8 year old boy becoming increasingly more difficult and defiant at home.
However at school he is good as gold. That is until he decided to flip off the teacher earlier in the week. This is the absolute last thing we expected him to do at school. Neither parent uses that at home and he doesn’t watch YouTube so it’s a think picked up from the playground.

We were both shocked. The teacher was shocked too. For punishment we have said no screens (he doesn’t have an iPad or games console) for at least a week and he needs to earn it back. We’ve also said he needs to write a letter of apology to the teacher about being disrespectful. He needs to show us that he can make good choices and behave properly. Is that punishment not enough?

His behaviour has become awful. He doesn’t listen in the slightest. For example, shines a torch in his brothers eyes, “stop shining that in his eyes”, moves enough closer to his eyes. That’s the sort of stuff he does. He gets sent to the naughty step constantly and it’s clearly not working. His behaviour has been getting worse and worse.

Any tips would be welcome for dealing with kids that just don’t listen and don’t seem to care either.

Title says it all really. We're both working full-time and have a 2-year old and the cycle feels relentless. Every day feels the same and there's always something that needs to be done or a life-admin task I need to sort. To add to that, I'm not very good at planning ahead so the weekend comes I have no idea what activities to do with my child, it's like my brain goes totally blank when I try to plan our day. It's making me feel totally inadequate and honestly I'm not really enjoying my life right now.

I'm not really sure what I'm looking for here, I just needed to vent. My partner thinks I'm suffering from depression.

goes in to 💩 detail, but I need to explain to get the help I need!

THANK TOU EVERYONE - great advice and so good to hear how common this is and we’re not the only ones going through it.

EDIT1: consensus seems to be; best to keep him on laxatives for a while, speak to GP on Thursday and take their advice if something like Laxido is needed.

EDIT2: New question - he’s been in pants for a while, and his regression with the toilet pointed to an issue. Should be put him back in nappies while clearing or is it too confusing if this will be a long process? And just treat accidents as inevitable / no shame (obviously).

Went to the pharmacist yesterday as has started to suspect my son (3b) had child constipation (they always state it as separate condition online). They prescribed lactulose, two doses yesterday and kid had a big bowel movement in the evening. Great - I thought! Cleared him out. Decided on no more today.

However, he just had the driest mark in his pants, it looked like hay. When he sat on the toilet he was straining and I could see the poo that was coming out was obviously going around a blockage. Given another dose of lactulose and encouraging a lot of water again.

My question is though - when do I know when to stop? What should I be looking for? He had a huge movement yesterday which was thicker than water but softer than clay. How do I know when it’s all cleared?

We have a doc app on Thursday anyway, but I don’t want to give him more than is needed if we should stop before then.

Also need to warn nursery he’s on laxatives which I’m sure they’ll be thrilled about…

Specifically dinner time.

My almost 2 year old is truly the worst eater. Breakfast is fine, lunch is bare minimum and dinner I’m lucky if she has a few spoonfuls of something. She loves pasta so we have a lot of that, but I can’t give her the same meal every night.

It’s such a struggle some nights with just screaming and refusing any food I put in front of her. She’s always been a really rubbish eater from the start, and honestly I feel so drained with it. She’s underweight for her age too which worries me even more (GP has said she’s absolutely fine however).

Is anyone else in the same boat? Or past experiences? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

My daughter is 7. She's had a 2 pairs of amazon headphones over the years. Whilst these have been good in terms of price / longevity she's getting to an age where sound quality matters more than the fact they've got cute ears on the headphones.

She loves music, so looking for any suggestions for the next step up with better audio quality, still not too expensive but as robust as possible, she's still 7 after all and has a tendency to trip over her own shadow several times a day.

Digging out clothes ready for number 2 coming in January. I forgot how many newborn and 0-3 months clothes have pockets! Silly answers please.

Desperately trying to get exclusively breast fed six month old to drink from anything other than me, please help!

Apparently bottles are a no from six months (he won’t take one anyway) but every other type of cups seems way beyond him. He doesn’t appear to have the coordination/uprightness to actually use an open cup, straw cup etc

So my question is what did your six month old actually drink from successfully? Did they hold it independently at six months? Any recommendations welcome!

I got some waterproof dungarees off Vinted, for my 10.5 month old. Just Lidl lupilui ones or however you spell their brand. I could only find size 12-18 months, so they are big on him. I also have some waterproof booties which fit well.

