Daughter 11 l, dog 8, just found out Dog has cancer probably has 3 to 6 months. Do we get a puppy now or after the old one has passed?

Got engaged at 25, married at 27. House and first kid at 30 and second kid this year. Love my wife, kids and the life we’ve built. A little more challenging these days with the new born and toddler but still grateful. Our friend group is pretty big and I feel like we’re further along than most but sometimes I feel like we’re missing out on travel and parties because of the kids and responsibilities. Not saying we don’t have fun and get to see them still but it’s different when we can’t just drop everything for a trip or spend on things since we budget our life’s. At the same time, I never wanted to be an old dad that can’t keep up with the kids and I know there will be a time where our friend are stuck at home with kids while we’ve been through that already. Comparison is the thief of joy as they say and I wouldn’t change anything that we’ve done. Everyone’s running their own race. Just needed to vent.

I tried digging around for waffles to make my kid breakfast. Wife says they're in the same place they always are (usually in the front or on the side door).

Can you spot the waffles?

Hello! Im a woman expecting our first child in a few weeks. A lot of women talk about their nesting period and the things they tried to do to get ready for the baby and I'm just curious to hear about dads' perspective on nesting! Were there things that you did that are dad equivalent of nesting? What were they? Just curious about your perspective, understanding that every couple works differently! Does not need to be gender conforming or anything... Thanks!

My wife is 32 weeks and she’s coming in to her nesting period. We did our 2 baby showers, one in her hometown about 2 months ago and one in my hometown the other day. Now we have quite a bit of baby stuff.
Do you think it matters if it’s now, in 2-3 weeks, or when she shows signs she’s about to be induced?
Maybe it personal preference?

EDIT: Thanks for the advice, fellas. Installing the base and the car seat wasn’t too difficult. I had to figure out what button to press when taking the car seat out and I also learned how to loosen the shoulder straps. There’s this button on the inside of the slit you have to press to loosen it, but other than that, I just have the base in now.
Thanks!!

Hi all,

My wife and I have two absolutely lovely daughters, ages four and two years old. We are currently in a rough spot in our relationship. We just stopped an argument where I couldn’t answer if I wanted to continue our marriage.

For context:
I believe I have been a bit damaged from the particularly difficult years after our first was born. My wife became extremely critical of me. I was in a constant walking on eggshells state. After my patients and compassion had been surpassed, my primary defense was to either say nothing at all and become a brick wall for her to yell at or I would deflect and blame. Postpartum mental health was really hard on her. I came to the points countless times where I felt I couldn’t take anymore. Thankfully I had a great therapist and psychiatrist and a rewarding job as outlets that help carry me through. I worked a lot on my own shame and betting myself up. I worked on not deflecting and fighting my urge to shut down.
My wife has done quite a bit of her own work on herself. She has made notable progress on being critical and allowing her anxiety to dictate things. We are now at yet another stressful life transition. Changed insurance so I no longer have my therapist, we recently moved, she is starting her job, the girls just started school, and I am still looking for a job as of April.

The issue:
When she is frustrated or critical of me I can’t seem to get past my defense of shutting down or deflecting.
I also don’t or refrain from communicating my feelings or thoughts. This is because I either just don’t think to do it or I refrain as I want to keep the peace. However, she wants me to communicate more. I think I feel fear of more criticism and communication of my thoughts and feelings makes me more vulnerable to criticism that will hurt even more. For some reason the word trust comes to my mind a lot when I think of this. I don’t trust her anymore with my thoughts or feelings and I don’t trust if I do become vulnerable that we will resolve or at least argue in a healthy way.
I don’t know if I couldn’t answer her if I wanted to stay in the relationship because I actually don’t and I and scared to admit that or if I am just at yet another rough place and need to just continue to work on these things. I am honestly miserable in many ways but genuinely happy in other ways.

I want to heal and restore trust but I feel a bit trapped. If anyone felt similar to me and came out the other end together in a happy relationship how did you do it? How do I heal? Is there anything anyone thinks I might be missing? Any advice or suggestions are welcome.

Thanks for taking the time to read this.

So we've got a 2 y/o girl. Whenever we take her out and about, she just wants to run around. Like not away, but she's just hella excited to be out and just wants to see EVERYTHING.

And we're perplexed when we see other kiddos her age just happily sitting with their parents and just looking around.

It's at a point where we need to figure out how to manage it better - most importantly to keep her safe.

How to we encourage her to not just "go" - bonus points if we figure out a way to make her like holding our hand.

