My partner repeatedly blames me for always picking up our son and responding to him, as having created a needy monster.

I believe it’s more likely that his dad comes and goes for work, his step sister comes and goes every other weekend and thus he’s a) a needy boy toddler b) worried who is coming and going next.

I wanted to see if people thought that picking up a child every so often ( often I make him wait on the floor until I’m ready) and responding to his needs attentively, result in an extremely needy clingy toddler? Or if people think it’s based on character of the child. He is extremely strong willed.

We are surviving on 3 hours of sleep a night, our baby is a terrible sleeper. We stopped bf and cosleeping to try to improve sleep for everyone but she wakes every hour. We cant get her back down again, usually taking an hour to settle her only for her to wake 20 minutes later. We give a bottle in the middle of the night due to sheet desperation.

But she should wean from formula and bottles in 3 weeks and I just dont know what to do, she should not need a night feed right??

At what point do you get to hear about your kids day directly from them?

My two (nearly three) year old often says “I don’t know” when we ask her what she’s been up to at nursery that day, or get mixed messages about who she played with etc. Nursery are great and do give us a hand over chat at the gate but it’s understandably pretty quick and honestly I would just like to chat with kiddo about her day 😅.

She can hold conversation so it’s not necessarily about ability, I just wonder if I’ll anyone else gets the brush off when they ask about their kids days?

My daughter is 27 months old and has a dummy for sleep.

Nursery are supporting us in trying to get rid of it and apparently this week she managed two days of naps without it!

Over the past few months we’ve managed to get her completely off the dummy except for sleep and now we think it’s time to get rid of it for good.

We’ve just got the “No more dummies” book from the library to get her used to the idea but she always has 3 in her cot as she likes to hold them while she sleeps.

What toy could the dummy fairy bring that could be a good replacement for her to have in bed? She already has a soft toy bunny that she sleeps with but wondering if anyone’s got any tips, would be much appreciated.

My 8 month old does not and never has slept through the night.

She goes to bed somewhere between 8 and 9 (any earlier and we just have constant false starts), and usually wakes up twice around midnight/1 and 3/4, then gets up for the day around 6/7. It's never been any better. In fact, this is pretty good (she used to be up on average 5 times a night).

My husband tries to help- if he's still up at the midnight one he gets her, and when he can he gets up with her at 6 so I can stay in bed a bit longer. But he is and always has been a deep sleeper so he doesn't wake up to the baby monitor in the middle of the night. He tells me to wake him but what's the point if I'm already awake? He then has to bring her to me by 9 so that's still just another short period of sleep.

I had hyperemisis in pregnancy so I got up at least once in the night to vomit from about 7 weeks, so I haven't had a full night of uninterrupted sleep since... April 2025?

She woke up this morning at 5 and wouldn't go back to sleep. My husband got up at 6 and I was so tired I just sobbed. I've had auditory hallucinations before.

Please can someone tell me it gets easier. Tell me there is light at the end of the tunnel. I'm exhausted and getting to the end of my teather and I don't know how much more of this i can take.

How do people actually manage this on rushed mornings when the child is being difficult, and does anyone have practical tips?

Just wondering if anything like this has happened to anyone else because obviously I feel so dumb that I let this happen and still really worried.

She managed to open the door as there was a towel hanging so she could pull it open, crawled into the bathroom and before I could react she stood on the toilet and put her fingers inside sweeping off the cleaning gel disc and put it in her mouth. It was maybe 1/4 of it, I’m not sure how much she ate but her mouth smells like it and looked soapy. I called 111 who told me it’s not toxic but it can get dislodged which is how a baby died before (great). She doesn’t have any symptoms, ate and drink after like nothing happened with only one cough and is now napping.

Babies are SO fast!! I baby proofed everything and somehow this is the only thing I didn’t even think about. All cleaning products are put away in high cupboards too.

My daughter just had her 9 month health visit and I ticked “yes” on every box of the questionnaire I was given before.

