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I got my partner pregnant. Which was the plan, but is still surprising, in a way. She made me promise not to tell anyone (until 1st trimester) so I'm saying it here. I'm happy but a bit scared.
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Mar 10, 2025 13:28
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Yeah being supportive is all well and good but what if they like it
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Mar 11, 2025 18:47
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My partner doesn't want to tell people about the pregnancy before the first trimester is done. I get it, especially because she is a private person by nature. But she isn't telling anyone. Not her mom, sisters, best friends etc. And she expects the same of me. I want to tell people the good news. But on a practical note I'd really like advice! And since I'll want my mom, for example, to help with the little bundle of joy I'd like to bring her in on it early. I'm going to work on her, I can't imagine keeping the secret for months.
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Mar 13, 2025 18:51
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Ok, well fair enough. How then did you all get advice during those first few months? Please don't say the internet.
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Mar 13, 2025 20:31
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space uncle posted:What advice do you need? I don't know, I haven't done this before. To clarify, I'm not looking for medical advice. Obviously my partner will get that from medical professionals and I can read stuff. I'm more thinking that this is the biggest thing to happen in my life. I'm not a very emotional person most of the time but this is a big deal and I want to talk about it. I told my partner I wouldn't discuss it with anyone without clearing it with her, of course.
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Mar 13, 2025 21:13
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ExcessBLarg! posted:Here's some practical advice: This is good advice, thanks. We're already looking at child care options. And yeah, I want my family and friends to be involved as much as possible, which is part of the reason I'd like to bring (a select few) in earlier than the others. Mostly my mom, who never met a kid she didn't like. Of course she also can't keep a secret so that's a tough one.
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Mar 14, 2025 13:24
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reversefungi posted:Also, if you want to be super helpful, offer to take on more household tasks, cook, etc. Also preggie pops helped my wife a lot in the beginning when it came to dealing with morning sickness and nausea Yeah I've already stepped up on that front, will increase it more as time passes.
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Mar 14, 2025 16:07
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BadSamaritan posted:We used to joke that our toddler had a mysterious hearing problem when we told her to do something and she’d straight up ignore us in favor of the thing she would rather do. Now at almost 6 we can make the exact same joke. My parents made this joke well into my teenage years
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Mar 18, 2025 18:27
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Microwaves are just heating, they won't cause chemical changes that "regular" heating won't. Of course by heating unevenly you can get some odd stuff, overdoing one part but not others.
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Mar 19, 2025 13:21
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My spouse told me the ultra sound showed she's pregnant with twins. Which is great, because I want two kids! But now I'm nervous. We're both pushing 40. Twins increase the risk of... everything. And it seems like some of the testing for abnormalities doesn't work on twins? All I want are healthy kids. I'm trying to not worry too much about it.
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Apr 16, 2025 13:37
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CarForumPoster posted:This owns. Your 8yo son hacked some system to be able to enjoy a creative hobby you both like. Congrats on your future engineer/hacker. It's at least a bit important. If you're kids do as you say you'll have an easier time parenting. More importantly I think it's the discipline in the background. It means the kid resists the urge to do whatever she wants at a given time because they think about negative consequences. This will be very valuable in school and society generally where everyone follows rules and those that don't have a harder time. Of course you don't want unthinking drones either so obviously obedience isn't everything.
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Apr 23, 2025 15:05
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meanolmrcloud posted:Is this a common thing? I’m not sure I’ve ever seen this before, and I just have to get mad for regular reasons in parking lots Where I live there are spots for expecting mothers but that's the closest I've seen.
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Apr 23, 2025 20:58
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I was at the ultrasound with my partner today and seeing the twins was a trip. And then they started to writhe around while we were watching! Pretty amazing, and no red flags so happy about that.
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Apr 25, 2025 21:55
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lifg posted:I just moved my 4yo from a balance bike to a pedal bike, no training wheels, and he figured it out almost immediately, with almost no help from me. Was just talking about this with the spouse yesterday. They look fun as anything, we'll definitely be getting a couple.
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Apr 28, 2025 15:35
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What is 'distracted parenting' and why would anyone need to sign a form about it?
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May 1, 2025 13:51
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Ok that distracted thing makes a lot of sense. I'm very absent-minded myself and I'd be terrified of forgetting about a kid.
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May 1, 2025 15:35
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Renegret posted:It's not even about being distracted, it's about the power of routine. My method for these situations is to put up barriers. I'll set out things I need the night before. If something is unusual I'll, say, use it to block the door. So I physically have to touch the thing to get outside. When I've got little bundles of joy to drive around maybe I'll put my phone/wallet under the car seat or something.
