u/Fabulous_Fish_4831

Yesterday we literally did nothing at all. The kids stayed in their pyjamas all day long, they watched some movies. We had a takeaway for dinner too. When I say we did nothing all day, I mean nothing. And it was brilliant! My kids had the best day ever, they needed a day to just relax and not have anything planned.

As parents there's such an expectation that every day during the summer holidays has to be busy. But sometimes lazy days at home are perfect.

I'm really curious. As a mum of 2, I notice that a lot of the disagreements me and my husband have had since our kids were born are about finances. About our budgets for birthdays and christmas, about if we should send our kids to private school or not, about family holidays, about extracurricular activities.

So other HENRY parents, what's the biggest financial disagreement you've had with your spouse since you've become parents?

My husband works with his father, his family have a business that has existed for a few generations. I'm not going to say my husbands exact take home pay but it's safe to say that we don't struggle and we can afford luxuries. So there is no need for me to have to work full time or even part time. I've been able to stay home and raise my kids. But my son is 3 and starting nursery, he will be at nursery on Mondays, Tuesdays and a half day on Wednesdays.

So I will have 2 and a half days where I have free time. But I have no clue what to do. Like I said, I don't need to work nor do I want to work a full time job whilst my kids are still young because I want to be there for them after school and during the school holidays. But I do want to do something with my free time.

And I'm wondering if maybe I should try and start up my own mini business from home? Should I focus on my hobbies? I have no clue. I feel a bit lost right now.

My 3 year old has recently learnt a new game, he has started copying everything his sister is saying. Obviously I have kept telling him to stop copying her because I see my daughter getting annoyed. So he stops but then apparently whenever they are out of earshot (So if they are in the playroom whilst I'm making dinner), he will start copying her again. This has been going on for 3 days now, and nope he's not tired of copying her yet!

I'm trying to make sure he stops bothering her but at this point I have no clue what to do.

My daughters name is Clara. We live in England by the way. We went to the library and there was this summer event, and my daughter wrote her name down to win a bag of books. She won! But when they called out her name they said "Claire-ah", so my daughter didn't realise she won until the lady showed everybody the piece of paper and my daughter saw her own name and handwriting 🤣.

We pronounce her name "Clar-ah" (pronounced like the word "car"). And I've noticed people pronounce the name Clara very different. So I'm interested to hear how people pronounce the name Clara.

I made a post about 2 and half weeks ago, asking if I should send my son to nursery. I realised that yes, sending him to nursery would be best for him. He is 3.

The options were: state nursery, private nursery, or the nursery attached to my daughters private primary school. I ideally wanted him to go to the nursery at my daughters school, but private schools are quite popular where I live and it is a really good private school so I was convinced that there was no way that he would be able to attend that school. So I was mostly considering state nurseries for my son to attend, even though I was unsure those nurseries would have vacant spots for September. Honestly I thought that I would end up having to send my son to a private nursery (Not attached to an independent school).

However I called my daughters school the day after I made that post, they had a few spots available for September. They got me to fill out a registration form, I've been calling it a late registration form but because the school is a private school it was just a normal registration form. The school said they would let me know within 10-15 buisness days. Well today I got a confirmation email, my son is going to nursery in September! 🥳

My son will be going to school on Monday, Tuesday and then a half day on Wednesday. And this school accepts the 15 hours free childcare, which was my biggest concern because some independent schools do not accept the 15 hours free childcare. There obviously is additional funds but overall I'm happy to pay those funds if it means my son gets to attend the nursery of the school that he will probably attend for reception. My son is so excited, he keeps saying "I'm going to school!" 😭🥹.

My daughter is 7 years old and she loves reading. But a lot of the books with age appropriate stories are below her reading level. A lot of them are illustrated (She doesn't like illustrated books as much), and they aren't challenging her when reading. Which is fine, except she is becoming increasingly bored by these books. She doesn't like how short the stories are and she also doesn't like how simple the stories are. I've noticed that she seems less likely to read now that she is not finding the books interesting enough.

Now it's the summer holidays she is reading more than usual, I want to try and buy her a few books that will challenge her and help her grow as a reader but are also age appropriate story wise.

She loves adventure stories, sci-fi and also fantasy stories

Any suggestions? She's 7

(I did not expect this post to get so many comments, thank you for all your book suggestions.)

Me and my husband have a spare room downstairs that we don't really know what to do with. For the past few years it has been the guest bedroom but to be honest that room is rarely used and it just feels a bit pointless. We never really have guests stay and when they do, we've set up a guest bedroom in our loft which people prefer because that has a bathroom and just more privacy.

So now we have this spare room that we don't know what to do with. We have been going back and forth over our ideas. And our most recent idea is a mini home library, my kids are 7 and 3 but they are huge readers. Right now we keep all of our books in our front room, it's chaotic but this does work. However we were wondering if maybe setting up a library would encourage reading even more, would it make reading less common because the books aren't in the family area of the house? We just don't know.

Is there any other things that we could do with the spare room that would be better than a mini library? I need help making a decision 😭

My kids don't have ipads but we do have a TV. My kids are 7 and 3 and I've never had a set screen time limit with the TV.

