For all your Santa Needs!

We just celebrated my son’s birthday at a venue where everything had to be booked and paid for in advance.
I invited 30 kids through Evite and explicitly asked parents to RSVP by November 1.
20 parents RSVP’d, so I paid for 20 kids, including food and party favors.
Guess what? FIVE kids whose parents never RSVP’d showed up anyway.
Obviously, it’s not the kids’ fault, and I felt terrible that I didn’t have enough food or party favors for everyone.
But seriously, what was I supposed to do? Pay for all 30 kids just in case? What’s the point of an RSVP deadline then?!

Should I have communicated better? I don’t get it…

Is it wrong that i will be teaching/raising my son to know about santa, but santa doesnt get full credit?

My in laws were here yesterday and my husband and i went early shopping it turned into a conversation.

Growing up we were dirt poor and in a broken home, my mom worked her butt off but she was sick and could only do so much as a single mother and my mom always put gifts under the tree from santa.

in my teen years i didnt like looking back at that and realizing my mom stretched herself thin during the holidays just to gift us and give credit to a “santa”

this isnt completely unknown about me ive said it a few times but every year its brought up again, Santa doesnt get credit in my home. When i would go back to school from the holiday leave, “santa” bought all my friends bikes, expensive toys, cameras and laptops etc and all i got from “santa” was a cute pair of fluffy socks and one present i really wanted. my friends had 5-10 presents and i was happy and jolly with my 2 on christmas day, going back to school it made me feel like “santa” didnt love me as much or i wasnt good enough that year and id feel out casted and i was even teased about it in my early years.

i want my children to know santa, to enjoy the spirit of the game, but know that most presents come from parents and family, and know that hard work was involved in the presents because we love them and want them to enjoy life.

i dont mean my kid will be the kid who yells santa isnt real, but to know that “Santa” loves all and nobody is “bad” and didnt deserve a good christmas because “santa only gives to the good”
we give santa the small gift and the stocking stuffer the big and exciting ones are always from Mom or dad.

We have some neighbors whose kids are around the same ages as ours and we have a very active neighborhood with lots of events and so we see them quite often. Lately we’ve been having an issue with their daughter (4.5 years) CONSTANTLY coming up to me to tattle on my daughter who just turned 3 last week.

It’s usually because my daughter won’t share her toys with the friend or my daughter inadvertently “hurt” the friend (I put her in quotations because I’ve watched them interact and it’s never my daughter purposefully hitting or biting It’s literally my daughter standing up when they’re both crouched down and they bonk heads or my daughter spinning around and accidentally hitting the friend in the face with her hand or something).

Now, if I see the incident happen, I usually tell the friend “It looks like that was an accident, [daughter’s name] can you tell her sorry for accidentally hurting her?” But I don’t see every single instance because there’s lots of neighbors and lots of kids and if I’m talking to an adult and she comes up to me screaming bloody murder claiming that my daughter hurt her I kind of don’t know how to handle it because I’ve seen her lie so much? To make matters more awkward it’s usually right in front of the daughter‘s parents and so I feel this pressure to discipline my daughter, even though I truly don’t believe that she did anything.

I see her do this with other kids too. It’s like she just does it to get them in trouble. What’s frustrating is her parents don’t really do anything. If my daughter was going to other parents constantly tattle telling on their kids, I would intervene and tell my daughter if she has any issues to come to me.

I just feel like I’ve been put in this situation so many times over the last couple weeks that I just would like a go-to way to handle it that is fair to my daughter and diplomatic towards my neighbors and their daughter.

I need advice and I need brutal honesty. I don't want to be a bad mother. I am 19 with a 1 year old and I know my brain isn't developed. I'm not stupid enough to say I know what I'm doing. I know I'm not mature enough. But I want to be. I want everyone to tell me what you wouldn't have known at 19. Tell me how to grow up more. Tell me common teen parenting mistakes. Tell me anything I can use to be the best mother I can be.

My daughter, let’s call A, has been friends with a girl since preschool, we will call her B. In TK they were in the same class and I noticed that my daughter would basically be smothered by B. B would not give my daughter any time alone to go out and make other friends. They were together doing the different centers during class and A had even told me that at recess she would have to sit with B at the lunch tables until B was done with her snack and could then go play. When others tried to play with A, B would physically pull her away. I brought up my concerns to the TK teacher and she had noticed the same and she suggested separating the girls in the next grade level, which I agreed with. The girls have not been in the same class until this year which is now 5th grade.

