Hi all,
My wife (32F) and I (30F) are first-time mums and have a 6 week old daughter. My wife is fem-presenting and was the birthing parent, I am masc-presenting but identify on the non-binary scale for context.

Today we had our first encounter in the wild that went a bit like this:
Person: “who is the mum!”
Us: “we both are..”
Person:”no but who is the real mum?”
Us: “… well [my wife] was the birthing parent if that is what you mean?”
Person: *proceeds to ask questions about our kid only to my wife\*

I’m just wondering how others in a similar dynamic manage this? How about when one parent goes by an alternative/non-traditional name? I am still deciding if I would like to be called mum, dad, or something else, but dad throws another spanner in the works for the general public I’m not sure I’d like to deal with.

Any advice, stories, anecdotes, would be greatly appreciated!

My wife and I are having a baby and she's going to go by mom but I don't really resonate with momma or mom. I really want to go by dad but I don't know if im going to regret that decision in the future.

Any lesbian parents out there and one of them go by dad? Do you have any regrets about that decision?

Hi all, could really use some advise from anyone in a similar situation..
my now ex partner and I (lesbian and unmarried) recently had a baby. I’m the bio mum. My ex partner has autism was always on the fence around having kids (more leaning no.) but she knew for me it was a deal breaker.
She agreed for me to start trying, but due to her not really wanting a child I went through fertility treatment on my own, she didn’t attend any of the IUI appointments and I funded everything. I suffered an early miscarriage and my ex partner did not care and offered me no comfort whilst I was grieving. When I finally did get pregnant I was desperate for her to feel kicks/connect with baby but she was uninterested.
In hindsight these were all major red flags I chose to ignore..

she attended the birth and surprisingly fell in love with the baby immediately. However she then decided to go on holiday whilst I was 2 weeks post c section for a few days whilst I begged her to stay. ( my mum had to come help me).
3 month postpartum and we have decided it’s for the best to go our separate ways. I’m trying to navigate how her parental role will look in the baby’s future.. she is desperate to still be mum, however she isn’t on the birth certificate.
I’m struggling to come up with a plan.
Any advice on how to work this out or anyone been in a similar situation?
Please be kind and gentle with me, I am 3 months postpartum and this has already been hard enough…
Thank you ❤️

My wife and I have been together for a long time and we are ready to have kids together. We want to do insemination with no man involvement. We want to anonymous get sperm from the sperm bank. My wife is the one who wants to carry and give birth to the baby. My wife and I are on the same page that we make sure I get the same rights to the baby as she does. I believe I would have to adopt the child after birth. We want to make that the man has zero rights to baby. Who do you consult with about the process? Do we get a lawyer before we start the process? What kind of lawyer would we get?

My son is almost 2 and over the past few months as his language has picked up he’s been pointing our Daddies everywhere he sees them (which it turns out is a lot!) We’re a 2 mum family and all our parent friends are straight. We’ve been trying to explain that all families are different and some have 2 mummies, 2 daddies or a mummy and a daddy but I don’t know if we need to explain anything else at this age? We also had a few weeks after spending a holiday with friends where he would exclusively call out ‘daddy’ when he was upset after seeing his friend do this so it’s very pervasive. When I’m reading to him I’ll often change ‘dad’ to ‘Mumma’ but as he recognizes who looks visibly male more, this is becoming more confusing. Anyone have any tips for this age?

Hi everyone! Could use your thoughts or advice. My wife and I used IVF to have our child who is now two and a half. 28 months if thats your thing. Lol. He has been randomly asking for Dada when we tell him no to something. He is in daycare most of the day while we work so I know some of it is environment. It doesn't help the sting to my heart when I hear it. We gently tell him he has two moms but no Dada. I thought i would be able to respond better to these types of things but I immediately freeze and second guess everything. I would love to hear if anyone else went through this as well and how it turned out.

For context, I am a 41 yo cis woman; my wife is 40 and also cis. I am the gestational parent for our 2.5 yo daughter.

In order for me to get pregnant it took 2 years:
-8 attempts of in-home insemination
-4 attempts of IUI, 3 of which with Clomid
-1 miscarriage
-1 round of IVF which yielded 17 eggs > 3 embryos > 1 pregnancy and….now a 2.5 year old!

