Story time. Came home from daycare pickup to find the internet is out. While wearing my newborn, I am troubleshooting the router with my toddler (22 months old) who likes to help! (Aka follow me around). After I have no luck I call Frontier who has me at one point go outside to check on our box.

We go outside. I live in a Florida and there are bugs and frogs everywhere. My toddler says frog (it sounds like fuck) and points out the ones she see on the wall. Meanwhile, I am trying to find out what buttons to push and what is lit up while also defending my newborn, toddler, and myself from mosquitos. My toddler starts playing with a different box, takes the thing off, and I see it looks like something fell out. She screams bloody murder. I apologize profusely to the rep and try to calm my toddler who is screaming “fuck” (aka frog) as loud as she can. I assure her, yes, that’s a frog, it can’t hurt her, etc. I swat a mosquito, and she is still crying. Anyways, the rep says they are going to video chat me to see the box, and we hang up, and the video call never comes. At this point, I decide my husband will be off work in like 2 hours and he can deal with it then.

Meanwhile, my toddler is STILL crying, so we go inside and she is ready to eat. Sounds great! We eat dinner and I feed the baby and all that fun stuff. She is calm and all is right in the world. She finished dinner, I put the newborn on his lounger, I go to use the bathroom, and I notice she is grabbing at her pants, and I am like, “do you have to go potty?” She she says “yeah”. So I finish going potty and we hurry to her bathroom with her potty on it. I go to pull off her pants and she SCREAMS bloody murder and I scream as a LITERAL TREE FROG HOPS OUT. I can only assume it jumped on her earlier and crawled up? Then I start dying of laughter while my poor toddler screams and cries (I would too) and I think I am a bad mother because she was trying to tell me earlier that was a frog… in her pants.

Finally, I calm her down, we capture the frog who was chilling on the bathroom wall, I start her bath. She will not go in the bathroom (or put her pants on) because of the frog. We release the frog together, assure her that “the frog is outside, not in her pants” and continue on.

This was not on my bingo card. I think she is traumatized. She keeps assuring herself “no frog in pants” and crying a little and takes everything in me to not laugh. Homegirl had a frog in her pants, ate dinner, and walked around for almost an hour before it hopped out. Will this be the start of a new phobia? Will she be able to go into the bathroom and not be scared of a frog in her pants? Should I check for frogs in pants after playing outside now? No parenting book prepared me for this.

We took my son out of his crib a few months back and it’s been hell since then. He’s on a floor bed in his room and it’s just constantly leaving his bed. It’s a minimum of two to three times a night with us walking him back. His bedtime is around 815 but on school days he doesn’t fall asleep till later because his preschool makes them nap. Weekend or weekday though he gets out of his bed multiple times at night. Is this just our reality now? I absolutely hate this phase of parenting. I am so tired! Any tips to get him to stay? are sleep consultants a thing for toddlers??

Out running errands with the kiddo today. She’s two and a half years old. We were on our last thing- early voting in the election- and we had parked and were walking through the parking lot to the facility.

Lots of people walking in and out. She commented that there were a lot of people, and then said something else, and what I heard was, “I want to kill them.”

And I said, “I’m sorry, what?”

What sounds like, “I want to kill them.”

“Kiddo… what are you… what did you… what?”

And then, very distinctly, “I want to COUNT them, daddy.”

And that was the greatest sense of relief I’ve ever felt in my life.

We have been enjoying watching Great British Baking show with our toddler in the evenings. Can yall think of other shows that are appropriate for toddlers but the target audience is adults?

My almost fully old is so extrovert she walks into shopping area areas like Bunnings (home depo) and waves to people.

People walk past my house and she greets everyone.

She’s so extroverted

I’m like 😅
Love it because she is confident but I’m still learning to cope with the conversations that come wit it

My 4 year old dropped naps at 3. Over the last year the bedtime routine has gotten more and more drug out. She refuses to settle at the usual time in her routine. She’ll come out of her room multiple times after and just keep coming out until she’s tired herself out. We don’t do screens at night and have a very consistent songs/books routine. The earliest sleep is 9pm and now it’s more like 9:30 or 10. We haven’t bothered starting the routine until 8 because if we start earlier it just lasts longer and we end up at the same place. What are we doing wrong? She used to consistently fall asleep around 7:30, 8 at the latest. Help!!

