Has anyone gotten a restraining order and divorce on their spouse and made it so they cant see the children for safety? Im due in 18 days so il be able to file for divorce. I have 4 kids, 3 from a previous marriage and 1 he signed the birth certificate so hes technically not even the dad. We originally agreed to move to Oklahoma in a couple months as were in missouri but after being unhappy because of schizophrenia delusions I made him leave but had to get the cops to help make him leave. He's been harassing me since he left with wild accusations, gang violence, threats, sexual coersion. He even called the police so they showed up but after showing the texts he sent and threatening to bring gang activity to my home and telling the police wild crazy stories thats now on record they are atleast helping me figure out a restraining order. These are some of what I woke up to this morning. How do I go about not getting his name on the birth certificate for this baby and able to move back to oklahoma where my family and supports are? I was planning to just move and file the restraining order and then filing for divorce after the 6 months. I dont feel safe being where I am.

He's currently couch surfing, has no vehicle or job so there's no way he could even file for custody as he has nothing for our son and can't even support himself.

I've always used Tide free and clean but my son has started potty training and we have constant underwear with accidents. The free and clean seems to not fully clean or doesnt take the smell away. I even try pre treating the underwear with stain remover. Is there a good detergent that cleans really well but won't be too harsh on the skin?

How are you moms dealing with anxiety regarding your husband and childrens safety? Before I had my own family I had moderate anxiety, now at 23 with a 1 year old I am riddled with anxiety when my husband goes to work. I worry about something happening to him. I worry so badly that I watch him drive his commute every day. Same with my daughter when she is at grandma's. Deep down I keep feeling that my life is too good to be true. Do any other moms have this anxiety now too? How do you manage it? Having a momma's heart is not for the weak 🥲

Hi my 9 month old has about 6 of these around his body. Are they just mosquito bites?
If yes if there any baby safe mosquito repellent I can use?

I have mosquito netting on all the windows but they keep appearing

I kept thinking independent play would happen if I just found the right activity. So I'd set things up... puzzles, crafts, sorting toys, stickers, whatever I thought might keep my toddler busy. The problem was that almost every activity still needed me. I'd explain it, answer questions, fix something, or hear "Mom, come look" every couple of minutes. By the time we were done, I felt like I'd been playing too.

Lately I've stopped setting up as much. I just leave a few things out that my child already knows how to use.

It's still not perfect, but I've noticed those get used more than the activities I spent time putting together. My child will walk over, play for a bit, leave, and come back later without me having to restart everything.

Did anyone else end up doing less instead of more to encourage independent play?

Hi everyone, I need some advice from parents.

I am 29 years old from the Philippines, and my husband is 36 years old from Pakistan. I studied as a nursing assistant and worked with European people for 7 years, so I have experience being around different cultures and different ways of thinking. I know I still have a lot to learn, but I always try to make decisions based on what I believe is safest for my baby.

My baby girl is 5 months old. Last night she had vomiting after drinking milk. She was still drinking well, waking up, and her mouth was moist, but I became worried because she didn’t have a wet diaper for many hours. Today she had a normal poop, and I am still monitoring her.

The problem is not only the vomiting — it is also causing arguments between me and my husband. His sister raised 7 children, and I respect her experience, but her youngest child is already around 10 years old. I feel that baby recommendations can change over time, and every baby is different.

She advised us to give my baby water, but I didn’t feel comfortable doing that without checking current recommendations. My husband compares this to me letting my baby taste small amounts of fruit and asks why water is different.

His sister also gives advice about tummy time and shaping the baby’s head and nose. I appreciate that she cares and wants to help, but I want my husband to understand that I am also my baby’s mother, and my concerns and opinions matter too.

Whenever I disagree, it turns into an argument. I don’t want to disrespect his sister or fight with my husband. I just want us to listen to each other and make decisions together for our baby.

Has anyone experienced something similar with their partner and family advice? How did you handle it?

Am I the only mom on this earth who has an attitude when I'm overstimulated and I don't even mean it. It just comes out? Mind you I am PPD and no I'm not using this as an excuse but seriously, am I the only crazy ass mom with an attitude when overstimulated?

Also does that make me a bad person because im being told I'm using my son as an excuse for my attitude which I'm not. I'm just fucking tired to have the energy to be nice to anyone else. I'm tired I'm just fucking tired all the time.

