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Don't need it anymore myself, but still really appreciate when I see that even the local beer hall has a changing table in the (unisex) bathroom.

If any of you dads have any insight as to what factors influenced this decision for you--one way or the other--I would appreciate it, either in a comment or a DM. Thanks!

Hey fellow dads.

ChatGPT has release a Santa voice mode that lets you chat with the man in red.

I tried it out with my nearly four year old son yesterday and he loved it. He asked Santa about the North Pole, what kind of cookies he likes and what we should leave out for the reindeer. I treated it like we called Santa on the phone.

Just wanted to share in case you want to spark some Christmas magic. Santa sounds a bit like John Cleese. You do need a subscription to access voice mode.

My wife, myself and our two year old son were just out christmas shopping.

As we were leaving the store i told my son that he needed to hold my hand as we crossed the street. He doesn’t hate holding my hand but he HATES holding my hand as we cross the street. He’s wearing a long sleeve shirt and when i got to grab his hand i over reach and hold onto his wrist.

He goes into his dead weight mode and his arm slips through his shirt, through my grip and hits his face on the asphalt. His front tooth chipped and cracked all the way past his gums.

We took him to the dentist and they said it had to be removed. They had to put him into some medieval constraint in order to numb and pull the tooth. He screamed and cried. i started crying and continued crying for the next hour.

He’s going to be missing a tooth for at least four years. I feel terrible.

We are supposed to be the unshakable rock. We are supposed to be the undaunted warrior. We are supposed to be the trustworthy provider. We have to be the ultimate problem solver.

We feel like we have our entire world on our shoulders and we can't give anyone a reason to question our stability. They're all counting on us. Our greatest fear is letting everyone who is counting on us down. But we can never show or talk about that fear. It could crack the trust and our credibility. We need that to be a good leader, right?

It's crushing. It's overwhelming at times. But the exhaustion becomes more powerful than the emotions. No time to feel. No time to cry. Just sleep when you can and get back to work. Our feelings don't matter anyway. Besides, we always have to put theirs first. Can't take time for yourself. It's not satisfying anymore anyway. Besides They need it more. Everyone else is so stressed and tired, we wouldn't want to burden them with our bullshit too. Just shut the fuck up and be a man.

Right?

1. What is the best set of Army Men (plastic green guys) that you have come across? (Accessories would be awesome).

2. How did you play with Army Men growing up, or how do you play with them now?

3. What ways can I use the Army Men to teach my son some good historical context?

We converted the crib to a “big kid” bed. We’re gonna be traveling for the holiday, and I’m still not sure what our little one should be sleeping in. Yes we’re in daycare and use a cot there for naps.

What did you use for a travel bed, immediately post-crib?

I am raising a daughter With blonde curls that fall down her back- light as spider silk- that turn clear when they get wet.

I am raising a daughter who runs impossibly fast, but only when the front door opens. She hits me at full speed, but I forgive her because she is the lightest 40 pounds I’ve ever lifted.

I am raising a daughter with a tree trunk heart. It weaves its roots through her body, controls her hands, feet, mouth, mind. When she is sad, she is sad all over. When she smiles she can bloom with everything she has. We lay on the couch and I feel her branches weaving with mine, and sometimes she’s the only thing that keeps me rooted.

I am raising a daughter who greets every person she sees. The word stranger only applies to the people who don’t wave back.

And I know that she will have to learn to stop someday, but I remember that every day before she does is another 24 hours where she sees the world as something pure, where she feels the love of every passer-by and her tree trunk heart bears fruit for anyone who stops to pick it.

I did my research, so I know that the first step to being a good father is cleaning up the room so that there is nothing that can hurt her. Then, when she can walk, you do the whole house, and when she can run, you do the neighborhood, and when someone runs as fast as my daughter, you have to start on the world. So I’ve been picking up bits of trash, replacing loose screws, filling potholes, and finding the boys with nice cars whose pants sit a bit too low, and I’ve been helping them speak. I hope that, when my daughter says hello, I’ve taught enough of them that they respond with their voice, and not their eyes, and not their hands.

But to change the world, it takes a village, so I know that the first F on my report card will be when my wife shows her how to hold her keys between her fingers.

I am raising a daughter who lays out on a towel on the lawn, staring at the stars. She says she wants to be an astronaut, but I know that all of her carbon, hydrogen, oxygen longs to sit in the sky, burning with the rest. See, I watch as she lays back and the first goosebump starts to tingle, and she watches the stars do the same. She lets her nerves dance as the skin raises, and she learns that she is more than a star, she is more than an astronaut, she is even more than a girl with spider-silk hair; she is a universe.

