r/nycparents

Hello, my daughter got into Goddard Riverside 3k, which was our top choice for public 3ks based on the 5 schools I looked at.my concern is that the hours (8:15-2:30ish) are too long and exhausting for a three year old. She goes to “school” now from 9-12 for two days a week for socialization and structure. I am currently a stay at home mom. However we are pregnant with our second, so that makes 3k next year appealing. My daughter is a fun and happy but firey three year old. Some days it takes all my energy to keep happy in our tiny apt. I fear it will be hard to have two babies at home at once, but I also think she’s a bit young to go full time. The current place she’s enrolled in is good, but we have to take the subway to get there, which is fine, but I also fear it will feel like a lot to commute with a new born. Also, not to state the obvious, it isn’t free.

Do parents think 3k is worth it? Seems like exhausting hours for a three year old. Is there flexibility in pick up/ attendance?

I’m asking this in NYC parents specifically because most others don’t have the storage restrictions that we do…

I’ve finally got a pretty good setup for my toddler in terms of her clothes. I have enough stuff for her where she can change outfits 3x a day (dirty from food, playground etc) and I only have to do laundry 2x a week or so.

My question is…what do I do for vacations or occasions where I don’t have laundry access? We live in a small 1.5 bedroom and there’s no storage for “extra” stuff that’s not needed 90% of the year.

What do you do for a 2 week vacation for example? If she changes 3x a day, I’d need….36 outfits?!?!? Do you pay for laundry? Does your child somehow get less dirty abroad?

A mom yesterday told me she has heard that a lot of parents are lying on their 3K/PreK applications, checking the box that they are eligible for SNAP or similar benefits to get priority at schools that allocate a certain % of seats for families qualifying for Free or Reduced cost Lunch (FRL). Apparently this qualification is not verified come registration.

I started thinking about some families I know who got a PreK spot at a “highly desirable” school last year that allocates 40% of seats for FRL families - knowing the parents professions it would be impossible for them to qualify, but I can’t think of any other way they got a spot (you can see clearly that last year only siblings and FRL families got spots).

Can someone PLEASE prove me wrong and confirm that they DO in fact check eligibility at registration?? And if not, how / to whom can this issue be elevated - not to rat on individuals but to address what I imagine is a system wide issue that is, quite frankly, disgusting and needs to be stopped.

We just welcomed our first baby to the world on Monday and expect to leave the hospital for home on Thursday. We have had a baby nurse booked for months now, and on Tuesday night she called us letting us know she can no longer join us because she got in an accident and broke her leg. I don’t want to make any accusations that this is a lie, but in scrambling to find a new baby nurse I have heard from 2 others that have experienced nearly identical situations with different nurses.

Has anyone experienced this in NYC?

So we are in MN for a year or so and it's killing me. I have mostly been a city girl and I don't even drive. I am wondering how to get through the day. People aren't so friendly either and I have hardly been able to make friends here. Not sure if any mamas went through something similar. Hoping to be back in NYC soon but until then just need to get through

I live on the only two blocks of my street in Brooklyn that are in a specific school district. I’m more or less on the border of four different districts but was in the absolute worst option for my three year old son and we got completely screwed with 3k offers.

I genuinely think the districting of our couple blocks makes no sense and will continue to work against us through elementary and I find it unfair that our family would have to consider private just because of this. But I don’t know if it’s worth emailing and how often blocks on borders of districts get changed based on community feedback. anyone have any insight into whether this is even a feasible path to go down?

There is an apartment building on my street from which several residents (4 counted so far) walk their dogs in the neighborhood off-leash.

They go to the coffee shop nearby, walk to the dog park nearby, or whatever else. Just this morning I saw a father with his young child and a collar-less off-leash large dog return to that building - both his hands carrying coffees.

These are all medium to large dogs. I've had to keep an eye out in the morning as I walk my kid to daycare because of an incident with a dog last year that left her worried about dogs.