The separation was great! My daughter was able to go make other friends and those friendships were strong (or so I thought) and she maintained the friendship with B over the years.

So now they are in 5th grade and in the same class again and now B is smothering A again! A would try to go play with her other friends and B would follow but A’s friends don’t really like B. So now the friends that A has made over the year have stopped hanging out with A and basically don’t even speak to her.

Another mom in the friend group had called me about the girls no longer hanging out together and told me their daughter said A just hangs out with B all the time (this was the first week of school) I’ve asked A about it and she said the same thing, that her old friends don’t like B but B follows her around everywhere so she just hangs out with her. And then today I was talking to another mom saying how A has had a tough year with losing alot of friends and she also told me her daughter says that it’s just A and B together all the time.

So here is where the advice is needed. We obviously don’t want to hurt B so how do we say A needs some space? My daughter said B has no other friends!!

I’ve suggested I plan something with the old friends but too much time has passed so A thinks the old friends would find it weird. My daughter has cried so many tears about this and I want to help her. How do we get separated from B without hurting her?

There is obviously more to this than what I can write here and there are clear and understandable reasons why the other girls don’t like B.

Thanks.

My 14 YO son just started playing Fortnite the last week or so with his friends online. Over the week and especially this weekend he’s become a lot more frequently argumentative and obnoxious.

Has anyone else found a relation between playing Fortnite or other aggressive games + poor behaviour?

All his friends play it so it’s hard to just hard ban already. But I want to!

I was tired/low on sleep/ chronically stressed about family problems/ had gone without lunch/ was rushing to get to a bus. in the rain, and in the dark. In short, I wasn't thinking clearly. I usually have a rule, that I always cross on the signal when I am with my kid. As an immigrant, road safety that comes instinctively in your home country doesn't come naturally in your new country.

Now I keep re-living the traumatic moment with "what-if" constantly in my mind, nausea and a lump in my throat. And questioning whether I am a good enough parent.
Just posting as a word of warning to others.

Take care of yourself mentally and physically - be the best version of yourself, for your kids.

My friend and I both have daughters who are about a year apart hers is the older one. Recently, she gave me a bunch of clothes her daughter outgrew. Honestly, everything is in really good shape. She also threw in a couple of her own dresses that she said she just doesn't wear anymore.
For context, we aren't struggling financiallywe're a typical middle class family. I felt a little weird accepting everything at first, mostly because of the dress for me, but I didn't want to be rude or hurt her feelings so I took the bag and thanked her.
the issue is my husband hated that she gave us this stuff.
How would you guys feel if a friend did this? Should I actually throw the clothes out, return them to her, or say something like "please don't give us your old clothes"? Or is my husband overreacting and I should just handle this quietly on my own?

Edit: Thank you all so much for shifting my perspective! I never got anything passed down to me growing up, and my husband grew up with very little and was raised never to accept charity which explains why this hit a nerve for him. I genuinely didn't know casual clothes-swapping was a normal thing. Growing up, friends could take my clothes, but bringing someone else's clothes into our house was strictly off-limits 😂

I have an almost 2-year old son. He’s simply the best, and I love being his mom. My husband and I are happily “one and done” by choice.

About once a month I get hit with a wave of anxiety about losing my son. To an accident, or him getting sick somehow. I can’t even imagine the pain that could cause, and I could cry thinking about it. Today I was watching a show where the parents found out their eldest child had terminal cancer, and had the thought of “omg what if that was my son”.

I understand losing a child if you had one or ten would be devastating. But I feel this extra level of anxiety about it with him being my one and only.

Does anyone else get anxiety about this? How do you manage?

First of all, I am a stepparent since 2013, bio parent since 2016, and my stepdaughter is an adult now. She went to University over a year ago after graduating high school with honors.

As far as I can tell, she had one successful semester and then began to bed rot in her dorm. None of this really came to light until the spring when she had no idea what her last day of class was. Things unraveled at that point and it's been over six months of standing by while my adult stepdaughter bed rots every. single. day.

My husband just admitted a pattern that I'd already observed: his daughter comes to our house and immediately has a bawling pity party about how awful things are at her mom's. She tells him of her aspirations and we plan to help her with paperwork and any rides needed. Then she just bed rots every day until my husband finally boils over (weeks later). Then, lo and behold, she has to go to her mom's for something. Rinse and repeat.

It's easy to speculate that something may have happened to her. From my observations, she hasn't had much of any life experience, unless she's been moonlighting as Hannah Montana or something. I believe any extreme circumstance would be known if there were any.

