My daughter just turned 4 this month. She has been fully potty trained for a year. She hasn’t been able to stay dry at night and we have always put her to bed in a pull-up. I’m starting to wonder though if she wets the pull up because she subconsciously knows that she can, or if she truley lacks the bladder control in her sleep. If I switch her to panties at night, am I going to have tons of laundry and embarass her for something she can’t control, or will it be setting the standard that we expect her to stay dry at night so that her mind will trigger her to wake up and go potty. Any advice out there? Should I keep her in pull-ups or switch to panties?

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Yes I find it to be very exhausting, I have three and sometimes when I come home from work all I want to do is sleep, but they need me, it is very rewarding though. Praise to all the mom’s you have a hard job.

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Now that my sons girlfriend is living at our house, any suggestions on living conditions and raising her.?
i appreciate all your previous help, it has been a really rough few days. We decided not to adopt her, so if the relationship doesn’t work or something goes wrong a foster parent can raise. we talked to social services and they said that we can raise her under our roof.

any advice on how living conditions should be set and how i should raise her, my son is 15 and so is the girlfriend. they have been in a relationship since they were 9. my son suggested she sleep in his room in his bed, and he said he would leave the door open and have the nanny cam in the room. should i allow her to sleep in his room with those conditions. any suggestions on living conditions, there are three bedrooms, me and my husbands, my daughters, and my sons. Im more for letting her sleep in my daughters room, and my daughter loves the idea. but i dint want to depress my son and his girlfriend even more.

Should i just let my son sleep with his girlfriend in the living room with my son on the floor and the girl on the cough, im sorry that this just seems stupid its just that my son and daughter have slept together like on vacations and sleep overs. this is a very stressful problem, i mean my son wont even go to school, because he wants to comfort his girlfriend and she highly appreciates. other advice on parenting this awakward family would be greatly appreciated, thanks.

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We have an almost 11 month old boy. He’s breastfed and we co-sleep. I don’t see us changing either anytime soon. He does eat some solid food. Looking for advice from parents who do the same.

He wakes several times during the night. On average 4-5 times, but sometimes more and he usually wants to comfort nurse. Sometimes he takes a pacifier, sometimes not. Husband is not involved in getting him back to sleep at all. I’m working on a consistent nape schedule for him during the day and I hope once that’s in place, it will help with nighttime sleep.

I’m looking for any suggestions. As you can imagine, I’m pretty exhausted, but I do feel breastfeeding is best for him right now and will not consider formula "to fill him up". I may consider moving him into a crib in a few months.

Help!

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I don’t what too I worry about everything even little thing get me stressed sometimes I feel like I cant go too sleep for fear of not waking up its just stressing even as I am writing this I am stressed but I don’t know why I just worry worry worry any other parents ever have this problem? btw I am 14.
another thing is is when I have pains I always worry for the worst.

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Hi there and thanks for taking the time to read this.

I am expecting a baby girl in August with my ex-girlfriend and I am excited about everything to do with parenting… except the potential problems with my ex, namely with custody. Our baby will be born in a country town with lots of love around her however I’ve been put in a negative situation because of the break up.

Job opportunities in this town are limited (four in the last 15 days!) and I have no experience in any field that requires staff. The closest realistic job opportunities are 90 and 120 minutes away however I doubt my ex will allow me to take my daughter for 50% of the time when I would be working for five days out of seven. I worked on the mines on the OTHER side of the country for three years and my employer desperately wants me back. It provides excellent money but I would be "home" (I’m from the west coast, not the east where my daughter will be born) five days out of 21 or 28 (depending on my roster). Working in the nearest town would realistically allow me to have my daughter for 8 nights out of 28 but at minimum wage, approximately 2-3k LESS than if I worked on the mines and only three nights more with my daughter.

I have strong family views and I can’t imagine letting my daughter down (even though I know without me around she will still grow up to be well loved and respected) by not being around. I have also read that many "part-time" dads main concerns are that they are "party" dads, that is, they have very limited time with their children and feel the need to have a good time with them so their children want to continue to see them. To me this is not being a parent and if I had the opportunity I would be an everyday Dad. I want to change nappies, soothe my child to sleep, bathe, feed, teach and discipline my daughter and not just visit her and be the fun guy.

I have read a lot of information suggesting that children, newborns and infants in particular, should NOT spend time overnight with the non-custodial parent until the age of 2 or 3. Perhaps I’m just male or perhaps I’m being logical but I would rather take care of my child as an active parent from sun up to sunset than to cross the country each month to have coffee with a woman I don’t particularly feel fond of (she kinda screwed me over) just to be able to see my child for a few hours each day. To me this is neither being a parent nor enjoying my well earned time off not to mention the time (one day each way) and monetary cost (several hundred dollars) involved with commuting each time.

My current plan is to return to my mining work and take custody of my daughter for the five nights that I will be back in town. It is not ideal but I feel strongly about being an active parent and that my daughter should count on me as being one as well as my home being her home. I don’t think I will have too much opposition from my ex; she has seen me in action as a parent to her other children and those children also spend time away from their primary home however she is not used to having an active father around and will from time to time become controlling (out of habit, not intentionally).

I know I am off my rocker (crazy) however I feel very strong about being an integral part of my daughter’s life and vice versa. What I ask is do you have any information, feedback or ideas that may help with my daughter, my ex and myself come up with an amicable solution that allows me and my daughter to develop a proper parent-child relationship as opposed to the visitation option?