I am raising a daughter who makes up songs for everything she does. She sings when we brush her hair, when we get in the car seat, she sings to the mirror. In every note I feel her Joy, but I can also hear the teachers who told me to quiet down, and I hope she never meets them. So we sing into the mirror loudly together and it is beautiful, and I want to teach her to climb mountains and sing from the top because even the off-key notes are hers, and the world needs them.

I am raising a daughter in a new land where I’ve never seen a map. Every street corner is selling dysmorphia, every screen pumps out eating disorders, every billboard is offering anxiety. I know what it means to feel out of place, but I don’t know what it feels like when every place is crowded with people who are just a little happier, just a little more pretty.

From every TikTok dance in the hallway to every girl whose class picture looks just a little like someone else, I want to scream that you are not them. That the girl in the picture is posed differently and picked and prodded until she is something that isn’t. She is pretty, but she never really smiles and never really cries. She can’t sing into the mirror or snort when she laughs. Smile with your whole face, mouth open, missing front tooth and all. Sing a bit off pitch from mountain tops. The girl in the picture is pretty, but it is up to you to be beautiful.

So when she picks up a picture or a screen, I want her to treat them like Barbies. They’re fun, they’re easy, but you can put them down when you need to. When you hold them, don’t hold them like a sermon.

I am raising a daughter who will never make 80 cents on the dollar. We’ve been negotiating since day one, and your son will never measure up to her reading level. We’ve been doing high kicks in the garage for when that glass ceiling comes lurking.

I am raising a daughter, who will someday be on a path with a man to the left and a bear to the right. I hope she walks straight forward into the trees. I hope that tree-trunk heart roots down and finds itself, that you let your branches extend until you find the thing that gives you fire. You sing, you draw, you smile until it hurts and then you let the fire carry you, so when a bear walks into your woods, he’ll only see the trees. And when a man walks into your woods, he won’t find you until he looks up, and sees you in the stars, pulsating with the universe.

And I hope that when you find what you need, you walk back the way you came and find home. I hope I don’t run to the door too fast, but you have to understand. I’ve had a hole in me the size of a tree trunk.

This is the first poem I’ve written since my daughter was born.

If you have a clingy newborn who doesn't like to be put down. Newborn baby wraps are a life saver. You can now hold your baby and get work done around the house. I made oatmeal cookies for the wife with this little guy tied around my chest.

There are hundreds of book recommendations out there, but what would you recommend if you could only recommend one?

AM almost A

….and my son wants to hug toy metal cars and wooden trains.

2 for 2 Team Girl here, epidural is going in so I'm out in the lounge. Everyone is doing great, we're half dilated and baby is getting close. Contractions giving the 1 2 punch but Mom is bearing gracefully. 3 yo and Nana are rooting for us. Feeling so lucky and ready, like riding a bike right?

Thanks to the new dads and elder dads for sharing their experiences here. We got this!

I planned on breaking in my two pre-teen boys with the glory of building their own PC this Christmas. I'm curious about what solutions anyone else has used for acquiring games with multiple children on distinct devices. I play myself, so I want to avoid buying 3 copies of whatever AAA title comes down the line. We do play together cooperatively in RPGs and other e-sports titles cross-platform (via 1 PC and 1 XboxX), so we're already established in the GamePass ecosystem and Steam.

Every room has CAT6a. I'm curious to see how much mileage I can get our of some old titles playable via LAN, like C&C, WoW2, which are either abandonware or available for cheap.

Any suggestions are appreciated. My intent is to limit their devices to a VLAN, but bonus points for any other suggestions for keeping them quarantined

Good afternoon!

I need some advice on what you guys think is the best option/protocol health insurance wise for a 7 month old for the next year.

I know the basic differences of bronze vs gold plans on the marketplace (because as a teacher, my health insurance would be 600 a paycheck...), but I do not know what would be best for an infant?

In your guys' experience, do you think it would be better to pay an extra 1,560 dollars for a gold plan, or stick with a bronze plan with obviously a much higher deductible. The out of pocket maximum is essentially the same, just the gold plan does not charge for primary care visits, deductible is 2,000, and specialists would be more expensive obviously. The Bronze plan would be 50 dollars a visit, deductible of 7,500.