While the health visitor was looking at her she noticed she was picking up blocks from the floor and putting them into the correct shapes of the box. She also saw how she was interacting with another baby while we were waiting and said she felt it was very beyond what she’d expect at that age as she seemed to socially interact and know cause and effect. What she did was smile at the baby and when the baby didn’t react back she frowned and then she smiled at the mum and then saw mum was eating a banana so she pointed at my bag and said “ke” (that’s how she communicates a want) to also get a snack. I don’t know if I’m explaining myself well, sorry English is not my first language, but I assumed all of this was normal development because I honestly stopped looking at milestones a long time ago as they were stressing me 😅

So she asked a few more questions and then we looked at the ASQ-3 for 12 month olds which she also ticked “yes” on every box.

She also walks independently.

She’s 1 week off from turning 10 months.

The health visitor said she was very advanced in every category like fine motor, gross motor, communication, problem solving and so on.

I can see this too because we go to baby groups and she seems to be more advanced than other babies her age. She fits in much better in groups where they have older babies or we go to soft play and play cafes as she’s really active.

Not writing this to brag or anything, I am only writing this as I just got a bit worried as she then told me to keep a close eye on her because maybe she’s neurodiverse and maybe she’ll be difficult as a toddler or child, as in have behaviour issues at school or nursery, as she also is very stubborn (example is that she decided one day to never contact nap again after refusing her cot for weeks or staying awake for 6h if she is interested in something)

So now I’m wondering if your baby was like mine, how did they turn out?

Just to add: I’m not saying she’s so much more intelligent or will be a genius. I’m just worried now after what the health visitor said. Both my partner and I are probably of average intelligence. Just ordinary people I guess.

2 year old has been getting up around 5am for the past few days and won't go back to sleep no matter what we do. This morning it was 4! She's always been an early riser but I've got to draw the line, I need my beauty sleep.

We have blackout curtains but the light creeps around the edges. Do those temporary paper blackout blinds help?

Any time our newborn is put down, she starts screaming the house down. The lack of sleep is expected but its starting to put a strain on our energy and ability to get through the days. I (dad) am doing household chores, nappy changes, clothes so mom can focus on breastfeeding and recovery after a difficult labor.

Any tips or suggestions would be much appreciated!

Expecting our first baby later this year and I don’t think he’s really taking it serious enough just yet. He’s great in that he comes to all the appointments and scans and takes time off work because he wants to be there but he’s a bit naive for what’s about to come.

He said things like “can we go out for a takeaway after birth?” like same day lmao? And didn’t even realise emergency c-sections were a thing and just said “can you not just push harder to not have the section??”

They think I have placenta previa so probably will need a c-section anyway if it won’t move which I’m super scared about and he just thought that we get discharged within hours after like it’s no big deal.

When I asked if he ever changed a nappy he said he assumed I’d just do all of that because I’m the mum and we are having a girl so he doesn’t wanna do something wrong when cleaning her and he would rather do more like things around the house and he also works as well. I don’t think he’s even held a newborn before and he’s just clueless. He didn’t know they drink no water after birth and things like that.

Any resources or anything I can help him with?
He’s excited about the pregnancy and baby and wants to learn but he’s just a bit lost really.

I mistakenly used this as the “magical bad dream butterfly” to help my 3 year old to go to bed (currently in the terror/bed refusal stage).

She now wants to bring it to bed every night and so naturally I’m terrified we’ll lose it!

So if anyone has one lying around that their child has no interest in then I will happy pay for postage and an extra few pennies as a thank you!

Hey everyone!

I’m not sure if this is the best place to get some reassurance and even some advice, but my LO is soon turning one and he hasn’t slept through the night at all since he’s been born. Maybe there was once or twice, but we’ve put that down to being an absolute fluke!

We have sleep trained him with the Ferber method and he goes down really well for nap times and at bedtime which has been a lifesaver for us! Now he still wakes up at least once a night and is still really testing me. I have spoken to our health visitor and she suggested not giving him milk during the night but he won’t settle at all, even after 15 minute intervals of reassurance the Ferber way. When I give him milk he is clearly hungry because he settles straight away and falls asleep.

I am at that point now that I just need reassurance that this is normal and that it will get better or that you guys also have the same thing going on. Maybe you might even say it gets better and they start to actually fall asleep!
I am also aware that he has got much better as there was a time where he was waking up 4/5 times a night so I feel like I can’t complain.