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May 1, 2025 17:14
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Rufio posted:I'm definitely not on board with teaching your kids that all strangers are dangerous and should be treated as a potential kidnapper/abuser. Same. Strangers *are* nice, good people. It is an extreme minority that would do harm to a child. Treating everyone as a potential villain is imo quite harmful to society at large as it transfers into adulthood. I learned only as an adult that trusting strangers is not only practical but it also makes both of you feel good, too. In other cultures kids are treated as a sort of communal responsibility. A pal of mine was in Vietnam years ago at a beach. A stranger came over and asked her to watch her kid while she went to get something, not even waiting for a yes as she left. My pal was shocked of course but it was totally normal there.
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May 3, 2025 14:34
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I'm reminded of a time my pal and I went to a big park with our respective gfs. We brought martial arts gear and were sparring in various ways, which was very interesting to the gaggle of kids nearby. They were 6-8 in both age and qty. They wanted to fight and wrassle. The group of parents yelled across saying we could try rid of the kids but my pal and I were happy playing around. After an hour or so it was time to go. One of the parents brought over a bottle of wine for us as thank you for baby sitting the group. Was a fun afternoon.
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May 3, 2025 16:40
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I've read a few times in this thread about meltdowns. It often goes: -Kid makes unreasonable demand which can't be met. -Demand isn't met, meltdown ensues -New unreasonable demand is generated -Parent attempts to meet demand despite being unreasonable -Kid is unsatisfied, meltdown continues/renews It seems to me that catering to these whims is destined for failure. The demands seem arbitrary and non-sensical; the kid doesn't really want it, they want a vague sort of gratification that they don't know how to fulfill. It also teaches the kid that meltdowns yield parental attention. But, I'm not a parent, yet, so it's easy for me to say these things when nobody is screaming at me for a lemon. Help me understand.
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May 19, 2025 08:45
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Mistaken Frisbee posted:Welp, found out today I'm having fraternal twins - so likely early December babies. Our fragile lives were built around just adding one more baby at a time, so now I need to trade in my Kia Forte because I was pretty sure we could fit 2 carseats in there, but 3 seems unlikely. 3 carseat very economic car recommendations please. Hey fellow twin-haver. Our first are due in october. Exciting times!
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May 21, 2025 10:50
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My partner is due Oct 31. But it's twins, so they tend to come early. How much time should I bank off beforehand? I've got a work trip in mid September which I assume I won't be able to go to in case they pop early. But I'd like to know some rules of thumb.
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May 29, 2025 12:18
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Hadlock posted:introducing a complex about death What do you mean by this?
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Jun 1, 2025 20:26
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Oh. Uh, I'd worry that shielding my kid from basic realities would make them less resilient overall. Maybe its easy for me to say this as my kids aren't born yet.
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Jun 1, 2025 20:37
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Yeah I guess there are better and worse ways of broaching the subject
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Jun 1, 2025 20:49
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meanolmrcloud posted:4.5 year old went from being scooter-unsure and uncoordinated to zipping along in her swimsuit with one foot high in the air like a figure a skater this weekend. Just put some ribbons or LED lights on it and they'll like it way more.
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Jun 2, 2025 00:08
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Kids are LLMs that haven't had enough training
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Jun 4, 2025 15:04
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remigious posted:It really burns my biscuit that for the second time my son did not get into free public preschool. There goes another $17k for another year of daycare. Absolutely ridiculous. Fuuuuuuuuuu That really sucks. What's the process like that makes it dicey?
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Jun 4, 2025 20:09
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remigious posted:Priority for free preschool is given to families under a certain income level. Which I totally get, and it’s a good thing that there is help for people that need it, but this city has three separate programs to help lower income families afford preschool and there’s just nothing left for the middle class. Unfortunately it's pretty common that there's help for the poor and very poor and then above some invisible line you get to provide the help in the form of taxes rather than receive it. Which makes sense yes but maybe a sliding scale, where middle class people can get *some* help.
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Jun 4, 2025 21:07
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Benagain posted:dad I know about ants. I learned about them in school. they live in nests, and when bad bugs go into the nests to eat their babies the ants are so mad This is basically why I want kids
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Jun 5, 2025 16:34
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What are the threads opinions on strollers? Some background: We're having twins We live in a town that is quite walkable, but there will be plenty of driving too I don't know much about strollers Any opinions?
