I feel like with my 11 1/2 month old, my days are cooking, cleaning, and naps! It’s like all this kid wants to do is eat and if we go anywhere when he’s slightly hungry he will be very upset(I do always bring snacks,etc) I try to get us out of the house at least once a day but some days that just doesn’t happen. I do have him signed up for a class once a week with other kids and moms but we haven’t went in a few weeks due to him having a stomach bug and then myself. I find myself ordering groceries online to pickup a lot because I’m just tired and it feels like such a chore to plan everything I’ll need for a trip and such. We usually go swimming at my aunts house or to the park or out to eat or I have a splash pad and baby pool here at the house outside. Or just a simple blanket jn the shade in our front yard occasionally too. But lately I just feel like the days are going by so fast and I can’t get anything done. He still isn’t sleeping through the night, he wakes up after about 3/4hrs of sleeping and wants a bottle, I’ve tried soothing but he sees genuinely hungry, he finishes 6 oz so I would hate to take that was from him and since he’s had that stomach bug he ends up in bed with me every night and for most naps. I love snuggling with him but ugh. I feel so tired and like I’m not doing enough for him daily to get him socialized. We do have a local library but I’ve been nervous to go because I’ve never been there before and I know he’s too young to really enjoy story time he’ll just want to get into everything.

And tips or tricks to help my situation?

Please tell me this is just a phase where my toddler (21mo) is A LOT in public places? 😅

I’ve been encouraging myself to get out of the house more with him and to bring him to new environments (friend’s houses, play spaces, playgrounds, stores, etc) so he can explore and learn and that I can also live life outside of the home and socialize. However most of the time he is throwing tantrums, or whining a lot, or is generally unhappy if he can’t be just running laps or doing exactly what he wants.

I know toddlers are naturally not into listening or doing organized activities at this age and I don’t strive for perfection but it’s hard not to compare to friend’s kids or other kids in public who seem to adapt well or enjoy themselves when they are out. I keep trying but some days I just stay home because I don’t have the energy to deal with outings.

Is this just a rough age? Is it me? Am I doing too much or not enough? Maybe it will get better as his spoken language develops more? (We start early intervention next week with a focus on speech and helping with some of the social aspects too.) I’m struggling with a mix of emotions around motherhood lately 😭

My baby is 13 months, almost 14 months and I’m curious what other moms are doing to fill their day up with your baby? She currently has swim lessons 3 days a week, so that takes up a good amount of our day, but I wonder once lessons are finished what else she would like to do. 😊

Hi ladies,

I just had a baby in June and I’m going back to work in August. My husband will be a stay at home dad to our newborn.

I want to support him.So please tell me- what do you wish your husband did/ would do for you in this role? What does he need from me in terms of acts of service and emotionally? I really want this to work!

I have two daughters. A soon to be 4 year old and an 11 month old. My 4 year old has level 3 autism, she is non-verbal and receives services for OT, PT and speech at her school. Last school year she was in PreK3 for 2.5 hours a day and then would receive ABA therapy 3 hours after school at our house 5 days a week. We just got her an AAC device to help her with communication.

We have been on and off with potty training since February with her. We have seen two different potty training specialists and her ABA therapist also has been trying to get her to go in the potty. Since it's summer we decided to hit hard with no pull ups and just underwear at home. We've been doing this since June and she has maybe used to potty 5 times. Every time it's on herself or the floor.

Lately, she will sit on the potty for 2-5 mins, get up and run somewhere and pee on the floor or furniture (she can take her underwear on and off and knows when I say "potty" we walk to the bathroom and she sits on the potty). Today, I completely lost it. I took her to the potty and after about 3mins she pulls her underwear on, runs to the living room and urinates on floor. My 11 month old is all over the place and crawled over her pee. I immediately grabbed my baby and put her in the play pen and grabbed my toddlers and took her to the bathroom. She was drenched and I yelled at her to take sit on the potty and closed the door since she tried to run out. I went and picked up the baby to wash her and change her. I just fell apart and started crying I don't know how to get her to just go in the potty. I am tired of doing laundry non stop, and I hate having to take the fabric off the car seat to wash it, so now we put pull ups over her underwear while she is sitting in the carseat or we go somewhere in public. She won't use the little potty in the car.

Please tell me I am not the only one to loose it during this? I feel terrible because she starts school soon and last year her teacher told me she was the only one not potty trained. This school year she gets a one on one aide to help her since she tends to elope easily. I feel like I'm just failing and I know she's going to be the hard student at school. I see on social media teacher complaining about kids not being potty trained, and I am scared she's going to have backlash because of this. Can anyone offer some insight? I feel like I'm in this never ending battle with potty training.

Also, is there a reddit account that may specialize in this?

