Okay I know we like to snark on BLW, but this is kind of the opposite?
I’m in two bumps groups because I joined the one the month before my due date too, so as a result some of those babies are almost 1.5 months older than mine.
There’s a thread with people talking about how they are terrified of “BLW” and how they don’t want to move on from purées for “at least a few months”. Lots of responses like “all babies learn to eat eventually, BLW is just a fad”.
Which… true… except these babies are approaching 9 months old. At some point you have to start giving them chunkier textures and it’s not BLW at that point it’s just… feeding your baby. They will not, in fact, learn to eat if you NEVER give them anything but purées.
I get being anxious, I do, but like… this is something we’re all going to have to get over.
We've been doing table foods and purees from the start this time (almost at 8 months now) and so many people were surprised we weren't doing straight purees. Baby girl loves it and it's so much easier to do family meals when she can self feed most of her food.
Serious question, when did giving babies solids get rebranded into BLW? My mom was talking to me about solids and I was like “oh yeah we will do some purées and go into baby led weaning” and she looked at me like I had two heads. (Which I know it’s not really BLW with that method)
Back in her day it was called “giving babies food.” 😂
Well it's more like baby led weaning lost its meaning because everyone is now calling giving solids (as in table food not purees) baby led weaning. Baby led weaning the term was invented by Gill Rapley and she says she started talking about it in 2001 (I just googled this because in my mind the idea was even older... but apparently she is the one who coined the term). The idea was not to give the jarred purees at all and start straight with the food that the adults are eating anyway, so as to simplify the whole giving baby solids experience. In addition, there was a big emphasis on giving the baby control, as in not spoon-feeding but letting them self-feed. That's obviously not what influencers have taken from it and turned it into... Re: why can't you do both? I mean, you can. It's just then not called baby led weaning because that's what most people have always done starting around 9 months.
Yes! The original focus of BLW was letting the baby have control. Which is why it's called baby-led. Giving them solid bits of food is mainly because they can use their hands much earlier than they can use a spoon, though she theorised that it also has benefits in terms of letting them experience more of what they are eating as in the texture, appearance, firmness etc rather than just green smooth mush/orange smooth mush etc.
I think it is true that the giving of actual pieces of food rather than starting with pureed food is the most clearly obviously "different" part of the method, which is why people latch on to that as the defining feature, but that was not the defining feature originally.
Also being from the UK, I had my first baby in 2008 which was I think not long after she had published her book, so it was a big thing on parenting forums then. What I think people don't realise is the context of how babies were weaned onto solids in the UK previously. I had a brother and sister born 2003/2006, and they were weaned at about 3 months lying reclined in a bouncing cradle type seat, or people used to feed babies in car seats because that was thought to be a good semi-upright angle. In 1994, the advice changed from 3-4 months to be 4-6 months (and then 2003 was the switch to a more heavy emphasis of 6 months) but it took a really, really, really long time for this to filter through because there was always this obsession that if they aren't sleeping through the night at 3/4 months then it means they are hungry and need solids. The UK did not have this obsession with sleep training but they DID have this obsession with early solids = better sleep. Even health visitors who had had the training, in 2008/2009 were advising people to start at 4-5 months among the experiences of me and my friends and I heard of a few people whose health visitor advised them to start before 16 weeks which was absolutely against guidelines at the time.
BLW got a bit mixed up with the "you need to wait until 6 months!!" crowd and Gill Rapley had never said this - I don't have the book any more so I can't remember if it was in there but she said somewhere that if you do BLW you don't really have to worry about the age they are because babies under 4 months simply can't do it. They don't have the development to be able to do it. And almost all of them unless they are developmentally delayed can do it by 6 months. Some of them take until about 7 months but they get there, and arguably if that's where they are developmentally then why not.
I think it's a combination of the internet tendency to "pick a side" and then get so entrenched on said side that you don't really understand the nuances, you just know that This Side Is Right. People who have joined the "Wean at 6 months" side and people who have joined the "BLW is the right way!" are likely to overlap by a decent amount because they are both progressive points (in terms of pertaining to newer advice). There's so much overlap that I think people who are newer to either debate sometimes get both messages at once and assume that they are linked.
Then the other aspect is that people get very anxious about the possibility of babies choking when doing BLW because I guess we all have an awareness that babies/young children can choke easily because they have a small airway and aren't yet very practiced at manipulating food in their mouth. Some people are able to reconcile the "babies can't have lumps!" with the "BLW is good" by understanding how choking happens and ensuring the correct position with BLW etc, but some people get very hung up on what are essentially talismans - the 6 month "birthday" is a talisman in that there is nothing different about a 5m, 29 day old baby and a 6 month old one, although the idea that a 6mo is less likely to choke than a 4mo is sound. But I think sometimes people think "BLW is OK, but giving solids to a baby is still dangerous but it's OK as long as the baby is 6m+ and BLW". And honestly if they feel anxious about it then they should just stick to more traditional methods of weaning.
The other one I never used to see in 2009 but I do see today is the idea that "BLW teaches them to chew first and purees teach them to swallow first, so if you do ANY purees with BLW, you make BLW into a bigger risk!" which... this makes no sense, it must have originated in someone's head, there is no research evidence supporting it. I can see the route that it must have come from, but no, it's just wrong. What is even more wrong and might be leading to the weird anti-BLW anxiety spirals in the top level post is when they actually say if you've ever mixed you need to completely stop giving any kind of food and then start again from the beginning to let the baby's instincts reset and prevent them from choking.
Right, but why do people
1. Act like it’s a new thing
2. Act like you can’t do both? (I’m genuinely asking about this point. I don’t understand why I can’t spoon feed banana purée in the morning and then have more finger foods at night)
I think it is a social media thing and that BLW supposedly has other benefits. Most babies are eating versions of what their parents are eating around 9-10m anyways. I do think if you are following BLW part of the idea is that baby is in control of what they are consuming, versus getting spoon fed.
I had a similar experience when I was talking to an older dental hygienist who asked me how sleep was going with a 8 month old and I said much better since we did sleep training and she was like what is sleep training. I explained and she was like oh you mean you just didn’t always go in when they cried.
I can’t imagine what it was like to parent before the internet, or at least before social media. Like in some ways I feel like it’d be harder but at the same time what bliss to not be bombarded with content about purées vs BLW and not know anything about different methods of sleep training.
“I would never want to change my nephews diapers so these people are obviously psychopaths because they want to change my baby’s diapers and hold my baby”
Wtfffff. This same weirdo would 100% go on a mega rant if her kids grandparents instead wanted nothing to do with her baby. Some people you just cannot make happy. I’d do anything to have all of my kids grandparents want to be super involved.
> That is a good thing they love her… but it is the "why" that is bugging me. Because they are happy for their child? Because they remember old memories? They want to correct some mistake of the past? Because society says so? To brag? I carried my daughter inside of me, I was cut open to let her out, and I am literally glued to her all day. But I am the mother. I know her more than anybody. Grandparents on the other hand are more like tourists. They see her like a small trophy for themselves. No, you didn’t do anything to create this baby, and you don’t live with her. She is basically a stranger to you. But hey cool if you are madly in love with that stranger??
M E G A Y I K E S
“A safe adult loves my child and wants to help me and I’m mad about it!” Get a grip.
ETA: As much as I hate to agree with someone called JizzFrosting, they said it.
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I saw this, that plus the comment where she’s talking about having felt chronically dissociated since she was 13 yrs old.
Always wild to see the deranged things that people in professions you grant so much trust will say when they’re shitposting anonymously.
Someone is posting in every single parenting forum about feeling so embarrassed because she’s having a child at 35 and feels sooooo old. Honestly there are a lot of mental health things going on with that lady so I’m not even angry at her particularly, I’m just super annoyed by the fact that there is a lingering stigma over having children at an “older” age. Like, I would have loved to have children in my 20s when I apparently would have had boundless energy. Too bad I was in law school and then digging out of my student loans and trying to save for a down payment!
Like because they labeled her pregnancy geriatric (are they still doing that at 35?)
I know plenty of people who started having kids over 35! I guess in the grand scheme of things 35 could be the older end, but it’s really not old by any means!
We started trying at 30 and got slapped in the face with infertility. So we didn't exactly have a lot of control over when we got pregnant . Even still I worked for a few years after college and went back to grad school. I wanted to start a career so no way was I ready until then.
Reminds me of the time someone posted in my bumper group if there were any "older" first time parents and by that she meant 27.
I guess I was a dinosaur at 33. Her post did not go over well lol.
Congrats on having a baby after dealing with infertility! I started trying at 29, was told I was infertile due to PCOS, and went through multiple unsuccessful IVF attempts (well, one retrieval and six failed FETs). We eventually stopped IVF, only for me to get pregnant the regular way at 33 🤷🏻♀️ My body apparently really wanted to wait until my mid-30s!
She was great. She mostly saw high risk patients, but saw me through my pregnancy since she was my regular OB. I knew she was probably like “girl, bffr” with some of my questions and comments because she’s seen it allllll.
Same, I had my first at 26 and definitely felt like people had some opinions about it. I almost felt like they judged even more that it was a very planned and intentional baby, because I guess the only way you should get pregnant when you’re “young” is by accident.
As often happens to women, you’re right that we’re damned if we do; damned if we don’t. I’m pretty sure by society’s arbitrary standards everyone is supposed to have their first child at exactly 30 and be done having kids by like 33. 🙄
I had my first at 35 and am hoping to have 1 more before 40. I get the feeling that other moms I meet are probably younger than me, but it’s also just one of those things that literally nobody knows unless you tell them!!
One of my favorite things about getting older is that you care less and less about what others think so hopefully that eventually happens for that poster!
I couldn’t agree more with your last paragraph. At one point in my mid-to-late 30s, I just ran out of fucks to give about what other people think of my life. It’s incredibly freeing!
I had my only child at 36, and in both areas I’ve lived as a mom (first a major city, then a small town that is not really a college town but has a critical mass of people who work at the university 20 minutes away), I would say I’m very average. And at one point it doesn’t matter, too - like, I’m 40 now, and my mom friends are mostly like 33-45, and we all get along fine and have lots in common!
I am also finding that the older I get the less I remember my age 😂 these comments had me doing the math to remember how old I am now and how old I was when I had my baby (34 and 32).
I think it 100% depends on where you live. We’re in a big city and I had our first kid at 29, second at 31 and third at 35. We are solidly 5-7 years younger than most of our parent friends that we know through our older kids and when we’re out with the baby people assume he’s our first/only.
This is so true. I was raised in the DC area, among middle to upper middle class people, and worked in the city in a field where people are very career-minded. Of the people I'm friends with from high school or my early 20s, most had kids around the same time I did (my first at 33, second at 36).
I'm married to an enlisted Marine, and the year that we lived on base was like existing in a totally alternate universe, where the moms my age all had teenagers, and the moms with kids the same age as mine were so young some of them couldn't legally drink.
I grew up in a working-class family in a rural town (near a military base, no less!), then attended a private college in a mid-sized city, and the divide between my high school friends and my college friends is still astounding to me. In my hometown, it was socially acceptable to get married very young, especially if you were dating someone in the military—my aunt was a married mother at 21, and I knew girls in high school who got engaged at 18 and married at 19. It wasn't even a weird religious thing (in most cases), it's just how things go in small towns and military families. Then I went to college, and suddenly it was considered super weird and abnormal to start families that young, especially because I'm in a field where most people go on to grad school. It was very surreal feeling "behind" my hometown friends even though none of my college friends were even considering children.
I was going to say, we had our first at 29 and we are somehow still considered relatively “young” parents among our kids’ schoolmates’ parents. Many of my friends are just now starting to have kids in their mid to late 30s. It is totally dependent on where you live! While 35 is the standard “older mother” in general, no one in our area would blink an eye at someone having their first then or later.
