Community Posts, Tips & Support on Parenting

Honest, unfiltered, and in real-time: what women like you are talking about. Peanut group chats, support, and posts on Parenting

Moms with two or more

I have an almost 3 year old and 1 week old I am not handling it well. I wake up dreading everything. I wish I didn’t have a second I don’t think I can handle it. Does it get better? He’s such a good baby but I just hate that I don’t want anything to do with motherhood. I am so scared when my husband goes back to work in a couple days. Im debating on starting on some medication but I just worry this is just me.

Parks. Germs.

Did you all avoid parks until a certain age due to germs etc.
So for example my 1 YO puts her hands in her mouth all the time but LOVES going to the park.
I do know someone whos children got hands foot and mouth disease.

So with all that in mind should I just wait to take her to public parks until shes old enough to understand not to put her hands in her mouth??.
First time mom. So please share some helpful advice.
Im also ordering her a playset swing and slide for our personal backyard.

My son‘s broken two TVs

My husband bought a 70 inch TV after my son has broken two TVs😩 we have been so strict about don’t touch the damn TV but now I’m low-key freaking out because that TV is expensive. How do I make sure he doesn’t mess with it?

Relationship Struggle

This is a rant so bear with me; I feel like I take care of LO totally alone. Husband has started doing more around the house but purely out of necessity as I have baby or work (while caring for baby) 24/7. And also, whenever he complains about how much it is I just am like hello…who used to do all of this? Me! And more honestly. We barely see each other and when we do I am frustrated with him truthfully, which isn’t fair to him but he just is making me so upset. If he does any caretaking for baby it is along side me, not on his own, and is often disregarding whatever I am already doing.

A huge source of contention is sleep. I have done all over nights always - even hospitalized with pp preeclampsia, I denied pain meds to be able to wake for baby. Took them the next day when my sister came. I had begged him during the first month to let me take a short nap daily and take baby - we were both on family leave. Never happened, during second month I begged him to wake up with us in the morning and take baby after feeding so I could nap. Maybe happened twice after huge sleep deprivation driven blow ups on my end. He also TAKES NAPS and without even saying anything to me and it honestly pisses me right off which is maybe crazy but it does. I get so mad when people ask him “how are you sleeping? Good?” And he’s like “oh we are trying” meanwhile he is getting completely uninterrupted sleep. And every time it happens I get super mad and talk to him and he doesn’t understand and says he is just including my perspective and being nice I’m like nice would be recognizing that I have completely removed the burden of waking at night from you actually not insinuating that night feeds have you tired for some reason. Baby is sleeping much longer now as we approach 3 months so I am not so tired anymore but it is not due to ANY sleep support from him.

Maybe I’m crazy. I don’t even know anymore. RIP my mental stability atp.

Would you be mad?

Not sure if I’m overreacting but I can’t help but be mad. Here’s the backstory my partner has a semi no-contact relationship with his mum and by that I mean he doesn’t respond or even talk to her and the majority of their interactions go through me (which I never asked for or agreed too). We have a 5 month old son who she’s only ever met 3 times and barely asks about him but expects us to keep her updated. Like most new parents we’re living month to month and finances are quite tight at the moment with me being out of work and on MAT leave. Well my MIL has asked me today if I can ask my partner, her son if he can send her money/contribute towards a vet bill for one of her cats. The reason I’m mad is because she only ever reaches out when it’s to ask for money and today she asked to call to FaceTime with my son but didnt hesitate once I’d accepted to put me in the awkward position of asking for money not to actually interact with her grandson. She came across quite passive aggressive about it stating that he should help her because “it’s technically his cat” - this was a cat she adopted when he was A CHILD. This vet bill is supposedly over £700 so I don’t know where she thinks we’re going to pull money from? I appreciate we’re all struggling but I really don’t think this is our problem…. Not only this but she messaged him about this and he ghosted her (which she also complained to me about) but I feel like if he didnt respond to your message at the time clearly that’s your answer… so why am I now being put in the awkward position to ask him again? When it has nothing to do with me.. and my priority is my son?. Idk would you be mad? The other thing is I know that the more she keeps begging and pestering him the more he’s willing to give her what she wants just to shut her up because he just wants an easy life and never stands up to her which also makes me mad because if we had the means to help her I’d be happy to but I know we don’t and this means it’ll be affecting how we care for our son which just has me riled up.

