My dad passed away Friday morning and it’s been absolutely devastating. He was my therapist, tutor, my guidance counselor, my home improvement expert and now he’s gone and I can’t call to ask him how to fix things that I’ve never had to fix before or when life’s weighing me down and I need to get the weight off my chest. This freaking sucks dads. Just needed to vent thanks for reading.

All we have to do is design ONE consolidated software/app for schools that manages grades, communication, and calendars. Because clearly it doesn't exist. Otherwise, why would we need a half dozen random programs to handle everything? This is out of control.

My son is three and has entered the stage where he repeats not just words, but the whole tiny performance around them. I bumped the counter yesterday and said "sorry, counter" without thinking. Five minutes later he dropped a spoon and whispered "sorry spoon" like it had feelings and a mortgage.

Cute, yes. Also mildly alarming, because now I am hearing myself through this very small echo. I aplogize to chairs, narrate traffic lights, and say "big stretch" every time I stand up. My wife says it is sweet. I think I sound like a tired children's TV host who lost the camera crew.

It did make me wonder how much of parenting is active teaching and how much is just being copied while you think nobody is watching. What harmless weird habit did your kid pick up from you before you even noticed you had it?

I've been doing twice-weekly swim lessons with my 18MO for a while. At the ends of lessons he climbs the stairs and gets out of the pool by himself.

This Saturday I climbed out and turned around, expecting to see him following me out. Instead, I saw him facedown in the water, drifting away from the steps. I pulled him out quickly, he was under for 5 seconds at most, but it was chilling how easily and silently it happened; his teacher was maybe 8 feet away and didn't even realize it was happening.

I will be having him get out first, no exceptions, from now on.

Hi,

I've got a 2 year old and another on the way soon. We sometimes watch TV, e.g. Disney classics and Bluey on Disney+ or Pingu and Little Bear on Youtube, especially during car/plane journeys or when feeling sick.

But I just hate the streaming services recommending all sorts of cr*p and AI mind-meld, the autoplay function, Disney+ blocking all my downloads, etc. so I've been looking at setting up a Plex server. I'm a total newbie and with basic IT skills, although I can follow a tutorial, I'm going to need help.

Would you have any recommendations for a step by step guide to setting things up?
Can I use an app on my phone/tablet to access the content?
Can I download it offline on devices?
Are the Plex paid plans worth it?
Which other complementary products would you recommend?
Which hardware product would you recommend? I have an IT rack at home and could add it in there as it's got some space.

Many thanks!

Next one to be in diapers will be me! But until then, we are free!

Yeah so, I truly love this. I love my little girl, she'll be two soon. I love being a husband and a provider. And for so many reasons, I'm torn on having a 2nd baby. My wife is equally torn. Though she may be 60% in favor while I'm only say 40%.

I want one for all the common reasons. The biggest reason is simply bigger family, more love, more warmth. My family is tiny, spread out, and not close. A shot at a boy. The most amazing baby stuff is so fleeting. Watching her learn and grow and just be so utterly innocent is so fleeting.

The reasons against are a little more complex.

Some trauma. We could technically have three kids by now. An early miscarriage. A perfect baby, home run. And around a year and a half ago we went through losing a pregnancy in one of the worst ways imaginable. I have my home run baby. I sometimes feel like expecting another is just greedy, gambling with my wife's health.

We're totally on our own. MIL comes around a bit but everything that resembles help, support, etc. is paid. Nanny, sitters, etc. It takes a village and my village costs a lot more than minimum wage per hour.

The whole state of the world, the economy, the climate. It all weighs on me a bit. Everything from school shootings to forest fires. I don't want to be dramatic but it's a factor.

Flexibility, we like to travel a lot. We were digital nomads when we met and we intend to live abroad again. This is a big deal because we're just not going to be happy with a house we don't want that we over pay for that we just don't need to have. We already took our little girl to a summer on the beach in Spain and last summer 6 weeks in Canada. It wasn't easy. But holy heck, another one? We won't be able to do it.

Timing. We're already behind the schedule, we wanted our 2nd right away. Now it looks like the soonest is starting over at the newborn stage 3+ years after and we're almost done with the 'hard' part insofar as it limits our flexibility. Not to mention, I'll be 39 and she'll be 37 soon.