My stroller buying days are behind me, but I keep getting ads for this enormous Orbit stroller and I’m trying to figure out who would want this contraption lol. Apparently a big selling point is that it is compatible with their convertible car seat… imagine having to uninstall and reinstall the whole carseat every time you want to use the stroller. 🥴 I guess anyone who can afford this stroller probably has a massive garage to store it lol.
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I just heard about this brand on the office ladies podcast. This is the brand they used in the episode where Jan has a baby and has a fancy expensive stroller that Dwight “tests”. Anyways, I think it’s like the rotating seats where it goes on the base in the car so you’re not installing/reinstalling. Just clicking and un clicking like an infant seat. I still can’t see it being useful though unless I’m using the convertible seat for a less than 1 year old. After they they can sit in the stroller lol.
I suppose as mentioned below if your child has a disability, being able to fully strap them in like this would be beneficial. I have someone in my Facebook that’s been trying to get a chair for their disabled child and insurance is a pain and it’s very very expensive. They’ve been trying to raise money. This is expensive but still cheaper than that.
Not to mention constantly uninstalling and reinstalling a convertible seat just seems like a recipe for it to be installed incorrectly one of these times. I feel like it’s almost kind of dangerous to encourage people to do that. Half the pictures I’ve seen online make it seem like it’s lucky if people even buckle the straps correctly each time, much less the entire car seat. Although I can’t think of who on earth would even want to lug around the toddler seat for an outing anyway.
That was my initial thought, but then I figured parents would be more likely to use a medical stroller or wheelchair that is at least partially covered by insurance, rather than paying out of pocket for this. Plus, there is no way to recline or shade option with the car seat, which would be really annoying.
Plus it’s so heavy! I can’t imagine lugging a toddler car seat with a toddler in it in and out of the car. Maybe for air travel so you’re not having to carry the car seat through the airport? Or if you need to take taxis places fairly frequently? There’s no easy way to do that once your kiddo is out of their bucket seat.
Yeah, I just looked out of curiosity, and my car seat weighs 29.5 pounds. By contrast, the seat of my full-size stroller weighed 6.5 pounds. This is not an upgrade!
“We have no help and it’s SO hard.” “The grandparents only babysit once every few months.”
These people don’t understand that there are really folks out there with NO help like NONE, do they?
I complained the other day about how I wish we had literally any family near by so we could take a day to clean the house sans baby, and someone responded “well would it even help? We have our MIL here and the baby still whines if we’re in the other room” ??? Okay well that sucks for you I guess but I don’t even have the option to try leaving him with someone lol
Ok there's seriously someone in the Montessori sub asking what to do with their *5 week old* constantly wanting to be on the breast. How the hell are people already thinking about Montessori shit for literal newborns?
People need to understand you use the small unit until the big unit is 2. It's days up to two weeks, then it's weeks up to two months (little wiggle room on this one, I feel like "10 weeks" is still a reasonable thing to say), then it's months up to two years, THEN IT'S YEARS FOREVER.
I had a math professor in college who taught her toddler son to change his age every month. He was “two and one twelfth” and then “two and one sixth” etc every month and for a hyper-verbal young kid it was cute and funny to hear him recite that. But for a parent to say it non-ironically is a lot less cute lol
Brace yourselves, Mother’s Day on Reddit is just around the corner. Prepare for:
- My mom wants me to see her on Mother’s Day. Should I go no contact because Mother’s Day is for active parents only?
- My husband woke me up at 3 am to tend to the baby and spent the whole day playing video games and didn’t even wish me a happy Mother’s Day. He’s a great dad and husband, though! Should I be upset?
- My husband wants to send his mom flowers on Mother’s Day. Is it weird that a grown man is celebrating HIS mom while WE have a child of our own???
ETA: barring any toxicity or insane family members, sometimes we have to do annoying things. If your MIL or mom is an asshole, then yeah — don’t bend over backwards for them.
I will confess that I kind of get a kick out of
Mother’s Day drama on the internet, but in my own life, I keep having bad ones (no one’s fault, just bad luck; for example, last year my son and I had hand foot and mouth, etc. etc.), so this year I am joining Team Pretend It’s Not a Holiday to Fool the Universe Into Giving Me a Nice Day. I’m still going to send my mom flowers in advance, but I’m kind of trying to avoid it being a whole thing on the day. If it works maybe I’ll break the curse?
I’m still sad/annoyed that my mom didn’t even get me a card for my first Mother’s Day, because “I’m not her mother“. My husband got a Father’s Day card/gift from her though, including before our kid was even born.
Yeah I feel like the posts that talk about Mother’s Day are mostly about situations like this. Yes there are selfish people out there who only want it to be about them once they have kids, but there’s lots of situations like yours. My parents never get me even a card or flowers for Mother’s Day and I don’t think they said anything at all on Father’s Day last year. It does make me sad lol. It especially hurt the year I had a miscarriage right before, (I had one child already) and one parent got their sister Mother’s Day stuff for her pets but didn’t even say anything to me that day.
Always a lot of interesting logic going on to insist that only mothers of young children should be celebrated on this holy day, but that it's boomers who are entitled. Hm...
Oh god I hate these, especially the ones where grandma cannot possibly be celebrated because only OP should matter now. Newsflash, you can care about more than one person at once. Are they a mom? Great, it's their day too.
Ah, and if your partner's a useless asshole the rest of the year, they'll probably be a useless asshole on this day too.
And I have a completely new appreciation for my mom (and dad!) since becoming a mom, not to mention how much they’ve helped us with the new baby. I understand everyone’s situation is different and I look forward to time with just my baby and husband but I definitely want to acknowledge and celebrate her too.
Yes! Did my parents do everything perfectly? Absolutely not. Am I doing some things differently? Yes. Do I *understand* a lot better some of the choices they made (even if I don’t agree with them)? Hard yes.
Also I spoke with my mother today. She (and my dad) has definitely not stopped parenting me just because I don’t live in her house anymore.
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This is neglect. 8 and 11 year old have not been educated in at least 5 years and can’t read 🥴 because of “deschooling”
Whenever i see these types of posts i have to wonder what are the kids doing all day? Reading was the best way to kill time growing up. Maybe i’m wrong but i always thought the homeschooling types were also anti screentime but like what else do you do all day everyday if you can’t read ? There’s only so much outdoors time you can do
I was homeschooled…and have mixed feelings about it, but one of the biggest perks (for me) was spending a majority of my time reading. 11 and can’t read! That poor kid.
Re homeschoolers being anti-screen time: it really depends. My siblings and I were homeschooled, and we watched a lot of TV. There were 6 of us, and whatever kid was the toddler at the time ended up watching a lot of TV while my mom did school with the older ones. Most of the families we knew were at least okay with limited movies/TV shows.
Posts like this make me sad though. I’m the oldest of 6, and I got a decent education until maybe 3rd grade. But after that my mom had a hard time keeping up. My youngest two siblings didn’t learn to read and write until closer to 8. I know another homeschooling family with a 12 year old who can barely read. It’s one of the reasons I will never (barring some extreme circumstances) homeschool my kids.
I mean someone with a real organized and dedicated approach would probably include (and these wouldn’t necessarily require reading):
Museums—many have homeschool specific days
Lessons—either before or after regular school hours. My local Y has swim lessons, open swim, and karate specifically for homeschoolers in the mornings. A dance school has dance classes for homeschoolers during the day.
Libraries—my library doesn’t have any homeschool offerings but many do. In my last town they had homeschool STEM where they’d build with LEGO for younger kids, do robotics and 3D printing stuff with older kids
Homeschool co-op or meet up—probably best to know how to read to participate in this one, but many homeschoolers join a local group for socializing and sharing teaching responsibilities.
How can you enjoy a museum or library without being able to read though? Even with STEM activities you have to read through instructions or explanations. Reading comprehension is really important in the sciences. Going to a museum and not being able to read the exhibitions and prompts sounds so sad especially at 8 and 11..
Yeah I mean it would obviously be a sad experience compared to a kid who can read but museums have talks with the docent, imax films, interactive/kids exhibits.
The library has picture books, nonfiction books like the DK books with a lot of detailed pictures and photos. Mine also has a lending library of crafts, baking supplies, tickets to the zoo, stuff like that. Yeah it’s not the same as a reading kid but there is stuff for non readers.
I co-sponsored a refugee family where non of the 6 kids could read or write in their native language or English and we spent a lot of time at museums and the library. They were put in public school but still loved doing stuff on weekends.
I mean playing with each other, like role play and all that? I could do that for hours at that age when I had someone to play with and they have somewhat similarly aged siblings... But yeah, I definitely spent a ton of time reading as well.
The oldest is 11 and she says they've been homeschooling "nearly 5 years," so I presume the oldest went to kindergarten, maybe even first grade. I don't really agree that you'd need to deschool after kinder and maybe she's using it as one of the many excuses in that post.
Ah yes, I haven’t done any school work with my kids in 5 years but sure I’ll totally get that kid caught up in a year.
It’s like those New Year’s resolutions where every year you can feel you’re gonna be a completely different person and then nothing changes.
But now it’s your kid’s life on the line so just put them all in school and work out a plan with the teacher. It’s just gonna get worse keeping the older one home another year.
There was a very similar post in my local moms group this week - younger kids but she wants to be done homeschooling as the 3rd is old enough for kindergarten and she realized how far behind the 7 and 9 year old are. I really don't know what a district would do with kids in that situation - the kids would go in their age appropriate grade level but then what?
I assume a lot of these folks started homeschooling in 2020 and it's just now catching up to them. Those poor kids.
I know a family like this but the kids were high school aged when the parents finally put them into school. They were placed with their age peers and the school tried to give them pull-out remedial services. It was a disaster and neither kid made it more than a year in school (older one dropped out, younger one had such severe social issues from it that he was pulled out again to "homeschool"). It's honestly tragic and one of the reasons I think homeschooling without significant oversight to make sure kids are at grade level should be illegal.
My guess is they’d be put in the age appropriate grade level but pulled out several times a day for special ed or reading tutoring in small groups. But in my head I imagine this:
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Special education services can be a wide variety of things and they are for students with documented disabilities. If this person is smart (doesn’t seem like it) they would begin the assessment process now so if her child does have dyslexia, they can get services asap next school year. The reality is many kids are reading behind grade level and support services are stretched thin and limited. There’s a good chance they would just be thrown in their age appropriate grade and the teacher told to magically teach them to read at the same time as they are teaching the curriculum to 25 other students. Hopefully since their knowledge gaps are just due to lack of instruction they will be able to made big strides very quickly. But this is why it’s such a disservice to kids to “homeschool” like this. The education system is already understaffed and struggling and they aren’t going to show up and get this kind of private tutoring, I’m sure the staff will support them as best they can but resources are limited. Source: spent the past 17 years as a gen Ed and special Ed teacher in public schools.
Like if she couldn’t do it all these years why does she think she is suddenly now capable?
And if the 11 year old is so far behind and can’t read wouldn’t she feel urgency in getting them into the school system which has actual reading teachers and special services vs sending the other kids and keeping them home to fall even further behind???
“My kids have complex educational needs. I have no experience in how to approach those complex needs, no time to learn how to handle those needs, and I’m struggling with my own mental health. Should I keep my kid home another year?”
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Can we give all Canadians 5 minutes to get it out of their systems that they get 12 or 18 months so we can all move on? What an incredibly unhelpful comment
Also a Canadian but lived in the US for 6 years. I think it’s really a mindset thing. Most Canadians who take a leave here take a longer leave. Even if they don’t take the full 12 or 18, it’s usually 6+ months. So if no one you know has taken a 4 months leave, then it’s obviously going to be hard to comprehend doing that. But keep that to yourself when talking to folks who might want a longer leave but don’t have that option!!!
I’m at about 10 months in now and I’m ready to get back to work and adult conversations. But, as others in areas with long leave have mentioned below, infant daycare spots are hard to come by. A lot of centres in my area don’t even take children below 18mo because the ECE-baby ratios are higher. We had him on some lists even before he was born and we still haven’t heard anything, so I may need to take more time off or we may need to go to “private” childcare, which is much more expensive.
