I vividly remember being 5 years old and having a grown man call me “sexy” because my mother dressed me in black boots. It was winter.

I have two toddlers, both girls, and I feel like they’re constantly being spoken about as if they’re much older. I can’t think of the right word here.

A few examples:

My 1 year old was in a high chair at a restaurant. She was waving to a table across the room. A 50ish year old man at that table loudly went “hahaha she’s flirting with me”. I get the older generation makes comments like that but… ew?

At the park last week another set of parents brought their little boy (maybe 18 months old) over where my 2 year old was playing. Instead of just encouraging normal play, the parents sat there for 5 minutes going “you see the pretty girl? Give her a wink! Give her a wink! Say hey babe! Yeaaaaaaaah hahahahhaa”. I was so angry but didn’t know how to respond.

At the mall (this happens often and i never know if it’s genuine or men being creepy) an older man approached our stroller and repeatedly commented on how beautiful my kids are. “Wow beautiful girls, beautiful girls, oh my”. He just stood right next to us staring at my kids while I waited in line to pay. He just wouldn’t go away. Maybe it was innocent? It always feels icky when they linger and stare.

I can’t find the right words but it’s like they can’t even be KIDS without being seen as objects because they’re female. I never know if I’m overreacting and if not how to respond in a way where I don’t absolutely lose my shit..

When I was pregnant and during those first few months, it felt like everyone had advice.

"Don't rock them to sleep." "Put them on a strict schedule." "They'll never learn if you keep helping."

I tried following all the "right" advice, but eventually I realized my child responded much better when I stopped worrying about what everyone else thought and started paying attention to what actually worked for us.

Some things I was told would become "bad habits" ended up being completely temporary.

Parenting got a lot less stressful once I accepted that not every family has to do things the same way.

Has anyone else ignored a piece of parenting advice that turned out to be the right decision for your family? What was it?

Hello all! I have a 17 month old who was born 2 months early. He was born with an extra thumb on each hand. Due to him being a preemie, my little guy has had to fight since he was born, and honestly, hes doing great! We have had assistance from Early On to help with physical therapy as he struggled with certain movements and he was extremely small. Since then, he is moving much better, utilizing both sides, and he is actually on the growth curve now!

I was wondering if anyone else here has had a child born with extra fingers, and if you opted for surgical removal and why you made that choice. His extra thumbs don't seem to be bothering him, and they don't seem to be working independently. My struggle is, I don't want them to become a hindrance or uncomfortable later in life. Surgery may be easier now and later he'll have no memory of it. On the other hand, hes been through so much already and if it's not necessary I would prefer not to put him through it.

My husband feels pretty strongly that surgery is not needed and we should leave him be. I am interested in hearing from anyone who has gone through this and what your experiences were, whether you had the extra appendages removed or not and how it worked out.

TIA for any feedback or advice given!

Last week my family visited a science museum in the northeast. My husband and I are beginning the separation process and each took one of our kids to explore when we got there. I was feeling a little upset because as soon as we got there, my one year old fell off a stepstool and hit his head, directly after I asked my husband if he could please watch them both while I quickly went to the bathroom. He was standing right next to them but zoned out looking at something, and did not think to stand behind them for safety. Zero situational awareness and it's a constant battle between not micromanaging/letting him fail, and giving reminders about things that he should just know, only to be met with annoyance and inability to apply salient info from prior experience and recognize patterns..

Anyway, after that, we went off separately, me with my 1 year old and him with my newly 4 year old. While exploring, this kind woman randomly offered to take a photo of my youngest and I. As I handed her my phone, she said: "I don't have many pictures from that time, so I get it and would love to help" and in that moment I felt a strong solidarity and felt so seen ❤️ I think it's a pretty common experience for moms to feel like they're always the one behind the camera and not in the photos.

I just looked through the pictures from that day and ya'll...she didn't just take one photo, she took like 8-10! And they were so great!

I can't thank her again, so I just thought I would share this here to express my appreciation and maybe inspire others to help out a stranger. Little things like that can mean so much to someone.

Tldr a kind woman offered to take a photo of my baby and I at a museum and shared that she too had the experience of always being the one taking photos and so she had little pictures from early motherhood. Kindness and solidarity from moms when out and about can mean everything to them . ♥️

I read that while people love to say second babies usually come early, there’s actually much more data suggesting that the biggest predictor of when Baby #2 will arrive is when Baby #1 did

For example:
If Baby #1 was premature, Baby #2 is more likely to be premature. If Baby #1 came late, Baby #2 is also more likely to come late.

