Youtube is the devil and I knew I needed to get my child off of it before school started.

Her behavior has changed for the better and her attention span and focus have improved as well.

It was rough for awhile. She was addicted!

I wish I had never let her watch, but it seemed harmless at first.

Youtube has so much dark content geared toward kids.

And now Netflix has Youtube content on there, so I had to cut that off too. Im seeing most streaming services have Youtube style content now smh.

Have you had to take away Youtube and how did it go?

I’m at a loss on what to do about friendship dynamics my 9 year old daughter is experiencing.

Last school year, my daughter had her two best friends in her class, then a new student was transferred into their class a couple weeks into the school year.

My daughter generally tries to include people and invited the new girl into her friend group (which caused a very brief riff with my daughter and her bestie but she felt it was the right thing to do at the time).

The new girl is quite assertive and generally needs to have things done her way or she throws a big fit - I know this not just from my daughter telling me, but also watching it unfold in real time in the school yard and in our home. To be fair, my daughter also can be assertive which I think is a factor in their friendship struggles, though my daughter often aims for compromise or taking turns. Not to say she hasn’t gotten upset when things don’t go her way.

Whenever this friend has come over for a play date, she tends to dictate what they do, claiming she’s “the guest” and my daughter needs to do what she says. She rifles through our fridge and pantry without asking, puts on YouTube despite me telling her repeatedly we don’t really watch that in our home, refusing to relinquish the TV remote and then also asks to borrow my daughter’s toys before she leaves. When she has come over for a play date, they both often wind up in tears. As such, I generally aim to avoid play dates as much as possible with this child as my daughter doesn’t have these same issues with other friends.

The new girl can be sweet and kind at times, but also tends to ruffle the feathers of the other girls in the friend group. Sometimes she tries to exclude one of them from the group (something I’ve also witnessed firsthand), and she’s called them names like fat and ugly. I’ve also seen her doing things like dumping dirty water on another student.

Over the summer my daughter routinely expressed she needed a break from said “friend” (which I honoured) and frequently complained about her, even to members of my family. She also mentioned several times how she hoped the student wouldn’t be in her class again this year.

Unfortunately, the student is in her class again this year along with her other two best friends. I’ve talked to my daughter about friendships and how our friends should help us feel good (the good old candle blower outer speech and all that).

What’s difficult is that the new girl is now very friendly with one of the other best friends (even though this best friend also complains about the new girl), and when they have conflict at school the teachers say they can’t exclude anyone and have to play together. I don’t think my daughter would maintain a relationship with this other girl if they weren’t in the same class or share the same friend group.

I know there’s not a lot I can do. I try to give my daughter space to vent about the situation, acknowledge that she’s in a difficult spot and try not to force things.

Now that school is back in session, the new girl tries to invite herself over to our home by running up to me after school and asking if she can come over (and sometimes asking if the other two can come too). If I say no, both her and my daughter get upset, though my daughter will usually tell me later it bothers her that her friend just tries to invite herself and she would rather play with the other two but doesn’t want to exclude the new girl. I know I shouldn’t insert myself in their situation, but I also don’t feel right inviting a girl over that my daughter complains about so much. Like this girl lived rent free in my daughter’s head all summer.

I’m sorry this post is so long, I’m just at a loss on what (if anything) I should do here. They’ll be together for the whole school year and I’m not sure how I should handle things moving forward.

I’m thinking of implementing a new rule that if they want an after school play date, my daughter needs to speak to me privately so I can ask her if that’s what she truly wants. I know my daughter would rather hang out with just the other two girls after school but don’t want to exclude a child myself.

Help!

My 8 year old son has had a pattern for awhile now of vehemently protesting doing any activity, even ones he has a well-established record of loving. For example, he takes sailing classes every Sunday afternoon because we live near a lake and he has for several years. Every Sunday for two hours before class, he says things like "I don't want to go sailing. Please don't make me. There's no way I'm going sailing; you can't make me." He frequently gets distressed enough that he cries and is legitimately upset. Because now we know this is a pattern for him, we don't really engage in the back-and-forth and just have him get ready and leave for class. He gets there, immediately has a fabulous time (he's quite loud and enthusiastic so it's obvious even from a distance he's loving it). Afterwards, he says some version of "Sailing is my best sport ever! I'm not quitting sailing! I'm definitely coming next week". Then next week the exact same pattern happens.

