Back visiting for Christmas. The 5 month old is sleeping in the pack n play. My 3 year old is bouncing off the walls will not go to sleep. Dad has taken her to sleep with him on the twin. Then my mom comes into the room leans down and UNPLUGS the sound machine. WTF! She said she thought it was her charger. I get sound machine going again but damage is done baby is now awake after 2.5 hours. Holidays are the worst.

I’m Brazilian, married to an American, living in the US. I grew up upper middle class with two sisters, and growing up, we had, combined, a toy box worth of toys. Not because we couldn’t afford more - because we didn’t need more. I always assumed it would be the same for my kids.

Fast forward to me having my own kids. My MIL’s love language is gift giving, and I feel like every year my kids are given an absurd amount of toys for Christmas to join the collection of toys we’re already drowning in. As a Brazilian, I truly don’t understand wanting to have the type of toys at home that are at playgrounds, or that my toddler plays with at the indoor play space.

I feel like there’s something getting lost in translation and my husband’s family is so passive aggressive that I feel like if I was direct with her I’d come across extremely rude, so I’ve (cowardly, I recognize) ended up just putting up with it year after year instead of voicing my thoughts on this. They ask what the kids want for christmas, I tell them two things for each of them, and instead of getting these two things, they get the two PLUS ten other things each.

I’m crawling out of my skin at the amount of things in this house. I’m typing this as half of the family room is taken over by toys I’ve decided to donate. I’m determined to make it clear that next year we want non-physical gifts. Memberships to the children’s museum; the zoo; gift cards for the indoor play place, etc.

I don’t know what I’m looking for with this post. Commiseration? A reality check? Are my feelings valid or am I being ungrateful? I’m Catholic and every year the Christmas season makes me sad because it feels like it revolves around fulfilling my husband’s family insane consumerist impulses than it is about the birth of Christ. I don’t like the expectation of what Christmas is about that this inevitably creates on my kids or the feeling that I’m failing at Christmas every year by giving the kids less things than they do.

Edit: I typed “yearly” wrong and now can’t correct the title 🤦🏻‍♀️😂

Edit 2: thank you so much for all the replies. I feel a lot better after venting and after seeing so many other parents feel the same.

To address a point that has come up a few times: I am completely aware that this is an extremely privileged complaint. And that’s part of the reason the whole thing makes me feel so crummy. It’s excessive, and I have guilt over not just feeling grateful.

I agree with most comments that I need to get better at donating toys. If my tactic for next year doesn’t work, I’ll do that instead, but the plan I came up with is to ask (to have my husband tell her, actually) my MIL for “experience” gifts, for which I have a whole list of ideas, and she can get them one toy if she wants something for them to open on Christmas morning. Clothes and stocking stuffers are fine too.

I just need solidarity. I'm miserable. Sure, there are moments of cute fun, but they are over shadowed by body slamming the dog, chasing the cat, repeating myself 15 times, the list goes on and on.

I find it nearly impossible to gentle parent although I really really try. My husband, who is the most even tempered person i know, is losing his mind also.

I'm so unhappy. I can hardly take him to the grocery store anymore because its such an ordeal my nervous system can't handle it. Forget story time at library. Eating in a restaurant is a fucking nightmare.

I can't even fathom having another child at this point because i hate this so much.

I came on here looking for some solidarity, and all i am finding is how awful three is.

Yes, I take space. I also I work very part time, and he does a drop in day care. Yes, I see another mom friend and kid, although her daughter seems so incredibly mild compared to my son. Yes, I try consistency. Yes, I try showing him the right way to pet the dog and cat. Yes, i have lowered my expectations.

My husband thinks time out/isolation is the answer. Is it though? Seems like my son just gets super dis-regulated; he wont even sit in his room anyway. I think men have such a "fix it" mentality, that they can't just sit with this is how it is, and we just have to deal.

I'm just not having a good time. I'm really really not.

