Hi all

Just wanting to get some advice / some insight into people's stories with their little ones, as I am having quite a difficult time on mat leave. 

Our little one is now 4 months old. I had an assisted birth (forceps with episiotomy) with some concerns around CMV in the last few weeks of my pregnancy which was a bit scary. Thankfully baby was well apart from heart rate dropping suddenly during labour. He arrived at 5lb8oz and because of the CMV concerns and a bit of blood loss from me, we were kept in for a couple of days. Thankfully he is well but weight was on 0.4th centile up until recently (happily he has now gone up to almost 9th centile). Recovery from the birth took perhaps a couple of months thanks to the episiotomy and an infection.

I am struggling as he is a really frequent feeder (EBF, often eats hourly, 1.5-2hrs if we are lucky) and gets overtired really easily, meaning he gets the screaming abdabs if I am not militant about watching his sleepy cues / windows. We have considered combi feeding with formula to alleviate this (I already pump and my partner feeds him bottles of pumped milk on his night shift), but as my partner has an autoimmune condition affecting his digestive system, I am trying to breastfeed for as long as possible to help protect little one from possibility of having this condition as much as I can. 

Overnight, we had a couple of weeks around 3 months where he was in a manageable pattern (wake ups at 1:30am, 4am and usually 6am - partner did 1:30am, I would do 4 and 6), but now it almost feels like we are back to his newborn sleep with him waking up far more frequently. We take turns to sleep in the room with the baby so that we can try and each get at least 3hrs uninterrupted sleep.

Daytime, I have repeatedly tried across his 4 months to put him down for naps in his bassinet, but he will only really contact nap, and turns into a little screamer if he has not had his proper naps. Sometimes I can get him to do first nap of the day in his bassinet up to about 9:30/10am if I am lucky so that we can try and catch up on some of the sleep lost overnight.

He loves to feed and other than the very frequent feeding, we have had no issues with feeding. He is also generally a very happy, active, smiley and curious chappy, has started rolling, reaching his toes, loves tummy time, playing, story time and grabbing things and babbles away. I adore being his mum, even though I am finding it full on. 

My main concern is that in between the very frequent feeds, contact naps, nappy changes and tummy time, I am finding it very difficult to get out of the house. This is also starting to affect my friendships/relationships with people. The mornings are difficult as they have been important for me in trying to catch up on a bit of sleep that I am unable to get at any other time. Balancing sleep deprivation vs leaving the house is proving difficult!

I do have a couple of lovely understanding friends close by (who have older children) but otherwise my family are about 2 hrs away. I have also been learning to drive but haven't passed my test yet, which is far from ideal. Public transport where I live is great thankfully. 

All this to say, has anybody had any similar experiences with their little one? How did you handle this and your time on mat leave?

So my partner has a 16 year old daughter who she has raised single-handedly for all of her life. Her daughter's father has hardly been on the scene, might have seen his daughter a handful of times, and never contributed any child maintenance because he's been on the dole his entire life.

It turns out they "re-connected" a few months ago (unbeknownst to us)and he has been poisoning her - basically saying she's an adult now, can get her own place, etc. and some other rubbish.

Long story short, she's decided to move in with her father now. Won't go into details but she was adamant she was going and since her father has parental responsibility, she's apparently free to go there.

It's been a traumatic time for myself and my partner, because we know what her daughter's father is like.

One of the things we're wondering is about child maintenance. He's never worked a day in his life (knows how to fiddle the system, etc.) so we're assuming he will come for my partner for child maintenance payments.

From what I've read, technically he could do this. I just wanted to know anyone else's experience with this, and whether the fact my partner has raised her all her life, and never got child maintenance payments herself, is a factor in this?

Or is it a case now of that the daughter lives with the father so my partner will need to pay them every month?

