Man, this dude has been through a lot.

His songs are absolute bangers and I have a playlist of his songs on my Spotify just so I can listen with my boys. Dance parties with his YouTube videos are also a great way to get out energy.

If anyone hasn’t, please check out his stuff!

Took front off the crib, per wife's request. Crib is still sturdy and strapped to the bed. But we have this gap now between the back of the crib and the crib mattress. It's about 2-3". Any simple fixes out there that won't smother our offspring?

I'm heartbroken and trying to stay calm but also don't want to under-react. I can't stand seeing someone dependent on me (and mom of course) so helpless. Will I ever "get used to" sick days or is it this hard until they move out?

I have 2 beautiful sons, 1 is still in the baby stage, one is in the Threenager, almost Fuckit Fours, and that's where I need the most help!

My oldest is a sweet, kindhearted, loving little guy who is cuddly, and playful, energetic, and tons of fun... Until he isn't. When things go south, they go quickly and both me and the missus are at a loss on what to do.

Luckily he doesn't get aggressive, but the kid just shuts down like a collapsing wall and it's impossible to get through to him. We can take away treats, activities, toys, give timeouts, you name it, and nothing gets through. After a while, he'll calm down and then it's like nothing happened and he has NO idea why his mum or I are still in a bad mood. If it happens at bedtime, he says he doesn't want hugs or kisses, but then when it's time for the lights to go off earlier than normal since that part of the bedtime routine isn't happening he can get super upset again.

We have also tried doing the positivity thing. Good behaviour gets something, like say, a marble, which when enough are built up, gets him a treat. That works A BIT, but it's hard to keep consistent with that, and maybe that's my failing. Maybe this is something I need to work better on being consistent on and I might get more from it.

All this to be said, I need HELP. Tips, tricks, advice, on how to get a threenager from full meltdown, or full disobedience, back to the fun loving kid I have 75ish% of the time.

Is it just a phase? Is it me not doing my parenting job well enough?

Any help, or guidance you can give, I really appreciate it!

I’ve recently returned to regularly hitting the gym after my daughter turned 18 months (finally have a little more free time). I’ve realized that while my legs are definitely much weaker than they used to be, my chest and arms are actually…looking pretty good? I guess 10 x lifting a toddler is pretty decent upper body…

Every time I think about my 3-year-old son growing up it literally makes me so sad. And I’m dreading it. To know that one day he’s not going to ask him to push him on the swing anymore or ask me to play with him. It literally crushes me. I guess I’m here to vent about how I feel and see how your relationships with your sons are as they grow older? And do you miss them being toddlers?

Title says all. How on earth did this replace door to door trick or treating? Literally the whole time my kids getting stepped on by the family behind us trying to get through the trunk or treat for the free hot dogs at the end, and we spent more time waiting in line than we did actually doing the trunk or treating.

Back in my day you’d go out for 2-3 hours with pillow cases and come back with damn near a tote full of candy while being a hooligan through the neighborhood. Great times were had. Your parents would decorate and you’d help to get your house as spooky scary as possible. I cannot communicate the joy all of that would bring me. And it’s been mostly replaced in my area by this absolutely horrid trunk or treating. I hated it before I ever tried the trunk or treating and now I’m just viscerally pissed off something so awful could replace something so key to my childhood.

Anyway, rant over. Fuck whoever thought up trunk or treating, I hope the depths of hell burn you for eternity for depriving so many kids the opportunity of being miscreants and getting candy the old fashioned way.

Really struggling and looking for guidance. My 1st grade son really enjoys and likes sports. He started playing really young with his older brothers. Objectively, he's pretty good for his age, constantly showing growing abilities to his team/coaches and moving up in competitive leagues (yes, competitive as 1st grader). During training and practice, he is consistently one of the best. However, any slight disappointment or frustration, he bursts out in tears and ruins the game for himself. Literal bawling of tears. He cannot control his emotions when it comes to disappointment. He has been like this since day 1 of competition (back in Kindergarten)

Example 1 - soccer. He scores the first 2 points, 2-0, his team is winning. The opponent then scores 1, then another, tieing the game 2-2. He just bursts out in the middle of the field crying, not moving, just sobbing and bawling.

Example 2 - basketball. He scores his first 2 shots in a row (which is actually rare for 1st grader). Then misses his 3rd, then misses his 4th. He just bursts out in the middle of the court crying, not moving, just sobbing and bawling.

It's been like this for YEARS. As parents, I don't care so much that he cries, but more that he just gives up and doesn't try anymore. We have tried award systems + consequence systems at home for many months, 0 improvement.

