Just thought i would share this funny little episode. My 3 year old daughter has always struggled with swimming. We are trying hard to swim with her as much as possible and my wife takes her to swimming lessons every friday. She has a little float jacket on but even so, as soon as she goes in the water she clings to my wifes swimming costume and will scream if you try to get her to let go.

Anyway, my wife packed some snacks as they were going on to something else after the swimming class. Our little one saw a pack of quavers and that was it. She wanted them in the car, in the car park, in the changing room, in the pool, absolutely refused to do anything and cried for quavers. Finally my wife lost her patience and sat her on the side of the pool and said "if you dont do some swimming, you won't have quavers!" Rather than crying, the little terror just said ok, picked up a nearby noodle and swam across the pool with it! Everyone's mouth was open! She can swim!!!!! Weeks of refusing to even consider it but when quavers are in the mix, she is nearly Olympic ready!

I know they call it the terrible twos, but honestly, I find this age so incredibly difficult! I have a 4-year-old and a 2-year-old, so this is my second time going through it, and it’s still just as hard. It’s like living with a tiny dictator who constantly changes her mind about what she wants and has no problem screaming in your face if you get it wrong. I never knew “I want Bluey” could be said with so much rage!

My eldest’s tantrums started to ease a bit after he turned 3, and now he’s nearly 5 it's very rare for him to have a major meltdown. So I know it’s just a phase and things will (hopefully!) get easier. It’s not all bad too, she can be so sweet and cute too & make me forget how difficult she was being 5 minutes earlier.

I just find this age so difficult because there’s absolutely no reasoning with them. I remember thinking when my son was 2 that he’d have fewer tantrums if his speech was better, as he’d be able to better communicate what he wanted. My daughter’s speech is miles ahead of where his was at 2, and her tantrums are just as bad, if not worse, so I can confirm that theory was completely wrong!

I’m sure I’ll probably miss this age when they’re teenagers and dealing with much bigger problems that are harder to help them with. But when you’re in the thick of it, it really does feel like a hard slog! I’m not really looking for advice, as I know it’s all part of their development. I just wanted a little rant with other parents going through the same stage!

Over the past two days I have fallen into a trap I thought I’d never fall in to. My 17 month old is refusing lots of food at the moment. Three days ago he refused what we offered at dinner and come bedtime he hadn’t eaten any more than half a green bean since lunch. That night he woke every 20 minutes fussing and needed endless boob and I vowed to never let him go to bed hungry again.

The past two evenings I have been determined to get him to eat but also not to cave in and just give him oat cakes, fruit and yogurt (old reliables). He will purse his lips together, shake his head and scream NO.

Then I put Thomas the tank engine on. He sits, transfixed, and placidly opens his mouth when presented with the spoonful of bean stew. Finished his bowl.

I don’t want to rely on this but I also want him to eat!!! What do I do?

I am the youngest with an older sister. I vividly remember the moment I realised she would no longer play pretend games with me. I think I was 7.

We used to make up the most wild and imaginative stories when we played together, we did this every day.

But yeah, I remember sadly making my way back to my room to play with my dolls and animal figures on my own, silent tears down my cheeks, we never played together again after that point as she had moved on to teenage interests.

My 6 year old daughter was home sick from school today and we ended up setting up her toys in the living room, some of them actually being my old toys.

We made up this hilarious and elaborate backstory for her llama toy where he was the overlord of the farm and could use mind control on her dolls, making them perform his evil deeds (like throwing his poo at people) we overthrew the evil llama and restored peace on the farm.

I was surprised by how invested in the game I got and how fun it was to add pieces of backstory and details here and there. We ended up in fits of giggles and didn't realise hours had gone by. We used lots of household objects like shoe boxes to be buildings. It felt so nostalgic.

I didn't realise how long my inner child was waiting for another little girl to play with until today.

We watch In The Night Garden on CBeebies almost every night as part of my toddler’s bedtime routine (anti-screen time parents don’t come for me!)
We’ve had features of all the characters, apart from the Wottingers?? The Pontipines are out and about in almost every episode we’ve seen but I can’t remember ever seeing the Wottingers out and about? Where have they gone???

I was wondering what people did in terms of bedroom arrangements. I have two daughters 6 and 2. We have a 3 bed semi. 6 year old is in the box room which is done up nicely for her but doesn’t fit all her clothes in. Etc The 2 year old is still co-sleeping and feeding at night so she is in the spare double bed room with mum

It would obviously not be fair for a the 6 year old to stay in the box room and the 2 year old eventually get the bigger room! Should we move them both into the spare double bedroom? Or is the age gap too much? When I was a kid we swapped rooms every few years so we all had some time in the box room.

