Yes, absolutely. If you just cannot handle it anymore, put the baby on the floor and leave the room to breathe.

Children love to help. It comes to them as naturally as play. "Chores" are just things that need to be done .. I think it's helpful to not think about something you have to do everyday as a burden, just for my own mental well being, haha. When my daughter was young and around me all the time, I would have found it weird to exclude her from everyday things that just need to be done. I didn't even phrase it as "help" - we would just do those things together, just like we played together. She's a teen now, and knows how a household works and she just does stuff that need doing, just like any other member of our household. I mean, of course her room is a mess, but that's just age appropriate.

Summary: Newfound evidence indicates that conscious experiences start as early as in late pregnancy. The study suggests that an infant’s brain is capable of forming conscious experiences that shape their emergent self and environmental understanding. I agree that being capable of having experiences is a requirement for being a person, but it is not what defines a person, otherwise pet turtles would be persons. Newborns are humans, and they develop into persons given time.

My son is 12 and currently isn't even allowed the TV remote on his own, because he downloads Spotify and looks up porn on it. As soon as he has opportunity (including when using my phone to text, or the computer for homework) he looks up porn. While my son has a step dad, I've really been the one to talk to him about this. The first time, and second time, I caught him looking up porn in my house, on my devices, I reached him with compassion. Explained how porn is for adults, that it comes with dangers, how it can lead to addiction, or can affect a persons expectations for sex. You don't want to shame a curious kid, because it's okay to be curious, but it's also important to be safe. By the 8th time, I've truly lost my patience however, and now he's just not even allowed the tv remote without supervision. It sucks. This last time around, I reiterated, this is our boundary. Outside of him being too young, whether he's 12 or 52, please do not look up naughty pictures while in your mothers house. He understands boundaries, and what it means to "push" ones boundaries. I hope using this language helped him understand. I've asked that if he has to take care of himself, it's okay, just do it in the shower. I've also slowly these last few years, been teaching him to be responsible for his own laundry, and now he's just sbout there, Because yeah. It's tough, you're right, I think it might be better coming from a fellow man, and my husband has been in some of the conversations, but no matter who leads the char, it's uncomfortable for the kid to talk about, at least for my son. I tried doing books but my son doesn't want to look at them, and he shuts down if my language gets too specific. Noting here, my son has adhd and ODD, with a side of mild conduct disorder, so he's not an entry level kid. We repeat ourselves a lot, eventually he gets whatever lesson, but it takes a long time with him. I just make sure he knows it's okay to be curious, however I've leaned into letting him know, it's basically illegal for minors to be looking at this stuff. Kids can get groomed, they can pass pictures of themselves, which as a minor is highly illegal. He can get us, his parents, introuble. He still wants to follow societal rules and laws, so hopefully he gets it soon. I don't know how to breech testing out responsibility with the tv remote. The boy is an opportunist, thats clear. I've also in conversation, touched on STDs, and different forms of birth control, and definitely made him uncomfortable when I gave him the details of how babies are made, but if you are old enough to seek porn, you're old enough to know. One time he searched "tits" so I explained how my boobs nursed him as a baby, mammory glands produce milk. It's also important to go over consent. It's okay to explore our own bodies, but as a minor, it's not okay for anyone else to touch you, is what I've said. No one touches you, and you don't touch anyone else, as minors cannot ever give consent. A message taught years ago, but frequently revisited during these talks. As he ages, we'll revisit consent in more context, probably multiple times more (with all topics in sex) and again, trying to be age appropriate with my language. When I have my period, I've already explained what it is, and will tell him (because it wipes my energy, and I want him to understand women too). I've explained a bit about the differences of hormones, and what they do, and how they can affect our moods/body/energy/tolerance. There are differences between men and women, but also similarities in puberty. For us, it's not one big talk and then you're done, it's many small talks over years. Becoming slightly more detailed as his maturity reaches those points. I got lucky, he said to me one day, "mom am I old enough to date?" I said, "well, I don't think so, you are young and have many years for that, best to focus on your schooling and learning who you are first". He said, "yeah thats what (the worker) said at my group too", and he accepted that he is too young. My son, I think, generally trusts me, and this helps too. We're struggling with this opportunist approach to porn he has, so while he is in a day program for teens, I'm currently looking specifically for a male individual therapist to maybe help him feel more comfortable. It's tough, truly. Middle school is so hard for these kids. It's not easy for me to talk about either, but it is important. His bio fsther had what do you call it, sexual delinquency? He was, uh, well my son is a product of a DV relationship too, I was raped, my kid is the product of rape. My goal is to give him as much information as possible, so that he doesn't repeat the patterns of his bio father (who thankfully he doesn't know and never sees). It's really freaking hard, but so incredibly important to me to raise a boy who respects not only just women, but all living beings, including himself.