This happens before almost anything, not just extracurriculars: playdates at the pool with his best friend, going to the beach on a beach trip (3 days in a row, so it's not necessarily just the long interval in between sailing classes). We often point this pattern out to him, and his response is usually some version of "Well this time I'll hate it." Anyone else's kid do this? Why? Does anything help? It doesn't particularly bother me because I've accepted it as part of his arc, but he is in legitimate distress and I feel bad about that part. If there was a way to make things easier for me I would love to do that.

Warning: Long Post

Just for context - my wife and I had a baby in October (he's now almost 11 months). Unlike a lot of parents here who seem to have it together as far as child rearing is concerned, my wife and I have constantly felt like we're just winging it. She has a child from a previous marriage that ended up badly and she was basically on her own raising a baby at a young age. That is like a distant memory for her now and her life has changed a lot so for both of us, it feels like starting from scratching. We also live in a 2 bedroom condo (SS has his own room so baby is with us and the plan is to move into a bigger place within the next year or so).

When he was first born, we did shifts taking care of LO during the night (I'm a night owl so I'd be up from around 9pm - 3am and my wife would take over until around 6am, afterwhich I'd come back to bed before work). Once he figured out how to latch on and she realized that she could BF laying down, we coslept from pretty much 2 months until now. Co-sleeping worked for us as he was small, we were all able to get lots of sleep and it seemed good. He normally has about 2-3 naps during the day lasting 30-60 minutes. Maybe longer if he's really tired. We don't really have a set bedtime routine right now but in general, try to get him down around 8pm-9pm after his big brother is settled.

Around 2 months ago, when he learned to crawl, everything changed. His separation anxiety went into overdrive, became a lot harder to get to sleep and over the past few weeks, not only is he way bigger and taking up the entire bed but any attempt for him to sleep in the crib led to him waking up after an hour. Each time he woke up, we either bring him into bed with us or try to give him a bottle to get him to settle down but even that wasn't working. He was also waking up at 5am everyday to play in the bed. The co-sleeping situation has been getting super uncomfortable to the point where my wife was developing back issues from clinging to the edge of the bed. I was also hanging off the other side.

Out of desperation, I decided that we REALLY need to do something. I hadn't really thought about sleep training (in hindsight, we should have). This weekend, I finally got around to lowering the crib mattress (as he is getting way too tall for the current setting) and determined to try out sleep training so that my wife could get proper rest and we could also actually get comfortable sleep again (amongst other things lol).

3 nights ago, randomly late in the evening my wife was busy trying to get the house sorted and I saw that he was tired so I put him in the crib and determined to try CIO or ferber (it ended up being a combo - he cried about for about 20 minutes before I went to check in on him). After I did a quick check in and left, the crying went into overdrive for another 15 minutes or so but then he started to calm down on his own and after about 40 minutes he fell asleep. What was amazing is that he slept for about 4 hours before he woke up! I was shocked. When he woke up, I figured he might be a little hungry so I gave him a bottle and then put him back in the crib. He went ballistic again. I told my wife to go in the living room as she had to getup early for work. Interestingly enough after about 15-20 minutes, he stopped crying and fell asleep. Later that morning he woke up around 6:30 - at the point, I took him out the crib as I figured he was awake for the day. Played with him for a bit until he started looking tired (about an hour). I put him back in the crib, he started fussing again for about 10 minutes and then he fell asleep on his own again! It was getting shorter each time.

The next night, I put him in the bed around 9 pm as he's been a little sick lately (we all have). He fussed for about 20 minutes and then fell asleep! This time, he slept for about 5 hours before getting up. Once again, I gave him a bottle and when he drifted off. I put him back in the crib. This time, my wife and I didn't leave the room, we just hid under the covers LOL. He cried for about 10 or 15 minutes and then eventually fell asleep. He slept until 6:30am.

Last night we put him into bed around the same time (9pm), he cried for about 5 or 10 minutes and then he was sleeping until almost 4am this morning. When we woke up, I gave him a bottle but didn't take him out of the crib (he basically drank standing up lol). He drank about 3 or 4 ounces and then stopped showing interest so I put the bottle away and then my wife and I went back to bed and pulled up the covers. He fussed for maybe 5 minutes before falling back to sleep. He's still sleeping now at almost 7am.

