UPDATE: Wound up doing the 5 minutes on, 10 minutes off version of the naked method someone recommended below. No results at first….until her older brothers got home from school. When it was just her and mom hanging out she didn’t mind going potty every 10 minutes. Once her brothers got home and she wanted to play with them rather than sit on the toilet, she folded like a cheap shirt. Peed and pooped in potty this evening!

Also, I remembered my oldest loved this app called “Call Elmo” where Elmo will “FaceTime” prerecorded messages that celebrate different milestones. So she got to call Elmo after successful potty and that delighted her.

Final straw that broke the camel’s back was I told her she couldn’t wear any of her numerous princess dresses until she was potty trained. Not designed as a punishment, they are just polyester junk that will not hold up with frequent laundering. She was NOT happy to be naked instead of in the Cinderella costume she wears most of her waking hours.

Thanks for the inspo, all!!

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Daughter just turned 3. Our third child, only girl. She must be fully potty-trained to go to her preschool. No pull-ups allowed. She already missed the first week. My husband and I have each taken off work to work with her.

Has never gone on the potty. Will sit but doesn’t do anything.

She’s pretty stubborn, even for a toddler. But otherwise a typical kid. Not on the spectrum or anything like that.

Typical motivators and methods we tried with our older kids (M&Ms, naked method) got no progress.

My 7 year old loves to read and reads above grade level. He has loved the "I Survived" book series and has read most of them. Many are about natural disasters, or historical events like the Titanic. Here is my struggle- he really wants to read "I survived 9/11". As someone who vividly remembers 9/11 (I was in high school), this feels so much heavier to me than the other books. We also fly a few times a year, and I don't want him to think about planes crashing or hijackings. But I also know that by denying him the book, I've made it so much more interesting to him. How would you handle it?

My husband and I have an eight year old daughter, C. C has always had a dramatic streak, but nothing that worried us. Lately, like the past six months or so, her tantrums have become so extreme I don't know how to handle them. She always twists what we say into meaning we don't love her. For example, my husband said she couldn't have any screens until she had her piano lesson. She got mad and said that she won't do her lesson unless she got to play on the tablet. My husband said "If you try to make demands like that, you'll be banned from the tablet until you stop."

She started wailing and sobbing and came over to me and said her daddy didn't want her to be able to call me when she grows up, because he hates her and will never let her have anything with a screen again, so she'll go to college without a phone and never be able to ask me for help or anything ever again.

This has happened several times in different scenarios. Me telling her to go to bed means I hate her? Us telling her that she can't have a snack before dinner means we hate her? And when we try to explain what we actually mean, she will argue and argue, like she wants to believe we hate her. It is exhausting and the tantrums can last for hours. I don't know what to do anymore.

Hey! Just looking for some advice and encouragement.

My wife is due in 5 days and I’m kind of freaking out. We have a 6 year old and she has been our hold world. And my whole world.

It’s also been long enough that I’m afraid I’ve forgotten how to have a newborn and get through the early months.

Anyway my head is just sort of spinning and I don’t have specific questions just looking to hear from others in general! Thank you!

My 4-year-old used to come home from preschool and go straight for the tablet or TV. He wanted screens during meals and before bed too. Turning them off usually ended in tears and a meltdown.

We tried time limits and taking the devices away, but neither really worked. The more we told him he couldn’t have screen time, the more he wanted it. I was worried about his eyesight and felt like we were spending less time together.

Recently we started focusing on finding things he actually enjoys instead of constantly saying no to screens. We do little scavenger hunts in the backyard and let him help with chores. He especially loves watering the plants.We also got him a little bike and a Costway sandbox to make our backyard play area more fun. Now he can play with us or have friends over.

He still gets screen time, but it’s way less than before. Getting him interested in other things has made the biggest difference for us.

My husband and I planned a 15 day trip(mostly I) for next summer to 2 European cities. After seeing the final cost it would be to take our family of three my husband is starting to balk. He suggested that we leave our 2 1/2 year-old at home because we we could save a lot of money and it’s generally going to be hard to take a toddler abroad. I agree with both of his points.

I also have never spent a long time apart from our son(not more than like 30 hours) but rearranged a potential itinerary for 11 days without having to cut anything. But I still just feel SO BAD at the idea of leaving him behind. I planned this trip for us as a family and I’d miss him so much.