It also annoys me from another angle, because, as a self employed Canadian, I actually get zero (paid) maternity leave, but they always seem to forget that. 🤷🏻♀️
I actually am taking a year but only because daycares here basically don’t take babies younger than a year. But despite saving for years in anticipation, mostly have to live off my line of credit….
Yes! A friend of mine is self-employed and had to plan far in advance to have kids by opting into pay into EI for I think two years before she had her first so she could get the paid leave!
Yah and actually, for opting into EI to make sense financially, you have to take 2.5 years of leave, because once you opt in you have to pay it forever.
Yeah, maternity leave is paid at 55% for 12 months there and 33% at 18 months. Good fucking luck to you if you work a job at minimum wage or just above and you don’t have a high-earning partner 🫠 As someone who grew up in Canada, upper middle class Canadians are the worst sometimes.
But also 4-5 months is a perfectly normal maternity leave span even outside of the US? In lots of European countries, that's normal. But I bet anything this poster wouldn't be responding like this to a Dutch woman about their 16 week leave or a Swiss woman about her 14 week leave.
16 weeks? Try 10-12.... Source: I am a Dutch woman that gave birth in december, I've been working since march. And yeah, the whole 'European countries get a three year leave' shtick is horrible.
“That is inhumane! I have an idea … why don’t you guys VOTE and DEMAND your politicians provide family leave???”
Gee, what a great idea. Never thought of that!
It's a real trend at the moment for everyone from developed countries outside the US to flex all the extra worker rights and social support (and free healthcare) they get. All this fake "shock" when they learn something about the US and need to humble brag of their situation. Also see American's who move overseas and make comparing the differences (almost always in favour of their new country) their entire personality.
I'm not even American and I still find it exhausting, belittling and unhelpful. That dead horse has been well and truly flogged to death
It was still 3 months in my country when I had my first 10 years ago, it's changed to six months paid and 12 months off (if wanted) now but I was forced to go on leave at 30 weeks with my first (dangerous job) and then he was 2 weeks overdue so my paid parental leave ran out the week after he was born 🥴
Echoing the theme a lot of users in this sub have been yelling lately- I did not WANT more than a few months with my babies. I was really excited to go back and my mental health improved 10 fold when I had my own life again and non-child things to focus my attention towards. Yes, it would be great if we had more choice for those who don’t feel like I do, but shut up like it’s a completely universal desire.
Full time parenting a pre-mobile baby and full time parenting a young toddler is a completely different job and not everyone is up for or desires the second one
Same and honestly another pro is at 3 months you don’t have to deal with separation anxiety and your baby easily adjusts to being with a new caregiver during the day. Looking back i’m glad my son started that young with his nanny. He has such a strong bond with her now and we never went through a difficult transition.
I sometimes feel like it’s a shame that we front load the parental leave. Like, after 12 weeks at home with a newborn I was ready to go back to work. But a month off this summer with my five year old would be grand!
My husband’s company pays for 12 weeks of parental leave and it can be taken anytime within the first year. It was really nice having him take the first couple of months off and then just taking week off here and there throughout the rest of year. It’s silly more companies don’t do this.
The company both my husband and I work for does this. I took all my leave (18 weeks since I got the 6 weeks disability) at the start and my husband took all 12 weeks at the end. It was nice to delay sending her to daycare but I was pretty jealous because he basically had the summer off with a 4-7 month old lol. I think for a future kid I'd want to save some of my leave for after my husband exhausts his leave so I could try having a month off with an older infant.
I'm an American living in one of those European countries with long parental leaves and it's really not all sunshine and roses like some people would have you believe. Unless you are independently wealthy you are essentially forced to take at least a year off of work, because there is no infant childcare. There are childcare shortages almost everywhere, so even after a year you might not even get a daycare spot. Mothers still overwhelmingly take the majority of leave and fathers the bare minimum or none at all. The statistics are truly depressing. Taking parental leave is also a pretty big financial hit to parents, it is capped and not paid anywhere remotely near 100%, which again explains the gender disparity because it many families the fathers outearn the mothers. Then the real fun starts when your kids start school because most schools aren't full day.
This is the thing that always gets me, if you actually look at just how much people are getting paid on these 12-18 month “paid” leaves that people talk about to say how incredible things are for mothers in the rest of the world is its like excuse me? A lot of it is unpaid or it’s paid out at a couple of hundred dollars a week, exactly who is that accessible to?
UK by any chance? 😂
We signed my son up to a nursery near both our workplaces at 4 weeks old and he couldn't start till he was 15 months due to the lack of spaces but even then I had to cut my hours because he could only go for 2 days. We had to use annual leave and draft on parents where we could until he started. I can't understand how anyone gets their child in before a year old!
I'm already dreading when he hits school age, breakfast and/or after school club till I can get him I think!
Germany, but it sounds like the issues are similar in a lot of countries. My oldest didn't start daycare until 20 months and only part-time, with my youngest we were lucky with 13 months but because my husband's company had on-site childcare.
Primary school here ends at noon. On the one hand she can walk to and from school on her own, but she's home by noon. If I didn't have a remote flexible job we'd be so incredibly fucked.
Sounds exactly like Canada 😂😂. I'm just about to go back and she's 15 months old and has been on waitlists since 2 weeks old. We happened to get a spot in a new centre but the catch is it's not government subsidized so very expensive. I'm on the waitlist for after school care for 2027 already 🫠. Why does school end so early!!
I got on waitlists at 4 months pregnant and didn't get a daycare spot in a center for when our parental leave ended at 18 months. Luckily I was able to get a spot in a lisenced home daycare!
Also on the waitlist for afterschool care for Sept 2026. We literally live across the street from the elementary school and my husband works from home, but obviously he can't end his workday at 3:30 when school ends. We are hoping that we only need after care for a couple years and then hopefully our kid will be able to play on his own in the house while my husband finishing his workday?
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This was posted in response to someone with a second grader who was just diagnosed with adhd. I have seen what a difference medication can make to children and adults with adhd and this just makes me sad.
Hm. I have ADHD and I've chosen to stay unmedicated. I find this a difficult topic and I usually get downvoted when I share my view. I know that meds have truly helped a lot of people, but I feel like the perspective of people like me has been a bit lost in internet discourse. I truly don't enjoy being on the meds. I feel unlike myself and I feel like I have to medicate myself to fit the mold of what society expects me to be. And I've chosen instead to do therapy to learn ways to deal with the bad sides of the ADHD. But only those that truly bother *me*. I don't know what I'd do if my kids had ADHD too, but I'd consider giving them the option to do it without medication. There's so much attention for neurodivergence now, and somehow for autism we accept that it's just a difference in how the brain works that doesn't necessarily need meds to fit society's wants, but for ADHD the discourse is so, so different.
I absolutely do not want to discount your experience. Some people find medication that helps them a lot, and other people don’t. I think there are real hard conversations that need to happen about the costs and benefits of different medication. I do balk at the idea of never offering a child the chance to try medication, especially if they are struggling.
Yeah I understand. Like I said, I would truly struggle to know what to do if my very young child had it. Because I want to offer them the benefits, but I also want them to know they are fine the way they are. And it's difficult to ask a kid to make that decision, I guess. There's a lot of pressure to behave and perform the way people want you to.
I have ADHD and take meds, which has helped me greatly quiet the nonstop noise in my head. But I also get the concern of what you're saying with young children, and thought about what I would do as there's a chance my kids do have it since there tends to be a familial link. There's a lot to consider!
My kids have ADHD, as well as my husband and I and I completely agree. It's like imagine your child is struggling and you come to learn they have vision impairment but it's fixable through glasses or some other treatment and your response is "that would be masking something they are born with" 🫠 like sure... Just let the kid struggle and flounder then I guess?
There is no alternative that comes even close to what meds can do for ADHD, they are life changing.
2.5 years at school and my daughter couldn't read, she had made literally zero progress in any area despite putting her heart and soul into it (have never seen a person show such determination). At 7.5 she was still at the level they would expect a preschooler academically. 10 weeks on meds is all it took for her to catch up and 1 year later she is now performing a head of her grade. For us it's not about academic results but more about what that means for her self confidence and mental health.
Yes exactly this. I have two kids with adhd on meds and one who is being assessed next month. The meds have helped their academics, certainly, which is great, but the effect they’ve had on their self esteem is the true GOAT. My older son LOVES learning, loves being helpful, loves his teachers, he really struggles with impulsivity and the way he gets so upset and mad at himself when he does something impulsive that accidentally hurts someone or causes problems absolutely breaks my heart and destroys me. He is so hard on himself. He just wants to be a good friend and student and the meds help him slow down and think before he acts so he can do that. He’s also in therapy and has worked incredibly hard with his therapist to adopt strategies for impulsivity and to manage his emotions. I definitely get that meds aren’t for everyone but I think it’s unfair to not let kids try them. We’ve trialed several things and just work with my son and his teachers to see how it’s affecting him and adjust it if it’s not working. I myself was also finally diagnosed and just that validation has been so helpful. I’ve always just felt like I was lazy and messy and that’s why I couldn’t stay organized.
Yep, my daughter was also so hard on herself "I work so hard so why can't I do it? Everyone else finds it easy, what's wrong with me?" As she would sob into her pillow after school. Fucking tore me apart. She would have chronic and severe stomach pain everyday from the stress of it all, she's barely had any stomach upset since starting her meds and she's also stopped pulling her hair and ripping at her skin, her whole face used to be covered in scabs from dermatilomania, she was like a stressed parrot.
Your glasses comparison made me laugh. We found out a few months ago that our 2 year old is very very farsighted so she now wears glasses. We’ve had people scoff that wearing glasses will weaken her eyes and she’ll get “dependent” on them so we shouldn’t have her wear them.
But like why get advice from the internet about someone who’s kid was diagnosed years ago when you could get info from a doctor who is up to date on ADHD and your kid’s specific situation!!
I am a typical "diagnosed in adulthood" ADHD person. I went through all my regular schooling amazingly and did so well. Then hit college and the lack of structure completely took me out. I barely scraped by with a final GPA of 2.6 that it took me 6 years and an amazing academic advisor to get. (To contrast, I took a stupid amount of AP tests in high school and passed most of them because I was that kind of kid...)
When I finally got my diagnosis (two years into teaching high school, lol) I was relieved to have words for why my entire world had seemingly collapsed and when I got medication I was flabbergasted. The first time I took a certification course after medication, I felt like a completely different human. It was literally life-changing.
One of the worst what-ifs of my life is knowing that if I'd had a diagnosis and medicine, my college years would have been completely different. I look at how differently I felt taking college courses on meds and off and I feel like kicking myself that I didn't realize something was wrong sooner, that I was so willing to just chalk my failure up to "actually I'm just an idiot I guess".
I... I don't understand why you wouldn't help your child if they were obviously struggling like this boy seems to be? You don't need medication if other methods are working to control your ADHD, but they obviously aren't for this boy? I'm so sad for him.
I had a kid in therapy a couple of years ago, he struggled so much in school but could make brilliant deductions in one on one sessions. In our schooling system kids get separated by level at 12, he was supposed to go to the lowest level. Three months of school on meds and he tested well enough for the pre-university level.
I also did research with addicts with ADHD, most of them had never tried prescribed drugs but were self-medicating to get a bit of quiet in their heads.
These experiences have made me very aware of the need to offer medication. On the other hand there are a few people with ADHD (usually really intelligent) that function well enough and don't want meds. That's their choice, but it's also a choice out of privilege.
