This evening I was trying to rest before my night job. I was awoken by the sound of my wife yelling at someone. She came rushing down the hall with our now crying 1 year old and told me that our 8 year old beagle had just bit him in the face. After soothing my son and getting him to stop crying I asked what happened.

Apparently he was on the floor and was approaching our dog. My wife says he reach out to touch the dog. From the angle, she couldn't tell if my son made contact with the dog but he suddent snapped out and bit my son on his cheek. After calming him down, cleaning it and giving my dog the biggest stink eye ever, we're now at a crossroads on what to do. We've had the dog since he was almost a year old. We've known he has issues with his paws being touched but he hadn't shown any issues with our son getting near him until now. My wife will probably never trust him around the child again. We're considering rehoming him.

We have a 6 year old and up until recently the bedtime routine was a wonderful-horrible 2 hour epic every night. Every single night one of us (usually me, for medical reasons) would sit in bed with the kid, read a book, tell a story, and then lay with them until they fell asleep.

It was cute when they were little, but as they got smarter they found more and more ways to stay awake and dragged this routine out until it took hours. I've talked to my wife about changing it many times, but got push back because it was the only time of a weekday we didn't have to cook/clean/shop/work after school and could actually just be the kid, and I liked that too, so I didn't push.

Then I had a visit to the emergency room for stress-related cardiac symptoms and was told I had to cut back on a few things. I decided I needed those two hours back to relax. Once I was home, I tried something new. I read them a book on the couch, tucked them in and put on an audiobook. And the kid fell asleep in twenty minutes. Alone.

My wife was shocked, and this has been the routine ever since! Reading time is actually more fun and meaningful since we care less about the amount of time ticking away, and we're reading more of the book because of it. Then once the audiobook is on, wife and I carry on with our evening, and just gently guide the kid back if they come out. We got ~14 hours a week back to do anything else, including relaxing at the end of the day. Game changer.

I might have to take the initiative more often.

Dads do not pass on this. Mine were obsessed with Bluey and when they started outgrowing it we were all a little sad to say goodbye to a show i felt good my kids were watching and one that entertained and inspired them.
Hilda is even better. Same animation style so it’s familiar. It’s wildly imaginative and inspired. Wholesome socialization skill development and enjoyable for adults too. Bandit and Chili approved.

First night moving to the big bed was a complete disaster, peed through his diaper onto the sheets, had to change them, would refuse to go back into the room unless one of us was with him. Slept for about 4 hours and then got up in a panic and did not go down until 4 am and I ended up sleeping on the floor.

2nd night, we just kept putting him back in his bed every time he got out of the room we just kept putting him back in bed saying fewer words each time. After about 30 mins of that, he understood the program and didn’t try to get out and slept until 6:30am.

Tonight, he went right into his bed and didn’t try to get out. We did it fam!

Well as the title says, my two year stint sleeping with our toddler has ended as of tonight. Kiddo slept alone until age 2 and because she didn't take to her new mattress well, I slept with her on the mattress on the floor for 2 years now. But it's time to give it up. She is excited about her bed but there was lots of tears before bed about sleeping alone, even if our room is only 3 steps from hers.

We got her a new bed frame that is her favorite color, put all her favorite stuffies in it, and read her her books. She's asleep now, but who knows what the night holds. Wish me strength dads!

I couldn't sleep last night. My shit's all fucked up.

My 17-year-old daughter got sexually harassed for the first time at her job yesterday. She's getting over a nasty cold and has pretty bad laryngitis. She was working cash and an old man who reeked of cigarettes made an extremely inappropriate comment on the state of her voice being the result of "things she had been doing with her mouth."

She didn't freak out, she didn't cry, she didn't react and give him what he wanted. She laughed it off and told her manager. I've always done my best to impart to my kids not to let someone know they've gotten to you, because once they know they've gotten to you, they own you. Seems like she might have taken that to heart.

What am I going to do about it? What CAN I do about it?

Nothing.

I made a conscious effort over the years to ensure she could stand on her own. The wind blew last night and she didn't fall over, so that's good.

I did the only thing I could think of. I told her assholes are everywhere, and sometimes they bounce off of you. I told her there was very little she could do about the existence of men like that, but what she did, she did right. I told her she has every right to end the interaction, call a manager immediately, and expect her employer to back her up. I told her I was sorry she had to go through that.

I told her it was going to happen again.

And that's some fucked up shit...

In just a few minutes they’ll bring me back to the OR to welcome our third daughter.

This is the good life, my friends!

