22 months ago we sat in a doctors office. God, several offices. Multiple times that week. We were told, your daughter may not ever crawl, walk, talk. She could have a poor quality of life. Even got handed TMFR information. Countless times again over the next several months we heard this.

Then she was born. And she struggled but she fought. Then the delays kicked in. 4 months old graded as a newborn. At 10 months old she could barely hold herself up to sit. No communication skills. Nothing. Then she had surgery. I will always owe these doctors everything, because everything changed literally the morning after. She could sit. She started to crawl at 13 months. Not very good, not very far. 15 months and suddenly she’s a speed racer. Crawling like crazy, climbing things like crazy. And today… she just stood up after dinner and walked through the house like she’s done it a million times before.

She walks, she talks (non stop, at that), she sings her ABC’s, she draws, she knows several things in sign language, and now, she walks. She’s a perfectly normal toddler, doing all of the things they said she’d never do. I can’t help but absolutely sob over the pure drive and determination she has, to do all of the things.

ETA: Thank you everyone for all your kind words. I don’t have many friends to tell, and I felt like I just wanted to shout this from the rooftop. ♥️

I had it on my phone for the times we needed a distraction or calm moment. We love Ms Rachel and Super Simple Songs. So much good stuff on there. But no matter what I tried, including the “whitelist only” feature, exploitative, addictive, mindless videos would still be suggested and could be played. I finally decided to delete the app and I’m so glad I did. Please keep an eye on what your kid is watching, and delete YouTube kids. PBS kids is a much better option and it’s still free without ads. There are shows that foster a longer attention span and learning instead of fast paced videos about mindless things.

I feel so overwhelmed right now. My son is 23 months - has never been in daycare as we worked night shifts and my parents worked days and could watch him.

My husband and I got new positions on dayshift and were really excited to get my son into daycare because he has a pretty significant speech delay (he’s a chatterbox, he just can’t enunciate the words fully) that’s been improving with speech therapy but thought daycare would help accelerate it.

Two days in we get notified the teachers are concerned because he goes outside for play time (property is fenced in) and he takes off running. He runs everywhere and when he doesn’t wanna go back in he runs from the teachers. He also runs to doors and tries to wiggle the handles and he has to be repeatedly redirected back to play.

They are also concerned that he’s not eating (he’s been sick recently and has always been more of a grazer)

They are concerned he can’t use a spoon/any utensils. (He thinks it’s a toy and would rather eat with his hands)

And lastly they noticed he lays down on the ground and hits his head against the ground over and over and tantrums if stopped. (He’s done this rocking/head hitting since he was about 5 months)

Got the call today they are dismissing him because the teachers think he is a safety risk due to elopement and self injury.

they said I should see if he can get an early autism assessment. I don’t know if I’m just too inexperienced but I thought a lot of this was normal toddler stuff. When we were referred for speech therapy we were told boys tend to have slower speech development anyways. And his pediatrician was never worried about the head hitting because kids find weird self soothing methods and he does it when he’s tired or bored.

We immediately got in contact with our state early intervention who is happy to work with us but we spent months on the waitlist and I pushed starting this job back for daycare to start. I’m scrambling to find somewhere new and panicking about my job that I just started - I don’t know if I’m looking for anecdotal experience, recommendations, support - anything at this point. I spent all day crying, I’m just devastated how quickly it feels like he’s being deemed too much to handle.

Just a little rant/wanting to complain. My son (2.5) is amazing, but God, I just wish he slept. He’s always been a low-sleep needs baby. As a newborn, his wake windows were 6-7 hours, no matter what we tried. When he started daycare, he would take about 2 20-minute naps per day and that was it. At home, he always fought his naps and fully dropped them by about 14 months.

He used to sleep 7pm-7am, but as he’s gotten older, he’s going to bed later and waking up earlier. He now sleeps about 8:30pm-5am. I just wish I could sleep until 7 one day. I wish he would take a nap so I could do the dishes. I wish he was a kid who would cuddle up in bed in the morning. But he wakes up at 100% and doesn’t stop until bedtime (we do 0 sugar and only about 20 minutes of screen time a day, so those aren’t factors, I don’t think).