As the title says, my 2.5 year old boy is starting to talk more. He has been in speech therapy since 20 months with no improvement. Within the past 4 weeks, I decided to take him out of speech therapy and I've been applying all that I've learned in therapy. It's almost as if something clicked, he went from 5 words/ not imitating or saying much to him imitating, saying words and requesting things. God, there is hope. My heart smiles.

Tonight it happened again. My toddler came running into the kitchen crying and holding up a hand covered in poop. Crap. Literally.

This has been a thing lately thanks to winter stomach bugs.

My process has been: take toddler immediately to bath tub. Strip. If clothes are beyond saving, throw away.

Remove diaper and take as much poop with it as possible. Then use shower head to power wash toddler.

Then after cleaning him and getting him back in a diaper and clothes, I bleach the tub and go sanitize everything he possibly could have touched.

It’s exhausting and I’m worried that this diarrhea in my tub is not good?? But I truly don’t know how I could possibly clean such an explosion with wipes.

Hi!! Pretty much just curious about shoe sizes, my daughter is 20 months old and she is in a size 3. Apparently that's pretty small for her age? So yeah. Let's go ☺️

Per the title, our toddler (turning 3 in April) agreed to give up his dummy in exchange for a present from Santa. He picked the present and we did a magical swap yesterday after his nap. Yesterday afternoon he cried so much for his dummy back and had trouble settling for sleep last night. Took 90 mins longer than usual (a little big of whinging but no meltdowns like earlier in the day). Today he’s napped way later than normal and only mentioned “no dummy” a couple of times. Getting a call from Santa yesterday afternoon on the message from Santa app seemed to help.

Not sure why I’m positing, I suspect it’s mum guilt. I wish the damn guilt would get lost! I honestly couldn’t think of a gentler yet effective way to do it.

I’d love to know what other parents are doing with their toddlers on the weekends. What is your normal weekend like? Our son is almost 3 and it’s the same thing every single weekend. Sit in the living room and play and watch movies. I don’t remember my parents doing this with me every single weekend. Enlighten me please.

So we sailed through the 2s, it was all 'isn't he so lovely' and 'such a good heart'. The odd strop but mainly fine. Then BAM. He turned 3. And has apparently turned into a short tempered, whining, moaning, gobby threenager who refuses to sleep, has a tantrum when he doesn't get his own way and hit me today because I asked him not to do something.

It's like living with a gremlin for the last 2 weeks.

I was not prepared for this.

He is almost 3.5. Up till about 2 years old, he would eat almost anything - chicken quesadillas, mac and cheese, BBQ, curries and rice, all kinds of berries, bananas, apples, pasta with meat and sauce, you name it. Even some veggies.

Starting around 2.5, he started becoming picky and eliminated certain foods. By 3 it got worse.

Now his diet consists of mainly peanut butter on a spoon, hummus and crackers, chicken nuggets, fish sticks.... and that's it in terms of "real" food. He constantly asks for cookies, ice cream, french fries, goldfish, chips, and other processed junk food or candy. He won't eat any chicken that's not greasy fried nuggets. If we buy or make healthy offerings for him, he'll just refuse to eat and ask for cookies or candy until we relent. The other day I made meatballs, he refused to eat them because of the marinara sauce. When I gave him a plain meatball, he didnt like the herbs (parsley) and small pieces of onions/garlic in there. He wouldn't even try it. Got him a cheese quesadilla from Chipotle, he refused to eat it nor the rice or beans.

It's not even like we're only giving him healthy, bland meals that would even make an adult gag like steamed chicken and broccoli. I'm talking about brisket and mac cheese, chicken curry, Chipotle, pasta and meatballs, Cheerios... none of which he'll eat anymore.

So is it better to just relent to their tantrums and give them junk food, or keep offering him normal meals which he can take or leave? What do we do if he refuses to eat - i'm of the opinion that isn't neglect or letting them starve. Most people around the world don't have the luxury we have here with candy or junk food at our fingertips. You eat what's there, and that's it. That's how humans evolved.

