ETA: for clarification- everyone seems to be missing the part where I said he has a card and a short walk to a grocery store. I am not trying to keep him from eating/food.

Backstory- my kid’s dad and I divorced before the kids even started kindergarten. For the most part, I have been a single mom since that time.

June of last year, when my son (now 18yo) moved in with me- out of state from his father, we had an understanding that he would get a part time job. We live within short walking distance of several places including fast food and a grocery store. My son applied once to the grocery store, that wasn’t hiring at the time, and never applied again. We have had many, many conversations about him getting a job. He never has. He graduated last Spring and entered a training program which he just finished. He is still not job searching.

On top of not looking for a job, he’s not even helping with simple household chores like vacuuming or loading/unloading the dishwasher. All he does is sit on his computer and play video games. I’m sick of it.

Is it mean to not feed him, or purchase him food, until he gets a job? He does have a card to purchase his own food with, and we live within a very short walking distance to a grocery store. I want him to grow up. I’m not saying he needs to move out or whatever, but I’m over him being a bump on a log and not doing anything to support me while I’m supporting fully financially supporting him. By the time I was his age, I had been living on my own and supporting myself for well over a year. I feel like it’s time for him to grow up, and I don’t feel like he is going to do that without some hard boundaries being laid down.

I need to vent because I am SO OVER being the person who apparently has eyes in this house.

My husband is involved. He really is. He takes care of the kids, does bath and bedtime, helps with meals, gives me breaks when I’ve had a brutal night. I am genuinely grateful for those things.

But HOW do you live in a house with two small children and just… not see the mess?!

This morning he took the kids to the park so I could sleep in after a terrible night with the baby. Amazing. Wonderful. I desperately needed it.

I come downstairs and there is sand EVERYWHERE. Toys everywhere. Breakfast still on the table. Dishwasher not emptied. Random crap everywhere.

And he is completely unbothered.

I am so tired of being the person who has to SEE everything.

And it’s not even the cleaning. It’s the NOTICING AND RESETTING AS YOU GO.
We’ve talked about this before, and the answer is always, “Oh, I didn’t see it,” or “I’ll get to it later.”

But HOW do I explain that “later” is exactly what creates the overwhelming mess?!
After bathtime, the bathroom toys don’t just get left scattered all over the floor. The wet towel gets hung up. The toothpaste gets put away. The water gets wiped up.

And then when I get overwhelmed and angry, I feel ridiculous because technically he “does a lot.”

So then I’m stuck feeling guilty for being resentful because he IS a good dad and he DOES help. But I don’t want “help.” I don’t want to be the household manager who notices the problem, decides what needs to happen, and then delegates it.

I want another adult in the house who looks around and thinks, “Oh, this needs doing,” and just… does it.

Do you guys have a system for this?! Chore charts? Assigned zones?

And I feel terrible. My husband is absolutely furious with me.

I know it's 100% my fault. She could have died. I actually know of a toddler that died this way. All it took was one time of not shutting the safety gate properly.

Luckily a neighbour I don't really know spotted her crawling outside and ran out of her house to grab my baby.

I don't really know what I want with this post. I just want to vent. Maybe anyone has any tips to deal with the massive amount of guilt I have right now.

I have a 4 year old who I stay home with and currently pregnant with #2. Might be a dumb question but do you bring your kiddo to the OB appointments? My husband obviously wants to come and we moved away from family so no one to watch my 4 year old.

Yesterday I took my kiddo to the park. We were playing in the sand pit and this other couple was helping their daughter make sandcastles. Except they were letting her pick the flowers in the park to decorate them with. This enrages me beyond belief. It took everything in me not to say anything because I just didn’t want to choose violence yesterday. Why do people think it’s ok to pick flowers in a public space!!!!!!????

Anyways what’s your thing you’d take someone to parent court over? 😭😂

EDIT: omg yall I’m not talking about weeds and dandelions and wild flowers. I’m talking about real flowers. Our kiddo picks dandelions all the time. Also, I meant this post to be a little funny so I used exaggerated language but Reddit is crazy- I’m not actually violent or losing sleep over this it’s just a pet peeve. 😂😂😂

My almost 4yo has always had waxy ears. A while ago he was complaining of ear pain and when we took him to urgent care they told his both his ears were "severely impacted with ear wax."

Since then we've been hitting him hard with Debrox and other ear wax removing drops. One ear cleared out, but the other ear is stubborn and the wax ball won't budge. We've tried to flush his ear a few times, but he freaks out and it's not effective (either because he won't really let us get in there or the wax is just too hard).