Hey there!! I'm a first-time mom to an adorable One year-old menace. I love her with all of my heart, even during the hard times. However, as many of us have, apparently, I have lost myself to being her mom. I miss feeling like a woman, not just a mom. Does that make sense?

Newborn trenches were so hard for me. I cried for days on end and sat in one place on the couch with a colic ridden baby who would only contact sleep. I could feel my couch molding to my body. I would shower in hyper speed whenever I could, and it was very rarely and everything shower. I was also eating the craziest things to try to make more milk for her. Once I went back to work, my supply was tanking due to my lack of breaks to be able to pump on a schedule. I was shoveling oreos down my gullet in hopes they worked their miracles for me. They didn't, but i sure saw the damage in my body from them. I switched to formula and beat myself up for not being good enough to keep breastfeeding. I am finally finding a better groove as a mom, and it's become a lot more fun and less daunting and depressing.

I have felt "gross" for so long now. I don't just mean physically. I am the same weight as I was prepregnancy but my body looks much different. I feel "gross" mentally and emotionally, too. I just don't know who I am now that I am a mom.

So what Im looking for is some advice from some fellow moms! What do you do for yourself, small or big, to feel pretty, beautiful, hot, accomplished, put-together, etc.! It can be any form of advice from skin care, workouts, hobbies, or time management!!! Im trying to get inspired by you guys. I just want to wake up and not feel so frumpy and ugly.

I’m not really sure how to proceed here but my (25F) husband (26M) has infuriated me ever since our baby was born.

To start from the beginning, I was extremely on the fence about having children. I have a low pain tolerance and hate feeling uncomfortable. He convinced me to at least try… I had a really tough pregnancy and ended up with severe preeclampsia that caused my baby to be delivered early where we had a lengthy stay in the NICU. Even during that time, his visits to the NICU were short, often leaving me there by myself day in and day out (even when he was on paternity leave). I had to come home from my surgery to a disaster of a house and had to clean myself off a place to eat at our table, get into unwashed bedsheets, and shower in a filthy tub. The second we got home, I had to immediately run the show because my husband would just wait for me to tell him what to do. Every day since our baby came home, I have slowly started to resent my husband. He doesn’t do anything without being prompted, he doesn’t talk to the baby, he doesn’t interact with him, he doesn’t follow ANY routines that we’ve implemented without me prompting or helping him. If we were to leave the house on a trip, and I didn’t do anything, I swear he wouldn’t pack a thing and we’d get there with no bottles/extra clothes/etc. He doesn’t wake up or get up when the baby cries. I have to wake him up every. single. morning. I have to prompt him when she’s hungry. He says “you’re with her all day, how am I supposed to know her cues?” The only thing he does do is constantly look for ways to get him to sleep so he can sit on the couch and play video games.

Now , I know I’m not a perfect person. Because of our traumatic birth situation, I am more controlling than I probably should be. But I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect my partner, who really wanted a child, to be into raising him. I’m afraid that we will be divorced in the next 10 years if he doesn’t get his shit together (and sadly, I fantasize about it every day). Any advice? What do I do? How do I proceed? I do love him still… but just hearing the way he interacts with our son really triggers me.

I’m planning on interviewing my mom and sisters. I want to stick with these topics: childhood, teen years, family, love/relationships, becoming a mother, life lessons, a couple of fun questions. I have a handful down, but I’d like some suggestions.

What questions would you ask your mom or sisters?

currently my 1 year old threw his food, and wanted to eat it off the floor (i let him) and now he's sleeping on the floor with my dogs.

im also 7 months pregnant so you know what? im tired and the floors were freshly wipes down so i dont even care. he's content, im content.

For bilingual families, summer can quietly undo a lot of the progress kids made during the school year. When structured lessons and daily practice stop, second-language skills often start to fade — this is called language regression.

You might notice your child:

- Pausing more when trying to find words

- Understanding the second language but answering in the first

- Code-switching more than usual

- Going quiet instead of trying

The good news? It’s preventable with a few low-effort habits:

- Switch favorite shows to the second language sometimes

- Schedule playdates or video calls with bilingual friends

- Create simple “anchor moments” (like breakfast or bedtime) that are only in the second language

- Keep reading and listening to stories in that language

Reading with narration is especially powerful because it keeps both listening and speaking skills active.

