r/toddlers

My son is 1.5 years old and my daughter is 5.5 years old (but still gets tired/lazy after long days of walking and wants to be pushed around in a stroller).

We are going to Greece next month and we currently have 2 single travel strollers.. is it worth it to get a double stroller instead?

Being my daughter is much older she sometimes wants to go and do something different than her brother so sometimes I go off with her while my wife takes my son elsewhere.

Is there anyone who says I should stick with the 2 strollers? I know double strollers are very favorited here.

I'm curious whether I've completely missed a shift in playground etiquette.

Today my 2½-year-old was standing in one of the splash pad circles playing with the fountains when an older, much larger girl came running around a corner without looking and plowed into her. My daughter briefly went airborne before hitting the concrete and ended up with abrasions and a very frightened cry.

As I picked her up, I calmly said to the other child, "You hurt a child who is smaller than you. Please be careful and play safer."

That was the entirety of my interaction, and I scooped my girl up and went to sit with and soothe her.

While my daughter was still crying in my arms, the other girl's mom came over to tell me I should never have spoken to her daughter. Instead, I should have found her and let her handle it. Two other moms agreed (their over-the-top behavior is another story, but I won't derail myself...).

I was honestly stunned.

To me, there's a difference between disciplining someone else's child and briefly addressing an immediate safety issue in a shared public space. I wasn't assigning consequences or trying to parent her. I was simply naming what had happened and asking her to play more carefully.

I also want my daughter to grow up knowing that if someone hurts her, I'll notice, I'll protect her, and I won't pretend nothing happened. That matters to me.

Have I completely missed a social norm here? Is it really expected now that adults never speak directly to another child, even after they've just hurt yours, and even if only to reflect impact and ask them to stop?

I love my daughter so much, she is my entire world. But lord do I need some reassurance right now.

Ever since my daughter turned 3 she respects literally no authority but her own, she’s combative about literally everything, if we tell her no she screams like she’s being murdered, she throws things, she hits, she destroys her own toys, she destroys my stuff any chance she gets. She will find and open my makeup just to destroy it even when I hide it from her. She will climb on things to grab stuff she knows she shouldn’t have and usually it’s my stuff that becomes her victim (she cut up my Pokemon cards last week too) I feel like she destroys my stuff every day, I’ve tried so hard to set boundaries, to teach her what is and isn’t acceptable and it just goes in one ear and out the other.

I’ve tried asking her why and it’s just because she wants to. I’ve tried time out, confiscating her toys (often times to save them from her destroying them in a rage) but nothing seems to be helping with her behaviour at all. She will have meltdowns that last an hour where she’s just inconsolable and we can’t calm her down. Bedtime feels like a war zone every night, she will fight sleep until she’s wound up and overstimulated and just crashes out. Me and my partner are so exhausted, and at a loss really on what to do at this point, we don’t fight with each other so it’s not even like this is behaviour that she’s seeing and mimicking.

Since having her I’ve been diagnosed with ADHD, hEDS, fibromyalgia and ME/CFS I also have autism (confirmed by multiple psychiatrists) and the only reason I don’t have a diagnosis is because there’s no one where I live who can do the assessment for adults. My health is just deteriorating which is just making it extra hard to cope with the constant naughtiness, back talking, screaming and destruction.

Thanks for reading my really long vent

When I was growing up, my parents never had a lot of money. We never went on vacation, our apartment was very small (I slept in my parents' bedroom until I was 6 because it was a one-bedroom apartment and they couldn't afford to move sooner), and both of my parents worked manual minimum-wage jobs.

My parents still did a great job, and we never went hungry or anything, but we very clearly had less than most of my friends.

Education was incredibly important to my parents, so all of their kids ended up getting master's degrees or even PhDs.

Now I'm comfortably middle class, probably a bit above that. We have a small but nice house, a big garden, and enough money to go on vacation at least twice a year without it putting a strain on our budget.

My son is 3 and he's a great kid. Compared to my childhood, he's definitely quite privileged, and I genuinely love that for him. But how do I make sure he doesn't turn out spoiled?

