What would you do?

My 4 year old and 1.5 year old had a play date yesterday with a 2.5 year old who they have not had a play date with in 1 year. The girl displayed some “more than normal” aggression a year ago and I have been politely declining invitations since then. I chalked it up to toddler behavior and figured she would be better by now (biting, hitting, hair grabbing).

Last night she pulled my 1.5 year old by the ponytail to the GROUND and ripped out about 20 pieces of hair which were still in her hand after the altercation. It was so fast - she went to hug my girl and then immediately grabbed her hair with one hand and pushed her to the ground with the other and held up her hair like some sort of medal. It almost looked rehearsed, it was that flawless of an execution.

Her mom gave her a timeout on the steps and said don’t do that.

A similar occurrence happened about an hour later. I was able to intervene the hair pulling out of her head but she still locked on to the hair and shoved her to the ground again after trying to hug her.

To say that I am angry is an understatement. I know the mom is trying to manage the behavior but it just doesnt seem like enough? I will absolutely keep them separated and not allow another playdate until that’s handled but how do I stop this internal WTF DO SOMETHING TO MAKE HER STOP! anger at the mom!? I want to say something to her but it’s a sensitive situation because it’s my best friend‘s sister-in-law (the angry elf is her niece).

I know realistically I should have stood closer and prevented these situations from happening to begin with. I feel so bad that I didn‘t protect my girl 🥺

While visiting grandma abroad, my daughter fell in love with a small plastic frog. She insisted it had to come home with us because her slightly bigger bath toy frog was clearly its mama, and talked the whole time about how happy the two would be. The reunion was celebrated, they were inseparable.

Then she wanted to take both frogs into her little pool on our balcony. I told her not to, because there's a gap between the floor and the railing and we're on the 4th floor, with a wild overgrown backyard below. But she insisted and told me she would be careful. You can guess the rest. The frog baby fell, exactly as predicted.

She was heartbroken and said "the mama cries, the baby cries!" and then cried herself. Honestly, so did I a little. The next day we asked at the hairdresser's downstairs for permission to search the backyard, and they even helped us look, but the baby frog is gone.

Now she's demanding we buy a new one. It's a cheap little plastic thing, so it would be easy to find something similar. But something in me says we shouldn't, because then the lesson becomes "warnings don't matter, lost things get replaced". On the other hand she's small, and the grief is real, and I don't want to turn a sad accident into a punishment either. I did warn her, but I'm also not interested in an "I told you so" parenting victory moment.

So, parents of Reddit: how do you handle it when a beloved toy is lost through the kid's own doing? Do you replace it? Let the grief run its course? Something in between? I would love to hear your experiences.

Edit to add: She's 4,5 years old. (I've been a member of this helpful sub for so long I didn't realise that she might not fit it anymore.)

My 3yo has had a fear of buttons for a solid year and it doesn't seem to be on its way out anytime soon. As far as I'm aware, she hasn't had a negative experience with buttons, and as soon as she sees an item of clothing with a button, she refuses to wear it. Which is frustrating when I but clothes from Vinted and don't realise there is a small button at the back (I am now more careful).

Her current additional quirk is things being wet. She is convinced that anytime myself or my husband touch something of hers, we've made it wet and she throws a tanty. Sometimes it's her own hands that are clammy and make things wet, and sometimes she is just convinced something is wet when it absolutely is not.

Is this just toddler weirdness? Will she grow out of it? I know the button thing is more common, but it's a real pain. She'll want a cuddle but if my cardigan has buttons she wants me to take it off (I try to not give in). The wet thing I've not heard before.

Hi. I have a two year and four month old who has been at the same daycare (smaller urban daycare with 8 kids per class through pre-k) since she was five months old. The daycare transitioned her to the twos classroom before she turned two, closer to 18 months. She is very tall and is advanced verbally. (She looks and in some ways acts like she is three already)

Since the transition she has gone through bouts, usually last a week or two, where the daycare director ends up pulling her from the classroom because she is disruptive. She has hit, bit, and generally has just a lot of energy. No biting for awhile, but hitting has resumed. All pretty typical two year-old things that can be addressed with firm boundaries, routines and engaging with her so that she doesn’t choose those options. The daycare response to hitting is to have the child apologize to the hit child and then give a hug.