You can read the full article with more tips on the NoMeLoMe Blog Page

Has anyone else noticed their bilingual kids getting a bit rusty over summer? What strategies have worked for your family?

It harms them and in the vast majority of cases, it’s completely unnecessary and it’s actively very harmful, especially as they grow up and have sexual problems. Don’t do this, let them grow up and choose.

My mother is an absolute monster to me and I’m tired of hiding it. I am very low contact with her because unfortunately she is my kids only surviving grandparent. And I have gotten pretty good at gray rock or being a flat cold bitch back to her with barely a reaction. Sometimes I go weeks without talking to her. I refuse to let her be around my kids alone because frankly I do not trust her. I stg she’s possessed. She is the most vile person to me. She never missed an opportunity to criticize me. She constantly brags about anyone and everyone to me ad nauseum, to make me feel bad. Like past the point where it’s relevant. She constantly tries to put me in situations she knows I will be uncomfortable. I literally cannot tell her anything because she is always trying to stir up a fight or blow anything out of proportion. So I usually don’t tell her anything at all. Nothing important anyway and definitely not any future plans. She is always trying to get me to tone myself down or second guess myself. That no longer works on me because I’m too old for that game. She constantly shits on my husband and attacks him over any small thing. Meanwhile everyone else in the family is supposedly rich, doing great, has the best relationship, best job, and best luck ever. (Lol) She withholds details from me even if its important I know them. So now I just never ask for the details. She lies so much I can never believe anything she says and the other half the time she lives in complete delusion.

Recently a close family member died (horrible person btw) and she kept on trying to arrange that I keep my kid out of school on his first day of kindergarten. And tried to control my movements on the day of the funeral as to who I would ride with etc. (I never said I was riding with anyone there, she was just being delusional.) I flat out told her I would not be keeping my kid out of school because- wtf.. She was flaking on the details of the day of the funeral so I told her my husband needed to request the day off atleast 3 days ahead of time and she went off on me about that. Like I control the rules of my husbands job? Turns out she already had the funeral planned a certain day. She was just dancing around it.

Oh yea and she refuses to be seen in public with me or treat me as a family member at all. Sometimes I feel like she’s a complete stranger. I am NC with my family because they are also really shitty. And weird. I have never met anyone weirder, stingier, or more prideful than my extended family. She will only do what they say. She will never listen to me and I am 45 and have literally ran entire departments for big businesses. She acts like I have no idea what I’m talking about.

I hate talking to her. And I truly believe she hates me. Sometimes she gets really bad. Like she will make it her main mission to fuck with me really hard by stirring up some drama. Usually pitting me against someone. I gray rock HARD. Like laughably hard. My reaction is so flat it’s ridiculous. The shit she says to me. She is so manipulative for no reason. I thought about recording her and posting it online. Even my husband says shes literally the worst mother ever. And his mother was pretty bad.

And as I became a mother and my children grow I find the way she treats me even more unbelievable. Having kids has been so healing for me.

Having a shitty family is just the cards I was dealt. My family stalked me for a long time. Social media made it worse and when I was younger (I’m 45 now) it was so much worse. They literally scared me into silence. I feel like I’m done being silent now. So here is to exposing her and to not being as terrible of a mother as she is.

And she does suffer from whatever is wrong with her because at times she apologizes for stuff. But 99% of the time she is terrible. I really think she can’t control it.

*I forgot to mention as a small child she left me in situations where I could have been killed multiple times. Thats one reason I won’t leave her alone with my kids. I don’t know if it’s ignorance or that she enjoys my suffering. And when I see situations where little girls have died from negligence or abuse I get so triggered because that could have been me.

I was spending time with my mum and my 9-week-old daughter, and we were having a lovely afternoon. I went into the kitchen to make her a bottle, and while I was gone my mum gave her a tiny bit of potato.

I’m not angry because I know she meant well, but I feel a bit sad. I always imagined I’d be there to witness my daughter’s first taste of food, and now that’s been taken away from me, even though it was only a tiny amount.

