Give me ALL the potty training advice🙃

My son was 3 at the start of Feb, and terrified of using the potty. Zero bad experiences, he’s literally never sat on it without bottoms on. The last few days he’s worn training pants and told us when he needs a wee and we’ll change him into a pull up to pee, then change back into pants. Wasn’t the plan, but at least he’s practicing holding it in and telling us when he needs to go.

We have tried:

- totally naked, and saying we didn’t have any pull ups in the house. He held in his wee for so long he was crying that it hurt so we had to put a pull up on before it resulted in actual damage (hadn’t gone since we took his night time pull up off and it was gone 2pm)

- urinal

- toilet seat on the normal toilet with stool

- potty that looks like a toilet and “flushes”, him going and choosing his own potty

- sitting on the potty fully dressed reading stories to show him it’s not scary

- bribes😂 health visitor suggested buying cheap toys, wrapping them up and leaving them in the bathroom for him to see, but he says he “already has toys, I don’t need any more”

- both me and my partner stayed home with him for a solid week dedicated to it

I know kids do things at different ages, but he was already supposed to start school 2 months ago and we don’t want to send him until he’s potty trained, hence trying everything possible

in our community

Have you ever shouted at your baby?

Feeling like a terrible mother because after trying to get my baby to nap for nearly 2 hours, I snapped and shouted at my baby. He's going through this awful nap fighting stage, and he will pull out his dummy and then scream like it's my fault. He's an absolute nightmare when he's overtired and I've and an awful couple of weeks already, so I'm just so frustrated. He's also got to the stage where he's hitting, scratching, and pulling my hair, so it's not great. I'm obviously very ashamed but I have little to no support and I'm so fucking tired.

Would this irritate you?

My MIL came round for dinner last night. I was finishing off cooking and had prepared a plate for my toddler, to eat at the same time as us.
My son was completely fine, playing in the living room. My MIL came into the kitchen, said that my son is hungry, took the food, put him in his high chair and started feeding him. It was done in a cold way rather than asking if we'd like her to help or to start feeding him.

How do I approach this?

I am at a loss at how to address this problem with my partner without it turning into an argument between the both of us. We are a blended family. I co-parent with my ex-partner and he does with his ex-partner. My eldest 3 from my past relationship live with him and I. And we had a child together. The eldest 3 visit their biological father during the school holidays, so we get a week when it is just my partner, the youngest child and myself. My partner is always calm and relaxed when it is just the 3 of us but when the eldest 3 return, he becomes stressed out, prone to yelling constantly in frustration, telling them all off for minor things, like being slightly too loud and it’s becoming a mental drain for me as I have to pick-up the pieces and calm the kids down due to dysregulation. I had started noticing patterns of him treating ‘our’ child differently compared to the eldest 3 children when the youngest was born. It is something my family have pointed out many times as well. He insists that he loves them all equally but I just don’t see that as he keeps saying he wants to try for another child because he wants a daughter. One of the 4 kids is a girl, so technically, he does have one.

Screen time

My 4 month old loves to sit in his swing and watch tv. Mostly miss Rachel, curious George, or honestly what ever it is that I have playing (Dawsons creek lately). It gives me an opportunity to wash bottles or clean up while he’s occupied and I try to keep it at 20 minutes increments but sometimes I do feel bad for allowing it. At the end of the day as mothers I know we all do what works, but what keeps your infants entertained?

Can I vent a little 🫣

I thought I had the best parents in the world growing up. Everyone was soo jealous of my relationship with them. I had the “cool and young” parents. But as I’ve gotten older I’ve really struggled. My parents are divorced. The divorce was not kind or easy on any of us. I was given a lot of information by both of them. I was an adult but it was still a lot. My dad isn’t consistent. We talk every few weeks. Sometimes he visits monthly and sometimes every four to six months. It’s rarely planned in advance with only a short notice. When he’s here he’s busy with his job, which I understand. But he often has to take calls and step out. His girlfriend is very different from me and my family and we disagree on a lot. My mom struggles with her mental health. She feels rejected by me. She thinks I am uncaring. I can’t give her the attention & care I was capable of when I was younger and single. It feels like I’m floating in this world without the solid foundation of my parents. I miss when I was younger and thought I had it all. Now I feel so profoundly alone in my grief over losing (or never having) other versions of my parents. Can anyone relate? Any advice? Thanks for being here 🩷

Food and consumables at nursery

My nursery for LO (absolutely love would never change) they didn’t used to charge for bank holidays, then last month they’ve sent out an email saying starting April, they’re going to now charge bank holidays. Said their standard rates aren’t going up (which loads of nursery’s apparently do) and that this just helps with costs.

My question is, although they’re now charging the daily rate (mines covered by the funding) they’re still charging the daily food and consumables??? Which obviously she’s not eating there or using any equipment as they’re closed. I know they’re still charging as at the bottom of the bill it states how many days it’s timed by.

Is this normal?? I just think it’s abit cheeky. As although yes I’m not paying (god send) if I was paying this would annoy me??? Having to pay the daily rate then this on top?