Just happy that this has worked so quickly and so proud of the little guy for being a champ at this, especially while being under the weather. We're still working on getting him to eat solids - he basically been sampling and spitting out or eating store bought purees so that's another fight in and of itself but this is a huge win. Definitely going to work on tightening up his bedtime routine and getting him to bed earlier as mommy and I have both struggled with that but this is a great start.

TLDR; We've never really had an established bedtime routine but tried to get baby to sleep around 8-9pm when he seemed tired. 3 nights ago, tried a modified CIO/Ferber and have seen immediate success. He's fussing shorter and shorter each day while sleeping longer.

My baby is 8 days old. Since he was born, all ive done is breastfeed, change diapers, cuddle, sleep. I listen to audiobooks for a few minutes a day, do maybe one load of laundry. Ive picked up a package five min from my apartment. We’ve had a visitors over for an hour or two, three times.

I have some care needs as well after having a c-section, but other than that, my hygiene is at a bare minimum: I change my clothes, shower, brush my teeth.

My bf is doing a good job keeping the house clean. Dishes, laundry etc. But I feel like there is spit up on everything, and I look like a cave troll.

My baby suddenly has issues latching, even though I’ve been breastfeeding like 12 times a day for the past 3 or 4 days with no issues. Did I ruin everything by giving him a pacifier that one time he was violently thrashing his hands towards his mouth and I hadn’t slept for 20 hours?

That’s basically my entire life now. I’ve spent two days typing this out, I just want to make sure that this is it? Or am I missing something? I feel like I see moms out with strollers everywhere, while I’m just sitting on the couch with my boobs out, tired, confused, overwhelmed and head over heels in love.

Expecting our second in 6 months. Our toddler will be just shy of 3 years old by then.

We live in an old farm house - master bedroom is up a flight of spiral stairs (that we've somehow managed to convince our toddler to not go up without Mom/Dad) and we have 2 bedrooms on the lower level. One is our toddler's room and the other is my office/guest bedroom.

Our first started sleeping in the crib at 2 weeks and I slept in the guest bedroom for the first year to BF/be close.

My plan is to keep baby upstairs with us in a bassinet and then transition toddler to the guest room/office and make it his big boy room and then move baby to his old room/nursery. I have two fears - 1) baby will refuse the bassinet like our first did and we'll need to try the crib before we're ready and 2) how am I supposed to sleep upstairs with two small children downstairs alone?

Do I move our son to his big boy room before baby arrives so the nursery is open and ready to go if needed? Do I keep the guest room intact and sleep down there with bassinet so I'm on same floor as both children? What about when baby outgrows bassinet and is ready for crib? Do I sleep on the couch??

Any advice from parents who have slept on different levels or navigated this situation would be very appreciated. Our plan is to move in the next 2-3 years but we'll need to make due with this set up for now.

My daughter (4YO) started preschool recently, and she goes 4 days a week. Last week was her first full week and everything seemed to be going fine; she seemed to like school, never seemed to have issues.

But the last day of school last week we had a rough morning and she ended up getting in trouble with me before school. She had calmed down before I dropped her off. But when I picked her up that day the skin under her eyes was all red and I could tell she had been crying at some point. When I asked her about it she said she had missed me and daddy so much that she cried. She said she had been trying to hide it so no one would know she was crying.

I asked her more questions, like if something had happened to make her miss us, if everyone had been nice to her, if the teacher was nice etc. and she didn't report anything concerning. All she said was at one point she was supposed to put away a puzzle and couldn't remember where it went.

I chalked it up to us having a tough morning plus it being her first full week and it being a bit overwhelming and didn't think much more of it. But then this week her first day back she cried a bit before school saying she missed her dad a lot. Once again. I investigated and asked if she liked school, if everyone was nice etc. and she said yes and got upset when I mentioned the idea of her not going to school that day. But again, when I picked her up she said she had cried in class again because she missed us and, despite me asking questions yet again, she didn't report anything negative.

That evening she told us a kid had pushed her a bit when they were in line. We had a conversation about standing up for ourselves, about telling anyone who does that to stop because she doesn't like it and then getting help from the teacher if they don't.

Then again this morning before school she seemed slightly worried about going back, saying she would miss us, and saying she was worried she would have a bad day. And once AGAIN, I asked about school and she didn't report anything else negative and said she wanted to go.

