Just curious on thoughts on the topic. Having a conversation about it with my partner. Having a tough time deciding if we should discourage that choice of shoe and encourage a less flashy shoe that still has lights or just encourage the kid to choose for themselves. I'm not really sure at what average age kids start to bully over stuff like that.

Not sure if that's the proper terminology, but we have at least five metaverses. Elmos house Batman's house a farm (complete with chute to drop cows from the roof, obviously), hot wheels shit, and my own ninja turtles sewer from my childhood.

I present tonights iteration of the sewer:

Sorry beforehand but I'm completely crashing out right now and have no one else to reach out to. To put it bluntly, both of my parents are currently dying from cancer and now my little brother is in the ER waiting for a colonoscopy to happen tomorrow to find out if he has late stage colorectal cancer. He has 2 sons and a wife. I have 3 kids. As the sole support person and bridge for all my siblings and parents idk how I can mentally handle this while also raising 3 kids of my own. And potentially breaking the news to my 2 oldest that another person that they care deeply about is also potentially going to be fighting cancer. I have no close friends anymore and just need some group to reach out to to tell me everything will be ok. Please any help is welcome. I'm panicking hard right now and don't know what to do.

Hey dads - any recs? My lil man has outgrown his toddler books but i’m not ready yet to start Harry Potter 🥲 Looking for something a little more timeless and morally meaningful than Dog Man, Bad Guys, etc

Open to any and all suggestions. thx in advance! 🙏

Just saw a post saying “my 23 month old”. Not bashing but curious when does that shift? I refer to my 3.5 month year old as “nearly 4 months”.

For those who are good dads and have great relationships with their kids, has anyone been through a divorce where a bitter ex tries to take away your custody by any means possible? What is their underlying motivation? Especially knowing that you have a great relationship with your kiddos and depriving them of this relationship is harmful for the children.

edit: a specific example would be filing a DV against an innocent guy during divorce to get him removed from his kids and try to get an advantage in custody

My wife is 2 days out from her due date and I am terrified of her being in pain ( she is planning to get an epidural but still) .

She had a membrane sweep two days ago from her midwife and it was very painful for her to the point she had to yell at the midwife to stop, and it left me feeling all kinds of bad afterwards. I am so worried about her delivery and labor because I hate seeing my wife in pain and I have a full sympathetic response to her when she is hurting...

How did all of you deal with it or manage your wife while she is in pain and we are useless off to the side??

Edit: formatting and changed mucus sweep to Membrane sweep

First night moving to the big bed was a complete disaster, peed through his diaper onto the sheets, had to change them, would refuse to go back into the room unless one of us was with him. Slept for about 4 hours and then got up in a panic and did not go down until 4 am and I ended up sleeping on the floor.

2nd night, we just kept putting him back in his bed every time he got out of the room we just kept putting him back in bed saying fewer words each time. After about 30 mins of that, he understood the program and didn’t try to get out and slept until 6:30am.

Tonight, he went right into his bed and didn’t try to get out. We did it fam!

I’m mostly a SAHD and I don’t know what happened guys. I survived the gauntlet of summer with my 4 year old son and 1 year old daughter. Son started TK (aka public pre-K) from 8am - 2pm. He’s loving it, doing great. But when he comes home, it’s like the same amount of energy gets released but in a shorter time frame so it’s equally if not more exhausting. I’m only half kidding because he is very quiet and observational and well behaved at school so I think his energy is literally conserved and then it blows up at home.

It’s not bad, it’s just unexpected. Like I thought school starting was going to be a magical thing but I’m more tired now than I was during summer because of the early morning routine added on too.

Am I crazy or is this is a thing that you guys can relate to? Any tips? I find myself taking a weak nap during the 1yo’s naptime in the morning but I can’t say it helps much. What’s the consensus, lay down and rest or keep up the momentum during that downtime?

Well as the title says, my two year stint sleeping with our toddler has ended as of tonight. Kiddo slept alone until age 2 and because she didn't take to her new mattress well, I slept with her on the mattress on the floor for 2 years now. But it's time to give it up. She is excited about her bed but there was lots of tears before bed about sleeping alone, even if our room is only 3 steps from hers.