Recently, his daycare had a family picnic and several of the moms were talking about how they can’t possibly get to school any earlier than 9:30 because their kids are just barely waking up by then! They get to wake up, work out, do the dishes, make pancakes, tidy up. I would love that, even just a day or two a week. Im newly pregnant and in my first trimester and I’ve been crying this week at 4:45am knowing that I need to be “on” with a full battery in just 15 minutes for the next 15-16 hours.

Parents who have sleepers, I am so envious of you.

My 15 month old is a very happy little eater, and also very generous of spirit. This is a dangerous combination.

We got into the routine of sharing an apple together in the afternoons, and rather than cutting off bits with a knife, I got into the lazy habit of just biting off wedges to give to her. Unbeknownst to me, my child observed this behaviour closely and took it deeply to heart.

She's always loved sharing food, but now at every single mealtime, she takes pieces of her meal, chews them up, then SPITS THEM INTO HER HAND AND SHOVES THEM INTO MY MOUTH. I MUST CONSUME THE REGURGITATED BABY MUSH, SHE WILL NOT EAT UNLESS SHE CAN FEED ME.

I feel like a goddamn baby bird with a terrifyingly stubborn and enthusiastic tiny mother bird. Perhaps she suspects she's being poisoned, and I am the test subject. Perhaps my motherly skills are so weak that she felt she had to take charge of things. Perhaps she holds bitter memories of being spoonfed when she was younger, and this is twisted revenge.

I have appeased the culinary dictator with suitably convincing chewing and swallowing acts thus far, but it has taken all of my cunning. I sense she is starting to see through my efforts.

What have I done.

We decided we would homeschool for preschool, then see how she’s doing and make a decision about kindergarten.

I’ve already invested so much time and money into all of the supplies and a general curriculum. I’ve been looking into homeschooling co-ops so she’s not falling behind socially. This has been the plan for a long time now.

I’m struggling though.
We’ve been going through a lot, mostly financially. It’s been hard for a while, since my husband was laid off suddenly and unexpectedly, but he’s been at his new job for a while now and I thought things would be a little bit easier by now. We are utilizing every resource that we have available to us, I’ve spent hours and hours on the phone, and looking for resources online to take some of this strain off of us, but our area doesn’t have much. We live in a small town where a lot of the resources for struggling families have been cut due to all of the cuts to funding for these things. We have a food pantry, but they recently changed the rules so each family can only go once every 30 days and each family received 2.5 days worth of food. They’ve had to do these things to make sure there’s enough for everyone. My husband and I have been going hungry to make sure the kids have everything they need.

I want to focus on our kids, I want to enjoy them while they’re still so young and I want to be active and involved in our daughters schooling, but I feel like I’m not even present most of the time. I’m completely distracted thinking about how we’re going to make things work.

I just needed to vent a bit. This is what we wanted to do, but I’m suffering through it.

I’m already looking into enrolling her in public school. I just needed to talk about it somewhere and get this out, because I feel like I’m failing her by making this decision. I just simply cannot focus on homeschooling when I am exhausted and hungry and stressed every second of every day.

Has anyone else tried homeschooling and realized you weren’t able to continue?

Dear god. Not sure what happened, but my 17 month old has gone from a sweet, mostly happy baby to an absolute gremlin. Her current favorite activity is pointing to random stuff and whining. She cries in the car. She cries when I leave the room. She cries when I don’t IMMEDIATELY give her the snacks she wants. She cries when I won’t let her have her third whole banana of the day because they make her constipated. She cries at every diaper change. She gets angry at her toys and throws them across the room. She gets angry when I won’t let her dunk her entire fist into my coffee cup. SEND HELP.

I have a 1yo, a 3yo, and a dog. All of us would benefit from more regular walking, but I can’t seem to do it consistently, even as a SAHM. (I feel a lot of guilt and shame about this.)