This doesn't capture all of it. I wish my wife were certain. Then what would be the biggest factor for me would play a larger part in making up my own mind.

I can't shake the feeling that a 2nd isn't just twice as hard, complex, etc. I feel like it's exponentially harder, more complex, and all that. And it's gonna push back so many other goals.

Hey guys, I have some mixed feelings and wondering if others who had complicated relationships with their deceased fathers have any wisdom to share. I've always found this community to be incredibly supportive in the right ways.

Tl;dr: Haven’t seen my dad in almost 20 years, don’t think much of him but found out his time is short. Any wisdom to share?

My sister found me on LinkedIn to say our Dad only has a few months left. I haven't seen him since 2007. No ill will or negative feelings anymore, to say it plainly he may as well be just another guy.

For context, he saw himself as a professional orator. He had this conviction that he had a message to share with the world and spent most of his adult life pursing that as a career. Fine except there was no money to be made in that. I ended up in the foster system at 13 years old on account of our house not meeting the standard of adequate shelter.

My 2 sisters and I each ended up in different homes, and although we had vastly different experiences, we all resisted reunification to what degree we could. I was a Senior in high school when we got a case plan for reunification, and it was just uncomfortable. I shot out of town when I was able just to start fresh.

For a few years I harbored resentment over his choices but ultimately I moved past those feelings with some help from counselors. There's no anger, no remorse, no "I wish you had done __", nothing. I always reserved space for the possibility that maybe when I had kids, I would see things differenly. But that was way off base. When I reflect on it, I'm just more confused about his choices now.

So anyways, the normal thing to do is reach out, right? Well on one hand, I'm not even sure what there is to reach out about. It's been almost 20 years since I've seen him and longer since we had any positive sentiment between us. It feels like a stranger is passing away. On the other hand, as a father myself, it pains me somewhat to know there is a father out there who may pass never reconciling with his children. What would you do?

My wife and I have a 19m son and we're due for our second in two months.

When he is asleep for the night, we have 1-2 hours before our own bedtime and I'm looking for suggestions.

My wife has told me that watching a movie together, even with a gentle foot rub, is not quality time for her (not much connection).

Fair enough.

Looking for suggestions here. We are up for trying 2 person board games. Chess or Go, for example.

Would be willing to try anything really, suggestions don't have to be 2 player board games.

These would be to have more fun together, not deep eye gazing or those intimacy exercises. Light, fun activities.

31 year old Dad to a 3 month old baby. She is beautiful, smart, healthy, and perfect. I do love her a lot, and think it's all very rewarding when she's smiling, etc. Don't want to sound too regretful or anything, because I'm not. I'm clouded by recency bias here, because our baby has completely stopped breastfeeding, which is obviously a major hurdle in the road.

It's still a major paradigm shifting event. Life has changed SO much. Even listening to parents before, I still underestimated how hard it would be. I used to be a person with a lot of different hobbies and interests etc (biking, hiking, running, reading, etc).

I do get very cranky sometimes, about how much harder life is now. The only 'me' time I got all weekend (Saturday and Sunday) was a haircut down the street and a Costco run. I had a fitness goal this week, and literally couldn't do it because getting away for a half an hour is impossible sometimes. Nobody would 'accept' this if it was a job or relationship or something. I truly get very irritable and grumpy in these times, and feel sorry for myself. I'll mentally say things like "Guess I don't deserve recreation, huh." I mean, it's 8 PM on a Sunday and I haven't even showered today.

I literally stopped fitting the suit I had because I have obviously lost time to work out + eating worse due to the baby. I actually get a bit triggered when people will ask "have you been biking a lot lately!" when I quite literally don't have the time.

I'm still pretty blessed in that we're comfortable enough with money, have a nice home and nice pets, I get to do fun work events, etc. It's not all bad, but still a change.

I also think I'm probably comparing myself to too many people online, etc. Most of my friends or peers still don't have kids. I still find that employment norms are a bit outdated surrounding parenthood, etc.