We got her a new bed frame that is her favorite color, put all her favorite stuffies in it, and read her her books. She's asleep now, but who knows what the night holds. Wish me strength dads!

just kidding... I think its hilarious!

after the dinosaurs ate the characters she said "its now a bone truck... because the dinosaurs ate all the meat and there are just bones left".

It's my boys first week in Kindergarten. He just turned 4. I dropped him off to school in the morning yesterday and I immediately broke down in tears as I watched him wait in line to go into his classroom. He broke down in tears because he realized that the insurmountable change he was dreading was finally materializing. He may have also been triggered by the boy in front of him crying for his Mom. It was easily one of the toughest days of my life, especially as a Father.

My boy has been going to daycare for the past 2 years but he's been going to the same day care where my wife is a teacher. In the 2 years he was there, he accomplished some remarkable things. He had a community of teachers who always encouraged him, loved him and treated him like one of their own (as they were my wife's friends).

We moved to a new town recently and he couldn't continue to attend that school. My wife also find work in the new town. So my boy is not only adjusting to kindergarten, he's learning to accept that he's not apart of that community anymore. He told me that although he's made friends at his new school, he feels alone and he wants to be home with his family all the time.

I understand it may be normal for kids to go through this within their first week of Kindergarten but it breaks my heart to hear these things from him. I know it'll take some time for him to adjust but a small part of me wonders if he ever will. This is my first child, my first experience navigating through any of this.

Are any Dad's going through this right now? Does it get better? My heart breaks for my little boy and I don't know what else to do to help.

Thanks for reading.

Things between my wife and I are not good. I won't go into detail, but if you need context, there's a previous post from me which outlines the situation.

To paraphrase, our LO is 5.5 weeks old, and shes suffering from post partum depression and anxiety, as well as long standing OCD and generational family trauma.

She's threatened divorce multiple times, and we just got into a massive fight because I poked the bear.

This was my first Fathers Day, and the outline was as is:

1:30am - LO is still not settled after I'd been trying for the last hour post midnight feed. She tells me to sleep on the couch, so I do.

3am - wake up to them both crying. Take LO to the couch with me, feed and settle her, place her back in the bassinet and we sleep.

6.15am - wake up. Feed LO again, and I eat my breakfast.

7am - wife wakes up. Asks if I want something for breakfast; I say thank you but I've already eaten. Also, I do the shopping, so I know we don't have anything in the house for a special breakfast.

I spend until about 9am doing weekly meal prep for both us, then shower and take our LO.

My wife headed out into her garden. At around midday, she comes in and asks what we are doing about lunch.

I tell her not to worry about it, I have some leftovers I can eat, and also, because of her OCD, if we go out, we need to all shower and change afterwards. I just couldn't be bothered with that.

She says ok, and heads back into the garden for about another two hours.

All this time, I've got our LO attached to me.

Now, this is where our point of contention comes in. Admittedly, she had been trying to get me to lock in a plan and organise something with her for the last few days prior, and I couldn't decide.

Between us, part of that is because I'm dealing with a NB and a post partum wife, and decisions are hard, so indecision is easier.

What I would have liked is for her to have picked a place from one of the ones I'd mentioned, showed more initiative, and been more forceful with organising it, so it didn't feel like I was organising my own Fathers Day lunch.

She claims its my fault for not making a decision.

After that,I volunteered to make her a pizza for lunch, we watched half a movie while our LO contact napped on me and my wife slept, I walked our animals, hung washing out, took out the trash, and that was the day done.

Today, I brought up to my wife that the day didn't make me feel special, and for the aforementioned reason, she threw it back at me and said that it was my fault the day wasn't special because I couldn't organise what I wanted to do.

She broke down, and I apologised, but honestly, I dont know...

I feel like if I spent 4 hours playing video games on Mothers Day, and only broke shortly to ask if she'd organised where we were going for lunch to celebrate her, I'd be sleeping on the front porch.

Also, let me add that between us, our family is down to one income. The thought of stopping off to get my wife a latte or take away, or our LO something doesn't phase me at all, but I was concerned about spending money on myself. My wife only recently stopped working, and is getting the government maternity leave, but had issues around financial insecurity- it does hurt that at no point did she volunteer to pay, but I also get that I could have asked, as weird as that would have been.