It seems like I finish breakfast, and then a chore needs to be done, or an errand needs to be run, or a diaper needs a change, or someone suddenly falls asleep, or dinner time is approaching and I need to start cooking, and the window of time I was thinking of walking closes up.

For those who walk regularly, what’s your secret sauce? Are you super organized? Do you have a particular mindset or goal that keeps you on track?

I struggle with depression and perfectionism, so I’ve got a few good ol’ cognitive distortions to fight against daily. I know I need to work on those. And sometimes the idea of getting everyone strapped in to the stroller and the dog on the leash feels like an insurmountable task.

Let me know what works for you and any tips or tricks to just getting out the door more regularly.

The morning was going too smoothly. She ate all of her breakfast no problem. Got dressed, even though we did not have a dress for her, which is her preference. She brushed her teeth, willingly opening her mouth so that I could get the molars. I thought to myself what a wonderful morning. Yesterday was a battle of battles because she wanted to wear a dress and not a skirt. It took a good half hour to get her dressed. And today things were looking up until she had to use the bathroom.

While wiping herself, she got a little pee on her hand. She did not want me to wipe her hand off. She wanted to pull her pants up, touch the wall and everything else with her peed on hands. So I quickly wiped her hand, and that was the end of it. Smooth morning gone, screaming, and crying commenced. I let her cry a little bit and then got her Chapstick out, which gave her something to look forward to and made her stop crying. She loves to put Chapstick on.

I’m curious what other benign and harmless things set your toddlers off?

I know how to block them, but even though I block them, they keep appearing, especially those Elsagate-like channels like Diana and Roma, Heidy and Zamir, etc., which are super stimulating, super colorful, and very bizarre. I block one, and another appears, and another, and another, and then the one I already blocked reappears. Literally at this point, I think I'm on the verge of a psychotic break. I recently spent two hours blocking channels. I give my phone to my baby, he clicks on a video of ms rachel and there's a full row full of colorful bizarre content from channels that I've already ban 😭, is there an app o something that might help me?

Napkins.

I take a million. If I could travel with a roll of paper towels I would. My mom used to take a huge stack from places and put it in the car. I’d always be confused, but NOW… I get it. She had 4 kids back to back to back…. I genuinely don’t know how she did it, ALONE. She’d take us to extra curriculars EVERY DAY. I think she was a super woman. Now I know why she’d have those random blow ups. I don’t even blame her 😅. My dad was no where in sight.

I have 2 under 3. It’s crazy how often I’m using either wet wipes or a napkin while out 😅.

My sister isn't on here so I'm posting for her. My 3 year old niece, C will not sleep. This has been going on for almost a year. She won't stay in bed. C won't go to sleep until like 3 am. My sister has cut out naps. Still doesn't work.

Her kids bedroom isn't in a normal room. You walk upstairs and it's just an open space with an attached bathroom. The opening to the stairs doesn't have a door. The whole upstairs is their bedroom. When my sister puts the kids to bed C will walk right down the stairs. My sister will put her back to bed but she just gets up. When it gets time for my sister to go to bed C will just go in her parents room (their room is downstairs) and play and keep her mom from trying to sleep. My sister has tried to put a gate up on the top of the stairs to keep her up there but then she wakes her siblings up to play, throws a tantrum OR she tries to climb over the gate which IS NOT SAFE AT ALL. They can't install a door because they don't own the house.

She has tried just shutting the door to her and her husbands room and letting C tire herself out playing but when she woke up the next morning she found that C got into everything AND ATE a loaf of bread, not kidding this little 3 year old girl ATE A BRAND NEW LOAF OF BREAD.

My sister has tried melatonin gummies to get C tired enough to sleep when it's time for bed but they hardly affect her. She's given her 6mg of melatonin, I'm a grown woman and I only take 2.5 MG to go to sleep and 6mg still didn't work for C.