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Jun 7, 2025 17:39
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Hadlock posted:For what age group? infants are their own thing, but I'm a big fan of wagons once they're 1+ Well they'll be infants first. And likely pretty small because they're twins. I do like the idea of wagons, I'll look more into that. I do live in an area with a long winter and snow. I don't really know how much I'll be traversing with them-- maybe I'll just take the car instead?
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Jun 7, 2025 19:29
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Gay Nudist Dad posted:This is the way. Figure out what infant car seats you want to get for them, then buy a stroller that they’ll click into. Being able to keep the kid buckled in - especially with two - to transition in and out of the car is amazing. It also means the stroller is smaller and easier to put in the trunk, because it has no seats (until you click in the car seat). Ahhh. Yes, that's how to start the problem solving. Thanks.
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Jun 7, 2025 19:50
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Nobody likes doing chores but everyone likes to help. My car trots behind me when I'm doing stuff around the house.
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Jun 9, 2025 17:55
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Nocheez posted:How do you deal with the tire marks and oil stains? Man I wished my car helped. I spent most of the weekend getting the spouses neglected car running again.
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Jun 9, 2025 20:04
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I'm getting mildly concerned about my partner, who is about halfway through her pregnancy. She's always been prickly, but it is really reaching new levels. I asked her just now if she's looking forward to having kids and she said yes but, and went on to list some of the things that might be bad. Which is mostly all she does; its all negative. Any positive statements are mixed in with the negative like: 'my friend will be on mat leave at the same time so we can go for walks together... which I'll need because I'll be going absolutely crazy'. Putting a positive spin on things also seems bad. My mom tried that (she's an overwhelmingly positive person, especially when it comes to kids). She likes to say how much fun it will be, how amazing it is to have kids etc. And my partner was saying to me how she doesn't want to be loving gaslit. And to a large extent I get it, this is a stressful time. In-laws are tough to deal with. And as I said she's always been prickly so this isn't a total surprise. And of course there's mood swings on top of everything else. But the level of sustained negativity is... disheartening. I find its starting to bring me down though. And I'm not sure how to respond; pointing out the positives or trying to be uplifting might come across as condescending. I'm looking for ideas on how to support her, as I assume she's just having a rough time (understandably). Maybe I'll take her out for a nice dinner and a movie or something. It's probably just that, if I had babies crawling around inside me I'd probably be getting pretty irritable as well, so I shouldn't be bothered by it. In fact maybe its me that's being prickly, by being bothered by this at all.
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Jun 10, 2025 00:49
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BadSamaritan posted:Imo there may be a couple things going on here- she may basically be hedging her bets that postpartum and young kid life is going to be tough (because it will be, but maybe not in the way someone without kids may interpret from what they read). The cultural narrative about kids has shifted more negative with how people talk/complain frankly online. This transparency is a double edged sword. She may be trying to wrap her mind around the big shift coming up and trying to set the bar low for herself, if that makes sense. I think it's probably this. She spends a lot of time on social media. The mom influencers that portray motherhood as a state of bliss are her enemy. So it's likely she's swung in the other direction. She was quite worried early on in the pregnancy about the effects on her body but it's been quite easy so far but this hasn't resulted in more positivity. Thanks for those other posts as well, the advice is good.
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Jun 10, 2025 12:18
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Olanphonia posted:For a right now treat, she might enjoy a massage! I know my wife certainly appreciated it. That too is a good idea!
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Jun 10, 2025 13:37
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I suspect there's a pretty hard limit on how much a parent can help a kid's social life. I was very shy growing up and I'm glad my parents didn't "help" me by trying to manage my friends or whatever. Of course this is now giving me a new anxiety about my unborn twins-- what will their social lives be like?! Haven't really thought much past the baby stage.
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Jun 11, 2025 14:29
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His Divine Shadow posted:I don't agree that kids should be allowed to exclude each other like that though. Freezing people out when they want to be part of the group. The schools here will count that as bullying too if it happens there, part of the anti-bullying program. In this case Daniel wants to join, at least sometimes. Which right now seems to be working after we have pointed it out. Focus seems to be on David and his friend mostly, but at least Daniel isn't actively excluded or told to leave when he gets close, on his own yard. I don't care how many friends David would lose, but that kind of behavior I just couldn't tolerate without speaking up. Does seem the kids got the message though and it hasn't caused undue issues. Does this process work? And I guess, what does work even mean? What is the desired goal? Anti bullying is all well and good, but some kids are really annoying and others don't want to spend time with them. Forcing this seems like it would generate problems elsewhere.
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Jun 11, 2025 16:12
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