While visiting a friend, he was shocked to find out that his friend didn't have a garden with a pool and a jungle gym. Being 3, he just asked him, "Why don't you have that?"

When I explained that every home is different and every family has different things, he seemed genuinely surprised.

And of course he was. All of his friends in our neighborhood have pretty much the same setup because it's a very socioeconomically homogeneous area.

So how do I make sure he doesn't grow up to be a privileged prick?

This is something I genuinely worry about because I would be so disappointed if he grew up without understanding that not everyone has the same opportunities or the same privileges.

Of course, I teach him to respect everyone, but this is really important to me. Does anyone have any insight into what their parents did that helped them understand this? Or, if you're raising kids yourself, what has worked for you?

Let me start by saying absolutely no judgement for those who do! This is just meant to be a funny fluff post.

We have a 2.5 year old and a 10 month old. We never coslept with either of them. They slept in their bedside bassinet, and then in their crib in their room. I never had any desire to cosleep, and my kids were good sleepers so it was never an issue.

We started potty training this weekend, so our toddler is already having a rough time. Last night (or I guess this morning), she wakes up at 4 am screaming and crying. We rush in, and she’s hot. I take her temp and she has a fever. We give her meds, get her settled, she falls back asleep no problem.

At 5 am, she’s up and crying again. My husband gets her and she will not go back to sleep. She is hysterical. I tell him to take the baby monitor and go in the guest room to sleep and listen for the baby, and I’ll take the toddler in our bed. I’m all for having them come in our bed when they’re sick, it’s just never happened before. She also normally doesn’t wake up until 7:30/8 am so I knew she would need rest and probably go to sleep.

Nope! King size bed and she wants to sleep right up against me. On my pillow, even though she has her own. She keeps whispering things to me, like “mommy look at your eyes” as she pokes my closed eyelids while I’m trying to go back to sleep. I turn the other way, and she is still right there, making random toddler commentary like “wow, look at that fan spinning!” (She has a ceiling fan in her room) and “I think we should turn the lamps on!” (It’s bright daylight by this point). Finally I said “you can watch bluey while mommy sleeps” and that kept her happily occupied while I was able to get another hour of sleep.

I’m sure she thought this was the best thing she’s ever experienced- cuddling with mommy and then getting to watch bluey in mommy’s bed. Living the dream! And I love that for her. And I love that I was able to give that to her. But holy shit I hated it for me 😂 crossing my fingers that she wants to sleep in her own bed tonight because I don’t think I’m cut out for this lol

My daughter is 3. We drove 40 minutes to have a pool day in this heatwave. It was at max capacity so we waited nearly two hours in the heat to be able to get in. When my kids got in they was so excited and wouldn’t take snack breaks. It was 95°. Everything was going great until it wasn’t. A lady told me is that your daughter? She had an accident…. 🫪 my soul left my body. I grabbed her and got her clean and when I came back they obviously had to shut down the pool (it was an hour until close time but still). I was so embarrassed and everybody kept saying the rudest things. I get being disappointed but my daughter didn’t do this to be mean. She kept saying she was sorry, she was trying to get out to come and get me… she was crying and also upset we had to leave. I balled my eyes out the whole way home because of the way people was talking “people can’t even teach their kids to go to the bathroom” “people need go clean up their own mess” (I tried, it’s pool policy they have to clean it?), just so rude. Mind you, we have been to the pool over 10 times and she’s never done this. I think the heat from waiting and not having lunch just made it to where she couldn’t help it. I feel so bad truly and I’m so embarrassed. One lifeguard was an angel and told me “this happens all the time and sometimes it’s big kids don’t feel bad we understand” but as we left even the front staff was talking about it and saying rude things. You never think it will be your kid until it is. She truly had an accident and it wasn’t on purpose.

EDIT: I had TWO family members with us (the other was with my son). She had just got back from a pee potty break and was walking back into the pool with one of the family members physically in the pool at the end of the entrance waiting on her. She also seen the accident and was going towards her. I always have help. My kids are watched.

