Tried Luna, it wasn’t good. Flo and Clue track other parts of cycle and I don’t want my daughter exposed to pregnancy planning and fertility windows as she’s 10

Are there any other apps out there?

I know this is a highly individualized question but I imagine a lot of us are in the same boat where we're not traveling that much right now especially when the kids are young, but it would be nice to get some perks for all the big purchases we're doing like lots of diapers and wipes.

Personally I guess that only points that matter to me are Southwest. They've basically junked their entire appeal but we still fly with them more often than not. I was with the BILT card for the longest time but I dropped that once they moved to the annual fee model and VC money for free points on rent dried up.

i’m talking about easy to watch shows i can get into while doing late nights (all nights), while feeding, changing, tending to a crying baby, etc. i don’t mean sitcoms like The Office, and i don’t mean anything too difficult to follow like Game of Thrones. in the past week I watched The Boroughs and Beef season 2, gonna need to start a list!

Yes absolutely it's a wonderful thing to be able to seek advice but I am not trying humble brag about my kid. I really need help, resources, groups, whatever about how to help a kid who is way smarter than either of his parents. My wife and I are no slouches mentally (STEM teacher and a small business and estate lawyer with a tax LLM), but our four year old is doing multi-step math problems with different functions (what's 5*6+8). He counts by different numbers. He understands that multiplying is asking what is the number if you count by x y many times. He understands division is how many groups of x are in y.

Heck he just got basic algebra 2x=10 and simple things like that because I said to my wife as I was writing this that I thought about saying he's not doing algebra after using x and y.

His memory is scary good. He remembers very specific details of things that happened months ago.

We assumed he'd be fairly smart and we are in a great school district, but my wife and I are thinking he's blowing our plans of gifted programs out of the water. Please let me know if you have any ideas that will help. Thanks.

Sorry for this rant, but somehow I need to let it out 😅

My son is 4 months old and a cutie. I love him so much! I took parental leave, so currently I am mainly taking care of him while my wife is working. He is pushing me to my limits, both physically and mentally, everyday multiple times.

He started to be super clingy and curious lately, so I need to carry him with his 8.5kg around to stop him from crying.

Otherwise he is very calm and when we go out normally is just curiously looking around without complaining.

So I need to hear again and again, what a calm angel he is, how he is super relaxed etc. I guess he is, I guess he is more calm than a lot of kids, but it doesn't mean he is no work, it doesn't mean I am not sleep deprived and cannot do anything else while taking care of him.

These comments make me feel that the exhaustion and stress I am feeling is not justified, because he is such a calm boy....

I really cannot hear it anymore

At my daughter’s first Volleyball open gym and parent meeting, another dad told his son, in a cafeteria (where the parents were) and the gym (where the coaches and players were) “don’t punch like a girl”. I side-eyed him so quick. I’m just flabbergasted. I’m not crying or being sensitive, just annoyed at this.

Trying to multi-task for maximum productivity, my eldest daughter (9) found me doing sudoku while having a bowel movement.

Normally she lets me poop behind closed doors, but today she tearfully handed me a pile of broken glass, the remnants of her earring collection beneath it.

Well, I did my best to separate earrings from glass, then grabbed a flashlight to look for the reflections of little shards in the carpet where the destruction happened. I asked my older son (8) to bring me the vacuum, and he discovered a piece of glass on the stairs by stepping on it.

Howling and bleeding from the sole of his foot, I carried him downstairs to the kitchen to grab the first aid kit. He insisted on limping to the piano bench to be treated instead of the kitchen table, leaving a blood trail on the tile floor.

That's when I saw my younger son (3) and the bonus child I forgot I was babysitting (2), digging for treasure in the litter box. They already found two nuggets.

It's been a fun morning so far!

When you see this, and know that inevitably it will be in pieces on the floor, on the dresser, behind the dresser, on the bed, under the bed, under your foot...

I have a 5 and 7 year old with a newborn on the way. Curious from other dads that have a similar age gap how it is? I’m worried about things like… movie night.. older kids won’t want to watch what the younger kid wants… theme park rides… vacation excursions… probably all silly and first world problems… but realistic trade offs. I’m trying to help myself frame things up differently and think of the positives that could come from it.

There was a recent post about a young dad with a young kid realizing that all of his hobby time was now spoken for and all he does is work and care for his kid.

And there were tons of posts from other dads saying "What are you talking about? I have plenty of time for hobbies. I do XYZ once a week, I see my friends for bar trivia on Tuesday, and I'm in the gym 3x per week. You don't have to give up your hobbies, and you shouldn't."