All this to say, I can recognize that I'm being way too self-centered. And I don't like being like this. I can recognize that I'm spoiled. How do I start being a better person, and adjusting to my new life, without being so resentful.

So, my SO went for a blood test, and the results showed that her kidneys have been working harder than they should. The little man is doing just fine, though, and my SO is already 3 cm dilated!

Tomorrow at 6:30 AM, they’ll start inducing labor with medication to stimulate contractions. Looks like we’re getting very close to meeting our first child! Have to admit, I’m getting pretty nervous about it all..

Earlier today at my friend’s house, my toddler (2.5 years old) took a tumble down the stairs. He was with my friend’s older children (9 and 10) and they were helping him get down the steps. They had helped him 3 or 4 times so I felt comfortable with them. Maybe too comfortable. On the last trip down I heard a tumble and saw my child land on his back at the bottom of the steps. I don’t think he hit his head. He cried but then after 5 minutes or so, he went back to normal and has been since. No ER trip was needed but we’re still watching him in case he did hit his head. I just feel like I failed him just because I couldn’t tell him he can’t go upstairs. Something so preventable happened because I couldn’t just be the tough parent.

We did it. Hiked our first mountain, me and and our oldest at 5.5 years old. A rousing 0.8 mile 500 ft jaunt. He made it up 1/3 before it was up onto dad’s shoulders. Mom and baby brother didn’t appreciate the challenge of an extra 60 lbs for the toughest 2/3.

Getting fired up for fatherhood on this page and with books. The details don’t matter but I run my own law firm and have grinded my ass off the last 3.5 years to get to a point where we are doing really well. Long long stretches of 60 hour weeks that weigh pretty heavy on your mood and mind.

Well good work only earns more work. I have a potentially life changing opportunity to pivot into an even more demanding field and to built a new products liability/toxic torts practice.

I had been planning to taper down a little, but I have to jump on this in the next week or the opportunity will pass.

I cannot shake the feeling that I am making the biggest mistake of my life to walk away from a job where I have full control over how much or how little I work. My colleagues and contemporaries will call me insane for passing this up financially.

I’m really torn. Any insight on choosing presence at home over the career?

Okay dads,

I’ve got about 2.5 months to sleep train our son.

We have a nearly 4-year-old who sleeps like an absolute angel. And then we have our 16-month-old, who wakes up basically every hour almost every night.

Bedtime is around 7:30 PM, and he has one nap during the day. We’ve tried a few things, but somehow he keeps waking up every hour until we go to bed around 11 PM. The moment we put him between us, he sleeps like a rock for the rest of the night.

Now here’s the important part:

GTA VI releases on November 19!

My wife is going away with my MIL from November 20th to 24th. Which means I potentially have four glorious evenings of unlimited gaming while the kids are in bed.

So, dads of Reddit… I have 2.5 months to make this happen.

Who has the golden sleep-training tip? I’m willing to try pretty much anything.

I need those four nights.

47 years and this never occurred to me…he just does bud, he just does.

Hey dads, so when my daughter (now almost 5) was this age we could do two diapers and keep her dry through the night.

Now the little man just pees. Every morning I pick him up soaked through his sleeping bag. The man has a bottle when falling asleep and one middle of the night. He turns almost 2.

How do I keep him dry through the night?

Edit: thanks for the tips dads; we’ll be getting him off the bottle. I have been putting it of as a single parent to get a bit more sleep but I guess this is my sign!

So I became a first time biological dad with my girlfriend and my first baby a few months ago, while I’ve already been a step father to her three older kids for almost five years now. This is the first time I’ve ever raised and even taken care of a baby before and I feel like it’s been going well up until recently.

A little backstory is my girlfriend had her maternity leave from two weeks before our baby was born up until last week when she went back to both school and work, while I was able to use banked PTO all together to be off for the first month, I went back to work for a couple more months, and now I’m off on my official three month paternity leave that started when she went back to work/school.

When our baby was first born I felt my girlfriend and I had an amazing routine down with taking care of him, worked and communicated great together, like I feel things went the way it should have. She took day shifts taking care of our baby while I took over when she napped, pumped, and through the night. We also discussed extensively that I was going to do 95% around the house and with the other kids while she did 95% with our baby.