Also, pool policy is 2 and under in baby area with swim diaper.. big pool swim diapers are NOT allowed and you will be asked to leave immediately.

Soooo we started the paci weaning kit from Frida a a weekish ago and fuck, it has broken my 2 year olds sleep. For context, she is definitely a unicorn sleeper. Sleeping 12 hours uninterrupted through the night since 6 weeks. Never had a 4 month regression or any other regression. A few bad nights over two years but really it’s something she’s just always had down. And then we removed the pacis/ started the Frida ones. She wakes up like 3-4 times a night now. What should we be doing? Letting her fuss it out? Comforting her? Will she learn to sleep without them? Someone help. Should we ditch the weaning kit? Desperado. Also have a newborn sooo we are just up all night haha

I have a chronically interrupting toddler. He generally listens and cooperates on many things, but he seems adamant on making sure I never have a conversation with another adult. I see lots of posts here about interrupting toddlers and how to manage them, but they all imply that the toddler has something to say—mine doesn’t. He just doesn’t want the adults to talk. Whether I’m talking to my husband, the pediatrician, a friend, a cashier, a restaurant server—it doesn’t matter. He will start pleading with me to stop talking and will not give up. “Mommy no talk! Mommy don’t talk! Please mommy don’t talk! I don’t want you to talk!” I’ve tried ignoring, I’ve tried giving him an explanation in advance “the doctor is going to come in soon. Mommy needs to tell the doctor how you’re feeling.” I’ve even tried including him on the conversation and bringing it down to child level so he can participate. Ive tried briefly pausing the convo and giving him a prompt (you can say “excuse me”) or briefly correcting him and going back to the adult conversation. I’ve also tried being stern and enforcing punishments, but it’s hard to find a consequence that makes sense for this type of thing. If he throws a toy, for example, I can take the toy away. If he refuses to do something I’ve asked, I can count to 3 and say if he doesn’t do it by himself mommy will help/make him. But if I’m in the middle of a conversation and keep getting interrupted, I get so overstimulated and can’t hear myself think. I also have a 2 month old who is often nursing when this happens, so the overstimulation for me is just so freaking stressful. It takes everything in me to stay calm.

Last week we were at the pediatrician for my toddler’s stomach virus and we had a medical student shadowing the doctor so we had 3 different visits to the room for questions and exam. He interrupted me constantly “mommy don’t talk! Don’t talk! Don’t talk!” Louder and louder every single time the medical student and/or doctor tried to talk to me. After the first time I tried to calmly explain my expectations and set the boundary. He still did it. I got the kids into the car afterward and broke down in tears. Only then did he acknowledge that something was wrong and said “mommy feels sad.” I didn’t let him watch any TV for the rest of the day because that was a threat I had to follow through on, but he seemed completely unaffected by that consequence.

Anyone have any tips? I’m losing my mind.

My 19 month old was completely terrified when the fireworks started. I’m talking dead silent, body shaking, digging his nails into my skin while i held him. He made it to 9:30 pm (my brace boy) but even putting him to bed, he cuddled with me in complete silence, just waiting for the next firework to go off. Never happened before. I feel so horrible for him.

So yeah, fuck fireworks for the foreseeable future.

Not sure if this is the right place to post this so let me know if there is somewhere better. My son is 27 months and right at 2 years old I got him evaluated for a speech delay. In order to qualify for EI he had to score less than a 70 in one category and he scored a 69 in expressive communication so his delay is pretty minor. Anyways, he has been seeing his speech therapist for a little under 2 months now and I feel like she isn’t really doing as much as I thought she would. When she first started with him she said that if he’s in a bad mood or uninterested one day then it is best to not force it during their sessions. This made complete sense to me and I agreed to not push it. But now it seems like every single time my son is maybe in a bad mood or not wanting to play with her she doesn’t even try and then she ends up just talking to me for the entire session while my son plays on his own or hides around the corner. It’s starting to get really frustrating because I’m like girl I’m not here to talk to you for an hour. I wish she would try a little more to get him involved and actually work with him. I guess I’m just trying to see if anyone else who has done early intervention was this pretty common to have several days where maybe your therapist didn’t really do much with your kid? Should I say something to our coordinator? I feel really bad saying something but I also need to advocate for my kid if he isn’t getting the help that he could be getting from someone else.

