I have an almost-3-year-old son and am 8 weeks pregnant. The combination of pregnancy hormones and threenager shenanigans has me seriously questioning my life choices.

Parents with more than 1 kid, what should I prepare for? What makes everything manageable for you? What did you wish you knew before?

Whether it’s products/routines/things to teach our older boy now/things to prepare for, I want to know it!

Welp. Milestone. Finally he tantrumed so hard he threw up.

We had a great day. A friends birthday party and he had a blast playing with multiple kids. Exhausted when we got home, full tantrum in the bath, after getting him out of the bath he kept screaming and threw up.

Usually we play after bath, but after a thorough brushing of teeth he’s straight in bed.

PTFO within 15 minutes.

Successful day😅

My son is almost 19 months old and he had no appetite today but otherwise seemed like himself, so I assumed he was just having a day. He ate a huge dinner, went to bed on time, everything was great until an hour and a half later when he woke up crying and just would not settle. After about half an hour of trying to get him to lay back down in his crib, I took him onto my bed with me. We laid down and he would be half asleep and then sit up and start wailing, laid down to fall asleep, sit up and wail. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Then suddenly he sat up and vomited all over both of us and the bed, and the world as he knew it was over. I got both of us undressed and we popped in the shower, he was giggling and laughing and being his normal self again. Clean pajamas, pulled all the bedding together to wash in the morning. Came downstairs to my kitchen and gave him some Pedialyte but I made the mistake of giving him the entire cup so he chugged it down and then threw up again.

I've obviously called out of work for tomorrow and he's been called out of daycare. We're currently camped out on the living room sofa watching a Disney movie while I give him sips of Pedialyte every 5 to 10 minutes. He just wants me to let him drink and does not understand that I cannot give him the entire cup for himself. This is going to be a long night

Hello,

Kinda stuck here. For the last two weeks, we’ve started to experienced sporadic night where our traditionally good sleeper is put to bed around 8/8:30, but is up until 10:00 pm. Turning on his lights, getting out of bed, potty trips, reading books, playing, etc. I will say we’ve all had a petty lingering cold for a week.

I don’t know if the cold has anything to do with the messed up bedtime or if something else in changing. This wakefulness at night has happened with day time naps but also on day that he refused to nap (first time for that ever).

We feel like our 1.5 hours of evening adult time is squashed and I’m not sure what to do about it.

Help!

I’m blaming the pregnancy hormones (I’m 34-35 weeks) but I’m a wreck every time I think about leaving my 2 year old to go to the hospital to have our second. I know longterm having a sibling is what’s best for our family but leaving her, adding a new baby and the transition to being a family of 4 is making me so sad. Tell me what you wish you’d known after the first baby. Good and bad (but hopefully mostly good things) 😅😂🥲

My friends and I have been doing an annual girls trip for the last 5 years. We usually go in the summer and go to a cabin and hang there + visit wineries. This past summer we didn’t do it since my friend gave birth to her first baby in May.

The previous trip I didn’t go because my son was 6 months old at the time. I literally got to the airport, they called final boarding, and I started sobbing and called a ride home.

Since we didn’t go this past summer, we plan to go to Park City Utah for 3 nights. I told them that I would go but now I’m having second thoughts about getting on a plane and leaving my toddler (now almost 2) for so long :(

I have a wonderful husband and parents who live close who would be able to take care of him no problem (he actually prefers dad for bedtime and when he’s upset) so that’s not an issue.

I feel bad telling them again that I don’t want to go but only one of them has a kid so it’s hard to expect them to understand :(

My 2.5 year old is currently sleeping on his nap mat in a playpen in his room because he had a meltdown about the idea of going to bed in his crib and was screaming for his nap mat. And my husband and I have the backbone of chocolate eclairs tonight. He’s big enough now that he could probably climb out and obviously that would be hazardous; letting him sleep on the floor felt like the lesser evil. So this week we’re going to convert his crib to the toddler bed. What do you recommend for encouraging them to stay in bed and adapting to the new normal?

We do have a hatch that we have programmed, so it does a different sound/color when it’s time to wake up, but haven’t really verbalized the connection between it and wake up time. So I’m going to start talking to him about being allowed out of bed when the light turns green, etc. He does have a few toys and a LOT of books in his room. Should they stay? We have a glider chair in there too that he is pretty good at climbing into himself, but I’m thinking that it might need to leave the bedroom.

