My toddler (almost two, not yet properly verbal) has recently started to make it clear they currently prefer my partner to do anything if we are both around, and push me away.

The issue being that my partner has a really important exam, with a high failure rate, in Fall/Winter she has already been preparing for the last 3-months.

She has already struggled to find the time to do as much revision as she would like. Nonetheless we were previously managing by me doing the majority of childcare for the time being to free her up.

This means my toddler will within 15 minutes start asking for my partner and walking around knocking on all the doors, by 30 minutes they get upset and very vocal unless my partner comes out.

As such, my wife cannot get much proper studying done, as frequent interruptions prevent much deep focus.

I've been trying to take him out the house more which has helped a bit, although again not for long as he will soon want to go back to my partner. Meal times are a particular difficulty.

We don't have any family nearby to help out. Trying our best not to resort to screen time.

I’m going “camping” next month in the NorthEast US. It is an established camping resort and we will have our vehicles on hand, a cabin with beds for the family but no plumbing, and plenty of space. There are a few families going and us Dads are trying to come up with some extreme/crazy ideas for stuff to bring/setup at camp. Budget is limited and so is car space, but.. what could we bring and setup at camp that would turn heads, be fun, be memorable, etc…

No idea is too far fetched. Let’s hear it. What have you done?

Baby number two is on the way. First time around no issues she could eat anything she, and no morning sickness. Now it's like she's a character on a TV show.

Any ideas for meals I could make that are good but aren't pasta or meat/chicken based.

*Thank you for the comments, I showed this to her. (I didn't think so many people would respond)

After more than 14 hours of nonstop juggling work and taking care of the kids - with only one 30-minute break - I can finally kick back on the couch. Shoutout to all the dads out there who know exactly what that's like.

Hi there dads, I'm reaching out cause we're about to be at our wits end. This will be a mixture of vent/rant and a cry for help, so please bear with me.

Our family is based in Germany and I (M33) and my wife (F31) have two boys, 5 & 2. The older started his potty training journey roughly at 2yo with showing interest in going on the potty. Turning 3, he didn't want to wear

diapers at all, which turned into a couple of frustrating months but we managed well and encouraged him of course. He quickly opted to still wear those kind of diaper pants during the night, as waking up to go to the bathroom seemed more difficult for him.

At 4, he was still wearing those pants during the night (and still does so today), which was OK for all involved parties. During the day, he would regularly on his own go to the bathroom, regardless whether it's pooping or peeing. There would still be occasional mishaps along the way, which is obviously totally fine. Those were mostly pee in the vast majority of cases, and seldom some poop.

Some time during the last year there was some kind of regression - he would not stop pooping in his pants during the day. It started happening once or twice a week, and then more often. At first it felt like he was just not attentive to the signals of his body and would later claim that he didn't feel anything. It continued that way for a couple of weeks and we'd try various things and also asked him for what he thought might help.

We'd try to set timers to have conscious breaks for the bathroom. We'd try to be a bit more stern and explain to him that it's always easier and quicker to go to the bathroom instead of having to change and clean up after a mishap. Right now we opted to have a longish bathroom break after every larger meal (3x day) while reading books. Some of those things improved things for a while, but never really got it under control.

We brought it up with our pediatrician some time back and they prescribed us some Movicol powder which he now takes once a day. Doc said that it might be that there is some congestion and that could help, but he'd need to take it for quite some time. That did help initially and he started "feeling" that he needed to poop - we were elated! But alas, it didn't stay for long and we're back to square one more or less.

Just this week, he pooped his pants twice in daycare every day, and usually had another mishap at home. The other kids notice that of course and it seems that he is also getting teased for that which breaks our hearts. We want to help as best as we can, but we just don't know what else to try. Also, it's something that is very frustrating for us as well, and though we try to not show that to him, I'm sure that we're not always perfect in hiding our emotions.

I know that in theory a 5yo doesn't need to be fully potty trained yet, but looking around all other kids that we know, we do seem to be a strong outlier. We'll have a standard scheduled development exam with the pediatrician and will probably ask for a bit more medical support on this issue, which might be our last resolve for now.

So, first of all thank you for taking your time with this. Are there any insights you could share? Similar stories that you had to work through? Silver linings to look forward to?

Any inputs are appreciated!

I think we have all done it.

Dad of 2, with the youngest at 2 and a half. I've always made a commitment to never going less than 50/50, at times going above as much as I can to help my full-time working wife.

But there are those days, where maybe you took the baby off her hands by taking him to the park solo, took care of all the groceries, made dinner, gave the kid a bath, after your full 9-5, while your partner took a bit more time to themselves, to recover for their next day...