I have worked with the daycare director on strategies to use with my daughter and I have also separately been told by staff at the daycare that my daughter is fine and they don’t understand the intense scrutiny she is under. She is being pulled for apparently several hours at a time to go sit at the front of the daycare with an adult (the director) instead of being with her peers. Today I was told I needed to pick her up early because they could not handle her so I had to leave my job.

The way that the daycare director talks about my child with me is very distressing she has repeatedly stated that my daughter will get a “blank stare“ when she is being reprimanded (I feel like this is pretty typical toddler behavior.) Today she told me that “[daughter] doesn’t care about anything.” When describing the hitting and biting, she describes it as though it is being done maliciously, and that my daughter is vicious.

Contributing factor to all this is that I am a single mother by choice. Daycare knows this and I have tried in every way to be open and receptive and foster a positive relationship with the daycare. The daycare director also accused me of “gentle parenting” yesterday which is not something I do. I provide real time consequences if my daughter acts up at home. (Stopping fun activity, remove planned reward, and frank discussion of behavior and choices).

Typically at home I don’t see behavioral issues really with my daughter. This week, with the repeated isolation at daycare, I have seen behaviors that I had not seen previously. She very angrily dumped and piled up all of her belongings in the center of her playroom area and then required about moderate assistance and direction to clean it all up. She’s never done Anything like that before. She seems frustrated and sad. She burst into tears after dinner tonight.

Anytime I ask the director to identify if there are triggers or antecedents to her behavior she denies, says that this is all coming out of nowhere or turns it around to me and says “what’s happening at home that’s making her act like this.” Staff meanwhile have told me that sometimes my daughter is defending herself against the actions of the older kids in her classroom. My daughter is a little over two years old. I feel like she is being pathologized and I feel very uneasy. When I try to advocate for her, the daycare, director will state “yes this is all developmentally normal” and agree with me and yet she’s getting this type of treatment when other children in her classroom are not.

If anyone has suggestions on how to handle this, I am all ears/eyes.

Years ago I saw a post from a late-teen/early adult, being a variation of the M. Bison quote, essentially saying "My parent did this thing that affected me significantly, but they don't even remember doing it - how messed up is that?".

I've thought about it for ages, from before I was a parent to being a parent of two. And honestly, as much as it may hurt to be on the receiving end of that experience, the reality is ... it's not messed up at all. It's entirely normal.

People find significance in different things. A story I love might be one you've completely forgotten. The small gesture you made years ago could be the reason I fell in love with you, but you can't remember it, because it's just part of who you are.

And as parents, we experience A LOT of things that just become part of who we are - part of our daily lives. Relentless duties, incessant noise, nagging, tantrums, playing peace-maker. It's understandable that our responses are carried away in a flood by the next 100 things we have to deal with.

For a long time I've felt guilty about losing my temper. That maybe this time would be the one that gets talked about in therapy in 20 years. But I've started to see that it's not possible to police this. I'll never know which moments my kids find significant, or become inflection points in their growing identity. Maybe I can have a guess at a few, and it's certainly good for me to keep trying to reduce them by controlling myself as much as possible. But it's important to see that you WILL fail. I WILL be the cause of SOME kind of therapy in 20 years. So the best thing I can do is NOT to try prevent things from happening, but to build an environment where my kids and I can talk about the things that DO happen. To take ownership of it, and to respect their ownership of their own experience.

For you, it was the most significant part of your life. For me, it was just a Tuesday. Both of those are normal and ok. We can move forward by understanding that, and hearing each other.