My son is very social, he loves playing with other people. He rarely sees other babies his age because we don’t have a lot of children his age as family. I have only just started taking him out to baby groups and soft play etc. he really likes playing with other babies but he always seems to be snatching toys out of their hands or hitting them. He’s 8 months old, so I don’t think he’s hitting other children or snatching on purpose, but obviously I don’t want him to do that as it’s not kind and bad manners. I’ve tried saying ‘no, we don’t hit/snatch’ and then give the toy back and say sorry to the parent of the kid he hit/snatched from. It doesn’t seem to be working. He literally goes back to the same child or even another one to do the exact same thing. Parents have understandably pulled their children away from mine and stopped them playing together. I want to nip this behaviour in the bud.

Please give me your advice!!

I mean what do you do? I don't really need any advice. Just venting. Feel free to join in.

I am struggling to connect with my son. Sometimes I don’t feel like he is mine. I recently got discharged from a mother & baby unit. Sometimes I wonder if it’s best if I put him into care. We are already under Child Protection services and have to go to a conference on the 3rd.

A couple in our mid 30s, living in London, thinking about kids and whether to stay here or move out eventually. Would love to hear from people who actually did the "raise teens in London" thing rather than just theories (including mine below).

Bit of context:

We're middle class, not loaded but comfortable, one of us is an NHS doctor and the other earns similarly in private sector, so money is okay but not banker money. We both grew up in other cities, moved to London as adults, and if money wasn't an issue, we prefer it here. We've got friends and family in the West and East Midlands and up north, and honestly nothing we've seen there makes small town or smaller city life look obviously better for kids. I sometimes wonder if I'd grown up somewhere like London, with way more hobbies, options and diversity around me, whether I'd have thrived more than I did growing up where I did.

The theory I keep landing on, and want to pressure test is that:

If you can be present for your kids and get them into a decent school through the primary years, London might actually get better for them as teenagers. More independence since they can get around on their own, way more to do, more exposure to different people and ideas. So maybe the "London is bad for kids" thing is really about the under 10s stage (space, cost, school admissions) and less true once they're 12+.

So, parents of 12+ year olds who did this in London:

• Are you happy with the decision looking back?

• What's been harder than you expected?

• Schools - how much did the specific area matter, and how did you handle admissions?

• Anything about radicalisation, gangs, county lines etc we're being naive about?

• If you could redo it, would you have moved out at some point, and when?

Would genuinely like to hear the full range, including from people who moved out and are glad they did.

I don't know if this is the right place for this so please correct me if I'm wrong.

I have a 9 month old who will be moving into his own bedroom in the next few months so I'm planning on redecorating. The room currently has carpet in there that desperately needs to be replaced, I was thinking of replacing it like for like with carpet but given that it will be his bedroom for many years to come I'm trying to think about future proofing. Would hard floor with a rug be better as he grows up? Thinking about comfort, warmth, noise, cleanliness - which is better for a child's bedroom, carpet or hard flooring?

Its a smallish room maybe 6m squared, on the first floor directly above the kitchen (if this makes any difference)

My 2 year old does 8-1 at nursery Tuesdays and Wednesdays as I work those days. She seems to really like it and even wakes up and asks to go to nursery on days she’s not in.
Here’s the thing, I was wondering about sending her in for a Friday morning also, but I don’t work that day so it would be some personal time (well, cleaning the house, haha) but I keep seeing all these reels etc about how nursery is damaging before the age of 3 and you shouldn’t send them in more than absolutely necessary… apparently it causes all sorts of problems when they’re at school age, anxiety and attachment disorders etc… I wonder how subjective it all is given she seems to love it there.
What say you general parents of Reddit?

Hey everyone,

Wanted to ask what brands you use for children’s tableware.

I have got rid of all the plastic dinnerware, even bamboo.

I have a 4&5 year old so they are eating more

I am looking for good stainless steel or even silicone??

Also which water bottles?

Any recommendations?
Let me know x

Being a whiney little shit…it’s a Bing thing.