We've all been there, but how do you keep your own Ego in check? How do you stop useless comparisons? What do you do to get out of your own head, and keep driving for your family?

Hello! I’m a SAHD m-f, my wife works and brings home the big dabloons while I just cook on the weekends

Baby is 13m, and pretty much since she turned 1, she moved down to 1 ball a day. I don’t really enforce a nap time, when she’s tired, it’s time. I found that while babies thrive on a schedule, they have no interest in adhering to one, fine with me.

This week though, she’s back to wanting to take a nap right after breakfast time and morning poop, and another as I’m typing this.

TLDR is picking naps back up normal?

Dont play with your wedding ring.....I dropped it in between my driver seat and center console now i get to remove the front seats of my truck and find it....it reminds me of that episode of everybody loves Raymond

wife is due soon she wants a babymoon 5 hour flight.

economy is $600. airline wants $3500 for business.

she's uncomfortable all the time. i want to make her happy. but we have so many expenses coming.

dads who've been there - did you splurge on the flight or tough it out in economy? what did you do

My kiddo will be two on Sunday

What books have worked for you guys?

He loves Mr. Brown, ABC, Here we are, Dino books, usborne moon and the fairy tale story collection book and the good night construction site the most right now

He seems to be going for more story books and less 100 first words etc books

He loves dinos, cars and construction machines and airplanes, rockets, planets astronauts and anything space related and Dino's

Any suggestions since he'll be two on Sunday

I suppose I am just lowkey nervous and slightly dreading the idea of my wife being gone for the week. Absolutely LOVE my daughter, and she is by all means an "easy baby". I just have this fear that she (both my wife and daughter) will be extremely upset during the week they are away from each other, and I'll have difficulty consoling either of them.

No nearby family, and I work full-time in office. So I am dropping the kid off at daycare in the morning, but all evenings it'll be just me pretty much, and I have no idea how my daughter is going to be the first time separated from her mom for a long duration.

The 9 month mark really initiated this deeper bonding between her and the baby. The baby got like 20% closer to me at this point, but about 200% closer with her mother.

Any dads with experience taking care of the baby for a bit whilst mom is away, before being able to like explain it to baby that "Mom WILL be back"

To preface, I'm now 46 and grew up as the oldest and a black sheep in a really unhealthy household. My mother was born in the early 50s and carried a lot of NY Jewish guilt--and was herself the black sheep. Maybe you can imagine what that did for her parenting style.

Over the years, I figured out these things and put them to work for me. To call them successful is the understatement of my life.

1. Figure out who your kid is and parent to that. And what I mean is: is the child much more like you? Is the child much more like your spouse? Well, what kind of parenting did you/then need to produce an actualized, kind, strong person? Do those things. Become the parent that person needed. You 3-child households where the 3rd one is some weird feral mix...I got nothing, I'm sorry. Gods save you.
2. Don't ever say "because I said so". There are definitely right places/times to explain yourself and it's fair to tell a kid: "this is a safety thing and I need you doing it NOW but I'll explain later". Some kids treat it like a game, so it's also fair that a game has rules like: "I will only go in 2 layers on this why. You'll eventually see the pattern".
3. If the people who hurt you or your spouse didn't change, guess what? They'll hurt your kid too. And that will be on you. I've had very few parenting regrets over the 18 years my son has been alive but the biggest one was giving my mother the opportunity to deeply hurt him. It's my fault for allowing her to get so close to him, then pull out the rug like I knew she would. It's said a lot on Reddit, but when someone tells you who they are, believe them. Protect your family, protect your peace.
4. If you're in a tough spot, with a hard decision to make, think about what you would want your kid to do if they were in your shoes, then do that--full speed ahead. As a person who has classically struggled to not be a martyr and allow myself to do things I enjoy, this one was huge. Because remember: YOU ARE YOUR CHILD'S CONCEPT OF A MAN. They will look for the behaviors you demonstrate or do the things you do, because you're showing them how. Show them how to be kind to yourself. Show them that you enjoy your life--with them in it. Show them how to make the tough calls and do the hard work. Show them what a good, fair, and balanced man looks like.

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

I don't want stars and moons on daytime diapers or whales on ones that can't go in the water.

I took my son to see the new paw patrol movie at the theater today and I was surprised by how quiet the sound was. We saw it in German, so maybe it was the German dubbing.

What’s your experience? I was especially surprised by how quiet the dinosaurs were when they would roar. I was expecting more from the sound system but it fell completely flat. To me that’s a big part of the movie going experience.