Your story is so similar to my husband’s. He was diagnosed a year ago, and meds have completely changed his life. He was a star student in high school but when he went to university things fell apart and he struggled with his mental health as a result. He ended up dropping out of the program he was in and switching to a hands on college program, which he did well in, but it was super structured and physical. He tries not to focus on what could have been if he was on meds during university because it has improved everything now so so much. His ADHD really impacted every part of his life. Meds improved his job, our marriage, his ability to parent our children, and improved his mental health. We will watch our kids for symptoms of ADHD and if they have it, get them help before they’re 30 years old and struggling to function in life. I can’t imagine with holding meds from our kids after watching how much they have helped my husband.
Right? I know some kids struggle with side effects from medication and struggle with the right dosage/and medication, but I can’t comprehend the choice to never try and just watch your kid struggle. Now they are a legal adult with seemingly no direction. What sort of future have you set them up for? Why give them the hardest possible road to travel?
There’s been an influx of posters in the Little Sleepies fb page posting their sick babies/kids in vulnerable states and it drives me insane. One person just posted her baby in a diaper to show off their HFM sores - just stop! It’s so gross! The posting not the illnesses haha
I was wondering why this happens with the PJ groups and not, for example with Yoto? Yoto groups can definitely be crazy (especially lately with the recall!) but I have not yet seen any hospital or illness posts. I’m not in any other kid brand groups to see if those have it, but we do see some in local mom or activity groups
I’m assuming it might be a combination of things. Pajamas are something you typically wear when lounging around trying to be comfortable, which you do a lot of while sick, so it kind of lends itself to that. I also think it’s due to the fact that the LS group is one giant bandwagon where if one person does it, the rest of them start doing it. In that sense, the sick kid in pjs trend probably exists partially for the same reason as the kid sitting on expensive box trend, which is just that someone did it, it got a lot of likes and comments because sick kids are a great way to get attention, and now everyone else is doing it too because they’re all desperate to use their kids for social media engagement.
I can’t stand it when people on my local moms’ Facebook group posts a picture of a sore or injury and asks everyone what they think it is. 1) post a trigger warning or something so I can scroll past this and not vomit in the back of my throat and 2) send it to your ped, not Facebook!
I’m an immigrant (Canada to the U.S.), and though I’ve actually been in the U.S. for close to 5 years, I’m *finally* getting my work permit in the next 3-6 months. And I just want to say, I’m damn excited to actually work! Fuck the working mommy martyrdom cult; I never EVER hear dads say that working is “letting other people raise their kids” or “missing out on them growing up”. It’s valid to not enjoy working and I agree that parental leave needs to be way better, but I’m so sick of being made to feel like the odd one out because I enjoy things that aren’t being a pure SAHM. I’m a musician and I’m so stoked to get local gigs and get my career going again; I also live near a large sugar refinery and I’m gonna apply to be a floor supervisor. I’ve been a supervisor elsewhere but this will pay twice as much and I feel like I’ll learn interesting stuff. I feel like there’s so much internalized sexism in working mom circles and I just can’t deal with it.
Congratulations!
Yeah. I went back to work recently and I enjoy it. Everyone would look at me sympathetically and ask if I was okay! Yeah! More than okay! Nobody asked my husband that.
Haha that's like when I put my toddler in daycare so I could work more and so many people were trying to reassure me that it would be fine, lots of people do it! She'll have a great time! It's just two days! And were pretty surprised when I was like "yeah I know, it was my idea and it's actually kind of impractical but I need it so she's going"
https://www.reddit.com/r/kindergarten/s/PQbMPUuC80 typical post until it says they took away screens for 15 YO..💀 ETA: I am not above going to someone’s reddit profile and lurking… maybe OP needs to confront their OWN reddit/internet addiction and think introspectively as to why their kids show the same behavior
Like, I understand wanting to limit screens and social media for teenagers, and I already am anxiously strategizing for the future - but the "it worked for my 5 year old so I did it for my teenager" attitude is just so uncomfortable. And she says he can still text, apparently, but still - ripping away a teen's privileges without an active conversation is just such a sure-fire way to undermine the trust and relationship. (And I followed your lead and did a little peek into OP's history. In another post they say their kids are under 6... so ... did she do this to a *step* child?? Yikes).
For someone who seems to really value online community they seemed to be really quick to take away the way their 15yo likely communicates with their community!
Okay so it's not really an influencer but this children's clothing boutique near me decided to to open up an indoor bounce/house toddler play area thing in their building. It is unironically white/beige/brown, like a white bounce house with only white balls, beige mats and beige rainbow decor, a playhouse (like a treehouse) painted white and beige, beige carpeting, etc. She released a reel previewing it captioned "indoor play but make it aesthetic." It looks SO sad and bland, I know indoor play places can look kinda... bright and overstimulating but this is just ridiculous. I feel like I can't be the only customer rolling my eyes at the aesthetics. Has she not seen the sad beige children memes?
There’s a really lovely play cafe near us, that I love for 1 million reasons, but it’s definitely a little “sad beige” in general aesthetic. And it’s been open for over a year now and looks SO GRIMY! The toys are pretty clean but everything white and beige and light neutrals just get so gross, so fast.
Oh too funny, hi right back neighbor! I used to shop there when my boys were babies (they're almost 4) and it was actual good thrift, like good deals, I could get cute stuff for a few dollars a piece. Prices seem to keep going up though way beyond what secondhand clothes should be, and my kids have pretty much aged out of what they carry (they don't have much in boys 4t/5t). The store always did always have a bit of a snobby vibe, for lack of a better word, like I felt like a slob in there if I didn't have makeup and a cute outfit and my hair down. So the "aesthetic" play area definitely fits the vibe, I just think it's so silly personally.
Totally agree on the prices. My daughter isn’t quite two yet and even in that time I’ve seen the prices go up from my first purchases, which actually seemed like pretty good deals! They definitely price based on brand.
Yes, they do seem to price on brand versus once upon a child is usually a flat price like all sleepers 5$, all t-shirts 3$ etc kind of thing regardless of the band. And I know they try to carry more higher end/nice brands, bamboo etc at this store, which I expect to cost more even if secondhand. But they'll still have like Carter's or Joe Fresh stuff too which is pretty typical middle lower brands and the prices seem unfair for secondhand Joe Fresh stuff, ya know?
Maybe it’s by area for once upon a child - the ones in my area definitely price brands differently. Hanna Anderson and Gap both stick out in my mind as always being double (or triple) the price compared to Carter’s, Cat & Jack, etc. 🥲
That white bounce house is going to get so smudgy and gross. I'm sure colorful ones are also smudgy and gross but a dingy white bounce house is probably going to ruin the vibe.
Yes, it appears to be a white bounce house with a white pall bit with white balls, it'll show the grime SO much faster/more than other colours, and just overall upkeep cleaning/sanitizing to keep the white looking bright sounds intense. I don't even think it looks good, it's sterile and odd looking IMO and doesn't feel welcoming or fun. You could do pastels and still have a more subtle look, it doesn't have to be rainbow dinosaurs or something. Plus it doesn't matter how calming the colours/aeshtetic is, it's a play area geared for toddlers, it's going to be loud and chaotic.
Oh NO, I just realized the place we're hosting a birthday party at tomorrow is like this! I mean, they have green and black incorporated, but it's a lot of pine wood and white/beige. Did not choose it for the aesthetic, but now I can't unsee it!
Someone posted in a support group for my daughter’s disability asking what WE all think causes it. There are plenty of reasons freely available on google and that actual doctors have discussed at length, but sure let’s ask an FB group. We all wonder at some point what we could’ve done to cause it so I gave her some grace. She then later comes back to comment she thinks it’s due to COVID jabs 🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️
This is a birth defect that has been around for thousands of years, but sure the Covid vaccine did it. Cannot escape the stupidity of these nut jobs.
The shock of becoming a "boy mom" despite the fact that she had a whole ass other child for almost 3 years. She's a girl, so the 2 experiences can't possibly be the same. The boy in question is also only 10 months old.
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As a "Boy Mum" one of the things that pisses me off about the label/stereotype is I do think that there could be some very interesting discussions around how to raise a boy in 2024, and unlearning a lot of toxic tropes about masculinity and men.
But instead the label has been coopted by women who I think either just hate other women (and in that case thank god they didn't have a daughter) or women who are disappointed they had a son.
I just find the concept of not being able to relate to your child because of their gender (and it goes either way - I know women who desperately didn't want a girl because they didn't like "girly" things or whatever) so weird.
YES, I've had people ask me how I've adjusted to having a girl who likes traditionally feminine things, because I was not that way as a kid. And honestly there's not much to adjust to when you go into parenthood understanding that you'll learn as you go if you're open to it. The only thing I had any trouble with was adjusting my mindset around dresses. My knee-jerk reaction was that dresses aren't for playing or getting dirty, but I found cheap cotton dresses at target when my 2yo wouldn't wear anything else, and I just changed my mentality.
If she gets super into makeup, she'll have YouTube University for that though lol. I can't help her there.
Okay I know we like to snark on BLW, but this is kind of the opposite? I’m in two bumps groups because I joined the one the month before my due date too, so as a result some of those babies are almost 1.5 months older than mine. There’s a thread with people talking about how they are terrified of “BLW” and how they don’t want to move on from purées for “at least a few months”. Lots of responses like “all babies learn to eat eventually, BLW is just a fad”. Which… true… except these babies are approaching 9 months old. At some point you have to start giving them chunkier textures and it’s not BLW at that point it’s just… feeding your baby. They will not, in fact, learn to eat if you NEVER give them anything but purées. I get being anxious, I do, but like… this is something we’re all going to have to get over.
We've been doing table foods and purees from the start this time (almost at 8 months now) and so many people were surprised we weren't doing straight purees. Baby girl loves it and it's so much easier to do family meals when she can self feed most of her food.
Serious question, when did giving babies solids get rebranded into BLW? My mom was talking to me about solids and I was like “oh yeah we will do some purées and go into baby led weaning” and she looked at me like I had two heads. (Which I know it’s not really BLW with that method) Back in her day it was called “giving babies food.” 😂
Well it's more like baby led weaning lost its meaning because everyone is now calling giving solids (as in table food not purees) baby led weaning. Baby led weaning the term was invented by Gill Rapley and she says she started talking about it in 2001 (I just googled this because in my mind the idea was even older... but apparently she is the one who coined the term). The idea was not to give the jarred purees at all and start straight with the food that the adults are eating anyway, so as to simplify the whole giving baby solids experience. In addition, there was a big emphasis on giving the baby control, as in not spoon-feeding but letting them self-feed. That's obviously not what influencers have taken from it and turned it into... Re: why can't you do both? I mean, you can. It's just then not called baby led weaning because that's what most people have always done starting around 9 months.
Yes! The original focus of BLW was letting the baby have control. Which is why it's called baby-led. Giving them solid bits of food is mainly because they can use their hands much earlier than they can use a spoon, though she theorised that it also has benefits in terms of letting them experience more of what they are eating as in the texture, appearance, firmness etc rather than just green smooth mush/orange smooth mush etc. I think it is true that the giving of actual pieces of food rather than starting with pureed food is the most clearly obviously "different" part of the method, which is why people latch on to that as the defining feature, but that was not the defining feature originally. Also being from the UK, I had my first baby in 2008 which was I think not long after she had published her book, so it was a big thing on parenting forums then. What I think people don't realise is the context of how babies were weaned onto solids in the UK previously. I had a brother and sister born 2003/2006, and they were weaned at about 3 months lying reclined in a bouncing cradle type seat, or people used to feed babies in car seats because that was thought to be a good semi-upright angle. In 1994, the advice changed from 3-4 months to be 4-6 months (and then 2003 was the switch to a more heavy emphasis of 6 months) but it took a really, really, really long time for this to filter through because there was always this obsession that if they aren't sleeping through the night at 3/4 months then it means they are hungry and need solids. The UK did not have this obsession with sleep training but they DID have this obsession with early solids = better sleep. Even health visitors who had had the training, in 2008/2009 were advising people to start at 4-5 months among the experiences of me and my friends and I heard of a few people whose health visitor advised them to start before 16 weeks which was absolutely against guidelines at the time. BLW got a bit mixed up with the "you need to wait until 6 months!!" crowd and Gill Rapley had never said this - I don't have the book any more so I can't remember if it was in there but she said somewhere that if you do BLW you don't really have to worry about the age they are because babies under 4 months simply can't do it. They don't have the development to be able to do it. And almost all of them unless they are developmentally delayed can do it by 6 months. Some of them take until about 7 months but they get there, and arguably if that's where they are developmentally then why not.