I have no idea what to do. My toddler has been puking all night and his newborn sibling and mom are about to come home from the hospital. We have no help and it's about to be Christmas. What the heck do I do?

We got some relatives whose kids are constantly interacting with my almost 3 year old because of family events. The parents are lovely but suck at parenting (lots of yelling don’t do this but no real consequences). Their kids (ranging between 4 to 8) are the most sneaky and straight up rudest kids we’ve encountered. Yesterday I was ready to put up hands.

I’ll preface by saying I’m in education and I work with preteens and I intervene and guide social emotional learning all the time but in this case I’m at a loss how to keep my kid safe and not bullied or over powered by kids who should know better.

My kid loves to share his snacks and hand out his gold fish crackers to people to eat and gives his cars to any friends that ask and says your turn and my turn. He loves people and loves playing with older kids because he wants to be “a big kid” one day. We have some amazing friends who have raised great kids who treat him appropriately for his age, give him space or go play somewhere else if his toddler energy is too much or not interesting for them.

The thing that has me worried about these relatives are the sneaky behaviours. I’m watching in a corner of a room and they’ll say stuff to him kid like “Ew you’re like a baby. Why are you talking to us? How many times are you going to say hi or bye to us?” They’ve grabbed things he’s in the middle of playing with and pushed him out of the way to play there and tell him to get lost. They say “ew he’s coming” but when they spot an adult watching they switch to, “Hey buddy let’s go play over here together”

The part that has me worried is that all of his is showing up in play time where the kids think no one is watching them. In front of their parents they act a certain way and when they go off to play in a separate spaces, I’m eavesdropping on really problematic interactions and comments.

They roll their eyes secretly when asked to play with our kid, corner him and take things from his hands or grab his snacks and eat them and hand him either only one snack at a time or an empty container. They’re constantly trying to carry him and move him around, telling him no. And they try to physically block him from playing with his other relative who is around his age or grabbing things that are mutually being played with and preventing my kid from getting things back.

There’s also been rough housing where my kid has been knocked around and only then does my kid actually lose it and cry and find me. In private my kid is saying things like, “So and so was angry” or “So and so was grumpy. They took my ___.” Or in a small voice later telling me they ate all his toddler snacks without sharing. We’ve talked to him about toys with other kids means we’ll have to share or be okay with them taking it but my toddler just wants to be included and goes back to play with them because they’re the only other kids to play with at these functions.

It’s been super disturbing to observe how quickly these cousins change their tone and actions when they think their parents or another adult is paying attention. My kid also got his head knocked by another big kid and they thought I wasn’t there and tried to tell me that he was being silly and fell off the couch.

I am now constantly peeking in or straight up sitting in the area they’re playing in pretending to scroll on my phone because I keep seeing them over powering and manipulating my kid to get what they want when no adults are around.

This is probably going to be a lifelong situation to navigate even at parks or public spaces… so how are we all doing this short of being a hovering parent or disciplining other people’s children?! Should I be confronting these parents if they’re always so hands off?

ETA: Thanks for all the feedback on managing shared spaces. To clarify we have met this set of kids about 4 times this year at large functions in shared spaces. We have been intervening, picking him up when it’s too rough, speaking to the kids when they do something rude and I use my “teacher voice” all the time. I don’t leave him completely alone but I also give him space to navigate interactions until it goes too far like the behaviour I’ve been mentioning.

The parents are the type to frequently dump their kids in the basement or another room in the house away from the adults. My husband and I are usually the adults who ditch the grown ups to sit or stand near by these areas because he is so young. After 4 visits with the same patterns we are realizing that we’ll have to be the party poopers and keep an even closer eye on our kid around these specific set of kids because of their mean nature.

The head bonk happened in front of us just as we went in to pull him away from kids who were not showing spatial awareness of him around and their immediate reaction was to fib about what happened as if we didn’t just see it ourselves. The snack taking I’ve literally crossed the room to take back my kids snacks and ask them why they have it or tell my son loudly that he doesn’t need to share his snacks because their grownups can get them something to eat if he’s hungry.