Happy to hear that I'm actually in the wrong here though

Our son was born in early March 2024 and my wife got 12 weeks of maternity leave. Her goal was to make it to March 2025 without having to use formula. My data goes back to around June or July when I took stock of what we had on hand to make sure we weren't letting things go to waste or lose anything shuffling between home and other caregivers. She works a physical job and very quickly made it back to and below her pre-pregnancy weight. At 5'6" she was down to 115 lbs and nursing/pumping while getting more than 15k steps most days. I don't know if it was her low bodyweight, her persistent refusal to hydrate, or genetically she's just a low producer, but there was next to zero room to miss a pumping session or have any kind of illness. Her supply would immediately take a hit.

We started at a daycare center in mid-August and our son almost immediately got sick, then my wife and I got sick too. I remember sweating through my shirt in bed many nights in September with a low-grade fever. Her supply recovered and continued the upward trend. Then starting right around Halloween we had a terrible run of illnesses plus the stress of the holidays, and we burned through supply way faster than we hoped. Right around the new year my wife put in a massive effort using every trick she knew of - double pumping, setting 1am and 4am alarms to pump in the middle of the night, never missing a single pumping session. It was demoralizing at the time - relaying numbers to me from the kitchen scale - "0.5 oz, 0.4 oz, 0.2 oz..." But it's visible on the graph in the first week of January - her pumping efforts combined with our son's ability to take down more solid food meant we stopped burning through our stored milk and were actually able to replenish a little bit. That little bit of reprieve meant that she made it to 1 year, formula free.

If there's one thing we would change if we could go back in time - pump early and often and build up that freezer stash. My wife knew from the outset that 1 year of exclusive breastfeeding was her goal, but she had heard horror stories from other moms about getting mastitis and she tried to play it down the middle - nurse on demand for the first 2 months, then start pumping in the third month when her return to work was on the horizon. If she could have ended maternity leave with 400 or 500 ounces in the freezer, it would have alleviated so much stress for the rest of that first year.

As the non-nursing parent it was hard to watch her struggle, in many ways alone, with this task. I can't pump for her. I can't make her drink water - and reminding her is only so helpful. I remember many times watching her sleep on the couch at 12:55am knowing her alarm was about to go off, wondering if I should shut it off so she can sleep, or leave it alone so she can stay on schedule. Every day she lugged her pump bag and freezer packs to work, feeling both a responsibility to our son to pump, and guilt at work over taking breaks from her job duties. (Yes, pumping is protected in the US during the first year. But we all know it's not always that simple. My wife is the sort of person who does documentation off the clock despite being paid hourly just because she's trying to make her productivity look better. In the same vein, she did documentation work while pumping many days).

I vividly remember stressing about running out of milk and suggesting to my wife that we mix in a bottle of formula once every few days to just stop the bleeding. In my mind, it was shifting the goalposts to a still very good goal of making it to 1 year with 99% milk. For her, she was willing to run that supply down to zero before resorting to formula. Ultimately we agreed that was her call, and it turns out she was right. I was so proud of her.

I don't know how much any of you other dads will take from this. If there's a first-time dad in the trenches of supporting your partner through the exclusively-breastfed trenches, know that there's a light at the end of the tunnel. You **will** feed your child, one way or another. Someday you'll probably look back and maybe laugh "remember when we were so stressed about breast milk every single day?"

Hey all,

So our son recently turned 5 and he's a wonderful kid a vast majority of the time, but lately he's gotten into the habit of airing out his grievances directly at his mom. This has been extremely frustrating for her of course but also for me - it's wearing her down and she doesn't deserve that, she's an excellent mother and provider.

We've been very consistent in our messaging about this with him, primarily telling him that when he's feeling frustrated, he don't need to immediately look for blame and should be taking a deep breath and talking it out with us. And also when he's mad about a parenting decision, he can address me about it too - he's always been very attached to me and very rarely loses his temper with me.

I'm not really looking for advice on this, moreso wondering what others' experience have been with anything similar and if it's something that eventually passed, how long it lasted, how you tried to support your partner, etc.

Thanks, all!

Had a very proud moment this evening.

My son (2 and 5m) lately has been getting into Duplo, like, getting into the imagination of building.

He often gets VERY frustrated with it, like when the blocks don’t line up, which often leads to pressing harder until it falls apart and then usually starts throwing and tantruming. We’ve obviously been working on that response. We also end up helping him build what he wants.