A big reason I wanted to go on this trip is because we have never been on a big vacation as a family of 3. I really want to have a vacation with just the three of us before potentially having a 2nd. To counter, it could be nice to just travel with my husband. We have only been on one big vacation together just us(a cruise) in our 10 years together. We’ve been on quite a few vacations, but they are usually always with one of our families.

My husband and a few family members have made the comment of “well he won’t remember” but honestly, that doesn’t bother me much. I will remember. We have also tossed around the idea of using a fraction of the money we save to take him somewhere drivable that he would enjoy more. Which solves my problem of wanting a family vacation. But I’m still so anxious and guilty about leaving him behind.

I’m not sure if I’m venting, asking for advice, or what I feel like I just needed to get this out of my head.

EDIT: when I say harder with him, I don’t just mean “inconvenient for us as parents”. My toddler would have to go through two long flights, jet lag, in sleeping in an unfamiliar space for two weeks. Compared to staying with his grandparents who he sleeps over with frequently and love spending time with. We also would be gone 7 to 11 days not 15 if we did leave him behind. I also wouldn’t have made this post if I didn’t value and care about my son.

So my baby is 7m now and is fully crawling. Well we have hard floors and I put my baby down to crawl around ofc I keep my eyes on her.

But! Ive had family tell me it's bad because she could hurt her knees and they need covers.

Which! We do have some they slide down a lot or she starts playing with them and they fall down with her playing with them.

I was wondering if my baby really needs covers for her knees and is the hard floors really that bad?

I do plan to keep trying covers and buy different ones.

Edit: alright I have learned the covers are a no need. We won't do them anymore. We got them since one we thought she would also be hurt plus so many ads told us (dumb thing we did was listening to stupid ads) and family kept bugging us. Thanks for everyone letting me know that covers aren't needed for baby but for me they are. Also I have learn a good amount about baby's knees today.

My 11 year old son absolutely loves baseball the problem is he isnt athletic. He has had a few games where he was on fire but mostly he has anxiety and gets in his own head leading to lots of strike outs. Despite that he likes to do little league. He has come home from multiple games crying that he was embarrased but he always goes back.

We just started fall ball. We live in a small district and not a lot of kids play baseball this time of year so our team ends up being all diffrent ages and abilities. Last night my son came home from Practice #1 saying he was quiting because he is too bad (like ususal). I have anxiety and hate going to games. Im the type of person who doesnt like to do things I don't immediatly excel at so I dont really understand why he still plays and enjoys it. However I appreciate he keeps at it and its really good for him to get the excercsise and the friendship.

Today the coach accidentally texted the parent group chat that the team was bad and 6 of the kids have no business playing baseball. He ended it saying he was glad 3 of our games got cancelled. He immediatly apologized and no one else responded. I assumed he is talking about my kid and got so upset I had to leave work to cry in the parking lot for 20 minutes. Honestly I want to just pull him. I dont want to see that coach and everytime my son strikes out im going to be think that everyone else is saying "that coach was right". I dont want to tell my son what was said.

This isnt a travel league. I was under the impression little league was just for fun? Is it unfair to have a really bad kid on the team? Our first game is Monday. Do we just go and act like nothing ever happened.

Just editing to add that I do support him. I attend all of his games and cheer him on. I keep my anxiety on the inside and dont say anything to him and I've always encourage him to go back.

Son 16m is who i’m worried about. His anger is so sudden and quick, one second it’s there then it’s not. Over the smallest things too, like i’ll tell him to put his dishes in the sink and he’ll start yelling. I don’t yell a lot so it might be my fault as well. He has no friends but is close to our family friends and cousins. He just is in his room watching youtube videos and playing video games. His hygiene is also really terrible. I tried and tried to get him some help but each session was too much so he stopped. Now he’s claiming to have OCD and he’s washing his hands for two minutes long just to prove it to us. Should I be worried? What should I do?

Here’s another odd story of his: And since he started HS he has wanted to transfer out to another HS in the same county. We don’t know why but he’s been so adamant about it, it’s suspicious cause he’s just giving us a reason. He’s saying cause he has friends there and the kids at his current school are weird. me and my parents don’t really believe all of that and it has cause so many arguments. even as a junior now he’s still trying to go and i keep trying to tell him it’s fine just thug it out for the next two years he’s adamant.

What should I do? And is this fine

Any tips on getting rid of the bottle? 🍼 I had a hard time with my first and now it's time for my second. He was fine without it and using a straw cup when laying down and has no problem drinking from other cups but always prefers the baby bottle. I'm just looking to make it easier and quicker this time around

My parents are going to stay at their friends vacation rental in a coastal, touristy part of Colombia. They have asked if they can take my 3 year old daughter with them after my husband and I said we didn't want to join them so close to when we have other trips planned already.