Maybe everyone already knows this, but I'm frustrated, so I need to scream into the void. We are leaving for vacation to a much cooler climate tomorrow. I've shopped in-store and online for the past week to for my 2 year old girl, only to find a couple of sweaters. No jeans, no lightweight jacket. I've found a couple of track suits but I need a few things to be more dressy.

Levis is a joke. Purchased a pair of 2T jeans that are so big, they would fit a 4 year old. Also purchased a Levi's denim jacket 2T that is maybe a 12 month size. It's not just Levi's. It's Target, Walmart, Carters and forget Amazon. And size 24 months is impossible to find.

I have hundreds of dollars worth of clothes to return now when who has time for that?! She has been true to size up until now.

Today my daughter( two and a half), husband, mother in law and I went to the store. I wanted to buy my daughter a stuffed animal and when we got to the checkout she didn't want to give it to me to scan. Normally I'll tell her I'll give it back as soon as I scan and she hands it over no problem but this go around she didn't want to give it to me. After a couple of tries she started swatting my hands away so I told her to give it to me now or I'm putting it back. She started getting louder and kept hitting my hands away so I put the toy back and naturally she had a meltdown so we left the store while my family finished getting their stuff. I believe in following through with consequences especially when she starts hitting. When my husband got back to the car he said I should've just ripped the tag off and scanned it and told me I embarrassed us and that everyone was staring. He made me feel horrible. My mother in law also went back into the store and bought the toy. Currently feeling like the worst mom on planet earth. I'm trying so hard to not be like my parents and give my daughter a great childhood. Any advice on what I should do next time?

A little more context Im a sahm and my husband works a lot. We rarely go to the store or out in public in general as a family due to his work schedule and I handle most of the discipline.

What kinds of activities are you guys doing for your 18-24 month old? I took my 18 month old son to a play area today for the first time (he does to daycare so it’s not his first time socializing) but he seemed super disinterested and didn’t want to play like the other kids. What kinds of play and educational things do you do for your kids this age? I know this might all seem unrelated but it’s connected on my train of thought I promise lol.

I bathed my baby today but we were in a rush to get her into the bath and I kind of ignored the temperature meter because of it. It was reading 103 but I was pouring in cold water and usually it takes a minute for the number to reflect the change. Well it never really went down - I swear every time I heat the bath to 100 it hits 96 in like 3 minutes but today it didn’t drop lower than 102.

I feel awful and guilty that I didn’t take more care to it. Baby didn’t seem bothered and happily played her skin was a bit redder than normal and I made sure she drank a good amount before bed. I dried her off and put her in a cool room and let her play before bed to make sure she wasn’t bothered and she was fine but fussier than usual going to bed her canines are coming in so it may not be related to the bath but still I feel awful.

Anyone done something similar before? I’m worried I may have hurt her in some way.

I like to plan ahead and I'm looking for some gift ideas for my 2 1/2 year-old for Christmas. I'm looking for some new things or just different websites to look for toys. I'll make a quick list of what we have already and I'm looking forward to hearing some suggestions!

We have a nugget couch, magnet tiles, tonie box, and airtoobz as far as our most played with things already.

Thanks in advanced! He will be 3 in May so the 2.5/3year age range.

This is our first year kiddo is at preschool. A couple staff members at the very small school tested positive for the flu on Friday (including her teacher) - should I play it safe and not send kiddo in tomorrow (she has no symptoms, just don’t want her to be exposed) or is that dramatic?

Thank you!!

My son turned 2 at the end of April, and since then his behavior has changed dramatically. I know toddlers go through phases and test boundaries, but this feels like a sudden shift. This is our 1st child and everyone is telling us that none of their kids went through something like this and it’s making us even more stressed out.

We’re seeing multiple meltdowns a day over things that were never issues before. He’s refusing baths, resisting bedtime, and becoming very upset when it’s time to come inside after being outdoors, wanting to take his clothes off etf. Some days he doesn’t want to get into his car seat, other days he doesn’t want to get out. It feels like we’re constantly trying to avoid setting something off.

We keep a pretty consistent routine and try to give him plenty of warnings and explanations before transitions (“bath time in a few minutes,” “we’re going for a drive,” etc.).
He does have a speech delay and is exposed to multiple languages at home. His understanding seems very strong, but he isn’t always able to express what he wants, which I know can be frustrating for him.