Half the time my sister ends up in the living room all night until C finally falls asleep at 3-4 in the morning. She doesn't have issues waking up. You wake her up and shes like BAM ready for the day. The pediatrician just keeps saying it's a phase but it's been almost a year. This is really starting to affect my sisters mentality and affect her job because she hardly gets sleep or restful sleep, her husband works nights so he gets to sleep during the day and doesn't have to deal with getting C to bed.

Does anyone have any advice that isn't duct taping this kid to her bed or giving her a horse tranquilizer?!?! (Those are jokes no one is duct taping kids or drugging them)

My almost 3 year old has *knock on wood\* always been a decent sleeper. With minimal “sleep training” she slept all night in her bed and just sings songs and plays with her stuffed animals until I come get her up. She just barely hit the threshold in height for the crib but she doesn’t stand up in her bed nor has she ever tried to climb out.

My plan was to leave her in the crib until…kinder? Kidding of course. But, I was in no rush to move her to a big girl bed. Now, I’m second guessing. Is it time to move her to a big girl bed? Is it problematic to leave her in the crib so long when seemingly all her peers are not in cribs?

My toddler is wildly active. She eats a ton and is a perfectly healthy size. She also actually eats her dinner so I'm not worried about her picking at dinner to get a snack at bedtime. She seems legitimately hungry and always finishes a sizeable, healthy snack. However, it's started delaying bedtime because she eats so slowly. We originally set a timer and told her she had to finish in that time but it upset her when we took the food and then she started stuffing her face to the point of gagging to finish before the timer went off so we stopped doing that. But like, on no planet should it take 30 minutes to finish a cucumber and a handful of berries. She's at the table, undistracted as she can be, and it's just, so slow. We can't start snack time any earlier without it basically running into an extended dinner, which also takes her forever to eat. And we have to bathe and get ready for bed somewhere in there. Any thoughts? Anyone else's kids do this?

I just finished calming my 22mo down after a nearly 2 hour hysterical episode in the middle of the night. These have been happening now for several weeks where he will wake up and absolutely lose his mind, thrashing, hitting, screaming, demanding something then smacking it away or yelling NO! Nothing seems to calm him down except for time. Sometimes they last 20 minutes, sometimes almost 2 hours. He did it during a nap once or twice but it’s mostly at night and it has happened multiple times a night a few occasions. I’m so so drained and it has me so concerned and I’m not sure what could be going on. Please help!

I have a 3yr old boy that will absolutely not take a nap with me in the room but there’s some days he certainly still needs one. I would like for him to start at least having quiet/alone time in his room for a period of time where he can play or maybe some days choose to nap. What toys do you find occupy your toddlers the best during this time?

Are we just throwing away the clothes that have stains after our kids outgrew them? I don't mind my daughter wearing clothes she has stained but it feels wrong / rude to pass stained clothes on. It also feel wrong to throw them away. And I seem to be very bad at getting stains out.

What do you guys do with stained clothes that are too small for your kids?

Looking for some suggestions, I’m in Canada and it’s getting pretty chilly out these days. My son loves being outside and we’re in this weird part of fall where the mornings are below 0 but the afternoons are 16 Celsius. We send him to daycare with just a bunch of layering stuff but I’m sure my daycare person doesn’t appreciate having to dress him in all sorts of things. A suit that she just fits right over what he’s wearing for the day would be much more practical.

I don’t want to spend an arm and a leg because winter is upon us and I’m sure we will have to buy something for the -20 weather we get.

I have my eye on the Columbia powder lite suit and the Jan and jul cozy-dry rain suit. Just not sure what route to go.

We would want something warm but not too warm (not really a snow suit) and something that keeps him dry.

Can someone please explain how we’re supposed to give a toddler 11grams of iron without going over like 20g of protein? More heme iron is found in meat, especially red meat. I have a 2 year old that has low ferritin and I’m confused how to lift them without giving chicken or beef for every meal.

Non-heme sources + vitamin c, enough?

Hi all! First time posting here and was hoping to get some insights from other parents!

I currently work remote full time, and have a full time nanny as well but plan was to move daughter to daycare around the time she turns 2.