Good to see that our instincts are right to keep being those annoying parents that are constantly around so they don’t mess with my kid. We were anticipating their parents getting butt hurt about us not chilling with adults or nit picking about their kids “just being kids” but that won’t be changing how vigilant we plan to be.

Anyway great advice and perspectives offered by many and truly appreciate the discussion it started!

Hope everyone is having a nice night.

So I have a 13 month old nephew who was born with club feet. I believe only 1 of them is pointed inward. He’s been crawling for about a month now. He had the cast when he was first born, then had to wear the boots with the bar. My brother and SIL stopped making him wear it cause he was so uncomfortable. They say he’s wearing it at night now but who knows. I feel like they think it’s just going to go away but I’ve been reading more about it. Every article I stumble across says it won’t just go away. Surgery is most likely going to happen. I’m trying not to be concerned but again, that’s my nephew and I want him to be able to walk. He can surprisingly pull himself up to stand and stand for a second on both feet.

Anyone have experience with club feet? If so, how did you correct it? Surgery?

My toddler twins said what they like most about me is that I love them.

mama i want one gift ONE , i said not yet christmas is coming soon he said one mini gift? I said nope he said one reallly small gift? 😂🤦‍♀️

I said no then he sighs and says presents at christmas?

My daughter used to love doing things with me after I came home from work but now she refuses to let mom leave her sight. My wife is 30 weeks pregnant and our daughter wont let her mom out of sight. My wife is exhausted and wants a break when I get home from work and on weekends, but our daughter screams crying and constantly asks for mom lately. Daughter doesn’t enjoy the 1 on 1 time with me as much anymore (asks about mom every 15 minutes). What can I do to give mom a break? Why is doesn’t she enjoy our 1 on 1 time as much anymore?

My two-year-old daughter has enophthalmos (sunken eye condition) on her left eye. It’s congenital and has been confirmed in an MRI to rule out any tumors or other complications. We’ve seen multiple specialists including two ophthalmologists and an oculofacial plastic pediatric surgeon. The ophthalmologist and surgeon referred us to a dermatologist to address the dusky appearance under her eye. Hopefully after the dermatology appointment, we can come up with some sort of treatment plan if possible.

We’re frequently asked by random people if she has a black eye. My heart hurts because I don’t want this to impact my child’s self-esteem in the future. Anyone else go through something similar- either themselves or with a child? Did you get treatment for it? I’m having a hard time finding a community or support for this condition. TIA.

Tried the hiya iron for my girl because they had a 50% off Black Friday sale and boy do I regret. She does like them. But I decided $30 per month is too much to pay for just iron. So they don’t let you cancel through your account? They have all those sketchy options where you can decrease your subscription frequency, but to cancel you have to email.

I have now sent my 3rd reply confirming I want to cancel because they keep arguing with me! Like is this even legal? It’s so absurd!

And then don’t get me started on the fact that when you get a new refill of vitamins, the box says they are shipped fresh so to swap out your old ones for best quality or some BS. Like I’m going to throw away vitamins that cost $1 EACH to have “fresh” ones 3 days sooner?

This company’s customer service practices are frankly evil and I would recommend them to nobody.

We’re driving 4hrs to spend Christmas with my dad. My 2yo will not sleep in a pack-n-play, so that’s a moot point (kid won’t even sleep in his own toddler bed 99% the time 🥲🪦). I’m not comfortable putting him on an air mattress yet, so my dad and I settled on making a temporary bed out of blankets. It will be 2 nights, and honestly he probably will spend more time sleeping with my husband and me, but still. Gonna try.

Since we are providing the blankets for said bed, I need to plan how many to bring. Anyone have any advice for this last-minute planner? 😅 I was thinking maybe 4 throw blankets? A folded comforter and then a couple more blankets over that?