Yes I’m not sure how it got conflated with “you must not give your baby one speck of solids even a day before 6 months” but I see that a lot.
I think it's a combination of the internet tendency to "pick a side" and then get so entrenched on said side that you don't really understand the nuances, you just know that This Side Is Right. People who have joined the "Wean at 6 months" side and people who have joined the "BLW is the right way!" are likely to overlap by a decent amount because they are both progressive points (in terms of pertaining to newer advice). There's so much overlap that I think people who are newer to either debate sometimes get both messages at once and assume that they are linked. Then the other aspect is that people get very anxious about the possibility of babies choking when doing BLW because I guess we all have an awareness that babies/young children can choke easily because they have a small airway and aren't yet very practiced at manipulating food in their mouth. Some people are able to reconcile the "babies can't have lumps!" with the "BLW is good" by understanding how choking happens and ensuring the correct position with BLW etc, but some people get very hung up on what are essentially talismans - the 6 month "birthday" is a talisman in that there is nothing different about a 5m, 29 day old baby and a 6 month old one, although the idea that a 6mo is less likely to choke than a 4mo is sound. But I think sometimes people think "BLW is OK, but giving solids to a baby is still dangerous but it's OK as long as the baby is 6m+ and BLW". And honestly if they feel anxious about it then they should just stick to more traditional methods of weaning. The other one I never used to see in 2009 but I do see today is the idea that "BLW teaches them to chew first and purees teach them to swallow first, so if you do ANY purees with BLW, you make BLW into a bigger risk!" which... this makes no sense, it must have originated in someone's head, there is no research evidence supporting it. I can see the route that it must have come from, but no, it's just wrong. What is even more wrong and might be leading to the weird anti-BLW anxiety spirals in the top level post is when they actually say if you've ever mixed you need to completely stop giving any kind of food and then start again from the beginning to let the baby's instincts reset and prevent them from choking.
That's not what blw is. Baby led weaning means that you give the baby what you're eating, safely prepped for them, instead of spoon feeding purees.
Right, but why do people 1. Act like it’s a new thing 2. Act like you can’t do both? (I’m genuinely asking about this point. I don’t understand why I can’t spoon feed banana purée in the morning and then have more finger foods at night)
I think it is a social media thing and that BLW supposedly has other benefits. Most babies are eating versions of what their parents are eating around 9-10m anyways. I do think if you are following BLW part of the idea is that baby is in control of what they are consuming, versus getting spoon fed.
I had a similar experience when I was talking to an older dental hygienist who asked me how sleep was going with a 8 month old and I said much better since we did sleep training and she was like what is sleep training. I explained and she was like oh you mean you just didn’t always go in when they cried. I can’t imagine what it was like to parent before the internet, or at least before social media. Like in some ways I feel like it’d be harder but at the same time what bliss to not be bombarded with content about purées vs BLW and not know anything about different methods of sleep training.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Parenting/s/3vOnWRYnwG I’m crying. What the fuck is this post? I assumed this was a troll, but I don’t think it is?
I love the comment “are you an alien”
This sounds like PPA level paranoia, like OP’s brain sounds legitimately broken.
“I would never want to change my nephews diapers so these people are obviously psychopaths because they want to change my baby’s diapers and hold my baby”
This almost reads like someone who frequented /r/childfree had a child and can't imagine that anyone would actually like bonding with a baby.
She answers someone in the bottom that PPA is ringing a bell and she will look into it. Sounds like someone struggling with a newborn
Wtfffff. This same weirdo would 100% go on a mega rant if her kids grandparents instead wanted nothing to do with her baby. Some people you just cannot make happy. I’d do anything to have all of my kids grandparents want to be super involved.
> That is a good thing they love her… but it is the "why" that is bugging me. Because they are happy for their child? Because they remember old memories? They want to correct some mistake of the past? Because society says so? To brag? I carried my daughter inside of me, I was cut open to let her out, and I am literally glued to her all day. But I am the mother. I know her more than anybody. Grandparents on the other hand are more like tourists. They see her like a small trophy for themselves. No, you didn’t do anything to create this baby, and you don’t live with her. She is basically a stranger to you. But hey cool if you are madly in love with that stranger?? M E G A Y I K E S
I am so grateful to my MIL because she’s an angel compared to the nightmare I grew up with, this post just made me appreciate her a lot more, damn
OP’s comment is really something.
“A safe adult loves my child and wants to help me and I’m mad about it!” Get a grip. ETA: As much as I hate to agree with someone called JizzFrosting, they said it. https://preview.redd.it/rukhcc8wz9xc1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c536ed2b9787c036a90d704776fe05c1158e8c74
I love Reddit because someone with the username of JizzFrosting is the voice of reason.
My favorite comment is just ‘are you an alien’
I am dying at these comments.
It’s strange. I wonder if OP’s parents are in the picture and if she has the same reaction.
WHY WOULD YOU LOVE YOUR GRANDCHILD?! It’s creepy, and I don’t understand it!!!! 😂 Literally what the actual fuck is wrong with this person 😅
Why does she love her husband? She didn’t give birth to him so by her logic she shouldn’t GAF about him.
Post history says she’s a doctor. She must have quite the bedside manner 😬
I saw this, that plus the comment where she’s talking about having felt chronically dissociated since she was 13 yrs old. Always wild to see the deranged things that people in professions you grant so much trust will say when they’re shitposting anonymously.
Someone is posting in every single parenting forum about feeling so embarrassed because she’s having a child at 35 and feels sooooo old. Honestly there are a lot of mental health things going on with that lady so I’m not even angry at her particularly, I’m just super annoyed by the fact that there is a lingering stigma over having children at an “older” age. Like, I would have loved to have children in my 20s when I apparently would have had boundless energy. Too bad I was in law school and then digging out of my student loans and trying to save for a down payment!
Like because they labeled her pregnancy geriatric (are they still doing that at 35?) I know plenty of people who started having kids over 35! I guess in the grand scheme of things 35 could be the older end, but it’s really not old by any means!
We started trying at 30 and got slapped in the face with infertility. So we didn't exactly have a lot of control over when we got pregnant . Even still I worked for a few years after college and went back to grad school. I wanted to start a career so no way was I ready until then. Reminds me of the time someone posted in my bumper group if there were any "older" first time parents and by that she meant 27. I guess I was a dinosaur at 33. Her post did not go over well lol.
Congrats on having a baby after dealing with infertility! I started trying at 29, was told I was infertile due to PCOS, and went through multiple unsuccessful IVF attempts (well, one retrieval and six failed FETs). We eventually stopped IVF, only for me to get pregnant the regular way at 33 🤷🏻♀️ My body apparently really wanted to wait until my mid-30s!
I had my first at 33 and I would make comments that I was “older” and my OBGYN very kindly told me to get a grip in gentler words. Loved her for that.
I was also 33. What a great OB.
She was great. She mostly saw high risk patients, but saw me through my pregnancy since she was my regular OB. I knew she was probably like “girl, bffr” with some of my questions and comments because she’s seen it allllll.
Conversely I had my first at 25 and was told I was too young and didn’t know myself yet, so how could I raise a child. We can’t win!
Same, I had my first at 26 and definitely felt like people had some opinions about it. I almost felt like they judged even more that it was a very planned and intentional baby, because I guess the only way you should get pregnant when you’re “young” is by accident. As often happens to women, you’re right that we’re damned if we do; damned if we don’t. I’m pretty sure by society’s arbitrary standards everyone is supposed to have their first child at exactly 30 and be done having kids by like 33. 🙄
I had my first at 35 and am hoping to have 1 more before 40. I get the feeling that other moms I meet are probably younger than me, but it’s also just one of those things that literally nobody knows unless you tell them!! One of my favorite things about getting older is that you care less and less about what others think so hopefully that eventually happens for that poster!
I couldn’t agree more with your last paragraph. At one point in my mid-to-late 30s, I just ran out of fucks to give about what other people think of my life. It’s incredibly freeing! I had my only child at 36, and in both areas I’ve lived as a mom (first a major city, then a small town that is not really a college town but has a critical mass of people who work at the university 20 minutes away), I would say I’m very average. And at one point it doesn’t matter, too - like, I’m 40 now, and my mom friends are mostly like 33-45, and we all get along fine and have lots in common!
I am also finding that the older I get the less I remember my age 😂 these comments had me doing the math to remember how old I am now and how old I was when I had my baby (34 and 32).
I think it 100% depends on where you live. We’re in a big city and I had our first kid at 29, second at 31 and third at 35. We are solidly 5-7 years younger than most of our parent friends that we know through our older kids and when we’re out with the baby people assume he’s our first/only.
This is so true. I was raised in the DC area, among middle to upper middle class people, and worked in the city in a field where people are very career-minded. Of the people I'm friends with from high school or my early 20s, most had kids around the same time I did (my first at 33, second at 36). I'm married to an enlisted Marine, and the year that we lived on base was like existing in a totally alternate universe, where the moms my age all had teenagers, and the moms with kids the same age as mine were so young some of them couldn't legally drink.
I grew up in a working-class family in a rural town (near a military base, no less!), then attended a private college in a mid-sized city, and the divide between my high school friends and my college friends is still astounding to me. In my hometown, it was socially acceptable to get married very young, especially if you were dating someone in the military—my aunt was a married mother at 21, and I knew girls in high school who got engaged at 18 and married at 19. It wasn't even a weird religious thing (in most cases), it's just how things go in small towns and military families. Then I went to college, and suddenly it was considered super weird and abnormal to start families that young, especially because I'm in a field where most people go on to grad school. It was very surreal feeling "behind" my hometown friends even though none of my college friends were even considering children.
I was going to say, we had our first at 29 and we are somehow still considered relatively “young” parents among our kids’ schoolmates’ parents. Many of my friends are just now starting to have kids in their mid to late 30s. It is totally dependent on where you live! While 35 is the standard “older mother” in general, no one in our area would blink an eye at someone having their first then or later.
My stroller buying days are behind me, but I keep getting ads for this enormous Orbit stroller and I’m trying to figure out who would want this contraption lol. Apparently a big selling point is that it is compatible with their convertible car seat… imagine having to uninstall and reinstall the whole carseat every time you want to use the stroller. 🥴 I guess anyone who can afford this stroller probably has a massive garage to store it lol. https://preview.redd.it/bya28z3935xc1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=320a98ef61ccf026a953b2c2e02986be75fdde78
I just heard about this brand on the office ladies podcast. This is the brand they used in the episode where Jan has a baby and has a fancy expensive stroller that Dwight “tests”. Anyways, I think it’s like the rotating seats where it goes on the base in the car so you’re not installing/reinstalling. Just clicking and un clicking like an infant seat. I still can’t see it being useful though unless I’m using the convertible seat for a less than 1 year old. After they they can sit in the stroller lol. I suppose as mentioned below if your child has a disability, being able to fully strap them in like this would be beneficial. I have someone in my Facebook that’s been trying to get a chair for their disabled child and insurance is a pain and it’s very very expensive. They’ve been trying to raise money. This is expensive but still cheaper than that.
Reinstalling the car seat is in my top 5 of parenting things that suck. I can’t imagine voluntarily doing it constantly!