Jealous passive aggressive grandparents?

Does anyone else deal with this?
I’m returning to work soon and my mom is going to take care of our baby while I’m at work full time.
When my in-laws found out, there was an awkward moment and I can tell they were concerned about it. They later asked my husband why we’re not considering working from home to care for baby instead (we can’t in our fields and also how can we work and take care of a baby at the same time) and if we considered daycare (we would be saving so much childcare costs with my mom). My MIL also made weird comments like “oh so she will get used to being at your mom’s house..” and “will she have the TV on at your moms house”
It seems like very passive aggressive comments to me and my parents have no idea (they’re just being helpful)
My in-laws are a lot older and granted can’t do a lot of babysitting besides waving to our baby and holding her for a few minutes at a time. They also never drive to see us we have to go to them.
I want them to feel included but I admit we visit my parents more because they live a little closer and it is an actual break for me as my parents can help me with baby. I trust my mom alone with my baby, not so much with my in-laws and my husband also agrees. My husband suggested we spend weekends with his parents so they don’t feel left out but it’s annoying to have to worry about that too when we’re still trying to balance new parent life.
Has anyone else been through something similar and how did you navigate it?

Is this very immature or was he fed up with me not answering the phone?

My dad calls but I find it draining speaking to him and sometimes I’m busy. I answer more when he just texts me and I didn’t tell him that but I would think he would notice . Yesterday was my birthday and he called at 8:46 pm. I didn’t answer. He left a voicemail in a rushed way saying happy birthday wish you good health. Then he sent me a nasty text saying he’s fed up with calling and for me to just say I want to be left alone & it’s no point calling when someone doesn’t want to talk to you. Then he said if he dies before me that he’s going to make sure to tell my sister to not let me into his funeral🥴. I ended up writing back oh no poor you it’s my birthday and people answer when they can you think I’m sitting down doing nothing and I told him fuck him for talking to me like that on my bday and I don’t care what he tells my sister. This was in Spanish by the way.

Am I being unreasonable?

Ok so I’m not feeling too good at the moment so this could be me being petty…
I have what is either the stomach flu or the general flu. My body aches, I have zero energy & I’ve been sick.
Luckily my mum had my 2 kids yesterday after school & today too on an inset day because, she could see how bad I was. She’s given them dinner, brought them home before bed time so I’m not struggling on my own.
My husband has seen me crying in pain, on the bathroom floor throwing up. I was up twice in the night with the kids and up at 5am with one of them, he slept right through even when I nudged him for help. When asked he made them some packed lunches for today, and when I asked him to help them get ready this morning he said “I’m exhausted”. The audacity to ask what I had made for dinner last night when I couldn’t get off the sofa so I bought him dinner. He left work at about 7:30 this morning & despite leaving me in bed crying in pain he hasn’t text to see how the kids are at my mums or how I am & won’t make any effort to help out with the kids knowing full well how ill I am. It would take less than a minute to send a text.
Am I right to be annoyed and upset? Am I just being silly?

Bare minimum

As a stay at home mom what’s expected of you??
What’s expected of your partner who works as a police officer sometimes working 18 hour shifts.
I’m having so many issues not seeing eye to eye with my partner because he doesn’t really do anything at home like at all. And little things like walking the dogs and playing with the babies he feels as though are big accomplishments but to me they’re bare minimum ???
Need advice on how to move on with this or have a talk to see eye to eye

Husband is frustrated with me

I'm in the third trimester and my husband is asking me questions about buying new furniture and rearranging the room, and my mind just isn't computing everything, simple oversight. It's hard to explain and make him understand that my brain is trying but honestly I'm just living day to day doing the basics to live and take care of our kids

