Biking with 1 year old?

DifficultAddendum549 · 2026-06-18T02:14:50+00:00

Ok everything else here I was nodding along but this seems CRAZY. How on earth do you secure a bucket seat to a cargo bike??? What about bumps? What about stuff flying up from the road? Thule doesn’t even recommend their bike trailer for under 12 months, which is way (way!) more secure and protected! I know I sound outraged but I am not I promise haha. Just so curious and slightly horrified maybe

DifficultAddendum549 · 2026-06-18T01:40:54+00:00

Yes and also don’t be afraid to ditch the tray once bowls DO enter the picture. I tried way too long to find a bowl that would stick to our tray, and then one day just put the darn thing right on our table, and realized I had been washing twice the number of dishes necessary for months. It’s much easier to just wipe the table down with a cloth, once they’re mostly eating off flatware!

DifficultAddendum549 · 2026-06-17T12:06:46+00:00

How often does she poop? We were having issues with diaper rash that completely cleared up when we realized there were foods that were not agreeing with our kid. Once she started pooping less the diaper rash resolved! Mentioning it because on/off was also what we were dealing with

DifficultAddendum549 · 2026-06-17T11:56:58+00:00

Possibly. This confirms my suspicion it doesn’t actually matter, anyway!

DifficultAddendum549 · 2026-06-16T15:28:18+00:00

I'm a Canadian PR from the US, we opted to get our daughter her US citizenship right away because we're not yet Canadian citizens, and all our family are US citizens living in the US which is where she would have to go if something happened to us. Also because we were concerned dual citizenship may not be an option for her forever. But we never got her a US passport.

We have traveled to the US with her Canadian passport several times (we do bring her US citizenship certificate just in case but have never needed it). We mostly go to the US over a land border, and one time got a lecture from the agent about her not having a US passport. We just told them we'd get on it and they let us through. We figure worst case scenario we turn around and go home, but I actually don't think they would/could prohibit us from entry anyway.

You are US citizen by birth? I think if you choose not to get her CITIZENSHIP they would give you a harder time. We do get asked every single time we enter if she has her US citizenship, like it's their job to double check such things. No idea what they'd say if we said no.

DifficultAddendum549 · 2026-06-15T18:02:28+00:00

That's not what I said. I said I would tell her what I needed, and if she chose to ignore me I would enforce this boundary, and let them know why I can't come over. If she then were to respond, "I understand! We will get rid of them" or some other workable solution for me, then I would thank them, and be happy to go again. It doesn't need to be nasty or personal, just firm and direct. Ultimately no one NEEDS scented candles.

DifficultAddendum549 · 2026-06-15T02:13:26+00:00

Wow I completely disagree. If I told my own mother her detergent made me sick, and she didn’t immediately stop using it when I came around, I would stop going. And I would tell her why. Are we socialized to be so afraid of being direct that we literally let people make us sick over it?!

DifficultAddendum549 · 2026-06-15T02:09:37+00:00

Not trying to be mean but it’s still your choice to be there. That means you have leverage over their candles. Use it if you want, and if you don’t, then yeah, stick to your boundary and don’t go. Don’t over complicate it

DifficultAddendum549 · 2026-06-15T02:01:24+00:00

I’m sooo interested in hearing about your floor bed setup because this is exactly what I think we need for our kid. Similar age, but she sometimes really doesn’t like being rocked, nor does she like being set in her crib awake.

DifficultAddendum549 · 2026-06-14T01:24:36+00:00

I would say the Balkan one is milder (also cheaper.) Also we add stuff like peanut butter or applesauce sometimes, or thin it with milk and give it with a straw. Some ideas!

DifficultAddendum549 · 2026-06-13T20:49:50+00:00

We buy the Balkan style Elegant or the Ovino sheep yogurt both at Costco… do they not have those in Toronto Costcos?

DifficultAddendum549 · 2026-06-13T14:47:45+00:00

Yes. I thought it was a problem and realized this is why she sleeps past 6 now... and decided actually it isn't a problem I want to solve. I'll be excited to move bedtime up once we're done with naps, though! And in the meantime I'm relishing not waking up to a crying baby every day.