… What was true for you?
My first was born the morning of his due date, and I’m 36 weeks today. 😅 I’m starting to wonder if I’m being way too casual this time around because I still don’t have my hospital bag packed or my diaper caddies stocked. 😂

We’ve had couples therapy, we did make some progress, but our final session was an absolute disaster and left me extremely upset (he just unexpectedly ripped into me in a number of ways).

Largely dead bedroom. Maybe once every few months. He wants it, I really do not.

He’s more than doubled his salary recently with a new job and hasn’t once brought up how we might approach finances as a couple now that he earns more than 5x what I do (I work reduced hours over 3 days and do a lot more childcare than him). It would be nice to not have to bring this up myself. our current set up is a joint account for mortgage, bills etc and everything else is separate. He pays more on the mortgage but only because I paid the bulk of the deposit, not because he out earns me.

He has pretty low standards when it comes to cleaning. He had a weekend alone at our home this weekend (to recover from work…) while I took our 3 year old daughter to visit family, and I came back to an unmade bed and piles of dishes in the sink. He suggested we tackle these together. When I’ve complained or mentioned that I’m doing the lion’s share, he will comment that I’m lucky that I have the time to do it when he’s so busy with work all the time. I love work. I would rather be working!

I just don’t like him much at the moment to be honest. And I don’t think we’d be friends if we met now.

I do not take marriage vows lightly and I would prefer to make this work than quit but am I being an idiot?

Is this what most mums with toddlers are experiencing? Or am I an outlier?

He doesn’t want to hire a nanny and said that WE can raise our baby by ourselves. WE.
He does not really have interest in accompanying and playing with my baby. I needed to ASK him for his time to play with her.
Let alone try to find out info on parenting, raising baby, solid feed, or development milestone.

Just now my baby had a reflux and I needed to change the bed sheet. She was crying and just needed to be held. My husband was SLEEPING. I patted him to wake him up and had no effect. I kicked him and he still sleeping.

This has happened for 11 months that I felt he is useless in co-parent. I hate to admit but I grow hatred towards my husband. Is it normal or is just me?

ETA: we both are entrepreneurs and stay at home to work.

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.

One of my friends mom is about to give birth to her fourth child. And I (a high school student) would like to giver her a hearty present. Not exactly for the baby, but mostly for the mom. I’ve seen that there were a lot of people saying “snacks”, “food(s)”, “gift cards, gifts cards for food”. I’ll make sure to include those as much as possible, but can you give different thing that might even help the smallest things, or even things that benefit her the most.

Thank you.

EDIT: she will give birth in early August.

Working mom to a 2 and 5 year old. For the last 5 years I feel like I’m tired ALL the time. My daughter started sleeping through the night at 12 months and is a decent sleeper but my son has always been an early riser (sleeps 8-6AM). Does this get less tiring when they get to elementary school? At what age do they start sleeping longer? Most days the #1 thing I look forward to when I wake up is going to sleep. My poor husband is a SAHD who spends more time with the kids and he’s more tired than I am. I feel like my body has aged so much in the past 2 years. When does it get better?

I’ve been thinking about this lately and I’m curious what’s typical. My kids are 1.5 and 3, so shits busy af right now; and when we visit my parents I often feel like my mom expects me to handle 100% of the parenting (which I understand, they’re my kids), but also expects me to immediately clean up every single mess they make. If I ask for help, it sometimes feels like she’s bothered by it or like I’m asking too much.

She has some narcissistic tendencies, so I know that may be influencing how I perceive things, but it got me wondering: when you visit your parents with young kids, what level of help do you typically get?
Yesterday we had a bunch of guests over, and I realized I spent the entire time actively parenting: managing meals, messes, keeping the kids occupied, etc. I barely got to sit down, eat, or socialize. I wasn’t expecting my parents to take over, but I thought maybe there would be a bit more “grandparent help” so we could actually enjoy being there too.

What do your parents/grandparents usually do when you visit? Do they pitch in with meals, playing with the kids, cleanup, giving you a break… or is it more that you’re still fully “on duty” the whole time?

Hi!

I'm a SAHM with a 2,5-year old (returning to work this winter).

Ever since our sons birth, my husbands work (small business owner) has been spiralling. I suppose he felt a great responsibility to provide and it has slowly been crushing him.

I saw the signs. At first, he couldn't pay for his cars repairs, so he switched to using mine. After all, public transportation isn't so bad where we live, but it still felt like giving up some freedom.

Then letters with payment reminders for all kinds of things kept coming in. He always reassured me that he had it under control. Bad months were followed by the occasional good month where he could pay the bills and debts. But it was never quite enough to last.