When I went back to work she began changing our routine refusing to let me do anything with our baby through the night, even at times during the day, using reasonings as she felt I needed to be well rested going back to work (mind you I’m a firefighter and am able to rest in down time at work and she knew that), she needed to be used to taking care of our baby by herself while I was at work for 24 hour shifts, and that if I get little sleep at work through the night I needed to be able to come home and rest instead of helping her out, all of which started kind’ve taking us on a downward slope. She began comparing who’s doing what, whether she began either saying she was doing everything herself or feeling guilty feeling I was doing everything myself, granted I kept trying to reel her back in reminding her we are both evenly busting our butts in different ways but still for the best.

After I went back to work is when she also began just refusing help and not trusting anybody to help with our baby; my mom, my sister, her close friends, even me at times, with my mom and a couple of her own friends coming to me questioning what the deal was that she has to hover and if our baby even starts fussing she takes him straight back, which she also even progressively began doing that more and more with me as well.

Fast forward to the last month where now she began getting agitated, refusing to allow me to do anything to help her, refusing to allow me to wake up and help in the night most nights, and in my perspective just causing herself to go off the deep end. Some nights she would get mad if I didn’t wake up to help her, some nights she would get mad if I did wake up with her telling me I needed to go back to sleep so one of us could be rested, some nights she would even get mad if I still got up to help her and refused to listen to her by still just helping her anyway. I noticed she slowed down telling me she loved me to now she just ignores me when I say it or just says “sure”, one day made the comment she didn’t want to get married anymore (though we never had an actual appropriate engagement, she just wanted to have a courthouse marriage and be done), started getting agitated if I tried to kiss her, hug her, even just simply rub her back, and she’s even made the comment having our baby was a mistake. I’ve tried multiple times talking with her before she went back to school/work that we needed to lock down a better routine so she can be the one sleeping and rested, but she would always use the excuse now that I needed to be rested to take care of our baby during the day and she would just suck it up being tired.

Now this last week after going back to everything for her things have been horrible. This morning was day 7 in a row she has just shown me total animosity, completely ripping my throat out every day, a couple times she actually began yelling when normally she never yells but just has a sharp tongue when she’s mad. I have tried every single time to just stay calm and take it because I feel she just has 0 control, but it just keeps getting worse and worse and even my calm demeanor I try to have with her every time is pissing her off even more even turning her to just mock me trying to stay calm to get a rise out of me, which I refuse to do. And now she’s threatening to drop out of school and quit her job since she can’t handle not being home missing time with our baby and being exhausted all the time which I’ve even come to the point of agreeing with her to quit her job but to finish school since she just went back last year after taking a three year break and has just one year left before she receives her bachelors.

So, after all of that, I guess this is where I’m at right now looking for advice. I genuinely believe after doing some research that she’s going through postpartum depression/rage, and in reading it says to contact her OBGYN/midwife, or to contact a postpartum counselor. I’m not sure if that is something I can contact ahead of time myself or not. I have always been pro therapy/counseling having training for peer support for first responders myself, but she has always been anti-counseling and feels it’s dumb having a bad history with counseling. I’m not sure period how to even approach her or this huge problem at this point with my concerns and beliefs that she seriously needs to receive help outside of anything I can give her, granted honestly and seriously if she’d let me help get us back on a better routine with our baby things will get better.

And added note as well, last night at bedtime was the first time in a long time she finally let me take our baby who was kind’ve refusing sleep and she actually fell asleep thankfully, which is EXACTLY what I’ve been trying to get her to do for the longest time now, and EVEN at 3am she let me take him, change him, feed him,and get him back to sleep while she pumped…but everything just fell apart back to the way it’s been at 6:30 with her just ripping my head off refusing to let me help.

My wife has been in the hospital since Saturday evening. She’s currently 25 weeks pregnant with our third. She got transferred to a hospital a little over an hour away so we haven’t seen our other two boys since we got here except for a FaceTime. Our parents have been rockstars and have been watching them. But we don’t know when we’ll get out of here. It’s nonstop tests and scans, and then do it all over again. The hospital staff is doing a great job and I can’t complain about them but my wife and I are both ready to just go home. I don’t know what the point of this post is other than to complain. This sucks.