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ok so we are moving into my parents next weekend to help them out and to save for a bigger place. we will only be there like 3-4 months at the most (i hope *crossing fingers*) so we have never moved with the baby before. what can we pack first and what should we pack last? i am thinking of taking the crib apart this week and having her sleep in the play pen. help!!
we live on the 3rd floor with narrow hallways it would be hard getting the crib down the stairs. its a struggle moving the couch. trying to make it as easy as posible
if it helps we are moving like 10 minutes away not across state or anything.

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I have tocophobia. I’ve been having nightmares about childbirth and having children since I was about 12. I was never meant to have a bf who wanted children. I’ve ALWAYS been upfront from the moment we start dating that I don’t want children and that I have a condition. I told my bf the second day we started seeing each other that it’s not something I wanted and that I couldn’t keep a baby if I got pregnant . He just told me we’d talk about it when the time comes and I stupidly left it at that. I’m 23 and he’s 30.

I know he wants kids.. but the thought makes me (quite literally) sick to my stomach. Just the other day I mentioned how impressed I was that we were responsible and didn’t have kids yet and he looked at me and said "I don’t want kids when I’m old. Even if we had a baby now, I’ll be 50 when they graduate. I want kids when I’m young. People always tell me how good of a person I am and the thought of me not passing down my genetics makes me feel like I have no purpose. I want kids, I’m just waiting for you to want them." It kills me to hear him say that. It’s not that I don’t want children necessarily, I just don’t want to bear them. I love his nephews, I’d take one of them in a heart beat.. but the whole pregnancy thing terrifies me. I can’t hold babies or I feel sick, if I look at pregnant woman I feel sick, if I am a day late on my period I become excessively worrisome, if some weird thing starts happening with my body that I’m unsure of- I’m on the internet checking to make sure it’s not a sign of pregnancy .. since this talk I’ve been loosing sleep and I’ve been more paranoid then ever. I’m scared he’d poke a hole in the condom or something, cause he really wants one. I don’t know what to do. I told him if he wants children we really need to talk and he says he avoids it like the plague because he can tell I don’t want kids because of how I talk about other peoples babies, or make comments about how they make me feel ill.

I would love to adopt a kid, that’d be nice, or maybe even have his sperm and my egg put in a surrogate mom but he says no. He wants me to have it. I love him, but I’m scared that if it came down to it he’ll leave me, or I’ll accidentally get pregnant and I wont be able to come to terms with it. I know it’s an irrational fear but I really feel like I’m going to die, or that I won’t love the baby.

In my nightmares I’m pregnant and I’m going to die, or I’m in excruciating pain, or in the one recurrent dream- I wake up in the dream and find I have a kid but I don’t care about them, or I forgot about them and someone has to explain to me that it’s mine, and then I fall asleep in the dream and wake up again and it happens all over again, I forget about them.

This is all so real to me. A part of why I think I may have this fear is because of my gender disphoria.. but I’m not sure. I just can’t picture myself ever birthing children.. I don’t think it’s fair that he never has children but I also think it is unfair that he is unwilling to compromise. Why do I have to carry the baby? He says one day he’ll just give up on having children cause he’s getting older, I don’t want that for him. I love him and I know he loves me. I’m not ready for any of this, I’m so young- I always thought if I did get the courage to have children I wanted to wait till I was 25 or 26.

He says he’s not even sure he can have children. He was once married and he said the only time he made someone pregnant, they got really sick. They bled the whole pregnancy until the baby was rejected by the body.. I told him he wasn’t helping the situation by telling me that and he said to me "You think that’s terrifying I had to go through it."

How am I suppose to feel about this?.. I am really lost and this irrational fear is becoming more and more of a problem. On the 14th of next month I’m going to the doctor to ask about getting an IUD because the paranoia is starting to effect my sex drive.. Somebody please help me.. :’(

P.S. This is not a case of someone being immature or someone that doesn’t deserve to have children one day, it’s a real condition, please don’t troll me, I feel like a monster as is..

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I have a 6 month old son and am 8 weeks pregnant with baby # 2 (due Oct. 29, 2009). My son was born September 15, 2008. I am worried about how hard it is going to be raising two children this close in age. How is sleeping through the night? Right now my son goes to sleep around 9:30 p.m. and wakes at 2:30 a.m. to eat and then wakes up at 7:30 a.m. Will he be sleeping better by the time the new baby gets here… He sleeps in his crib and has been sleeping there since he was 4 months old. Any advice or experiences will be appreciated. Thank you so much!!!

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My 7 yr old step sisters 19 and 15 suddenly want to see her after showing no interest in 3 yrs. I am somewhat apprehensive at letting them around my child because of something that the 19year did to leaf me to believe that their desires to see her is not sincere. You see their father my ex and I are not on speaking terms( boundary issues)  come to my house on the pretense of seeing our child unannounced and call the land line and not leave any messages, and still trying sleep with me though married. Got a prepaid phone for my daughter # given to him to contact her directly.  He called twice 1) apologized when his older children called the 7 yr old at 10:30pm and  2)two days later after he was given her schedule when she can use the phone and her bedtime. No other calls since. Meanwhile, fews days ago,  noticed excepts of a text communication between the 19 yr old with my 7 year old asking some personal information about me and my current fiancé. I told the girl that it was inappropriate for her to do so, she went off on me calling a liar and that I take things too seriously and that I didn’t know how to let go of things at all and was overreacting. My ex was habitually unfaithful, so I left him and not cut him out of my life.  He had gotten very vicious and start spreading rumors about me to the point of causing a rift between me and my family and some friends. When I cut him totally out of my life, he started to deny our child and has not have any contact with her. I don’t care what they do, just let me be to raise my child in peace which seems to be somewhat a problem for them. And when his new wife got charged for domestic battery for hitting him in December, he sent his kids when I would not talk to him. I just found out that he was the one answering the text messages that his daughter sent me. What do you make of all of this drama?

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