As it turns out, my job just announced we will be hybrid, 3 days a week in office Tues-Thurs, starting some time next year (around the time she turns 2).

Wondering if it makes sense to prioritize finding a daycare that's near the office and have her commute with me? It would be a 45-1 hr commute each way. It comforts me knowing I wouldn't be far if I needed to get to her, but I worry about the lengthy commute, especially on the way back towards the end of the work day. Heaven forbid she falls asleep lol.

Or would it be better to find one that's close to home and risk taking longer getting to her in the event that it's needed, but less car time for her overall?

Would love to hear other parents' perspectives!

My daughter (2) started nursery school about a month ago, and every single day her lunchbox comes home completely full. Nothing eaten. I honestly can't tell if she's just too distracted by everything going on, if she doesn't like what I'm sending, or if it's still the adjustment period.

She's at school from 9 to 3, so that's a long stretch, and I really want to get some quality nutrition into her during those hours.

What do your toddlers reliably eat at school/daycare? Looking for simple ideas I can throw together in the morning or prep the night before — bonus points for things that hold up in a lunchbox for a few hours. What actually gets eaten vs. what comes back untouched in your house?

We are at the stage where we can ditch the infant car seat and use a toddler car seat. My question is… Are we buying 2 car seats (one for moms car and one for dads car) or are we switching the car seat depending on which vehicle is traveling with the kiddo and praying you don’t forget to make the switch before the other leaves? With the infant it was easy because we each had a base and would carry the car seat with the baby in it in and out of the house. Seems like the toddler ones are meant to be stationary. This is my first and only child if you can’t tell haha

**UPDATE: Thank you all so much for the quick responses. We will be purchasing a second less fancy car seat!!! ❤️

We have 2.5 year old little boy. We have the same routine every night. Dinner, bath. Brush teeth, read a couple of books and then lights out. But, this kid WILL NOT SLEEP. if we leave him unattended, he tears apart the room (we upgraded to a “big boy bed” because he was climbing out of the crib). He will sit and talk for 2 hours while we lay there pretending to be asleep. We’ve limited screen time as much as we can as mg mother watches him during the day and we’re not sure how much he truly gets. Any suggestions? We want our nights back

My daughter is two and a half and has Level 2 autism. We generally do well with most things and have been making strides in therapy. The biggest issue and one that therapy cannot help is our sleep schedule. For around the last four months her sleep has been terrible. She will fight going to sleep until she is dead on her feet and will still wake up at two or three in the morning. We have tried days with naps or no naps. Early wake up or late wake up. Setting a routine nightly. Magnesium and iron supplements. Red light and white noise. It seems no matter what we try it doesn't work. Me and my wife are about at our wits end just trying to get enough sleep to function. We plan on making an appointment with her pediatrician to discuss options because we don't know how to help anymore. Any suggestions would be welcomed.

My 22mo boy has always been a bit wild, crazy, reckless... but in the last 2-3 weeks he just started to hit us (me and his dad) out of nowhere, now hits grandma. Some context - he is trilingual - one language from me and two from dad. He is a bit "behind" with his language development and could be getting frustrated that he cannot say as much. We do try to get him to speak but we haven't had too much luck - he can say about 80 words individually but struggling to put words together/communicate with us.

It feels constant... Get him out of bed in the morning and he hits me (for no apparent reason). Doesn't get his own way, hits. Doesn't want to share a toy, hits or throws it violently at us. Sometimes he'll just come up to us and... hit. He hits over 15x a day.

It's getting more frequent despite attempts to stop. I've tried:

- calmly/firmly saying "no hitting"

- redirecting his hand to a more positive action like stroking my arm (he does respond to this, sometimes) and seems like he gets comfort but he doesn't remember to do it without my guidance

- telling him to be gentle or use gentle hands

- removing the toy that he has thrown at us and then giving it back once he seems calmer

Nothing seems to be working and he just keeps doing it. Is this just a phase? Are we doing something wrong? :(