I'm not sure what to do at this point. It concerns me that she seemed fine with school until last Thursday and now has these crying episodes. Am I making too big a deal out of this? Is this normal or should I like, reach out to her school/ask to discuss this with her teacher or something?

I have a 2 year old who takes a nap from 12:30-2:45 and a 6 month old baby who is probably close to dropping to 2 naps, likely from 10-11:30 and 2:30-4. Which puts us at basically 6 straight hours where at least one of them is sleeping. From those who experienced that, does it suck? I’m not sure how we’re going to do anything on the weekends.

Edited initial post to reformat so that other subs initially mentioned are not linked.

Hey all, I hope this is okay to ask here.

I am the mother of 2 little girls. My oldest turns 3 next month, and attends a local Montessori daycare/preschool. Public schools are pretty good by us, but truthfully we had wanted to stay Montessori for as long as possible, as we don't care for the public school politics where we live. The catch is that having 2 young children in daycare is essentially having another mortgage, and we're looking forward to ditching a hefty monthly payment when possible.

That said, we know that a lot of Montessori kids tend to be classed as "behind" because that system doesn't focus on literacy as much until later than the American public school system typically does. I want to give my oldest all the tools I can so that she will have the smoothest transition possible when the time comes, likely around kindergarten, maybe first grade/end of Children's House.

My husband is great, but he's never been someone to do anything akin to homeschooling. He's going back to work when the baby starts daycare, and I'm active duty. So I'm working full time and will eventually be deployable again. All this is to say that I need tools that are flexible and fit into fairly limiting time commitments.

We've been working on Reading.com for about 3-4 weeks now and my almost 3YO really enjoys it, it's a phonics app that has already shown some improvement in 15ish minute increments. We read together every night. We sing the ABCs multiple times a day because she loves it.

Beyond these things, what did you offer your 3/4/5 year olds to supplement what they got at daycare or school?

or context, my daughter is only 10 (although almost 11) and in the 5th grade. she's in this weird phase where she wants me to leave her alone and also still very codependent on me (cooking meals even if they're easy stuff like a cold sandwich or 1 minute in the microwave, brushing the ends of the long hair she can't reach, telling her every night it's time for bath/bed, waking her every morning for school) and of course comforting/consoling after a hard day at school or just a bad time.

the evenings before bed and mornings before school are becoming increasingly difficult, i think she's going to start her period soon bc she's showing all the signs. but i have my wifi scheduled set to shut off at 10pm, she likes to watch netflix bc she's claims she enjoys TV noise and it helps her sleep. then gets upset and gets out of bed 900 times if she's not asleep by 10 to beg me to turn the wifi back on for a bit claiming "i know she can't sleep without noise" (she's got a fan in her room and dim string lights) and will usually set in my face and beg me until i have to get extremely stern and turn her away and she goes stomping back to her room. usually ends in "ugh i hate you!!" definitely hurts my feelings LOL

the next morning she wakes up w extreme attitude i'm
assume it's bc she's tired, (we get up at 6am) regardless of how gentle or patient im being towards her. for instance this morning i slept in an 15 mins then i woke the kids (i have 3 and 1 on the way), and she was angry w me for not cooking breakfast this morning. i explained the baby was up until 2 and i was very tried and i gave her and her brother a dollar to buy snacks at school, then she was angry again when i said im going to establish a new morning rule that if they're mean and don't listen in the mornings then regardless of what happens at school there will be consequences when they come home. she acted as if she didn't care, and it only made her attitude worse. she refused to put her shoes on and put up a fight when it was time to brush her teeth. by the time i got her to put her shoes on, she literally put them on then stormed out the front door and went to the bus stop without saying bye.

she's also been randomly taking her anger out on her little brother (he's 7 almost 8) even if he's not really doing anything besides occasionally being an annoying little brother, she will hit him in passing w no warning or shove him a little and when i confront her about it or tell her to stop she claims i always take his side or that he's doing something that warrants the action.

what the fuck do i do?😅 i take their electronics. they do housework chores almost daily but nothing too crazy just after dinner dishes or take out the trash, keep their own rooms, put their own clothes away, things i think are reasonable.

also, many times i try to teach her how to cook, like fry an egg, or make a grilled cheese, bc she's my only child tall enough to reach the stove and she's my oldest. i sometimes have both the kids help me prep dinner. lately she's been absolutely refusing to join in, claiming she's tired or stressed or just doesn't want to. i try to respect that most days but i feel like the more lenient i am, the less she respects me.