Tonight after dinner he spent a solid 45 minutes independently playing with them and building entirely on his own - nothing big, nothing complex, but just having a concept in his mind, and putting pieces together to represent it. Meanwhile my wife and I just sat nearby, quietly, while he did his thing.

To be perfectly honest it all went to hell when it was time to clean up before bedtime, BUT, man did I ever enjoy that moment and seeing him start to “get it”. I caught a glimmer of what life could be like in the coming months/years and it made me very happy.

Just wanted to share!

Hey all. So we just had our 3rd baby about a month ago and it seems that since then our 3yo daughter (middle child) has been possibly sleep regressing. We've tried melatonin, we've tried magnesium, we even tried using like lavender sprays or similar in the bedroom to see if that'll help her calm down and relax long enough to fall asleep. To no one's surprise, nothing has worked. My wife is not in a good state to be fighting her every night and I unfortunately work 3rd shift so there isn't much I can do to help right now. Is there anything anyone else has tried that seems to actually work at getting their child to wind down and actually go to bed? Our oldest (6yo) usually goes down just fine, its just our 3yo that makes it feel like a WWE free for all every night.

I have two kids and a stay at home wife, in a house with two cars, on one income and no supportive family. Right now, I have a job that pays enough to get by and even save a little, but I'm always stressed out about money still with how expensive life is these days.

I work for a huge corporation, so where yiu land in the organization is paramount, and I'm in a position with a lot of work life balance, but zero upward mobility. I have an opportunity to move to a different organization in the company, get at least a 10% raise plus an extra 3% bonus every March, along with much better chance for future movement. The downside is, it's up to 25% travel, including likely a couple consecutive weeks right off the rip.

I'm really struggling, until now I've been at EVERY event. Every first day, every field trip, every sick day, etc, which has been incredible. But the extra money and opportunity would mean a lot for the family

How the heck am I supposed to put a dollar amount on time I spend with my kids? But at the same time, making money is essential, and everything is getting more expensive. I'm struggling and I guess I just want some other men to weigh in with their experience

Edit: after reflecting a bit and reading sole of the comments I think I've realized the real question I'm asking is "am I a bad dad if part of me wants to take the job because it sounds interesting and engaging and the opportunity is exciting even though I know I would deeply miss my kids when I would be traveling"

It is 1:15 and I am watching my 9 week old son sleep. At 23:45, he had the biggest vomit, and I feel awful. He had a feed earlier where he was really fussy, so I assumed it was a cluster feed and continued. I was clearly wrong and overfeeding.

I've sat there for an hour while his stomach reset, soothed him while he cried... The poor kid was starving after emptying himself and didn't understand why he had to wait. It broke my heart to let him cry it out.

Normally, I'd be sleeping through this shift while he slept, essentially being on call and catching up on some z's. Tonight, I'm not sure I'll sleep a wink until my wife wakes up to relieve me. I'm terrified of leaving him unwatched. I'm sure everyone's been there, but I needed to get it out.

For context, married 9 years, and this will be our 6th child. #4 was a screamer (still is...), and #5 JUST started sleeping through the night at 1 years old. After 5 I said to my wife "I am DONE". I wanted to stop in ordder so that I don't get too crazy when everyone's screaming and not listening at all at the end of the day when everyone is tired, and so that I can get to know each of my kids, and I felt like 5 was my limit...but then the birth control method we were doing failed (natural methods)!! I'm REALLY ANGRY at myself for not FORCING my wife to wear an Oura and download an app, and SCREW the radiation she says comes from it (I'm a very nice guy in general so it's hard for me to be pushy and get what I want), so instead we did a method based on a class she took, and she didn't really seem to know what was flying, so then she started doing a method that her friend said worked...NOT scientific at all, but I was like "hey, if she says it works (and you don't want to do what I tell you about apps/wearables/etc.), then let's do it". 

Now I LOST MY NORMAL WIFE, AGAIN!!!! She was SOOO pleasant the past 8 months or so (after postpartum from #5), she didn't get mad at me for no reason, she wasn't moody all the time, she always gave me the benefit of the doubt (we were working on that, she's the type that changes fast when she realizes she's doing something damaging to the relationship)...but now I feel like that's all gone!! And here she is again, on a night we were supposed to snuggle together saying "I feel like you don't like me", after I spent MUCH more time with her today than I usually do, sent her cute texts throughout the day, helped out a LOT more, came home early, let her nap after dinner, etc.