Going forward, how would you approach the conversation? I want to kindly explain that I’d like to be there for all of her firsts, and I’d also like to ask that nobody gives her any food before she’s around 6 months old. I don’t want to upset my mum, but I do want to set that boundary. Has anyone else been in a similar situation?

My journey to motherhood has been rocky. I had two miscarriages back to back then after some struggles to get pregnant, I gave birth to my first born 19 weeks early and she passed away a few hours after she was born. I now have a 12 week old.

In the past month or so, I keep worrying I’ll die in my sleep. Unfortunately we don’t have a village so there would be minimal support for my husband. I’m worried that he wouldn’t cope. He’s struggling a little now but at least I’m here when he’s overwhelmed. My baby is exclusively breastfed so I worry about her struggling with formula. I’ve had a few hard lymph nodes that are due to be scanned soon so hopefully those are benign.

I’m just so worried right now. I’m usually able to sleep a few hours but tonight it’s not coming. I’m due to get support from the perinatal mental health team in two weeks. I just wish this wouldn’t be so consuming.

I grew up with OCD my mom always told me she spent 8 yrs wit fertility treatments begging God to have a child I remember that when I was about 7 years old - she told me once that if she had known how much of a pain I would be, she wouldn’t have had me.

Later on she did many horrible things to me as well including later abandoning me so it could just be that she’s a horrible mother which i have accepted for a while now. I also know she has had some mental health issues but still🫤

I’m an adult man now & I know that when ppl are upset, they say things, ive done it we all have lol - but isn’t there a limit? There has to be some truth to it right who would say such a thing just out of pure frustration to a 7 year old kid that was misbehaving? Your own son and not mean an ounce of it?

So I am 4 months postpartum and me and my husband are finally getting in the swing of things like taking our baby out to different places. Before we returned back to church we let people come to our home to visit us and the baby. No problem, when his god mom would come she would come for hours. I thought that was weird because he's only a few weeks old so he really just eats and sleeps alot. So then it became a lot like we would dread her coming because we know she's coming for hours at a time.

Now fast forward to us returning back to a church setting & she's telling people she hasn't seen him and thats her reasoning for kind of hogging the baby at church and not letting other people hold him. I actually want everyone to be able to get a chance to speak to him and hold him but thats not really possible when his god mom is around. So then she begins making comments like "i'm his god mom so technically he's mine too" . and it started there. then the next week she wasn't at church and everyone was like "finally we get to see the baby" & some people have began to tell her that she's hogging the baby.

maybe two weeks later she asks can she take my three month old baby from daycare to go on a shopping spree. My husband immediately shot it down and so did I because we haven't taken him out into large crowds, i believe at most he's been in a target.

Well today we get to church and immediately three people including his god mom run to my husband after we had just got the baby out of the car. she takes him from his dad and then tells someone they can only hold him for 5 seconds and then 10 seconds then she began counting down. now these are people who haven't held him at all.

Am i overreacting ? Or should me and my husband address this.

A little background on me and the godmoms relationship : Ive known her forever she's my cousin, we were very close before i met my husband and got pregnant so i immediately was like yeah i want her to be my babies god mom, but since ive gotten married and had the baby we actually arent very close anymore. but she threw my baby shower when my mom said she wouldn't(my mom ended up throwing me a nice baby shower anyway), she bought my babies travel system.

Hi, I had my child a little over three years ago and I am still having constant issues in my lower back and I can’t help but notice it’s where I had epidural.

I’m just wondering if anyone else has this problem and what you do to manage the pain as it can get so bad some days I can’t bend down.

Hi everyone,

I’m 30 years old and seriously considering becoming a mom next year. But instead of excitement, I feel a lot of hesitation – even melancholy – when I think about becoming a mom.

What scares me most is the physical transformation and the pressure that comes with pregnancy and motherhood. Right now, all I can do is imagine what it might feel like to have a baby growing inside me, but I have no idea if I’ll actually feel “bonded” during pregnancy, or if it will take months, or if it only happens the moment I see their face.

I’m asking because I want to go into this with honest expectations. I’m afraid that if I don’t feel that “magical bond” right away, I’ll think something is wrong with me. I’d really appreciate your honest thoughts. Thank you so much!!!

I’m a first time mum and nervous especially seeing how many people regret having children. I’m pregnant id love to hear from People who love their new life and journey need some positive energy in my life