It's a delicate position being a stepparent. One false move and you go to stepparent jail. I'm kidding of course but it feels something like that.

So anyways, my husband is on his rant about how his daughter is playing mind games with him and he's noticed she comes here to escape her mom's and vice versa. She isn't moving forward in life. She hasn't applied for any jobs, school, doctor's appointments, etc. She is very fortunate to have not one, but two households that provide for her as an adult.

I am truly concerned with her staying in her room about 23/7 (outside about once a week) and not having any accountability even to complete a chore. An even toned reminder of any expectation leads her to returning to her mother's. I feel like by enabling her, we are failing her. Nobody ever raises their voice to her. I might gently tap on her door and say, "Dinner is ready." I guess she is somewhat like a roommate at this point.

Once again, I reiterate that it's very easy to rock the boat as a stepparent.

Has anyone here had similar experience with young adult children (hopefully with a successful outcome)? Stepparent or not. Does anyone have any advice for me or that I could apply to my husband?

My almost 3 year old has been saying she doesnt want to go to school (daycare). She only goes 2 days a week and is always calm and happy on pickup. Talks about her teachers and things they do everyday. But almost every day she also says "but I don't want to go!". Tears at drop off but quickly gets into play too.

Teachers say positive things. Nothing out of ordinary. Sounds like she is herself.

I remind her mummy and daddy have work and she has school. She says, "but i just want to stay at home!", "please mum! Please dont go to work!" She wants to stay home and cuddle and play with mum/dad.

Do your kids say this? What do you say to your kids? Will she end up having a bad relationship with "work"?

I am two days postpartum with my second kid (22 month gap) and I hadn’t fully anticipated how much I’d miss my toddler. My partner is mostly taking care of our large and rambunctious toddler while I heal physically and I am mostly taking care of our newborn daughter. I miss my son so much and feel so guilty. I wish I could split myself in two and take care of both of them but I just can’t. I feel like I’m missing out on so much time with him. I’m worried that this is going to affect our relationship long term since my partner is the one spending most of the time with him. I’m in love with our daughter and am loving the newborn snuggles but also am feeling this grief with it. :(

My 5-year-old was supposed to attend a classmate’s birthday party this weekend, which I ultimately didn’t let her attend, and now I feel like I made the wrong decision.

For background, my wife and I have set very firm boundaries with our kids and explained that hitting is not a solution to a problem. In this case, my 5-year-old had a meltdown when I wouldn’t let her buy something while running errands, which led to slapping and kicking me in the face, along with running off on her own in the middle of a busy store. This to me was one of those moments where I felt like she had to learn a tough lesson, which is why I didn’t let her go, but now I’m feeling awful about my decision. I feel like I ended up punishing her classmate by not letting my daughter attend, and now I’m wondering if the punishment matched the behavior.

Would love to hear other parents’ thoughts on this. Did I overreact? Should I have chosen a different kind of punishment? I feel so awful right now and offered to reimburse the parents for my daughter’s spot at the party.

I'm running dry on gift ideas this year. I've got a first grader and this should be easy, but I'm drawing a blank.

He likes science, building, music, and generally high energy movement lol. He's also a big reader but my mom has already snagged a Goosebumps set for him.

We also do 1 bigger gift each year that is at the end of a scavenger hunt. It's honestly my favorite part, but I have no idea what to put at the end of it!

I recently hosted my son’s 11th birthday party. Since it started off at a party place I offered to bring his friends that live in the neighborhood with me so the parents didn’t have to drive. In the car one of the boys (R) said something very mean to my son.

I didn’t hear it but after a couple of minutes I noticed that my son was quiet and looked like he was about to start crying. I asked what was wrong but he didn’t want to tell me.

R is a bit wild and he is hard to control and doesn’t really listen well but with the exception of him acting out a bit at the party place I still think things went well. In the car ride home from venue to my house (where they were gonna swim in pool and have dinner and cake) R said that he wasn’t gonna come home with us because he had better plans. Clearly mean and rude to both my son and I but I ignored it. He ended up staying.

After the party my son told me what R had said in the car. He had told my son that he looks stupid and even more stupid when he wears his glasses. My son has been extremely insecure about wearing his glasses so that comment hit hard. I got angry and I so wish I had heard the comment because then I would have sent R home. Not only was he mean, it was my son’s bday celebration on top of it.

