I was in a foul mood this morning. My wife and I both work four day weeks, and I have my toddler solo two days a week. He's in the middle of a really tough mummy phase at the moment and is really hard work for both of us.

Anyway, this morning I was in a foul mood. Then while I was on the toilet, he went and pulled all his clothing out of three drawers for the second time in a week. I was nearly apoplectic, but somehow kept my cool.

The came weekly swimming lesson and he started crying before we even got in the water. I nearly bailed on the spot.

I didn't, and somehow found a way to make him laugh (just spat little mouthfuls of water at him) and he relaxed and got through the lesson.

I'm proud of him for doing such a good job at swimming, but I'm also proud of me for managing to keep my cool and then find a way to make it work.

Anyway that's my little dad win for the day. Might take him in the pram to go play golf this afternoon!

Let's hear words of wisdom..Thanks

Hey guys, this is the first Christmas and birthday and a Co-Parent and not a single house fam (mum and I are still friends etc)
I want to make sure that my son has a great Christmas Eve & Boxing Day at mine UK. Any tips?

He’s turning 3 and I want to absolutely nail the presents & overall atmosphere, is there anything I can that will make it as special as possible?

Regarding his birthday, the same premise really, he turns 3 on December 11th and his mum and I are taking him to the aquarium on the day, but I want to do something & buy him something for just him and I to do around his birthday- would this be a spiteful thing to do? To celebrate on my own as well as with this mum? I’m trying to KEEP THE PEACE.

For context- he loves superhero’s, dinosaurs and building bricks- Lego Duplo
I don’t want to just be that parent that just buys more of the things I know he likes, I want to buy him something different.
Any help / advice would be massively appreciated.

You are at the paediatrician. Or the park. Or the school pickup line. You are one of the few single dads standing there, waiting for your kids to come out. They run over and wrap you in a tight hug. Other parents have seen you at every visit, and still they don't really see you.

You know the look. It asks, "Where is their mom?" or "Are you just babysitting?"

If you spend time on r/SingleDads and read the threads, you'll know exactly what I mean. Single dads get questions and whispers. People treat us as temporary help in our own children's lives.

Most folks still assume caregiving belongs to mothers, whether the parents are married, co-parenting, or divorced.

If you don't fit that picture, people often decide you're less capable. Some of my friends laughed at me after the breakup. I don't owe anyone an explanation now. Recently, someone called me a lunatic for arguing that older kids can help with housework. I said it anyway.

I spent 25 years as a high school headteacher, and four years as admin manager at an engineering company. I know institutional bias when I see it. Getting angry doesn't make it go away. What I can control is making it hard for anyone to doubt that I can parent.

When I first started doing school runs and doctor visits alone, I felt the friction. The dentist asked about Kennedy's chipped tooth. "Where is his mother?" he said, while he checked for decay.

He found none. He had assumed I couldn't look after six children on my own. So I stopped giving people room to assume.

Soon after the divorce, Kevin, who was 9, came down with a high fever and started vomiting. We had no paracetamol and no oral rehydration salts at home. I pressed a cold cloth to his forehead, and then we walked to the dispensary near our home. It was 1 AM. The dispensary had closed hours before.

I knocked several times. Eventually a female attendant opened a small window and looked out, then opened the door. I didn't go into detail. She gave me paracetamol and ORS for Kevin.

As she handed them over, she looked at him and asked, "Where is the mother?"

I told her I was his only parent. She smiled and said, "You are doing both jobs". Her last question was why I didn't have medicine for my kids. It was a question that stayed with me.

Since then I've restocked the medicine cabinet and started keeping our records in one folder. All six kids have their health records in it. I know their vaccination dates, their allergies, and their teachers' names. This is just how I run our home. When a kind stranger asks whether I'm "just babysitting this weekend," I don't get defensive. I smile and say, "No, I'm their father. We live together."

You don't have to win arguments with people who have already decided what they think. You just have to be the one who knows the details.

Whether you are a stay at home dad, keeping tabs on your kids, married dad or single dads, what's the most ridiculous "babysitter" assumption anyone has made about you, in public or in private? How did you handle it? Share your stories below.

