Toddler activities help!

I’m having difficulty entertaining my 2.5 year old since my 2 month old arrived. Any advice or suggestions on activities I can do at home? Would love the help, thank you in advance!!

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My daughter is also 2.5 and I have a now four month old — sensory bins have been a lifesaver for us. You could put together your own or they have some cool pre-made ones on Amazon with kinetic sand! These have been great for breaking out when I’m nursing or trying to get the baby to sleep 😬

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Playdough! 🤗

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Water play keeps my daughter occupied the most. Just simple stuff like a few jugs, a bar of soap and some toys. She’ll wash them all, dry them off and pjs on them (she just wraps them in socks). Playing with herbs and spices, my daughter likes to smell them and mixes them to make meals for her imaginary friends. Painting, I tape a long piece of paper across the table, put the paints out and let her go crazy. My child has the attention span of a fly, but these actives are the ones that keep her busy for at least 30 minutes, which in toddler land is ages. Messy though.

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Kinetic sand is so good (it just gets everywhere) but gets us so much independent play

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Check out Beyondtheclassroomwithkayla on instagram. She has heaps of good ideas

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I think my partners boundaries are too strict…

My partner has a difficult relationship with his family, I think his parents are lovely people but I can see where he gets frustrated with them. They are far from perfect but I think they mean well.

His older brother still lives at home and unfortunately has a habit of using weed and coke. He’ll smoke outside but do coke in his room and obviously drugs are kept there too.

The parents know this but have not tried to help him or get the drugs out the house. The brother has no intention of moving out either.

Because of this, my partner feels strongly that our child should never enter that house. The child would never be in the same room as the drugs but my partner feels that on principle, we should never take the baby there.

While I do not agree with his brother’s habit and the safety of my baby is the most important thing, I think he may be being too harsh.

I wouldn’t feel comfortable leaving there baby there without one of us but surely never going over is a bit far. I’m worried it would ruin the relationship between our families.

Of course his parents would be welcome at our house so it’s not like access is being denied, just not in their home.

Is my partner being too harsh or am I not concerned enough?

I think my partner is just using the baby not coming over as a threat to get his parents to do something about the drugs.

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10

Just venting

I’m just venting. I got married on the 31 of December 2025. I only did it because I wanted my child to have a two parent house hold. The problem I’m having is I don’t trust my partner. He’s a composer cheater in my eyes. He believe that all men cheat. And all women do is cheat but hid it well. It’s just temptation. It just makes me sad because at one point I really did love him. But I felt like I should had left when he cheated the first time,when I told him I was pregnant. I haven’t left yet hoping he will change. As a 30 year old man that still has a child mindset. It’s so much more. I’m just tired. Positive note, Happy 2 months to my little love!!!

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Advice please

Ok so I don’t know if I’m being extra. My MIL made my baby some soup and told us to freeze it. She gave it in a clean container and said to use the freezer cube tray (which she hadn’t washed and said put in the dishwasher before using)

My husband completely forgot and put the soup in the unwashed container and then I quickly reminded him and he took it back out into a clean container, but defeats the point because it’s already been in the unwashed one. My LO is 8 months old would you give this soup to your little one? Or chuck away?

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4

Husband is turning incredibly misogynistic

My husband was always so supportive and believed in women, but now he’s hanging out some new coworkers who watch a lot of these YouTubers with problematic views. He’s starting to really buy into what they say, and a lot of them are incredibly misogynistic. It started with offhanded comments about how women are always the problem, and leave it to a woman to fuck things up, which would start fights between us because I was so taken aback. As we fight more, he pushes more into these beliefs. We’ve always shared things like chores and parenting, but now it’s falling 100% on me because he believes they are “woman jobs” and I can’t keep up with the extra house work on top of my job. If I ask him to watch the kids for even 30 minutes, he calls it “babysitting,” and he makes it sound like that 30 minutes is the end of the world, where now I have my mom filling in for his portions that I can’t take on. He mocks my friends and says horrible things about them based on female stereotypes, that aren’t even true, and I have repeatedly put him in his place about this. I’ve also expressed to him that I’m loosing faith in his ability to be a part of our family when we are raising 4 little girls with bright futures, and I don’t want them to hear these comments that essentially resort women to objects. He’s constantly asking for a one sided open relationship, because these YouTubers preach that men aren’t meant to stay loyal, and it’s just their nature or something. His actual friends, who he’s known way longer than these new friends, have also distanced themselves because of his comments about their wives/girlfriends, but he blames me for the distance and says it’s because he gave me too much control in our relationship so they can’t respect him as a man.

Today he wanted to go to the bar with these coworkers after work, but the place they always go is closed. This bar is a 100% female ran bar, and they are closed today because the owner sent them all out of town for a professional development opportunity. My boyfriend was pissed and flipped out about how women ruined his day, and said if they wanted to send someone they could’ve just sent one, but he just knows they all whined and cried that they wanted to go too, like a typical woman. He then got very performative with a fake whining voice that frankly PISSED me off. I’ve never backed down when he acts like this, but he continues to buy into these believes.I told him these new “friends” of his and their influence are about to cost him his family, but he just scoffs. I told him I’m tired of the misogyny, and he can go stay with one of them tonight and see how much better life is without any women in it. I told him he doesn’t need yo ask for an open relationship now, because ours is over, and I hope he has fun sleeping around because it cost him everything we’ve spent the last ten years building together. He says I’m just being a typical dramatic woman, and that I need to just learn my place. He says it’s his fault for not learning to put me in my place sooner. Planning to contact a divorce lawyer this weekend, once I’ve cooled off from being so angry. But emotionally, I’m not okay. I feel like this man is a stranger.

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How would you act?

My 2 year old daughter has been refusing to vocally communicate at nursery although she’s a chatter box at home. We have a close relationship with the headmaster and brought it to their attention and agreed on an action plan together with the staff in the room. Last week, a new room lead joined the nursery and was informed by the headmaster of the plan in place. Despite that, on Friday during pick up and without even taking a moment to introduce herself or giving a prior warning she came to me in front of other children and parents and demanded to observe my daughter speak to me immediately. I told her that she might not feel comfortable and that the staff are aware of her condition and have a plan but she ignored me. She finally gave up when more parents came which they had to attend to. Today, dad went to pick up daughter and she did the same thing to him. We both felt ambushed with her “hallway conversation” and that her actions were completely unprofessional and created a stressful environment for our daughter. How would you act if you were us?

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8

Is it time to be done?

So my husband and I have been together over 7 years. We have a 5 year old together plus I have a 10 year old from another relationship. We have been staying with my husband’s grandmother as he wants to save to buy a house. I let him know that I didn’t think this was a good idea as she is mentally unstable and is known to snap on people. We have been there for two years now. The whole time my anxiety is super high as any little thing will make her snap out. This morning as I was running late she began yelling at me over lights being left on the night before-in front of my kids.asked nicely if we could chat about it this evening as I had to get to work. She then got louder and told can’t do anything right as the night before I burnt a hamburger. So I called her psychotic. She then ran and called my husband at work to tell him how I called her psychotic, but left out the part how I asked her nicely to talk to me this evening. My husband then ignored me all day. When I messaged and said I think it’s best if the kids and I move out of his grandmothers all he had to say is “that is probably the best decision”. Then went back to ignoring me.

I feel like if I have to uproot my kids over a situation he put us in as it’s “for the best” then it’s probably “for the best” we end the relationship. But I don’t know if I’m just being spiteful atp

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