My husband’s family has a dock on the lake near our house and they are having a huge fireworks display tonight at 8:30. We want to go but… toddler. Would it be a nightmare for all involved?? Should we just cut our losses and wait until next year? Ugh!

I’m looking for a fun birthday gift for my granddaughter who is turning 2. Her sister lives buckets. Is there anything your 2 year old loves that would be considered uncommon?

Today is of course 4th of July, and our town has a fireworks show that begins at 8:30. My MIL had been desperate for us to join her and the rest of the family to watch the show, which I had previously been open to doing since we usually keep a semi-flexible bedtime schedule with our 18 month old.

My daughter woke at 4:30 this morning and has been up since, I’m tired, she’s tired, there’s just no way she’s making it that late today. It sucks that it had to be this way today of all days, because I was actually looking forward to showing her the fireworks, but it would just be miserable. No point in even trying to stay for just half an hour because MIL always guilts us into staying much longer.

Anyway, had to tell her we wouldn’t be coming after all and she was not happy. She kept asking over and over and said I was being mean preventing my daughter from seeing the show and that she’d love it so much. Like I’m sorry, I get it sucks, but I know I will end up regretting it and who would be the one that ends up dealing with an overtired cranky toddler? Me, not her.

Of course, I’m the one that’s now the bad guy. She hung up in a grump and said she feels so sorry for my daughter that I’m not allowing her to come. Cool, I’m sure she’ll totally miss something that she has absolutely zero idea about. This happens quite frequently with MIL, she seems to have no concept of naps or bedtimes, just expects us to be able to bring her wherever and whenever. It’s always me that’s to blame, not her son of course. Sick of it tbh.

Up to June 15, my little angel slept a solid 12 hours each night. Naps have been dropped ages ago, but this system worked.

Somehow, since June 15, sleep is a mess. Sudden nights of 9h 50 min. If we do a nap, night sleep can be as short as 8h 50 min. While she previously enjoyed dozing for the final hour of sleep on the breast (we cosleep, I still nurse at night), now she seems to wake up and start telling stories while the mommies in the bed go shh shhh shhhh.

She is 2.5 years old, the room is completely dark, and we have white noise. I’m not sure why we were cursed on the 15th of June with bad sleep, but please tell me how I can undo it. Ready to hop around in my garden on one leg while scattering wild flowers in the air if that does the trick.

(And we do not sleep train, I don’t believe in not attending to her needs and that worked well for a very long time)

How are you fitting exercise in?

I prefer exercise in the morning as I find it makes me feel great during the rest of the day, if I exercise at night I find it wakes me up too much and I have trouble sleeping.

Current schedule:

- wake up between 6am - 6:30am

- make breakfast for myself and toddler (takes about 30 mins)

- playtime for about 30 mins for some connection with each other

- get him dressed and then he gets tv time

- I get myself ready, take approx 20 mins

- pack everyone’s bags and lunches

- out the door for 8am to daycare and work

Is my only option to wake up at 5am for exercise and hope my toddler stays asleep until their normal time between 6-630?

I feel so stressed and out of whack not exercising now for 2 years , it’s a deep need for me physically and mentally to figure this out and do it

Welcoming any suggestions

My son is turning 2 next month, he’s very into vacuums, garbage cans, mops and well that’s it. I figured what better place to ask than a toddler forum, surely someone else has a kid who loved vacuums so much they had a vacuum themed birthday party?

Anyways, I’m trying to figure out how to do this, where to find decorations, what decorations to do, I have a friend willing to use her cricut but the best I’ve got so far is getting a sign that says “it sucks to be two” with a vacuum on it, and making him a shirt with a vacuum on it. I could kinda go with a cleaning party theme maybe.

