u/maenads_dance

My parents live quite far away from me, and while they've previously traveled to see baby and our family, I have an opportunity to travel to see them this summer I'm planning on taking as they live in a pretty vacation destination and I have a couple of weeks off while transitioning jobs. My husband will be at home working and taking care of our pets.

I'm thinking through what is the minimum amount of gear I can take. Baby is 9th percentile for weight but quite long; I think we can get away with the bucket car seat and stroller system, but it will be the last time. I'm planning to have baby in the car seat on the plane and check the stroller at the gate. Do people bring the car seat base when they travel or just the seat itself with the stroller?

We co-sleep, but I'm considering whether I should bring our pack and play as my parents' house isn't baby proofed. I'm just worried about lugging stroller + pack n play + luggage + diaper bag through the airport solo.

The other thing I've considered is asking my parents to buy a cheap car seat/stroller combo and baby wearing through the airport with baby in my lap on the plane, but I'm worried that's a lot less practical.

Any advice gratefully received.

I have been diagnosed for 18 years and more or less stable on meds since 2019. This is the best version of myself, this is as good as it gets after decades of therapy and psychiatric treatment.

I’m “high functioning” which means I’ve managed to stay employed and get a grad degree despite consistently underperforming. I have terrible difficulties waking up and being on time in the morning.

I had just started a new gig this summer attached to my day job that requires me to get up at six and get out the door at 7. I have missed 2/4 of these gigs so far because I can’t fucking function in the morning. I have a calendar invite in my inbox for tomorrow morning from the department head and I know I’m getting let go. My supervisor at my day job pulled strings to get me this gig and I let her down. I have wrecked my reputation and I have an inbox full of emails asking where tf I am that I’m too ashamed to open. I just want to crawl into a hole but I have a kid I need to go home to and be a good parent for.

I have trained for a career in education but at this point I’m thinking I need to throw over and find night shift jobs because that’s the only time I’m really functional.

We are mid-30s, professionals, live in NYC, and have a ten-month-old child. Our careers were in the city, as are most of my friends and professional network, so we moved back from the suburbs earlier this year. To do so we downsized from a 3 br to a 2br, one bedroom of which my husband WFHs in. Our rent is very high and our childcare costs are even higher, so even though we make something like 90th percentile income for our age bracket, we could not afford to have a second child without one of us getting a significant pay raise.

Right now we're hoping that Mayor Mamdani's plan for universal free 2K childcare rolls out across the city by the time our baby reaches that age; if we can cut our childcare costs we could afford to move into a bigger apartment and have a second kid.

I hear the argument that cost of living is not a major driver on whether people have kids *at all*, but I'm wondering if people have looked into cost of living as a driver of family size and how many children people choose to have. I could be happy with one child if that's what life allows, but I would love love love to have a second.

A true story: as a college student had two classmates who were business major/biology minor pre-dental students named Thaddeus and Chaddeus. Thaddeus wore a suit everywhere and was a sweetie, while Chaddeus was big in his fraternity and a total asshole

We have a four year old beagle. We adopted him at 8 months from a research laboratory setting, and he had to be taught "how to dog" for the first six months. Initially I would say he was equally bonded to my husband and I, and we've always both done substantial pet care, but over the last two years our boy has really become a one-person dog - he is very bonded to me since my pregnancy and giving birth.

Our issue is that our dog is refusing to walk with my husband if I am home. We live in an apartment, so 3-4 walks a day are necessary for bathroom breaks. During the first walk of the day, historically I've been giving baby a feed while my husband takes the dog out. But in the last couple of months our dog has been increasingly refusing to walk with my husband - running to me when the leash comes out, pancaking and needing to be dragged out the door, having to be carried out the building. When carried out the building my husband says he won't toilet but will instead pull straight for home. Unfortunately, once he does get home he's started a bad habit of peeing on the rug, because he's been holding it all night and really does need to go!

I have considerably more dog training knowledge and experience than my husband, but the problem is my husband is the one who needs to do a lot of the training in order to fix this issue, as if I'm handling our dog I'm essentially reinforcing that the stubborn behavior = Mom walks him.

This is my plan so far:

1. Baby gate off the room where he's been soiling the carpet so he can't repeatedly toilet there and have the rug professionally cleaned.