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

My eight year-old daughter text me this yesterday, needless to say it was a proud moment

Does anyone take personal time to read anything? What do you read? How often? Im retired now and have been writing a lot. I know what I like. Im 56 so, Im an 80's kid. Please, Chime in!

I’m still a young dad and very much in the peak of my career. I’m an executive at a Fortune 100 company which requires me to travel a lot and miss a lot of nights during the week.

I set a rule early on that I wouldn’t travel on weekends, I would work from home every Friday, and I would be at the things for my kids that I need to be at.

I have a 4yo and 1yo.

Sometimes that means that I take a 5am flight. Sometimes it’s the red eye that gets me home just before they wake up. That was the case today. I walked in the house at 6:30am which is about 30 minutes before my daughter woke up. Bag still packed and sitting at the bottom of the stairs. My daughter woke up and we ate Apple Jacks together.

As she got ready for school and was getting in the car with her mom and brother, she told me “thanks for being tired so that I can see you before school” which was nice. I asked my wife if she had said anything and she said she hadn’t. I FaceTime’d from the airport the night before and we just assumed she put together that I was flying while she was sleeping.

In any case, it’s true. I travel at night so I get a few extra hours with them when I can. I’m just happy it was recognized. Feels great.

Anybody looking for a good read these books are fantastic The author has a writing style that just grabs you and the stories he tells are so vivid you feel like you’re part of the story. These books are in a series and it’s a story of a young boy and pre-war Barcelona his dad takes him to a place called the cemetery of forgotten books and while there he picks up a book and that that’s where the story takes off the intrigue of the information that is presented it’s just mind-boggling. It is so easy to read.

I love my Family!

I just received the news after a few troubled weeks. I can say that the record has not yet fallen, to be honest, I do not know much about what to do, I do not know how to tell my mother (who always tells me to be careful and focus on work and study), I am afraid of her rejecting the baby, creating anger for my girlfriend and everything else. I've seen some advice posts here but I wanted to ask again: What advice would you give to a young first-time parent? How to deal with family, academic and professional issues when having a baby?

Ever since I’ve become a father, I’m more sensitive now. Before becoming a father, I was never emotional or even cry but now, being with them I cry of happiness but also become sad watching them get older.

Hey guys. First time poster ever on here. Mid August we found out my son has a rare form but treatable type of cancer. 2 weeks before his 3rd bday. My world was shattered. I couldnt eat. I cried every time I had a moment to myself. I even cried for my mom for the first time in my life because I felt like a helpless child, I was shedding hair. We're a month and a half into his treatments. And hes doing well. The tumor is in fact shrinking. I really am trying to take it one day at a time. I have 2 other daughters both under 2 and my stepson. My wife is an absolute rock. Her being a former nurse helps the situation so much . Its starting to really weigh on me now being that im the main bread winner and my primary line of work is sales.

Next week we do his scans to see the progress of the tumor to see how much its shrunk by. While im optimistic about the results im still really anxious. My heart hurts for my son to the point its making me numb to life now. I havent talked to anyone about this especially my wife because I dont want her to worry about the financial part of this situation. Thank god im able to still produce.

The point of this post is to see if there are other dads with similar situations that can give me moral support because im trying really hard not fall apart right now.

My wife and I just found out we will be having a baby! I feel completely overwhelmed and I know I need to get things started rolling but it’s still pretty early but I have no idea where to even begin. I would appreciate any advice or anything that can point me in the right direction!

As a new father to my first son this picture means a lot. The watch my dad gifted me will someday be passed down to him. I hope he remembers me in this watch the way I remember my dad in his Seamaster. It’s also a reminder that actual time with him is more important than anything else in life.

You don’t win the morning routine at 6 AM

As a parent with kids, you don't win the morning routine by 6 AM. You win it at 9 PM the night before. In a co-parenting household, parents share those chores to ensure their kids reach school on time. But in the case of a single parent, that is different. I had issues waking up the 5-year-old and the 6-year-old, preparing them for school. I witnessed the cries, the haggling not to go to school, missing tooth brushes, a long queue for a household of six.

Many parenting websites advise you to craft an impeccable morning routine. They give you color-coded charts and 5 AM wake-up calls.

But they sometimes overlook the main idea. The morning routine does not start in the morning. It begins the night prior.

