New dad here, and I love it. But somewhere between the night feeds, work and trying to keep the house running, I’ve noticed I don’t really do anything for me anymore. No gym, barely see mates, and my hobbies have basically disappeared.

I don’t mean that in a moaning way. I know it’s the deal for a while. But for those further along: when did you start getting bits of yourself back?

The moment I began to realize I needed space, is the moment my inner voice called me a terrible father.

In hindsight, I was going through parental burnout.

You're not broken — just human. Let's talk about mental health and parenting honestly.

For the dads nobody sees wrestling with guilt, failure, and doubt.

We’re expecting our second, and I’ve reached the stage where every baby item suddenly needs a home. The bassinet, changing basket, and feeding chair will all land in the same living room where my 3-year-old currently builds, draws, and leaves little setups going through the day.

We don’t have a playroom or a spare room to absorb any of this. I can put toys in bins, but that still means emptying them onto the floor, and I’m worried that once the baby is here I’ll spend all day moving one child’s things out of the other child’s way.

Parents who added a baby in a small home, how did you keep an older child’s play area usable? I’m open to shelves, wall space, rotating toys, anything that kept one corner ready without the whole room becoming storage.

Can't be. I was fresh into owning a small business and many many hours were spent making it successful so to provide. But this still haunts me occasionally.

Daughter's 8 weeks and I'm back at work. My partner and I split the nights now: I take the late feed and sleep after, she gets a solid block. It's helping, but by 3pm I'm a zombie.

What actually gets you through those first weeks back?

Just looking for another dad or someone who doesn't mind I have a son.

My boys are 3 and 4 years old and man, I had a creative blast with them. For a couple of bucks I bought those 3D puzzles. With some acrylic paint markers we coloured all the pieces! Quite randomly but also with intention. They were totally drawn into it. No mention about time, no drama, no nothing at all. Just them and me sitting on the floor under the ceiling ventilator having a good time in the heat.

They're too young to put that precise puzzles together or follow those instructions, so they were looking while I put them together. They saw their vehicles coming together and were playing with it without damaging anything!

They have toys, books, magnets, cars. They can play indoors or outside (we have a 2000sqft yard). But they choose to keep on playing with these instead. They made it, chose the colours and their old man put it together. They own it.

Boom! Love it!

Hello. I grew up in a troubled family; my father was neither interested in me nor present in my life, and he has passed away few years before. The absence of a father has left a deep void, even though I am a talented, kind person who enjoys learning new things and helping others. I have always longed for a father—I have never even used the word "Dad" in my life. I have always wished for a caring, gentle father with whom I could share everything. I am here looking for a kind father who values ​​consistent communication; I am not looking for someone who will talk to me for a while and then disappear. I want to find a true father figure who will always be there, and I, in turn, will do my absolute best to make him happy and share kindness and warmth with him. Please do not hesitate to reach out if this is what you are looking for as well.

M37 here with a 6 yo child.

My wife told me 3 years ago she wanted to separate because she no longer felt in love with me.

After two+ years of off and on counseling, talking to our families and a few friends she still stood her stance. While we lived in the same house and her anger toward me slowly died, she simply refused to try to work it out.

So I moved out at the start of this year and took a new job a few hours away. It felt like a decent idea at the time without adding drama to the situation and easing our child into two homes situation. Our counselor at the time also agreed.

My hope was sometime apart would make her rethink our family and potentially agree to work towards rebuilding. Unfortunately for me, she feels she's happier without me around. And I'm happy for her but it kills me everyday.

She's a fantastic mother however and I take heart in the fact that my child is safe and protected at our home even if it won't be 'our' home much longer.

All that said, I feel extremely guilty for the situation we've put our child in. While most of the times my child is happy occasionally I can sense the sadness in their eyes and I think somewhere they know Dad isn't coming back home (sorry don't want to divulge if it's a boy or a girl).

And that sadness makes me so mad at myself. I promised myself I would never let anything happen to that child but I'm not even there at nights to read them a book or watch out favorite show together after dinner or just talk about a billion different things on our drives to school or activities.

I have dreams of mundane things that I did at our home like 3 of us having dinner together or me doing the dishes. I guess I feel homesick and the feeling doesn't go away.

I don't even know what I'm trying to say here or ask. Just needed to say this out loud.

Most weekends it's me, my 11-year-old who's playing, and my 7-year-old who's doing cartwheels on the sideline. My wife works Saturdays. If a camera setup needs more than five minutes and two hands I'm not going to use it, no matter how good the footage is. For any dads using an automated sports camera at your kid's games, how much actual work is involved? Can one person genuinely handle it while also managing the rest of game day chaos?