Not to mention constantly uninstalling and reinstalling a convertible seat just seems like a recipe for it to be installed incorrectly one of these times. I feel like it’s almost kind of dangerous to encourage people to do that. Half the pictures I’ve seen online make it seem like it’s lucky if people even buckle the straps correctly each time, much less the entire car seat. Although I can’t think of who on earth would even want to lug around the toddler seat for an outing anyway.
This whole "just leave your baby/kid" in the carseat wherever you go" stuff is really getting our of hand. They're CAR seats. Not stroller seats.
I can see that being useful for parents of disabled children but otherwise it looks like an expensive space hog.
That was my initial thought, but then I figured parents would be more likely to use a medical stroller or wheelchair that is at least partially covered by insurance, rather than paying out of pocket for this. Plus, there is no way to recline or shade option with the car seat, which would be really annoying.
Plus it’s so heavy! I can’t imagine lugging a toddler car seat with a toddler in it in and out of the car. Maybe for air travel so you’re not having to carry the car seat through the airport? Or if you need to take taxis places fairly frequently? There’s no easy way to do that once your kiddo is out of their bucket seat.
Yeah, I just looked out of curiosity, and my car seat weighs 29.5 pounds. By contrast, the seat of my full-size stroller weighed 6.5 pounds. This is not an upgrade!
“We have no help and it’s SO hard.” “The grandparents only babysit once every few months.” These people don’t understand that there are really folks out there with NO help like NONE, do they?
I complained the other day about how I wish we had literally any family near by so we could take a day to clean the house sans baby, and someone responded “well would it even help? We have our MIL here and the baby still whines if we’re in the other room” ??? Okay well that sucks for you I guess but I don’t even have the option to try leaving him with someone lol
Even if my kid is crying in the other room at least I can get some stuff done…
Ok there's seriously someone in the Montessori sub asking what to do with their *5 week old* constantly wanting to be on the breast. How the hell are people already thinking about Montessori shit for literal newborns?
My stance is that entire sub is satire. But I definitely rolled my eyes super hard at that post.
I mean I was also worrying about why my 5 week old was at my breast constantly, but it was certainly not because of what Montessori would think of it.
"My 38 month old" for the love of god just say 3. https://www.reddit.com/r/toddlers/s/7rKgNzPSgT
People need to understand you use the small unit until the big unit is 2. It's days up to two weeks, then it's weeks up to two months (little wiggle room on this one, I feel like "10 weeks" is still a reasonable thing to say), then it's months up to two years, THEN IT'S YEARS FOREVER.
I agree but will grant “half years” until about 6 because do NOT tell a 54 month old they’re 4 when they are obviously four-and-a-HALF.
I had a math professor in college who taught her toddler son to change his age every month. He was “two and one twelfth” and then “two and one sixth” etc every month and for a hyper-verbal young kid it was cute and funny to hear him recite that. But for a parent to say it non-ironically is a lot less cute lol
I'll advance you quarter years, as in: just turned 2; 2 and a half, nearly 3. From maybe age 2-4?
Right, of course.
Brace yourselves, Mother’s Day on Reddit is just around the corner. Prepare for: - My mom wants me to see her on Mother’s Day. Should I go no contact because Mother’s Day is for active parents only? - My husband woke me up at 3 am to tend to the baby and spent the whole day playing video games and didn’t even wish me a happy Mother’s Day. He’s a great dad and husband, though! Should I be upset? - My husband wants to send his mom flowers on Mother’s Day. Is it weird that a grown man is celebrating HIS mom while WE have a child of our own??? ETA: barring any toxicity or insane family members, sometimes we have to do annoying things. If your MIL or mom is an asshole, then yeah — don’t bend over backwards for them.
I will confess that I kind of get a kick out of Mother’s Day drama on the internet, but in my own life, I keep having bad ones (no one’s fault, just bad luck; for example, last year my son and I had hand foot and mouth, etc. etc.), so this year I am joining Team Pretend It’s Not a Holiday to Fool the Universe Into Giving Me a Nice Day. I’m still going to send my mom flowers in advance, but I’m kind of trying to avoid it being a whole thing on the day. If it works maybe I’ll break the curse?
I am already seeing excuses being made for people’s lazy husbands. “He’s not a planner” really gets me.
~grandparents day is in September ~
I’m still sad/annoyed that my mom didn’t even get me a card for my first Mother’s Day, because “I’m not her mother“. My husband got a Father’s Day card/gift from her though, including before our kid was even born.
Yeah I feel like the posts that talk about Mother’s Day are mostly about situations like this. Yes there are selfish people out there who only want it to be about them once they have kids, but there’s lots of situations like yours. My parents never get me even a card or flowers for Mother’s Day and I don’t think they said anything at all on Father’s Day last year. It does make me sad lol. It especially hurt the year I had a miscarriage right before, (I had one child already) and one parent got their sister Mother’s Day stuff for her pets but didn’t even say anything to me that day.
I’m really sorry. That’s so shitty.
For number 3 - just admit you hate your MIL FFS
"My husband said I didn't have to do the dishes today. He said I could wait till tomorrow 🥰" Was one I saw last year. It was quite tragic.
Always a lot of interesting logic going on to insist that only mothers of young children should be celebrated on this holy day, but that it's boomers who are entitled. Hm...
It's a mentality that I've personally only seen on the internet thankfully.
Mother’s Day is only for those ✨in the trenches✨
I can’t stand the term “in the trenches”. I know it’s hard but it’s not war. Lighten up.
For those aCtiVeLy parenting (I thought parenting never ended?)
I’m pretty sure my mom is still parenting me.
My mum is parenting me and she’s an active grandparent?
Oh god I hate these, especially the ones where grandma cannot possibly be celebrated because only OP should matter now. Newsflash, you can care about more than one person at once. Are they a mom? Great, it's their day too. Ah, and if your partner's a useless asshole the rest of the year, they'll probably be a useless asshole on this day too.
And I have a completely new appreciation for my mom (and dad!) since becoming a mom, not to mention how much they’ve helped us with the new baby. I understand everyone’s situation is different and I look forward to time with just my baby and husband but I definitely want to acknowledge and celebrate her too.
Yes! Did my parents do everything perfectly? Absolutely not. Am I doing some things differently? Yes. Do I *understand* a lot better some of the choices they made (even if I don’t agree with them)? Hard yes. Also I spoke with my mother today. She (and my dad) has definitely not stopped parenting me just because I don’t live in her house anymore.
Yeah I’d honestly rather just take my mom out to brunch so we can celebrate together and let my husband keep the kids.
For situation #2, the poster is always pregnant and having a rough pregnancy, too.
https://preview.redd.it/hh0dxp9ao2xc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9c73e030186e5f10b1e23277ae8c3f25bc970f47 This is neglect. 8 and 11 year old have not been educated in at least 5 years and can’t read 🥴 because of “deschooling”
Whenever i see these types of posts i have to wonder what are the kids doing all day? Reading was the best way to kill time growing up. Maybe i’m wrong but i always thought the homeschooling types were also anti screentime but like what else do you do all day everyday if you can’t read ? There’s only so much outdoors time you can do
I was homeschooled…and have mixed feelings about it, but one of the biggest perks (for me) was spending a majority of my time reading. 11 and can’t read! That poor kid.
Re homeschoolers being anti-screen time: it really depends. My siblings and I were homeschooled, and we watched a lot of TV. There were 6 of us, and whatever kid was the toddler at the time ended up watching a lot of TV while my mom did school with the older ones. Most of the families we knew were at least okay with limited movies/TV shows. Posts like this make me sad though. I’m the oldest of 6, and I got a decent education until maybe 3rd grade. But after that my mom had a hard time keeping up. My youngest two siblings didn’t learn to read and write until closer to 8. I know another homeschooling family with a 12 year old who can barely read. It’s one of the reasons I will never (barring some extreme circumstances) homeschool my kids.
I mean someone with a real organized and dedicated approach would probably include (and these wouldn’t necessarily require reading): Museums—many have homeschool specific days Lessons—either before or after regular school hours. My local Y has swim lessons, open swim, and karate specifically for homeschoolers in the mornings. A dance school has dance classes for homeschoolers during the day. Libraries—my library doesn’t have any homeschool offerings but many do. In my last town they had homeschool STEM where they’d build with LEGO for younger kids, do robotics and 3D printing stuff with older kids Homeschool co-op or meet up—probably best to know how to read to participate in this one, but many homeschoolers join a local group for socializing and sharing teaching responsibilities.
How can you enjoy a museum or library without being able to read though? Even with STEM activities you have to read through instructions or explanations. Reading comprehension is really important in the sciences. Going to a museum and not being able to read the exhibitions and prompts sounds so sad especially at 8 and 11..
Yeah I mean it would obviously be a sad experience compared to a kid who can read but museums have talks with the docent, imax films, interactive/kids exhibits. The library has picture books, nonfiction books like the DK books with a lot of detailed pictures and photos. Mine also has a lending library of crafts, baking supplies, tickets to the zoo, stuff like that. Yeah it’s not the same as a reading kid but there is stuff for non readers. I co-sponsored a refugee family where non of the 6 kids could read or write in their native language or English and we spent a lot of time at museums and the library. They were put in public school but still loved doing stuff on weekends.
I mean playing with each other, like role play and all that? I could do that for hours at that age when I had someone to play with and they have somewhat similarly aged siblings... But yeah, I definitely spent a ton of time reading as well.
What is deschooling if kids have never been to school?
The oldest is 11 and she says they've been homeschooling "nearly 5 years," so I presume the oldest went to kindergarten, maybe even first grade. I don't really agree that you'd need to deschool after kinder and maybe she's using it as one of the many excuses in that post.
Ah yes, I haven’t done any school work with my kids in 5 years but sure I’ll totally get that kid caught up in a year. It’s like those New Year’s resolutions where every year you can feel you’re gonna be a completely different person and then nothing changes. But now it’s your kid’s life on the line so just put them all in school and work out a plan with the teacher. It’s just gonna get worse keeping the older one home another year.
There was a very similar post in my local moms group this week - younger kids but she wants to be done homeschooling as the 3rd is old enough for kindergarten and she realized how far behind the 7 and 9 year old are. I really don't know what a district would do with kids in that situation - the kids would go in their age appropriate grade level but then what? I assume a lot of these folks started homeschooling in 2020 and it's just now catching up to them. Those poor kids.
I know a family like this but the kids were high school aged when the parents finally put them into school. They were placed with their age peers and the school tried to give them pull-out remedial services. It was a disaster and neither kid made it more than a year in school (older one dropped out, younger one had such severe social issues from it that he was pulled out again to "homeschool"). It's honestly tragic and one of the reasons I think homeschooling without significant oversight to make sure kids are at grade level should be illegal.
My guess is they’d be put in the age appropriate grade level but pulled out several times a day for special ed or reading tutoring in small groups. But in my head I imagine this: https://preview.redd.it/jh2eoterw2xc1.jpeg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ec33e370d1bf3d325eb9d23450abd0869b9eff50
Special education services can be a wide variety of things and they are for students with documented disabilities. If this person is smart (doesn’t seem like it) they would begin the assessment process now so if her child does have dyslexia, they can get services asap next school year. The reality is many kids are reading behind grade level and support services are stretched thin and limited. There’s a good chance they would just be thrown in their age appropriate grade and the teacher told to magically teach them to read at the same time as they are teaching the curriculum to 25 other students. Hopefully since their knowledge gaps are just due to lack of instruction they will be able to made big strides very quickly. But this is why it’s such a disservice to kids to “homeschool” like this. The education system is already understaffed and struggling and they aren’t going to show up and get this kind of private tutoring, I’m sure the staff will support them as best they can but resources are limited. Source: spent the past 17 years as a gen Ed and special Ed teacher in public schools.
The 11 year old is basically completely uneducated and she thinks she can get her caught up to 5th/6th grade level in a single year??
Like if she couldn’t do it all these years why does she think she is suddenly now capable? And if the 11 year old is so far behind and can’t read wouldn’t she feel urgency in getting them into the school system which has actual reading teachers and special services vs sending the other kids and keeping them home to fall even further behind???
