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So to start off, I'm coming at this from someone who has a lot of smart Tech in my home

Not just smartphones/smart TV's, I'm running Sensibo smart air con controllers, smart lights in every room, smart power points to run my grey water pump, smart speakers in almost every room, smart lights on my patio, integrated smart cameras across the property, indoor and outdoor mesh across the acre, so my home is pretty integrated.

Our home isn't huge, basically a 20x20m (so what's that's, 60x60 feet?) footprint, timber frame, brick veneer, time roof...so nothing weird, not overly big, not like a metal box shipping container home or anything.

Anyways, the Owlet base station can't be in his room where he spends the day, because if for any reason we walk to the other end of the house with him, it screams.

We can't put it in the loungeroom, because if he's in his bedroom, it screams.

We don't want to put it in the kitchen, halfway, because kitchen and food spills, cooking stuff, if it's charging things could get on it, etc.

Plus there's nowhere convenient to put it.

And finally, the app has zero chill. I had to completely uninstall it because the only way to make it shut up is to either turn off notifications at the system level, or uninstall it.

Putting phone on silent? Nope. Put media on silent? Nope. Force close app? Nope, restarts in the background.

So I'm at work, in a meeting, and it's suddenly screaming at 11 while the wife is at home and took his sock off, or walked too far from the base station.

It is the most finnicky piece of smart Tech I have used in years.

It's 2014 level smart Tech, not 2024.

Who is really buying this stuff and giving it great reviews? It's woefully unreliable and the app is atrocious.

If anyone is considering, I'd say save your money.

The camera is alright though.

Have #2 coming. Looking for a Black Friday bargain, what is the best camera currently on the market that has WiFi. I’m not looking for something crazy like the nanit. I just need something with a good base unit and reliable wifi/picture etc. I’ve been using a vtech unit with my oldest which is fine although the base unit has maybe 3 seconds of battery

The wife is going back to work on Monday, I just started my very generous child care leave from work for the next two months. We have a 6 month old (9 month gestational, born 3 months premature)

Problem is, I play with him in multiple hour chunks throughout the day since he was born, but I have no idea at all how I am going to do this all day every day for the next two months. Honestly feels a bit overwhelming now that its actually here.

Any tips to keep me from going crazy? Its starting to get pretty cold where we live, so outdoor stuff is going to get limited as the winter progresses.

The only goal I have right now is to get him to crawl (lots of tummy time) and uhh thats about it.

Our daughter loves watching me play warthunder on weekends, I thought Minecraft would be a good sensory, thought process kind of game. She gets to play for about 30 minutes a week on adventure mode, and she loves placing blocks all over the place, making a million fires, finding turtles, and trying to build a house that generally ends up as random piles of blocks all over an island.

Am I stunting her mental growth or encouraging her imagination?

My 14 year old boy, funny, introverted, nerd: Shares with me a plain list via Google docs that he can keep updated.

My 12 year old girl (technically not a teen, behaves like one), extroverted, loud, physical, also a nerd: has put together a slide deck and won’t let us see it until she gets to present it to us both on the TV and make her case for each item (each of which have been exhaustively researched)

Man they crack me up.

It’ll be a tight Christmas this year, so I’m not sure how much of any of their wishes will come true, but we do our beat, right fellow dads?

Just got the sneekpeak confirmation of a boy (finally) after 3 girls (also all correct through sneekpeak). I'm waiting for DNA test before getting too excited and have heard that sneekpeak can show false positives, so interested to hear how often it has been wright/wrong for you all

Maybe some of us are lucky enough to have a full blown "man cave". But where do you guys go to get some solace? Deck or a patio? Garage? Favorite chair in the living room? If you can manage some time for yourself, where do you hang out and clear your head?

Dads, dadas, daddies, and brush.

The teeth. After the toothfairy collects them, are we saving them? Are we planting them under flowers? Are we using them as slingshot ammo to deal with those pesky fae?

Wife and I are at a loss. Share your dark dental secrets.

I want to know all the sweet features to look for, how to modify them to run longer etc.

What do you got?

Need help dads. I have a toddler who has been sick for a little bit. He had a high fever but that’s gone away mostly. But my kiddo has been really resisting help which I chalk up to being two. But one of the struggles has been about drinking water. Because he was sick I tried to make sure he got lots of water which he then started refusing and throwing tantrums over. I may have made my own bed here but now I don’t know what to do. I really didn’t mean for this to become a power struggle and the kid needs to drink water. Anyone face a similar situation? Thanks dads, I really appreciate any insight or advice

My son is turning 5 in a couple weeks and one thing he wrote on his birthday wishlist was "moNsTER"... I want to oblige but am not sure what a cool monster would be..?

he's at an in between phase where he's not interested in kids cartoons anymore and thinks he likes scary things, but can't actually sit through a "scary" movie... (note: I mean like Harry Potter not like Nightmare on elm street or something).

So I'm kind of at a loss... What's a "Scary Monster" that isn't to "kiddy" while also not being actually terrifying..?