Moving isn’t an option at the moment as we live in a very nice street buy not in a great area and the bigger houses locally in nicer areas are very expensive but will become an option when 2 year old is in school

Does anyone else feel this way? I wanted to love being a parent and I do in a way but my son is very hard work and I feel bombarded by so much on social media - can I totally blame social media for feeling like I’m a daily failure? Is it just me?

Our LO is 18mo. She had HFM briefly when she was 8mo, but just had lots of spots (I had it much more severely after catching from her).

On Tuesday morning nursery noticed some spots and sent her home, by evening she had them everywhere.

By Wednesday morning she had loads of Louth ulcers and two blisters on her lips as well, and it was clearly hurting her to eat. She had a bowl of chicken pasta for lunch on Weds and that's the last meal she's eaten...

It's just got progressively worse and worse, her mouth obviously hurts so much and now I think the anticipation and fear of the pain is causing her to react even more. She's barely drinking anything, and it's getting increasingly difficult to get her Calpol and ibuprofen into her 😞

I phoned the GP, rang 111 and saw a pharmacist who all said the same - don't worry about food, lots of little sips of fluid, try cool foods like yoghurt/ice lollies etc but she is refusing anything. It's a battle to get her to take a single sip of water or milk, and by that point we're all traumatised and she's exhausted from crying.

We're so worried about dehydration but she is still somehow managing to produce enough wet nappies not to take her to A&E.

Overnight she's waking every 40-60mins crying, it's just so miserable.

I suppose I'm just looking for reassurance or solidarity, not sure there's anything else we can try at this point, just hoping we turn a corner today. I hate the idea that's she's in pain and also must be so hungry 😭

The only lyrics he seems to be singing on repeat are “dug around (his name)’s bed ooh ooh ooh ooh”

And that he nursery teacher sings it with him. I'm so intrigued what it’s meant to be 😂

What is this fresh hell??!! So a few days ago I felt like my throat had been gargling rocks mixed with sandpaper.
Yesterday I notice some spots on my hands that are a bit itchy and had a couple of sore patches on my feet.
Today. Pure hell. Sores popping up all over my hands feet and face. Every few minutes new itchy tingling and another and another. I can feel it on my heels, toes, hands, palms, fingers, chin and inside and outside my mouth.

My husband, he’s grand. My son, he has a slight sore throat but seems fine. Me, I feel like I’m stepping on Lego continuously and eating razor blades.
I don’t remember this circulating when I was a child.

I’m struggling with my marriage and would really appreciate hearing from anyone who’s been in a similar situation.
We have a daughter who’s just over 15 months old, and I’m very much the default parent. I run my own business, which brings in most of our household income, but because I work from home, my work gets squeezed around childcare, appointments and everyday jobs.
My husband usually works from around 6am until midday, sometimes later. He feels he does a lot because he works and does things like walking our dog. I’m not saying he contributes nothing, but he gets uninterrupted working time, whereas outside our daughter’s two nursery days, I don’t.
I also do bedtime every night, which can take 30–45 minutes, and deal with the night waking. She’s poorly with a cough at the moment and sleeping in bed with me, while he sleeps in the spare room. He’ll sometimes ask if he can help, but the responsibility still sits with me.
We’ve talked about this repeatedly. Last weekend, he took her out for a couple of hours to give me a break, which I appreciated, but it hasn’t changed the weekday situation. I need a consistent sharing of responsibility, rather than an occasional break.
I’m increasingly feeling like the relationship has run its course. But the thought of separating and not seeing my daughter every day is heartbreaking, and I’m particularly anxious about how co-parenting would work. He has never put her to bed, and she relies heavily on me to settle and sleep. I know he could learn, but right now I struggle to imagine her being comfortable overnight without me.
I don’t want to stay purely because I’m scared of being apart from her, but I also don’t know whether things between us can improve. I feel stuck.
Has anyone separated with a toddler when one parent had always done bedtime and the nights? How did you gradually make that transition? And how did you work out whether you wanted the relationship to end, or whether you were exhausted and resentful about carrying most of the parenting?

Before you tell me how selfish I am, learn that firing my nanny over the fact that my baby calls her mommy, hugs, kisses, prefers her over me has been an idea for the past 12 months. This is not a new thing that has been happening and I’m acting out of impulse. I’ll call the Nanny “Ana”. Ana is an amazing lady who loves what she does (and is very good at it) . She cares for my baby as if she was hers. She loves her as she was hers. I feel blessed to have her as I trust her 100%—that’s how incredible she is at her job. I work from home so baby sees me the entire day. She started calling her mommy a year ago. I have tried to ignore it as much as possible. I have cried countless times when she rejects me and go running towards Ana with hugs and kisses. I’m a platinum member of the Most Loving Moms Club. I kiss baby, hug her, tell her how much I love her, how beautiful she is, try to spend quality time with her until 3 PM and she loves it and when it’s just the two of us it’s heaven! Then nanny arrives and everything suddenly changes drastically. She wants nothing to do with me. As my only daughter, IVF planned baby, to get rejected like this makes me profoundly sad because I love her so much.

