Parenting

I can't decide the best way to secure our front loading washing machine.

We have twins. They're fascinated by the washing machine. Lights, beeps, action... everything. One twin getting inside and their erstwhile companion starting the cycle is absolutely possible.

Obviously we keep the laundry door closed but in a way you just build up the appeal. One of them has figured out how to open doors by standing on his trike.

I could put some kind of stick-on toddler lock on the door but I worry it would be tough to establish the habit of closing the door and putting that lock on. Besides which surely it's nice to leave the door open to dry out between loads anyway?

The washing machine does have a toddler lock but that's only to prevent someone changing the settings during a cycle, it doesn't prevent starting a cycle.

My best idea thus far is a timer on the power outlet. So you turn on the power and set the timer to turn it off after however long the load takes.

The problem with this is that I haven't been able to find a count-down style timer that allows you to set periods longer than 2 hours. Most power outlet timer thingies do schedules, not count-down.

I know this maybe sounds like an easily solvable problem - just turn the power off when it's done - but that's just not how things roll in our house.

I’m looking for any hints on how to go on enjoyable and relaxing vacations with two small children. The kids are 4 and 10months and the four year old is very energetic. Somehow so far everything we tried wasn’t in a way that both parents enjoyed it too much. So we’re happy to learn from your experience. Bonus if it’s not too expensive.

Good time to start a meth habit

My partner just hit her third trimester and we are getting everything ready for when our first baby arrives. When our baby arrives we want to use one of those baby tracking apps that allow you to log when the baby was fed, when they pooped etc. I want to make sure whatever my partner and I use doesn't sell our data.

We will need something that we both can use on our own phones and want it simple and easy to use. What did everyone use? Did you like it? Did it feel useful and safe?

My daughter (6) is aggressive abusive to her shoes. Trainers seem to last about 6 weeks before the toe is destroyed and the sole delaminating. Sketchers, or boots seem to last a bit longer, maybe 2-3 months before being annihilated.

Has anyone found a brand or range that actually holds up to the abuses a small child can throw at them? I've reach the point where I'm eyeing up composite toed builders trainers. That seems overkill however, and she doesn't like the designs available in her size (UK size 2/3).

Has anyone else ran into this problem and found a viable solution? It's getting both expensive and embarrassing. Oh, and before it's suggested, my wife has vetoed the boots from a suit of armour.

My daughter is a little over two, and through well meaning family and friends we have more toys than we know what to do with.

My wife keeps buying what are essentially (fancy looking) big boxes and just dumping everything in them. Love my wife, but that's not working, it's just hiding some of the mess in a box.

We end up with these hardly ever opened boxes full of unorganized piles of toys that we end up having to dig through to find anything specific, and the toys that my daughter is actively using just end up scattered around the floor so they don't disappear into the box dimension.

Every once in a while my daughter opens and digs through the boxes and dumps half the contents on the floor anyway (not like she can see specific things to grab what she wants) and then we just kind of arbitrarily choose some of it to put back in the box and a new combination of mess to leave out.

Unfortunately we have another baby on the way, so I'm probably not getting my wife to let us toss any of it right now.

I'm leaning towards cubby shelves with individual bins for different "types" of toys like her daycare does, but I wanted to hear what strategies other parents tried, and what has and hasn't worked.

I woke up to my alarm, checked the weather, and atop the page in bold red: Breaking- trump targets (school in my area). I've already seen my town listed in another article last week because my state has sanctuary cities, I didn't even know we were one. My son's school is mostly Spanish speaking folks.

That headline had me in a panic. Especially because the article just said "targeted". Targeted how? Cutting funding for one town? Sending ICE? Wtf does that mean.

I check my States subreddit (the only place I still lurk) and nothing. I was afraid to send him to school this morning.

Not to mention the shootings that can happen, that's always in the back of my head, but now this too? I can't wait until this year is over, and I cannot believe I am beginning to consider homeschooling from fear something could happen to my son in school :(

Hello all,

My 19 month old has had 3 separate events that sort of resemble night terrors, and I'm looking for some insight.

The wife and I decided sleep training was the way around a year old, and generally he sleeps through the night fully now - but three times in the last few weeks, this event set will happen:

He will wake up standing in his crib screaming as if he's being hurt, when we go to check on him he's inconsolable so after checking him for bodily harm, I bring him to bed with us with a bottle screaming the whole way. After a few minutes of thrashing about, he sits up and looks around, seemingly confused about his surroundings and he's fine; he gets his bottle and back off to sleep within a minute or two.