This is what my 7yr old just said and its given me a pain in my stomach

For context, we said he could finish a movie if he went to his kickboxing class but when he came home he just had a full on meltdown because he has had a full on day and is pretty shattered

I gave him a few chances and overlooked getting splashed a lot at bathtime but he carried on. Crying and shouting, kind of sounding like my 2yr old so I called bedtime and that is when he said it.

He's just going to sleep now and I can see this was the best thing for him...tired kids and comfy beds = sleep and he can watch it in the morning

So, I'm sure I've done right thing and it won't be the last time he says something like that

Still though, that shit cuts deep

So I’m catching the Little Mermaid on day four of a sick kid marathon. Been a long time since I actually watched any of it and I have got to hand Eric a trophy for being a straight shooter heading for upper management. Got the love of his men, man of the sea, doesn’t just fall for any floozy but a woman who saved him after he went under surviving an explosion that leveled a clipper saving who? That’s right his Dog.

Then, at the end when Triton is handing over his soul I’m saying to myself bro if she’s dead the contract is unenforceable: stab this bitch. You have the tool in hand.

Well Eric catches my drift. Whole thing going sideways, woman he was about to marry five minutes ago is now a magic Kaiju octopus. Gets an aging trader aimed at him in an apocalyptic whirlpool, does he give up? Hell no, you aim a weapon at me you better not miss call the ambulance but not for me he takes that jagged waste of a ship and rams it right through her. Boom! Resolution. That’s how you protect the woman you love.

Any other super badass male role models swimming in this Disney ocean? That dad from Luca, also dope.

Just when you thought kids meal toys could not get any better...check out this plastic barbwire fence toy we got tonight. Countless hours of fun ahead for the kiddos.

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Had our 12 week screening - little was was measuring 3 days ahead and moving like crazy!

Seems at this point it was all down to perfectly imperfect timing all around, and hopefully the rest of the pregnancy is uneventful

I'll keep it simple, I don't love my wife anymore. She is gaslighting me, heckles me whenever she gets an opportunity, also Our sex life is dead. I can't divorce as I have a little one, I want her to have both her parents in picture, also culturally divorce is frowned upon in my community.

Fellow dads how do you manage to keep yourself sane and motivated. every single day I feel sad, I can't express or show it in my face, she gets mad if I am sad, so I cry or mourn while am alone.

TLDR at bottom

Some background: my step son moved in with us in May, the past 5 years he has lived with his grand mother. I missed a lot of his development from 4yo to 9yo apart from a few weeks or months a year when he would visit us.

He lies often whether it is an outright lie or a lie of omission. Any time he is playing with a sibling and the sibling is hurt he didn't do anything, any time something breaks he didn't do anything, any time he gets conduct points off at school it's someone else's fault or the teacher misunderstood what he did, and he will also often outright not tell us the truth. Ex: this morning he said he took the dog out and the dog pooped. Within 30 minutes of being inside the dog pooped in the kitchen. We asked and he said the dog pooped, we asked him where the poop is and he said he put the poop baggie in the outside trash can. We told him to take us to the trash can and show us, all of a sudden the story changed to "he pooped outside but idk where". That is one example I can give many like that.

Another frequent "lie" is simply a result of him not paying enough attention to what he did, what he is doing, and what he is saying. So he just blurts something out and it turns out that was not what happened.

I've been doing some research and almost everything I read states "don't give consequences that'll just make him lie more, just talk to him and figure out why he is lying". Guess what? We have been talking to him about it since May and it has gotten slightly better but it is still frequent enough to be frustrating. We ask him why he lies and he says "idk". We try mentioning reasons we think he might (do you think you'll get in trouble, do you think we will assume you aren't telling the truth, do people lie to you) and he picks one of the reasons we give but it is never consistent. We emphasize that you won't get in trouble for telling the truth, but your actions are separate from telling the truth about your actions.

I don't want to do "you lied so you are grounded for 2 weeks" but I'm running out of steam here, dads. This morning I tried something new:

I told him at this point I have no trust in him because of how much he lies. I asked him how that makes him feel and he said sad. I asked him if he lies because he thinks we will just assume he is lying, he said yes (again there is no consistency in him choosing a reason I think he just chooses what sounds good to him in the moment or what he thinks we want to hear). Nonetheless, I said I don't like him feeling that way and I want to trust him. So going forward I will extend the trust that what he tells me is the truth. Clean slate. I will trust what he tells me until or if I find out he isn't telling the truth. But if I find out he isn't telling the truth there will be consequences, I don't know what they are yet but there will be.

As I mentioned before I missed out on 5 years of his life which means I have never raised a 5 year old, a 6 year old, a 7 year old, or an 8 year old. I know some of this is developmentally appropriate but I also know much of it is not. What is your experience with this?

TLDR: My 9yo lies a lot and I'm at my wits end. What are some good ways to handle this?

He likes Elden Ring, fishing, golfing games, baking, and grilling! I want to spoil him!