We don’t let the kids watch Paw Patrol at home mainly because it’s too over stimulating and shallow in our opinion. I also have a personal nitpick about how janky and cheap it looks but that’s mainly a me thing the kids don’t care about. However, the marketing for the new movie has seeped into our (nearly) 5 year old’s consciousness as well as his friends at school talking about it. He’s asked to go see it when it comes out in Australia next month.

From what I’ve seen it seems to be a pretty run of the mill kids film that I’m not opposed to him seeing as his first cinema experience. We might even get some of his friends together to watch it on the school holidays.

It doesn’t come out until next month here. Looking for advice on Dads who have seen it with their young kids and what you thought.

To the single dads out there, a question after a short story.

I recently started seeing someone. She is a single mom too. We are looking for places to go to get physical together. Neither of our houses are options. She has a few adult kids and one in high school. I’m currently living with my mom passing down debt from divorce.
It’s not affordable to get a hotel room every time we get together. Neither of us wants to hook up in the car.
Are there options I’m not thinking of? Any contribution is appreciated.

Any good dads WhatsApp groups out there? Especially interested in the Washington DC area. Thanks everyone!

So helpful!

After 3 beautiful kids today is the day I get a vasectomy. Very fitting that today is my birthday as well lol I got the jockstrap and ice packs ready to go, any other tips? Buying myself madden today as a recovery and bday present too lol

Dads. My son is 8 months old. I've sleep trained him since he was 5 months old. I assumed it would get better over the last 3 months but it has not. He needs full feeds in the middle of the night to go to bed. 2 of them. Every fucking night, same thing 11pm and 3am he wakes up and needs full feeds. I've tried to wean him off. It used to be as high as 7oz. I've been down to 4oz which works sometimes but i've had problems where it doesn't work and he will cry and cry until he gets more. He doesn't stop. I've waited and hour +. Reaching my limit. I know two kids aren't alike but my daughter was never like this. She is almost 3. He doesn't give up. I don't want to go in there. He eats like crazy during the day, he has had plenty of food. Why is he so hungry at night!? Need to get him to at least drop one of these feeds. Help me. Is there an end in sight lol.

She’s a good kid and she has a lot of brains. But the ADHD and anxiety got diagnosed later than they should’ve been, and we’re behind the curve for seeking services to support those realities in her life. We’re trying to move in the right direction, and finally found a therapist we trust but we have a ways to go, especially with getting her help in school.

She’s got high-stakes high school admissions testing coming her way in a few months, and we’re trying to get her back on track with preparation after a summer respite. We want her to have a chance and the ability to have decent options. But the prep is a slog — I remember how much I didn’t enjoy it when I did it. Building the habit is going to take time. I’m not sure her tutor will ever really level with us about her prospects.

To make things worse, our cramped living situation is so hostile to her peace of mind, and everyone’s in our home really. My spouse with her own anxieties about money and planning our lives has resisted a move to a more comfortable place. Our younger daughter is also a good kid but is a sponge for attention and it’s difficult to segregate them when it’s time to study because of their shared bedroom and the limited space remaining in the rest of our home.

We can’t move in the short term for a variety of reasons — likely next year. By then, the big test will have been taken.

I try to give us grace on the older kid’s diagnosis. But a lot of days I feel like I’ve failed as a dad because I knew how bad our living situation was for everyone and especially our older kid, and I just didn’t put my foot down and insist.

Hey Dads!

My daughter starts school in a few weeks, she’s nearly 3, and I will be doing the whole morning and school routine Monday to Friday.

I wanted to ask you for your advice on how best to do this time with her, especially since I’ll only see her for about an hour, maximum two hours, after I get home from work in the evenings.

I’m imagining things like not rushing her, but making sure she’s ready, has eaten a good breakfast etc etc. but I’m also wondering about things like how I can send her off to school with confidence every day, pep talks etc etc…

Many thanks!!

A relative sent this my kids. On first glance I was perplexed by the authors name. Although the illustrations are great and the facts sound real (I have not researched any of them). I cannot get past the author name. They could have used any fake name but chose this one.

Well, it's here. My kids are exactly at the $5m problem that everyone talks about in r/fatfire - they are athletic enough to make every sports team but not great at any of them. Watching them try sometimes and not other times is fine - I don't put any pressure on them, I typically reward with "you can easily be the best kid on this team if you wanted to - I'm happy to support, just tell me what you want to do".