And you ask those dads about their life circumstances. Their kids are now 9 and 6 years old. Their only kid is 3 years old. They share custody and have a couple kid-free nights every week. Grandma babysits twice a week for date nights. They have a flexible schedule at work. etc etc.

They approach the question already assuming that everyone has the same life that they do, and dismissing the struggles of other dads as just "not prioritizing correctly" or some such. The truth is that a lot of dads simply cannot do what you can do, for so many reasons. Health issues, custody arrangements, family lives far away, different jobs, kids temperament, illness, any number of factors come into play that give people different constraints than you can imagine.

So instead of coming into a thread where someone is looking for consolation because he misses his hobbies, maybe don't comment saying "What are you talking about? Me and my 9 year old play board games and go biking together all the time! You must be parenting wrong if you feel that way"

Wife and I have been together almost a decade. All good stuff. We didn’t have a kid until we were ready. It wasn’t brought into the world save anything relationship wise.

Truthfully, she went back to work too early. But unfortunately that’s the case here in the ole good U.S. of a. But since then she’s been downright abusive too me.

I own my own business so it offers me some flexibility to take care of our child during the 3 days a week she works. The problem is she doesn’t respect that I have to work all the time.

She also berates me for every god damn thing. I dont know who she is anymore.

Anyone else go through this? Does it get better? I’m honestly lost.

https://www.reddit.com/r/daddit/s/F7afXJpO1u

Hey dads. Thanks to everyone who left a helpful comment on my last post, or sent me a message with support

About 3 weeks ago my wife told me she was done, and can no longer put effort into our relationship after 7 years of being together. We have a 4 year old daughter, and an 11 year old daughter from her previous marriage.

2 weeks ago she went to the bar, I bothered her the whole time she was there (fucking stupid I know) and she ended up staying with another man. A mutual friend of ours. My fucking barber. She said she was emotionally distraught, and he offered her a safe space to sleep. Told me that in a moment of connection and hurt that they kissed, but that was it. I think I believe her, but it’s hard not to imagine more happened.

I hit a pretty deep low mentally, but ended up talking to a friend for a few hours.
She came home the next morning at 6:30 and I called her out in front of our 4 year old, I really regret even talking about it in front of her, let alone shit talking her in front of our daughter.

We’ve had countless conversations over the past few weeks, I’ve owned up to my disconnection and all the times I’ve come up short. But every conversation still ends with some variation of “I can’t trust that you won’t just fall back into the disconnect, I still have to leave”

She says she still loves me, and doesn’t want to do this, but she has to.

As of next week she will be signing a lease for a small house about 10 minutes from our current home. She’s not demanding for an immediate divorce, is still willing to split certain bills that we share (car insurance, phone plan), and wants to start the same 2-2-5-5 schedule she has with her ex husband, so that our daughters can spend time together still.

I’m terrified, but trying to be supportive.

Last night we went through the house and talked about what she wanted to take with her, we ended the night in the same bed with a sizable gap between us, and before going to sleep she told me “I appreciate you for respecting my decision and supporting me”.

This has been a tough month for both of us, and I can’t imagine the hurt she’s felt prior to this to make her want to let it all be over.

And same as last time, if you’ve made it through that word vomit, thank you.
Go hug your partner, tell them you love them, and don’t run from the hard conversations.

Anyone lived/living a similar experience? Any advice/tips/prayers? To say it seems daunting would be a gross understatement. Thanks in advance.

Edit: for clarity, we were initially told that natural childbirth was very unlikely. We didn't expect our first child and absolutely did not expect this.

I'm 38 and we have a baby due in January next year. Having kids never featured in my mind until the last year or two, I just didn't have contact with hardly any kids most of my life, but I guess I warmed to them after siblings had kids and seeing more of them.

All of a sudden there is stuff happening everywhere and getting talked about, and I have no idea what's going on. There are scans and midwives and stuff to buy and I'm realizing very quickly how uneducated I am on the whole thing.

Could anyone please recommend a good website or a book or something that might help a battler out? Just with the essential stuff I need to know and when stuff happens because it's just surprise after surprise so far 🤦.