2. Build positive associations with my husband leashing and walking him. First, for five days, pair clipping on the leash with a treat, take off the leash, repeat, until our dog associates leash coming out with getting a treat. Second, for another ~5 days practice walking out the apartment door, getting a treat, coming right back in. Gradually build distance until dog is successfully walking out the door with my husband.

3. Both of us reward for toileting outside of the house as if we were house-training for the first time. Considering going back to tethering him to us while in the house, but I'd prefer to manage with baby gates as carrying a baby + dog tethered to me sounds nightmarish

4. Switch to using a front clip rather than back clip harness, as he's less able to pull with a front clip harness

5. More family walks where we all go out the door together but my husband is doing the handling.

Does this sound like a good plan??

Our baby is 10 months old, and doesn't yet seem very interested in other kids when we go to the playground to use the swing. She's too young for the play structures, but we do sit and people watch after swing time. She is starting to actively interact with and play with our pets and has always been very social with her caregivers, first at daycare and now with our nanny. At what point did your child start wanting to play with other kids? I'm excited for playground time!!

We have a four-year-old beagle whom we adopted from a laboratory research setting when he was eight months old. It took a while to house train him and acclimate him to living in a home, but he's become such a loving, affectionate dog and I adore him. When we first got him we were living in an apartment, then we moved to a house with a yard, but a few months ago we had to move back to an apartment again. We also have a ten-month-old baby, so our time is more limited even though we do our best by him.

The issue we're having is our beagle is really, really attached to me to the point of being difficult for my husband to handle. In the mornings I'm often trying to feed and take care of baby while my husband brings the dog out for his first walk of the day to go potty, but recently ( last six weeks) our beagle has been refusing to go for a walk with my husband, as in, planting his feet and refusing to leave the building, and bolting home to sit near me and the baby. Additionally, he's soiling the brand new rug in our living room instead of toileting outside, even when being given opportunities to walk.

If I've left the house for work, our beagle will walk happily and normally with my husband, however - it's only when I'm home that he refuses to leave the building. I'm the person who's done most of the dog training, and as this only happens when I'm in the apartment and my husband is trying to leave it, I can't directly intervene without reinforcing that throwing a fit gets me to come on walks with him. My husband says he's tried luring with treats and carrying our beagle 100 yards from the building to see if he'll walk, but that he still pulls straight home and refuses to move.

This has been building for some time but got particularly acute when my husband left the state for work for a week and I was doing all dog care. I think our beagle has just decided to go on strike unless I'm the one walking him, and is getting increasingly used to soiling in our living room.

If anyone has advice with "one person dogs" I'd really appreciate it.

Just thankful for the true partnership I have found in my marriage. No scorekeeping, teamwork on everything. We’ve been navigating a new baby, job changes, a move and selling our house, family illness in the last 12 months and knowing that my husband will just get things done on his own initiative- and me too to the best of my abilities- is truly a blessing.

I hear women talk often about the mental load and that’s not something I’m expected to shoulder alone. My husband makes childcare arrangements, cares for our baby, schedules pediatrician visits, etc without needing nagging because he is a competent adult.

I truly want to say to every woman settling for less “because that’s just how men are” - no!!! Men are just as capable at managing the domestic part of life if it’s something they care about. I’d truly rather be single than in one of my past relationships with a man who would tantrum if I expected him to do his own laundry, for instance. We can and should expect better.

It’s also a matter of respect… something something bigotry of low expectations… to believe men need women to run their domestic lives. I credit myself with stepping back and letting my husband cook, mind baby, do chores in his own way rather than hovering because he needs a partner, not a boss.

I am desperate to get our baby out of our bed and into her crib, but we roomshare and all the traditional sleep training advice assumes you have a separate nursery. Baby naps happily in the crib during the day but will not settle in the crib at night and wants to be in bed with us. I’m getting migraines from sleeping in the “Safe Sleep 7” cuddle curl from all the tension laying on one side. Help!

I recently accepted a job as a new teacher at a specialized high school. I do not have an MA in education but do have a PhD, the terminal degree in my field. I was just told that I would be hired on at C2 + ID, which is not what I had anticipated and seems wrong to me. Can anyone give guidance about what pay band I should be in and how best to advocate for myself?