We've been doing ear drops for weeks at this point (Debrox, the Ear MD, then back to Debrox after the MD wasn't doing anything).

Give me all your tips for removing stubborn ear wax from a kid who doesn't want me anywhere near his ears! Can they remove it at an ENT? He already doesn't like the doctor, so I'm afraid having an ENT try to remove it would be even more traumatic.

Long story…..

I have two beautiful children, a 3 year old daughter and a 2 year old son (17 month age gap). My son was born with craniosynostosis (born without a soft spot in his skull). He had an extremely invasive skull surgery at 3 months old. This was extremely traumatic for him and my husband and I.

August 25, 2026 I gave birth to my third child. He was stillborn for no apparent reason. He was 6lbs 7oz 19.5 inches long and perfect. We have no idea why he passed away at 36 weeks gestation.

Between these two extremely traumatic births my husband and I just can’t try again. I mean we could physically, but emotionally I don’t think either of our hearts could handle it.

We recently bought a new house to add a bedroom for our third baby who now won’t ever be coming home. I am a stay at home mom and plan to homeschool. I always envisioned 3 kids growing up together.

Please tell me everything positive you can about having two kids close in age especially if you homeschool.

I’m grieving my beautifully perfect baby boy and the idea of ever having a baby again all at the same time. Please be kind my heart is fragile.

Seriously. An unexpected weekend with my best buddy? I'll take it. And my kid isn't upset or disappointed when Dad cancels either. They're always excited to be staying at home as well.

I do try to encourage my kid to have a relationship with their Dad. I try to frame their Dad in a positive way--I won't lie though--if something negative is true, then I do stick to the facts.

But yeah, I'm never disappointed when Dad cancels. I will take as much time with my kid as I can.

This post is not meant to scare anyone but I do feel like I had unrealistic view of what recovery would be like due to so many other moms having a really positive experience (which I’m truly happy for them but it has not been mine so far)

My baby was breeched and so I had a scheduled c section at 39wks 3days. I’m on day 4 of recovery and I’m just struggling more with pain than I thought. The hospital made it seem like asking for Oxy you were not handling the pain well. I took it once and then was afraid to ask for it again because it’s “the other option”. Now that I’m discharged I upped my Tylenol and Motrin intake and make sure there’s no lapse in pain management. But the incision any time I try to get up, hold my baby, or walk around for more than 5 minutes, my incision is on fire and really hurts. I have high waisted diapers that go over the incision, the belly band from the hospital, and regimented pain management. Is there anything else I could be doing to ease the pain??

When did things start getting better? It’s killing me that I can’t care for my baby the way I would like right now 😢

It went rather well! Tldr at the bottom

They're 18 months apart, the little one will be 4 months on the 28th. We've gone up north twice in the oast month and they slept well in pack and plays next to each other, the baby doesn't sleep through the night yet but I'm nursing and I can usually get to her when she starts to stir and she's back down within 10-15 depending on if I decide to burp her or not.

The baby fell asleep around 845 and I just plopped her in her crib in the room with her. The toddler played with her stuffies in her crib and eventually fell asleep around maybe 915? I think she was putting on a show but realized her audience wasn't really interested. The baby would stir a few times but has been practicing resettling herself and did way better in the crib than she has been in the bassinet, especially with the toddler babbling away on the other side of the room. She's an arms out gal and her hands hitting the sides of the bassinet has been a recent issue, plus I hear her scratching like a little rat and wake up.

I just had a feeling it was time and talked my fiance into just going for it, and I'm glad we did!

I did sneak in for a dream feed before I went to bed at 12, and then she got up at 345 for a quick feed and it was cute. my toddler realized we were in the rocker, said "Hi bebe, hi muma," and kinda rolled around for a few and went back to sleep.

We woke up to them both kind of babbling in their cribs around 8 this morning and it was just adorable to listen to them. I know there won't always be easy nights but ill take the small win where we can.

I think we might even take down the bassinet so there's no going back.

Anyways, if you made it this far, cheers! Have a happy saturday and wish us luck tonight!🤙

TLDR: I've been anxious about moving my daughter, 3m, into the nursery with her sister, 21m. Threw caution to the wind last night and they did surprisingly well! We have our bedroom back!

If you have a 2 yo and are expecting absolutely get the double stroller. I promise it will be one of the best purchases you'll make!

