u/IslandEcologist

My daughter is five years old and started kindergarten about a month ago. We sleep trained both of our kids around six months of age, and they are good sleepers. My question is whether or not folks would change something with what’s going on with my daughter currently, or just leave it be.

We start the bedtime routine for my daughter around 7:30 or 7:45 PM these days. This means that we stop playing and go upstairs where she brushes her teeth and uses the bathroom. Then we go into her room, put on sleeping clothes, and read to her for about 15 minutes. Then we turn on the noise machine, turn off her light, turn on her nightlight, and say good night. She typically is sound asleep within 5 to 10 minutes.

The issue is that she wakes up around five or 530 every morning. She knows to stay in her room until her light turns green at 6:20 AM, so for that hour or so, she looks at books or listens to stories or plays or whatever. She doesn’t typically nap anymore, although if it’s been a big morning and she has a car ride late in the afternoon she will for sure fall asleep.

So her schedule is basically: wake up at 5 am, asleep at 8:15 pm everyday - or only about nine hours of sleep a day. She wakes up that early pretty much every day regardless of exact bedtime. Yesterday she had a big day at school and crashed at 6:30 pm and slept through until 5 am still.

So my question : would you move bedtime earlier so that she gets more sleep overall assuming she keeps waking up super early? OR gradually move bedtime later in hope that she starts sleeping in later and has a more normal/humane schedule that matches the rest of the family? OR do nothing? Or something else?

Edit: I should note that this schedule including her waking up super early on her own started a month or two before she started kindergarten. Also her waking up early is entirely her body waking her up. She wakes up before everyone else in the house. She could sleep as late as seven or seven thirty if she wanted to.

I was excited to try Marley Spoon, but the experience was atrocious.

My first box was scheduled to arrive on this past Sunday. The window was 6 am to 9 pm, which is already an enormously huge window. At 9:15 pm, no box had arrived. I had received no communication. I waited up until 9:30 pm, not wanting it to sit outside overnight, but nothing ever arrived.

The box finally arrived at 2 pm the next day, a workday when my husband and I were both at work - exactly why we didn't pick a weekday for our delivery - and so it sat outside for three hours, in the rain. When I got home, the box was soaked through. The ice packs were totally melted and room temperature. The produce, including herbs, onions, and green beans, was green and slimy. The ginger root was covered in thick tufts of white mold. I had to throw away all of the meat (the waste!) and the produce. (Not to mention the recipe cards included in the box didn't match the ingredients or the meals I'd selected! Not that it mattered since I couldn't cook anything anyway. All I could salvage was the uncooked rice and some spice packets.)

I ordered a meal box to save time. Knowing it was coming on Monday, with four servings each of three meals, I purposely didn't buy much while grocery shopping over the weekend. This left us (with two small children!) at the start of our busy week with a trash can full of unusable food and an empty fridge.

Customer service offered me a credit, but I'm done with Marley Spoon. After pleading my case, they refunded my total and cancelled my account.

Hi!! I am so bad at packing lunches for my 2 and 5 year olds! We aren’t strictly vegetarian, but our family only eats fish and poultry occasionally, and I like to do vegetarian breakfasts and lunches for sure. Unfortunately our two year old is quite allergic to milk proteins, so anything with cheese, butter, yogurt, etc is out for him, and it’s easiest to pack the same stuff generally for both kids. Also neither kid likes hummus, which is crazy to me. Ha.

Some things that we regularly do now are fried rice with veg, “chicken” nuggets, oat banana pancakes. Often raw baby carrots or cukes, cut up fruit, and whole wheat crackers. Sometimes the two year old has a veggie pouch and the five year old has a string cheese.

Any favorite or creative snacks or lunches you pack?

Hello! About a month ago, my husband and I each received a letter in the mail from the IRS stating that a check we'd been sent for a refund for tax year 2024 had expired, and that we needed to call to request a replacement refund check. (We are married and file jointly.) The amount is over $1k. The task of making this phone call is proving to be seemingly impossible.

The notice number on the letter, phone number, etc all seems to be legitimate, but we have no memory or records of receiving a refund for 2024 on our income taxes, and nothing in our saved tax paperwork about a refund or anything matching the dollar amount. It's possible that we were sent a refund for some of our property taxes, maybe? We had a newborn in early 2025 and were not sleeping At All, but it seems weird that we have no memory of receiving a check like this.