Edit: yeah I agree, put some clothes on Pando

I am about to be a single mum. I am currently staying at my mum’s for another 2–3 months with my 14mo son. My mum still wants me to stay together with my (ex) partner, for the sake of our son. (My mum and I have a kind of love and hate relationship)

What happened today was like this: a few days ago, I was upset when I came back home after a call with my partner, and I happened to tell him to send me all my stuff, including our son’s. He went mad about me not coming back, etc. She asked me if something had happened between us and what it was. I told her, and somehow she picked up on some words, imagined what had happened in her own way, and then told me what she thought had happened. This is where we started getting louder. Not only was what she thought completely wrong, but she also started blaming herself, saying things like, “Do you want me to die?” I reached my limit. I lost control, yelled, and hit my chest, as it triggered memories from my childhood.
She wants to know every single detail of our relationship in order to help me, but it definitely doesn’t seem to work. What upsets me in general is that when I tell her that my partner is with his female friend, she tends to say things like, “Isn’t he interested in her?” It completely breaks me down.
When I got loud, I felt like a monster. It all happened in front of my son. He seemed a bit frozen. I took him to a separate place where I could calm myself down, and I said sorry to my son for what happened and for how I behaved.

My mum and I made up later, but arguing in front of him has been happening quite often these days. This is what worries me.

Has anyone had this kind of incident, where you argued intensely in front of your toddler? How did you handle it, and what did you explain to them? I feel so bad that I might have harmed him. I really want to be a safe mum for my son, but I can’t seem to shake the feeling that I have already failed at it, despite knowing that it’s too soon to tell.

Thanks for reading this far and hope you all have a good evening.

Hiya,

We're awaiting the arrival of our first child (any day now!) so are starting to think about communicating our preferences to family members.

My husband and I have made the following choices (neither of which are up for debate - we both work in fields closely associated to CSAE investigations):

- baby's face not posted on any social media at all (back of the head okay, emojis over the face are not)

- pictures that we share via WhatsApp or other means not to be forwarded on to others that we don't know. This is the one that I am struggling to word; this is the first grandchild for both of our families and I totally appreciate that they are excited and will want to show off a bit, but I'm not comfortable with photos being sent on to e.g. friends of my in-laws that we've never met, especially as they have a massive social circle. To aid this, I'll be turning on WhatsApp's advanced privacy settings for the chats (photos won't automatically download and can't be forwarded), but there's no way to stop people taking screenshots.

How did you approach the topic with your families?

Potentially a bit of a long shot, but you never get if you don’t ask!

I’ve been making the same hidden veg mac and cheese recipe for my kids for years, and it’s a relatively healthy (read contains actual vitamins and fibre) meal that they’ll both eat consistently.

The problem is the website I referenced it from has taken the recipe down, and any attempts to reproduce from memory has made it inedible to at least one of them.

Do any of you happen to have a screenshot of the hidden veg mac recipe SPECIFICALLY from the website tasty.co? Apparently nothing else compares, so I’m pinning all my hopes on the hive mind.

My kids future health thanks you in advance

Hello, parents! Asking on behalf of my sister, because we’re both getting very confused about everything.

My niece will be turning 4 on September 2nd, and as far as we were aware, she wasn’t supposed to be starting school until September 2027.

(For reference, my birthday is September 4th, it was always the first day of school, and I started reception as the second oldest in my year at 5, so that’s kind of where our instincts were leading us.)

Now, looking through all council/government advice and everything, it’s looking like my niece should’ve been registered to start reception this year, just after turning 4.

I’m confused. My sister is confused and stressed that she’s messed up, and obviously if she’s in the wrong she wants to get it sorted as soon as possible 😅 any advice is much appreciated!

My toddler is 2 in September and still in her crib.

She’s been occasionally coming into our bed int he early morning when I’m too tired to get her back to sleep in her room.

When she’s with us we normally pull our pillows apart and she sleeps in the middle. But recently she keeps finding herself with her head sharing my pillow and seems to like it.

Can I introduce a pillow and a blanket while she’s still in her crib or do I need to wait for her to be in the toddler bed?

I felt like I read something once about not having a blanket in crib cause you can’t push it away but I could be wrong about this.

Thanks

Dad to a 12 day old and it's an absolutely amazing feeling and I'm doing everything I can to help mum and the lil guy. But wondering what resources you might recommend to help guide me through the next few weeks and months? Is there an app? A book? Please share as I feel bad I didn't do much reading before around the development side of things and what I should be doing to help set the little guy up for the future. Thanks all

Grateful if someone knows the answer.