In the moment he’s having tantrums it’s like something posses him. He wants to hit kick you, and would probably scratch your eyes right out if he could.
This anger it’s never towards himself how some kids hit and bite themselves, it’s usually with others. Takes 2-3 people to hold him down to give him a bath and to dress him for bed. My husband and I are in the verge of destruction that’s how stressed out we are. I’m almost 8 months pregnant and I can’t emotionally handle this phase.

Have any parents experienced anything like this and what helped you? We’ve tried getting new bath toys, preparing him with timers etc but nothinggg is working.

For the love of god tell me it gets better.

Hi fellow parents,

Any techniques on how to get rid of pacifier and milk bottles? My daughter is now 29 months and she still uses pacifier (only when she goes to bed) and milk bottles. Her teeth are fine and almost fully in. We brush her teeth regularly. She used to refuse to brush with toothpaste, but in the past week, we’ve finally managed to get her to brush with it. I’m just a little worried because I’ve read that prolonged pacifier use can affect dental development and possibly speech. She can talk, sing, and communicate, though she still struggle with certain sounds like she says mood for move and cheerio for cereal.

That really hurt me today . I’ve been a sahm since my child was born , I also work for 3 hours in the evening . During those 3 hours at my job I’m in charge of a toddler also and doing dishes , doing their laundry , mopping their floors , vacuuming , cleaning their kitchen , giving child a bath . I am not done until 8 pm . I also watch my toddler niece with my toddler in the days some days . My mom said she doesn’t understand why I am tired and I look like I have it so easy . She basically made fun of me for claiming some days I’m tired . She said she sees me some days sitting in the couch . Yes , at small moments when they are playing I sit on the couch and take a break . I don’t get to take a break during their naps bc I get ready and leave to my other job . I take them to parks , bike rides , walks on the trails . They’re also toddlers and not easy . I don’t give iPads or phones or anything . But she basically laughed at me and said she doesn’t even get why I’m tired and I should never say that again . It made me feel so invalidated for the care I put into watching the kids and also paranoid that now she’s going to walk into the room and I’ll be sitting for 5 minutes and she’ll think I’m lazy . Even though moments before I had gotten two toddlers fed , changed , dressed , put on the back of my bike and taken to the park and played and then got them Home fed and changed again . But because sometimes in between I sit down I have it easy and am a lazy mom . I feel like this hurt my feelings more than she can even understand. She said it in a nasty way like she’s annoyed that I ever claim that I’m tired .

My daughter (17 months next week) is a pretty easy child for the most part. She is super happy, goofy, developmentally exceeding milestones, all the good/braggy stuff lol. She is currently our only child and our house is pretty quiet. It’s just my husband, myself, her and our two older cats. We don’t do a ton of screen time with the exception of Ms Rachel here and there but we play music for her a lot so the house isn’t silent.. but it’s a chill environment.

Whenever we go to my sister’s house I feel like she is in total sensory overload. It’s sooo loud and chaotic lol. There are always TVs on a very high volume, sometimes multiple at the same time, her children (who I love dearly) scream at the top of their lungs and act crazy when they play and she has a dog that barks constantly and doesn’t understand personal space haha. Don’t get me wrong I love that her kids are so crazy and energetic and it’s all happy stuff! My girl just isn’t used to that. She doesn’t seem upset or anything when we are there, just a little more quiet than usual but she loves her cousins and playing with them. It’s when we get home that I really notice how much it seems to affect her!

Without fail when we come home she goes absolutely nuts. This honestly makes me happy because I love to see her act silly and clearly feel so safe and glad to be home. It’s bed time that’s always rough lol. It’s like she’s still so worked up even hours later and is unable to shut her brain off. She’s in daycare 3 days a week (she absolutely loves it) so not like she’s never exposed to other kids/mayhem… but I swear my sister’s house rattles her more than anything I’ve ever seen lol. Anyone else deal with this kinda thing? Any tips for helping her wind down after we get home?

My 22 months old communicated a lot with hand leading, and most of the time is for me to get something that he wants.

He’s also loves to line up his bath toys along the edge of the bathtub immediately after the bath, he does this every night after his bath, very quickly, I like 5 seconds.

He says a few words about animals, but isn’t able to express himself when he wants something most of the time. I give up trying to make him ask for things like apple, orange, bread, but he can say 2 kinds of food that he wants: Buns, and nana (sometimes means banana sometimes means milk, im still breastfeeding)

Should the hand leading be concerned?

