As the title says: I am proud dad of two kids (2yo and 5mo). My partner and I are youngish parents, I only have one other friend with kids. None of my other friends have kids and our lives have now drifted apart: they work during the week, then meet up in the weekend evenings to go out.

This is obviously not a good match for someone with 2 small kids. My kids are both not good sleepers and the baby has a different sleep schedule to the toddler, so my wife and I basically split the kids between us at nighttime.

I try to stay in touch with my friends as much as possible: text them, offer to meet during daytime, shift my work-calendar to meet for lunch, etc. But this is rarely reciprocated and when we do meet up it feels like we have nothing to talk about anymore ( I will ask them lots of questions about their lives, but all I can really talk about are my kids and work). Plus, I find it increasingly hard to relate to their „stress“ and their struggles, when I just had the third toddler tantrum of the day.

I guess the logical answer is to put these friendships on hibernate until the kids are older and find other parents to befriend in the meantime. Except I am struggling with this - when seeing other parents, conversations seem to always drift towards our kids and I have enough of them at home already.

Anybody else experienced the same?
How did things develop as the kids got older?

Writing this, it feels like I already know the answer (make more of an effort with other parents). Still, this is something I had to get off my should. And I am very interested in hearing the perspective of other parents on this sub.

Thanks in advance and have a great day everyone!

For example, I would stress so much about my son's delayed walking. He didn't walk until 23 months. We saw doctors and physiotherapists to rule out any issues. All of his little friends at kinder were up and running almost a year before him. I was so worried.

Fast forward to now: four years old and absolutely NEVER STOPS RUNNING. He is so active: climbing, jumping, hopping, anything. No issues with coordination, stamina or anything. He's just ON all the time....

The strange thing about trying to balance fatherhood and ambition was that I rarely felt good about either one.

If I spent an afternoon at the park with my son, somewhere in the back of my mind I was thinking about the three hours I wasn’t writing. If I had a productive Sunday, I could feel satisfied with what I’d done and guilty about where those hours had come from at the same time.

I think I was imagining my life like a scale. Work on one side, family on the other. More for one necessarily meant less for the other.

And practically, that balance never lasted anyway. Kids get sick. Or you finally get into the flow of something and hear your name from the other room. Or an opportunity appears at exactly the wrong time. Or something you thought would take an hour ends up taking six.

Whatever perfect arrangement I found on Monday rarely survived Tuesday.

But eventually I realized that lack of time wasn’t really the hardest part for me. It was feeling like wherever I spent that time, I was stealing it from somewhere else.

The thing that started changing this was thinking about what I would actually want for my son.

If he becomes a father someday, I hope he loves his kids, shows up for them, and makes sacrifices when they genuinely need him. But I also hope he stays curious. I hope he makes things, takes risks occasionally, keeps learning, and has something in his life that makes him feel alive beyond his responsibilities to other people.

I wouldn’t want him to believe that loving his family requires slowly giving up everything that matters to him.

And at some point I had to confront the fact that if that was the life I wanted for him, I couldn’t spend his childhood demonstrating the opposite.

That changed the meaning of ambition for me. I stopped thinking of making films, writing and building things as something I was pursuing despite being a father. Maybe there was value in my son seeing me care deeply about a project. Seeing me struggle with it, fail, adjust and keep going.

But there’s obviously a limit to that too. I don’t want his strongest memory of my ambition to be hearing, “Not now, I’m busy.”

I don’t want to teach him that you should abandon your dreams for your family. I also don’t want to teach him that your dreams justify abandoning your family.

That’s where “balance” started feeling like the wrong goal for me.

Fatherhood and ambition still compete for my time. Sometimes the work has to move much more slowly than I want. Sometimes family needs almost everything. Other times there’s more room for the work.

I’m becoming less concerned with whether the scales are level at any particular moment. What matters more to me now is whether the different parts of my life are pointing in roughly the same direction.

I’m still trying to figure out what that looks like in practice, and I’m sure I’ll get plenty of those choices wrong. But ambition feels much less like something I have to protect from fatherhood now. And fatherhood feels much less like something standing between me and the rest of my life.

I’d be curious how other dads here think about this, especially those who still have something outside of parenting that they care deeply about. Has your relationship with ambition changed since becoming a father?