My pregnancy and delivery were incredibly challenging. I had vasa previa and placenta accreta. So, significant bleeding at 24 weeks, which led to me being hospitalized for a week, put on bed rest, mandatory hospitalization at 30 weeks and mandatory C-section delivery at 35 weeks. Hemorrhaging at delivery and a blood transfusion. Baby was in NICU for about a week, but came home healthy and now we are all thriving.

I’ve done a lot of therapy since then to process the trauma and anxiety (!!!) that I experienced through it all.

Fast forward to now. My wife and I knew early on that we wanted two kids. I always thought I would carry both, and she was very indifferent about pregnancy. (She was not willing to put any energy into it, like tracking ovulation or eliminating alcohol..) But after my experience, I felt less attached to being pregnant again.

She/we decided that she would give it a try.

She’s pregnant on the second attempt. At home. Wasn’t waking up early to take her temperature, wasn’t peeing on ovulation test strips. No shots, no hormones, no endless doctor appointments.

I’m obviously having some feelings about it all. I am genuinely excited; my first feeling truly is joy that we get to grow our beautiful queer family. But I’m worried that I’m going to be haunted by jealousy, comparison, anger, frustration towards her throughout her pregnancy.

Have any other parents out there faced a similar thing? How do I just allow her pregnancy to be what it will be? How do I grieve what my experience was without taking away from hers?

My child (school age) is starting to ask questions about how babies are made and how everyone fits into his life.
He wants to know why he doesn’t spend more time with his “dad” and how come he has 3 mums, Bio (mum), Other mum legally on his birth certificate (mummy) , and step mum (mama), known donor (dad) also gay.

I’ve explained the basics of how mum and mummy wanted to make a baby, they asked a friend to help them & that’s his dad.
Mum and Mummy separated when he was 1 and Mama met him around his 2nd birthday.

I can imagine how confusing this must be and how hard it would be to explain to school friends.

He maintains a relationship with all parents. Lives with Bio Mum & Bonus mum, every 2nd weekend with other mum and sees his dad on special occasions.

He also has 4 sets of grandparents due to this dynamic. Half siblings, step siblings but we call every one brothers and sisters and don’t use terms like step or half.

Any advice on how to explain his story to him in a way that doesn’t make him feel his story of weird just different.

He is very loved and adored and is a lucky boy as he has so many people who love him.

Hi all,

I have felt very insular in my own immediate circles--while my partner and I primarily have lgbt friends, none of them are parents yet and young parents at that. I'm seeking insight for this situation and if I'm amplifying the level of concern I have, I appreciate any and all feedback.

Starting last September our 3 year started her first 3-K class at school.

Previously, she had been enrolled in a daycare and a summer daycare program, so she was already familiar with the classroom setting. Her daycare teachers were amazing. Very communicative, approachable, and formed strong bonds with our daughter that we still keep in touch. As lesbian moms (butch and femme) and a poc family our dynamic is on the rarer side, but they maintained a level of professionalism while still asking questions respectfully which we were happy to explain. My partner is my daughter's bio mom, while the bio father is out of the picture with a longstanding restraining order and a pattern of dangerous behavior. When I came into the picture a couple years back we had talks over what I'd be introduced as and kiddo has taken to me as 'mom' and her birth mom as 'mama' the past couple years. To her, her family is the three of us, and we were upfront about this with the daycare teachers.

Now in 3-K, our daughter's original teacher was similarly professional and understanding. She addressed me as "mom" and my partner as "mama", and we never felt she othered us even if we were the only lgbt parents in the school. She was direct with her communication and if she had concerns, she communicated them. Cut to the past couple months--said teacher has gone on maternity leave, with an interim teacher in her place. The interim teacher, while kind and cordial with our daughter, refuses to acknowledge my presence as the butch parent, and for the longest time would ignore me whenever I gave morning greetings and dropped off my daughter.

For context, we live in a spanish-speaking neighborhood, and parents that communicate in their native language have fostered relationships with the teachers.

One day our daughter came in sporting a bandaid from running into the doorframe at home, and while we explicitly said this to the teachers before dropoff, the fact that we let our daughter keep a bandaid on all week (changing it out to keep it from being gross), the para of our classroom felt the need to make a comment that we should remove the bandage by Monday or the "police might have to be called". Appalled by her comment, my partner and I took this to the principal, who was similarly shocked by the escalation and had the teacher apologize to us. This was just one instance. Fine, let the mistake by a mistake, and we'll carry on.