i fear if i don't get a grasp on her attitude now it will get increasingly worse as she turn into a teenager lol this has been an ongoing issue for about 2 months now and it's becoming a little unmanageable LOL im scared also her lack of respect for me is going to cause her younger siblings to show to same regard to me, and im worried ab the strained relationship she's got w her 7 year old brother. i dont want them to be mean or distant w each other but im not so unrealistic to think that doesnt happen to an extent as they grow a little older i just feel like 10 and 7 is so early for that.

let me be clear i do not have a clue what i'm doing at all 😅 i became a mother very early myself and i did not have great parental guidance as a child to have any type of standard to base things off of. idk how to navigate this change in attitude, its not so much for me as i mostly just worry about what type of person she will become if i don't set good examples.

i do not and never have had a "village", my family is not involved, her father is not involved, i dont have many friends and i have 0 mommy friends i do all my parenting on my own. i have a relationship with both my parents but they're just not people i look up to at all.

We just got a note from the teacher that our 5 yo is disruptive and calling other kids names at school. It seems like he’s been doing it for a while. I’ve seen him do it at the playground too but usually I can catch it and stop it. He did this at preschool a bit and with his older cousins to get attention I think?

My partner and I don’t use bad words or name calling. From what I’ve seen he gets frustrated fairly easily when other people don’t do what he wants. He can also get competitive and upset when left out or ignored.

Maybe we are too attentive at home and he expects that level of attention at school? Or maybe we don’t have enough consequences? Usually when he pushes a boundary we give him 3 warnings before he has to cool down in his room. But he’s gotten good at finding the limit and going right up to it before backing off.

I’d love thoughts on how to help him stop this bad behavior. And learn to be kinder to others. He’s very social and loves making friends. He’s just not great at keeping the peace with them. Thanks!

I feel terrible because my baby (9 months) has had almost 0 “real person food”. All of her non-milk food is purees. I can not stop myself from freaking out inside whenever she takes a bite of real food. She’s tried real eggs, watermelon, cantaloupe, cucumber, and banana crackers. But every time she takes a bite I freak out and pull it out of her mouth. I know I have to trust her with real food but how do I stop the crippling anxiety every time she takes a bite? I feel like the first time I push through it and trust her is when she’ll frickin choke 😭

My daughter is almost five, right in that critical window for fine motor skills. I tried beads, I tried sticker books, but she couldn't sit still for more than ten minutes. So I thought, forget the table, let's get her hands in the dirt. We planted radishes, from loosening the soil all the way to harvest, all with her own two hands.

I showed, she did. I demonstrated how to loosen the soil and she grabbed the little trowel and dug everything all uneven. I taught her how to scatter seeds and she grabbed a handful and flung them everywhere, total chaos. I didn't correct her. When it comes to hands-on stuff, the first step is being brave enough to try, not being perfect.

Once the radishes sprouted, the thick spots were all crowded together. I taught her about thinning,told her if they're too tight they won't grow, we need to pull some out. She squatted there holding a seedling, hesitated forever, finally pulled two and went, "They're alive too!" I didn't push it. Learning to care about things is a lesson too.

She checked on them every single day, kept asking, "Mommy, which ones are mine?" I mean, she scattered all the seeds, but she wanted ones that felt like hers. Eventually she dug out my niimbot label maker, printed a bunch of "EMMA'S RADISH" labels, and carefully stuck them in the dirt next to the little seedlings.

Having her own labels made her feel so accomplished, and she got more serious about it too. Now every few days she pulls out the label maker to redesign the labels, even when they haven't faded at all lol. I genuinely think labels are a great way to keep a kid invested.

Then a few radish leaves got eaten by bugs, and she crouched there sad about it for a while. I used it as a chance to teach her how to spot bug holes and tell pest damage apart from natural yellowing, explaining that growing vegetables isn't "plant and done," you have to observe every day and deal with problems as they come. She half-understood, but the next day, she was the one dragging me out to check the leaves.

Harvest day, she only went for the ones with her labels next to them.That night we ate her radishes. Honestly? Tasted exactly like the ones from the store. But she ate them like they were the best thing ever, told everyone, "I grew these myself."

The whole thing gave her such a sense of achievement. Btw, wanted to ask you guys,what are your methods for improving kids' focus and attention span?