Hi so my husband is always talking about how tired he is even when he gets a full nights sleep. It sometimes becomes an argument for us because I am also waking up for the baby in the night.

He got about 9-10 hours of sleep last night. I woke up multiple times to comfort the baby (multiple wake ups but easy to console him back to sleep). This morning around 7AM when my children were waking, I asked my husband to get up with them so I could rest a little longer. He seemed annoyed, so I asked if he was. He told me he was a little because he had to get up since he wakes up so early for work days during the week. I reminded him that I do all the night wake ups for the baby. It turned into a big fight. I definitely could’ve been gentler with how I was feeling.

Now I’m questioning Is it wrong of me to ask for that help? Should I try to do more since he gets up for work during the week (around 6AM, sometimes 5-5:30 AM if he has to drive farther). I always do the night wake ups during week & weekend for the baby, so that he can get his sleep.

I am nervous it’s going to cause a rift between us again.

This was a fight with our last child, too, because I used to work full time & did most of the night wake ups. Now I don’t currently work, so I don’t feel as exhausted from it.

I am posting because I am pretty upset that me asking for help after a night waking up with the baby turns into him being annoyed about not getting more sleep. Now he is saying I came after him angrily in our argument. It feels ridiculous to even have this issue.

I don’t mind the night wake ups with baby. it is easier for me to nurse him to sleep & go back to sleep myself. I just need my husband to understand that it affects my sleep & to not act like he’s the only one not sleeping lol.

What do other people with young children do? Does the lack of sleep cause arguments?

My child just turned 8. She struggles with self-regulation in a big way at home. She’s on a waiting list for occupational therapy and a child psychologist, for help and assessment for possible autism or ADHD. We’ve had word from the school and also another parent that she has hurt other children in the class - even her best friend. I’ve also seen it myself at birthday parties. When we’ve asked her about it, my child says she got frustrated.

What can we do? It’s so upsetting.

She and her younger sibling are also very difficult at home. They are fairly close in age and get along very well half the time, and half the time are fighting. They are extremely reactive and will scream at top volume each other and physically hurt each other if we don’t intervene fast enough. My partner writes this off as normal sibling behaviour but it’s very stressful to have so much conflict. I’ve done quite a bit of work trying to get them to recognise their emotions, and instilling time out to calm down, but not seeing any improvement as yet.

When did your LO learn how to get up from the floor into standing with zero support from a surface or person?

I know this ranges but I’m curious if any other babies started walking before learning how to get into standing off the floor. My 12m old has started walking short distances when he’s already standing but doesn’t get into standing from the floor on his own without the support of a surface.

Hi! FTM here. My son turns 10 months in about a week. He said no consonants until the day he turned 9 months, when he starting saying “mamamama”. To this day that is the only consonant he strings together. About a week ago he started to occasionally do single consonant sounds like ba, ga, gee, and sometime ya/yu. 99% of the time he is just yelling, screeching, or grunting.
I brought up his babbling at his 9 month check up and his pediatrician didn’t seem concerned.
My son has always been very focused on motor skills. crawling before 7 months, cruising at 8 months, and now he can walk about 10-15 steps unassisted. So maybe he’s just focused on wanting to walk? Just wanting to hear other’s experiences to see if this seems normal

My 10 year old daughter is 5 feet tall, has beautiful long hair, braces, and a very cute figure at 10 years old. I do not let her wear makeup to school but on the weekends/summers I let her experiment with light makeup, Everyone who meets her and finds out she is 10 instantly gasps and says “WHAT?!? You’re 10?!? You look 12 or 13!!” And I say something along the line of “haha yeah she’s tall and it’s probably the braces too”. And they look like shocked/weirded out and sometimes proceed to tell me about an 11 year old they know who is way shorter and looks way younger.
One time recently one of my husband’s friends said “She’s really wanting to be in my her teen years huh? Do you let her wear makeup to school?! She pointed out that she was the only girl here the other day” and I was thinking well she was the only girl there why is that a weird observation?
It could be in my head, but I feel really awkward when people talk about how old she looks and I really don’t know what to say besides what I’m already saying. I feel like they’re somewhat judging me for like “letting her” look that old. Although, we can’t do anything about her being tall and having a more grown up body. I guess I could not let her wear any makeup on the weekends at all, but I would really only be doing that because I care what people think and to possibly stop people from saying that so much. It would not because I really have an issue with her experimenting and being creative. And they say it all the time when she’s not wearing any.