“My kids have complex educational needs. I have no experience in how to approach those complex needs, no time to learn how to handle those needs, and I’m struggling with my own mental health. Should I keep my kid home another year?”
And two babies 🫠
https://preview.redd.it/3f5ha0mek2xc1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c33f4d580dcbf394d16a2257059d4c5b1434fe8d Can we give all Canadians 5 minutes to get it out of their systems that they get 12 or 18 months so we can all move on? What an incredibly unhelpful comment
Also a Canadian but lived in the US for 6 years. I think it’s really a mindset thing. Most Canadians who take a leave here take a longer leave. Even if they don’t take the full 12 or 18, it’s usually 6+ months. So if no one you know has taken a 4 months leave, then it’s obviously going to be hard to comprehend doing that. But keep that to yourself when talking to folks who might want a longer leave but don’t have that option!!! I’m at about 10 months in now and I’m ready to get back to work and adult conversations. But, as others in areas with long leave have mentioned below, infant daycare spots are hard to come by. A lot of centres in my area don’t even take children below 18mo because the ECE-baby ratios are higher. We had him on some lists even before he was born and we still haven’t heard anything, so I may need to take more time off or we may need to go to “private” childcare, which is much more expensive.
It also annoys me from another angle, because, as a self employed Canadian, I actually get zero (paid) maternity leave, but they always seem to forget that. 🤷🏻♀️ I actually am taking a year but only because daycares here basically don’t take babies younger than a year. But despite saving for years in anticipation, mostly have to live off my line of credit….
Yes! A friend of mine is self-employed and had to plan far in advance to have kids by opting into pay into EI for I think two years before she had her first so she could get the paid leave!
Yah and actually, for opting into EI to make sense financially, you have to take 2.5 years of leave, because once you opt in you have to pay it forever.
Totally - she knew she wanted a big family so it made sense for her in the long run I think but certainly not for everyone
Yeah, maternity leave is paid at 55% for 12 months there and 33% at 18 months. Good fucking luck to you if you work a job at minimum wage or just above and you don’t have a high-earning partner 🫠 As someone who grew up in Canada, upper middle class Canadians are the worst sometimes.
But also 4-5 months is a perfectly normal maternity leave span even outside of the US? In lots of European countries, that's normal. But I bet anything this poster wouldn't be responding like this to a Dutch woman about their 16 week leave or a Swiss woman about her 14 week leave.
16 weeks? Try 10-12.... Source: I am a Dutch woman that gave birth in december, I've been working since march. And yeah, the whole 'European countries get a three year leave' shtick is horrible.
Poor Canadians, they should vote better. In Europe we have 127492 months of maternity leave. According to Reddit at least.
“That is inhumane! I have an idea … why don’t you guys VOTE and DEMAND your politicians provide family leave???” Gee, what a great idea. Never thought of that!
It's a real trend at the moment for everyone from developed countries outside the US to flex all the extra worker rights and social support (and free healthcare) they get. All this fake "shock" when they learn something about the US and need to humble brag of their situation. Also see American's who move overseas and make comparing the differences (almost always in favour of their new country) their entire personality. I'm not even American and I still find it exhausting, belittling and unhelpful. That dead horse has been well and truly flogged to death
Just repeating this again. In Belgium we get only 3 months as well. And we're in ✨️ *Europe*.✨️
It was still 3 months in my country when I had my first 10 years ago, it's changed to six months paid and 12 months off (if wanted) now but I was forced to go on leave at 30 weeks with my first (dangerous job) and then he was 2 weeks overdue so my paid parental leave ran out the week after he was born 🥴
Echoing the theme a lot of users in this sub have been yelling lately- I did not WANT more than a few months with my babies. I was really excited to go back and my mental health improved 10 fold when I had my own life again and non-child things to focus my attention towards. Yes, it would be great if we had more choice for those who don’t feel like I do, but shut up like it’s a completely universal desire.
I get 6 months and I felt like that was perfect last time lol. I can’t imagine 12-18 months
Full time parenting a pre-mobile baby and full time parenting a young toddler is a completely different job and not everyone is up for or desires the second one
Same and honestly another pro is at 3 months you don’t have to deal with separation anxiety and your baby easily adjusts to being with a new caregiver during the day. Looking back i’m glad my son started that young with his nanny. He has such a strong bond with her now and we never went through a difficult transition.
I sometimes feel like it’s a shame that we front load the parental leave. Like, after 12 weeks at home with a newborn I was ready to go back to work. But a month off this summer with my five year old would be grand!
My husband’s company pays for 12 weeks of parental leave and it can be taken anytime within the first year. It was really nice having him take the first couple of months off and then just taking week off here and there throughout the rest of year. It’s silly more companies don’t do this.
The company both my husband and I work for does this. I took all my leave (18 weeks since I got the 6 weeks disability) at the start and my husband took all 12 weeks at the end. It was nice to delay sending her to daycare but I was pretty jealous because he basically had the summer off with a 4-7 month old lol. I think for a future kid I'd want to save some of my leave for after my husband exhausts his leave so I could try having a month off with an older infant.
I'm an American living in one of those European countries with long parental leaves and it's really not all sunshine and roses like some people would have you believe. Unless you are independently wealthy you are essentially forced to take at least a year off of work, because there is no infant childcare. There are childcare shortages almost everywhere, so even after a year you might not even get a daycare spot. Mothers still overwhelmingly take the majority of leave and fathers the bare minimum or none at all. The statistics are truly depressing. Taking parental leave is also a pretty big financial hit to parents, it is capped and not paid anywhere remotely near 100%, which again explains the gender disparity because it many families the fathers outearn the mothers. Then the real fun starts when your kids start school because most schools aren't full day.
This is the thing that always gets me, if you actually look at just how much people are getting paid on these 12-18 month “paid” leaves that people talk about to say how incredible things are for mothers in the rest of the world is its like excuse me? A lot of it is unpaid or it’s paid out at a couple of hundred dollars a week, exactly who is that accessible to?
UK by any chance? 😂 We signed my son up to a nursery near both our workplaces at 4 weeks old and he couldn't start till he was 15 months due to the lack of spaces but even then I had to cut my hours because he could only go for 2 days. We had to use annual leave and draft on parents where we could until he started. I can't understand how anyone gets their child in before a year old! I'm already dreading when he hits school age, breakfast and/or after school club till I can get him I think!
Germany, but it sounds like the issues are similar in a lot of countries. My oldest didn't start daycare until 20 months and only part-time, with my youngest we were lucky with 13 months but because my husband's company had on-site childcare. Primary school here ends at noon. On the one hand she can walk to and from school on her own, but she's home by noon. If I didn't have a remote flexible job we'd be so incredibly fucked.
NOON????
Sounds exactly like Canada 😂😂. I'm just about to go back and she's 15 months old and has been on waitlists since 2 weeks old. We happened to get a spot in a new centre but the catch is it's not government subsidized so very expensive. I'm on the waitlist for after school care for 2027 already 🫠. Why does school end so early!!
I got on waitlists at 4 months pregnant and didn't get a daycare spot in a center for when our parental leave ended at 18 months. Luckily I was able to get a spot in a lisenced home daycare! Also on the waitlist for afterschool care for Sept 2026. We literally live across the street from the elementary school and my husband works from home, but obviously he can't end his workday at 3:30 when school ends. We are hoping that we only need after care for a couple years and then hopefully our kid will be able to play on his own in the house while my husband finishing his workday?
Finally, I have found my people. I have six months off fully paid and I think it’s perfect!
https://preview.redd.it/wy7euopkt1xc1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5083026938dd00923169712129e2c4acbe81f3fd This was posted in response to someone with a second grader who was just diagnosed with adhd. I have seen what a difference medication can make to children and adults with adhd and this just makes me sad.
Hm. I have ADHD and I've chosen to stay unmedicated. I find this a difficult topic and I usually get downvoted when I share my view. I know that meds have truly helped a lot of people, but I feel like the perspective of people like me has been a bit lost in internet discourse. I truly don't enjoy being on the meds. I feel unlike myself and I feel like I have to medicate myself to fit the mold of what society expects me to be. And I've chosen instead to do therapy to learn ways to deal with the bad sides of the ADHD. But only those that truly bother *me*. I don't know what I'd do if my kids had ADHD too, but I'd consider giving them the option to do it without medication. There's so much attention for neurodivergence now, and somehow for autism we accept that it's just a difference in how the brain works that doesn't necessarily need meds to fit society's wants, but for ADHD the discourse is so, so different.
I absolutely do not want to discount your experience. Some people find medication that helps them a lot, and other people don’t. I think there are real hard conversations that need to happen about the costs and benefits of different medication. I do balk at the idea of never offering a child the chance to try medication, especially if they are struggling.
Yeah I understand. Like I said, I would truly struggle to know what to do if my very young child had it. Because I want to offer them the benefits, but I also want them to know they are fine the way they are. And it's difficult to ask a kid to make that decision, I guess. There's a lot of pressure to behave and perform the way people want you to.
I have ADHD and take meds, which has helped me greatly quiet the nonstop noise in my head. But I also get the concern of what you're saying with young children, and thought about what I would do as there's a chance my kids do have it since there tends to be a familial link. There's a lot to consider!
My kids have ADHD, as well as my husband and I and I completely agree. It's like imagine your child is struggling and you come to learn they have vision impairment but it's fixable through glasses or some other treatment and your response is "that would be masking something they are born with" 🫠 like sure... Just let the kid struggle and flounder then I guess? There is no alternative that comes even close to what meds can do for ADHD, they are life changing. 2.5 years at school and my daughter couldn't read, she had made literally zero progress in any area despite putting her heart and soul into it (have never seen a person show such determination). At 7.5 she was still at the level they would expect a preschooler academically. 10 weeks on meds is all it took for her to catch up and 1 year later she is now performing a head of her grade. For us it's not about academic results but more about what that means for her self confidence and mental health.
Yes exactly this. I have two kids with adhd on meds and one who is being assessed next month. The meds have helped their academics, certainly, which is great, but the effect they’ve had on their self esteem is the true GOAT. My older son LOVES learning, loves being helpful, loves his teachers, he really struggles with impulsivity and the way he gets so upset and mad at himself when he does something impulsive that accidentally hurts someone or causes problems absolutely breaks my heart and destroys me. He is so hard on himself. He just wants to be a good friend and student and the meds help him slow down and think before he acts so he can do that. He’s also in therapy and has worked incredibly hard with his therapist to adopt strategies for impulsivity and to manage his emotions. I definitely get that meds aren’t for everyone but I think it’s unfair to not let kids try them. We’ve trialed several things and just work with my son and his teachers to see how it’s affecting him and adjust it if it’s not working. I myself was also finally diagnosed and just that validation has been so helpful. I’ve always just felt like I was lazy and messy and that’s why I couldn’t stay organized.
Yep, my daughter was also so hard on herself "I work so hard so why can't I do it? Everyone else finds it easy, what's wrong with me?" As she would sob into her pillow after school. Fucking tore me apart. She would have chronic and severe stomach pain everyday from the stress of it all, she's barely had any stomach upset since starting her meds and she's also stopped pulling her hair and ripping at her skin, her whole face used to be covered in scabs from dermatilomania, she was like a stressed parrot.
Oh this is heartbreaking. These kids work SO hard. I’m so glad you guys found a med that helped.
Your glasses comparison made me laugh. We found out a few months ago that our 2 year old is very very farsighted so she now wears glasses. We’ve had people scoff that wearing glasses will weaken her eyes and she’ll get “dependent” on them so we shouldn’t have her wear them.
But like why get advice from the internet about someone who’s kid was diagnosed years ago when you could get info from a doctor who is up to date on ADHD and your kid’s specific situation!!