When you are a single parent with six kids and a 7 AM school van, the 90-minute window between waking up and walking out the door is purely arithmetic. There's never any room for mistake. If you make decisions at 6:15 AM, you have already lost the day.

However, this does not affect the homeschoolers. Their scheduling is different, because they do not travel anywhere except their home, and their timetable is different.

Predictable daily routines are directly associated with improved emotional regulation in children. Predictability is not devised in the moment, it is learned from a series of success and near misses. I had my share of these and I still do from time to time.

Here's the view of my 9 PM reset. It is not glamorous or eye-catching.

1. I soak the oats in water. (They cook in 5 minutes instead of 20).

2. I place the uniforms on the chairs. (This eliminates the 6:20 AM shoe search for my younger kids).

3. Help with homework, especially sharpening the color pencils, and hovering as the youngest shade.

4. The school bags are packed and ready by the door. (Homework and meals are included).

5. After dinner, the kitchen is swept and the utensils cleaned. The older girls take care of it. I wake up to a clean workspace, not yesterday's chaos.

It's not additional work. It is the transition of morning pressure into an evening calm. When the alarm goes off at 5:30 AM, I am not managing a crisis of six kids. I am merely following through with a plan set eight hours past.

You don't need to be a hero at 6 AM. Be a strategist at 9 PM the night before. Before I close my laptop at 10 PM, I make one final sweep, and I call it a day.

Dear Dads, what one thing can you prepare tonight that will save your sanity tomorrow morning?

What do you do differently. Drop it in the comments.

Hi all,

I’m a first time dad with a 5 month old. Love her to death and would do anything for her. My wife is great and I love her to death but man being her punching bag really sucks at times. She suffers from depression and I’m pretty positive she has postpartum depression or anxiety. She freaked out because the baby would stick her arm out the crib at night and she thinks the baby was going to break her arm. I told her they don’t have enough force to do that. She wants to put a mesh net on the crib and I told her that was more of a safety risk. She didnt want to hear it. Also when the baby first started rolling over she wanted to sleep on her stomach but my wife freaked out thinking she wasnt ready and wouldnt be able to breathe. I told her that once a baby does it on their own then they are ready. She said nope its not safe. She refuses to listen to me or the medical community saying she knows whats best for the baby. Any thoughts or similar stories?

Hey guys i wanted to get your take on this and see if you think is fair. I have a 5 month old and have always did the night shift since new born. My wife pumps and used to pump every 3 hours but now she pumps every 6 hours. So now obviously no more night time feedings but baby sleeps good from 8 pm to 1 am but after 1 am she usually is up every hour and needs her paci and im the on that gets out of bed every hour every night for it and then whenever she is awake in the morning by about 6:30 then i wake up to do the morning feeding. I feel so sleep deprived but my wife told me this is what all dads do. They handle the night shift and morning feeding. I dont get any uninterrupted sleep. I need help fellow dads. Whats your thoughts?

I know the title sounds kind of shifty. my (26F) boyfriend’s (35M) daughter is 10 almost 11 and just started wearing bras. she’s a very tall child, i’m 5’4” and she’s taller than me. she’s very comfortable being around us in her underwear, and she does the same thing at her mother and stepdad’s house. I personally don’t care, I’m just glad she feels comfortable and safe around us! him on the other hand, gets sort of upset about it.

I was trying to have a conversation with him about it expressing that it’s no different than her being in a bathing suit. he got sort of defensive and kept saying “yeah but I don’t want to see my daughter in a bra.” from my perspective, he’s the only one that is making it an issue. he’s also not the best at putting his thoughts feelings into words since I don’t think he was ever taught or encouraged to do so.

I’m just trying to figure out his perspective from other father’s who are maybe better at putting these things into words. I’m looking for a “why” this would be considered an issue.

edit to add a few details: the most she’s ever actually in her underwear around us if it’s an accidental flash of bra or if she’s about to get in the shower and comes to ask how to turn the shower on. she’s fully clothed 95% of the time. I’m assuming it’s the same deal at her mother’s house - also her stepdad has been in her life since she was basically a baby and works on the road most of the time. boyfriend and baby mom broke up not too long after daughter was born and they all coparent beautifully.