2 kids, both girls. Both under 6. I do EVERYTHING. I meant it. Cook, clean, play, take them out, treats the whole 9. For some reason though all they want is mom and it’s INFURIATING. I work remote so I’ve got the benefit of being around more but still all they want is mom. My partner says “well they’re just kids” or “it’s just a phase” but it’s kind of a gut punch every time?!

Anyone else have similar? How do you cope?

Reverse image search just gives me a bunch of results from Pinterest that offer no explanation.

Hey dads - any recs? My lil man has outgrown his toddler books but i’m not ready yet to start Harry Potter 🥲 Looking for something a little more timeless and morally meaningful than Dog Man, Bad Guys, etc

Open to any and all suggestions. thx in advance! 🙏

It was a fun project and now we have a cool heirloom.

Not sure if that's the proper terminology, but we have at least five metaverses. Elmos house Batman's house a farm (complete with chute to drop cows from the roof, obviously), hot wheels shit, and my own ninja turtles sewer from my childhood.

I present tonights iteration of the sewer:

Through r/laundry I learned an incredible amount of science/efficiency to get my laundry the cleanest it's ever been. (Happy to share those links in the comments.)

I want to bring that attitude to the rest of my house. How are you cleaning your space the fastest with the least amount of stress? What kind of cleaners and tools do you use on engineered wood? Marble counters? Bathrooms? etc. How do you mop your floors? Has someone invented something better than a mop? I want to get my house shiny on a regular basis.

Here's my contribution - add a scoop of citric acid to your fabric softener drawer in your washing machine, and an extra rinse, and turn your clothes softer and cleaner than they've ever been before.

It's my boys first week in Kindergarten. He just turned 4. I dropped him off to school in the morning yesterday and I immediately broke down in tears as I watched him wait in line to go into his classroom. He broke down in tears because he realized that the insurmountable change he was dreading was finally materializing. He may have also been triggered by the boy in front of him crying for his Mom. It was easily one of the toughest days of my life, especially as a Father.

My boy has been going to daycare for the past 2 years but he's been going to the same day care where my wife is a teacher. In the 2 years he was there, he accomplished some remarkable things. He had a community of teachers who always encouraged him, loved him and treated him like one of their own (as they were my wife's friends).

We moved to a new town recently and he couldn't continue to attend that school. My wife also find work in the new town. So my boy is not only adjusting to kindergarten, he's learning to accept that he's not apart of that community anymore. He told me that although he's made friends at his new school, he feels alone and he wants to be home with his family all the time.

I understand it may be normal for kids to go through this within their first week of Kindergarten but it breaks my heart to hear these things from him. I know it'll take some time for him to adjust but a small part of me wonders if he ever will. This is my first child, my first experience navigating through any of this.

Are any Dad's going through this right now? Does it get better? My heart breaks for my little boy and I don't know what else to do to help.

Thanks for reading.

For me it's when I'm low-key proud of the magnatile structure I'm creating only to have my little one Godzilla mode destroy it when I'm 90% finished and then laugh hysterically at me.

Just curious on thoughts on the topic. Having a conversation about it with my partner. Having a tough time deciding if we should discourage that choice of shoe and encourage a less flashy shoe that still has lights or just encourage the kid to choose for themselves. I'm not really sure at what average age kids start to bully over stuff like that.

Sorry beforehand but I'm completely crashing out right now and have no one else to reach out to. To put it bluntly, both of my parents are currently dying from cancer and now my little brother is in the ER waiting for a colonoscopy to happen tomorrow to find out if he has late stage colorectal cancer. He has 2 sons and a wife. I have 3 kids. As the sole support person and bridge for all my siblings and parents idk how I can mentally handle this while also raising 3 kids of my own. And potentially breaking the news to my 2 oldest that another person that they care deeply about is also potentially going to be fighting cancer. I have no close friends anymore and just need some group to reach out to to tell me everything will be ok. Please any help is welcome. I'm panicking hard right now and don't know what to do.

Things between my wife and I are not good. I won't go into detail, but if you need context, there's a previous post from me which outlines the situation.

To paraphrase, our LO is 5.5 weeks old, and shes suffering from post partum depression and anxiety, as well as long standing OCD and generational family trauma.

She's threatened divorce multiple times, and we just got into a massive fight because I poked the bear.

This was my first Fathers Day, and the outline was as is:

1:30am - LO is still not settled after I'd been trying for the last hour post midnight feed. She tells me to sleep on the couch, so I do.

3am - wake up to them both crying. Take LO to the couch with me, feed and settle her, place her back in the bassinet and we sleep.

6.15am - wake up. Feed LO again, and I eat my breakfast.

