u/Plenty_Dark4816

Hi! I’m travelling to Berlin with a group of friends (we’re all women in our mid-30s) at the beginning of October. We’re going to celebrate one of our birthdays, so we’re looking for some advice on Berlin’s nightlife!

We’re not really into techno or the whole drugs/club scene — we’d much rather have a few drinks, dance, and listen to music we can actually sing along to 😂
We’re also very interested in the queer/LGBTQ+ scene and would love to check out some places with a fun, welcoming atmosphere.

What bars, clubs or parties would you recommend for us? Any tips would be much appreciated! 🥂💃

I think I’m mostly here to vent and maybe get a bit of validation.
I’m a mum to a very energetic 18-month-old girl. I always knew I really wanted to be a mum, and I was genuinely excited during pregnancy about entering this new chapter of my life. But postpartum was much harder than I expected, and some things really caught me off guard.
My baby cried A LOT. Like, three hours of crying every evening. We struggled a lot with breastfeeding, and for months she would sleep for maybe 1.5 hours at a time before waking up. It was brutal.
Then I went back to work, and suddenly there were all these additional logistical things to juggle: her getting sick, work piling up, figuring out meals, keeping the house vaguely under control, etc.
My boyfriend has ADHD. He is a very involved dad and genuinely tries hard to share the load, but he also gets overwhelmed quite easily, especially when our daughter is screaming. He gets frustrated and has a really hard time regulating that frustration. So sometimes I feel like I have to regulate him on top of everything else.
He goes to therapy and takes medication, and he really does put in the effort to manage it better. But, like anyone, he has his limits.
And I think this is where the heart of my post is: I always imagined I would handle motherhood much better than I actually do. I would like to have a second child, but most days I feel like I’m already at my absolute limit when it comes to exhaustion.
I’m someone who really likes quiet and a relatively low-chaos environment, which… isn’t exactly compatible with having young children 😂. Sometimes I joke with my boyfriend that we should have gotten cats instead of having children.
And yet, I absolutely love being a mum. There are so many incredibly sweet, tender moments that I genuinely treasure.
Yesterday I was watching a mum with three daughters. She was talking about how much she loves being a mum, and meanwhile all three of her daughters were climbing all over her and screaming, and she just looked completely calm and at peace.
It really struck me how different people are, and how differently we all tolerate things.
Sometimes I wonder if people have more children because they become attached to the ideal of having a bigger family, without really stopping to ask themselves whether that lifestyle is actually something they can thrive in.
I guess the point of this post is that I wish I were more like that mum I described. I’m struggling to accept that maybe I’m just not someone who thrives in a chaotic environment, and that adding a second child to the mix would probably leave me more exhausted and less happy.
And honestly, it’s hard to accept that about myself.
Does anyone else feel this way?