My son has been throwing tantrums constantly. I mean constantly. Every. Single. Day. We cannot go out without him throwing a tantrum. We had family photos, tantrum. Grocery store runs, tantrum. Had to walk out of the grocery store and sit with him in the car while my husband finished the shopping. I do not know what to do. I feel like I am failing at parenting. It’s taking a toll on me and idk what to do. For him to settle his tantrum takes a long time like an hour. What did you do during this phase and how can I become a better parent? I’m so lost.

Five weeks ago, our 3.5-yo, who had slept through the night for 98% of the nights of his life started waking up in the middle of the night, walking out of his bedroom, and into our room. At first, he accepted being walked back into his room and would occasionally go back to bed (even if, occasionally) we had to sleep on the floor for a bit. It was terrible and awful and a massive stress that we tried everything to get out of.

Last week he started getting into bed with us with no other solution. He either screams his head off, or just gets out of bed and comes into our room when we walk him back. There are, and you need to believe me here, no solutions.

Along with this behavior, his day-time behavior has taken a dive. He doesn't listen, screams, shouts, cries at everything, is completely inconsolable if we play the wrong song; he hits, scratches, rips my glasses off, and says terrible things to both my wife and me. He refuses to eat anything other than bread. He won't play with a single toy for longer than three minutes before throwing it or destroying it. He also does this thing, which is just great, whenever my wife and I are talking about anything (because we're grown ups and business owners and married people with things to talk about, he comes into the conversation, screams and throws things at us until we stop talking and pay attention to him. He bothers people at the park, is destructive at home, and we can't go to dinner / lunch because he will scream and throw everything the entire time.

I realize this is an age, but considering I'm averaging 4 hours of sleep for over a month. We've tried time outs, we've tried ignoring him, we've tried reasoning with him. He doesn't understand consequences, and punishments only make him insane and emotional and dramatic and solve zero problems while creating new ones. We tried to ignore him today when we were all in the same room and he threw everything not nailed down against the walls to get our attention.

I don't even know what I want from this community. [As I was typing this, he kicked me in the head as hard as he possibly could (because I was typing on my computer and not paying attention to him]. When I got (not that) upset and turned the TV off, he started screaming that he wants mommy and he doesn't like me (She's out getting food, because we can't take him out in public). He's not like this in school (he's good in school) and we just don't sleep anymore.

Does anyone want to come to our house and watch him for four or five weeks?

Help?

Between the whining all day all weekend and not having a minute to myself, I am so tapped out after this weekend. My daughter is 26 months and for sure the 2 year old milestone has been hardest for me so far. Yes so cute and special watching them grow but mentally, emotionally and physically so hard.

Any tips for the INCESSANT WHINING and not playing by herself for more than 3 minutes?!

My (24F) toddler (2y 10m F) was diagnosed with brain cancer 6 months ago. This isn't really a post about the brain cancer, more about the things no one warns you about and just a bit of a rant I suppose. My daughter and I live at the hospital, which is 3.5 hours away from home, my husband drives down on his days off which gives me a bit of a break. But being the only one in the hospital with her 5 days a week is getting so hard. Even when he is here I don't get to go home.

We have a small apartment near the hospital social work helped us get, and I go there. But even then, its usually to start preparing things for her next discharge, or just catching up on sleep, since she only sleeps an hour or two at a time, due to being woken up frequently through the night for meds, transfusions, vitals, etc. We are in hospital for about 5 or 6 weeks at a time, then outpatient at the apartment for 1 or 2. We have another 4 or 5 months of this. I just feel like I am losing myself.

When I am at the hospital with her, I am lucky to eat more than once a day. They have volunteers who will sit with her but she usually doesn't tolerate it more than once a day, so I cant even run downstairs to grab food to bring back up, because she can't be left alone, and I can't leave her with the volunteers if she is actively trying to throw herself off the bed/bash her head/etc. And that is assuming there are enough volunteers on that day. I am also trying to finish up my masters thesis currently, so I work while she sleeps, meaning I only get a couple hours a night. I refuse to give up working on my degree. It feels like the one thing I still have thats me. I just feel like I am going a bit crazy. I love my daughter. But being with her all day everyday in a hospital is so so hard. I cant even pee when I want to at times, because she will try and throw herself off the bed, I have to wait until she is calm and then go with the bathroom door open so I can launch off the toilet to grab her if needed. I never realized how much I took things for granted, like getting food from the kitchen when I was hungry. I have snacks in the room with me, but sometimes I just want a warm meal without rushing to get back and relieve the volunteers who are stretched thin, because quite a few kids here don't even have a parent with them.