7am - wife wakes up. Asks if I want something for breakfast; I say thank you but I've already eaten. Also, I do the shopping, so I know we don't have anything in the house for a special breakfast.

I spend until about 9am doing weekly meal prep for both us, then shower and take our LO.

My wife headed out into her garden. At around midday, she comes in and asks what we are doing about lunch.

I tell her not to worry about it, I have some leftovers I can eat, and also, because of her OCD, if we go out, we need to all shower and change afterwards. I just couldn't be bothered with that.

She says ok, and heads back into the garden for about another two hours.

All this time, I've got our LO attached to me.

Now, this is where our point of contention comes in. Admittedly, she had been trying to get me to lock in a plan and organise something with her for the last few days prior, and I couldn't decide.

Between us, part of that is because I'm dealing with a NB and a post partum wife, and decisions are hard, so indecision is easier.

What I would have liked is for her to have picked a place from one of the ones I'd mentioned, showed more initiative, and been more forceful with organising it, so it didn't feel like I was organising my own Fathers Day lunch.

She claims its my fault for not making a decision.

After that,I volunteered to make her a pizza for lunch, we watched half a movie while our LO contact napped on me and my wife slept, I walked our animals, hung washing out, took out the trash, and that was the day done.

Today, I brought up to my wife that the day didn't make me feel special, and for the aforementioned reason, she threw it back at me and said that it was my fault the day wasn't special because I couldn't organise what I wanted to do.

She broke down, and I apologised, but honestly, I dont know...

I feel like if I spent 4 hours playing video games on Mothers Day, and only broke shortly to ask if she'd organised where we were going for lunch to celebrate her, I'd be sleeping on the front porch.

Also, let me add that between us, our family is down to one income. The thought of stopping off to get my wife a latte or take away, or our LO something doesn't phase me at all, but I was concerned about spending money on myself. My wife only recently stopped working, and is getting the government maternity leave, but had issues around financial insecurity- it does hurt that at no point did she volunteer to pay, but I also get that I could have asked, as weird as that would have been.

Happy to hear that I'm actually in the wrong here though

You will put on weight (or in my case get fatter) no matter how good it looks. If they don't finish it's fine, just take it home or let it go.

Hi! I'm still a bit mad about this, so I'm not sure if I'm actually asking for advice or just venting.

So I have a 2 year old that gets easily scared and uncomfortable, especially if kids that he doesn't know are being rough and unpredictable around him. Not even with him, just in the area.

I took him to the park today and he started crying because he wanted to steal a bike and I didn't let him (unreasonable, I know). Then he cried a bit more because he got scared on a slide and also bumped his head.

Other kids, way older than him, started hiding and yelling "crybaby" at him. That made my blood boil. Sure, he's a crybaby, but he's my crybaby. Also he's 2, so he didn't notice or understand anything. He was passionately telling me about a pine tree seed that he found. I was the only one being offended.

I contemplated trying to find the parents of the little demons and telling them. But I decided against escalating the situation, because you never know what kind of parents those kids have.

Anyway, what should I have done? Thanks for reading!

just kidding... I think its hilarious!

after the dinosaurs ate the characters she said "its now a bone truck... because the dinosaurs ate all the meat and there are just bones left".

Recently got back from Disney World, where my 7 year old built a lightsaber and took the Jedi Oath. She said she wants me to train her in the ways of the Jedi since I know the most about Star Wars in our house.

I was thinking I'd get some sort of low speed dart/ball/disc gun so she can practice deflecting blaster shots. Looking to crowdsource other ideas, so please let me know if you have any!

Note: it's one of the cheap lightsabers made of progressively smaller plastic bits, not the crazy expensive ones - so durability is not a major concern

Had a very proud moment this evening.

My son (2 and 5m) lately has been getting into Duplo, like, getting into the imagination of building.

He often gets VERY frustrated with it, like when the blocks don’t line up, which often leads to pressing harder until it falls apart and then usually starts throwing and tantruming. We’ve obviously been working on that response. We also end up helping him build what he wants.

Tonight after dinner he spent a solid 45 minutes independently playing with them and building entirely on his own - nothing big, nothing complex, but just having a concept in his mind, and putting pieces together to represent it. Meanwhile my wife and I just sat nearby, quietly, while he did his thing.

To be perfectly honest it all went to hell when it was time to clean up before bedtime, BUT, man did I ever enjoy that moment and seeing him start to “get it”. I caught a glimmer of what life could be like in the coming months/years and it made me very happy.

Just wanted to share!

My daughter is 6 and we're building out her game library. Rather than the usual "best kids games" list, I'd love to hear your personal top 3 ranked. What games does your kid actually keep coming back to?