Our 10 month year old has just been diagnosed with chicken pox. Caught it early too. This is on top of him having a throat infection. (Literally socialised him once earlier in the week...). Last few days there's been a lot of crying, and little sleep for any of us.

Problem is he is superglued to mum. She can calm him down somewhat and he will fall asleep ontop of her. When I try and take over it's just crying. She is doing the heavy lifting, while I take care of everything else. But she is exhausted.

What can I do to give my wife more of a break here?

I'm genuinely curious - when did/do you start introducing farm duties and responsibilities? Are you more of a 'learn by watching' or 'hands-on from day one' type of family? What's your approach to balancing childhood freedom with teaching the value of farm work? And how do you handle it when screens and games seem more appealing than farm chores? Share your experiences if you want to!

So I got a 14 month old that wakes up at 3 or 4 in the morning regardless of when he gets to bed. He only gets one nap before 3pm and most nights we keep him up until 8:30 or 9pm and the little dude still wakes up at the ass crack of before the damn sun! He doesn’t get anything other than water and milk to drink and an extremely limited amount of sweets. It’s getting really old really fast as I am the only one that can also wake up that early with him. Do any of you deal with this and how so?

I have a 4.5 month old at home, so there isn't a ton of free time these days. However, when I am able to sneak away for a bit while my wife is on baby duty, I love going to the movies. My schedule allows me to go on weekdays, so it's great because there's no one there and I have most theaters to myself. What are you guys doing to help keep your sanity?

Edit-I should clarify that I mostly work weekends, so I do have some time during the week during naps or if my wife takes the baby while she’s running errands.

Years ago, I saw online that baby teeth are important to hold onto because of stem cells. More than that, I just couldnt toss them in the garbage like useless hunks of enamel. We fought hard to keep these little chompers clean and healthy.

I happened to have an old pill bottle with a child safe cap, so I tossed any teeth carefully extracted from under pillows into the bottle for safekeeping. I just added the first molar to the jar, and realized that I must seem like a psycho killer.

Tell me I'm not alone? Tell me I'm not the only "tooth fairy" that keeps the evidence?

I'm not sure how often your household listens to the story of Goldilocks, but in our house we are currently averaging about two to three times per every single day...

Sometimes listening to the audiobook on the way TO school, nearly always listening to the audiobook on the way home FROM school, during bedtime routine when we read three stories, she chooses two of those to be two DIFFERENT printed versions of Goldilocks, and then where we used to do a song before bed, she now requests and improv parent-told rendition of Goldilocks instead of a song.

Well all of this is perfectly fine and good, though we can't help but feel like Goldilocks the character is not only a suboptimal role model, but an ABSOLUTE MONSTER.

I'm not just saying that she's guilty of breaking and entering, destruction of property, and several other open and shut legal infractions, though that is absolutely the case. I'm saying she is physically a creature of nightmares.

While there are levels of variance across each version of the Goldilocks story, they all agree that Goldilocks canonically breaks Baby Bear's chair and is either the perfect fit, or can barely fit in Baby Bear's bed.

Since the bear in question is walking, talking, wearing clothes, using sophisticated utensils, and in one version of the story, using glue and advanced tools to repair his own furniture, let's assume that this is not a NEWBORN baby bear, but rather a bear cub endearingly named "Baby Bear."

While the stories don't specifically state the sub-genus of these bears, experts identify bears categorically as "cubbies," "subbies" (sub-adults), and adults. Various sources define cubs as anywhere from 1 year to 2.5 years depending on genus. Again, a certain degree of variability needs to be considered here as cubs will stay with their mother anywhere from 18 months to age 3 or 5 in some bears.

To be conservative, let's operate on the assumption that Baby Bear is about 2 years old. Depending on species, this puts Baby Bear at roughly 150-200 lbs and 5-6 ft in length.

To not only fill this bear's bed, but BREAK a chair made for this sized bear, Goldilocks must be at least 1.5x that size, putting her closer to 250 or 300 lbs and 6-7 ft.

We also know she's not obese since she walks merrily through the forest, climbs stairs, and does other active things in all versions of the story.

If we operate on the assumption that she is A. A healthy 250-300 lbs and B. Less than 15 year old

We have to assume that she is only a "cub" herself and still has at least 50% of her growth trajectory remaining.

It might therefore be imagined that Goldilocks is a poorly behaved, law breaking GIANT, capable of growing to be 9-10 full feet in height and at least 500-600 pounds of force.

I hope to believe in the version of the story where she learns the error of her ways and makes amends, because if she stays on a path of mischief, she could become an absolutely unstoppable force of destruction and devastation.

Thank you for attending my Ted Talk.

My son just turned one this week. We are wanting to move him over to regular oatmeal and more solids. What do you think? Any ideas for foods for him.

Currently we feed him purées, rice, small bites of chicken and food that we eat.

Just got result of a boy finally after 3 girls, but trying to stay level headed until DNA test. Have heard that sneakpeek can easily be a false positive if contaminated so curious to hear how accurate it's been for everyone else.