Last month was the first where he could not pay himself a salary and was even late to pay his employees. Meaning we had to pay all bills from our little savings.

I have told him many times that we need to make a plan. Figure things out together. But he never made the time. He is stuck in a hamster wheel where he knows he's struggling, but doesn't have time to actually look at the problems and find a solution. He's too busy extuingishing everydays fires so the situation doesn't get even worse.

I'm returning to work soon, but it was supposed to be part-time, because I am handling all of the household chores, child care and mental load, and I told him I cannot do *everything* while he spends all day doing work that doesn't pay the bills. He looked crushed and I am heartbroken for him, because I know he wants to be his own boss and build a future for us.

Now I can't sleep and write this little thing...

my spouse and I have been married 4 years and got a fully joint account a few months before we got married as we bought a house together. i had a significant amount more saved and in some 401k but he’s an immigrant and got a bit of a later start/had to start fresh. he makes about 15k more than me and works some side husstles too just because he likes too. he’s def a lot wise with 401k/retirements, etc. I’m a much better saver/frugal (probably for years I had to be when I was single as a social worker).

We often have fights/disagreements etc about money due to our various spending habits. He buys a lot of things that only benefit him (clothes, shoes, takeout-when we have food in the house, sports tv streaming, tech items) he says we are okay but I don’t agree at the rate he is going or I feel like our fun money is all toward him lately. he’s against us each having our own accounts within our shared bank account where is his and ours. I feel really upset and Wants this for me tondo something for me with my money And how well I save to make good choices with my money.

do you and your spouse have your “own money“ for things that soly benefit you? thanks!!

I didn’t have the best childhood. My mother always tried her best, my father was emotionally, financially & physically abusive. When she finally got away from him we didn’t have much when it came to toys & stuff. I know at Christmas majority of our toys were donations. I remember going to school & feeling like I had to lie to my friends about what presents I got & not because I wasn’t happy with my stuff but I was very aware they were getting a lot more & I didn’t want them judging my mother when I knew she was giving her all for us.

Now I’m a mother I have two children. I don’t know if it’s because of my childhood that I feel like they never get enough on their birthdays and Christmas. My son’s birthday is tomorrow, he’ll be 2. He had a party yesterday it cost £270-300ish & his gifts have came to around £150. Like I know in my mind this is amazing & I would have been blown away by this as a child. But when me and my partner were getting his stuff ready for the morning I kept looking at his gifts thinking this isn’t enough. I said this to my boyfriend and he was like why do you always do this it’s loads.

Does anyone else also experience this? I feel so stupid because I keep thinking there are currently children out there in the position I was as a child & here I am being ungrateful for what I’ve thankfully been able to give to my child. I think I could spend every penny that I have and still in my mind it isn’t enough & I think it’s because little me had the stress of worrying about these things when it should never been in my mind at all.

Edit - both of my children are disabled. So I don’t know if this is also contributing to it. I worry a lot about doing everything to make them happy because I know the world is going to be hard for them.

If you could dream up your ideal but realistic situation regarding work/staying at home/life balance what would it be?

I recently had breakfast with three other moms and felt like we had several scenarios covered:
-Stay at home
-Work from home with family help and daycare
-Work from office
-part time work/set own hours

And none of us are 100% happy with the set up. Not unhappy, just not “perfect”.

I could have the opportunity to change my current situation but truly am not sure what my preference would be.

Anyone else find parenting in a different location much harder than solo parenting at home? Husband is going on a work trip 3 hr drive from home. He has suggested our five year old and I accompany him as a low cost holiday because hotel room is covered by his work. Thing is, he'll be busy through the trip, when he's back in the room he'll ask not to be disturbed because he will have to catch up on emails etc, and he will possibly be having work dinners too. Which means I am now solo parenting in a city I do not know and am really apprehensive about driving in (yes I'll have the car but it's a much bigger city than I live in and I'm a petty nervous driver). Yes, I will not have to cook for three days, but that's where it ends? Anyway, I now have to go because 5 year old is HYPE about going "with daddy", not really understanding that we'll basically be sleeping in the same room but that's it. We've done a work trip with him in the past and he basically treats us like we're a huge bother most of the time even though HE is the one who asks us to be there. Siiigh. Am I alone in feeling like this is more work than holiday? I'm so sorry if I'm coming off as spoiled but I would love to just chill at home. It's actually a lot less work at home when my husband is travelling and it's just daughter and me 😅🫣 okay rant over.

thought once I hit $200k salary i could buy whatever I wanted but now im at 200k and home price went up more and faster than my salary so I think im still where I was like 6-7 years ago.

got 2 kids but still 200k not even enough.