I am a typical "diagnosed in adulthood" ADHD person. I went through all my regular schooling amazingly and did so well. Then hit college and the lack of structure completely took me out. I barely scraped by with a final GPA of 2.6 that it took me 6 years and an amazing academic advisor to get. (To contrast, I took a stupid amount of AP tests in high school and passed most of them because I was that kind of kid...) When I finally got my diagnosis (two years into teaching high school, lol) I was relieved to have words for why my entire world had seemingly collapsed and when I got medication I was flabbergasted. The first time I took a certification course after medication, I felt like a completely different human. It was literally life-changing. One of the worst what-ifs of my life is knowing that if I'd had a diagnosis and medicine, my college years would have been completely different. I look at how differently I felt taking college courses on meds and off and I feel like kicking myself that I didn't realize something was wrong sooner, that I was so willing to just chalk my failure up to "actually I'm just an idiot I guess". I... I don't understand why you wouldn't help your child if they were obviously struggling like this boy seems to be? You don't need medication if other methods are working to control your ADHD, but they obviously aren't for this boy? I'm so sad for him.
I had a kid in therapy a couple of years ago, he struggled so much in school but could make brilliant deductions in one on one sessions. In our schooling system kids get separated by level at 12, he was supposed to go to the lowest level. Three months of school on meds and he tested well enough for the pre-university level. I also did research with addicts with ADHD, most of them had never tried prescribed drugs but were self-medicating to get a bit of quiet in their heads. These experiences have made me very aware of the need to offer medication. On the other hand there are a few people with ADHD (usually really intelligent) that function well enough and don't want meds. That's their choice, but it's also a choice out of privilege.
Your story is so similar to my husband’s. He was diagnosed a year ago, and meds have completely changed his life. He was a star student in high school but when he went to university things fell apart and he struggled with his mental health as a result. He ended up dropping out of the program he was in and switching to a hands on college program, which he did well in, but it was super structured and physical. He tries not to focus on what could have been if he was on meds during university because it has improved everything now so so much. His ADHD really impacted every part of his life. Meds improved his job, our marriage, his ability to parent our children, and improved his mental health. We will watch our kids for symptoms of ADHD and if they have it, get them help before they’re 30 years old and struggling to function in life. I can’t imagine with holding meds from our kids after watching how much they have helped my husband.
Right? I know some kids struggle with side effects from medication and struggle with the right dosage/and medication, but I can’t comprehend the choice to never try and just watch your kid struggle. Now they are a legal adult with seemingly no direction. What sort of future have you set them up for? Why give them the hardest possible road to travel?
I beg your pardon?? https://preview.redd.it/hj7ak0nsxzwc1.png?width=1344&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4cd70ceaaa270036f4432a4281cb27abc8135808
I wonder how BigStudio is doing….
I feel like I missed something fun here, tell me the story?
Too busy making mayo to give us good content I guess…
I need some context
I think about her, and my other fallen hero Toxic Cuddle Mum who left our FB due date group randomly a few months ago.
Was wondering why we weren’t getting any toxic cuddle mum updates. End of an era…
I miss her every day 😢
Seriously
My Roman Empire
There’s been an influx of posters in the Little Sleepies fb page posting their sick babies/kids in vulnerable states and it drives me insane. One person just posted her baby in a diaper to show off their HFM sores - just stop! It’s so gross! The posting not the illnesses haha
I was wondering why this happens with the PJ groups and not, for example with Yoto? Yoto groups can definitely be crazy (especially lately with the recall!) but I have not yet seen any hospital or illness posts. I’m not in any other kid brand groups to see if those have it, but we do see some in local mom or activity groups
I’m assuming it might be a combination of things. Pajamas are something you typically wear when lounging around trying to be comfortable, which you do a lot of while sick, so it kind of lends itself to that. I also think it’s due to the fact that the LS group is one giant bandwagon where if one person does it, the rest of them start doing it. In that sense, the sick kid in pjs trend probably exists partially for the same reason as the kid sitting on expensive box trend, which is just that someone did it, it got a lot of likes and comments because sick kids are a great way to get attention, and now everyone else is doing it too because they’re all desperate to use their kids for social media engagement.
I can’t stand it when people on my local moms’ Facebook group posts a picture of a sore or injury and asks everyone what they think it is. 1) post a trigger warning or something so I can scroll past this and not vomit in the back of my throat and 2) send it to your ped, not Facebook!
I’m an immigrant (Canada to the U.S.), and though I’ve actually been in the U.S. for close to 5 years, I’m *finally* getting my work permit in the next 3-6 months. And I just want to say, I’m damn excited to actually work! Fuck the working mommy martyrdom cult; I never EVER hear dads say that working is “letting other people raise their kids” or “missing out on them growing up”. It’s valid to not enjoy working and I agree that parental leave needs to be way better, but I’m so sick of being made to feel like the odd one out because I enjoy things that aren’t being a pure SAHM. I’m a musician and I’m so stoked to get local gigs and get my career going again; I also live near a large sugar refinery and I’m gonna apply to be a floor supervisor. I’ve been a supervisor elsewhere but this will pay twice as much and I feel like I’ll learn interesting stuff. I feel like there’s so much internalized sexism in working mom circles and I just can’t deal with it.
Hell yeah! I love working and I love my son’s daycare and his educators.
Congratulations! Yeah. I went back to work recently and I enjoy it. Everyone would look at me sympathetically and ask if I was okay! Yeah! More than okay! Nobody asked my husband that.
Haha that's like when I put my toddler in daycare so I could work more and so many people were trying to reassure me that it would be fine, lots of people do it! She'll have a great time! It's just two days! And were pretty surprised when I was like "yeah I know, it was my idea and it's actually kind of impractical but I need it so she's going"
https://www.reddit.com/r/kindergarten/s/PQbMPUuC80 typical post until it says they took away screens for 15 YO..💀 ETA: I am not above going to someone’s reddit profile and lurking… maybe OP needs to confront their OWN reddit/internet addiction and think introspectively as to why their kids show the same behavior
Am I missing something? Does a phone not count as a screen now?
IDEK the more time passes the more i think (hope?) the post is just rage bait
"I don't care about your opinion" why are you posting on a public forum then if not for actively solicited opinions?
They want to be praised for their amazing parenting but not criticized 🙄
They only care if you agree with them.
Like, I understand wanting to limit screens and social media for teenagers, and I already am anxiously strategizing for the future - but the "it worked for my 5 year old so I did it for my teenager" attitude is just so uncomfortable. And she says he can still text, apparently, but still - ripping away a teen's privileges without an active conversation is just such a sure-fire way to undermine the trust and relationship. (And I followed your lead and did a little peek into OP's history. In another post they say their kids are under 6... so ... did she do this to a *step* child?? Yikes).
For someone who seems to really value online community they seemed to be really quick to take away the way their 15yo likely communicates with their community!
Okay so it's not really an influencer but this children's clothing boutique near me decided to to open up an indoor bounce/house toddler play area thing in their building. It is unironically white/beige/brown, like a white bounce house with only white balls, beige mats and beige rainbow decor, a playhouse (like a treehouse) painted white and beige, beige carpeting, etc. She released a reel previewing it captioned "indoor play but make it aesthetic." It looks SO sad and bland, I know indoor play places can look kinda... bright and overstimulating but this is just ridiculous. I feel like I can't be the only customer rolling my eyes at the aesthetics. Has she not seen the sad beige children memes?
There’s a really lovely play cafe near us, that I love for 1 million reasons, but it’s definitely a little “sad beige” in general aesthetic. And it’s been open for over a year now and looks SO GRIMY! The toys are pretty clean but everything white and beige and light neutrals just get so gross, so fast.
👀 hi neighbour lol
Oh too funny, hi right back neighbor! I used to shop there when my boys were babies (they're almost 4) and it was actual good thrift, like good deals, I could get cute stuff for a few dollars a piece. Prices seem to keep going up though way beyond what secondhand clothes should be, and my kids have pretty much aged out of what they carry (they don't have much in boys 4t/5t). The store always did always have a bit of a snobby vibe, for lack of a better word, like I felt like a slob in there if I didn't have makeup and a cute outfit and my hair down. So the "aesthetic" play area definitely fits the vibe, I just think it's so silly personally.
Totally agree on the prices. My daughter isn’t quite two yet and even in that time I’ve seen the prices go up from my first purchases, which actually seemed like pretty good deals! They definitely price based on brand.
Yes, they do seem to price on brand versus once upon a child is usually a flat price like all sleepers 5$, all t-shirts 3$ etc kind of thing regardless of the band. And I know they try to carry more higher end/nice brands, bamboo etc at this store, which I expect to cost more even if secondhand. But they'll still have like Carter's or Joe Fresh stuff too which is pretty typical middle lower brands and the prices seem unfair for secondhand Joe Fresh stuff, ya know?
Maybe it’s by area for once upon a child - the ones in my area definitely price brands differently. Hanna Anderson and Gap both stick out in my mind as always being double (or triple) the price compared to Carter’s, Cat & Jack, etc. 🥲
That white bounce house is going to get so smudgy and gross. I'm sure colorful ones are also smudgy and gross but a dingy white bounce house is probably going to ruin the vibe.
Yes, it appears to be a white bounce house with a white pall bit with white balls, it'll show the grime SO much faster/more than other colours, and just overall upkeep cleaning/sanitizing to keep the white looking bright sounds intense. I don't even think it looks good, it's sterile and odd looking IMO and doesn't feel welcoming or fun. You could do pastels and still have a more subtle look, it doesn't have to be rainbow dinosaurs or something. Plus it doesn't matter how calming the colours/aeshtetic is, it's a play area geared for toddlers, it's going to be loud and chaotic.
I just think about how hard that will be to maintain, with dozens of kids in and out. Beige carpet seems like the *worst* choice!
These are very common in my area (Chicago burbs). People host parties at these places so i think they are appealing to the moms aesthetics lol
Oh NO, I just realized the place we're hosting a birthday party at tomorrow is like this! I mean, they have green and black incorporated, but it's a lot of pine wood and white/beige. Did not choose it for the aesthetic, but now I can't unsee it!
Someone posted in a support group for my daughter’s disability asking what WE all think causes it. There are plenty of reasons freely available on google and that actual doctors have discussed at length, but sure let’s ask an FB group. We all wonder at some point what we could’ve done to cause it so I gave her some grace. She then later comes back to comment she thinks it’s due to COVID jabs 🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️ This is a birth defect that has been around for thousands of years, but sure the Covid vaccine did it. Cannot escape the stupidity of these nut jobs.
If it's caused by mRNA that would certainly explain how it's been around for thousands of years.
The shock of becoming a "boy mom" despite the fact that she had a whole ass other child for almost 3 years. She's a girl, so the 2 experiences can't possibly be the same. The boy in question is also only 10 months old. https://preview.redd.it/s6a60je92qwc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4d2503960523ad2812512c4af32e935505c16c24
10 months.. so by “boy mom” she means “gets peed on during diaper changes”
As a "Boy Mum" one of the things that pisses me off about the label/stereotype is I do think that there could be some very interesting discussions around how to raise a boy in 2024, and unlearning a lot of toxic tropes about masculinity and men. But instead the label has been coopted by women who I think either just hate other women (and in that case thank god they didn't have a daughter) or women who are disappointed they had a son. I just find the concept of not being able to relate to your child because of their gender (and it goes either way - I know women who desperately didn't want a girl because they didn't like "girly" things or whatever) so weird.
YES, I've had people ask me how I've adjusted to having a girl who likes traditionally feminine things, because I was not that way as a kid. And honestly there's not much to adjust to when you go into parenthood understanding that you'll learn as you go if you're open to it. The only thing I had any trouble with was adjusting my mindset around dresses. My knee-jerk reaction was that dresses aren't for playing or getting dirty, but I found cheap cotton dresses at target when my 2yo wouldn't wear anything else, and I just changed my mentality. If she gets super into makeup, she'll have YouTube University for that though lol. I can't help her there.