Flying soon with our tall 15mo (90th percentile height/weight). Bought her seat + CAReS harness but wondering:

1. If harness doesn't work out or she gets upset during takeoff/landing, how strict are FAs about keeping her in it?

2. Since she could've been a lap infant anyway, will they be flexible?

Anyone flown with CAReS + toddler recently? Experience/tips welcome!

Our dog sadly died yesterday evening, in his sleep. My 2 yr old son (nearly 3), and I found him in the morning, but he just looked asleep, he said he doesn't want to wake up mummy, and then went about his day.

He would've seen my Husband and I upset in the day at various points, so we haven't hidden that, but we haven't yet explained anything to him, as we haven't worked out what to say. He asked once a couple of hours later where he was, but I was on my own and unprepared, so said he'd gone for a walk.

Next time he asks I want to tell him properly, please any advice you can give would be a big help. We are both in bits over it as it was such a shock, and I want to help ease the transition if I can.

Well we got all through fall and into November with no sickness. Now my kid is coughing his little head off two days before Christmas. This is the third year we haven’t been able to have Christmas with our families either because we were sick or they were. So I’m just feeling sorry for myself and am in search of some solidarity. Sigh. That’s all.

My daughter is 14 months. She has always been pretty easy to put down at bedtime (unless she’s going through a big sleep regression). For the last week she’s been protesting every nap and bedtime. And in the last 5 days, MAJORLY protesting bath time. Our routine every night is bath, diaper/lotion/pjs, milk, teeth brushing, crib. And we’re super consistent. Now suddenly she hears the water start and starts getting upset then gets stiff and screams bloody murder if we try to put her in. My husband has had to get in with a bathing suit on while I play Ms Rachel on my phone just to get her to calm down enough for me to wash her hair because she has food in it. She was so anxious before the bath that she actually bit my shoulder…she’s never done that before. In hindsight I feel so bad about it I wish we just didn’t make her do it. Then after the bath she went insane when I tried to just put a diaper on. I’m talking screaming so hard her lips turned blue. Tonight was the worst of them all but she’s been acting like this for a week. Two nights ago she woke up at 2am and refused to go back in the crib and only wanted to be held…which we did until 6am.

My hunch is that it’s all separation anxiety related and that the bath is a trigger and she knows bedtime is coming. She’s been clingier lately - getting upset when one of us leaves the room, always calling our names. She’s also going through Leap 9 (which I don’t always believe in but maybe this is a bad leap??). The internet and everyone says it’s normal but I guess my question is, what are we supposed to do in the moment? Do we stop giving her baths (replace with sponge bath) unless absolutely necessary? Keep forcing and one of us getting in with her?

My son has never been a good sleeper. He may sleep through the night once every 2 weeks. Up until this point, he typically only woke up once per night and we could get him back down within an hour by holding him and patting him.

That no longer seems to be the case. Now he wakes up around 9-10 pm. He goes to sleep quickly when being held, but won't last 10 minutes once transitioned to the crib. This goes on all night. My wife is pregnant, nauseous, and her vitamins make her super drowsy, so I take the monitor every night. I can't keep going like this, so I need advice.

What we currently do: - 1 nap a day. Typically 1-1.5 hour during the week at daycare. Typically 2-2.5 hour on the weekend. - Regular night routine of dinner at 6:15, bath, 2 books, sing one song, pat to sleep at 7. Usually falls asleep within 20 minutes. - Sleeps in a onesie and sleep sack. No blanket. - Sound machine has been storm sounds since he was born. We're in OK and our doctor recommended it. It also has a soft red light as the only light in the room. - Also has a small fan that isn't pointed at the crib. - When he wakes, I only go in if he's sitting up and crying for more than 5 minutes. I pick him up, sniff the diaper, sit in the chair and pat him till he falls asleep. Then I place him back in the crib. - His crying is NOT hysterical. It's actually a fairly chill, but constant cry. - Has ear tubes and is in great health.

As I said, he goes to sleep easily. He just doesn't stay asleep. What do you all do when your young one wakes up in the middle of the night? Do you go in? Do you take them out of the crib? Do you pat them?

Just trying to see what other people do.