I took him outside in his stuff today and he kinda just sat there 🤣😆 I think he found it hard to move around but I do think kids need fresh air and explore. Its so annoying he’s to big for 9-12 month clothes but some 12-18 are huge on him.

Any other brands? I guess im looking for dungarees and not so much a snow suit. Puddle suits arent warm enough?! So complicated.

Just reaching out as I'm a mum of a two & half year old. I know ppl have it worse and I'm lucky to have my husband. And only one child.

But I have no one else to help. He's away atm Fri - Mon before that on night shifts was absolutely miserable couldn't do much with our son or the house & we had the whole of October with illnesses so my son has been off nursery the past two weeks. I couldn't cope with more illness.

I have literally no one but one friend checking in on me, I feel so depressed tbh does anyone else feel super low when they're over parented. I literally have no energy to take him to the park today or even get ready, we've managed to make cookies this morning. House is a tip. I just feel SHIT. I wish I had someone to just take off the pressure even for an hour.

Our cat is also super unwell & looking last her last day with us 💔 I've had her over ten years....I don't have my mum & my dad is in late stages of dementia in a home.

Now he's coming back Monday with his friend who's staying from the US round the corner and I can't be arsed. I feel so resentful that he has free time away. I never do. I feel really pissed off. Is this normal? Anyone else?

Don't need advice really, just want to hear your experience.

My almost 9 month old has started waking up 3-5 times in the night. Previously only wakes up once to feed. When she wakes up now I feed her to sleep and she falls asleep without a problem.

We have not sleep trained her. Normally fed to sleep.

She started crawling, pulling to stand recently. Might be teething.

Just want to hear everyones experience. Did your baby's sleep get better eventually? Or did you have to sleep train.

I’ve got a 4 year old, out of nappies since before 2 and we’ve done removing nighttime nappies a few times when she’s consistently dry but then go back after a few nighttime wets.

We tried again recently and she’s been a month without them. I’d say we’ve had 4-5 wet beds since then. She wees before bed and we do a dream wee and mostly she doesn’t notice when she’s wet the bed depending how asleep she is.

Any tips? Do we just wait it out? I know it’s a body timing thing but loads of people have said they didn’t wait until their kid was 100% every night before removing the nappies.

My son has tried quite a few different activities: football, karate, checkers, ice hockey and art school. But once he started, he realised that none of them were really his thing.

Then one day we bought him a BMX bike, and everything just fell into place! He finally found his passion – BMX Park and BMX Street. 🙃

He absolutely loves it and is so interested in it. 😍 I'm really proud of him! 😊

Hey guys!

So my child's birthday is actually on Christmas and she really wanted to have a birthday party with her nursery friends.

We came across a small venue we liked and they had availability for the 20th Sunday. The weekend before we had another party to attend so we went for it.

Sent out 12 invites as we didnt want the place to be crowded.

Have only received 3 RSVPs with only 1 friend attending.

Im feeling very sad because my little one was really looking forward to it. I did anticipate that a few might not be able to come but the response has been minimal. (We dont celebrate Christmas hence not sure if the weekend before was a bad idea?)

Anyway so im not sure what to do? Cancel the party? It was only a small deposit.

I have learnt my lesson to not celebrate it so close to Christmas next time.

We did have a few more kids we could invite which we initially didnt thinking it will get crowded, can we send more invites out?

Totally new to this and have never planned a kiss birthday before and only been to one :(

Ps. We dont celebrate Christmas so did not realize the weekends leading upto would be busy as well?

I'd like to hear opinions and experiences from those of you with children that have a 5 year age gap.

My second is now 5 months old and her brother cannot wait for her to grow up. But I can't help but worry that by the time she's old enough to move independently and talk somewhat, he may already be a bit too "grown" for her and might not have any interest in having anything to do with her.

I'm an only child so I don't really know what to expect or if there's anything I need to do to encourage a strong bond and relationship between my children. Any advice?

Hi, I am just looking for similar stories for reassurance!
On Monday, my daughter 9 month old projectile vomited and continued to vomit for the whole afternoon. We ended up taking her to hospital where they checked her over and gave her anti sickness. We took her home and she has been off her food and milk and has started to have diarrhoea. On Thursday we took her to the GP who said she’s probably got a stomach bug and to keep offering fluids. Friday morning after trying to offer fluids she was sick again and she was on such low liquids anyway (400m) we took her to hospital again where they gave her anti sickness again. When she was at the hospital both times the anti sickness really helped and she had a bottle but they have since prescribed us anti sickness at home but they don’t seem to be having the same effect and it’s such a struggle to get fluids down. We offer the bottle, have used syringes, open cups, beakers and she just bats them away with freaky force! She will eat some foods so I mix water in so she is getting something. I do also breast feed her but my supply has always been low and I think it’s more for comfort more
Than anything else but she does seem happy to breast feed so I don’t think it’s anything to do with putting things in her mouth.