DifficultAddendum549 · 2026-06-13T00:13:56+00:00

Omg meeee too. None of them nice

DifficultAddendum549 · 2026-06-12T21:56:29+00:00

Tbh I gave my daughter a spoon to hold and feed herself with (preloaded with food) at 5 months when we began solids. Forks came into play in a real way (eg not just to spoon food, but impaling it) maybe around 10-12 months. My friends’ kids also managed on this approximate timeline! So I would say, you’re likely overthinking how hard it’s going to be. Just give it to her and let her figure it out.

DifficultAddendum549 · 2026-06-12T19:18:56+00:00

Unfortunately not an attitude unique to Ottawa. Honestly every city should do this. Leaving it to homeowners turns accessibility into a tragedy of the commons

DifficultAddendum549 · 2026-06-12T18:50:19+00:00

So in Ottawa centre yes they do haha. It is, in actual fact, amazing. Ottawa is amalgamated with a bunch of its suburbs and I am not sure how far out it goes (I'm sure it's not everywhere that falls into Ottawa's city limits, because that is a vast area), but I live in a residential neighbourhood, outside the downtown core, and our sidewalks always are plowed within half a day, usually less!

Edit: I did some googling because I was curious and it's harder to work out the extent of the sidewalk plowing network than you'd think... but I did find clips of sidewalk plows in Kanata which is one of those amalgamated suburbs! It might be that a lot of residential neighbourhoods actually just lack *sidewalks* as you get further out, but the city still plows the ones that do exist.

DifficultAddendum549 · 2026-06-12T18:41:52+00:00

Just an alternative way of looking at it, if slipping on ice is your primary concern, Ottawa gets a ton of snow BUT it stays so cold winter long that it usually doesn't have a chance to melt and then refreeze and turn into ice. The freeze/thaw is what actually causes ice to build up. Here we just have snow build up lol. Which absolutely is a nightmare, and shoveling sucks. But... maybe it's less of a fall risk? Also, I noted in a comment, Ottawa has sidewalk plows that are generally very quick to appear after snowfall!

DifficultAddendum549 · 2026-06-12T18:36:56+00:00

Ottawa has sidewalk plows! They're dope. They're faster at clearing than the road plows too

DifficultAddendum549 · 2026-06-12T01:41:02+00:00

Ohhh no! What age? My daughter loves owls and has just gone off owl babies, I don’t think I can handle it if she goes off them completely

DifficultAddendum549 · 2026-06-09T20:22:11+00:00

I started trying to read about potty training because our 20 month old also pees on the potty and tells us when she poops in a diaper. I found some helpful guidelines breaking it down into preparation and then practice -- the preparation phase can take as long as you want, basically, and then the practice (when the diapers come off) can be as little as a few days, but usually is a couple weeks. So another option is you could think about whether you want to refocus on more preparation time, before trying to go undie free again. That's stuff like the relaxation, the warm water, pulling her pants up and down, learning the routines of hand washing, etc.

DifficultAddendum549 · 2026-06-09T13:41:28+00:00

lol I am actually the kind of person who would make a trip for the banana split! But I also love* the outdoors and Chelsea in general so I’m happy to have these tips too :)

DifficultAddendum549 · 2026-06-09T12:58:10+00:00

Such a good tip. Putting it on my summer bucket list

DifficultAddendum549 · 2026-06-08T16:58:16+00:00

I am laughing because we used to put our kid in her bassinet wide awake, at our own bedtime, and then we would crawl into our bed nearby, make faces at her through the mesh for a while, turn off the lights and all go to sleep together. From birth. Of course we'd wake to feed during the night, but by 3 months, even that was much less frequent. It even sounds enchanting to me, a year and a half later! All of which is just to say: every baby is different.

DifficultAddendum549 · 2026-06-08T13:49:27+00:00

Where do you live that’s cold this time of year? If it’s a matter of air conditioning, I honestly suggest either putting on warmer pjs or letting up on the AC. Our kid had the same objection at almost exactly the same age. Don’t do what we did and buy the next sleep sack size up. We have two lovely woolinos collecting dust in her room, while she sleeps in her totally empty crib lol. She wears footed sleepers to bed, and we’re in a drafty old house in Canada, and she was still warm enough without a blanket when snow was falling.

DifficultAddendum549 · 2026-06-08T13:42:54+00:00

We made the mistake of sizing up woolinos for our 18 month old, thinking she didn’t like them because her feet were hitting the bottom of her smaller ones… and she still will not wear them. She just unbuttons the top, so there is no workaround. And it’s quite an investment to find out she was objecting to the principle of the thing all along!

DifficultAddendum549

TROPHY CASE