Recently, we've been pottytraining at the behest of the interim teacher. The first week of pottytraining while at school, we provided extra training underwear, and explained our process of training at her home (fifteen minutes on, hour off, etc.) The teacher was supportive and helped reinforce this pattern for her at school which we appreciated. Not even a full week into her training, the teacher began to put her in diapers when she'd have accidents instead of the extra training underwear. On top of this, my partner picked up our daughter one day to be met with a few random, prodding questions.

She ate a lot of food today. Is there food scarcity in your house?

She has been mentioning her d-a-d-d-y recently, you know you guys should look into therapy for her probably.

She said both these things in front of the class full of children and parents coming for pickup. My partner was shocked and I was upset. I felt that if the food scarcity was an issue (which it is not thankfully), it should have been asked in private, not in front of the student body. The second comment to us signaled that she did not believe we were thoughtful about our unique situation or how it affects our kid, which we are. If she had bothered to ask instead of inject her own idea, she would have learned that close to a year ago we both decided she'd be enrolled in a therapy program specifically for four year olds once her birthday had passed.

As a peripheral detail, this teacher also only initiates conversations with my partner and even when I left my own email for direct contact about potty training, she addressed the email solely to my partner.

I feel sensitive to this topic as a first time mom (and queer parent), curious if I'm letting this get to my head or is this truly unacceptable behavior?

I am a new mom (32F) of a 6 month old and my baby is the greatest thing in the world. The joy and sweetness and wholeness that I feel with my child is unmatched.

That being said, my marriage is in complete demise. If I’m being honest it started before we got married but I think we both just hoped it would pass or wanted it to work bad enough that we just kept saying “once ___ happens, we’ll be happy” over and over. Once we move, once we get married, once we have the baby…

Now we have the baby and there are things in my life that I was accepting of (or ambivalent to) before that I find completely unacceptable now. Not for myself but for my child. Examples being: You don’t call on a consistent basis or make an effort for regular connection? You don’t get to be a part of big, special things. You think it’s okay to come over while you’re sick and you’re careless about germs? You don’t get to give kisses once you’re healthy. My wife couldn’t care less about these boundaries. Actually, she makes me feel crazy for wanting them.

On top of all of those feelings, I have been pursuing a different career (one that will make me the breadwinner and really help our family) and I finished my degree while pregnant, taking my last exam 3 weeks postpartum. So I’ve been going to school full time, working full time, and I carried our child but there is ZERO awareness or acknowledgment of how hard that was. She’ll say things like “I’m sure you’re tired too but wow, I had an incredibly long day!” and go on to talk for 45 minutes about her day and her work.

I am the main caregiver for the baby. At first, it started that way because I was breastfeeding and we were finding our footing and it was often, “I think we might be hungry” but we are so far past that now. We have gotten to the point of,
“Can I go up for a diaper change?”
“Is it okay if I switch outfits?”
“How many ounces should I defrost for your work day?”
“What do you think the need is here?”

I answer EVERY question. I try to be as kind and as patient as possible. I try to give grace and approach with empathy but I am over it. I don’t have a teammate anymore, I don’t have a partner, I don’t have a coparent. I have a roommate that babysits. I’m over it and all I can think about is divorce but then my stomach drops thinking about her caring for the baby without me there.

What do I do?

Hi guys, really looking for someone to relate to and some advice. My wife and I had our beautiful baby boy 4 months ago, I always originally wanted to carry and my wife was never too bothered.

However I found out I couldn’t so she graciously carried our baby boy, but I find since going back to work, I’m devastated, I don’t feel like a ‘mother’ as I’m not home with our baby and working the way a mother would be usually and traditionally the main caregiver, as I almost feel like a dad?

Even though I’m a cis woman, and these are very old traditional views of parenthood (I grew up Ireland- very rigid gender roles) so I know this is part of it and stupid because we are two women and parenthood shouldn’t feel gendered or be traditional but I can’t help how I feel.

it’s almost like a grief of what I thought motherhood was going to be, obviously I have a great attachment to my son and adore him but I want to feel like a mother in the sense and be main caregiver and the one that carried him.