My son does not have any reason to go to the hospital at this point and is healthy, but obviously has been sick a couple times from daycare.

I appreciate your input and time!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqQgDwA0BNU

I have a 3 year old son. He came up to me, put out his hand and said "Sticky!!"

I examined his hand and peeled off an unknown object. I quickly discovered it was a booger.

Thanks for the gift, son.

I saw a post about a month ago from someone who fixed their phone addiction. It kind of hit hard when I read it. I know it's been a problem for me for a while but I never really tracked my stats until I saw that. I realized my phone pickups were at ~225 a day. Overall screen time anywhere from 5-7hrs a day.

I think phone are awesome (see: reddit, fantasy, do my job from anywhere, etc)... but far too often I catch myself reaching for my phone when I really don't even need to at the expense of paying attention to my kids or better half.

I really don't even care how much I'm on my phone at work, but I really wanted to start being better at home, and cut back on checking it all the time for no reason when I'm with friends (those times are more and more rare these days so want it to count).

Figured I'd share what's working in case it inspires anyone like the past post did for me.

• Moved social media icons to the second tab of my phone
• Turn off almost all notifications
• Completely block social media, reddit, etc from 5-8pm every day
• Started doing phone free Sunday's (after my fantasy line up is finalized I'll block everything)
• Set up grayscale to kick in at 5pm everyday (I hate it, but I love it)

My biggest motivation was for my kids, it's already flying by and I don't want to wake up in 10 years and realize I wasted a lot of little moments I'll never get back.

The age gap between me and my sons is much more like a grandparent and grandson and sometimes I feel so outdated. What things should I do to better connect with them?

My wife told me that she now considers us divorced and I’m just in a bad place right now.

Background info:

• We both have diagnosed ADHD and are both medicated.
• We haven’t tried couples therapy because we can’t get a baby sitter.
• Neither of us have family to help or friends we can trust to help with our toddler.
• Both work from home.
• Sex non existent

Long story short we just went on our first proper flight with our son for a holiday (business trip/holiday) and I just messed up the majority of it. Mainly self sabotage I’m thinking without going into too many details.

It’s been a while coming and I’m just tired. There is a lot of resentment towards each other. She does 80% of everything regarding the mental load with house management/parenting and I just can’t can’t get it together.

When I feel like I’m making headway or improving as a parent/husband, I will make a mistake and it’s like back to 0. To quote my wife “whenever I think you have improved you go and prove me wrong.” As a result I just think, “what’s the point when success seems so unattainable?”

I’ve tried seeing things from her eyes by reading of other women being fed up with their husbands, and I get what the mental load is. It just seems like so much that I get overwhelmed by the amount I need to learn / catch up on to meet her half way. Not to mention slumps from the ADHD when energy/dopamine is low.

Have you ever played a game where no matter how hard you try to overcome a certain level, or how much you figure out the controls/strategies, it still beats your ass back to lvl 1 until you realise, you actually just suck at it? That’s kind of what my life has felt like since becoming a parent.

I’m about to go to sleep and to be honest with you other dads, i am really terrified of being alone. That I will end up divorced and that my son will grow up to want me out of his life too.

Anyways, just sound boarding a little and trying to get the feeling of dread from my gut. Thanks for reading.

My wife likes to tease me by sending me all the memes and reels she sees related to husbands and dads spending three hours on the toilet. I decided to come up with a reason behind it that she couldn’t laugh at too hard. (I don’t actually take forever in the bathroom, ain’t nobody got time for that, there are some pretty funny memes though ngl)

What I told her was that the bathroom is the only place and time where a husband and father can, with a clear conscience, say “no” to anything. We can be alone, it can be quiet, sometimes leave the light off so it’s dark. Anything anyone wants from us, we can say no I can’t right now. The standard and expectation of a husband and father is to provide and protect and care for the family which turns into dropping anything and everything without notice to take care of something else. In the bathroom we are safe, we don’t have to feel bad about saying “I’m busy” it’s a mental health break. I feel like there is some truth to it, what do yall think? lol

Alright Dads, need some advice. My 6yo asked Santa for a punching bag that hangs from the ceiling and can move around the whole house on a track into every room. So far whatever he has asked Santa for has been realistic and he has gotten it. Trying to find a good way to tell him Santa doesn't always bring what you ask for, he brings the best gift he thinks you will like, without him starting to get suspicious (he is very clever...) Maybe there is a book out there that has a message like this? I feel like him reading it in a book will be less suspicious for him than it coming from his parents.

