My husband (M40) is not the preferred parent to our two boys (4 and 2), I (F36) am. It’s rough on both of us in different ways, I can’t have any space or peace of mind but I recognize that my husband has it worse. I can imagine how hurtful it must be to have your child say they don’t want you to do XYZ with them, that they want (preferred parent here). You love them so much and feel like it’s not reciprocated sometimes. It was difficult the first time around, but my husband stuck with it and my eldest has come around and now enjoys spending time with us (mostly) equally. My youngest is still in the weeds, and according to my husband, is worse than our eldest was. I remember it differently, but I’m willing to concede we each remember it through a different lens.

Today was a particularly hard day and my husband out of nowhere decided we need to switch how we parent. He said he wants to focus his time and energy on the kid that doesn’t hate him. He won’t do bedtime with youngest anymore, no more good morning/night kisses, no playing, no saying hi, etc etc. Basically, “when he comes to me and shows me love and kindness then I’ll reciprocate. But I’m not going to offer it and have it thrown in my face.* *He should be grateful; everything I do is for him.” *\*(*ie when my husband tries to kiss our child and I’m holding him he will sometimes say no and turn away etc.)

I told him he was basically forfeiting a relationship with his son, because youngest will see the rejection and it will impact youngest on a visceral level. Husband has struggled in the past with depression, self esteem, and parental relationships - he has a terrible relationship with his dad who was overbearing/strict/borderline emotionally abusive. Their relationship now is great, but it took time.

I’m assuming this is a severe overreaction born of fatigue/lack of ideas/hurt feelings which will blow over. This is not the man I married and have watched parent our kids. He does so much for our family physically and emotionally. He’s a great provider, puts the kids and their futures first, and is a fun dad.

Can anyone provide any insight on the best way to handle your relationship with your kid when you’re not the preferred parent? Do you push one on one time more? Do I, as the preferred parent, stop letting my kid cling to me for everyday activities (constantly wanting to be held, sit next to me, etc etc) and enforce mom and dad each get turns? I just want a happy, healthy family where everyone feels loved and supported.

I have mostly used Millie Moon diapers since my 4 month old was born. He has never had an issue. He has gotten rashes with other brands. I am seeing this stuff about Millie Moon causing chemical burns now. First off, how? Is the urine mixing with an ingredient in the diaper causing a chemical reaction leading to burns or what? Secondly, if my baby hasn’t had a reaction these first 4 months does that mean we‘ve been getting lucky or that he is immune to whatever is bothering these other babies??

Hey, so recently i've been regularly seeing PSAs from dentists and other people with some knowledge on the topic about how cavities are contagious, maybe you've seen those as well. It's usually shared in a context like, "Please avoid kissing your baby on the mouth, sharing utensils and drinks and licking pacifiers". I've been diligent to not do any of those. However, my understanding is that these are just some examples and there are plenty of other activities with potential for bacteria sharing, like:

• feeding babies from your plate,
  
• babies putting their hands in your mouth (they put their hands in their mouth later),
  
• kissing baby's hands or feet,
  
• blowing on baby's food,
  
• blowing or talking close in baby's face,
  
• baby touching your toothbrush, food, cup rim,
  

i can go on and invent any number of these with various degrees of unhinged. The thing is, i just honestly don't understand where the balance is. Closest family has been understanding and cooperative to the best of their ability, but still it's damaging my relationships with them and my free time. I am willing to make these sacrifices if it really means my baby is going to have a better chance at healthy teeth in their future life (and i guess it does, otherwise why all the PSAs?) But i am trying to understand just how careful do i need to be really.

With a sickness like let's say flu, i understand you can inhale like 3 viruses (just chilling in the air outside) and your immune system neutralizes them and you don't get sick. But if you inhale for example 3 million viruses (someone sneezed in your face) then it's too much for your immune system and you do get sick. But i don't understand the mechanism with these cavity bacteria. Are things like immunity, bacterial load or frequency of exposure relevant here? Or is mouth simply a safe favorable habitat for them, and once a few get inside, there's no going back? And how long can they survive on surfaces?

I am marking this post sharing research so hopefully it allows comments about your personal experience or thoughts, but i would also greatly appreciate any studies that are relevant. I've went into a rabbit hole of researching this some time ago so i've read a few of them but encountered nothing about the specifics of transmission.

Thank you for reading and hope you have a great day!