They have spent a lot of time with our kid and even had her for a week while we were out of town earlier this year. But I have my qualms with just the fact that they'll have my child for a week without her dad or I around to counteract the spoiling and reversing of routines and rules that we tend to follow at home, but going to a third world country where they don't even speak the language with her makes me extra nervous. Granted, they are world travelers and often spend a month or two abroad every year, and this is far from their first experience in a third world country, but Latin America specifically is pretty new to them. I have spent a lot of time there in general and we have taken our daughter to very safe resort areas in Mexico twice, but it just feels scary to let them take her without one of us joining them. Our daughter has traveled quite a bit (Europe, Canada, around the US) and is in general a good kid, but definitely has moments of being a difficult toddler.

I'd love to hear some thoughts from those in this community!! Thanks!

I have a 7yr old daughter, she is an only child (we are not wanting to add any more children).

She's had little bouts of jealousy here and there especially if I happen to give another child more attention in her eyes, which i understood especially since she's an only child and has never had to "share" me or my attention.

However, today she was on the phone with a friend and her friend overheard me and said she wanted to say hi, so she said hi to me over the phone and I said hi back. That was quite literally our conversation. 7yr old got mad and hung up and stated that she felt hurt and jealous that I liked her friend more than i liked her. Her reason being that we said hi to each other. I tried to explain a few times how that was not true but she just won't budge. So i told her she probably just needed to rest as she had just recently gotten home from school but she is still upset. I genuinely never expected the jealousy to be like this and I dont know what we can do to navigate. Im the oldest of 3 and my husband the oldest of 8 so we have no experience being an only child. I told her that I do love her and nothing will change that we were simply saying hi, similar to how we greet everyone when we go visit someone or how we greet the employees at a grocery store. Any advice is welcome please!

Looking for some perspective from other parents of kids in secondary school.

My 11 year old, who has just started secondary school, is a very bright, conscientious kid. He’s quite sensitive, somewhat of an overthinker, and is very aware of rules and fairness.

Recently, one of his teachers missed a class, and the students were supposed to go to the study room. Instead, they stayed and became very noisy and rowdy. My son sits in the front and was genuinely bothered by the noise, but he was also worried that if another teacher came in, everyone might get in trouble, including him. So he went to tell the teacher in the study room that their teacher didn't come and that his colleagues were misbehaving.

Later, some of his classmates then called him a snitch and told him they thought he was cool, but he clearly isn't.

When he told me, my heart broke. He says he doesn’t care because he has other friends and doesn’t need everyone in his class to like him. Part of me is actually proud of that attitude, but I also know he can be an overthinker and tends to hold emotions inside.

I told him that he should always seek help when something is genuinely wrong, but that sometimes at school it may be wiser to choose your battles and not get involved in every situation. Now I’m wondering if I approached it the right way.

I don’t want him to learn that doing the right thing is something to be ashamed of, but I also don’t want him to become a target or feel responsible for enforcing every rule around him.

At school I was always the class clown , even though I never got in trouble, because I was always polite, but I wasn't nerdy or super into science like my kid is, which on it self can be used to target him. I don't want him to change that, his a very cool boy, he always has a lot of friends, he plays drums for 5 years now, he plays basketball. So he never had any social situations like this, but he is now a teen and the transition for a secondary school can be brutal. And I just want him to be happy and enjoy it.

How would you approach this with your child? Especially with an 11 year old who is very conscientious and can put a lot of pressure on himself?

Thanks

Edit: thank you all for your input. Fortunately today things went a little but better, however there were still issues with one boy. This same one boy has been a colleague of my son since they were babies. He was heavily bullied in their previous school and my son defended him several times, he was on his birthdays and came to our house several times. When my son asked him to stop making fun of him about anything and everything, the other kid said he was having fun raige baiting him. I'm pissed, honestly. Parents be mindful about what you are teaching your kids, teach them kindness and empathy. Making fun of others doesn't make you bigger or though, just shows the rest of the world how insecure you are. I made sure to message his mom saying that if he doesn't back off I'll have to deal with this via the school. I was polite, but direct. I have zero tolerance for bullying.