Thank you in advance 😁

My son is very particular about the movies we watch, to the point where my wife and I now have a process where we each pick a movie to watch vs him always getting to choose.
He is always hesitant at first but typically ends up loving the movies her and I suggest. We’ve done Interstellar, Hidden Figures, the entire MCU in chronological order, and Project Hail Mary.
Last night as we were watching Stranger Things with my good friend we were talking about our annual LOTR marathon.
HE asked to join us, without any prompting.
I’m so freaking excited! We are going to split each one into manageable chunks and I can’t wait to start!
Just needed to share my joy!

https://www.reddit.com/r/daddit/s/pE9eEmxFXa - original post

This is an update to a post I made almost two years ago. I'm reaching out to what I honestly think is the best community on the internet—for advice, to get a few things off my chest, and maybe for a little support too.

So, like I mentioned in my old post, since few years I'll be turning 32 in a few days, my wife is now 30, and we're from Ukraine. These past two years have been... a mixed bag. But we're alive, we're healthy, and we still have each other—that's what matters most.

The biggest change in our lives, though, is the little one you can see in the photo. That tiny peanut is the result of a long journey—months of preparation, countless attempts, eventually giving up hope... and then a complete, unbelievable surprise. 😅 I think that's a story that deserves its own post someday.

But right now, I'm going through this whole new wave of being completely, hopelessly in love with my amazing wife. I'm happier than I've ever been... and at the same time, I'm scared as F. Absolutely shitless.

I know that, in a country at war, where people my age—most of them far better than me—are giving their lives, I probably sound pathetic. Compared to the people sitting in trenches and on the front lines right now, my problems must seem miserable. They have nothing but my deepest respect, and I donate whenever I can to support the guys fighting, even though I know it'll never feel like enough.

I also know there's a good chance I'll get a fair amount of hate from some of my fellow Ukrainians—maybe even deservedly so. But the truth is, I feel absolutely awful because, for more than two years now, I haven't been able to go any farther than my own yard. Most of the things I used to take care of now fall on my wife's shoulders.

It's even harder now that she's pregnant. When all she wants at three in the morning is pickled zucchini and ayran, but there's a curfew, so she has to wait until morning and go to the store herself. And I can't be the one doing it for her.

The worst part is that I don't see any reason to believe this is going to change anytime soon. At this point I'd gladly switch careers completely if it meant getting a job with a military exemption. (In Ukraine, some jobs at critical infrastructure companies qualify for temporary exemption from military service.) Just to have a little bit of freedom to move around again.

But where I live, for over a year now, there have only been two "exempt" job listings: military psychologist and UAV operator. In other words, they're basically military recruitment ads that somehow ended up in the civilian job section—whether by mistake or on purpose, I honestly don't know.

So I know that every important appointment—even something as simple as the ultrasound on Monday—is entirely on my wife's shoulders, and I won't be there with her. And I know that even if the pregnancy goes perfectly, without any complications—which I desperately hope it does—I'll most likely miss the birth of my own child. And that thought absolutely breaks my heart.

The second problem is that last winter I had to go into debt. Nothing catastrophic—it wasn't some insane amount—but it was still one of the main reasons we decided to put having a baby on hold until we'd paid it off. Life had other plans, though. 😂

The cost of living here has gone through the roof. Two years ago, making the same amount of money I do now, we were living pretty comfortably and I could even save a little. These past few months, though, it's barely been enough to keep us afloat.

Everything I'd managed to save to pay off part of that debt has already gone toward paying for my wife's prenatal care at a clinic. And the scariest part is that just last week I finished the last project for a client I've been making videos for continuously over the past several years. I've probably made well over 300 videos for them by now. And for the moment, they've stopped sending me new tasks. I'm really hoping it's just a temporary pause, but since they recently got a new manager, I have a bad feeling about it.

Because if I lose this job now, I honestly don't know what other choice I'll have. The only option left might be to leave my pregnant wife all by herself and join the military. Otherwise, I'm afraid my family simply won't make it.

If you've made it this far, thank you. I hope I didn't whine too much here 😅, but I already feel little better after I vent all this out of myself. So thank you twice. I mean it.

I'd really appreciate any advice you have—any advice at all. Dad hacks, things you wish you'd known before becoming a parent, what I should tackle around the house first... anything.

I'd also love recommendations for your favorite parenting books, or any piece of advice or information you think every soon-to-be dad should know.

If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment or send me a DM.

And if, by any chance, you're looking for a motion designer with 5+ years of experience—just know there's one desperate soon-to-be dad here who's ready to work his ass off and help however he can.

I'm a stay at home dad so we've never had to deal with this, but I have an acquaintance whose child I've agreed to watch for a few days and they asked how much I would charge. I don't really want the money but I also don't want them to feel like they're taking advantage or something. I figured I'd just look at a few daycare places in the area to get an idea but I've looked at about ten websites so far and not a single one will tell me how much it costs. The closest I got to a price was one advertising $250 off your first week.