Anyway, I called the IRS numbers from the official IRS website (one of which did match the phone number on the notice we received) but I cannot figure out how to speak to an actual person. I keep getting stuck in one of two places:

1. I tell the voice "request a replacement refund check due to a notice we received in the mail," and the automated voice says, "due to high call volumes, we cannot complete this kind of task right now. Please call back another business day," and then it hangs up on me. or

2. I tell it that my call is regarding a refund (a choice on the phone menu) and then it asks me for my name, filing status, social security number, tax year, and amount of the refund. When I say the amount listed on the notice, it says this information doesn't match their records, and that they cannot proceed. According to my own records, we did not receive a refund for tax year 2024, so...I'm at a loss. I got no other numbers to say!

- Were the notice letters sent to us just an error? Should we stop trying?

- Is there a way to actually speak to someone to ask about this and request the check, if it does exist?

- Do I have to drive an hour round-trip to visit the nearest physical IRS office? Will someone even be there at this time of year?

Thanks for any help on this mystery.

Hello! Our little one just turned two a few days ago. For the past year or so, he's been a great sleeper: after his bedtime routine, we put him down in his crib awake and he lays down quietly and falls asleep on his own within a few minutes, then sleeps through the night. (Usually like 8 pm to 6 am, or about ten hours.) This was happening happily until about a week ago. Literally like ten days ago my husband and I were like, "Man, we're so happy we have such a good sleeper now." We did cry it out sleep training with him (and had to re-do it a couple times) between the ages of 6-10 months. Our bedtime routine takes about 20 min (brush teeth, diaper and PJs with a song, read 3-5 books, light out and say goodnight.)

The issue: starting about a week ago, little one is fighting sleep all the time like CRAZY and it's just getting worse day by day. This is happening at both naps and bedtime. You can tell he's super tired - eyes drifting down, swaying on his feet - but he just stands up in his crib and screams and cries. (Usually he starts by shouting words: "Eat!" or "More read!" but then progresses to just scream-yelling.) last night we did just leave him and it took about 50 min before he laid down and went to sleep, yelling or crying pretty much the whole time. Feels terrible. Of course he’s happy as a clam this morning.

The current schedule is wake up around 7 am; nap for 1-1.5 hours, usually starting around 1 pm; start bedtime routine about 7:30 pm, laying him down in crib a few min before 8 pm. Maybe we need to push nap and bedtime each later now that he’s often sleeping until seven am.

I've heard that sleep regressions can happen at this age, and that keeping a consistent routine is important. The routine has always ended with - put down awake, say goodnight and we love you, and leave. BUTTTTT it took 50 min last night. At nap yesterday after an hour I just got him and put him in the stroller for a walking nap and he fell asleep within four minutes in the stroller. If my husband goes in and rubs his back and shushes him, he'll fall asleep. Should we just make that a new part of our routine?

What would you do?

He is not sick, he's been eating normally, super active days and outside all the time. Super happy during the day, but somehow can no longer independently go to sleep??? He's definitely expanding his vocabulary every day, so some developmental growth happening.

Hello! Our little one just turned two a few days ago. For the past year or so, he's been a great sleeper: after his bedtime routine, we put him down in his crib awake and he lays down quietly and falls asleep on his own within a few minutes, then sleeps through the night. (Usually like 8 pm to 6 am, or about ten hours.) This was happening happily until about a week ago. Literally like ten days ago my husband and I were like, "Man, we're so happy we have such a good sleeper now." We did cry it out sleep training with him (and had to re-do it a couple times) between the ages of 6-10 months.

The issue: starting about a week ago, little one is fighting sleep all the time like CRAZY and it's just getting worse day by day. This is happening at both naps and bedtime. You can tell he's super tired - eyes drifting down, swaying on his feet - but he just stands up in his crib and screams and cries. (Usually he starts by shouting words: "Eat!" or "More read!" but then progresses to just scream-yelling.) Currently it is bedtime and he's been doing this in his crib for almost 40 minutes. He is still standing up.

The current schedule is wake up around 7 am; nap for 1-1.5 hours, usually starting around 1 pm; start bedtime routine about 7:30 pm, laying him down in crib a few min before 8 pm.

I've heard that sleep regressions can happen at this age, and that keeping a consistent routine is important. The routine has always been - put down awake, say goodnight and we love you, and leave. BUTTTTT it's been 40 min. At nap today after an hour I just got him and put him in the stroller for a walking nap and he fell asleep within four minutes in the stroller. If my husband goes in and rubs his back and shushes him, he'll fall asleep. Should we just make that a new part of our routine?

What would you do?

He is not sick, he's been eating normally, super active days and outside all the time. Super happy during the day, but somehow can no longer independently go to sleep??? He's definitely expanding his vocabulary every day, so some developmental growth happening.

Which of these options would keep your feet warmest while sitting in a canoe on a cold windy day:

1. Mostly dry bare feet in quick dry sandals

2. Very wet wool socks in quick dry sandals

3. Very wet wool socks in very wet cotton tennis shoes