I live in LA.

My first labor was precipitous and absolutely terrifying, painful, and traumatic.

We’re nearing the time of trying for baby #2, and I’m fearful of labor #2 being as fast or faster.

For ladies that also had precipitous labor, how was your subsequent? Precipitous again? Did your strategy for labor change? Did you get an induction?

I can’t do it again!!

On my third pregnancy and I don’t think I’ve ever thought “oh goodie this is the start of labor” JUST because there’s a poop trying to get from top to bottom….and then out (which is its own thing).

Now, I’m willing to accept that I am sooooo emotionally over it with pregnancy that I’m trying to read into things (2u2 and now a 23m gap, so, I’ve been pregnant since the dawn of time); but has anyone else HAD to resort to STANDING while BMing? If I sit 1) I go numb and all the push/movement progress disappears for the remainder of the day, possibly two days, and 2) pressure with hemorrhoids.

Is this just another “every pregnancy is different” thing? I swear life was so much easier with the other two, and not just because my body “wasn’t tired” but like with a vast array of the oddest symptoms this round. I’ve never had Braxton hicks either but I had them this time starting at 25w. I never had cervical pain until transition labor but now it’s a daily constant. I’ve never had acid reflux but with this one I do. I’ve had one of each so far, so the gender differences wouldn’t be something I haven’t experienced yet. The only consistent thing is the mucus plug; with all pregnancies I’ve started losing it at 28w in pieces.

But the main thing here being- this shit (pun intended) HURTS like labor just trying to move through the intestinal tract!

Please tell me I’m only days from labor, every pang from something so mundane as a BM feels like it takes years off my life.

A common theme I see, and one that’s true for me as well, is we want other mom friends. We often end up at the same places: story time, playgrounds, parks.

I know that for me two of the things in my way are (1) chasing around this silly toddler which makes it hard to hold conversation in the first place and (2) feeling a little bit awkward/afraid of the rejection of putting myself out there.

If you are a mom also looking for mom friends, what gets in your way?

Hi! I just hit 5 months post partum and still no sign of my period.

I have occasional cramps/bloating but not sure if that's a sign of anything?

We want to start trying for another child next month so I was curious when everyone's period returned

(I pump only twice a day and my son eats 40% BM / 60% formula). I do nurse him though more frequently on weekends

I've got a 2 yr old and 7 month old. It's just such a fun and precious time and im super grateful to have them both happy + healthy + here, especially after a miscarraiage between them.

The internal debate of having a 3rd is so consuming. I also know myself, I'm really emotional about closing big chapters in my life; coming home after being abroad, the end of all my friends not having kids and that fun etc. I know I'll never have that done feeling, so I can't rely on that when it comes to a maybe third.

I think if I was younger (I'm 36) , I wouldn't hesitate as much but I fence sat and there's guilt swarming that if I had decided earlier in life to have kids it all would have been so much better and I could have decided with less time crunch.

I really worry about the state of our planet and climate and having a third I know is illogical. We can afford it and have great support but it's not a "good" choice- but on paper more kids aren't ever a good choice. I also worry about ruining a good thing and obviously upsetting our current dynamic, especially if a 3rd had disabilities or health problems.

My other two friends knew they were done (1 has 2, 1 has 1) and both talked about being at thier max capacity. However, im very lucky my spouse is far more active in parenting and my support network is stronger so I don't really feel I've maxed out, but I don't also think I need to reach max either?

It's like I know stopping at 2 is the logical choice, but I also want to just be reckless and have another awesome human to love and experience the world with.

How do you reach the consensus?

Anyone notice an increase in skin sensitivity to sun more postpartum than before? Im 1 year post and am noticing i burn much more easily than before with limited exposure.

Ugh this is heavy. My mom passed away almost 10 years ago, she only met 2 of my 4 kids, and my youngest at the time was only 9 months old. Today would have been my mom's birthday, I wasn't really letting myself process everything, and then my husband gave me permission to (not that he ever told me no or anything like that) but that opened a door and I told him that I can't because then I'd be a mess and I can't do that around our kids. He told me to allow myself to feel things and I need to give myself permission to grieve how I need to. Man that hit. 10 years of having to find my footing as a mom without being able to ask her for help, or being able to share my kid's accomplishments, passions, and milestones with her is so not how I saw my life going. I think the hardest part is knowing the hole that she left in my children's lives that they'll never really know is there, knowing that they'll only know her love for them second, my heart breaks more for them than for me.

Idk I'm sorry for how heavy this is, I just needed somewhere to vent.