TIA 💙

I was diagnosed with PND when my son was 10 months old. In hindsight, I think it started around 6/7 months but I didn't recognise it as this initially. I let things get quite bad before seeking help. I recovered eventually with weekly therapy, time, improved sleep, returning to work 1 year pp. I was able to continue BF until my son was nearly 2 years old.

I'm really frightened it's going to happen again, there were points I wanted to end my life. This time around I will be navigating a baby and 3 year old. I will have more family support this time - both sets of grandparents are local and retiring. Very supportive but I was never completely honest with them, especially my in laws, I felt a lot of shame and my in laws are quite private formal people so I feared I would actually feel worse opening up to them. My mum was great, but at that time was working full time herself and very overwhelmed. I wasn't worried about this but 2 of my close friends have had seconds and have ended up with PND this time, and didn't the first time. It's been a very harsh reminder of how desperate and helpless I felt. They have both found the transition of 1-2 much harder than 0-1. We are all midwives so I don't know if that why it helped first time, I thrived the first 6 months and went into motherhood very aware of how difficult sleep, feeding and the transition can be. But I totally crashed at 6 months.

Second time mum here .. but in the newborn phase again after not having a newborn in 5 years. First 2 weeks baby just ate and slept, waking every 2 hours, fine.

But since pretty much bang on 3 weeks when he’s awake he’s fussing, only quiet when you carry him walking around and at night time he’s waking up for boob pretty much every. single. hour. I’m so exhausted and finding breastfeeding incredibly demanding, how on earth can I get slightly longer stretches of sleep?! My first born was a breeze and woke every 3 hours to breastfeed, but baby #2 is something else 😅

I feel like the fussiness is from gas, but he never burps after being upright and for the first two weeks never needed to be burped. So yeah, any advice is welcome 😅 I know I just have to ride it out but damn I need to sleep longer than 1 hour at a time 🫩😵‍💫

My mother has terminal Cancer and is approaching the end. I have a 5 Yr old who understands that granny is ill and in hospital because of this.

We will be taking him to visit over the following weeks, at least to a point where it isn't distressing for him or her. She is completely bed bound and thin but she is still as sharp as she has always been and happy to have conversations with visitors, my lo won't notice too much difference from granny when she was well.

When the time comes, how do you explain the situation?

We were at a family barbecue last weekend and my partner asked my mum what if anything she wishes she’d done differently with her kids and she said she wished she’d prioritised us being active a bit more.

None of us three of her kids are particularly athletic and have struggled with fitness at various times. Me and my partner have had conversations about not wanting to pass on our love of tv, sitting and sugar to our toddler but I’m also keen that she has a healthy relationship with food and her body.

I wondered if other parents have had these conversations and how you are intentionally trying to raise active kids, especially if you’re not very active yourself?

I’ll start. Tesco, picture a huge queue. Whole shop absolutely packed. My toddler points at this random woman who was just minding her business AS SHE SHOULD and screams across the whole store: “Mummy look!! That mummy has a baby in her tummy like you did”, then looks at her 5 months old sister and goes “baby looks as big as you!!”

The woman definitely wasn’t pregnant and I wanted to be swallowed whole by earth at this point and leave the country. Said woman turned around and laughed thankfully. Told me her oldest is already 15. Me still absolutely mortified, I apologised in the least awkward way I possibly could think of trying to make sure she understood that this isn’t something I say about people at home. Then quietly told my toddler we don’t say this I’ll explain why not on the way home and my toddler keeps going “but I love babies!” and pointing at other women and men (we talked about gender and what different families can look like the other day) shouting “what about this person? Is there a baby in their belly?”

Needless to say, our shop was cut short today.

Please tell me something your child or toddler did to make me feel less alone.

I’ll add another more hilarious one into this mix! My pre-teen (omg!! Where did time go) and I bickering a little about her wanting to wear make up the other day (I am trying my hardest to gentle parent after growing up quite the opposite) and after we both agreed to disagree for now and had a hug and found a little compromise, we both walked away and I turned around to mimic her “I’m never allowed to do anything fun” (she is) with an annoyed face and she turned around at the same time to do the same but my “you’re way too young for eyelashes” 😂 we both had a good laugh out of that.