Mil story time

OK, so it’s no secret. My husband is a mama boy. She usually will come over once every other month or like once every few months for a couple weeks. Which is fine with me if it is told to me from the beginning or if we agree on the time that you’re gonna be staying here and it doesn’t just go off of her emotion. Every time she comes over here she’ll say that she’s only coming for the weekend end up staying for the week that weekend that turned into a week turns into two weeks and so on until either him and his mom get into a fight or she gets bored and starts a fight with me that then turns it into me not wanting her here and me making her uncomfortable. That’s just backstory so you kinda get a gist of what’s going on. Every time she comes over usually multiple times within her visit, she coincidentally comes into our room while we are being intimate. More time than not. And a lot of the time show get mad and slammed the door on her way out. Before you speculate anything we live in a one bedroom apartment and the way that our apartment is set up our bathroom is linked to our bedroom. But I’m not grasping at straws on this. Granted, I’m not being very loud when in the act, but I am making noise for this reason specifically just so she knows that there is motion in the ocean. And our walls are very thin like if somebody talks with a regular voice inside of our room and the door is closed you can hear it from the living room. Whatever obviously this happened again last night and killed the mood duh! And this morning, I’m just not down for it so I say no. He got so mad like so mad and he’s like how are you gonna punish me? It’s like nobody’s even punishing you. I just don’t feel comfortable doing that when she’s already starting this. And on top of all that he’s been a jerk he act so different when she’s here, but only sometimes. So I’ve been going through that on top of all the other uncomfortable things she does like question me on why I don’t wash dishes immediately after I use them question me about how much I eat. (I eat two times a day, but she tries to make it feel like I overheat when I genuinely don’t.) talks about disgusting things while I eat. And a bunch more I can’t even think about right now. I think I’m just gonna go visit my hometown for the weekend and let them be a happy little couple together alone. It’ll turn out one of two ways. They’ll either kill each other or everybody will be happy. I don’t know what I was trying to do with this so may get a laugh, others make it triggered. I just needed to vent and I know my best friend is tired of hearing about this old witch.

Partner Connection

Hey all. FTM Jumping on here for some advice on how to connect with my pregnancy more if that makes sense. I’m currently 31 weeks pregnant and I haven’t felt this overwhelming sense of motherhood. I feel completely disconnected from my own child and I feel extremely guilty for it. This pregnancy hasn’t been easy. There has been a lot of moving for financial reasons and, I won’t lie, bickering between me and my husband. He hasn’t really shown much interest in the pregnancy either but rather has focused all his energy into his 3 year old son from his previous marriage and I’m wondering if maybe that’s why it has been harder for me to connect with my baby boy. Now, please don’t think that I do not love his little boy or think the world of him but when we are already struggling financially and any extra money we get is being spent on toys or to take him to do something instead of spending it on something to prepare for the child we are getting ready to bring into this world it’s a little overwhelming. I haven’t been able to work since finding out I was pregnant due to prior medical conditions. My due date is July 23rd and we haven’t purchased a single thing for this baby. He doesn’t even have a car seat to come home in. Am I overreacting? Any advice or words of wisdom???

How to kinda chill out I guess😅

Hi guys I’m a first time mom due middle of August and I feel like I’m going insane with like how much I want to clean things like I feel like I’m gonna start pissing of my partner with how much I’m cleaning things and asking him to help with projects and I think he thinks I’m crazy idk but is there anyway to chill it out or any other people experience the same thing I don’t know 😅

What shall I do? Help 😢

My husband works as a chef. During the week if he finishes work early he rarely goes home but instead hangs out in town at a bar/eatery. He knows the staff there, they go out to trivia once every week. It got to the point that he is not picking up our son from daycare only on rare occasions, I am the one dropping and picking him up. Or he just heads right home after work and sits in front of the computer till dinner. Apart from that, EVERY SINGLE FRIDAY he goes to this said bar/eatery after work, which is pretty much from 1:30/2pm till about 6/6:30pm. Gets drunk and then says I'm no fun to hang out with if I come by. I always look grumpy. How the fck I wouldn't be when I come with our toddler after a long day to pick your drunk ass up???
I know chef work can be stressful but he has a child. Multiple times we agreed to meet at daycare and when I got there he'd text me me whoops, I guess not, I didn't leave yet. How does someone, instead of thinking of their toddler, go and hangs out with friends to relax?? I'm so tired of living like this. Sometimes I feel like I'm chasing a dream that is never gonna come true.

My parents have been drinking when growing up and I promised I will never become like them and will never make my child feel embarrassed by my drunk ass. And now I have a husband, who I can see will do just that..... 💔

If I try talking to him he gets angry and gives me the silent treatment.