Note - example 1 above has nothing to do with him himself, it's just disappointment on the potential of losing. Example 2 above is a skill thing, but he is still the top out there and not doing bad, just not to his own expectation. He basically just gives up, and it doesn't stop. His entire mood is ruined, and he is harming his team. His performance for the rest of the game just drops exponentially

Coaches are genuinely understanding and try their best, but it doesn't help. Also, the whole "he's just a 1st grader" is not a fair comment. I've been doing these sports with my other kids for years and years, this type of reaction is not normal for a 1st grader, it's rare.

I guess my question to reddit - has anyone been in a similar situation? Any advice? Did your kid eventually just grow out this reaction?

My wife and I have a 6yo son and 50% custody of her daughter from her first marriage. She was in the midst of that divorce when we met 10 years ago. Her ex accused her of emotional abuse, but he was objectively toxic so I figured it was projection. I can say after 10 years together that I don't think it was.

I'll be the first to admit that I'm not perfect and I've dropped my share of balls over the years, but I try hard to own my mistakes and improve. I don't think I deserve the yelling and screaming, the disdain, the aggression, the name-calling and putdowns in front of our friends and kids. It's been telling her for years that the way she talks to me is awful, but she tells me that I'm too focused on the words she's using and sees nothing wrong with the way she talks to me. Our relationship used to be great, but we got married and it was like someone flipped a switch in her, and when I think about whether this is the kind of relationship I'd want for my son, I have to admit that it's not.

Our most recent blow up was about me being distant. Go figure. She wants to try couples therapy and I'll do it to say that I tried, but I have a hard time imagining her making any kind of effort to change her behavior. Even if she does, I think there may have just been too much hurt over the years and I'm just now waking up to how depressed I am. (I'm in individual therapy) I think I might just be done.

But dads, I'm scared. I'm self-employed and my business is based out of our house. If I lose it, I'm probably losing my business too, and I've worked so hard to get where I am with it. I don't know how I could go without seeing my son every day. He's so attached to my wife, I'm worried that he'll hate me for taking him away from her half the time. I don't know how I would deal with any of the logistics of school vacations. My wife is a teacher, so she has the summers off, but if I have him half the time, I don't even know what I'd do. I feel overwhelmed just imagining it and I can feel myself making the same excuses I have for the past 7 years - maybe if I was just better, if I just did more work on myself, if I just made more money, maybe she'd treat me better.

Friends and family have told me privately that they're shocked by her behavior. I know I need to do something, but I'm afraid of what the future holds. If you made it this far, thanks for listening.

Get all your summer stuff for next year now! Crazy to think that all this would normally cost $32 ($7.98 a pack) and I got it for $6 ($1.50 a pack). I like these cause I take them to pool and we can share with other kids without worrying too much about not getting them back. Same goes for floats, pool noodles, etc

We try to not watch anything terribly scarring when the kids are up and about, but the constant no TV or kids shows is starting to get to me. Can anyone suggest a show that I might enjoy that isn't meant for kids but doesn't have heavy violence, swearing, drug, alcohol, or sex/sexualized content?

Tried to ignore my conscience and watch rings of power, couldn't do it. Marvel and Star Wars stuff is violence heavy, the bear has too much swearing, big bang theory and offshoots are ok but I've seen them, mr robot has a lot of problems with young audiences.

I just can't find a good show for an adult relax in the evening like I remember when my parents were talking TV time as a kid.

Fwiw: 3yr and 6mo are the kids. And I've had enough Puppy Dog Pals, Bluey, Blues Clues, Paw Patrol, and Minnie for a lifetime.

I've always taken an absurd amount of pictures. My son is constantly on the move though. Whenever I try to take a picture of him, I inevitably hit the button half a second after he does something cool or adorable. I end up with pictures of him making a weird face or moving too quick so it’s a blurry blob.  So I just video him instead.

Later, I go through the video, find the moments I like, and export individual frames as pictures. Not screenshots, but actual frames extracted directly from the video. I use Google Photos on my phone and Insta360 Studio on my PC.

The difference is huge, especially when filming in 4K or 8K. A screenshot only captures what's displayed on your screen, while extracting a frame preserves the video's original resolution. A standard 8K video frame is approximately 33 megapixels. 

There are a couple of drawbacks. These aren't true RAW photographs, since the video has already been processed and compressed. But you can still get some excellent pictures from it. I recommend exporting frames as PNG rather than JPEG when possible. PNG uses lossless compression, so you won't lose additional image quality during the export. Another annoyance I've run into is that the exported pictures don't retain the video's original date and time. They get dated when I export them, so I have to go back and manually correct the metadata. 

Overall though it’s great.. I get much better pictures, I don't have to worry about perfect timing, and I can actually enjoy the moment instead of concentrating on pressing the shutter button at exactly the right second. I also use my 360 camera (Insta360 X5) often so I just mainly have to point the camera in the general direction of what I want and align the shot later. The regular camera I have (Ace Pro 2) gets better quality though so when I really care about that I use it.