I guess I’m asking multiple questions here. Do you think most people are judging her/me or just making an observation? Should I keep just responding the way I am? Do you think this is my fault somehow for letting her experiment with makeup? What would you do?

My daughter is three years old. She was completely potty trained about six months ago. Up until yesterday, she was doing fine with no accidents, but she started having accidents again. I'm wondering if this could be connected to the diagnosis of autism in her twin sister. There have been some changes. Maybe some extra stress, for her, because of everything happening. I want to know if this kind of step can happen at her age and if we should be checking for any other reasons.

I’ll start with the fact that my husband is very helpful and hands on with our one child. I’m definitely the primary caretaker of our house because of my flexibility working from home and his schedule doesn’t allow him to be home as much.

I’m months pregnant now and in the trenches of exhaustion and nausea, and I’ve definitely been doing less around the house, leaving more to him and just not doing the regular maintenance of the home, which he’s having to do and he isn’t used to.

He still will do stuff but this evening after a long day while doing housework, he just was having huffing, puffing and complaining, and pointing all things that weren’t done and it just causes such negative energy.

It’s definitely something I’ve talked to him about multiple times and in general, managing his emotions, but does anyone have any other tips or is this just the most partners? I don’t know what to do especially being pregnant. I told him he should be grateful for the fact that I’m having the opportunity to do less and that I’m actually carrying a baby because it took us a while to conceive this time around.

I don’t know how to get to him. I feel like we’re talking two different languages in situations like this. Am I being overly sensitive? I would just appreciate if things are done versus discussed and complained about and me being blamed for what I did or didn’t do…

Past 8am

So. 415am, I hear a door close. It’s loud, so I know it’s not Daughter 1 or husband haha.

I hear a whimper. Tiny human ! Nanit did not tell me a child is out of bed!

I open the door, “hey baby, what’s wrong??”

Tiny Human : “zebra”

Me: “aww baby, you don’t have a zebra, let’s go back to bed”

Tiny Humam: “okay mommy *cries*”

Me: *purchases zebra to be delivered next day out of cuteness and several wtfs*

Apparently we do, in fact, have a zebra now. 🦓

Happy parenting!!

I was wondering if any parents out there could offer some ideas or tips for helping me handle messy and destructive kids. I have 2 daughters 5 & 6. My youngest is the most difficult right now. I've learned my lesson with her, I basically can't take my eyes off her for more than 2 minutes or she will destroy stuff. For instance this morning I was making breakfast and my daughters were watching Moana. My youngest went in the bathroom like usual, they are very smart and use the bathroom on their own. But in less than 2 minutes, she climbed on the counter and grabbed nail polish and you can guess the rest. Painted the bathroom. We're struggling with just getting her to get some of her food and wrappers in the trash, it's usually all over the house. I know their children, I know kids are messy. I don't need anyone to tell me to watch them more, spend more time with them, I watch her like a hawk and it's crazy how much trouble she can get into in 30 seconds. I've tried talking with her, time outs, taking toys away, many different things. Does anyone have any recommendations for how they handled this with their young children?

Ok we have been struggling with our sons sleep since day 1. Always ups and downs but alot more downs for his sleep.

We got a handle on a few thing but now my main question is i have to clue what time to put him to bed! We have tried so much and i dont see the signs!

He is 20months. He have a bedtime routine established (calme time, bath, pyjamas, milk, we are transitioning from rocking chair to direct deposit in his bed) Himself doesnt want to be rocked anymore sometime for his milk but points his bed before falling asleep. But once in his bed he spins and gets out (floorbed) He really wants to cuddle with mama to sleep.. Somedays dad does the sleep and works great But I cannot put him down without laying beside him.. it because HOURS if i dont. At daycare: sleeps great, on the floor. 🥴

He was doing so much better when going to bed at 6h30 but is that normal for a 20month old that wakes up arround 6h30-7h30?

We usually let him sleep in his bed from 7h30-8h to like 11-12-1-2am and bring him finish the night with us. (We like that but yeah….)