My wife loves her new schedule. She leaves around 7pm and gets home around 2am, so she gets to spend more of her day being Mama, she's netting more sleep, and making a bit more money. It also makes bedtime Papa's domain, which is good because I'm really good at it. I won't go into a whole description of the room, but each of the girls has their spot and then there's a padded bit of floor that's communal.

The bedtime routine starts with everyone just chilling in the middle of the room. The girls climb on things, play with the mirror or our serious collection of large stuffed animals. Then, I send the Dragon (3yo) to her nest, put the Star (18mo) in her bouncer and pick up the Moon (18mo). The lights go out and I sing to them all until the Moon is out. The Star is almost always out by this time as well. The Dragon is hit or miss, but she mostly puts herself to sleep once the lights are out.

I get the twins into bed and then lie down on the padded floor. The twins are not quite sleeping through the night yet, but if they rouse and see a big person in the room, they mostly go back to sleep without a fuss. My ass isn't loving the pad, but it's more comfortable than camping.

So, there's this thing called "whale fall". It's when a whale dies and its body falls to the sea floor. It gets a name, albeit a not very creative one, because it is such a significant event for the ecosystem. On the way down, scavengers take bites out of it, but when it comes to rest is when the real action starts. Entire mini-ecosystems spring up from a whale carcass. There are whole species of sea creature that are only found whale falls and these ecosystems can last for decades.

Something like 5% of a whale's mass is lipids and these get into the soil on the seafloor to be consumed by bacteria mats, which in turn feed various shellfish. In theory, the process of consuming all the lipids could take a century. A whole century of life, spread out across a hundred feet or so of seafloor, just from one dead whale.

I wake up around 9pm. The plan is to do grownup stuff until one of the twins needs quieting or I need to sleep. (My mornings start at 5am.) But this evening, the Dragon has nestled herself against my chest. It's a bit of a trick because she's taken up a very narrow strip of floor at the edge of the pad. I would scooch back to give her more room, but the Star has propped her beloved stuffed leak (seriously, it's a plush green onion that's bigger than she is and that's her security toy) against my back and is sleeping with her face buried in the line where toy meets Papa. The Moon has crawled out of bed and thrown herself dramatically over my legs. I'm sleeping on my side here, legs stacked, and this little girl is face-up, arms-out draped over my calves like a dying innocent in a Renaissance painting.

There's a whole history to why and what it meant to me to be at the center of a cuddle puddle, but this isn't the time to talk about trauma and healing. Suffice to say that I drank in the moment for a while. I could have just spent the night like that, but I had promised my wife I would do the dishes. Gingerly, I got up and repositioned the Star, then the Moon, then the Dragon. Not back in their beds, but in a cuddle puddle that would hopefully keep them asleep for a few hours while I did my stuff.

There wasn't enough light to do that thing where you stand in the doorway and just fondly watch them sleep, but the sentiment was there. Just three little girls resting in the lingering warmth of Papa's body as he goes out to make good on a promise.

IYKYK

I have a 3 year old who is clingy, high energy, and also refuses to play by herself. No matter what my wife and I do, it's never 'enough.' If we take her to a playground to get her energy out, she's ready for the next 'activity' as soon as we get home.

We can put out crayons and coloring books, but she won't sit and color unless we color with her. She has a ton of dolls, multiple playsets, a kitchen playset, climbing gym, magna tiles, trains, etc.. she has a ton of toys, but they don't occupy her attention unless we do them with her.

I can include her by getting her to 'help me' when I'm trying to do something like cleaning or working out but that lasts for 2 minutes and then she's bored, just in the way, and starts acting out for attention and trying to get me to do something else with her.

If I try to just sit down and read a book, watch TV, or do anything remotely relaxing she will just stand in front of me and ask me to play with her.

I try to be as patient as I can because I know she just wants attention and to feel like she's cared for. I'm trying to be a good dad, but I'm feeling myself lose patience for it and it's making me resent my kid.

The only thing we can do that actually gets her out of our hair and to sit still is to put the TV on and let her watch a show, but we haven't been doing that because we don't want it to be the only way she can focus on something without attention.

I feel like I have to hide in my own house just to get some alone time. I'm tired of having someone hanging off of me, always talking over me to get attention, and never being satisfied no matter how much energy I put into trying to be a good parent.