Any and all suggestions on bringing this to life are welcome, I am not good at planning off the wall parties 😂 his/my baby shower was blue for boy for context

Daughter is 2 years 4 months, whip smart, hyper active, so verbal people usually assume she’s a year older. She was an amazing independent sleeper until a month ago when she started refusing naps at home (not at school, of course) and fighting bedtime like her life depends on it. She used to happily lay in bed playing with her stuffies and talking to herself until she fell asleep. Suddenly that changed and now she screams for us, throws everything out of bed, tries to reach for her monitor camera stand, yanks the art off the walls, takes off her sleep sack, pajamas, and diaper/pull up, and as of tonight, pees the bed. Basically she does what she has to do to get us to come back into the room.

We’ve tried zippy pajamas, sleep sack inside out — doesn’t matter, she can get them off.

She’s not potty trained (we’ve been doing a slow roll potty learning, so she does pee on the potty several times a day, but hasn’t officially done potty training) and sleeps in her crib, has never tried to climb out of it or anything too. It is very clearly happening because she is smart and knows exactly what to do to get us to come into her room.

Any advice? Other than duct taping her diaper on or staying with her however long it takes her to fall asleep?

We spent our first night away with our almost 2 year old at a friend's cottage. They told my husband that my little one needs more discipline. This person does not have kids, or a wife. I was just shocked to hear it. He threw some food at the restaurant, but overall did great. He tantrumed a bit here and there but like... He's not even 2, was in a new place experiencing new things, and was being told no a bit (can't run on the street, needs to hold our hand at intersections, can't touch the buttons on the fan in the room, simple things). Plus, our little one is always pretty great. I think he did awesome on the trip though he was a bit dysregulated in the afternoon from skipping nap. But it's his first time being away so I totally get that he didn't want to nap. Just ranting!

Son is 2 and a half.. and he is the world’s pickiest eater. For context day looks like

Breakfast

Milk with his multi vitamin vanilla powder.
French toast sticks only the eggo brand.
Sometimes cereal - granola w/ milk, Chex or Cheerios.

Snacks
peanut butter crackers or he wants a tostada (random)

Lunch

He will eat fruit he is good with mandarins, berries and grapes. Any type of veggie he will not touch I’ve done baked, roasted, steamed, raw will not touch them. I’ve even tried hiding them in his food he just will not do it.

Then the main entree is noodles or the occasional grilled cheese. But he will absolutely not eat anything else I offer and I’ve tried. Dinner is basically a repeat of lunch for him.

I’ve tried a million different proteins, from veggie protein, vegetarian patties, actual protein he just won’t take it. If it’s not noodles he’s not eating.

Please no judgement I’m trying so hard also dealing with a high risk pregnancy so things have been… so hard, any suggestions would be awesome. Also feeling like I might need to call pediatrician soon because if his eating habits.

Plus I cannot wrap my head around how people love it and what's wrong with me. I love her, don't get me wrong. However, I have a pit in my stomach every weekend. I spend the days just waiting for bed time. She doesn't play with toys...at all. She won't do anything alone. All she wants to do is walk around the house and pull and drag at everything. I spend my days walking around after her trying to do some damage control. She's constantly whining and moaning. I feel so irritated and overstimulated all the time. I don't take it out on her. The worst she gets when I "lose my temper" is "stop moaning now". Or "ok enough making a mess, out now". This morning we made pancakes together and she moaned through most of it. Then moaned and whined because I needed to clean up for 10 minutes. I asked her to help me clean, she refused. I got some toys out so she could play beside me, I kid you not she played with them for 2 minutes and then started following me undoing any tidying I did. It's 10am and I've put on Mickey Mouse because tv is the only thing that makes her quiet and lets me breathe. Putting on the tv makes me feel like a failure and I just want to cry about how shit of a parent I am. Before anyone blames TV for how she acts. Weekdays she gets 25 minutes of tv in the morning and doesn't tantrum or ask for it at all during the day. So it's not that she's stuck in front of a screen all day.