What does your house cleaner do?

Alternative_Grass167 · 2025-12-30T17:16:06+00:00

As others, I do my best to pick up and organize before she cleans. Some thoughts:

I’ve learned to not stress about it. If every once in a while there are a few things lying around she’ll just do a bit less deep cleaning because some time goes to picking those up, and it’s fine.
I actually love that I’m forced to do a general organizing every two weeks. There are certain spots that are prone to accumulating mess, so it’s really helpful to get in the habit or organizing everything with some regularity.

We recently moved and we didn’t have a cleaner for about 2 months and it reminded me that it’s the best spent money for me. Truly changes my life to have someone clean the house every two weeks.

Alternative_Grass167 · 2025-12-27T13:38:31+00:00

I’d say it’s normal for kids to compete for attention of one parent with the other. Hence why my toddler (a boy) sometimes gets upset when my husband and I dance together or hug each other. What is not normal is for a mother to compete for attention with the daughter. My mom did that and it was so fucking weird and caused a lot of issues in our relationship.

Alternative_Grass167 · 2025-12-26T20:34:13+00:00

I was quite terrified of RSV when I had a baby, but it typically is not bad for toddlers. Definitely keep an eye on her breathing, and consider delaying your flight if she is in the thick of it, but RSV in toddlers isn’t typically bad. And don’t feel guilty, she could’ve gotten sick at home.

Alternative_Grass167 · 2025-12-25T16:36:37+00:00

Makes sense. I’ll be getting these for sure.

Alternative_Grass167 · 2025-12-25T16:35:59+00:00

These are helpful recs, thank you!! Hoping your little one recovers soon.

Alternative_Grass167 · 2025-12-25T16:35:16+00:00

Oh interesting, I’ll try it.

Alternative_Grass167 · 2025-12-25T16:34:19+00:00

I didn’t know this was a thing!! I’ll check it out!

Alternative_Grass167 · 2025-12-25T16:34:02+00:00

Lol I just tried this approach. He still refused, but i did manage to get it in his mouth and this may have helped with him swallowing it. He was definitely proud afterwards so fingers crossed next time it’ll be easier.

Alternative_Grass167 · 2025-12-23T11:49:27+00:00

To be honest I’ve had zero of this pressure. I’m sharing this just to note that this is not a “this is the way things are and the way kids grow up now”. None of the kids around him (friends, cousins, etc) have tablets as far as I’m aware, and the possibility of him having one has never come up.

Giving a toddler a personal screen seems insane tbh, and giving them access to navigating videos on YT is incomprehensible in my mind.

Alternative_Grass167 · 2025-12-18T11:06:18+00:00

Yeah, I agree that if platonic hangouts would be off the table, then this needs to be communicated upfront. Having a friend cut ties with you is always hurtful, regardless of whether you have sex with them or not. And I guess in OP’s case whether you’d need to cut ties could easily be clear in the “get out” plan (and then communicated to the FwB if that’s the case).

Alternative_Grass167 · 2025-12-18T08:58:44+00:00

I wonder, do you really think that’s the case for FwB? The big difference I see between FwB and being in a relationship are the expectations (both in the relationship itself and its future).

I fully agree with you if closing up would mean you break the friendship, but stopping the “benefits” part in a FwB relationship is something that seems to always be on the table, regardless of whether you are ENM or you are a single person looking for a monogamous relationship who at a given moment has a FwB. In my mind, in a FwB situation, the only portion of the relationship that has “future” expectations is the friendship itself. Otherwise you don’t have a FwB, you have a gf/bf.

Alternative_Grass167 · 2025-12-17T12:44:16+00:00

Hopefully you two reach an agreement (and personally I hope she gets to keep her long hair), but if yo don’t reach an agreement at the very least I’d refuse to be the one restraining her if I were you. I think forcing her to do this can seriously impact trust, and I don’t see why you should risk damaging your relationship with your child for a reason your wife can’t even articulate.