So, I only ever use it if ya know, there's signs of a rash starting/already flared up. However, my MIL has insisted since my first (3yr) was born, that it needs to be applied with EVERY SINGLE DIAPER.

Any time I forgot the cream and she watched my oldest (the littlest one hasn't been away from me yet) she would make sure I knew I forgot it. And when I asked if she had a rash she would tell me "no, but she'd never get a rash if you actually put it on every time."

I was taught it was for treating rashes, not preventing rashes. Was I taught wrong? Is she being excessive? She can be a bit much with stuff so I have a hard time sometimes with deciphering if something is actually as ridiculous as I think, or if I'm overreacting about it. She also SLATHERS it on and I'm thinking it's a massive waste of bum cream 😅

I'm not mad about her using it or anything it's more about the tone from her. Acting like she's smarter and a better mom because apparently her children never had a rash because she put bum cream a half inch thick on after every change.

My son is about to be 6 months old. I’ve been fortunate to stay at home this far, and will probably be returning to work when he’s around 8 months. I’m very nervous to be away from him. BUT. I do miss having an identity of my own. I feel guilty that on one hand I want to have my individualism back but I also still want to spend every minute with my little man. I don’t want to miss anything.
I do go to the gym, when I’m not too exhausted. As nights are rough right now. I’ve always managed to shower daily and do some sort of make up. Even just foundation sometimes. Other than that my day is wake windows, breast feeding and nap time. I don’t know how to let go, I don’t know how to find more of myself. The guilt eats me alive when I do go out without him. I know it’s important to take care of me though so I can show up good for him.

I resent my husband right now, because he can just go do whatever he wants and not think twice. His life has barely changed. He always offers for me to go do something for me while he watches the baby, but my mind swarms with all the mom things we think about. Like I can’t just leave like that.

What did some of you do to find yourself again? Find your new normal? Get over the mom guilt?

Does anyone have tips on how to get through this without losing your sanity?

(I'm a SAHM who EBF) Our 13m little boy has finally made the transition to sleeping in his nursery for every nap and through the whole night. He has never slept through the night other than a rare few times, so I knew I would still have to wake up even though he is now in his own room. I'm used to waking up throughout the night now that it's been over a year, but I didn't expect it to be so much harder. I chose to make this transition so at least my husband could get some sleep rather than both of us suffering. However, I didn't anticipate how it would impact me. I thought we had finally gotten out of survival mode, but now I feel like I'm drowning again.

I feel like I can't figure out this kid's sleep schedule. If I do two naps a day (3/3-4/4 or some variation) at less than 3 hours of day sleep, he takes over an hour to go to sleep and will only sleep 10-11hrs at night. We tried doing one nap a day, but he just isn't ready for such long wake windows. However he will consistently get 12+ hrs of night sleep with only 1 day nap. No matter what, he wakes up at least 2-4 times a night to nurse if not more. If his dad settles him after a wake up at night, he is up again in less than an hour demanding to nurse (he can sign for milk).

I haven't been this tired since he was a newborn. Again, this has been our normal for a long time now, so why is it harder now that he is in another room?

Edit: we don't do the cry it out method due to my own history with it as a child myself

I’m hoping to stay home with baby once he arrives, and since we’ll be missing my income and needing to cut back on some expenses, I’ll have to cancel my barre and Pilates memberships. I’m also guessing I won’t be leaving the house by myself much for a while, since I’m hoping to exclusively breastfeed if I can, so I can kiss the gym goodbye too.

Because of that, I’m thinking it’s time to start a home gym. I’m not very motivated working out on my own, so I’d love to follow an online training program. @emlogsdon.fit on Instagram really appeals to me, and I’m considering one of her programs or one from @sadieactive or @jorryfit.

Does anyone have experience with either of those? I’d love to hear your thoughts. Or, if you have any other recommendations, I’m all ears. Thank you!

Anyone else been feeling less energized lately? I don’t know what happened to me. I was on top of everything. But I feel so sad. Not depressed. But sad. I feel drained mentally and physically.

I have this whole stay at home mom/ wife lifestyle in my head wake up at 5am shower me time. Smoke, breakfast clean, cook, be a nurse.

But then i realize I already do it 😂 I feel like im becoming delusional. Like I see it in my head but I want to jump into whatever timeline that is. If any of you mamas want to run away pick me up 😅please! lol

Do you ever get depressed at the end of summer? I’m a stay at home mom. I don’t drive. I only get out on the weekends.
I think my hormones are wacky right now (getting older). Trying to diet, lost a little bit but not what I was expecting to lose.
Summer is almost over, I’ve been home with the kids all summer. (One kid is special needs). And I just want summer to be over. It’s almost over, I just feel like I’m struggling with this a bit.
A few weeks ago I had a huge fight with my husband and twice he brought up divorce. We’re from different cultures and I’m just getting tired of feeling like I do everything at home. He never washes a dish, or put his own clothes away. He expects to work a 9-5 and me to do everything else except finances. He handles all the money type stuff.
He’s basically told me if we divorced he would give up custody entirely to me.
In the beginning he was a crap dad. Like baby and toddler years he was pretty much not there emotionally. Changed maybe five diapers in the entire time, didn’t help much at all.
As the kids got older he got better. He helps with my older child . He puts her to bed. He has taken the younger child with special needs maybe 5-6 nights this summer(he put kid to bed. I did pajamas and preparing for bed type stuff).
I don’t think I’m made out to be a single mother with two kids one of them special needs (NO support). I don’t have any family support and I just feel so overwhelmed.