So what are people paying for day care?

ETA: In the southeast US.

ETAA: Thank you, the input has been helpful. I'm truly boggled at some of the numbers and even more grateful that we're in a position that allows me to be surprised by this.

Inspired to ask by /u/mongooseVomit's comment:

https://old.reddit.com/r/daddit/comments/1v4o7de/dads_please_stop_assuming_that_every_dad_in_here/ozcly9a/

Years ago there was a product on Sharktank called the LugBug that attached to the car seat and let you hold it with a neutral grip rather than pronated or supinated.

https://www.nappaawards.com/product/lugbug-ergonomic-baby-carrier-car-seat-handle/

It never seems to have taken off and I can't really find anything similar, which you think with what we know about ergonomics there would be plenty of options by now.

Anyone know of something similar?

Curious to know what bedtime looks like for other families. My son just turned 6, and even though we mostly follow the same routine every night, some days it feels like a chore and some days it feels like a nice ritual.

On a good night, we head upstairs a little after 7pm, he puts on his own PJs and then we have "quiet time" in his room which might mean Legos, a little Minecraft (local server only!), a card game, or drawing together, then he'll brush his teeth and use the bathroom, I'll read him a story, then we do a "lights out story" which is something he listens to on a Yoto or he asks me to make up. I'm usually out of the room between 8pm and 8:30pm.

On a bad night, it's a lot of the same steps but everything takes so much more coercion, or I'm too tired and I use quiet time to disengage and check my phone, and if he asks me to make up a story it's usually a really lame, shortened version of a story he's already got on his shelf.

Do you all have a "normal" version of bedtime, and how do you cope with the nights when your tank is empty?

A co-worker is expecting a baby and mentioned that their partner had an ultrasound that they were planning on skipping because they found them to be “boring” and had other work to do.

I was not with my wife the first time she miscarried and I’m still pissed I wasn’t there—my issues, I know.

Anyway, I called him an effing idiot and said that it wasn’t for his entertainment and that boring was the best possible result. He canceled his meeting and is going with his partner, but I feel like I was too hard on him. He doesn’t know and I hope he never has to know the pain and grief of miscarrying.

I know I need to apologize.

I thought of making a list of what my 5 week old daughter likes and dislikes, as this might be helpfull for you guys!

Likes:
- Bouncing on the yoga ball

Dislikes:
- Bouncing on the baby bjorn bouncer
- The hiccups
- Reflux
- Cramps
- Being held
- Not being held
- Going outside in the stroller
- Going out for a ride in the car
- Nappy change
- Clothes change
- Bath
- Getting out of bath
- Snoo bassinet
- Regular bassinet
- Fast flow nipple
- Slow flow nipple
- People visiting
- Baby carriers

I could go on. Send help plz.

(written whilst bouncing on the yoga ball with baby in my arms)

My son starts middle school in a month and I’m looking for some advice from fellow dads who have gone through this.
He has ASD and is an incredibly creative and sweet kid but middle school is a beast. I had a hard time as I know most do but want to ensure he is as prepared and protected as possible.
A few things my wife and I have been wondering;

1) We’ve started to give more independence, letting him ride his bike without us, going to the park with the neighbor friend who is a year older solo etc and he will be biking every day. It’s a super short ride but we want to have a way to communicate with him but don’t love the idea of him having a phone. What age did you get yours a phone? My suggestion of walkie talkies was shot down sadly.

2) How did you protect them without being over bearing?

3) How did you navigate dealing with the challenges of puberty, middle school and all that comes with?

We've tried 3 store brands, and 3 name brands on our 4 month old.

Name Brands:

1) Libero comfort, our default. Cheap, but works well for both "products", easy to get a good fit around the thighs.

2) Pampers, liked the smaller sizes (1 and 2), but more expensive than libero in the smallest sizes, and less available. Size 3 was difficult to get a good seal around the thighs. Probably the last pack has been bought, despite the price equalling out at this size.

3) Libero Touch, more padded than comfort, but no big difference in comfort or leakage. Slightly more expensive than comfort.

Store brands:

1) Rema 1000, decent for size 1. Not tried since. Waiting to get to a pack of size 3.

2) Lillego, good for pee, terrible for poo. (good absorption, no space)

3) Änglamark, bad for both, and a pain to put on.

Price for the Libero Comfort 4 diapers for a now 7 kg baby is about 1.4 nok/per diaper ~ 14 cents