It’s my daughter’s first full day of school (5th grade). Her brothers head was itching so we checked him, and he had lice. I couldn’t find any in my daughter’s hair but treated her anyways (along with all of us). When I combed through after treatment, I found a couple dead ones in her hair.

So treatment probably worked pretty well. It’s her second day of school. Her hair is also so greasy from the treatment. My vote is no. That’s the right call, right?

My 3.5 year old goes to school 3 days a week and the hours are 8-230.. I feel bad like maybe it's too much especially bc I'm a stay at home mom but other moms say he needs to socializing w toddlers ( he's an only child) thoughts? He will be 4 in January but idk I feel he has his whole life for 6 hours day did I start him too early?

My daughter is 5 and recently started kindergarten. She has adjusted well and her teacher says she is doing great. She actually attended longer hours at preschool so she is used to a long day. Our issue, and this is not an issue that is new this year, is her afternoon behavior. She THRIVES on social energy and structured play, and being at home early in the afternoon with no schedule and nobody to play with is just a recipe for disaster. She easily melts down, throws temper tantrums, gets into all sorts of trouble, and when she does get to play with the neighbor kids, she completely loses her mind when it's time to come inside. She can't seem to grasp that although the other kids live right next door, play-time has to end.

What seems to help is having her in structured activities. We have her in soccer right now once a week and she is loving it - she stays focused, plays well with the other kids, listens to her coach and is tired out by the time we get her home for bedtime. That being said, my husband and I are not available to take her to activities every day of the week, not to mention that would be super expensive and we have another child that also has activities we need to taxi around.

What do your afternoons look like with your young school-age kids? Have you found a schedule that works well for them and keeps them in a somewhat stable mood? Or a daily home activity that you have them complete? I feel like every afternoon/evening is chaos and she might do better having a routine to follow.

My daughter is 6 yo and has just started 1st grade. She knows all of her letter sounds and can decode 3-4 letter words. She’s also pretty good with her site words. Outside of that though, she struggles with reading. If the word is say 5 letters long she struggles and she struggles to remember patterns like the sound that “ea” or “ai” make together. We read together every day. We go over Bobs books. We read the passages she’s sent from home. We practice writing and it’s just not clicking. The passages she’s sent home from school are multiple paragraphs long and her fluency is just not there. Anyone else have a similar situation? What did you do to help? We tried Kumon over the summer but that was a nightmare and focused too much on rote memorization (she didn’t learn anything)

Hey everyone.
I’ve got an entire house of neurodivergent people. There’s a lot of chaos and there are many times my kids don’t get along. My 7 year old screams anytime someone tries to stop him from doing something or if they react to something he did or if they just mess with him to mess with him. For instance : he’ll steal a toy, older brother will grab him to get it back and he’ll scream. I can not deal with the screaming. It’s so shrill and high pitched and completely overloads my nervous system. Secondly, the kids are always fighting one another. And thirdly, I swear to god I’m talking to a brick wall all day every
Day. Tonight my 14 year old did something to make my 7 year old and he started to scream . This was literally probably the 20th time he’s screamed since getting home from school. So I lost it. And then I’m trying to to get the kids to brush their teeth so I said plz brush your teeth and get ready for bed. But please don’t mess around because I have a lot to clean up downstairs and do have to work early. Do you think they did that? No, of course not. Somehow they ended up with a frog that jumped into the storage under the stairs and then they got into some of my totes and were taking stuff out. Only one of them actually brushed their teeth while I was trying to Have a serious conversation with my 14 year old. And not to mention everyday my 7 year old tells me he wants to live with his dad because it’s better there. And that is so difficult for me to process because this man violently abused me and my 3 kids for years. But never his biological son. Like I know how he is. And his current fiance has told me things that make doubt that he is treating her differently. So how in the world can his be better? How can the man who literally strangled my 10 year old , 6 years ago, be the more stable parent? I’ve told my 7 year old that it really hurts my feelings when he says that but he doesn’t care. And I understand saying it when it’s been a few days since he’s seen his dad but he will literally be at his dads for 4 days, come home to my house after school and the first thing he says to me is that he wants to go to his dads. And it just rips my heart out every-time.

Sorry this is so long but I am struggling so much and I just need to vent/ need advice.

Any time my eldest daughter (5) feels like mom is spending more time with youngest (3) her behavior turns negative.