Boundaries with in-laws

Is it okay to ask my husband to set some boundaries around what gets shared with his parents about our family and home life? He talks to his mom for a long time every week and often tells her detailed things about what’s going on with me, our kids, our home, and work. Sometimes it also turns into venting or complaining about the kids or our household, especially when she asks questions that seem to encourage it.

I’m starting to feel uncomfortable with how much of our private life is being discussed, especially because his parents tend to have strong opinions afterward about how we should live or parent. I don’t want to control his relationship with his mom, but I do want to feel like our marriage and family have some privacy and respect. Is it reasonable to ask him to limit certain kinds of complaints or personal details shared with his parents?

Dad not agreeing to have son when I want to go for a weekend break.

Right, so this might be a long one. My son is 3 and me and his dad broke up nearly a year ago. It’s been up and down but I’ve done my best for it to stay civil for my son.
Anyway, I asked him about having his son for a long weekend as it’s my 30th this year. He agreed. He then said he was going on holiday for a full week and wanted to swap weekends over. I said that was fine (Makes sense why he agreed about my time away so easily)

This was a couple months ago…
Last night he decided to tell me that he will look after OUR son but everyday he loses from work, he will deduct from child maintenance?
So if he gets 220 a day and loses that, that’s going to be 4 weeks no payments.

Surly this is all about control right?

I literally was looking for the weekend that’s his weekend with my son anyway, so it’s only 1-2 days he would need off and believe me all the stuff I’ve helped him with, including sorting his flat, car and just making sure he’s all set up and he just continuously messes me about and tries to control everything.

Am I right or wrong? What can I do?
If I went to family court, would they sort out an agreement regarding holidays per year/the other parent agreeing to be fair. Like for example, one week per parent can go away and we have to accept it.
As well as the usual every other weekend stuff

Thank you, hope that makes sense! Any advice welcome x

Exhausting 🤣

Is anyone else’s 18mo just seriously hard work?? My eldest was always very chilled and my second Oct baby is just an absolute wild card! He’s constantly throwing things, hitting, ripping books, climbing on things, eating things he shouldn’t etc. It all seems out of genuine curiosity rather than ‘naughtiness’ (they’re so little still after all) but he’s just like a wild tornado wrecking ball and soooo different to my first I have no idea how to approach parenting him!! help pleaseeeee

Why do I want another kid?

I love my son but I never really want him around me. He's infuriating and jumpy and touchy (he's 3. I know it's normal behavior.) I can never spoil myself and have the nice stuff because I know it'll either get stained, broken, or lost. I have to worry about feeding him something he'll like and giving him time to play with him because he doesn't have any siblings and I feel like that's why he bugs and throws tantrums... He gets lonely 💔 and it hurts my heart that I haven't given him one yet. Whenever I think of giving him a sibling, it also fills me with joy. I didn't get a chance to experience the newborn stage, the first skin to skin contact, the breast feeding; Because he was in the hospital for 2 months after he was born. I think that it's like starting over and I had a very traumatic birth with him. I'm not ovulating. And I really want a little girl. My husband also wants another kid too. I really hate being stuck in this limbo

Starting to come to the conclusion my daughter will be a only child, just like me 😭💔

Me and my partner have been together for almost 14 years. We waited so long to have kids, and then we went through infertility struggles for a while before finally having our daughter. I always dreamed of having a big family, at least 3 kids, and I truly thought we would build that life together.

But now, things feel so different. We barely get along anymore, and he has become such a miserable person. It feels like he’s constantly unhappy and always bringing up negative things , many of them situations that he created himself, but now he wants to play the victim in.

Before I had my daughter, I used to stay quiet and be more compliant just to keep the peace. But now that I’m older, and especially now that I’m a mother, I’m exhausted from pretending his behavior doesn’t affect me. It does affect me deeply, and I can’t keep carrying everything like this anymore.

What makes me even sadder is that I still want more children, but now I’m scared. Even if I were to go through IVF with a donor, part of me feels like he would make our lives miserable anyway. It hurts so much because the dream I had for my future and my family feels like it’s slipping away, and I feel overwhelmed and heartbroken.

Am I a bad wife?

My husband says I'm a bad wife because I refuse to leave my 3 yr old and 9 month old with other people to go on a date with him. If that makes me a bad wife, so be it. But what do you all think?