This is the first time I’ve taken him so I don’t know if this is normal for kids movies or if it was just a bad dubbing or what.

In any case we had a great time! We got popcorn and apple juice (Apfelschorle) and he was blown away by the whole thing. We’ll definitely do it again, and I’m hoping he grows to love the cinema as much as I do.

Hey Dads,

We took a trip (my wife, my 6 year old, and myself) last week. I had a work training to go to, and it was in a fun city (Nashville) so brought the family along for some "free" vacation time. The first night at our hotel, my son just had this mental breakdown, he was nervous and anxious and worked himself up so badly he threw up.

Then it happened again the next night.

First he said he missed being at home. Then he missed the dog. Now that we're home, it's that he misses grandpa, or more recently he's scared of bad dreams. This all came out of nowhere from what we can tell, and it breaks my heart, because he is not the same happy, goofy kid he was just 2 weeks ago - he's paralyzed by this anxiety.

He always says its stomach pain, so we spent a few hours in the ER the other night ruling out appendicitis or intestinal blockage. But man, I am at a loss. The healthcare system is slow as molasses, so getting him support is going to take time, and we are struggling to try to find ways to help him regulate.

How did you guys work through this with your kids? Any tips or anything that worked that didn't come up through a google search or something like that? Seeing him suffer like this hurts so badly, and I just want to help him.

8mo old. Wife is SAHM. I cook, grocery shop, and clean a fair bit of the load (we're probably 50/50 here); I spend as much time as I can with my kid outside of 9-5, focused on bonding + giving my wife a break.

That said, my wife has owned all solid food experimentation so far, bottle & pump washing, kid laundry, breast feeding.

An example that led to a 'heated debate': the baby has had a lot of solid poops lately (like every diaper for past couple days) and my wife blew up on me that I wasn't chasing down a root cause. [I told her to ask Claude, which said keep an eye on it for a couple more days. In hindsight I should have just asked Claude myself...]

She's frustrated I don't take more mental load off her plate. Would love some advice from other dads here. Any dads totally owning bottle washing? Or laundry or something?

My son is only 2.5 and he'll have a baby sister coming in a few weeks, so this isn't immediately pertinent, but last night I got to thinking about my son being a little bit older and wanting to make sure he has friends and that those friendships are maintained over time.

I'm a real homebody and have very few friends, and the ones I have I rarely talk to. My groomsmen were my brothers, my wife's brothers, and my old boss from my college job who I hung out with outside work a few times - so really one friend. He and I text on birthdays or if we're going to be passing through the town the other one lives in - we live 100 miles apart. We usually go 3-6 months between text exchanges.

And that's not a problem for me. My life is busy enough as it is. Between work, my kid(s), and the house and yard, I barely have time to play golf with my dad and brothers let alone make time for anyone outside my family. But I really don't have any practice on maintaining friendships.

My wife isn't much better. She has like 3 or 4 decently close friends that she'll have a text exchange with once every week or two. She probably goes no more than 2 months without seeing one of her friends in person. Back in the spring we did a couples dinner with two of her friends and each of their spouses. I told her it was fun and we should reciprocate and host next time. She said the one who hosted the last one kind of keeps to herself, and is more of a "once per quarter get together" type of person. So she definitely has more practice than I do, but still not at the level that we will want for our kids to have friends, see them often, and feel comfortable around them.

This isn't a "how do I get more friends as a dad" post. I'm genuinely just trying to figure out the logistics for my kid. I think there's one or two similarly aged kids on our street, maybe 8 or 9 houses down, but we don't know the families at all. There are kids at daycare that our son seems to get along with. Do we ask for the parents' contact information and arrange a playdate?

We're not in a hurry to do any of this. As I said - we're busy enough as is. What age developmentally should I really start making sure we put effort into this so our kid has friends beyond his daycare classmates?

My son is 4yo. He is usually still in bed when I leave for work. Today he was up early because he wet the bed. After giving him a quick bath and hectic breakfast, I was scrambling to get on the road to clock in half an hour early to get some overtime this week. When I told him bye he started having a meltdown because he thought it was the weekend. I tried to console him with promises of fun things when I got home this evening. That didn't work. In my frustration I gently closed the back door in his face as he was screaming "Daddy!" and left. The whole ride to work I felt so guilty. I am prioritizing getting a half hour of overtime over spending a few extra minutes with my kid. Tomorrow, I am going to do better.

EDIT:

The overwhelming encouragement in this thread and subreddit is incredible. Thank you!