Obviously I never let them spend the whole day in front of the TV but I'm not strict about saying they can only watch 1 hour of TV. Some days my son will watch 2 episodes of a kids TV show, other days him and his sister will watch a movie or two. But I don't keep track of how long they watch the movie or show. I also don't really say no to them watching TV unless I already know they have had a lot of screen time that day

Saturday mornings I tend to just put on the TV and usually a re-run of a kids TV show is on. The kids sometimes watch, other times they play with their toys and don't care. In the evenings, the same thing usually happens where there is a re-run of a kids TV show playing in the background. I'm not too fussed about screen time, I monitor what they are watching though.

But then I hear about all the mums who have strict TV screen time limits, then I sit there wondering if I should be more strict about screen time limits.

So, any other mums who are quite relaxed about screen time? 🙈🤣

Edit - I am quite strict about what they watch! Whenever they are sitting down to watch a film or a TV show, I try and make sure it is a very low stimulating film or show. Which I think helps them not get addicted, maybe, idk, I'm not a professional 😭🤷🏻‍♀️. And unless it's family movie night I try and avoid letting them sit down and watch a film or a show an hour before bed. So I guess I do have some rules but I don't feel like my rules are crazy strict. We also do put cbeebies on, on Saturday mornings and sometimes during the evenings but that usually is background noise for my kids as they are usually playing and occasionally looking at the TV. Mainly because the shows on Cbeebies aren't the usual shows they watch so they really don't care enough to sit down and watch Cbeebies lol

I'm a "two and done" mum but the dinner table analogy still makes me a bit sad

I saw a post this morning on this reddit group from another parent of 2 kids, saying that they love being parents to only 2 kids. This post sent me on a spiral of thinking about my own family dynamic all day.

I have 2 kids (7F, 3M) and I am honestly so content with my family. I am married to my amazing husband, both of the kids are happy and healthy. My husband and I truly are happy with our small family. Mentally we couldn't handle raising any more kids. Our 2 kids live very happy lives.

But the dinner table analogy hits me right in the heart every single time. Basically, the analogy is...imagine your dinner table in 20 years time, is everybody there...and our dinner table just looks so small in my mind. I always feel like more people should be sitting at the table. In my head, all I see is me, my husband and my 2 children as adults. The family dinner seems small.

The dinner table is the only analogy that gets me to question my choices to be done having kids after I have had 2 kids. Every other circumstance in life makes me realise that having 2 kids is perfect for us. I love our small table right now. Our family feels so close. I have my daughter and my son, so I get the experience of raising both genders. Life is never perfect but this life feels very close to perfect. But when I picture my dinner table when my kids are adults..I just feel a bit sad. Is this me being sad about the idea of my kids being adults? Or is the dinner table analogy a really bad analogy when you only want a small family?

Honestly I just needed to vent. I'm very happy only having 2 kids, I don't want to have a 3rd child. But the dinner table analogy just makes me sad. Is this a normal feeling to have? Even though I know for sure that I am done having kids?

(Edit) Clearly this analogy went straight over my head. I'm a very literal thinker and I thought this analogy literally meant to only imagine me, my husband and my 2 children at the dinner table in 20 years and see if anybody is missing. I had no clue I was also meant to imagine my adult children's own families as well 😅

We can afford to go travelling around the world, visiting multiple places a year. My husband and I want to take our kids to more places instead of taking them on one family holiday a year.

The only issue with this situation is that obviously my kids will be in school from September to July every yearr, my youngest son starts nursery this September (Hopefully), and we are trying to figure out the best times to travel. Cause obviously the half terms are great but I want to find a good balance of travelling and then also letting my kids have time to rest at home. And I'm struggling to figure out what the right balance is. Do we maybe take weekend trips? Once every other half term trips? I don't know.

So parents who travel with their kids whilst their kids are in primary school or secondary school...what's your schedule for travelling?

I'm a mum of 2, a 7 year old daughter and a 3 year old son. My 7 year old daughter started school when she was 4 years old, when she went to reception. We never considered sending her to nursery, I was also pregnant at the time so my husband and I wanted to spend as much time with her as possible before we became a family of 4.

My daughter is in year 2 and she absolutely loves school, she has her moments where she doesn't want to go to school but overall she is super social and she loves going to school. She has so many friends, she is very smart and academic, she's so kind to everybody and I'm thrilled she has had a brilliant school experience.

My son is 3 and these past few months he has been jealous of his big sister going to school. She comes home and talks about her day, he keeps telling me he wants to go to school too. Next week is the last week of school before the summer holidays, so my husband and I have been debating if we should apply for him to go to nursery in September.

Obviously the chances are that the state school-based nurseries are already full, the deadline passed ages ago. But we could still try and see if they maybe have a few vacant spots. Chances are though that we would have to pay for private if we did send him go nursery, which is fine, we would only want to send him to nursery for maybe 2 or 3 days a week so we could afford that.

My biggest question is...do I send him to nursery. One part of me really feels a bit emotional at the idea of him going off to school already, he is my last baby and I would love to enjoy another year of having him at home. But another part of me wonders if nursery would make him happier and also more prepared for reception. He would have the social benefits of nursery but he would also learn how to listen to teachers. There are so many benefits, but a selfish part of me just wants to enjoy this last year before he goes off to reception.