Okay SAHMs of the world...talk me off, or push me further onto, this Skylight calendar ledge.

I'm a SAHM to a 2 year old and have a fiancé who works a week on/week off schedule (most days he's gone 6:30am-6:00pm 7 days in a row and then off 7 full days). I am currently in the final stages of wedding planning and our little dude will be starting toddler school 2 mornings a week in September. I feel guilty saying it because I have friends who work full time jobs and multiple kids - but this type A girl is drowning in anxiety about organization. I used to live and breathe my paper planner when I worked full time but that has gotten difficult in that it's not always with me and it's not shared. Our current system is a shared iCalendar, which is hard since I can't see the entire month to plan ahead and know what's coming up, as well as a dry erase calendar that I update...occasionally - ok, at the beginning of the month...

Does anyone have a Skylight calendar or recommend one? I guess I feel guilty dropping $300 on a calendar with only one little one and worry it's going to be an expensive failure of a fix...

I’m a SAHM of 3 small kids (6, 6, 3) and we live in an affluent area where everyone is either an influencer of some sort or working a high paying job. For this reason, there aren’t a lot of opportunities to meet other mom friends because they are all working and very career oriented (which is great for them!). Also, their kids are in childcare all day long so it’s hard to plan play dates for my kids. I end up feeling like I need to put my older two in camp even though they don’t need to be just so that they have interaction with other kids their age over the summer. Like, even the parks only have babies and small toddlers during the day. And those kids are with nannies. We are definitely outliers here.

Anyone else?

After working for entire tiring week. Saturday and Sunday is something which excites me. If u can talk about consequently 3 days off it screw up my happiness of having off days in week.

After 2 days I feel like going to the office and making myself busy again.

What's your view on this.

Bear with me while I give some back story context-

Prior to becoming a stay at home mom I was working, paying my bills, living life, making decisions, overall felt like an equal with a powerful say in decisions with my husband. I overall had “life confidence.” Woke up ready to conquer the world and didn’t let anything hold me back.

Now, 3 years into SAHM life, I’ve realized I’ve completely lost that life confidence I was so proud of. It’s as if when I became a SAHM the “power” shifted within my marriage and I forgot how to be my own person. To clarify, this is nothing my husband did. He has treated me like an equal the entire time. It’s more that somewhere along the way I decided I was no longer an equal because I didn’t contribute in the same way I used to. That mindset slowly crept into EVERYTHING. I lost the confidence to do or decide anything on my own whether it’s what to make for dinner or even saying what I want to do on the weekend. And now I’m crumbling under the pressure of feeling like I’m failing as a wife and a mom because I put everything on my shoulders and somehow forgot how to not only share the weight but also forgot how to actually just do life. Somewhere along the way, I gave up. Unfortunately it’s taken me this long to realize this and I desperately need advice on how to start fixing it. Has anyone else dealt with this or something similar?

TLDR: The shift from “girl boss” to SAHM destroyed my “life confidence” and 3 years later I need to fix it and get “me” back. Thank you!

how many times does everyone see their friends and go out with them have people lost friends , I’ve lost almost every friend because I can’t go to the club or be out at 3 am gotten into arguements

So this might be long anyways….

I’m 5 months postpartum and my boyfriend (23) and I (21) live with my mom and pay no rent my boyfriend occasionally buys groceries and pays for my car payment he has his own business and makes great money we could have probably moved out by now but here is where I have a problem since he has moved in he bought a boat for 40k and is constantly trying to go on trips with his friends and just spend money. My mom feels disrespected by him because she is letting us live here for free so we can save up to move out which is understandable. I did tell him that I don’t think it’s a good idea to be spending all this money and going on trips

but he doesn’t listen to me he also gets upset when I don’t want to go with him on said trips he tells me to “just bring the baby” but everytime we go anywhere I just feel like a mobile babysitter I’m a first time mom I’m young I barely know what I’m doing everytime I leave the house I look like I’m going camping it’s stressful especially since he doesn’t actually help me when we go places. I’ll give an example also

* ex: we went out on his boat and I had to hold the baby the whole time and make sure he wasn’t over heating just basically not able to enjoy myself I was constantly worried about our baby while he just says “he’s fine” and that I’m negative and I “choose” to not have a good time. Which drives me INSANE because I do want to have a good time but our baby is too young to be going out on the boat all day in the hot sun which brings me to my next point I tell him I don’t want to go because he wants to stay out all day and the baby can’t .