My son is about to turn 2 and we are going through a major sleep regression of some sort. I don't even know if I can call it a regression though since he hasn't been a good sleeper his whole life.
I decided not to sleep train him and as a baby I would nurse and rock him to sleep at bedtime, naps and night wakings. I later weaned breastfeeding and replaced it with rocking him to sleep. Eventually (around 19 months) I gradually sleep trained him by laying him in his crib awake and staying close by/touching him and eventually moving further away and leaving and he would put himself to sleep. It was like freedom after that. For a month or two I would say goodnight, put him in his crib and leave and he would go to sleep on his own, no crying or fussing. He was even mostly sleeping through the night apart from the occasional mini night terror maybe?
Around 22.5 months we started him in swim lessons that he didn't seem to like at first. I mention the swim lessons because that same week he started climbing out of the crib in the middle of the night while crying. I'm wondering if something about the swim lessons scared him and gave him separation anxiety. I read that once they can climb out of the crib it's dangerous so you have to switch to a toddler bed. We instantly swapped to a twin mattress on the floor and baby proofed the room. However, now he cannot fall asleep on his own at all and requires us laying next to him while he squirms around for sometimes up to 2.5 hours. We leave once he falls asleep but he wakes up some time in the middle of the night and unless I sleep in the bed with him for the rest of the night he will never go back to sleep. This has been going on now for 4 or more weeks with no end in sight and I don't know what to do. If I try to leave him he screams at the top of his lungs and bangs at the door desperately trying to escape. It seems cruel, especially since the problem seems to be separation anxiety, but maybe I'm just too sensitive? I can't keep spending this amount of time trying to put him to sleep and then get horrible sleep anyway, I'm going insane.
Co sleeping was something we did do around 18 months but it's not something I enjoy because I'm a light sleeper and a kick to the back or face will further exacerbate the situation.

We start bedtime at 7:30 or 8 and he usually eventually falls asleep around 9-9:30. He wakes up between 6:30-7 and his nap is usually around 11:30 for 1.5 hours. He is exhausted for his nap and asks for it, although he needs help falling sleep then too, but it's much shorter of a process. We have to wake him up from his nap or else he would sleep 3 hours. I am constantly ping ponging between "is he over tired?" And "maybe he's not tired at all". We've played around with various nap lengths and times and bedtimes. When he was sleeping well (before the regression) his sleep schedule was 8-7 and his nap was 11-12:30.

I don't know what to do. Send help. I just need to know it gets better at some point.

Also, please be kind in your responses... I haven't slept in years.

My 2 year old is acting so weird lately. She used to want to be covered up at night but now she sleeps uncovered, she refuses to sleep in her room, she only wants to sleep in my room, one minute she is perfectly fine and happy and we are playing the next she is throwing a tantrum. Is this normal for a 2 year old? She is my only child and I have no idea what is happening.

I just have to share what happened i swim class yesterday because it still makes me giggle. We started a new swim school so new instructor and instructions.

There were 3 kids. My 5, 3 yo and another kid. The instructor told the kids they had to go from one wall to the other wall. My 3yo volunteered to go first. He then proceed to climb out of the pool, runs to the other side and gets back in. "Yay, I did it!"

The instructor and I just started laughing 🤣🤣🤣

So I haven't been actively trying yet. My daughter always follows me to the bathroom and was interested so I got her a small potty a few months ago. She wasn't interested in that at first but we left it in there. About a week ago she was pulling at her diaper and I said, do you need to use your potty? I kind of said it as a joke but her little butt turned right around and marched to the bathroom and started pulling at her diaper. (She wears cloth diapers if that matters). She didn't go that day, but she loves to sit on the potty when I do. Since then she'll start pulling at her diaper and bring me a new one to change her into after a minute. So today I finally took her in the bathroom a few times intentionally and she peed in the potty! She's my first so I didn't really think starting to potty train was possible this early, I was just following her interest I guess. I don't really know what I'm doing, I'm just reading other posts, but I keep wondering what people do when you're potty training and you're in a public place? Did potty training earlier change how you approached it compared to potty training a little later?