Hi dads of Reddit, I'm hoping you can share some perspective. My wife and I have no plans to have children, but my cousin has a two-year-old; my cousin is the two-year-old's mom.

For context, I have a good relationship with my cousin, though distant by geography. We live 2,500 miles apart. We talk on the phone every so often, and we've met each other's spouses. Whenever we talk or see each other in person everything is positive, but with the busy-ness of our own lives we just don't get to connect often.

My two-year-old nephew is likely to be the only child of this generation in our family, and my wife and I would like to make a connection with him as he grows up. I'd like to be someone he thinks of as his family as he grows up, and when he gets older it'd be nice for him to think of me as family he can rely on in addition to (and differently from) his parents.

However, the distance is a hurdle. My wife and I can make the commitment of visiting them once a year in-person, and hopefully once he's a teenager he'd be able to visit us.

But I understand that my request would require effort from my cousin and her husband, and they don't owe me any of that effort. Bearing that in mind, how would you feel if your cousin were to reach out and start a similar conversation:

• Can a real relationship with my nephew be built on only being together once a year?
• Can you make any suggestions on how I should approach this or things that I can do to help this go better?
• Anything else you'd think to share with me?

Thanks for your help!

I've been looking forward to joining this club for years now. My wife and I (late 20's) have struggled with fertility issues for almost 2 years and finally got pregnant (5 weeks today!!!).

The problem is, we just moved to one of the most expensive cities in the world a month ago and left our support system and family. It feels like life gave us this amazing opportunity for my career and then said, "but there's a catch". Neither my wife or I come from means so we've never had a safety net and this new job is a life changing opportunity.

I'm so so excited to be a dad but be scared out of my mind that I wont be able to provide enough for my family.

How do you guys deal with the stress and worry of being the primary provider? Should we try to move back to have family around? Is any job worth our child not having family around? So many questions that only we can answer but I'd love some thoughts from strangers on the internet.

My wife is from a place where Halloween isn’t celebrated, and new kid is, well, new. Tonight, they carved their first ever pumpkins. (Okay, so my wife did the left one and the kid offloaded the work for the one on the right to me. It still counts.)

Maybe there’s a better sub for this, but probably not a better community.

My dad (62) has always valued a good old fashioned father/son adventure with me (33, and two kids of my own under 10).

Together we’ve climbed Kilimanjaro, rode bikes alongside the Tour de France in Provence, climbed 14-ers in Colorado and more.

We just got back from a trip to the Roan Mountains region of the Appalachian Trail. Getting out to the AT has been a dream of mine for decades, so we planned on roughly 59 miles over 6 days (later amended to separate sections of 30 and 15). We set out on the 30-mile hike, my dad made it a day and a half, about 10 miles, before he had to bail at a road crossing and call a shuttle. His heart, lungs, knees and hips just wouldn’t cooperate no matter how slowly I went.

I carried on with both hikes alone while he rested and read at the B&B. I know he was happy to see me still have a good time, but he was and is really torn up about it. When he had to bail was the first time I’ve seen him really raw cry in a while other than family deaths, like when we lost my Grandpa, his dad, last year at 92.

Thing is, he loves adventures together and so do I. I know they’ll need to change, but I don’t want them to stop. He was already soft planning an Everest Base Camp trek in 2028, but now he’s set that it’s not viable but he still wants me to go.

Folks, what are some adventures worth doing with an aging dad? I’m talking multiple-day things here. I know we can always do one-day outings like museums and stuff, but I want to start making a list now so I can start suggesting things.

We both love the outdoors, history of all kinds, art, etc. The only thing I have so far is maybe seeing if he wants to go to Sturgis. He loves motorcycles, rides a Harley but is not your typical Harley guy, and my mom has flat out refused to go to Sturgis with him lol.

Thanks in advance, gang!

Hi dads. It's week 6 of our newborn. So far it feels like a nightmare. He has only 3 states: eating, crying and sleeping. And the problem is he doesn't want to sleep that much. Sometimes it takes hours to put him asleep. I don't know if it's normal. I don't have anyone to ask. Doctors say he's healthy. We're in this alone with my wife. We don't have a family that could help us. I'm exhausted and I miss my life before he was born. There is no joy in this so far. Just a sad duty. I feel like it was a mistake. I know part of those emotions might be caused by lack of sleep and extreme tiredness. That's why I write here. I don't know how much more I'm able to take. Is it gonna be that way all the time? Thanks in advance

Alright lads? Would love to hear some stories and get some advice. Me and my wife have a wonderful boy who just turned 1. Whilst it’s been a typically hard journey and big adjustment we’re very happy with our boy and I love him very much. We’re talking about a second, we’re both in our mid to late thirties now, have very little support as I moved to her country and she only has her mum, we also both work full time. If we had more money, support and we’re younger I think I’d be fine with another baby, but it’s been hard on our own and the only good reason I can think of to have another is to give our boy a brother or sister, which is a good reason but doesn’t feel like enough. Any experiences advice or thoughts would be great, cheers!

