u/SeaGuardian218

So, I'm currently in vacation with my husband and our newly 2-year-old. We are staying in a small holiday village near the beach with all meals included. I had been so looking forward to this holiday as a chance to have a break from the mental load, some time as a family, as well as some time as a couple because there is baby club included.

Well, color me naive because since day one we have been that family, the one with the toddler who cries, the parents trying to get their kid to eat and sit at the table and are just clearly always at their wits end. I'm honestly just embarrassed and sad. I never wanted to be that family with the uncontrollable child or who catered to them, and this week it just feels like I don't even recognize our family anymore and the way we operate.

What's even worse is that my son is usually a very easy toddler. At home, he sits at the table and eats what I give him with his utensils. He doesn't throw fits or food or anything. I've always been really proud of the fact that he has a varied diet and eats well. I was very intentional with how I approached feeding and it felt like it had paid off until now. It's like his entire personality changed. I get that it's a new environment and all of that, but it's so night and day and I don't know what to do.

I just sat at a table making small talk with the family next to us (whose daughter was sitting and eating perfectly) and tried to act like everything was fine despite my son spitting out half of his food (half-chewed), my husband getting increasingly angry, and them both leaving for bed only to come back again then leave again. I was so annoyed with how my husband was handling the situation but also didn't want to fight then and there.

I'm literally hiding right now because I'm so embarrassed and my husband is putting son to bed in our room.

Oh, and the other family knew who my son was because he apparently has the reputation as the boy who cried a bunch at the baby club and had to leave early (we tried leaving him twice and both days went to get him less than an hour later because he was too upset). So, no we aren't even getting breaks when he is being looked after because he won't tolerate being away from us.

The cherry on top of all of this is that the food is pretty bad (when I even manage to eat since I'm also wrangling my son). I guess I won't gain weight so silver linings.

I just need to vent. It seems like every time my husband travels for work, something has to go wrong. This week, our son had a bout of post-viral asthma that has me wrestling the toddler to do nasal rinses and inhaler treatments all alone.

And then yesterday, while picking him up from his babysitter on the fifth floor of a residential building, the elevator technician decided to hard stop the elevator before we reached the bottom floor, and we fell the last several feet.

Fortunately, the little guy was strapped into his stroller which has a pretty good suspension system, and he didn't seem at all affected. I, however, got the full shock to my legs and back.

The second fortunately is that it was right next door to my doctor's office, and even though she had already left for the day, one of her colleagues gave us a quick exam and wrote me a script for anti-inflammatories.

Thank God he is getting tonight because who knows what would happen next! I told him the universe must really want him to stop traveling for work

I'm curious how you guys would have handled this recent situation on a long weekend with extended family.

My husband, myself, and our son who turns 2 next month recently traveled for a family wedding. Because it's hard to get everyone together and one of his siblings flew in from overseas, we made a long weekend of it and visited his mother's hometown afterward.

My son overall has a pretty easy temperament. He doesn't cry or throw tantrums very often, but he is extremely active and into everything. So while a lot of fun, it was very exhausting for me. He's also the youngest cousin on that side, so there weren't similarly aged children.

We had a beach day planned that required us to be up early to take a boat. The night before, we had all gone to a restaurant but my family ended up leaving early without eating because the service was painstakingly slow and it was already 1.5 hours after bedtime. Even with leaving early, LO didn't actually manage to fall asleep until about 11pm.

So at the beach, my little guy is completely uninterested in going near the water. It scares him and he doesn't want to, but he's having fun playing with the pebbles and putting them in the bucket which is fine by me. I took a very quick dip when we arrived then supervised my son while he did his thing. He can be very independent and hyper focused, especially when tired (which he obviously was due to the short night). One of my SIL's (our respective husbands are brothers), kept trying to get him to come in the water with different toys or telling me to stand in a certain spot and pretend to play so he would want to come.

I kept repeating that he was fine and he didn't want to go in the water, but I was becoming increasingly annoyed. Her daughter also kept trying to show my son cool rocks which he couldn't have cared less about, but I would thank her each time and tell her they were nice and that my son might like to look at them later. It was cute and typical kid stuff.