The moment I sit down, she comes towards me and starts to climb me. She grabs onto my clothes and uses her feet to climb the chair and my legs. Even if I sit down in a different room, it's like she has a sensor or something... Oh mom sat down, better go and climb her!

Sometimes I just need to not be touched, so I have to stand. Other times, I need to do something that doesn't involve her... That's not possible, so there I am, trying to write something down while she's trying to climb me and then climb onto the table. And then, there are things that are just dangerous for her to be involved in. I had to hand sew something today, and I had to do it standing up because she obviously cannot come close to a needle or pins.

My legs hurt from all the standing, all day. And she's so young (16 mo), she just wants to be with me, I find it very hard to ignore her. She's also very strong and very persistent, so when she wants something, she goes for it with all her might. Which is great, she's determined and that's awesome, but sometimes I need to sit down without being used as a climbing wall.

My little girl has decided she hates diaper changes. She is on stool softeners at the moment since she’s been constipated so has pretty loose and messy poops at least 1-2x a day.

Once in a blue moon she’ll calmly flip through a baby magazine (Highlights) while I change her diaper, but most of the time now she screams and flails and tries to crawl away, with a poopy butt and all.

I’ve started putting Ms Rachel on my phone while I change her diaper and she stays perfectly still. I can easily clean up all the poop and apply cream and a new diaper. Then the new challenge is turning Ms Rachel off without screaming. Not sure what to do about that part aside from distraction.

Anyone else leaning on Ms Rachel to prevent a poop covered toddler from running wild?

My second child (17m) was born on the 50th percentile of height. After starting solids, his height keeps falling down until now he’s on the 6th percentile 🫠

We experienced something similar with our first child who’s now still on the 10th percentile at almosf 8 years old.

We just went to the dietitian who gave some advice regarding feeding, and I’m super stressed out, so I think I’m just wondering whether you have success stories of going back to higher percentile of weight (not necessarily have to be back to initial height, but at least going back up a bit?) - and if you can share any tips?

Thank you so much!

My 19 month old’s vocabulary has exploded in the last couple weeks and is excitedly pointing at things that he can now say. Earlier today, he was showing me all the animals he now knows, and proudly exclaimed c*ck for peacock 🦚

What other funny words have your little ones pointed out?

My eyes are bawling as I type this, so please be gentle. 🥺
I’m a first-time mom to a beautiful 26-month-old son (turning 27 months soon), possibly on the spectrum and we’ve only recently started navigating this journey.

Over the past few days, he’s been having multiple, terrible meltdowns that we weren’t expecting. He’s not talking yet and has zero words, and we’ve been doing speech therapy for two months now. Because he can’t communicate verbally, we often don’t know what he wants or whether something is hurting him.

He wasn’t like this before. His tantrums and meltdowns were mostly predictable. He would usually cry when he was hungry, sleepy, or had a wet diaper, and he was generally easy to console. But lately, things have been so different. He’s become very aggressive during his meltdowns, pulling hair, scratching, and biting while crying uncontrollably. He will also induce self-vomiting for I don’t know the reason is. And when he cries, when I say loud, I mean you can hear us all the way down the hallway of our apartment building. I’m genuinely worried that our neighbors might report us or even complain to management about us.

I’m trying so hard to be patient and understand him, but I’m honestly reaching my breaking point. I do most of the parenting on my own because his dad works 14–15 hours a day. We have no village and no family nearby to help us. By the time his dad gets home, we’re both already exhausted. What’s also difficult is that our son’s meltdowns seem to get worse when his dad is around or shortly after he gets home. His dad is tired from working all day, and I’m tired from taking care of our son all day. We end up fighting because we’re both overwhelmed and have nothing left to give. Our son is now controlling the entire household.

For seasoned parents who have been through this or are going through something similar, what helped you manage your toddler’s sudden, intense meltdowns? How did you cope emotionally, especially when you had little to no support? I’m crying as I write this because I feel so overwhelmed and alone. I just want to catch my breath, have a moment to myself, and feel like I can handle this. Right now, I honestly don’t know how.