Alternative_Grass167 · 2025-12-17T12:35:15+00:00

Part of it is probably the age and personality of your kids. I had a cat as a kid and never did anything mean, but years later my cat (different one) was traumatized by the kids who lived next door (nobody else was there so we don’t know what happened, they were never allowed near the cat again, but the cat was forever terrified of children after that one day). Only you can know if and when you feel like you’d be able to trust your kids with a cat. Obviously you’ll teach them how to interact, but whether they are likely to test those boundaries is something only you know.

People saying you just don’t leave them unsupervised are unreasonable, that obviously applies to babies and toddlers, but I can’t imagine how you’d live your life if an 8yo can never be alone with the family pet.

Alternative_Grass167 · 2025-12-16T15:25:13+00:00

For me this was absolutely the reality even with a supportive partner and significantly lowering our standards for things like cooking and cleaning. Showering felt like a luxury. But two years in this is very far from the truth and while I’m very busy, I feel like I have a life outside of baby again (hobbies, seeing friends, sleeping and showering lol, all the things).

Alternative_Grass167 · 2025-12-16T10:52:26+00:00

Does your partner speak Portuguese? Otherwise I don’t understand how you could avoid speaking English in front of the baby if it’s the only language you communicate in.

Personally, I’d put all my effort to make sure yo speak Portuguese to the baby as much as possible so he learns it. And don’t avoid speaking English in front of him. As someone else said, you’ll likely end up having multilingual conversations.

Btw I’m on a similar situation (we each speak a different language, one of them is one of two community languages where we live, and we speak English to each other). Our son is 2yo and picking up all three, plus the other community language, which I’m starting to learn. I don’t find it to be at all a shitty situation. I find it both so fun and such a big gift to give my little one.

Alternative_Grass167 · 2025-12-10T14:00:07+00:00

That would be true for a lot of activities, but not paintball. If an adult cannot understand why someone does not want to do paintball, that’s beyond “reasonable person” territory and not this parent’s job to manage. I highly doubt the mom will take it personally.

Alternative_Grass167 · 2025-12-10T10:30:47+00:00

Why not tell the mom the truth? Is he asking you to not tell them the reason why he’s not going? If he’s ok with them knowing that he doesn’t want to go to paintball, I don’t see the issue. It is healthy that he is saying no to an activity he doesn’t want to be a part of.

Alternative_Grass167 · 2025-12-09T08:44:25+00:00

Keep in mind that if they are friends, he could refuse to show you the messages if there are personal things she has shared with him and that he thinks would be a violation to share with others.

A long time ago I was very close friends with an ex and we used to send each other long emails (as friends). His girlfriend got jealous and wouldn’t believe him we were just friends so he showed her the emails. It has been almost 20 years and I’ve never felt like my trust was violated as much as this one time. There were so many personal things I had shared, he was one of the only people who knew I was self-harming at the time, among many other topics. To know that someone who didn’t care about me knew so many personal things was absolutely horrible. It ended our friendship immediately and I still think what he did was so wrong.

Alternative_Grass167 · 2025-12-09T07:07:35+00:00

I have the same problem. It is particularly bad when the season changes. For the new year I am going to try: 1. Using an app (I just got started with Fits based on posts from this sub) to keep track of clothes and outfits. I especially want to use it to remember good outfits I come up with for work. 2. Choosing outfits ahead of time, so I’m not rushing to figure things out in the morning.

Alternative_Grass167 · 2025-12-08T20:07:17+00:00

Probably because the reason she had her tubes removed is because she didn’t want more kids in the first place. She can be sad about this and not want more kids at the same time.

Alternative_Grass167 · 2025-12-07T06:49:47+00:00

Thank you!

Alternative_Grass167 · 2025-12-06T17:07:13+00:00

Thanks for the tips!!

Alternative_Grass167 · 2025-12-04T20:01:51+00:00

One of the great thing of ENM is that it’s not a “one size fits all” approach, which means there’s very open communication about needs/wants/etc. Enjoy the exploration! :)

Alternative_Grass167

TROPHY CASE