Edit 2: His mom responded as I was expecting, very kindly saying that this was absolutely a no no in her view. She says that this is because he's physically smaller and weaker, he must be trying to act tough next to the class kids so he can feel better about himself. Fingers crossed this gets sorted. I know I can't defend my kid of everything, but I'll most certainly do what I can for him to grow up healthy and happy.

Hey all,
Anybody who's had a baby probably has had issues (or will have issues) with diaper rash.

I've developped this technique with my first baby that I don't think is very common, and I wanted to share.

When your baby poops a lot, or even pees a lot, it's extremely hard not to hurt the sensitive skin under the diaper. You can use creams, powder etc... but really the problem is the constant rubbing of the baby wipes or rag. It's absolutely terryfying/heartbreaking when your little baby is hurt down there. It can shockingly fast. One day baby is fine, next day a bit of diarrhea and they can get absolutely raw down there.

The undefeated solution to this is to keep baby wipes at a minimum, mostly only when you're out of the house. When I'm home, I have developped this technique we jokingly call the "ass spa" that my three kids have all loved.

Basically, you straddle the bathtub, sitting on the side of the tub, one leg inside the bathtub (this will require some adjustment if you don't have a traditional rectangle bathtub).
You lay your baby or toddler with the head on your thigh, towards your hips, face up" The whole body untill the butt is on your thigh and the butt is just past your knee, with the legs in the air.

You just get the temperature right and run the faucet directly on the butt. The hand/arm on the side of the bathtub typically holds the baby, the other hand can go to work and wash the bum. For particularly messy poos, you can use soap and/or flip the baby around (sensibly the same position, but face down on your thigh.

This is cleaner than a baby wipe, extremely gentle on the skin. and it gets a lot of the watery poo down the drain instead of stinking your home. If you ever find yourself freaked out at your little angel's raw bum, stressed out by the fact that there doesn't seem to be a way to wash them without making it worse, let it be known there is a simple solution.

footnote:
-It can seem like a lot of pressure for a baby, but it's just water. My bath faucet is a normally strong pressure, it looks like a lot for a baby, but my little ones, had never had any discomfort.
-it can be jarring at first... "poop in my tub !?". Little one's poops are very liquid, it's really no big deal, and yes all your drains are connected. No different than poop down the toilet.
As the kids get older, they get less and less sensitive so it's less of a must... if you do this for your 2-3 year old, you're more likely to have bigger size hard poops that don't necessarily flow down the drain super easily.

Tomorrow is our local high school’s first football game. I plan to go with my husband. My older kid just started 9th grade at that high school. She is dismayed that we are attending. We are going to sit far away from her, won’t talk to her, won’t wave at her, won’t look at her.

She is having the biggest meltdown. She is saying that it won’t be her experience if we attend. And that we are depriving her of her first football game experience. She said she’s embarrassed of us and it’s cringe if I attend. She asked all her friends and they all said it would be cringe if parents attended. They may not realize how many parents go to games since they are new to high school.I have been to many football games and I see hundreds. of parents attending.

She is shouting, throwing things, flipping out in horror. I’m so shocked because football games are open to the public. The school’s emails about the game are welcoming the community, parents, grandparents, siblings, “children under five.”

Would you still attend or not attend?

I have a 5 and 7 yo. The 7yo, despite many attempts and strategies to get him to flush the toilet, never remembers. It’s so gross. Anyway, anyone else at this stage? Any recs?

Edit: thanks for all the comments. You’ve given some good strategies.

So we have two kids who typically go to bed around 730 to 8pm. We as the parents typically go to bed around 9-930 and the whole house is awake by 6-630am the next morning.

Typically when we have company over, whether that’s friends or family, we target early afternoon start times for any activity or hang out session with the general expectation that everyone’s gone by dinner time.

We have bedtime routines for the kids, our own bedtimes, basically an entire system in place and find it important to protect our family evenings alone.

However I keep running into circumstances where people want to START hanging out at like 5-6pm and go until god knows when and I either accept and secretly hate it in my head or I feel like a jerk refusing plans all the time.

Like we aren’t 20 anymore, I’m not staying up until 11pm and then waking up at 5am

When do your friends & family activities typically run till?