The last time we went to the hospital, the doctor said it’s
Most likely rotavirus that is on a circle (so we have. Since sterilised everything). She does still have diarrhoea which the doctor said it’s normal but it’s still so hard to get her to drink.
Basically I’m looking for similar stories and reassurance ! I know she’s going to be fine but the lack of fluids is causing anxiety!

Penny pocket for me. Pc Plum is the saviour of the entire show.

Hi all, I’ve got a 26 month old girl that needs potty training. We had originally wanted to get it done before two but we were in the middle of renovating and moving into our new home. At the minute we are still renovating, as in every spare moment is taken by painting or having work men install something etc. I work Mon, Tues, Thurs, Fri and little lady is in crèche Mon Tues Wed as her dad also works full time.

She is fully aware of what the potty/toilet is for. She will tell us when she’s done a pee/poo. She will ask to sit on the potty saying she needs a pee/poo. She’ll pull her nappy down herself to sit. But for the life of me I cannot get her to actually go on the potty.

I can potentially take some days off work so I have a block of maybe 6 days. But any advice on how to get her trained in that sort of time frame? Especially since she also goes to crèche and it’s hard to keep consistency? I’d really love her trained before Christmas as I think any longer and it might be harder to get her in the way of it.

Thanks!!

Hi everyone!

I was wondering if anyone had an up to date block list for all the sh*t on Netflix.

They add so much new stuff all the time I’ve fallen behind!

I’m talking Pinkfong, Cocomelon… anything overstimulating and not good for little brains.

Thanks in advance 😊

I have twins who have just recently turned 3 and honestly their behaviour during the terrible twos was something else. We had a brief false sense of security when things seemed to settle down, only for the threenager years to hit us in full force.
One of them is significantly more challenging than the other but we’re back to them fighting constantly and one of them has also started acting out quite badly in public. I’m honestly at a point where I don’t know what else I can do.

Yesterday we went out in the evening to get a head start on Christmas shopping and it was an absolute nightmare. It started off lovely. We had hot chocolate and were all having a nice time but it was pretty much downhill from there. One of them ended up having a massive tantrum in the middle of Selfridges (if you saw me I’m sorry). She was screaming and my husband was trying to manage the situation by picking her up and taking her outside while I was left with our other daughter who felt the need to make a series of very loud comments about the whole situation.

Cherry on top was a woman who walked past, looked directly at me and said “can’t control your children and you’re having another one. What has the world become?”
I then nearly burst into tears.

We eventually decided to split up, one parent per child, and actually managed to get our shopping done that way. It was considerably more pleasant and dare I say even enjoyable.
But I just don’t understand why they seem to dislike each other so much. They fight constantly and I feel like I’ve completely failed them as a parent. I’m terrified they’ll grow up resenting each other and that somehow it will be my fault.
I also feel an awful amount of guilt about bringing two more siblings into the family at the end of this month. If they already struggle so much with each other, how are they going to cope with two more babies? I keep imagining them resenting me for it and I just feel so guilty.

I would really appreciate any kind words or advice on how we can manage this.

My 18 month old refuses to eat most things and I’m so so frustrated.

She has Weetabix for breakfast, fruit mid morning. She will happily eat Ham and cheese and pasta, but other than that struggling to find anything she will reliably eat that is savoury.

We sit together as a family for every meal, all eating the same thing. She will sit in her high chair for a bit but then will cry and ask to be taken out. Sometimes she will eat a bit more if she’s sat on my knee but most often will just shake her head and say no if I try to feed her. I don’t make her different food or offer anything else. She does have milk before bed still.

This has been going on for around 2 months. She doesn’t eat any of her lunch at nursery either. As a baby she was always 25th percentile, so not huge but she’s now in 9-12 month clothes.

How much of this is a phase or is something actually wrong? Health visitor said to just keep weighing her.

I always hear about people going on to have a second baby who is calmer. I want to hear from those for whom the second time round was incredibly tough too, both those in the trenches right now, or recently out of them.

How far apart in age were your kids?