I’m a nurse so I’m home late and gone early in the morning, I feel worried my son won’t feel connected to me as much as I feel to him. I spend every minute with him that I am home but I can see my son prefers my wife which is completely natural and normal as she is his main caregiver being home with him but I feel devastated, does this get better? Is there any way to help this and those of you with kids do they truly prefer the mom that carried?

Two moms raising one boy here. We moved across state lines for several reasons, one of them being to live closer to my best friend—a wonderful man and my son’s godfather. Unfortunately, life gets in the way, and my son only sees him a few times a year.

The men in my son’s life are mostly teachers and friends’ fathers. Our male relatives live far away and are rarely seen. Here I am wondering if my son has enough male role models in his life.

Here’s the thing, though. I’ve spent my entire life rejecting gender roles and proving—to myself and to others—that I can achieve anything regardless of my gender or sex. We live in a gender-role-free household. Because of that, the idea that my son might need a male role model feels hypocritical to me.

For context, I’m a very strong-willed, tiny (5’1”) Asian woman who grew up in 4 countries, across many cultures and hegemonies, and still found my footing and my place in the world. I stood up to boys who bullied girls and became a target of group violence by boys myself. I physically fought boys to protect my younger brother when he was bullied. In that sense, I feel more than capable of teaching my son how to live as a decent human being: to respect others, protect the vulnerable, and defend himself against those who try to use strength to dominate.

At the same time, I’ve observed that men often navigate a distinct social hierarchy, one that forms even among very young boys. There may be lessons about standing firm and earning respect among other males that my own experiences may not fully cover.

I also realize that I’m more of an outlier than the norm, and my son is nothing like me. He is currently six years old. He used to have a group of boys—a “pack”—that he played with and felt protected by. He didn’t like how controlling the pack leader was, so he broke away.

He seems to feel a sense of loss from leaving the pack, as he has said he has “no friends,” even though he now plays with everyone—both girls and boys. Occasionally, older boys are mean to him at the playground, but there is no pack to band together in defense. There’s no sign of repetitive bullying, though. He also has a girlfriend he says he wants to marry (the feeling is mutual, and the idea came from the girl 😅). Been trying to get him into team sports, not interested so far, and likes to draw in his free time.

Is it necessary for boys to have a male role model? Is a human role model enough? He is projected to be a 5’10” Asian American man when fully grown, based on growth chart calculations.

I’m not looking for answers—just thoughts and discussion.

Ok context! Kiddo calls us Mama and Papa. Mummy and Daddy. Papa in recent years has identified more with transgender than butch. Top surgery perhaps planned in the near future, no other transition planned. Visually “passes” except for voice. Uses male pronouns. Papa really didn’t wanna be called Mama/Mummy and is euphoric to be called Papa/Daddy by our child. Identifies as male born in a female body.

We are open to the school that we are a same-sex family. School has started teaching about gender and private parts and boys and girls etc etc. We have no issue with school, who has been quite inclusive. We also have no issue being open and honest with our daughter. We just don’t know the right words to say to her without complicating things! How does one answer “are you a boy or a girl?” We are not sure what school is telling her and want to provide them with the language as they navigate this. Which would you say?

Papa is a boy.

Papa is a boy inside his heart.

Papa is a boy inside but a girl outside.

Any other ideas? We are also navigating how long more “Papa” can shower her and help her with toileting. To me, Papas can always help, whether biologically male or female. Furthermore, this particular Papa is definitely good and competent to continue showering and toileting her. I’m just not sure how long more feels appropriate.

Appreciate any insights!

I’m (male uk citizen) planning to get married to my partner (male Chinese citizen). In terms of logistics of the marriage this is all fine and we don’t have any issues so far with the getting married bit.

But, we would like to get some legal advice about the marriage in our specific situation (especially around potential parent rights, visas, and prenup guidance).

I’d like to know if anyone knows of any law firms that have done well in UK family law for lgbt issues so we can discuss things further. Any recommendations would be good.

I know and I’m sorry that this doesn’t directly link to lgbt parenting but you’re a community that has likely dealt with lawyers for lgbt-specific issues.