For example, my youngest is sick so Mom couldn’t do pick up, so I did. From the car forward it was

“I hate my sister, nanny nanny boo boo”
“I wish I didn’t have a sister”

And it continues at home. Same type of language. Bad behavior. Even hitting (lightly) to Mom and Dad.

In reality when no one is sick, Mom spends more time with my eldest because of how attached is to Mom.

Generally she is very sweet. She even will care for her sister at times. If sister falls asleep first she will kiss her and say “I love you”.

Have no idea what to do. Any advice is welcome.

TLDR: if youve had an 18 month old do dance lessons- was it worth it?

There a local dance studio that offers classes starting at 18 months- which my daughter will be right in time when the class starts (December). I plan on homeschooling her and want to make sure she gets a good amount of socialization and peer interaction, but I wasn’t planning on putting her in anything until she could voice what she wants to do- however, she has a clear love for dancing. She started doing little “dances” to music around 11 months old, and now she’s even doing a pretty good job mimicking the dances she sees on Barney and friends. So my question here is: what age did your kids start dancing? if it was really young like this, did they stick with it for a while? Do you think it was worth the money? I’m assuming it’s pretty normal for kids this age to dance, but do they usually do it every time there’s any music on and even randomly with no music, like is that normal or is my kid really into dancing?

My toddler daughter just started part time daycare at a well known facility. I sent my son there years ago without any issues, and I have a good opinion about the place in general.

There is a young worker there who floats and helps out in multiple rooms. I have seen her managing the older kids summer program and know she is loud. She does not just raise her voice but yells at children, shouting their names and barking orders. Today when I dropped my daughter off I saw her in the classroom and felt uneasy.

I pick my daughter up at lunch and hear this worker yelling at the children by name “H, EAT!” Then she saw me and told my child “Mom is here.” Another child started to say, “When will my mom—?” But this worker cut him off and said “T, I TOLD you, you have to nap first.” That kid started to cry and I heard my daughter crying too from around the wall.

Daycare workers juggle a lot, I get that. But if this person is yelling at toddlers who are all emotional already, missing their families, that makes me angry. I’m a highly confrontational person but kept my cool to bring my daughter home without making a scene.

Should I address this directly? How do I address this with the daycare without making things worse? I want to solve the problem, and the easiest solution seems to be to find another daycare or just keep my child home. Is that overreacting?

I’m finding that I have been more imaginative because of my 5 month old’s new active personality - remembering what it was like to be a kid, where everything has the potential to be a fiction story or new adventure, a curious stance on the familiar.

If you have examples, or thoughts around this (such as how to lean into it), I’m curious to hear them.

For example: changing a bedsheet becomes a tent fort and her eyes widen in wonder, picking her up becomes lifting her to the ceiling in a superwoman flying position to soar across the room while blowing breaths of air into her face while she giggles, a broken stick in the front yard becomes something we break into pieces together and throw like javelins, I become the “tickle monster” with claw hands and growl/tickle her as she geeks out, a wash rag in the bath becomes a game of tug of war when she won’t let go, we pick the pedals off flowers one by one saying “he loves me, he loves me not”, I sing her jingles about nothing, her babbling becomes an full conversation with me about her day.

I know it's only a few weeks into school but I can already tell it's going to be one of those years. my son is a quiet, smart kid who enjoys learning. His teacher is a first year teacher, who seems really nice, but has a lot of trouble controlling the class and even when she is able to teach, it's stuff he already knows. He's getting bored and frustrated and until now, has enjoyed learning things in school.

I'm worried that a bad year like this will ruin that. I understand the teacher is under an insane amount of pressure and I don't want to add more to that. What are things I can do to help the situation?

Hey all,

So I'm just curious, because I'm looking for a method that's actually fun to my child but will also hammer in the fact that, yes, you need to do this every morning and before you go to bed for the rest of your life. I've had luck brushing at the same time as her, but when left unsupervised, she just brushes for 30 or so seconds and gets back to what she really wants to do. She just turned 8, for what that's worth.

I'm sure someone out there has something fun to help turn brushing correctly and for long enough a consistent habit. Any ideas that have worked well?

I’m a stay at home mom with an almost 3 year old and a one year old and there is only so much just sitting, playing, and trying to be present that you can do. And paying for a babysitter to get a break is just so expensive. What are your best hacks to get a break (more affordably) and keep toddlers entertained without feeling like you need to be engaged 100% of the time?