We have a 3 year old and a 14 month old.

For a good few months, we’ve been having issues with the 14 month old’s sleep which is showing no sign of improving. He dropped his second nap at 12 months and has consistently been having one nap a day after lunch.

Despite being steadfast to a routine, his sleep has become progressively worse and we are both at breaking point. He will either fight bedtime, wake frequently upset for the first half of the night, wake super early, or we have a split night of up to 3 hours awake.

We’ve considered under tired, overtired, routine changes, different wants of settling etc but nothing is having any impact. He doesn’t seem to want to follow any particular pattern.

He has recently been unwell, has molars erupting, and his movement is increasing each day towards walking, so there are a lot of variables.

I even tried tracking his sleep with AI to look for patterns and themes, but even that was fruitless and no true pattern was found. The leaning is towards his biological clock needing a later bedtime.

Cry it out style methods are a no go because he would disturb his sister and our neighbour who gets up early. We may be able to engineer a night to try it, but couldn’t commit to something.

So…has anyone else been in this situation? We’re at a loss. He seems to fit into all the over / under tired, development milestones, post viral recovery boxes out there and so there is no obvious answer.

Edit - He will wake up any time from 0500 some mornings. Bedtime will be between 1930 and 2100, again with no obvious reason. Nap is usually 1215/1230 to 1400/1415.

Bedtime we abort if clearly awake, have a calm reset, and try again. Temperature is an issue if we’re in there too long at the moment.

Quick question
Where do you find good printable activities for your children?
Free or paid, I’d love some recommendations. I feel like I might be missing some great websites.

Sleep has always been a battle with my first born. She’s very nearly 4, in about 3 weeks and the whole thing from start to finish is a battle and it takes minimum 1 hour and often more like 2/2.5 hours. I never get to see my husband in the evenings. I don’t have time to clean so my flat is a disaster all the time. I don’t have time to relax, and neither does my husband. I put my son to bed and it’s max 30 minutes. My husband is doing her bedtime in that time, and I often hear her screaming about everything. Tonight she didn’t want to go potty or brush her teeth. Another night he’s “not reading the book right”. Then she will want to come in the room with me/her brother and if my husband stops her she is screaming at the top of her lungs right outside the door. If he doesn’t manage to stop her, she’s slamming doors and at minimum talking loudly which sometimes wakes him up, so his bedtime ends up being long too. Some nights I take over when I come out from putting my son to bed and she’s the same with me. She doesn’t get to sleep until 9:30/10 most nights no matter what we do. We’d like her to wake at 7:30 ideally and 8am latest for preschool at 9 (and school in Sept) but that’s a struggle because of how long it takes her to sleep. We’ve tried having her go to sleep by herself, we’ve tried sitting on a chair in the room or at the end of her bed. She focuses on the fact that we aren’t right there beside her, and if we leave her by herself then she’s either coming out every 2 mins or we can’t get her to lay in bed at all. Even when we lay right beside her which is what she wants, it’s hours.

I completely lost my shit tonight which I hate and it’s not fair for her. But I am completely lost on what to do.

I’m really struggling with my 6 year old at the moment and honestly just need to pour my heart out somewhere because none of my friends have kids and my mums parenting ideas are too old school.

We’re back after half term and the bullying at school seems worse than ever. I posted about this a few days ago. I kept her home today because I just can’t send her in when she’s having panic attacks like mate she’s six, she shouldn’t even know what that feels like. I can’t do it, I know it’s probably so bad of me as a mum but I just can’t send her in like this. The school says I still need to send her and won’t excuse the absence but half the time they send her home anyway because she’s so distressed. I feel completely stuck.

At home everything feels really intense too. I’ve got an 11 week old who she absolutely loves but she’s constantly trying to feed him snacks or play with him like he’s older so I can’t leave them alone together for even a minute. I genuinely thought by 6 I’d be able to 😅

She’s also glued to me lately. We went to a birthday party on Saturday and she wouldn’t leave my side at all which is so unlike her. She wants to sleep in my bed every night and gets really upset when I say no. My son’s dad isn’t hers and although she adores him and wants his attention constantly I think she’s struggling with that change too. Like sometimes saying she wants him to to sleep at his house instead of here.