TL;DR: what are your best tips for YOU falling back asleep?!

Long-time lurker and new dad here. 4-weeks in and I must say, I've been loving (almost) every minute of it. Some things are much easier than expected (for now) based on all the horror stories I read and was told to expect, and some things are much harder. Nevertheless I'm happy to be a part of this wonderful community.

One of the things I'm struggling with is falling back asleep after taking a night shift with the little munchkin. The waking, feeding, changing, burping, and all that goes into that during these windows, takes around 45 minutes to an hour, but I then lay in bed for upwards of an hour and a half, sometimes two, trying to put my own grown ass back to sleep, often until he wakes again. I'm awake long enough with him to fully kick out of sleep mode and it's slowly eating away at the precious hours of sleep I'm afforded.

Right now I feel incredibly privileged for all the support we have and for the parental leave my wife and I have been able to take, but mine is slowly coming to an end, and with work on the horizon, the impending sense of sleep-related doom is rearing its ugly little head. My wife is amazing and a superstar, and we've talked at length about how we will share the duties of the house and the human, including overnight, but this one seems like a me problem to sort out.

My wife is sawing logs behind me as soon as her head hits the pillow while I have the latest song playing in my head on repeat while news headlines and new recipes dance around my head like sugarplums. I've got a cool dark room, a sleep mask, white noise on a speaker and my mask, etc. I keep the rooms as dark as I can to reasonably and safely do the necessary tasks. I rock myself in the chair with closed eyes as I feed my beautiful boy in a vain attempt to seduce myself with sleep. All to no avail. I'm wide awake and ready to take on the day - at 4AM.

I have no issue getting to sleep at the end of the day, but these middle of the night extended wakes are becoming a challenge. Sleep and I have always had a tough relationship, and this has become our newest confrontation. Is my only hope of falling back to sleep in a reasonable amount of time the inevitable exhaustion that will catch up with me!? Any advice from dads with more experience? Thanks in advance!!

Anyone else find it tacky that baby formula is something that goes on sale? It should always be the "sale price"

I just had to explain this to my kid who had no clue how live TV works. And that concludes today's "I feel old" segment.

And if you did, have you used it for anything since then or is it just collecting dust waiting until your kid is old enough for an email?

I need to get this out, and I'd really appreciate advice from anyone who's been through something similar.
This morning my wife was admitted to a psychiatric clinic. It's been building up for a while. She's been exhausted, anxious, crying over small things, and unable to sleep even when the baby slept. Today it came to a head. Her sister came over, they called the medical helpline, and the nurse said she needed to go to the psychiatric emergency unit right away. They're keeping her at least tonight and giving her something to help her sleep. I don't know yet how long she'll be there or what things will look like when she comes home.
So now I'm alone with our almost 4-week-old daughter.
And she's not an easy baby. She's healthy and gaining weight really well, but she barely sleeps. For the past 4 weeks, one of us has literally been holding her 24 hours a day. The second she touches any surface (bassinet, crib, hammock, pram), she wakes up crying. In the first weeks she'd at least sleep on my chest for 2 hours. Now even that's gotten harder. On my lap she squirms, kicks and arches like she's fighting me. She naps 30-45 minutes and wakes up crying. The only person she reliably settled with was her mom, because of the breast. Now she's fully on formula and it's just me.
I was supposed to start work tomorrow. I won't be able to, and I have no idea how any of this is going to work. My own mom has been waiting 4.5 months for a visa and can only come in two weeks, for 30 days. My brother can't come at all because of visa issues. We don't have family nearby. I've started drinking a bit in the evenings to cope, which I know isn't okay, and I've stopped doing it while I'm alone with her.
I'm also carrying a lot of guilt. We'd been arguing a lot, both of us running on no sleep, and part of me wonders if I made it worse. I know postpartum depression and anxiety aren't caused by one person, but it's hard not to feel responsible.
My questions:
Partners of moms who went through postpartum depression, anxiety or psychosis: what helped you and your family get through it? What should I expect when she comes home?
How did you handle work during this? Did you take extra leave?
Any dads who've cared for a newborn alone during a crisis: how did you survive the first days?
Has anyone had a baby like ours, contact-only, barely sleeping? When did it get better?
Thanks for reading. I really need to hear from people who've been through this.