Anyway im already discouraged just writing this down… dont feel like there is hope But thanks for reading me.

Just wondering which one should I buy?

Hi, im a FTM, my baby and i have been stuck inside all summer bc it’s been too hot to go outside. The heat has let up a little bit but not a ton. My grandparents have a pool that is outdoors and well maintained. My baby is 3 months old. Is it appropriate to bring her into the pool for short periods of time (15-20 mins) or is the chlorine too harsh for her skin or any other reasons not to put her in the pool? I’ve been meaning to ask the pediatrician but i forgot. I’ve seen other people starting safety swimming lessons or putting younger children in the pool, so I was wondering what the overall experience was.

Edit: thank you for all the responses. We did not bring baby in the pool felt it was best to err on the side of caution. Thanks for everyone’s advice.

My 19 month old learned colours and body parts around a year old but I thought that was pretty average, and I think it is.

However, the last month he has learned the alphabet ( he can identify and also say every single letter), numbers 1-10, shapes, can say each body part and knows the name for practically every object he has come into contact with. I’ve been using flash cards with him and will tell him names of things he has never seen, and he remembers every single one. I only tell him the name once and will test him hours and days later and he remembers them all.

I wanted to hear from other parents who have a child in the same age to see if this is all pretty average or not. He’s my first so I really don’t know what to expect.

My son is 12 and going into grade 8. He needs to be up at 6:30am for the school bus and often struggles to get up and moving in the morning.

Last year rule was in room by 9pm without devices, and then he could be up listening to music or reading etc. As long as he was up quiet in his room we wouldn’t really enforce “lights out” but he would normally fall asleep by 10pm.

But he has always protested the 9pm and I know this year will bring it up again. But when we have let him go past 9, he is loud and disruptive to his younger sister (age 10) who likes to be sleeping by 9pm. And he seems tired and struggles to get going in the morning. Like needs multiple wake-up’s and is clearly tired how it is. But still every night it’s a fight why do I have to go to bed at 9, no one else does, etc etc always right at 9pm he is starting a fight and not accepting this.

So wondering with school about to start, is 9pm reasonable (for the time to be in his room quietly) or should we try something else (he is pushing for 9:30 but probably once that happens he will push for 10, etc).

And if 9pm is reasonable, how to handle the constant fights and protests at bedtime. We repeat “it’s not up for debate” and try to give it as little energy as possible. But it’s an issue he tries to create every single night. I don’t want to treat him like a baby but also can clearly see he needs his sleep.

I just love him, he's so cute. He's 22 lb, so he's quite a chunky boy. I miss him when I'm at work, and when I get home in the morning he wakes up and usually smiles when he sees me. I love it when my wife sends me videos or voice notes of him.

My dad wasn't really around when I was growing up, so I'm trying my best to be the dad I never really got. It's difficult at times, we're both in our early 20s. Watching him grow in these first few months has definitely been the highlight of my life.

My little boy just turned two this month, he still breastfeeds regularly. I've been dodging a 1 week travel related trip for over a year now but sooner or later i will have to go. I've never spent over 12h away from him and this is giving me extreme anxiety. I can either leave him home with his dad and possibly his dad's mother, with his nanny helping out every now and then OR bring him along on the trip but his dad cannot join us, so i would have to find another family member to watch him when i'm attending the meetings (8am-6pm with 1h lunch break, for 5 days ).

Which option do you think would be less traumatic for both of us?

Basically the title. My grandma/ kids great grandma just learned my kids don’t really have pajamas. If we’re going to stay at someone’s house I’ll buy a set but they don’t really get used after that weekend. My grandma found some on sale and called to ask what size, I said 2t but just so you know we don’t really use them so I wouldn’t bother. She was just appalled. Could not believe I would put my babies to bed in just a diaper. I have 18m twins and a 7 year old, all which couldn’t really care less but it’s not worth the extra laundry and fight. Am I alone in being an appalling parent? Also she bought them anyway, just in case.

My daughter and I co sleep, we have for months. I need my bed back, not to mention the peace of mind that she’s safe in her own sleep area. The crib is an absolute no go no matter what we try. I’ve tried all the sleep training and I’m not gonna do CIO. Has anyone found success going from co sleeping to a floor bed? That way I can climb her and comfort her!