New mom-probably a silly question

I recently had my first baby and we have her pediatrician's appointment soon. When going to things like this, are you just supposed to carry the car seat in or bring the baby in the stroller? The stroller seems big and might get in the way, but the car seat is a little heavy for me to carry right now, as I am still physically recovering from giving birth. I also don't want to seem weird if I do the wrong thing! Thank you for any advice. via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/3aQYTeu

My almost 4 year old son has a habit of telling me he loves me when I'm wiping his ass.

Obviously it's really sweet and reminds me why I'm willing to wipe this humans shit out of his crack but god damn its awkward lol. Just the way he says in a soft high pitch voice "daddy...I love you" right as the toilet paper in my hand is about to touch the brown bullseye. Oh the joys of parenting...Edit: just so we're all on the same page, I'm aware it's a good sign that he is so aware of his feelings, and in turn, my feelings while doing something unenjoyable. I'm just sharing a funny story that I am excited to tell him when hes older. via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2VPIwL6

Would you let your 16 yr old daughter go to Denmark for 2 weeks with her boyfriend and his family?!?!

My daughter is smart, responsible and caring. She works, gets straight A’s and is in marching band and charities. She has been with her boyfriend for one year. He is a nice boy. Her boyfriends family loves and adores my daughter. The boyfriend and his family are all from Denmark. They are fluent in Dutch and the trip to Denmark will involve visiting their family members. (I will not let her go if this covid thing is still going strong) so my question is, would YOU let your daughter go? For the cultural experience? The adventure? It is a once in lifetime opportunity, but I am fearful to not be with her. Should my fear of the unknown keep her from going? Please help me decide! Thanks via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2Wc6gI3

Worried about raising a socially awkward kid

I'm expecting and I have a brand new anxiety to bother with since all the old anxieties weren't enough.My husband and I have both been weirdoes all our lives. We've never belonged with anyone but each other, not even our families all that much. He had some trauma as a teenager which took a lot of time to get over, and I had mental illnesses all through my teens and early twenties.So we didn't really learn to socialize and even when we do, we aren't very good at it. We have some friends. I am very good at being social in a superficial way, so I have a lot of acquaintances but few friends.Neither of us are anxious about being social, we rather like people and social situations. We just aren't very good at it. We work hard at this stuff and we even took up therapy, but really, it doesn't feel like a skill that can be taught. It's just something we can get better at with practice, but we don't really have many people to practice with, and the current situation doesn't help. Also my mental health issues means it takes me a lot of time to finish my work, and it's difficult to make time to socialize in general. I also cut out a lot of the toxic people in my life, so my social circle has become much smaller.Anyway we're expecting and we are very happy. We are very confident for the most part. We have a lot of help from our families and both our moms have great skills with raising kids as they are educators, so most things don't bother us.The thing that is currently on my mind is that our lack of social life might end up affecting our kids. We aren't great at making people like us and hang out with us repeatedly. We also don't have great social skills despite our efforts, and worry we'll be terrible at helping our kids in social situations. We don't want people to treat our kids differently because of us, and we don't want our kids copying our bad social behaviors.We are willing to put in effort if we need to to become better, but we don't know what to do or where to go to learn to be better or to even learn what we're doing wrong. I see a therapist for mental health issues and she isn't sure how to help me. We read books, and it helps some, but how much can a book tell you how to talk to people?Is this a big deal as a parent? My parents and his are incredibly social and everyone loves them, so that seems like "ideal parent qualities" to both of us.It's also not a hereditary issue like ASD we have, so I'm not worried about passing it on. via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2KMTYRi

Found a way to get my 5 and 7 year olds to practice handwriting

I just folded some blank paper in half and stapled to make a book."Who wants to make their own book?"Ive been failing at getting them to practice handwriting this month. This one finally got them to enthusiastically dive into a handwriting project. They both decided to make comic books. via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2WgDGWe

I lost my cool today

I was putting my 11 month old son down for a nap. Usually it’s a 5 minute process and he’s out for between30-60 minutes. If he’s teething sometimes it’s more, but within 5 more minutes of giving him Tylenol he’s out.This morning it was 45 minutes of screaming, crying, kicking. I’ve never, EVER experienced this before from him. I became so overwhelmed and frustrated like I’ve never felt. Twice I put him in the crib and ran out of the room, almost crying myself. The second tome when I came back in I said (loudly enough to hear myself over him) that this is enough and I can’t take it anymore! About 15 minutes after that he finally fell asleep but was wimpering still, so I let him sleep on me in the chair (something we haven’t done in a long, long time).After he was asleep I caught myself almost crying again because I couldn’t believe how quickly that frustration and overwhelming feeling took over. I couldn’t believe I raised my voice to him! And also that I couldn’t help him stop crying this time, that he was helplessly alone in figuring out how to make himself stop because I couldn’t. I felt so helpless and alone too.I’ve been on parent duty 24/7 since the virus. Everyone who usually helps (including his dad) is either far away and can’t travel, is a high risk person or the caretaker of one, or works in a hospital. I’ve been a single parent for about 8 weeks now, and daycare has been closed too. I love my son, but I need a break! I need just to get my nails done, or hair cut, or to go for a jog without pushing a stroller, or have a glass (bottle? -kidding) of wine and then be able to go to sleep and not have to worry about possibly waking up to nurse or whatever. (And even if places do start opening, I still wouldn’t go for a few weeks)Just needed to vent, thanks for listening. via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/3cTs95E

"Teddy's tired..." - Coaxing naptime

My toddler is nearing but not quite at the stage of dropping the midday nap... If we let him skip it, he passes out around 5, misses dinner, and is up at 7 all bright-eyed and refreshed... And bedtime's at 8:30. So then it's a fight for bedtime. Just chaos. So he needs his nap still, but he's fighting it hard lately (probably out of boredom/under-stimulation from stay-at-home orders, as much as I try to play outside with him--there just aren't great replacements for parks/playgrounds, museums, libraries, Grandma's house, running errands together, etc.) My desperate, not-great strategy was bribing him with "afternoon tea" (a little chocolate syrup in his milk and a little cookie) if he took a good nap... But he would just keep pressing the envelope, and when I'd inform him "No cookie!" "No chocolate milk!", there was nowhere to go from there...So today, I overheard him tucking Teddy in while he was duncing around in his bed not-napping, and then he was walking around on his bed yelling, so I came in and stage-whispered, "Hey, Teddy's tired and trying to sleep! Look at him, you tucked him in and now you're making all this noise." And he looked guiltily at Teddy, so I asked, "Want me to tuck you in with Teddy?" And suddenly he was all curled up with Teddy making sure I tucked them both in. ♥️ I made Teddy's head nod a little with a fake snore, and the kid was stroking Teddy's head gently when I closed the door, and he's currently asleep at a decent time! Phew!What are your strategies for fighting back against fighting needed sleep? via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/35etNML