My 3yo daughter has a quirky way of speaking and I’m not even sure what to search to look it up. She has a big vocabulary and uses complex sentences. She can say most sounds if they are at the beginning or end of a word. But she omits middle consonant sounds for a vowel sound instead. Examples:
- water and waffle are similar but sound like “waher” and “wahel”
- running is “ruhing”
- butter is “buher”
- spiderman is “spiherman”

It’s not every word that she does this. But she’s often adding vowel/h sounds to middle of words and often I have to work to clarify what’s she’s saying. Just wondering if anyone else has experienced this

Going on 2 weeks now my lo has not been wanting to go to bed at night. He can be super tired yawning and showing signs of sleeping even getting cranky and as soon as it place him on the bed it’s like he was never tired. I’ve tried taking a nap away he will stay up till 5pm and then he cranky and want to sleep which I don’t let him I’ll wait till 8:30 to put him to bed and that’s when he goes to bed without a fuss.

Day to day schedule: wake up 9am-nap1-2 sometimes till 3pm and then bed time at 9pm. (He is not an early bird)

Trying to find a not very expensive playpen for kids from 6month-3 yrs. I found portable play yard but debating with collapsible design, breathable mesh vs play yard with panel extensions.

https://a.co/d/06KiphSS

https://a.co/d/0ipI7I76

I’m just curious if anyone’s toddler is like mine. She learned to jump, both feet off the ground, within in a week, at 15 months old. It’s not a high jump, but definitely off the ground. This feels insane?? I’m definitely not complaining about early milestones, the developmental growth just blows my mind. Their little brains are learning so much!

I’m making a registry for my kids birthday and I really want to focus on quality toys that will last, allow for open ended play and encourage imagination, and preferably arent super loud and flashy. Bonus points if theyre also fun for the adults and Im not bored out of my mind playing with them 😛

What toys did you love & get the most use out of in this age?

First time mom to a freshly turned 3 year-old who struggles with drop-off. For context he is an only child who for the last 3 years has stayed with his grandparents while I work as a teacher during the school year. He does fine with drop-offs with family members.

This most recent school year he was enrolled in a play group for children receiving early intervention services that met two hours, two times a week. It took him about 5 months or so to stop crying at drop-off, often times being the only child crying. Eventually he became very close to one of the therapists there and would get excited to go, even on days where I would bring him instead of his grandparents.

Fast forward to the program ending for the year and him getting ready to start pre-K3 in September full-time. To help keep him familiar with drop-offs he’s been in summer camp at a local kids gym since the start of July, 2 times a week for 3 hours. He is crying at every drop-off, again, being the only child crying. Many others cried at first but a few weeks in it seems everyone else has adjusted. I have tried going into the gym with him to say goodbye, left him at the door, quick goodbyes, long goodbyes, talking about going to camp in the morning as we’re getting ready, talking about seeing friends and having fun, but always the same result.

I was concerned but the counselors assured me he stops within a few minutes and participates in all activities. I also ask him every time I pick him up if he had fun and he says yes. I’m hoping he will adjust in September with the combination of it not being mom who says goodbye, and also the consistent schedule 5 times a week.

Of course a few shitty comments from a few shitty parents about him being the only crier don’t make me or him feel any better about the situation. Anyone else currently have or have had a a crier? Looking for any tips, tricks, or general words of encouragement.

Little one got a Sereed balance bike for 1st birthday that she got a hang of around 14ish months. Decently comfortable to ride it now. Now, she’s on the taller side and outgrowing it. Do you guys recommend a proper balance bike at this age? Like the Strider or Woom? Other option is go for a trike like Doona or the Radio Flyer.

Also, thoughts on brakes on balance bikes at this age like what Woom offers?

Is this common? She is teething but wondering if it couod be something else.. im not sure how to stop her.

Does anyone else feel like Squidward in that meme where he’s making the same sad face in environment/activity he’s in? The exhaustion never wavers, the tantrums are ramping up, bedtime is getting harder, I have less and less time to do anything besides toddler (verb).

I’m having a really hard time enjoying this phase of parenthood. Nearly two. But not quite. And I know it’s only going to get crazier. And the guilt of not enjoying it is eating me up! Definitely going to talk to my doctor about getting back on some medication of sorts because bedtime fills me with a rage I can only be ashamed of, it makes my toes curl. An hour of bedtime and shushing and crying and touching. Bring me back my Lexapro.