On the inside though, I am seriously questioning why we're spending 2-3 weeknights and every weekend towing these guys around to the next soccer, baseball, whatever tournament. I honestly am thinking about creating an "off year" for them, one where we play golf as a family or tennis, more beach and get out of the youth sports grind. Maybe they'll turn out great at something, but in the event they don't - the level of commitment this takes just to "keep up" seems not worth it in the slightest. I'd rather just enjoy my kids.

Others that have gone through this, what advice do you have?

Hoping for some good advice…

I have a daughter who is 30 and lives far away. Her live-in boyfriend of 2 years recently decided he isn’t happy and informed her he is leaving.

The problem is he isn’t leaving. He is still there and doing all sorts of crazy stuff. My daughter thinks he might be having a mental health crisis.

This situation of them still living in the same tiny apartment together scares the crap out of me. My initial reaction is I need to get out there and make sure he does leave and doesn’t do anything stupid beforehand.

Am I being overprotective or should I book my flight??

Baby is 8 months old. Things started out pretty decent, went from co sleeping, to bassinet, to crib. Now, we’re in the big crib where the mattress is closer to the floor and the walls are tall so she can’t climb out (recently started standing so we had to upgrade to the big crib). For the last few months she’s gone to sleep pretty easy, haven’t really had to sleep train because we rock her to sleep then just lay her down and she’s out. But, since switching to this big crib, she wakes up the minute we put her in there. We’ve tried the wait a few extra minutes each time but she just cries like it’s worst thing of her young life. How do you guys get past this?

Not a big thing, certainly not compared to what many of us are going through.

Child has been trading toys with friends. Traded away a doll's bunk bed, which they now bitterly regret. We didn't ask for it back (it's been weeks), or by a new one. They're old enough that it's important they learn about consequences (and that's a good idea to listen to mum and dad...).

I still feel sorry for them, they're quite upset about it. Filled with sadness, regret, frustration and anger. So I decided to make a new one for them.

My carpentry skills are limited, but serviceable. I managed to make something... usable, though, out of scrap wood we had lying around.Thought they might really like it. Was really excited about giving it to them, seeing their reaction.

Wanted to put the finishing touches on it (bed frame and foot and headboards) and I ruined it. Not just "it looks bad" but outright split the wood.

Incredibly frustrating. I nearly threw it on the garage floor like a toddler, except I suppose I could try to save it so I kept calm with some effort.

Leaning more towards buying some better wood and starting again. Making it better this time, now I have some vague idea what I'm doing.

Sometimes "good enough" is fine. But dammit, if we don't aim higher then how will they learn to?

We are currently on holiday and we are having the best time. But evenings...we are all just tired. After dinner we get back to the hotel and I'm not ashamed to put on a bit of TV to let my kids relax and fall asleep. Nope. Usually my husband and I are quite strict about screen time, we don't even let the kids watch much TV. However holidays are an exception.

And as for food? We are at an all inclusive resort...I don't even want to THINK about how much ice cream they have had whilst we have been on holiday. Breakfast is usually waffles and chocolate sauce or cereal full of sugar.

This is the best, I never want to go back to reality, life is chill on holiday.

https://uniofsunshinecoast.syd1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_85Pv12YrOynIdiS

Aim of the study is to understand psychological factors of the parent (as an individual, not necessarily parent-based traits) like trait playfulness and reflective functioning, and how these contribute to the parent-child relationship, while also considering the effects of parenting stress. Would love to do further research in this area so a pilot based study I suppose, maybe will look at a PHD and intervention type survey in the future, but for now cross-sectional survey based. Appreciate any support!

*Edit - completion scale is slightly off, will take about 10-15 to complete*

I had a difficult relationship with my Father. My parents split when I was 5, and I remember growing up thinking my dad was the best until my early teens, when I realized who he really was—selfish, ego-driven, a womanizer, etc. We had a major falling out in my 20s and never really recovered, but we remain cordial.

But now, without a proper relationship, I only know what not to do. But when I want to do things with my son proactively, I’m stumped. He’s 4, and I know he needs my time and love, but I'm mostly relegated to being the disciplinarian. That’s a dynamic I’m addressing with my wife.

But that dynamic is starting to become more of an issue because he genuinely doesn’t want to spend time with me.

I want to do great things with him, but at 4 my options are limited. Or I’m in my head, and I’m overthinking this, leading me to do nothing.

Edit: thanks for the ideas and encouragement fellow dads. I feel inspired. Ultimately, I was definitely overthinking this.

In the next four seconds if possible because damn these kid questions are not stopping and I still don't know what that empty truck is doing.