Hello, been waitlisted in Riverdale , does anyone have any experince? news? did anyone ever get offer during the summer ? just wondering what to hope for .... Thank you

Does anyone know if the NYC/Brooklyn area has any true deep cleaning services? I am talking about house detailing, like they steam clean years of grime. The deep cleaning services I’ve seen and had are all like surface level cleaning which is fine for general maintenance, but I came across an Instagram account (service in Washington state) and I’m looking for the same out here.

Thanks for recs in advance!

Today's the day! 3k results just came through.

Just a place to share about the school your kid placed in, share questions and thoughts on the wait-list process, etc. We can all use a little bit of support, encouragement, and celebration navigating the NYC school systems.

I personally am wondering if anyone knows about how the school day plus process works? Is it a separate process to apply?

Does anyone know when the 3-K offers will show up on the My Schools dashboard?

We were offered our 1st choice and are so grateful. We accepted the offer right away, but now what? The letter mentioned to contact the school. Is there a timeframe we need to respect? Are you contacting the school tomorrow?

Looking at PS 124 for my daughter, mainly because of the strong academics. I already know Black kids are few there, that’s not the question. I want to know how it actually feels.

Do your kids feel included or like an afterthought? Are they one of very few in their class? How are teachers and other families? Anything you wish you’d known before enrolling?

She’s a little Black girl and I just want a real picture before I commit. DMs fine if you’d rather not post publicly.

My husband and I are expecting and have an apartment that we love (good rent, large size, great school zoning, amazing location). We moved here with the intention of starting a family in this place and spending several years here. It turns out it needs a decent amount of lead abatement work and while they legally have to, our landlord does NOT want to do it and is pushing us to move out. However, we’ve been looking and there hasn’t been anything comparable for a similar price. Everything that meets our needs would be pushing our budget a lot tighter (but doable), or is much worse than our place for a similar price. We are leaning toward staying and making them get the work done.

My question is — has anybody been through lead abatement in their rental apartment and can share their experience? Bonus if you have a cat and can share more about managing that.

Hi parents and caregivers of NYC,

Firstly, apologies if you've seen this floating around other parent groups. I'm posting across a few communities to get as wide a range of perspectives as possible, so thank you for your patience!

A few months ago I was asked by a parent friend to help with school pickup. I had to say no. The reason: I was about to ask her for exactly the same thing. Neither of us could support the other as we were both running on empty.

That moment is why I'm building VILLAGE. It matches small groups of local NYC parents (3 to 5 families) based on values, parenting style, and geography. Not a friendship app. Functional support infrastructure built on trust. School pickups, sick days, clothing swaps, someone to call when everything falls apart.

I'm a Conversation Designer by profession and I'm using dealbreaker matching logic (think old-school OkCupid, actually how I met my husband many moons ago!) to make sure these villages actually show up for each other.

I'd love to hear from this community on two things:

1. On trust: what is the one vetting step or dealbreaker question that would make you feel comfortable letting another parent pick up your child?
2. On utility: would you trust this more as a paid subscription (keeping it high-intent) or free?

Will drop the landing page link in the comments if anyone wants to see what I've built so far. Would genuinely love to hear your thoughts.
Thanks!

We got a special sneak peek of the Daniel Tiger exhibit at the Bronx Zoo, which opens this Friday. The exhibit features live shows, meet-and-greets and many hands-on elements (including a life-sized trolley). Really recommend to little Daniel Tiger fans!

I recently noticed that the attendant listed on my child’s birth certificate isnt the Doctor that was present at his birth. He was born via csection so there were no shift changes mid labor. The Doctor who signed it did work at the practice but did not oversee us while we were there, not that I remember anyway. It has been 11 years. Is the attendant listed usually the actual Doctor that delivered your baby or can it be any OB who worked at that hospital and clinic? My husband says that she was probably the physician on duty the day the certificate was filed.

Important to note that the day we looked over his birth certificate info we realized there was a mistake with the delivery time so they did have to submit a change. Could this possibly have anything to do with the attendant being someone different?

Mainly interested in the Water Lab at Brooklyn Bridge Park, but also other sprinklers in the rest of the playgrounds. Googling around, seems like they’re on after the forecast shows highs in the 80s, just wondering if someone saw them being on yesterday?