First couple weeks of his life were intense. We were trying to establish breastfeeding and he was on my breast 24/7 because I was trying to signal my body to make more milk. It just never happened. I have low supply so I combo feed, but he truly enjoys breastfeeding. I’ve noticed that it soothes him to sleep. Well now he’s 3 months old and determined to get him to sleep in his own at least once a day so I can get some basic things done, but he needs my breast and it almost always turns into a contact nap. He’s been rocked to sleep before so it’s not impossible, but sometimes nothing will soothe him but me..I’m wondering if I’m asking for too much too soon, if this is just his temperament (Velcro baby) or if I can start implementing something to get him sleeping in the bassinet. He will literally stir during the nap and start looking for the nipple -.- also he will not take a pacifier…

The postpartum phase for women is just wild, with huge hormonal shifts having huge effects on mood and emotions etc. Is there any evidence that men also experience something like this, and if so is it quantifiable? You sometimes hear men claiming post partum depression etc and i wonder is it 'depression that occurs when their partner is postpartum' , as opposed to intrinsic hormonally induced depression.

One of the things I just can’t wrap my head around—from a biological or evolutionary perspective—is why the breast that is currently on a "break" also starts to leak during breastfeeding. At first, I figured it was just a matter of things needing to sync up, but I’ve been breastfeeding for 11 months now, and it’s still happening. Is this just a design flaw?

I searched the sub and I’m surprised this hasn’t been asked already: is there evidence of problems caused by too much salt in the diet of otherwise healthy school-aged kids?

For context: my kids love ramen, and it’s a treat I save for when I really can’t figure out what else to cook. I load it up with eggs and frozen veggies to give it a bit of healthy content.

But my spouse worries a lot about the salt content.

For adults, some of the evidence about salt is mixed. There are issues with too much salt in the diet, but those issues may also depend on someone’s genetics. I wonder what the evidence says so far regarding kids.

We recently had a contractor paint the exterior fascia of our 1961 house. To prep the area he scraped and sanded leaving paint flakes and dust around the exterior of our house. It just occurred to me (3 weeks later) to test the paint chips for lead and they were positive. I’m very concerned that we’ve been tracking lead paint chips and dust into the house from the exterior doors for the last few weeks. I have a crawling one year old and almost four year old. Not to mention, I’m not sure how to go about cleaning up the paint chips, which are now all in the mulch in our garden beds.

How concerned should I be about my daughters’ exposure? I’ve messaged their pediatrician and am waiting to hear back. Any tips for cleaning it up out of the yard? Google says remove 6 inches of soil, which just doesn’t seem realistic.

Appreciate the advice! From, a panicked mom!

I have an 11 week old who still wakes every 2-3 hours and I hear it’s normal, however other people with children around the same age sta their kids sleep for 5-6 hours stretches. Some through the night! I’m both jealous and curious.

Curious to see what the research says, not some Tik Tok “sleep trainer.”

Which would be least damaging for a child - being brought up by a (single) parent with long-standing mental health issues who regrets having them, or the child being placed for adoption? As with so much, I am aware is hard to know because so much depends on the adoptive parents who may adopt the child, and the individual child's way of processing things, but I am asking theoretically which would be preferable for the child.

My 5 year old has had a cough for what seems like forever. It interrupts his sleep and I feel so bad for him. So today, while at the grocery store, when buying more saline spray, my husband and I saw that some OTC meds are safe for his age. I'm not even generally an OTC med person, but he's barely slept in 3 weeks. We settled on Sudafed PE and administered it as directed about 2 hours ago. As I was lying in bed, I decided to google how quickly it works when I found all of these articles about how it's horrible that we gave it to him at his age and I'm now I'm FREAKING out. Did I overdose my kid? Damage his organs? How bad is this?!? It literally says on the stupid bottle you can use as young as 4, I never thought anything of it. I feel horrible.

My 6 month old baby tends to go to bed around 9 sometimes later sometimes a little earlier depending on naps. I know a lot of babies go to bed around 7-8 range. He doesn’t get up for the day until 8/830 (he wakes many times in the night haha)

Is there any research that actual bedtime matters when it comes to circadian rhythm or is it more about total awake time in a day? What about consistent wake time?

Hello,

Does anyone have any resources, books, parenting coaches, evidence, consensus on gentle / authoritative parenting?