My son is 25 months old and just an absolute menace in the evenings. We get home from daycare around 5.45pm, and the aim (the ever-fading hope) is to have him in bed and asleep by 7.30pm, 8pm LATEST. Yet somehow, he has boundless energy, takes forever to eat his dinner, resists getting into the bath, resists getting out of the bath, gets the naked post-bath zoomies and runs around like a crazy person, refuses to put on pajamas and full body resists/pulls them off, hates brushing his teeth and clenches his teeth down, wants to read a bazillion books, and then cries like a banshee when we put him down in his crib (which we can't let go on forever, because the downstairs neighbors are not the friendliest, and have complained before). It's exhausting and leaves us with basically no time for ourselves. We've tried raising our voices/being very firm/taking away toys, and he's just not bothered by it or resists harder. We've had a small amount of success recently around offering stickers for toothbrushing, but honestly...this boy is so strong willed. Like. it's 9.18pm EST and this kid is still awake. HELP.

ETA: this post got way more traction than I expected, and it was written in haste/a passing moment of frustration. To those who responded with kindness, empathy, and constructive suggestions - I so appreciate it. For those who made judgmental comments about my parenting, assumptions about my life, or comments about our choice to use daycare or the times we have him there - I'm super glad you're able to make different choices for your family. Not everyone is in the same privileged boat. I love my son more than anything. I'm not going to get into more about my family life in an anonymous online space, but please choose kindness. We're all just parents trying our best out here.

My toddler has gotten sent home from daycare 3x in the last few weeks for “loose stool” that they are claiming is coming out of the diaper, which then requires her to stay home the next day also. She has never showed any signs sickness, normal appetite, and when she has more poops later in the day they are normal consistency. I can’t imagine the consistency magically changes from school to home. I want to believe them but I’m wondering if they are distinguishing loose from soft. I know they are just trying to protect the other kids also but I don’t know what to do-She can’t keep coming home for a day and a half while we are working. My theory is she is having large, but soft poops (which is her norm) and if she’s not getting changes quickly, her playing and running around is causing the stool to make its way out of the diaper. Anybody with similar daycare issues?

My daughter is 27mo! Over the summer she started taking off her sleep sack in the crib and throwing it out. Now it’s fall and our house is drafty and the heat is inconsistent. The thermostat may be set at 71-73 for heat and the upstairs bedrooms inexplicably remain in the mid-60s for temperature.

We tried having her use the sleep sack again after a few months of not using it and she still takes it off. Explained to her that it helps her stay warm and be cozy (she loves “cozy time” with blankets during the day) but she still yeets it.

We put her to sleep in fleece pajamas and socks. She also has a warm blanket in the crib, but doesn’t stay under it! Inevitably she’s been waking at 3:30-4:00am recently and I can only assume it’s because she’s cold! When I go in her little hands are icy but the rest of her body feels okay. I’ll tuck her back under the blanket and she still throws it off. Is this just a learning experience?! Anyone have any advice on how to keep her warm overnight without setting my house heat to boiling temperatures?!

My 23m toddler seems to be a low sleep needs child, averaging 10-10.5hours of sleep in 24 hours. She takes 2hour plus naps and sleeps 8-8.5 hours overnight. We used to cap her nap thinking it will mean she sleeps more at night but she just ends up always sleeping max 8-8.5 hours at night and sleeping less than 10hours in 24 hours if we cap her nap. This split night of being up 1-2 hours seems to always happen regardless of how we adjust her sleep patterns or no matter how much we exhaust her through play outside. My question is since she doesn’t cry in the middle of the night, is it okay to let her be and just hope she outgrows this?

We have a 2.5 year old and are looking to buy a house in our new city. All that seems to be on the market right now in our price range are split levels.

I just have this image in my head of me walking through the door with my kid, mid-tantrum and flailing around, while trying to immediately close the door and walk up or down stairs. Or, if one of us were to forget to close a gate, watching him tumble down two sets of stairs instead of one.

Am I paranoid? If you have a split level, have you been able to avoid accidents?

Hello. I posted last month about my 2 yr old (about to turn 3 in a month) having severe constipation last month. We thought we were on the mend after a suppository, a Miralax clean out, and then a month of taking half a cap to 1 cap of Miralax per day. Also a diet improvement and a huge reduction of dairy products. However, last week, we evidently had a relapse with the poop withholding and I think it is all my fault. He was getting diarrhea with 1 cap after a couple weeks of starting the daily Miralax so I went down to half cap, but I really do not think I should have done that. He ended up having a stool that was more dry than it should have been a week and a half ago. He was supposed to be having at least 1 apple sauce poop per day. the other thing is he was not pooping daily, it was every other day and per his pediatrician he needed to poop everyday. But I thought that was fine since it seemed to be his normal routine. Guess not. I also read the guidelines to adjust the Miralax based on if he is having diarrhea etc so I would go down to half a dose if he started getting diarrhea.