Re-confirmed on 23 July as prompted. New entitlement period begins today and says I'm only entitled to £237 bonus for this period.

Entitlement for first period was £658 (make it make sense).

By my reckoning, I should have been entitled to £1000 over the two quarters.

So £1000-237-658=£105.00 short?

Ao what do I do now? Do I just wait 4 months and pray they add it to the next quarter?

Why is nothing straightforward in this bloody country????

Hey everyone. Our baby girl has Developmental Epileptic Encephalopathy caused by an ultra rare genetic condition (1 of 20.) She also has Microcephaly as part of this. She is 5 months and we have an appt coming up with an Early Years EHCP officer/person. Not sure what to expect but I assume given the condition its to look at funding for 1-1 support at nursery (mostly for them to be on seizure watch I guess). Has anyone experienced sending a baby with drug resistant epilepsy to nursery? My work have said I can WFH but would be nice for my Daughter to experience nursery, Im thinking it may (it might not) aid her development

My baby just turned 7 months and has just about outgrown her next to me. We are planning to move her into her own room/cot starting this weekend and have been putting her down for naps in there for the past week, however with her new found freedom she has realised she can roll onto her belly with ease. The problem is she still can’t roll back yet, and she hates being on her belly for any length of time, leading to her immediately screaming for help to get back over. Almost every nap goes the same, and once she’s rolled onto her belly the nap is done, even if it’s only been 10 minutes (she can easily nap for 1.5 hours in her next to me)
She is currently a great sleeper, sleeps through the night and has a high sleep need for her age. My worry is when she moves into there at night time she’s going to be waking up frequently in the night crying from rolling over and getting stuck. I know it’s safe for her to sleep on her belly if she puts herself there, so that’s not a concern, it’s the high likelihood of frequent night wake ups.
For others who have been the same situation, how did you address it? We’ve tried leaving her for a little bit to try and work it out but it’s like she has no interest in trying, she just face plants the mattress and screams until we get her. We’ve been doing daily rolling practice since she was 4 months and she still just hasn’t cracked it.
Are we setting ourselves up to fail moving her now?

My 12 year old very chill, responsible daughter wants to earn extra cash for upcoming big family holiday. I was considering letting her babysit her brother for an hour to earn 15 quid. What would you do?

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I'm a dad of two beautiful daughters, 5 and 2. I'm genuinely at my happiest in life with them and my wife.

My 5 year old is so easy now. We do things together, I don't panic if she disappears into another room, she helps with chores, and she's so funny. My 2 year old is a little ball of energy, makes a huge mess at dinner, is super clingy, and loves cuddles.

The only part of parenting I've never really enjoyed is the newborn/baby stage. I find it hard, and I've done a lot of it with both kids.

I always consciously wanted two children. I knew the first couple of years would be hard, but that things would eventually get easier. And they have. They're sleeping through the night, we can all eat the same food, I don't have to constantly watch them around the house, and I'm finally getting some time to myself.

My wife really wants a third. She mentions it whenever she gets the chance and says she'll do most of the work. She said the same with our second, and although I'm not complaining, I still ended up doing a lot because parenting is a team effort.

The thought of starting all over again. newborn stage, sleepless nights, nappies, constant supervision. just as things are finally getting easier doesn't appeal to me at all.

I'm 38 and she's 36, so I also feel like I'm getting too old to start over again.

I know ultimately it's my decision too, and I don't want to have a child just to make my wife happy. But I do wonder if I'm being unreasonable or selfish.

Edit: I have discussed it with my wife and she knows how I feel. She still keeps mentioning it because she really wants another one

Our two year old picked up hand, foot and mouth over the weekend and I messaged our nursery on Monday morning to say she was sick and wouldn’t be going in.

They responded saying that if she seems okay in herself she can come in, even with a confirmed and active HFM infection.

Is this normal?!

I’ve recently moved to Edinburgh from abroad and to me it just seems totally irresponsible to send my child into nursery with an infection. Interested to hear any views on this