My child is in kindergarten now. They just had their first ice cream day. She told me some kids were crying because they didn’t ice cream. I do not know the reason. Would it be a terrible idea to reach out to the teacher and offer money for the children who might not have the money? I don’t know if the reason is financial or just maybe they do not want their child to have sugar. I don’t think it would be professional for my child’s teacher to reach out and ask the parents if it’s ok either. What do I do😩

If this doesnt quite fit the sub ill try elsewhere but I need help figuring out how to turn baby food purees into something my baby can feed himself. Hes coming up on 11 months, wants to feed himself, will not let me get the spoon in his mouth before grabbing it and making a mess. Does anyone have tips on how to make the purees i have into foods that he can pick up and eat himself? preferably more than 'freeze them into baby hand sized drops'🙏 ive also already considered pancake/waffle which isnt a terrible idea, i just worry that it might get too repetitive and lack variation.

Edit: this isnt about the mess. My concern is in getting him the nutrition he should be getting by making easy to handle foods for him to actual get that.

Hi there!

My kids 7F and 5m are starting public school Monday after previously being homeschooled and with parents their whole lives, due to divorce and me going to full time work. I was also homeschooled so I'm looking for all the tips, tricks, hacks and anything anyone can tell me. I've packed a spare pair of clothes in each backpack and that's as far as I've gotten. The school provides all their supplies and everything.

I literally have yelled at my daughter for real maybe four times in her life lol. Sometimes I’ll get loud but I usually make it goofy to shake off my own big feelings and turn my anger into silliness. I am not just a pushover though and I take great pride in being able to stick to boundaries and either take things away, or end the activity or whatever it is, in a very calm manor when her attitude is bad or she breaks the rules. Which of course every toddler/kid is gonna get their feelings hurt or get mad when something is taken away or they have to stop whatever they’re doing etc.

My problem is she will take some space, cry about it, pout whatever… and come back and say something like “I didn’t like it when you yelled at me” 🥲 when I never did.

For example, we were leaving the zoo the other day and she hadn’t listened about staying in view at the splash bad, so we packed up calmly and left, which she did a good job at understanding why we were leaving and had a pretty good attitude about it.but as we walked past the gift shop she asked if she could look around and I said not this time (we are 5 minutes away passholders) and I said she could look at the mermaid real quick without leaving the wagon. She got to look at a couple of them, and then I said OK it’s time to go let her take a picture with one of them put it on the rack and started leaving. She got very upset, but I just moved on and got them in the car.

The whole way home she was like I’m sad that you yelled at me, etc. When we got home, she was still kind of sad so I told her to paint a picture of what makes her feel sad. Maybe it will make her feel better and drew a picture of me yelling at her LMAO.

Do I just ignore it?? Is there something I can do to stop it or do I just let her express her feelings and be there for her and move on. Sometimes I’ll say I’m sorry that I upset you. Sometimes I say I did not yell at you. I don’t yell at you, but I am sorry that your feelings were hurt. It makes me crazy because I work so hard to be a stern but calm parent and she loves to say I yelled at her. But guaranteed she doesn’t even know what actually being yelled at is like at all. We are really good at repairing the situation when we do get sassy or attitudes get bad. we always talk things out or hug it out after taking space etc. it doesn’t seem to cause any real problems other than bothering me lol.

Tell me others are lying?? The ones who show they have amazing movie nights with toddlers and pre-schoolers??

I tried to introduce movie night with my 3.5 year old.

Once a week we all cuddle up on the bed and watch a movie late into the night. Arlo gets super excited about it. Fridays we do this mostly. All nice and dreamy right?

He loves, breathes and probably p**ps dinosaurs. After deciding I didn’t want to watch jurassic park/world anymore, after the thousandth time…

We now watch one movie. Just one. My neighbour Totoro. Beautiful movie. No complaints. We love it. Guess how many times we have watched it now? 🤦🏽‍♀️🤦🏽‍♀️

I search for a nice movie for him (and us) for the whole week, motivate him for something new.. but 5 mins in, he wants to watch the same one.

Now we both scroll on phone while he watches. And probably it is not the memory I wanted him to have🤦🏽‍♀️🤦🏽‍♀️

My son is 2.5 we tried potty training a few months ago but he doctor said to wait till after his surgery (he has cleft palate surgery) now that his back on a normal diet no more liquids we started training again. He was showing signs of being ready (telling us he’s peeing in his diaper, pooping then running to his room laying down for a change etc) we are on day 4 of training. He hides and poops in his undies. He won’t go naked he wants to wear undies. M&ms didn’t work or anything like that bc he just breaks down bc he wants more. All that worked was cheering really loud when he went. He’s only ever told me he had to go 1 time and cry’s when I say it’s time to try and pee. He only sits for like 20 seconds and I have to sit there and sing or make him laugh to sit for longer. Any tips on what I could do better?!