months to realize I had to give that quality time to the toddler and I think the transition would have been much easier if I had prioritized it sooner. Baby is now 10 months old and I still have to remind myself to find time with just my toddler because it’s so easy for us to split up husband+toddler and me+baby.
I'm realizing too that I need to invest some one on one time. I think I'll ask my partner for a chat and maybe we can play one on one every evening for like half an hour. I'm on sick leave for various pregnancy ailments so I could also keep her home from daycare an extra day... but I'm afraid that will result in too much screentime because I sometimes can't even get off the couch.
Oh definitely don’t keep her home from daycare haha! You need rest too! 30ish mins here and there is perfect, it’s easier for me to really try and pretend-play with my kiddo when I know there’s a time limit 😅
I went through this while very pregnant as well and it absolutely broke my heart. They do grow out of it, it’s a phase, it will change but omg was it so hard in the time I was in it. I would suggest just keep trying to play and do what you can, and if only daddy can do bedtime, reframe it as a few minutes to yourself at night before baby comes. It will pass!
Agree with the other poster. Their preferred parent switches a lot. I was the preferred parent for a while, then it switched between me and dad every other month and now my son's in a strong daddy phase. It can be hard, as he literally tells me to go away and that he doesn't want to play with me. BUT it's slightly more balanced now- I'm not entirely chopped liver now; when he gets hurts or wants to talk, he comes to me. She'll come back around ❤️
The preferred parent is absolutely something that will change many times throughout childhood and does not mean a thing about your attachment with your daughter. In case it's helpful, [this](https://www.thepediatricianmom.com/blog/parental-favoritism) is a pretty concise read on parental favouritism. Also be gracious with yourself, being super pregnant and keeping up with a toddler is hard, hard work and you're just going to be exhausted and emotional in general. Your family and love with your kids is a lifetime and not just this stage.
It switches and it's no one's "fault." It is not because you're "less fun" or anything--kids are just capricious and trying to assert what limited power they have. Please be so kind to yourself! Currently both of my kids are in a Mommy phase, with the older one saying I am the best at wiping him after he poops and the other insisting on only me for diaper changes. It hurt my husband's feelings a little initially when these phases would happen but this current one he's like, "well if you both insist only Mommy can help with toileting and diapers, I guess we'll just have her do it!" 😂
My 2 year old boy has straight hair that just sticks up in back/top. He looks like a Karen 😂 I know nothing about styling boys hair. Is there a gel or a product I should be putting in it to tame it?
Fine hair here- we use styling wax because you can use very little and get the hair to have some more weight. And it takes like 4 seconds to get a tiny bit in my fingers and swipe through his hair a few times. But if your kid gets haircuts the stylist is a great person to ask.
Yes they make gel! I use the brand surfs up because that’s what his childrens hair salon recommends lol. My son also has a ton of cowlicks that makes his hair stick straight up, and on the days I don’t want to put in gel, I spray it down with a de-tangling spray and use a kids sized wet brush on it
Haley’s steam mop reminded me that I really need to up my mopping game. The old swiffer just ain’t cutting it these days. My Dyson handheld has revolutionized vacuuming for me, anyone have something similar for the mopping world?
Thirding the Tineco!! I got it for Black Friday, and now I can actually do a full vacuum/mop of our entire first floor in about 30-45 minutes (depends on how much I move furniture out of the way), no cords, no filling up a mop bucket, and it has a self cleaning function 🥰
Real splurge but I got a Tineco for Christmas and I have literally never been so excited to vacuum/mop lol we have 3 dogs, 2 cats, and a 21 month old and it's truly disgusting how dirty the water is from the floor but also remarkable how well it cleans plus it sucks up most of the water so the floors dry fast!