But after probably the fifth time my SIL told me how to get my son to play in the water, I finally snapped and said in a harsh tone, "Actually, no that won't work. He doesn't want to go in the water." It was a bit awkward after but she did stop badgering me about getting my kid to play in the water and a little later he decided he wanted to go in.

I was honestly livid at that point, though. I was tired and hungry and beyond annoyed that she insisted on telling me how to deal with my kid. He was happy and has no obligation to perform fun for anyone.

My husband and his brother have had their share of issues, as have the other siblings, so I generally just try to keep a low profile and stay out of it. This SIL tends to be quite directive with everyone, so although I find it grating I don't think it has anything to do with me personally, and in the past I've managed to let it slide more easily. But since having my son, I find it so much harder to manage the nitpicking and intrusions into my parenting choices. It's especially ironic because they've had a lot of conflict with my ILs about respecting parenting choices.

How do you tend to handle these situations? We don't see this sibling very often due to distance, and my ILs who live nearby are fantastic, respectful, and babysit often with no issues. So, it's more of finding the balance of keeping my cool while still managing to stick up for my son in generally low stakes situations a few times a year.

I'm looking for ideas of meals to put in my 22-month-olds lunchbox. Ideally, these would be finger foods because although he has no problem self-feeding with utensils at home, apparently when he is with the childminder he will patiently wait to be spoonfed.

Currently, we do a lot of egg bites with a wide variety of things inside. Basically, I mix eggs and cream with whatever veggies and cheese I feel like/have on hand. Then I do a veg and fruit and grain.

I also have been packing chicken more often in his lunch because I've been batch preparing it for weekday salads.

At home, he eats more or less what we eat, but I like to have easy-to-pack lunch options on hand for his weekday lunches.

He isn't picky at all, but he hasn't quite mastered spreads yet, so I prefer not to send things like hummus in his lunch because he makes too much of a mess.

I'd love your recipes for things like meatballs, lentil balls, or anything else I haven't thought of to mix things up! I tend to go for things I can batch cook and freeze because I cook all his meals.

Sorry, I'm not sure how else to put this, and I'm wondering if anyone else has had a similar experience and is willing to share. By non-intentional SAHMs, I mean anyone who found herself being a SAHM following an involuntary job loss.

I have a 22-month-old and I have never returned to work since he was born. First, I was on maternity leave, then before that was up, my contract ended (it was a fixed term). I looked and looked for work and have not been able to find anything.

We put my son in full-time care last fall so that I could return to work, but obviously this hasn't happened.

I have a PhD and I always worked until the birth of my son. I'm struggling pretty badly with this period of joblessness. I never intended to be a stay at home parent, and it doesn't even feel like I am since my son isn't with me during the day. But sending him to care so that I can apply into a void and receive nothing but rejections makes me feel like a failure as both a mother and a professional.

We want another child, but obviously can't plan it with so much uncertainty. My husband very much does not want the pressure of being the sole earner, even though his income has always been 2-3x what I've made (PhDs do not pay well, especially not where we live). But given the impossibility for me to find a job, the impact on my mental health, and the impracticality of trying to move our family to a city with better prospects in my field, we are seriously reflecting on what the next move is.

I'm wondering if any other moms have been in a similar position and decided to embrace staying at home? I'm hesitant to remove my son from care when he is thriving in his current routine (he will be starting school in a year anyway), but perhaps if we decided to have a second, I could plan to keep them with me. I'm worried that I will feel too isolated being a stay at home parent. I'm also really worried about finding work again when the kids are older or if my husband ever isn't in a position to earn as he has been doing (he is in a high stress job and burn out is not unheard of).

Reddit is giving me a warning about this being a possible panhandling post and I want to clarify how much this is not the case. We are in a very fortunate position that our material needs are more than sufficiently covered. This post is about me wrestling with how to balance my desire for professional fulfillment with the current constraints I am facing. I'd love to hear others experiences and that's all!

So my 20mo is obsessed with pouring. It used to be confined to the bath and "helping" around mealtimes, but lately it's an outright obsession.

We live in an apartment, so I can't get him one of those little water stations. The weather is getting warmer so we could sometimes go outside, but that still takes some extra organization.

Do you have any tips to get through this phase with my sanity and minimal water damage? Currently, he is on his tower at our coffee station pouring water from the milk pitcher to two different cups and back again.

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