Parenting
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Interesting reading this thread. I’ve got three kids, two girls (8 and 2.5) and a boy (6). At the moment it feels like we’re parenting a wide variety of different species; girl toddler prone to tantrums, 6 year old boy with lots of energy, older girl with more complex emotional needs as she approaches her pre-teens. It’s pretty exhausting, but I can tell that our family and home is a happy place for our children. Plus with three it’s always a party.
Sleep is something I’ve learnt to take a pretty laidback approach to. We’ve Co-slept with all our kids as babies. My oldest two slept with us until they were toddlers before moving to their own beds. For a few years they’d come join us in the middle of the night. At the time it bothered me a little, but they grew out of it at around 4-5 years old. With hindsight I see that it was just a small phase of our lives and I’m glad I got to maximise the cuddles while I could. It’s made me much more relaxed with my third - I don’t care that the majority of the time she’s in our bed still. I get a brief few years where she wants to sleep near me, so I’m gonna make the most of the cuddles while I can.
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@jerkules amazing! Don’t know how you do it. I can barely make it through the day with one kid. I love your approach. At the end of the day it all comes down to what works for everyone. I’m looking forward to the day when our son is able to run into our bedroom because he is scared and wants to sleep with us. I remember doing it to my folks. I think everyday how lucky my wife and I are to have a kid, home, and a jobs.
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@jerkules We also co-slept with the kids and to date haven’t seen any negative affects. They too, just reached a point where they wanted to sleep in their own beds when they were 4 or 5, with a few occasional episodes where they weren’t feeling well and just wanted to cuddle. I don’t really know if it was the right thing to do, but it worked for us and I would probably do it again.
The early rising thing doesn’t bother me as I’m often up with the sunrise and my youngest is too. There are times when she wakes up early and just comes to snuggle dad while we watch something stupid on YouTube. I enjoy the time and know that it doesn’t last forever.
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@Brian exact same thing with my 6 year old, though he’s an even earlier riser (6am). I’ve given up trying to stop him, it’s easier to just roll with it. Also, on weekdays we expect him to get up fairly early (although 6am is a bit of a piss take) - so it feels a bit unreasonable to expect him to know to adjust his body clock on weekends.
@Brian I mean, there’s an obvious solution - be awake before the 6 year old?
When I was a toddler, my parents trained me to use the VCR. They’d leave The Jungle Book in the machine, and I’d go watch that through a couple of times before they’d wake up.
Might not be feasible these days - who knows what they could end up putting on streaming services without parental supervision if you taught them how to use Netflix on their own or something…
️He knows how to find ninjago on Netflix and every other streaming service but has his own kids account
Weekdays he has school so being up is fine but after a 50-60 hour work week an extra moment or two in bed would be nice from my side of the fenceTo be fair it won’t be so many years in the future that it will be me wanting to wake him up from his teenage dungeon
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This is my life now…
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@EdH you can take solace in the fact you are the best dressed man at the bday party
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They’re monsters. There were these large inflated unicorns at the party - the kids tore them limb from limb. They were just torsos and spiked horse heads by the end, with those that had the legs battering one another with them. It was horrible, like something from Lord of the Flies. (And absolutely hilarious.)
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Happy Fathers’ Day fellow Dads.
Baby H took me to the pub then promptly fell asleep!
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On the way home from camp Caroline (9) said her camp nemesis has been pushing her. I told her that if talking to her or a counselor doesn’t fix the problem she needs to push her back. Both girls were revolted by my suggestion and told me violence is never the answer and that they needed to tell a counselor so they could fix the problem.
Honestly, I’ve never been more disappointed in my entire life. I’m sure my wife considers this a win.
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I've had a rough few weeks as we are having to move house after being in the same one for 11 years, trying to find a rental has been a nightmare Jacob (6) has taken things quite well so far but has been a bit quieter and withdrawn over it all as its the only house he has known, things were looking bleak until yesterday when we secured a new place, the brightness in him has came back but its going to be a change which we will have to monitor
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hahahahaha
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@AdamC Can you get a TV insured for deliberate damage by a little person with barely any mental faculties?
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I had to leave because Katie and the girls were dancing in the kitchen.
Katie (36): Everybody watch! Is this twerking?
Imogene (11): Do it like this…
Caroline (9): Can I have a marshmallow? (while twerking)
Katie: Is it?? Somebody answer me!!
🫣
ROFL @Matt you perfectly captured the dynamic in my household practically on a daily basis. IDK what it is with the twerking and bootysmackin' (but I probably started the latter).