The confusing part for me is he is very aware my wife and I are in the room during these fits, when during a night terror they're supposedly in almost a trance-like state. The "waking up" motions he does is also baffling to me.

Thoughts?

With some jurisdictions categorically recommending that children under a certain age (in the case of Denmark under 13) should not have a tablet or smartphone, what is your opinion on the appropriate age/way to introduce these devices to your children's life? Do you use your own devices together with your children? If so, how and when?

While my own children are still unquestionably too young for tablets or smartphones, I'm already afraid of the social pressure that is likely to arise at an ever younger age when their friends start getting devices.

I think I handled it well.
I told them yes in a longx50 time. While I was wiping their butt. Then they asked if they were going to die. I told them maybe, when they are an old old old lady like Grandma.
That seemed to go well enough.

Hi there! Hope this is not against the rules, but given I made the app exactly to help parents (especially privacy-conscious ones), I hope it's okay.

I made an educational open source game for small kids (2-6 yo) where they can match cute animals (currently sea creatures, dinosaurs, colours and fruit theme packs).

Features:

• cute pictures
• works on both a phone and a tablet
• multiple theme packs
• fully free, no tracking or anything
• there are multiple flavours, one of which bundles all of the assets and doesn't even have the permission to access the internet <- great if you're extra cautious
• big buttons, no reading necessary, small kids friendly

It can be downloaded both from GitHub and the Play Store.

Some screenshots

Let me know what you think!

On behalf of all the dads, sons, or daughters; if you are a mom, thank you!

Moms are a miracle. My kids remind of that. I just spent an hour wrestling with the kids at the dinner table because they wouldn’t eat the Mother’s Day lunch I prepared them. Thank you to all the moms who put up with us as kids because we are getting it back now. And thank you to the wives’ who this is their daily reality.

My children have two nationalities - luckily both of them are EU nationalities. However, since we live in the home country of my wife, my children have little to nothing in terms of contact with their second nationality of my home country. Both passports for them are largely interchangeable in terms of power and freedom of travel. My children also will never need to decide whether to give up either nationality, making it easier for them to just have a "passive nationality" in the back pocket.

Do your children also have more than one nationality? How does this impact your and their life? How do you manage to retain ties with both countries - if at all? I'd love to hear different perspectives on this topic.

Hello everyone. My little brother is starting pre k in a few months and a lot of people said I should try to get him time to socialize with other kids before then because he hasnt really had the chance to spend a lot of time with other kids.

Now he is very very shy and doesnt talk to anyone but me really. I tried to set up some playdates with some other parents with kids the same age and he is just way to shy to really intract with them. He just stays quiet and keeps to himself mostly. He just doesnt seem willing to want to do anything with the other kids.

So I was just wondering from anyone else with shy kids, what can I do with him that helps him practice socializing with others? I don’t want him to think it’s bad or wrong to be shy because its totally okay that he is. But I dont want him to get too overwhelmed when he goes to school with a bunch of kids for the first time and im not there.

Came like this, they absolutely knew:

Before we became parents the concept of "Mental Load" was largely theoretical as both of us were easily able to manage the everyday logistics of our own lives. With children coming into the equation everything suddenly becomes a juggling exercise - at least that was our experience.

I've read in several publications that the mental load or, to use a different wording, the organisation of everyday logistics is often predominantly done by women/mothers.

We try to share all tasks as evenly as possible. We both work approximately the same amount of time. We both earn similar wages. We share costs on a 50:50 basis. We both took the exact same amount of parental leave. However, the logistics of everyday life have, without even trying to aim for that, drifted more towards my wife.

How do you go about sharing this task? What kind of technical/IT solutions do you use to remain on the same page? Is it even necessary to share this task or are there others ways to "specialise" in certain areas of being a parent?

Them: Knock knock!
Me: Who's there?
Them: Boo!
Me: Boo who?
Them: Boo! I'm a ghost!

This article really struck a chord with me, since I'm increasingly worried about my children growing up in a world that is fundamentally different from the one I grew up in. It's incredibly hard to make sure that children are not confronted with disturbing imagery and all the propaganda that is circulating online without the fully developed critical thinking of an educated adult. How do you go about making sure your children become responsible adults online?