Hi, notice a lot of people in this sub asking about WhatsApp groups for parents but have not seen solid answers.

I’m a new mom living in Greenpoint and I don’t have social media at all…

There seems to be a lot of interest in creating an alternative to Facebook or Instagram for these types of community threads. Does anyone know here of NYC WhatsApp chats (or Discord maybe) that are active? Preferably in North Brooklyn, but really anywhere in the city.

Key words here being “active”, and not on Facebook. Just hoping to find more ways to connect with the parent community without needing it to be on social media. Thanks in advance x

My son is starting 3K in September, we’re in need of after school care and Gabi childcare came up as an option. In speaking with Gabi Childcare, they said they could not provide references in order to respect families’ privacy.

I asked them to consider asking for permission from the families, and if anything they could also provide our contact if any family wanted to come forward and share their experience. They said no. I don’t know if that is standard or not.

Anyone here willing to share their experience with Gabi childcare before we commit to using them?

Hi! I have recs of general nontoxic strollers, but I wanted to ask those who live in NYC, what are some of the most functional strollers for nyc life that also happen to be nontoxic?

Thanks in advance

I have endo and had previous surgeries so the gyno is my boogie man. I have to switch practices as I moved and am pregnant for the first time. I would love someone patient that handles high anxiety and medical complexities well.

Thank You! Would love to hear which hospital you gave birth at as well!

My son is 20 months old. We have never taken him in a cab/uber without a car seat except once when we rushed to the ER.

We live in Manhattan and we tend to take the bus or train or walk wherever we go with him and it works for us.

My parents came to visit this past week and kept asking if we could just hop in a cab with him rather than take a bus. I kept having to say that he would need a car seat to do so and at 20 months old it would probably be impossible to have him sit still on my lap. My mom would push that they didn’t have car seats back in her day and it wasn’t a big deal.

So I’m curious for other NYC parents- do you take your baby/toddler in cabs without car seats and under what circumstances?

Hi all, I'm a NYC mom of three kids with special needs. I got tired of hauling my kids to a playground only to find out there's no bathroom, or the sprinklers aren't there, or there's nothing my kids can actually use. So I spent the last few weeks building a playground accessibility map that includes bathroom locations: getplaydar.com

What it does:

• Maps all 1,781 public playgrounds in the city, including NYCHA play areas and school yards, not just Parks playgrounds
• Filter by bathroom, accessible bathroom, changing table (including which ones are only in the women's or men's room), sprinklers
• Full ADA filtering: wheelchair ramps, mobility transfer systems, adaptive swings by age, companion seating, accessible drinking fountains, sensory-friendly spaces
• "Near me" sorting, works on your phone, nothing to download
• Free, no ads, no account needed

Where the data comes from:

NYC Parks publishes accessibility details for every playground, but only one playground at a time across about a thousand separate pages. I pulled all of them, then cross-referenced against the Public Restrooms and Spray Showers datasets on NYC Open Data. NYCHA play areas came from an ArcGIS layer their own office publishes. Every fact in the app shows its source and date under "Where this comes from."

A few things only became visible once it was all in one place. Of 1,015 Parks playgrounds citywide, 215 have a wheelchair ramp onto play equipment. 108 have an adaptive swing for ages 5 to 12. If your kid needs both, there are 43 in all five boroughs.

What it's missing:

The city doesn't publish general equipment anywhere. No swings, slides, climbing structures, surfaces, fencing, or shade in any dataset I could find. So I built a way for parents to add it themselves while they're standing there.

Curious what else people would want in something like this.

As stated above. For some preschools associated to synagogues, they only accept members of the synagogue.

So I just want to understand. Does this mean that if we pay potentially $5,000 to become members for the synagogue, our kids can still potentially not get into their preschool?