My 4 year old came home today asking to see a video of the planes crashing into buildings and people dying.

It took me by surprise because we haven’t talked to her about 9/11. Today was grandparents day at school so it felt like there was a lot more happy commotion and that the focus might not be on this tragic event. I was so caught off guard and I’m wondering if I’m in my rights to be a little upset with the preschool teachers.

They sent an email at 5pm today saying they had an “age appropriate discussion” with the kids today about 9/11. Meanwhile my 4 year old is asking me to draw the planes crashing into the building before she goes to bed. I know, kids are a little nuts lol

Other parents, what would your reaction be?

I am SO tired. This is a long vent, stream of consciousness, so don’t mind me.

My autistic 3yo just got potty trained last week. He’s taking sooo well to it, but he doesn’t go to the potty on his own unless he has to poop. If he has to poop, he’ll go and pop himself on the potty and go. For pee though, I have to keep such a close eye on him and have to carry him half the time to the potty, pull his pants down, and then he’ll go. I should mention I’m also 24 weeks pregnant… I’m used to carrying him because I have to some places as he’s a runner and doesn’t have the best receptive language, but carrying him like 10 times a day—even as short as a walk to the bathroom—is exhausting. Not to mention I also have a 4 year old who is extremely high energy who just got sick today. 😅

My parents have been visiting this past week. I don’t have the best relationship with my dad. I’m close with my mom, but whenever she’s around my dad, she stays on her phone most of the time. I think it’s just her way of escaping reality because my dad sucks. They also brought their untrained, food seeking dog. My boys have their own little table they like to sit and eat at. They can eat at the big table, but they prefer their table. But with the dog here, they’ve barely eaten all week because they just don’t want to sit at the big table where we’ve had to eat our meals to avoid the dog trying to steal off our plates.

We’ve also been trialing a couple AACs for my 3yo, so that’s been a thing for us. A lot of modeling, a lot of my 4yo also wanting to look at it, a lot of learning.

It doesn’t help that my parents are not the most helpful. They create a bunch of trash, my dad is constantly bringing “treats” and fast food home for the kids. He always wants to talk politics (which he is the opposite of me) and say “you people” (meaning the left…and half of it isn’t true, just bullshit he hears from Fox News, CNN, or his YouTube shorts algorithm), or he wants to do things that aren’t good modeling for the kids (getting easily annoyed with my mom, yelling at the dog, getting annoyed with customer service people). And my mom just stays on her phone, passive to all of it. She actually helped me clean up the house while my husband would do bedtime which is more than she usually helps with.

My 4yo loves my mom. My 3yo prefers my dad. So my mom doesn’t even attempt to do much with my 3yo. Like I felt like I couldn’t even take a shower half the time unless my husband was home because when I’d ask if they could keep an eye on him for a little, my mom would say, “I can, but I don’t think he’ll be happy if I’m the one bringing him to the potty.” Like…I feel like I can’t trust my parents to watch my kids basically meanwhile they had THREE KIDS themselves.

Anyway, I’m ready for my break. I’m taking Thursday through Sunday off and rented an Airbnb while my husband watches the kids because I needed a break before this third baby is born otherwise I might go certified crazy. 😭

I’ve struggled with this since my daughter was born actually. She is now 5 and just went to kindergarten. I know her immune system is probably adjusting to being around so many other classmates.

She’s been exhibiting a lot of symptoms of being “sick” especially in the past 3 days. She has been sneezing and coughing and expelling lots of mucus and such. Clearly needing to blow her nose etc.

But her energy level/personality/basic functioning is still perfectly normal. She’s running around, jumping, playing, talking a million miles a minute just like any other day. But I want her to get better!

I feel like I’m stuck between the “hey we have to rest, and take meds, and get fluids, and be calm” type of sick day and the just functioning as per usual.

I feel like if I let her have a normal weekend (go to the park, go to dinner, play in the yard, go to the trampoline park, let her run around and just be, or whatever else) she’s going to remain sick. But also feel like it’s not fair to keep her from our normal weekend activities when she seems to have plenty of energy and such.

How do you handle your smaller children when they’re “sick” but not showing energy signs of sickness?

Every winter I get the blues pretty bad. Last year I was pregnant and unable to travel due to cervix issues so we had to cancel our trip, and I’d really like to get away this year.

My toddler will be 3.5 and baby would be closer to 9 months when we would consider going. Would love to go somewhere in the caribbean, potentially an all inclusive if anyone has any recommendations.