So last Sunday, he complained about his butt hurting and stomach. I felt stool near his butt again. I gave him 2 caps of Miralax. Luckily he was able to get the poop out that was stuck out (it was soft but pretty large, I am sure it hurt. He did have a bunch of soft runny poop come out after that too.) I think that specific poop plus the other constipated poop he had started the whole withholding/fear of pooping all over again. He had frequent diarrhea the next 2 days so I reduced to half a cap Miralax. Then no poop Wed. I took him to a pediatric GI on Thursday and I felt like he offered no assistance or guidance at all except an x ray. He showed no concerns about his diet at all. X ray showed normal distribution of bowel gas, stool within otherwise normal bowel in the right hemiabdomen,upper abdomen, and left hemiabdomen. However, there was stool distending the bowel in the pelvis (lower abdomen & lower pelvis).

Doctor instructed to start another clean out with 2 caps of Miralax then 5 ml of senna. We started that Thursday but he did not poop at all. So Friday we gave the same dose plus a suppository. That got whatever poop was sitting on the bottom out and a lot more. Doctor advised to start maintenace dose on Miralax (full cap) after he started pooping yellow and no clumps. Friday night we achieved that but wanted to make sure he was fully cleaned out so we gave another 2 caps Miralax and 5 ml Senna. however, he only pooped twice (both extremely large runny and liquid).

Yesterday we went down to 1.5 cap and half an ex lax chocolate tab (dr said this was the maintenance dose of senna). he only pooped 1 very large apple sauce poop. Then this morning, I gave him another 1.5 cap of Miralax plus the half chocolate tab dose. It's been over 30 hrs since his last poop. I ended up giving him another half cap miralax plus the other half of the tab of ex lax in the early evening and still no poop. I believe he is getting the waves of having to go poop and he just says his stomach hurts, wants his tummy pad or tablet, and doesn't poop. It doesn't help his grandma also flew in yesterday so we have another visitor in our house disrupting his comfort and routine. He also refuses to ever use the potty although I really do feel this all started because he started not liking to poop in his diaper and getting his butt wiped (along with being constipated).

I am definitely calling the GI in the morning but he is so short and unhelpful that I wanted to see if anyone knows if it's possible my son is able to withhold poop from 2 caps of Miralax plus an exlax chocolate tab. Like that has to be painful! I know that it has only been yesterday since he pooped but i really am afraid this is going to end up in a suppository again. Do I just need to give him 3 caps of miralax tomorrow? if anyone has any suggestions at all if they've dealt with this please let me know. I am giving him water nonstop, and he is also picky but he has been eating kiwis, plums, and pears everyday. He does have a banana at least once a day but his Gi was not concerned at all that this was making him constipated. He refuses to go in a bath when his stomach is hurting when he needs to poop. Do I just need to lay off and relax with all this? I know the answer is yes, but I just hate seeing him be in pain from the laxatives and withholding.

Thanks so much for reading this novel and bearing with me.

He started doing this about 1 month ago, I found out he had his molars growing in, fixed that with some medicine and it stopped for like 3-4 days. Now he’s not in pain but he just is WIDE awake… we will play for like 15 min in his room to reset but will take forever to go back to sleep. any ideas on how to fix this? Should I cap his naps shorter? I also give him a bottle of milk before bed and when I don’t, I’m wondering if I should give it to him when he wakes up or that doesn’t really matter?

Wake: 7 am
Nap: 12-2
Bedtime: 8:30-9 pm

How did yall know it was time to drop the last nap/how did you go about it? Turned 3 in July and has been still taking an hour-hour and a half nap most days. Very rarely will he skip it on his own, sometimes if we’re busy we’ll skip the nap so that we don’t have to rush home for it. I thought about dropping it at the beginning of the summer, but then I got pregnant so I needed the nap time, and we were so active during the days that he really needed it. I’ve tried setting it up as a quiet time with allowing him books or toys that are safe for him to play with on his own-he’ll play for 20-30 minutes and then still fall asleep, and then he’s so hard to wake up. He will happily go to bed at night and try to fall asleep for 30-45 minutes. But then he’s up for another hour or more with random requests. Last night he didn’t fall asleep until almost 11:30.