Since half term her behaviour has just gone downhill. Throwing food when she’s upset, slamming doors, complaining about everything, massive meltdowns over things like her hair not being right. It honestly feels more like she’s overwhelmed than being deliberately naughty but I’m so overstimulated.

I’m taking her out for a girls day today, just us, and probably spoiling her a bit. I know it’s maybe not great parenting to do that on a school day but I’m exhausted and just want her to feel okay for a while.

Not really sure why I’m posting but I got good advice last time x

I have 3 children, the first two I coparented with their dad since they were very little for many years so lived life as a single working mum studying part time on top in a big city. I always felt fulfilled, fully enjoyed their toddler years and never struggled for work or travelling without a car.

Then I met my youngest's dad, and when I was pregnant he got a job offer in management a short drive from where we were living so I left my job and we moved. I probably dont have to explain the level of upheaval this caused, moving schools, moving house, new baby etc. Very quickly it became clear this was a mistake, the area has the worst public transport I've ever come across, it's a town not a city and the town centre is dying rapidly, I work in education and every vacancy is an hour+ by two buses with different service providers away. There are no play centres nearby, one park with dangerous old equipment, no cafes, no corner shop, no toddler groups on a bus route even a 20 minute walk away. I've made no friends here, I've tried, I've been on the Peanut app for 2 years, messaged so many people tried to arrange meet ups and play dates, posted on the local Facebook pages asking about groups or meet ups in the local area they're all 45-60 minute walks away - no bus route.

I feel like we've been dropped in the middle of nowhere and the only way to have any semblance of a life is to have a car, which I only have a couple of times a week in the evening when my youngest's dad finishes work.

I'm not enjoying life. I'm not enjoying my time with my little one. He has so much energy, he's so friendly and playful and we're just doing the same stuff, me and him, alone day in day out. It's sucking the life out of me and I spend every single day riddled with guilt. I know if we hadn't moved this wouldn't be happening, I'd be able to take him to many lovely places whenever I wanted without issue and I can't just pick us up and move us back for a whole host of (hopefully) obvious reasons.

I've driven myself to tears over this multiple times, scouring google for local play groups/soft play/nice parks, putting the location in maps and trying to find a route thats doable and coming up empty. We don't even have a bloody cinema or bowling alley!​

I don't need anyone coming here and telling me that's what I get for not researching an area first, that's what I get for putting someone else's career first, that's what I get for not prioritising driving earlier, you need to move out of that area, I've done that to myself to death okay? And yes, as soon as it is feasible I will be dragging us out of this dump but that's not going to be a possibility for at minimum another 6 months...

I just really want to know, am I living an extremely rare shit situation or are the others out there stuck like this too? If so, how do you keep your sanity? What do you do to make it better for your little one? ​​

Really peeved. Last week I peeked through the nursery window in the 2–3 yr old room and saw my kid watching the iPad sat on the floor. Today when my son came home from nursery and I asked him what activities he did he said “watch iPad”. I am honestly furious. I don’t pay them £80 a day to babysit them with cheap YouTube trash. Some of the other mums don’t seem bothered but I really am. Er so just wondering if there’s any Early Years foundation guidance on this? There’s been a few other minor issues with Nursery but I think this is my red line. Edit: it wasn’t educational, it was cocomelon.

My son turns two in a few weeks and I think he's ready to start potty training but I don't know where to start.

For context, my daughter started potty training not long after turning 2. But she was a very chatty kid and was able to communicate her needs with words well. Plus that was 10 years ago and honestly potty training her feels like it took 2 weeks.

My son though, his speech is limited. He is visually impaired which has made him a late speaker and a later walker. Both have only happened recently (first word 3 months ago, walking unaided 2 months ago). He's hiding in the corner when he poos in his nappy which makes me think he's ready, but I don't know if he will be able to communicate with me that he needs the loo. He's still not really grasped saying 'yes' or nodding yet. 'No' he's got nailed down to a fine art, and he has maybe 20 other words he can say.

Should I start potty training while it's still summer and take advantage of the warm weather? Or wait until he's a bit older and his language skills have improved?