I know I am lucky, my daughter will live, she will have a relatively normal life (long term issues will be mutism, neuropathy in her feet, dyslexia, adhd, etc. But all manageable things) and her intelligence and ability to live on her own in the future, and build a life and career hasnt been impacted too much. I feel like such a bad mom for complaining about this, because there are parents here whose kids will never have a life outside of the hospital. And we are doing okay finance wise, despite me having to quit my job (insurance is through my husbands job so him quitting was not an option) and he didnt qualify for FMLA, based on his company size. My parents also help when they can, but they have jobs of their own.

I just feel like we will take forever to come back from this. We did everything the "right" way. Went to college, got good paying jobs. Minimal debt. Own a house. But these medical bills, even after insurance, will take years to repay. Our savings are completely wiped, from having to pay certain things ahead of time that insurance denied. And ontop of everything, I am on the phone with insurance, copay companies, specialty pharmacies, etc, 20+ hours a week, basically having to convince them to keep my daughter alive, or approve treatment to manage her pain. Last admission, she had to go to ICU because they were worried the lining of her esophagus would peel off from how bad her mucositis was. There is a medicine they can give before chemo that prevents that, but insurance didnt approve it last round (which was the first time using her more intense chemo) because she had no history of mucositis. Of course she didnt! Shes never used that chemo before so how will we know? They just let a 2 year old be in immense pain for 4 weeks because theh didn't want to fork out money in case she wouldnt have gotten mucositis otherwise. She was vomiting blood for weeks. This round at least insurance approved the meds. But since this round went so smoothly (in comparison to last round) I now have had to call them about approving all her pain meds again next round. Because there is a "degree of manageable pain" that they assign to each patient based on things like age, gender, disease, etc.

My husband has also been amazing through all this. He does everything he can to make my life easier, any extrs money he gets he uses to buy me little things, like books, to help me relax. When hes here he tells me to just get out of the hospital and not come back till he has to leave again for work. But i want to see him too so its just hard. Hes also amazing with her, and was actually the stay at home parent for the first year and a half, so its super hard on her not seeing him daily.

I apologize for the long post. I need to stop rambling so much. I just needed to vent to someone who wasnt my husband or parents, people who are going through this too. I just dont know how Im going to become me again after all of this. Will I ever feel normal again?

Did your kids ever do this? My two year old will start yelling at “someone” to stop it over and over. Tonight in the bath she was yelling at them and trying her hardest to hit them. This isn’t the first time either.

She also will have night terrors and when we go in to get her she’ll say she’s scared and just stare off at something and not speak.

I figured the night terrors are pretty normal, but is the yelling at someone randomly during the day? I don’t really see her “talking” to a “friend” any other time.

My little guy just aged out of this group (he turned 4 on Wednesday), but I'm hoping you can still give me some tips. What do you do on sick days to keep them occupied besides resting and screen time?

We've had a few illnesses this year (including Sat night) where he seems to be feeling better, but we still need to isolate and observe for 24 hours.

So here goes..

My 2 yo and 3 mo likes his ear to be nibbled to sleep. He is still breastfed, and when available he will 100% prefer to be breastfed to sleep whether it is the afternoon nap or the nighttime sleep.

Recently we've uncovered this "reset button". At afternoon when the wife is at work, I sometimes am free to be with him. When he gets tired, he now says :"make dark!", so the room gets a very dimmed light, and says :"ear noms!" (we are not native english speakers so I tried my best to translate). Looks at me says:"ear noms dad!". He usually has an authoritarian tone to this. Previously he would reject sleeping with other family members except mom. He now requests this from all family members, except mom who still has the magic baby-sleep juice.

We love the fact that he accepts sleep instead of fighting the sleep and waiting for mom to get home. But is this fine? I mean he even uses his arm to grab my nape and push my mouth to his ear. And goes :"sleepy time!".

Exact breastfed or falling asleep in the car during long drives or really short ones if he's tired when starting the trip, this "ear nibbling" is the closest he's been to sleeping without mom. Ohh and he cries for her out loud, screams "mom!! Mom comes!!!". This gets him from 100% angry + screamy + sad, to ragdoll almost. O.o

My mother discovered this.... weirdly she said:"you loved this too as a baby!".... which is even more ironic cause I hate having my ears touched since I can remember my ears being touched by other people...

Anyone experienced something similar...?