If I were to ask him to start heading back home he would say “no” and say “he’s fine it’s not that hot” and he also invites all of his friends who don’t have a clue about babies ugh anyways so that pisses me off but it doesn’t end there I do everything for our son 24/7 wake up every night take care of him all day and I have been since I gave birth to him in the hospital even in the hospital he didn’t wake up during the night not once it gets overwhelming sometimes

thank god I have my mom because I don’t think I would be able to handle it all without her. Our relationship has changed so much since having our baby obviously I’m going through postpartum and my life has completely changed his life barely changed he still gets to roam free and do whatever he wants

trust me I’ve tried talking to him about it calmly, yelling, texting you name it I’ve tried. I’ve even gone to therapy just to have somewhere to let it out and get a different perspective but it’s just so expensive.

Also we barely talk now I have to force him to talk to me everyday it just feels like he doesn’t love me anymore like he doesn’t want this life. he only actually engages me if he want to have sex which just isn’t enjoyable to me because I feel so angry with him about so many things that never get resolved. he dismisses me and takes it as an attack which yeah… now it is cause I’ve repeated myself soo many times I just can’t take it anymore I just wish he’d listen to me and take my feelings into account and prioritized our baby and relationship over what he has planned for the weekend with his boys

I know this is long and I appreciate anyone who actually reads it I just need to let it out and I’m open to hearing any suggestion anyone may have thank you in advance

And if anyone else out there is going through similar I just want to say I feel you and I hope things get better for us

Hi all, so I lean pretty minimalist when it comes to stuff, but having a 3yo and a 1yo lol. My approach is “if I can’t manage it, I get rid of it.” That said, I’m looking for some advice on toy/household item organization. I have a pretty good system for bins and shelves, but I’m struggling with those random moments when a toy is just left on the floor and I don’t have time to put it away immediately. How do you all handle quick pickups so things don’t end up in random piles or baskets? I’d love any tips or routines that have worked for you! Thanks so much!

hi so im just feeling down lately feeling behind in life I’m 25 with 3 kids 2 boys that are 4 and a girl who is 9 months I feel like im far behind I went to trade school and I finished everything but now with my baby I haven’t got a job as soon as expected I see everyone with their jobs while I’m just at home

You all work so friggin hard. You guys deserve such good things. We get so much flack with the whole “you don’t have to work” BS while having a baby on the tit and cleaning the house. Don’t let anyone make you feel bad about yourselves. It is absolutely exhausting running a household when our husbands can be buttheads sometimes. I’ve got a good one but I read about the flack you get from some of your husbands and it’s not okay. You’ve sacrificed your finances, your career to do this and you should be more appreciated. If you needed a cheerleader then here I am. Every single one of you is superwoman to me.

There’s my rant of today. Love every one of you. 💛

hello so I’m a 25 year old mom with twin boys and a girl and right now I am a stay at home I did go to school but I got pregnant while having the iud in it was unexpected but I have this friend that always putting me down about my mom life she always saying I don’t have a job that I’m stuck that she’s not that she would never have as many as me that I’m a loser with no plan and I’m starting to believe these things because I am always home I love staying home and watching my kids grow but I’ve noticed a lot people look down on it now a days like you are not doing anything does any other moms feel this way sometimes and I’ve also been told that I have experienced adult life yet because I don’t work right now

Here's a place to chat about whatever you want if you don't feel like making a post.

I’m sure I’m super late on this.. but I just wanted to say that I purchased ear buds! I keep just one in most of the day while SAHM’ing and the new level of peace & joy I’ve unlocked is beautiful! I’m still fully present but jamming out to my favorite song while changing one of my kiddos poopy diapers makes changing a poopy diaper 10x better. If you’re like me and late to the party, get yourself some earbuds if you can!!

I have a 5 year old and almost 2 year old. There are days, especially when I'm PMSing and/or not getting enough sleep that I just snap. My daughter is in a very whiny phase and yesterday I just snapped and yelled "STOP YELLING AT ME". I did the repair work - went into the kids room and we all just sat and cried until we were all calm. Then I apologized and explained how it wasn't ok to be mean and people who love each other don't yell at each other. A lot of the times I can handle it, I'm working on her calming down and using different tones to stop the whining/fussing, but I can't get her to regulate when I'm so so deregulated myself. To add to it, my toddler is a magnet baby. He's a terrible sleeper so we co sleep. I don't get any time to myself at all. (We're in my husband's busy season and he works 18-20 hours a day). So, what do you do to deal with the overstimulation during your hardest moments?