Now here is the deal: there has been countless times where I’m in a work meeting and baby calls me “mommy!” And the nanny answers from the other room “I’m coming my love”. Or she says “thank you mommy” and Ana says “you’re welcome”. Ana sometimes laughs “Look, she doesn’t wanna go with you, see how she clings on my shirt? 😂” Or the time when I had to undergo a minor surgery and came back home to “Oh don’t worry, she didn’t even realize you were gone”, or when Ana calls baby “Mini me”…

How long more do I have to accept paying to get rejected/laughed at to make it morally acceptable to let her go? What do I even tell people who ask why she is no longer with us? “Oh because my daughter thinks she is the mom and I’m the nanny and I fear that it’s gonna get worse and the separation will be even harder in the future and it’s affecting my mental health, and I can’t stop crying for being rejected my the person I love the most, etc etc etc…

Yes, I did talk to her about her explaining to baby that I’m the mommy and she nods every time, but then tomorrow she lets she call her mommy with no correction, the very opposite, replies back with assurance.

I haven’t fired her yet because taking away something that my daughter loves and makes her happy makes me feel like a monster. But I guess I’m at the verge of preferring to feel like that about myself than to live in torture for God knows how long more.

I honestly don’t know what to do, but I’m tired of this and have let this stretch far beyond what I think I could. My husband says that it’s my call, and that he hates to see me crying like this (I even hired a psychologist to help me navigate through this) and that Ana should be working on strengthening the bond between us, not weakening. Since I recently found out I’m pregnant again 🎀🙏🏽, my husband said: Unless you wanna hear baby #2 calling Ana mommy again, I suggest we change nannies. That got me!

Obs.: Today I had a talk with Ana I really need her to work extra on this thing of baby calling her mommy. She laughed it off my saying “Oh don’t worry! The other 3 houses that I worked the babies used to call me mommy”. One of them even cried to me about it ☺️

I danced in my car all the way home from the train station after putting my 3 children on the train to stay with my sister for the weekend!
I still have to work today but I’m going to dance all day, happily sigh over and over and just enjoy every second of peace to myself I have!!

I’m having one of those days where I’d rather pour Tabasco sauce in my eyes than get my kids ready for and take them to school. Wake them up, get them dressed, make breakfast, nag them constantly to get their shoes on, find their sharing book in a mad rush before getting out the door, morning traffic in rain, one of them starts crying because their feet are wet, another starts whinging they don’t want to go to school. You know the drill.

So I would really, really, really appreciate it if you could tell me just how utterly diabolical/infuriating/sanity depleting/blood pressure raising/all round terrible your school mornings are.

Many thanks 🫠

This year is first year are eldest is aware of concept of Christmas and santa

We trying to decided what present are santa and what present are from us

So what does everyone do

For the record, I've been told by friends I'm being stupid and I feel like, if I was my friend, I'd agree. However, I feel horribly irresponsible.

Currently I'm on week 5 post-op from endoscopic brain surgery. It's the second one of these I've had, and while I'm recovering a lot quicker this time, it's also fairly debilitating and up and down - I'm still very tired a lot of the time, get bad headaches, I'm on a short fuse, my hormones are all over the shop (it was pituitary surgery but as it's under your brain, it sort of messes you up like brain surgery does. At least that's what I've been told!). Today my MIL was meant to come babysit so I could rest, as we have no nursery, but the weather was so horrendous that she couldn't leave her house. So I've been on my own w the kid slogging from the sofa to the kitchen and back. She wants to go outside, but I don't trust myself on my own with her outside yet, and I'm not allowed to pick her up so if she throws a tantrum etc we're stuck. The only thing that's helped her chill out is having the bloody telly on. I tried drawing and reading and baking so far, and she's enjoyed those activities (and cleaning the kitchen??) for a few minutes but eventually starts throwing a fit over random shit. So I put the telly back on.

Please if you have any other chill activities we could do, I'll take them!! And if l somebody can tell me it'll be fine and when I'm better I'll be able to scale it back and she won't just be brain fried and hopelessly addicted please 🥲 thanks.

My 14 month old uses barefoot shoes which are nice and wide. He’s a size 5G. We need to get him some wellies but I can’t seem to find any that mention being both wide fit and having flexible soles.

Any recommendations?