Ideal schedule is wake up 7, nap/quiet time 1:30-3, bedtime 8:30. Realistically he’s actually napping 2-3. He’s in bed by 8:30 consistently, but lately falling asleep no earlier than 10, so I’ve been letting him sleep until 7:30. We get home from preschool around 1, so hard to move quiet time up earlier. If I try cutting the nap shorter than an hour, he is a wreck the rest of the afternoon. Days he doesn’t nap bedtime is more of a fight-I’ve tried earlier bedtime and same bedtime and either way it’s a battle to get anything done compared to days he naps he will happily get ready for bed-just won’t fall asleep once he’s in bed.

As I’m 25 weeks pregnant, I selfishly want to keep at least an hour quiet time because I use that time to nap or at least veg out for a bit.
Any advice is appreciated!

My daughter is just about 2 and I am struggling. She is a destroyer. I don't know how else to put it. If left to her own devices she will rip pages out of books so I started only buying cardboard books just for her to still rip pages out, crayons she won't break them on purpose but she will remove the paper and try to eat the crayon, she bites edges off her puzzle pieces, took every page out of her learning materials, rips the names off of her flash cards etc. Her older sister I had no problem getting to stop after she tore one book but I have tried everything I can think of to get my now almost 2 year old to stop and nothing is working aside from keeping everything out of her reach unless I'm actively using it with her and I don't want to restrict her access to books and coloring materials because its an important part of development to color and read. I take her to the park to run out energy, she has a chalkboard and a whiteboard and a slide and trampoline and everything because I thought maybe she just had more destructive energy than her older sister and maybe more physical activites would help her, shes not mad when she does it, she isn't showing signs of frustration if anything its like she really loves those pages and wants to have them so she takes them and I've tried explaining to her that no we can't rip out pages because then the book is broken and we can't read it anymore but it didn't work. I am looking for any advice at all on how to stop the destruction, I keep the books on her bookshelf for her to choose her own morning and bedtime stories.

Anybody have any good recommendations for 3T boys underwear? I’ve been finding a lot of 2T-3T sized which are fine but my kiddo wants to be independent and they’re a bit snug for him to pull up on his own. There’s so many 4T options but 3T is so limited. I’ve looked in store and even Amazon is hard to find.

So our son is 4 he still cosleeps and we lay with him until he falls asleep. We want to go out to a Halloween party in about two weeks. It lands around his bed time.

What do we do to get it so the sitter can put him down ? If we leave him in a room alone he just cries until he throws up. We leave lights on and he has music. He has stuffies and knows we are close. At our house he can see our living room from the bed.

My toddler is so clumsy and has no awareness of her head. She’s almost 2.5 and I swear we have a daily or at least weekly occurrence of slamming her head into something hard (wooden table, wooden floor, etc.). She frequently falls just walking and tripping over her own feet…so I truly don’t understand it. Tonight she turned quickly and tripped and slammed her forehead right into the solid wood door frame extremely hard. Now I’m sitting here watching her as she falls asleep because I’m so scared she had a concussion (even though I’m sure she doesn’t…already checked her pupils and no other head injury signs).

Are there ways to instill some awareness into toddlers to be aware of their surroundings when their heads involved? Are your toddlers this clumsy and constantly banging their precious heads into hard surfaces? Is this frequency too much and I should see a doctor about how clumsy she is and the constant head hitting?

She’s been like this since she was an infant. She still flings her body back without a care of what’s behind her and will slam her head into anything without thinking twice. I’m seriously so concerned/anxious/at my wits end at how to help her realize that she can’t keep doing this.

My daughter is 15 months and I feel like trying to do much in public is extremely stressful for me. In mommy and me events, she finds the door and runs. Same at the playground. Will not walk next to me anywhere . Just repeats the word no after me and thinks it’s funny. I’ve tried starting some simple one-word commands and making it a game and it helps some but she still thinks it’s funny to run away and say no. Objectively she is ahead on language (can speak 3 word sentences and has vastly more vocabulary than required by milestones), so it makes me feel like it’s something I’ve done to hold her back. Like using baby gates etc instead of trying to get her to stay with me and listen. I know every child is different in temperament but it makes me feel like a failure because I see other babies who listen better. Is this normal or any tips on how to help her? She is a wonderful baby and I wouldn’t trade her for the world, so I want to make sure I am teaching her well.