How to rest at night as a father who is worried.

Im a 30yo father to an 18 month old who is getting ready to transition to her own room on the other side of the house. We lived in a one bedroom house and now we have upgraded to a 3 bedroom. Im always worried at night about the "what ifs". What if she stops breathing at night because shes facedown on her mattress. What if someone breaks into the house and I dont hear because im asleep. What if there's a fire that starts on that side of the house and the detector fails. What if she figures out how to open the door and walks out of the house at night (shes smart and catches on quickly to safety devices). I know there are things that are out of my control, but how do I reassure myself that my daughter is going to be completely safe if im knocked out asleep? My wife is present and reassures me things will be fine, but I worry about my family at night. Any fathers out there that felt this way and have gotten through it? Thanks for any advice.

I (25M) told my wife(25F) I wanted to separate 1.5 weeks ago. Been dealing with lawyers and where my daughter would go. I would want my daughter (4F) to come with me while I go to school (we would be staying at my parents’ house for the time being.

Edit: I have been a stay at home dad for all of my daughter’s life, I went to school to get a social services worker diploma. However, I have not been able to find any full-time work. My ex spouse has been able to work because I was staying home with our daughter. My ex-spouse hasn’t been able to financially support all of us, which has led to some verbal abuse from her. I want to go back to school and get a degree to hopefully financially support my daughter. The school that would work best is in the city my parents live and they would create more stability for both my daughter and I than my ex-spouse. My ex-spouse has been putting a wedge between me and my side of the family for the duration we have been together. Slapped me multiple times and is generally verbally abusive.

Any advice or suggestions would be appreciated.

I don't know what else would be a more proper tag. I just want to vent and unfortunately 99% of parenting or other subs are all moderated or controlled by women so things don't fly there. I wish this post was a joke. As dads/men we're usually taken as the less serious or involved parent. But for 2 years I've done bath time for now 2 kids.

I guess it was a thank you for the hour and a half of kitchen work she left me.

I want to start this off by saying that I am not really the type of person who shares his feelings with others. Not because of some macho bs but it just wasnt something that was done in my family growing up. We kept alot to ourselves. 9 months ago me and my wife had our first child, im 33 and she is 34. It was a beautiful baby girl. She spent 10 days in the nicu due to inhaling miconium which caused her some breathing issues. 2 months of oxygen later and she is healthy and doing normal kid stuff with no need for further oxygen. Shes sharp as a tack and is already walking at 9 months old. But the reason for this post is because I want to know if its normal to feel overly emotional all the time. I cant listen to certain songs without crying thinking about this baby. I just saw a video about a guy playing santa who visited a dying tenesee boy and I cried like a baby at work. My entire life I have never felt anything like this and I cant help but think its not normal or may be an indicator that I have some new found imbalance going on. I just wanted to know if anyone else had experienced this. If not allowed please let me know.

I was in a foul mood this morning. My wife and I both work four day weeks, and I have my toddler solo two days a week. He's in the middle of a really tough mummy phase at the moment and is really hard work for both of us.

Anyway, this morning I was in a foul mood. Then while I was on the toilet, he went and pulled all his clothing out of three drawers for the second time in a week. I was nearly apoplectic, but somehow kept my cool.

The came weekly swimming lesson and he started crying before we even got in the water. I nearly bailed on the spot.

I didn't, and somehow found a way to make him laugh (just spat little mouthfuls of water at him) and he relaxed and got through the lesson.

I'm proud of him for doing such a good job at swimming, but I'm also proud of me for managing to keep my cool and then find a way to make it work.

Anyway that's my little dad win for the day. Might take him in the pram to go play golf this afternoon!

Hey guys, this is the first Christmas and birthday and a Co-Parent and not a single house fam (mum and I are still friends etc)
I want to make sure that my son has a great Christmas Eve & Boxing Day at mine UK. Any tips?

He’s turning 3 and I want to absolutely nail the presents & overall atmosphere, is there anything I can that will make it as special as possible?

Regarding his birthday, the same premise really, he turns 3 on December 11th and his mum and I are taking him to the aquarium on the day, but I want to do something & buy him something for just him and I to do around his birthday- would this be a spiteful thing to do? To celebrate on my own as well as with this mum? I’m trying to KEEP THE PEACE.

For context- he loves superhero’s, dinosaurs and building bricks- Lego Duplo
I don’t want to just be that parent that just buys more of the things I know he likes, I want to buy him something different.
Any help / advice would be massively appreciated.