My son didn’t want me to talk to R’s mom but after a couple of weeks I did send her a text because R had said something mean again. This time on school bus.
The mom’s reply? She pretty much told me that my son was mean to her son and he curses a lot. Like what? I have never heard him curse. Is it possible that he swears at someone else’s house? Sure. But I find it highly unlikely that my son pinches, kicks and hits her child like she said. If this has been going on why hasn’t she said anything? My son has never been in trouble in school and no one has ever told me that he is violent. I don’t want to pretend like my son is an angel but this seems so out of character of him. Like really. I know R has been in trouble at school for misbehaving.

I don’t really know how to maneuver this except for not letting the kids play together. I asked their teacher to keep and eye on them at school but she said she has never seen them fight. I spoke to my son about keeping his hands to himself and letting an adult know if people are mean to him.
What else can I do?

How do I get my kids to stop interrupting? They will constantly interrupt me and my husband when we are having a conversation but my bigger issue is when they interrupt me and another adult. The constant “mom mom mom” is getting out of hand. We’ve tried the hand on arm, have talked about manners, but nothing has worked. My kids are 4, 6, & 8.

Planning to drive down to Socal from Norcal to see family for the holidays and it'll be our family's first road trip with the little one. With more frequent stops I'm planning for about 8-9 hours and wondering if parents had any tips to make it as smooth as possible. I was thinking of leaving in the wee hours of the morning (2-3am) when he's the sleepiest in hopes of making the trip shorter for everyone but I've also heard of this backfiring. He's usually ok in the carseat but at 8 months I know he'll be fidgety.

Trying to start a movie night tradition that we can do as a family. I have two boys (4 and 7). They are all nearly incapable of sitting through a movie in its entirety. I’ve tried all the classics and many of the newer films.

They did sit for the movie Hoppers, and loved it start to finish.

Anyone have any ideas?

My kid is a dedicated water bottle-forgetter. Yes he has ADHD, is treated, and we are working on it. Yes, I am the apple tree.

So I did what any good parent with middling executive functioning skills does and went and bought a bunch of $5 water bottles from Target.

So now I have a stack of water bottles and a label maker. What labels do I add to make sure these bottles are at the top of his mind at all times.

Help with some spring travel destinations. I’m a hour from Orlando so please don’t recommend Disney or anything in Florida because we get plenty of Mickey Mouse and beach time lol. Preferably no theme park destination either because again we’re in Florida and have plenty of theme parks.

I don’t get him. He’s a good kid. He really is. Socially, always the kid to get someone to play. Most kids have a good time with him. His lack of control is crazy though. It’s like he completely forget social norms and what anyone finds acceptable behavior.

Dudes team was done with the game and someone brought a snack of cupcakes. He just starts mowing them down with disregard for the etiquette of “take one” or “wait to get seconds until everyone else has had some.”

It’s like he forgets who he is in the moment. Like an absent mindedness out of nowhere. Luckily this gave us a reason to get the Halloween candy out of the house as a consequence. I’m beside myself with this behavior!!!

Anyone else experience this? How do you coach this? I constantly feel like a broken record.

Husband earlier today: You're so weak! She's not going to die from crying for 10 minutes. You're letting her manipulate you into never sleeping alone because you baby her

Me this evening: You're so weak! She's not going to die from missing one meal. You're letting her manipulate you into not having to eat vegetables because you baby her

Irony? What irony? 😂😂😂

Hi everyone
My baby is 7 months next week and the last couple of weeks have been insane in terms of sleep.
Here some facts:
Daytime sleep around 2-2,5, he has around 3-3,5 hours of wake time before going to sleep. And 2,5 hours between the first two naps.
3 naps in total. First one is 30 minutes. Second one is around 1 hour and 15 minutes. Third is 20-30 minutes.

Bedtime is between 18:30-19:30.
He wakes up between 5-5.30am. Once a week we might be lucky and he sleeps until 6am. But very rare.

He usually wakes between 2-4 times a night. Recently that has increased to 6-8. And these last 5-8 days he start with waking every 2 hours and then after 22 it’s just every fucking hour. And the only thing that settles him is breastfeeding. We have tried with rocking, pacifier etc.
He is also crying in his sleep when he wakes, and the cries get more intense the more we wait with getting him the boob.

I can feel his two lower teeth, so I’m thinking it might be teething? He is also just about to crawl. So makes sense that he is going through something. But can’t figure out where the cries are coming from. Is it separating anxiety ?

A lot of questions. 😅 hoping to hear from anyone who has gone through it. Advice is very welcomed. And please tell me this is over soon 😭

Oh and we cosleep.