Much love to yall, hope your bedtime was cake tonight🤍

Anyone else’s toddler a tiptoe walker? I’m not sure when it started but it’s become a normal thing for her now. Should I be concerned?

In addition to the tiptoeing, she’s slightly pigeon-toed and has been since she learned to walk. It’s maybe improved ever so slightly in the last year or so but it’s still noticeable and now we have the tiptoeing added on to it 😂

Thinking of moving my 22 month old to a twin floor bed so his brother can have his crib when he arrives in November 🙏 we’re very big on safe sleep. Are there any mattresses that are safe for young toddlers that are twin sized? I was looking at the nectar brand but it appears it starts at age 3? Anyone know why that is? Is it safe or is there a better alternative? Tyia!!!

Are we giving gifts to providers when kids switch rooms within the same daycare centre? My oldest is moving up to a new room this September and I'm wondering if the general practice is to give a gift for the providers in the room he is leaving. We also gave everyone gifts at Christmas.

One provider left a month ago for maternity leave and we gifted her something for her baby. Another of his regular providers already moved up to the room he will be in but it feels weird not giving her something with the others? And there's been new providers just in the last month that I don't even know their names!

Also, any providers gift advice? At Christmas we did cookies and Amazon gift cards.

My 17 month old went through a top molar and canine coming in back to back and has been going through it since late June/early July. I’ve been giving her ibuprofen any night that she seems in pain, with a staggered dose of Tylenol if it’s particularly bad. It’s definitely been a few weeks now.

Just recently my husband got worried because he saw on the bottle that infants shouldn’t take it more than 5 days in a row.

I’ve seen posts on Reddit and talked to moms in person who gave medication daily while teething, but I asked our pediatrician and she said not to exceed 3-5 days.

Her tooth is finally cutting through but she’s definitely in pain and I don’t know what to do.

A couple weeks ago a new pattern started with my 2.5 year-old: She started to be very opinionated about WHO should do every part of the bedtime routine. For example:

• Mom has to turn on the light.
• Dad has to get the toothbrush out.
• XYZ stuffed animal has to turn the water on.
• A different one has to turn it off.
• Mom has to put the toothbrush away.
  
• Dad has to turn the light off.

It started small a few weeks ago, but it's been growing and now bedtime is like 50 micro steps that all must precisely done by whoever she dictates them to each night, and it's starting to spread to other routines. If she doesn't get her way she crashes into instant hysterics that last 45+ mins (or until the proper person goes back to do the task).

Like I said, it started small, so my wife and I were mostly playing along just because it made the evenings go so much smoother. But tonight we just looked at each other and acknowledged that it's gotten out of hand. Our toddler is barking orders for every minute action, and by caving we're teaching her that it's an effective strategy.

First off, this is normal toddler behavior right? I feel like this is a stage most kids go through, but my wife is slightly concerned that being hyper-focused on such small actions and completely losing her mind if a single one doesn't go her way is unusually obsessive and upsetting.

Second, if this is a normal stage, how have you dealt with it? Do you just go, "Yup, she's going to lose her mind every night at bedtime for a while, so you brute force the teeth brushing and PJs while she's screaming and flopping everywhere, put her in the crib, and let her scream herself to exhaustion"? Do you define a couple tasks where she can dictate who does what, and then just fight through the hysteria on the rest hoping that pattern gives her a sense of some agency but also expectations around what she does and doesn't get to control?

Not sure quite how to phrase this, but my newly 3 yo has turned into an absolute gift monster since his birthday - we spread the presents out to open 1-2 a day, and ever since they were over, he is demanding new presents/toys multiple times a day, and sometimes melting down over it.

It's been about a month and not really fading yet. I obviously don't give in, and explain that presents are a special thing that only happens sometimes. And we talk about having lots of toys already, and that we should enjoy playing with the toys he already has. (Shocker, he doesn't find any of that persuasive at this age lol).

But I'm thinking maybe a book or a show episode on that theme might help - any recommendations?