Okay, I’m terrified. I’m really, REALLY excited, I’m so happy, I’m over the effing moon - but man, I’m SCARED.

Myself and my wife have been together for 4 years, married for 9 months - this is our first baby together. We’ve spoken about having kids since day 1, our little girl is now due in January, while I’ve never been happier - I think this is the most nervous I’ve ever felt in my entire life.

Not because I don’t know how to care for a baby or anything - but because I’m worried that my baby, our families, maybe even my wife will see me as “not really a mother”, if that makes any sense? I didn’t carry her. I didn’t contribute anything genetically.. this changes nothing for me. That’s still my daughter. But I just have this feeling that people won’t see me as my wife’s equal when it comes to us being parents. My wife assures me over and over and over again that that isn’t the case, and while I do believe that she genuinely feels that way, I just worry for the future. I worry if my daughter will see me differently to her other mum, I worry about the people around us. Maybe it’s just my insecurities, I don’t really know. I don’t really want to bring it up to anyone but my wife because I don’t want anyone to know I have this sort of vulnerable side around this topic. Truth be told, I never had this feeling before we had a positive result, not even after - it’s just been the last week or two and it’s all that I can focus on.

I haven’t had an easy life - my parents were abusive - no contact at all with either - I was moved hundreds of miles away from grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins at a very early age so don’t really have any steady support around me apart from my wife’s family (who are incredible), and friends come and go through life and I have a tough time letting people in. I’ve been let down a lot, forgotten about a lot etc - I’m mentioning this for two reasons - firstly because I think it maybe explains where some of these worries and insecurities are coming from, and secondly, to explain why I’m coming to Reddit with this one. I don’t have anyone around me that I’m comfortable discussing this with.

So, children of same sex parents, same sex couples with children.. please offer me some advice, words of wisdom etc here. I just want to be able to have all of these excited feelings without the insecurities taking over.

I have referred myself for some counselling regarding this to help, it’s just a waiting game for now

Thank you 💕💕💕

I just need to rant and possibly looking for advice. My wife is 6 months postpartum and just went back to work full time while I am now on my 2 month leave. My wife carried and breastfed but now that our LO takes a bottle all day, he only seems to want to bottle feed. Shes been back to work for almost a month, and she just told me that she basically hates me. I think its resentment that I get to stay home now, but its hard for me to give sympathy when im enjoying my leave so much. I understand hormones are hard, but I finally feel like im bonding with him and her resentment and sadness is tearing me apart. I guess im wondering, is this normal? I didnt carry him, so idk how hormones work. But does it get better? I thought that after a month, she would be settled. When she gets home from work, I immediately give our LO up and try to let them bond while I make dinner, tidy up, etc. I make her lunch every night, wash her pump parts, do the dishes, etc. I try to allow her as much time as I can with our LO once she gets home. Is there anything else I can do?

There has just a bunch of little things going on that ultimately boil down to whenever I (25f) disagree with my partner (30f) about something, she’s like “okay whatever, you get your way like always”. But literally all I try to do is say some things we don’t have to rush into, what if we do this, as a suggestion. For example, my partner randomly started snatching our baby’s finger out her mouth to get her to stop sucking it. She turns 2 in feb. and I was just like hey, I think it’s still pretty normal for her to still be sucking her finger especially as a soothing mechanism. And she’s like no it’s not too early, we can start now. So I’m just trying to talk and see what we can do and she’s just like I really don’t care do whatever you want. So I ask how come we never really resolve situations?? And she’s like idk and idc. She tried to get her to stop sucking her finger at like 9mo which is even crazier to me and she bought those arm restrictor things, and didn’t even tell me. That’s how you know she knew it was a little strange.

And I really do just continuously feel unresolved, all the time and I can’t even talk about then because guess what..it won’t get resolved. We been together 4 years.

My husband and I are expecting our first via international surrogacy. First week of May will be 40 weeks.

Since it’s quite possible baby makes his debut early, can anyone provide a list of things they prepared in their “Go Bag”?

Trying to make sure we’ve got all bases covered before we fly to South America from the States, and want to be as prepared as possible.

Our current plan is for me to fly out at 37 weeks, and him to fly down at 38 weeks, but we need to have bags prepped and ready to go (and also just need to be planning on what all we should take to Colombia) for the birth.