Unfortunately my ex couldn’t breastfeed. It was just too painful for her. So she would pump and/or we would use formula. I would give her breaks by putting the kids to bed so she could have time to herself to decompress. Every night I would fall asleep with them in my arms. Best freaking memories I have are sleeping with my kids when they were young.

Good thinking. That sounds like the perfect setup.

Is this a specifically US problem? As a Dutchman I can attest to the fact that kids are biking just as much now than they were during my own childhood, probably even more (and much more safely).

I wouldn't mind if they made the days/week shorter, in favor of having a longer school year. While understanding schools would need proper, working AC in their buildings, the disruption of summer is real, especially for students with extra needs.

Nice sentence from a 3yo

I read How to Raise Children Who Aren’t Assholes by her. It was a decent read. I’ll probably pick this up but I feel like so many books just regurgitate the same info

you know what your kids going to tell you a decade from now? Yeah I kinda do. It's true that I won't know what problems they're encountering or friendships they're navigating, but they're only going to "ask" me to do reasonable things within appropriate boundaries. They might say they're embarrassed if I'm around while they're entertaining their friends, but they're not going to tell me to go hide in my room because that's not something children expect of their parents. To put it plainly, I intend to set and maintain boundaries.

Do you hate discussion? Maybe try engaging with them instead of accusing them of biting your joke you copied from a decades old comic.

At this stage, truly and seriously be glad and grateful for those long sleeps and naps. I had a ton of trouble with milk, and my baby had absolutely no interest in latching, so we did bottles supplemented with formula from day 1. There's a perk to using the bottle, in that you, the non-nursing partner get that good 1 on 1 feeding time too. Mama can sleep and pump on her schedule, not baby's. Consider it a blessing. If kiddo is feeding and gaining weight, you're doing it right. As others said, fed is best. For the first four months babies are basically Sims with four "needs" bars. They cry if they're hungry, need to burp or their tummy is upset, if they're lonely or if they're dirty. They make pretty distinct faces and signals you can follow to see what they need, and you'll get to know your kid and what those signals look like. As far as having a smart kiddo, I recommend you try teaching them simple sign language. We started teaching our kid signs for things when he was about 5 months old, like "more", "hungry", "thirsty" etc and he picked up on it and started using his own signs and sounds to communicate with us when he was about 8-10 months old. It was invaluable to be able to understand and communicate with him and helped us bond and build trust very early. There's a lot of guff and hot air about how to make your baby smarter, but one thing that's been consistently proven to give positive results is reading to them. Read to them from day 1 whenever you have the opportunity. Its good bonding time and they learn so much from hearing an illustrated story. My kid and I used to play "find the x" style games with the pictures on the page and he showed me he knew what an armadillo was, or a combine harvester was before he was 2, because he could point to the appropriate pictures. I never dumbed down or lessen my vocabulary with him either, and he's proven that he's a sponge for words. Book recommendations: How to speak so children will listen, and how to listen so children will speak. Some parts are dated but there are some extremely valuable tips and ideas in there too Precious Little Sleep, Zubief, it's a very relatable read for helping sleep train your baby when you get to that point.

Yeah fuck cocomelon. This is apparent immediately

Unfair do downvote you. I'm reading about people who get up at 7 to get their kids ready and then be in office at 9. That's much better than my job actually. I don't want to say that it wouldn't be even worse with kids, but still have to be at work at 7, so need to be a morning person.

I'm lucky that chicken and mashed potatoes are some of my kid's favorite foods, so he adapted pretty well to Thanksgiving dinner XD

Open the door fully and tighten the strap across the opening.

Thank you for all the comments, I’m taking quite a few of your ideas and we’ll see what works for us.

Thats how I was too. I cant sleep anywhere but a bed, but when my son was nursing? I fell asleep anywhere, a chair, the car, on a blanket in the park. If that baby was sleeping, I was too, as much as I could anyway, but sometimes it wasn't up to me! I'd just fall asleep standing haha