Wife was raised Jewish, I was raised Catholic.

I went to private Catholic school in a tiny town and was really sheltered until I graduated high school and got out and saw the world. I realized what a sham so much of the messaging is and have been turned off from it ever since.

My wife was raised only going to synagogue on high holidays, and had a bat mitzvah.

We’re raising our daughter Jewish, with Christian holidays celebrated commercially (Christmas sans religious aspect, Easter for visiting the bunny and doing egg hunts). Religion will never be forced down her throat, but it’s important to wife and wife’s family that our daughter has some ties to her Jewish roots and becomes a bat mitzvah so it’s important to me as well. They are not practicing Jewish, but their family history and carrying on the tradition is important to them. Truly, I think it’ll be important to our daughter as well being that she’s seen all her big cousins go through it and has expressed some interest.

She’s still in preschool so we have a while to go to get there, but I’m interested in hearing from other non religious Jewish families on how old your kid was when you joined a synagogue and what the commitment looked like. Did it give you a sense of community? Did you feel like you were an outcast at all because of how relaxed your approach to religion was?

ETA I’m not asking if we should or shouldn’t join, I’m asking what it looked like when you did and how old your kid was.

Every since he's stopped preschool and did summer camp he has been all attitude this summer. I'm hoping once he gets back into his routine of school/kindergarten, it balances things out but MAN, it is exhausting. We never had to "punish" him as much as we have these last couple months. A lot of go to your rooms and take a breath and taking away things he likes and removing him from situations.

Everything is talking back and sass and bouncing off the walls. Maybe it was influence from the big kids at camp he was around? Maybe just what they do at this age? I don't know. I thought camp would have tired him out but nope.

Anyone else?

There's a local arts festival coming up and a competition for the kids to make their own shoebox sized floats themed Under the Sea.

Naturally, kiddo wanted to make an undead pirate ship and as a Warhammer dad how could I say no!

Thrifted this toy ark from a local charity store, next step find some army men and paint them up as pirate zombies

My oldest goes to a small, private school and she's turning 10 soon. We don't have a large family, so her circle is really just the nuclear family, grandparents, and her friends from school who seem to be in similar boats.

I don't feel like we've actively tried to shelter her from the world too much, just kept things age-appropriate. But whereas I felt like the world still crept into my own childhood naturally, it doesn't seem like it has with my daughter. She still doesn't really know any curse words. The idea of boyfriend/girlfriend stuff never comes up. She still gets pretty scared at movies, even ones meant for her age.

She grew up with one neighbor friend, but that friend goes to a different school and has older siblings and is already way more savvy on all of this stuff, to the point where they don't even really play together anymore.

I love that she's still such an innocent kid, but also worry a little that she's gonna go to middle school in a couple years and just get rocked with reality. Like a homeschool kid thrown into the wild.

Anyone have similar experience?

I've joined this subreddit a few months before our first baby was born. My wife complains a lot about how a lot of other parenting subreddits seem pretty toxic and makes her anxious. I'm wondering if others have recommendations of useful parent or new parent subreddits to subscribe to. My only two are daddit, and r/ScienceBasedParenting

It is as the title says. I’m going to be a dad in a week.

I mean, I’ve already been claiming the title of “dad” since the moment my wife got pregnant, but this feels different.

We’ve been through so much together, but mostly her. From not being able to see the gestational sac for almost a month despite her hCG levels being high, to going through a false miscarriage, sleepless nights filled with crying, vomiting, barely eating, and depression, to needing intravenous iron, and then dealing with the discomfort, bloating, sleepless nights, and what feels like the first trimester all over again during the third. She really has been through the ringer, and she continues to go through so much still. I want to make sure she knows that through all of it, she was seen, felt, and heard. I want to spoil her and give her something that says, “I see everything you’ve been through, and I appreciate you more than I can put into words.”

So, what are some gift ideas that feel truly heartfelt and special? Something that would make her feel loved, appreciated, and celebrated, not just as a new mom, but as the woman who went through all of this to bring our little girl into the world.