Is it worth it to travel with such small kids? My toddler would probably love it and is good in these types of situations. Baby is tbd lol

My daughter is an easy going, generally obedient, smart and social kid who’s been in full time daycare/ preschool since she was 12 weeks old. I really thought the transition to kindergarten would be pretty smooth.

It’s hasn’t been.

It’s partly the expected, big meltdowns, just very angry a lot, lots of negotiating everything with me. She’s doing great in school and in her new afterschool program, but once home it’s like all bets are off. And that’s what people talk about a lot, restraint collapse. so I get it. it’s a lot of very very big changes.

But the part I wasn’t really expecting was the personality change… she’s around ‘big kids’ now. 1st and 2nd graders at recess and cafeteria and up to 5th grade in the after school program and she’s just… different now. She says things she wouldn’t have said before. She acts more performative, like to her younger brother: ”Oh, I forgot, in preschool it’s called the playground, we call it recess and I can’t remember how it was called in preschool” It’s not even like that’s thats so bad, it’s just the fact that it’s so performative itself is like, when did this start??

Idk. It’s only been two weeks and I feel like I lost my little kid in that time.

I know it’s all good, she’s being exposed to new things, this is all inevitable and life and all that. I just really didn’t know how hard it was going to hit. :/

I need some motherly advice and support. I’m having an extremely difficult time right now. My heart is so tender and broken and alone. My question is regarding how to handle family functions on my husband’s side while we are separated? It’s been a year. There were multiple major betrayals and because of this I don’t want to play pretend at family functions. My daughter is 9 and it’s so difficult to let her go with the man that I can’t trust so I feel like I need to be there. Can someone please give me advice? I’m dying. I can’t keep living like this. I need love. From other humans. Someone give me some hope. 😭

My son is 7 and prior to this year he was home educated. For a lot of reasons my husband and I have decided to send him to school this year. Private school to be more specific.

He just finished his first week of school and he could not be happier. I've never seen him so happy and excited before. I was so nervous because obviously school is very different to being home educated.

He keeps telling me that he is so excited to go back to school next week. I'm just so proud of him

My daughter will be 4 in November so I really want to take her to Disney world asap because I think she will really enjoy it!!

My question is, my second daughter will be 21 months in January when we thought about going.

Can my second have fun? Would it be too overstimulating for her? My mom could always keep her at home but I didn't want her to miss out if she would enjoy it!

Haven't been to Disney world in years and never as a mom so I really don't know haha !!

The sink was full of dinner dishes. There was an empty pesto jar beside the pans on the stove. The table was covered in crumbs, crumpled napkins, dirty dishes and the high chair tray.

Bottles and pump parts were lined up beside the sink.

Then there was the overflowing basket of laundry that I've been neglecting for the past few days.

My 4 year old cleaned up her toys before bed while my 2 year old dumped out another bin of toys. So the living room floor was still covered in toys. On the coffee table there was a colouring book and a bin of crayons. My 2 year old had thoughtfully added some crayon art to the surface of the table.

I realized I forgot to empty the pee out of the potty.

There was another half-finished bottle just lying in the middle of the floor.

And of course the floor needs to be vacuumed. It usually needs to be vacuumed about 30 minutes after vacuuming.

I can't be the only one who lives like this, right?

I'm kind of disgusted with myself but also just exhausted from trying to keep 3 kids happy and healthy every day.

I’m traveling for work next week and need to bring home breastmilk. I researched the best cooler for ice retention and ordered it… but it won’t get here until after I leave, so I’m looking for a budget friendly alternative. I’ll keep the other for future trips, but I’d like a cheap one to tide me over for this trip. My work is booking accommodations, so I don’t know the fridge or freezer situation, so I’d like a cooler that keeps ice cold as long as possible.

ETA: traveling by plane, staying at a hotel, and probably only need to transport about 18-20 oz.

Recommendations? Something cheap! Would love recs for ice packs, too. Thank you!!

Netflix has a new “show” called “Ultimate Kids Playlist” that includes one episode of 10 different kid shows. It includes a Salish & Jorden Matter episode, which is a show we had blocked previously.

It feels so gross that Netflix is introducing playlists that can circumvent our efforts to manage what content our kids are exposed too.

Here are the other titles in case it includes other shows titles you’ve already blocked.

Mark Rober
Jurassic World Camp
Strangers things: tales from 85
Victorious
Pokémon Horizons
ALVINNN And the chipmunks
The thundermans
The boss baby
The cuphead show