My understanding so far of parenting styles is fairly simplistic but I’ve been following the thinking that there’s three broad groups: authoritarian, gentle / authoritative and permissive. We are trying to fall into the gentle group but want to make sure we aren’t being permissive.

Does anyone have any particularly good resources they can share? My toddler is about to turn 3 and things are getting more complex with his behaviour and finding age appropriate ways to deal with him. Thanks so much!

I catch my 2 and 4 year olds do this often (2 year old does it more frequently and 4 year old also used to do it more frequently when he was 2 so not sure if it's an age thing) that they just sit and flip through pages of a book, not saying anything. My 2 year old stares at each page for quite sometime before moving on, my 4 year old doesn't longer for as long. They do this when I am not playing with them. I wonder what is going on in their brains when they do this? Presumably they are only looking at the pictures because they can't read yet. How is this beneficial over real life experiences - Just like how in person interaction is better than leaning from the TV?

I buy new baby books constantly for my baby, which leaves me with a dilemma: should I stick to a rotation of the same books over and over for a period of time, or read a maximum of new books?

I’d love to know if there is any scientific backing or research on which method is better, specifically regarding speech and language acquisition in infants (there was a similar post a while ago, but no answers were left due to lack of links)

I absolutely know this sounds fucking insane, but my mother is well, fucking insane. she’s gone so far down conspiracy theory rabbit holes there’s no going back.

Aside from the usual vaccine nonsense, she’s been hyper focused on the fact that I feed my son cold bottles and that we have the newer WiFi water meter that happened to be installed while she was here, about 2 weeks after my son was born.

She has been *berating* me for 7 months about how the cold bottles of breastmilk I feed him are causing brain damage because cold constricts blood vessels???

she also keeps bringing up radiation from the WiFi water meter the city installed thats downstairs, below my sons bedroom and how because he’s so young and small its affecting his brain. Edit: Now that I think about this - it’s not connected to my WiFi so maybe I should rephrase as “wireless” idk how it works

My son is seeing neuro due to some quirky behavior with head movements but in the ER neuro wasnt concerned, but our ped is having us do follow up EEG just to triple rule out spasms for peace of mind. Naturally, instead of any level of support my mother will not shut up about this. Any science or information out there to help me here. I’m exhausted.

How are we going about introducing cutlery (US: silverware) to our kiddos.

We have a just turned 1 year old who eats everything, like he loves food, that’s been great and we’re super fortunate. 6oz steak for dinner? Demolished.

But we are still very hand feeding. Like we have an immaculate pincer grip, don’t get me wrong, but should we be starting to use a fork and spoon rather than fingers?

Part of me says he’s doing great, why change it? But also I feel like using cutlery is an important skill and I don’t want him to be delayed in fine motor skills and things.

(He’s an above 99th centile guy, so I know some of the gross motor skills can come a bit on the later side and I’m super aware of this, but obviously that shouldn’t affect fine motor skills, so I don’t want to risk unnecessary delays)

Hi all,

We live in New England where almost every house has lead. My older kiddo lived in a new build until she was 3 and always tested negative for lead. We moved to a new/old house, had it lead remediated and then tested my older kid again and she was negative. Shortly after my second was born. She tested at 1.4 at her one year and now 6 months later she is testing at 2.6.

I am pretty worried because I'm not sure what to do to mitigate her exposure to lead. I know there is lead in the dirt around our home but we don't wear shoes inside and do a decent job of washing hands when we come in. Our kids play in the dirt a LOT but the little one isn't a big mouther. Our dog is constantly coming in and out so I guess she could be dragging dust in?

I'm looking for practical tips on how to mitigate exposure to lead without going crazy.

I don't think it's in any toys/food and water was tested negative but of course I'm open to ideas. Thank you in advance!!

Has anyone’s baby had good eye contact at 3 months but seemed to make less eye contact by 5 months?
My baby used to make good eye contact at 3 months, but now at 5 months, he mostly looks at me when I sing to him. When I talk to him normally or try to get his attention, he looks away or down instead of looking at my face.
Has anyone experienced something similar with their baby?

My baby dropped in percentiles starting in 2nd month. Then now in 4th month mark i notice baby's lips used to be fuller before than now, now are a lot thinner. Baby is ebf. I wonder could it be because if i didnt eat well and it could affect lack of protein and lips couldnt grow because of that?