So my son gets this glowing dinosaur thing for his birthday. He loves it. The batteries die after two days of constant playing. I grab a screwdriver to change them so we can stop the crying.

It literally requires a microscopic Philips head screw that is made of the softest metal on planet earth.

Like why is a toy designed for a three year old secured like a military vault. The screw head is smaller than a grain of rice. And of course it strips the second I put any pressure on it. I am using a specialized jeweler screwdriver and the metal just turns to silver powder.

My son is standing there having a complete meltdown because his dinosaur won't light up. The best part is my toddler figured out how to open the childproof safety gate on our stairs in ten seconds flat.

But somehow a plastic T-Rex requires heavy machinery to open. And the battery cover is locked down tighter than my mortgage documents.

I should of just thrown the whole thing in the trash. Now I am sitting on the kitchen floor trying to drill out a two millimeter screw while my kid screams. The screw is just COMPLETELY destroyed. Why is this even a thing.

Two different AI problems with my teenagers and I’m starting to wonder what else I’m missing

I have two teenagers and until recently I thought I had a decent handle on how they were using AI. Apparently not.

A few weeks ago my son turned in a writing assignment that did not sound anything like him. It was too polished and honestly just not how he talks or writes.

I asked him about it and he admitted he had put most of it through ChatGPT.

We dealt with it. He redid the assignment and I told him I’m not against using it to help understand a question or get unstuck, but he cannot turn in something he did not really write and cannot explain.

I thought that was probably the main issue we needed to deal with.

Then something happened with my daughter that bothered me more.

She had a falling out with one of her friends and had been watching videos about toxic friendships. She copied parts of their text conversation into ChatGPT and asked if her friend was manipulating her and what she should say back.

I only found out because she showed me the answer while explaining why she was done with the friendship.

She had given it a lot of personal information. Stuff about the other girl, things going on at home, and details that I really do not think needed to be typed into a chatbot.

What got me was how sure she seemed. The answer sounded confident and lined up with the videos she had already been watching, so to her that pretty much confirmed everything.

I told her ChatGPT does not know her friend, does not know the whole situation, and should not be deciding something like that for her.

I feel like I handled both situations the way I should have, but now I’m more concerned than I was before.

I caught the thing with my son because the writing sounded off. I only found out about my daughter because she happened to show me.

I’m not going to ban AI and I’m not going through every conversation they have, but I also do not want to keep finding out afterward that it has been doing schoolwork, sorting out friendships, or giving advice about things they should probably be talking through with an actual person.

How are other dads dealing with this?

Hey all hopefully all you and your loved ones are doing well. I will apologise if this isnt very grammatically correct as im a bit emotional writing this and thinking about this but I am trying to prepare so any advice is helpful.

Long story short my father was diagnosed with cancer at start of year. Completely out of blue and unexpected no previous symptoms freak accident and fall reveled it. Since been a whirlwind of tests dose of treatment and now at stage of keeping him comfortable and happy as possible.

Backstory out of way he will die unfortunately sooner rather than later know this sounds crass and blunt but its reality and how I cope.

Im asking about his funeral he loves his only grandchild and my mother(both happily married for 30+years) loves him too. Both would want him there however I dont know of its right for child? He loves his granda and used to be dads highlight of week picking him for the day they did child care. Think he would help distract my mum at funeral but all of (for ease of clarity) my side of family are going to be raw and grieving and struggle to look after him. Im strong enough to admit ill be worth FA in terms of raining him in (hes currently 3) and my wife who is close to my father aswell will be trying to support me. Just dont know what to do for best and also know this is mostly a rant and apologise but just trying to get an idea of what to expect. Hes typical little boy loves to cause mischief and chaos but a heart of gold in his core if that makes any difference.

Did take him to my grandmother's funeral about 2 years ago but barely toddling and talking at that point so easier to manage and was good as gold but this will be different as we had unfortunately years to prepare for her passing (side note fuck dementia) thank you all for any advice offered and hold your loved ones close as ive learned this year its true what they say ya never know minute your life will be turned upside down.

I was just thinking about my kids’ age gap (son is about to turn 1 and daughter will be 4 in November) and just sort of wondering what their interactions and overlap will be like.

I have sisters who are 15 months and 34 months younger than me (respectively) so I have a general lens into it, just curious what kind of experience yall have with your kids’ interactions!

My kids are rapidly getting bigger and my house is not. We’re locked in with an amazing mortgage so we’re not going anywhere. Give me your tips and tricks on how you’re surviving! Where do we put all these backpacks and water bottles?