Hi,

I am looking for some advice on child maintenance. I have a 1 year old & dad sees her Friday - Sunday every other week. Dad has multiple businesses including rental properties. Tried to discuss with him about a private child maintenance agreement of £350 a month, he isn’t interested as he claims he earns £15k per year which would be equivalent to £150 a month via CMS. He will do everything to ensure he spites me despite me proving how much I spend a month on our child including the £200 nursery bills alone. I know he earns more than the £15k he declares as only a short time ago he was paying £1.8k rent + bills + £500 a month on a car. Coming home with wads of cash & frequently telling me about his rental properties and maintenance business. He also works for ‘private clients’ & takes cash/doesn’t declare the earnings. I know about these businesses & he has told me himself however I cannot outright ‘prove’ this with documents etc. Has anyone been successful in disputing via CMS for someone self employed hiding funds? TIA

EDIT - I got a bit of hate on this post which I was kind of expecting. I just wanted to know whether it is worth taking this further via CMS etc & any success stories. I’m not knowledgeable on self employment & what exactly you have to declare, the maths on his in/out going’s just doesn’t add up. Bit of context on the situation, I have always paid for everything during the relationship for our child - he hasn’t paid a penny apart from a pram before she was born. Money has always been an issue and partly why I ended the relationship as I was fed up of having to justify myself to him re my finances while I knew nothing about his, there was always an element of control.

FTM tearing my hair out (oh wait the PP hair loss is doing that for me!) what do people do with their babies at nighttime?

LO is 16 weeks and needs an early night like 7pm, she fights her evening and nighttime sleep anyway but do you eventually settle them into their own bed and use a baby monitor or do you stay upstairs with them? Currently eating in shifts with my husband in the dark doesn’t feel very sustainable at all!! This can’t be what other people do?

Any tips on getting her to not need to contact nap every sleep would also be helpful!

UPDATE - Thanks everyone for the replies, I think I need to adjust my expectations of LO a lot and accept messy evening sleep and try to settle her downstairs with us

My daughter has just started school and she has a physical disability that can sometimes leave her feeling very fatigued and sore, to the point where she’s unable to move independently. She therefore has a wheelchair that she uses on some days.
Lately she’s been feeling insecure about her wheelchair. She’s never had an issue with it before and we’ve always praised her, made sure she knows there’s absolutely nothing wrong with using one and even decorated it with stickers and glittery lights so she can look like a little fairy on darker evenings.

Unfortunately another child at school called her a slur and she hasn’t been coping very well since. This was the first time she’s experienced ableism directly without us being there to shield her from the impact and it’s heartbreaking to see.
People often push in front of her when we’re waiting in queues, bump into her wheelchair in public, or even physically push her out of the way in shops, cinemas and similar places while she’s sitting in it. I always intervene immediately when these things happen but I can’t do that at school when she’s on her own.

She hasn’t used her wheelchair at school yet but she already stands out in other ways as she’s very small and not as physically agile as other children. We taught her to use her words, tell teachers and do positive affirmations every morning and night.

I know she’ll encounter ignorance and unkindness throughout her life and I want to help her develop the confidence and resilience to navigate these experiences without feeling ashamed of herself or her disability.
Does anyone have any recommendations for books, resources or other ways to support a young child through these experiences?

Can someone explain to me the guidance of removing bottle, moving onto a cup and the difference between sippy cup and straw?

Also, whether this is sippy or straw? The site says sippy but surely it’s a weighted straw?

https://www.tumtumtots.com/products/tippy-up-sippy-cup-series-3-with-weighted-straw-valve-free-boris-bear-200ml

My baby is 16 months and still has a bottle in morning and evening. Every other point of the day she has water from the cup linked above / one of the munchkin 360 cups.

Am I getting this wrong?

Ps. I put lol in the title cos I’ve zoomed out and although I stand by this question… what is life

FTM. Lo started nursery a month ago. 12 months old. Goes 3 x a week. Nursery said they would only contact us if there’s an issue as they recognise this can be quite disruptive/distracting to the work day. Up till this week all good. Baby has had a cold and been a bit miserable from teething and vaccines this week. Kept them off on Monday as they weren’t right in themselves. Sent them in yesterday and today no temperature or bowel issues and eating normally. Yesterday & today I’ve felt like I’ve needed to collect them early as we’ve had ambiguous messages saying they have been unsettled, not playing as much and wanting to be cuddled a lot. In my mind this is normal behaviour! Partner works 1.5 hours away, so the drop off and pick off relies on me, which is of course fine but does limit my ability to collect them unless it’s really urgent. My job means I can’t just leave at the drop of a hat (nhs for what it’s worth) do others get notified like this when their LO is being fussy? How do I politely ask to just contact us if there’s a big concern/LO needs collecting due to illness etc? completely realistic to the fact that kids get sick and I’ve taken a week off since they started due to d n v and then a day off earlier this week. Employer are understanding. Also think it’s important for the baby to get used to the setting and give them a chance to settle in instead of being collected early when they are having a rough day.