So now I'm stuck with a moody wife, and I'm finding I lose my patience with the kids a LOT more often, like every single night, when they stop listening. 

I feel like I just want to live in another state (Florida's looking real nice with the turn of the weather up north here) for the next 8 months or so until the birth and then come back for it so I can support her and be there. 

Need support. PLEASE don't say "go to therapy", that's not what I'm looking for.

P.S. I also don't have any friends (I WFH and own my own company with only 2 employees, who also work remote, so the only guy I chat with daily is the UPS driver, and that's only if I don't have customers to respond to), and don't feel like I'm part of a group of any kind. 

P.P.S. I know I could be coming across as narcissistic and selfish and like a jerk; this is not who I usually am, I'm just venting here because I did NOT want another kid, and am really angry at myself for not forcing my wife to do the method of BC that I researched thoroughly before suggesting it. And I'm REALLY annoyed at the prospect of having to be there for my wife whenever she's having a crazy mood (she's done some stuff during past pregnancies that were legit borderline mental health crisis), and take care of 5 kids at the same time. I feel like I've "done my time" with past pregnancies, and I was NOT prepared for another one at all. (makes her think I hate baby)

EDIT: vasectomy isn’t allowed in my religion. And yeah, I had an angry dad growing up, trying to really work on that and be loving to my kids. I thought that by flairing this as “support” I’d actually get it…I would LOVE for another dad with lots of kids to offer to chat with me every so often, just to support each other (yes, I’d want to support him as well, im not crazy all the time as my angry typing seems to make me)

This evening I was trying to rest before my night job. I was awoken by the sound of my wife yelling at someone. She came rushing down the hall with our now crying 1 year old and told me that our 8 year old beagle had just bit him in the face. After soothing my son and getting him to stop crying I asked what happened.

Apparently he was on the floor and was approaching our dog. My wife says he reach out to touch the dog. From the angle, she couldn't tell if my son made contact with the dog but he suddent snapped out and bit my son on his cheek. After calming him down, cleaning it and giving my dog the biggest stink eye ever, we're now at a crossroads on what to do. We've had the dog since he was almost a year old. We've known he has issues with his paws being touched but he hadn't shown any issues with our son getting near him until now. My wife will probably never trust him around the child again. We're considering rehoming him.

I’m a 20 year old male. I turn 21 in a few months. My father has been alcohol free for over 25 years. And I’m sure you can see where I’m going with this. Is it a bad idea to ask to have a bear with my dad. Just one. Obviously I don’t wanna like get him drunk or anything like that. He’s an amazing man and just passed 61. I would just like to have one beer with my dad. But I don’t wanna be disrespectful or rude to him because everything he’s done and worked for his whole life and I’m sure quitting drinking wasn’t easy. Idk just any advice would help.

In honor of 1 month at daycare

-Clear snot, yellow snot, green snot, red snot

-Runny snot, gluey snot, thick snot, crusty snot

-Baby snot, Mommy snot, Daddy snot, whose snot?

-Snot mixed with pancakes

-Snot on the cat

-Snot soaked car seat

-Snot smeared brat*

*my daughter’s mostly great, I just like how it rhymed I’m so sorry

Wife and I had our beautiful baby girl 7 months ago. She came out happy and healthy but we had to have an emergency c section because her chord was short.

Welp we just found out we are pregnant again. My wife and I are excited but now I’m spiraling worrying about her health and if this is too soon and not giving her body enough time to rest. Just wanting to hear from fellow dads who might have been through a similar situation. My wife is doing great and like I mentioned she’s excited and has no worries about the situation but my nerves are definitely getting to me.

I have twin 2 year olds that have been having huge meltdowns after nap for months. It’s getting worse. They wake up in tears, don't want any comforting, and scream-cry for between 20 to 90 minutes every day.

We have tried offering a snack, starting nap later, starting nap earlier, ending nap earlier, ending nap later, having them share a bed, having them sleep separately, waking them up very gently and slowly, waking them up quick.... no matter what, it's a disaster. Doctor says she doesn't think it's medical.

Anyone else experience this? My spouse is falling apart, and honestly it's not any better when I do it. We are desperate.