u/SegoLillies

I have a 11 month old son. I hate toy weapons and don’t want him to have any. However, my mom has lots of grandsons and likes to stock her house with foam / plastic swords, plastic bows and arrows, water guns, etc. When all the cousins are there they are sword fighting, shooting each other, smacking each other, just being super crazy and kinda violent. I KNOW they’re kids and need to be rambunctious sometimes but I just really hate that the toy weapons have to be a part of it. I read a book about being a boy mom and one of the points is that we socialize boys to be more violent by giving them these kind of toys. The other day at my mom’s house my son picked up a little foam sword and everyone was cheering him on, encouraging him to hit things, and I just…..don’t know how to handle the situation. I don’t want to encourage violence in him. Is it enough that those kind of toys aren’t at our home and are just a sometimes thing at other people’s houses? Is it as harmful as I believe or am I overthinking this? Do you let your kids play with toy weapons?

I have a 9 month old and I’ve been thinking about trying for a second when he is 2. I have pcos so it might take awhile. I want them to have a 3 year age gap, but when I think about a hg pregnancy with a two year old…..it sounds impossible. I was so incapacitated for the first 20 weeks, I can’t imagine having to care for a toddler. I wonder if I should wait until he’s like 4-5. If you have 2+ kids, how did you plan it?

Or are you 100% happy being a sahm? I feel guilty sometimes for not enjoying it, I know it’s a privilege not everyone has. My baby is 9 months old and I want to stay with him until he’s at least 3 before putting him in childcare. I just miss making money

And the CRYING. It is so sad and so hard to hear. I’m having a very hard time not being judgmental of my family members because how can you be okay with leaving your baby alone to cry like that???? Sleep training is touted as the easy way but my god watching them try to get their babies to sleep…doesn’t seem to be anything easy about it. Even before the trip they were lowkey freaking out about how they would get their babies to sleep in a new environment. They brought blackout tents and curtains, pacifiers, sound machines, etc etc. Like I thought sleep training was supposed to “teach them how to sleep” so you would think these babies would have it down by now— they were both sleep trained months ago. But nope, they cry and cry and it’s almost like…maybe that’s all a load of crap and you can’t train a baby to do anything?

I cosleep / breastsleep / contact nap with my baby and I feel like we are having a much easier time of it. I wasn’t worried about him sleeping somewhere new because as long as he’s with me, he’ll sleep. Did it mean I missed out on some activities bc I was napping with him or had to go to bed early with him? Yes. But I know this is just a short season in life, he needs me right now, and it’s worth it to me to have a well rested + happy baby. Multiple extended family members have commented on how happy he is (and he was colicky the first 3 months of life!! So he did not come that way lol)

I feel I can’t say anything to my family members so I’m saying it here. Thank you for reading my vent.

We just moved into a new rental and I HATE how the fridge water tastes. We’ve changed the filter, and then changed it again with a different filter type and it’s still gross. I don’t want to drink it anymore. I also don’t want to buy jugs of water to drink (my sister does that and it gets expensive plus I know there’s more microplastics in the jugs) I’m considering buying a new fridge or getting a britta filter or something and drinking tap water. What does everyone else do?

I’d like to commission a portrait of my husband and our baby as a Father’s Day gift (it will probably be a late gift since I’m just getting on this now lol). I did a quick Etsy search for watercolor portrait and WOW is there a lot of ai art. There’s so much, I’m having trouble finding a real watercolor artist. Does anyone have a recommendations?