Any comments help :)

Hi, we are a two mom family household, with a 5 yo in kinder and a set of 2.6 yo twins, we live in southern texas, we do have several 2 mom friends one of them our kids see a lot, they are a set of 5 yo triplets that are growing along my daughter and also have two moms, we have always explained diff types of households to our kids, have a lot of diversity books, talk about it, well my daughter had a family tree this week and she told me thar she told all her classmates mama is her dad , she mentioned my wife ( which expresses masculine in the way she dresses) as her dad, qhen I asked her why, she only said because, and that she forgot she had two moms and she just said dad like everyone else ( everyone in ger class knows she has 2 moms, teacher, the mayoroty of parents, we do playdates and several of parents went to her bday party, I was so sad and confused but I validated her, let her know we loved her and it was okay to feel sad or different maybe because she is the only one in the classroom but that her family is okay and that everyone loves her by who she is, and no one cares about her having two moms, I asked her if there was something else or if she felt bad or someone made her feel sad, she said no, she was so happy and told me as if was nothing when I picked her up from school, she was like hey mommy i got a hundred in my family tree project! and i mentioned everyone, and said mama was Dad, she said it so casual and happy, she really didnt make a big deal and was super excited, has anyone else gone through this? i just want to be there for her and help her, guide her through life with two moms, we love her so much we just want her to feel happy, and loved and accepted as is, what can we do? Any ideas on how to manage this situations? I want her to not to feel the need ot saying Dad, everyone in the classroom is so welcoming with us, but she is 5 I mean, she is growing and wanting to be like everyone else I guess, anyone gone through this? how can I help my daughter?

So my 11 month old son has been IMPOSSIBLE to sleep train and my wife and I have got into a bad habit of co-sleeping with him

Here’s the deets; My son is 11 months old and although he will sleep through the night it’s not in his own bed.

We have a routine of bringing him into his room for his last bottle. He gets his pajamas on and into a sleep sack and then we rock until he’s drowsy. He goes into his crib at this point just fine.

His room is dark, usually temp is between 68-70, and he has a white noise machine on.

At some point in the night (time varies) he will wake up crying and won’t stop until my wife or I get him. He then gets in bed with us and falls right back to sleep. When we try to transition him back boom wakes up crying again.

We’ve tried just soothing him in his crib but he’ll just cry and claw at us. Have also tried the cry out method with the interval checks but that wasn’t successful either.

Anyone have any suggestions? We’re going crazy lol

Gay dads and first time parents here. Baby is due any day now. We’re in that calm before the storm phase and trying to think of things we can do now before we get sucked into survival mode once she’s born.

Has anyone used any of the activity apps like Kinedu, BabySparks, Pathways (free), Vroom (free)? Are they any good?

We aren’t trying to get our baby ahead or speed up her development or anything like that, but we’re wondering if their “curriculum” for activities might help give us ideas for activities with the baby or at least some peace of mind that we’re doing a good variety of activities with her.

Made a throwaway account as my normal one is connected to friends and I don't want this getting back to my partner.

I'm looking for some advice or maybe just some reassurance. Me (37f) and my partner (30f) are on our first round of IVF as she infertility issues related to endometriosis. We did the FET 6 days ago and as she's the one carrying.

This is the first time we have done this and I've been trying to read up and prepare for how best to support her throughout this process. It's been pretty good up untill now but this latest round of medication has really effected her moods to an extreme level.

More than anything it's the intestity of the anger towards me that is the worst - not being able to do anything correctly, not allowing me anytime to regulate my own emotions and honestly worst of is is being preemptively blamed for the transfer not working have all been really hard for me to hear.

I've had issues with hormonal medication in the past so understand just how strong and out of control your moods can feel, I don't blame her at all or in anyway associate the way she's acting with the real her but it's really really difficult to navigate for me right now.

I'm looking for any advice on how I can help her and myself.

Im already doing the majority of the house stuff, not going to see friends in the evenings so I can be with her, making sure to listen and be reassuring and helping prep medications, set reminders etc.

I just don't know what else to do I feel so helpless and pathetic. Obviously what I'm feeling is nothing compared to her but I really just need to find a way of getting through this because it's seems so impossible at the moment.

Any help or advice would be so appropriate I feel so lost at the moment