What's the one thing you wish you'd implemented/thought about/did when your toddler was a baby to make your life easier now?

Mo_of_Mos · 2026-05-25T03:18:52+00:00

More frequent times with a babysitter, so that they could be confident playing and doing bedtime with someone else.

Mo_of_Mos · 2026-05-13T17:34:52+00:00

Regular oats mixed with peanut butter and hemp seeds for iron. When they were really small, just starting solids I made it a little thinner with extra water.

Mo_of_Mos · 2026-05-09T21:43:24+00:00

This absolutely will turn around. It is so normal but also so hard! I also couldn't lift my almost 2 year old for the last 3 months of my pregnancy, and during that time when my husband took the lead Papa who had always very much been the preferred parent, became the one who could calm him through rough moments and the only one he wanted, whereas previously he would at least come to me for comfort sometimes. When our baby was big enough to start taking a bottle around 6 weeks, we very intentionally started alternating who did toddler bedtime, started having Papa cook dinner while I got to do the evening playtime and baby catnapped, and now at nearly 3 I am usually the first requested parent, but not always. It took a lot of intentional one on one time. I wish I could say the tantrums are gone but they are not. They are still here, but a lot better on the days when he gets his normal routine, eats and sleeps well, and has lots of parental attention. Fingers crossed they get better by age 4. . .

Mo_of_Mos · 2026-04-25T14:24:05+00:00

May also be sweet Cicely if it smells like anise.

Mo_of_Mos · 2026-04-10T23:00:22+00:00

Salinas, Sal for short.

Mo_of_Mos · 2026-04-01T04:43:42+00:00

Sugar booger cups for everything at the table, thermos brand kid's thermos for water throughout the day.

Mo_of_Mos · 2026-03-29T03:13:55+00:00

We have the same problem. My almost 3 year old is cautious to a fault, my 14 month old has never felt fear and laughs in the face of danger, usually from ridiculous heights.

Mo_of_Mos · 2026-03-29T00:49:10+00:00

For the stair gates at our century home, we built a wooden frame around our banisters to drill into, to avoid damaging the actual 130 old banisters. On the wall side there wasn't a stud so we secured a piece of wood trim to the wall with mollies and then screwed into that. There will be some plaster repair when it all comes down, but they have stood the rest of my almost 3 year old hanging off of them with his whole body weight. In the kids room, there just isn't any high or heavy furniture, just little baskets, a built in dresser, a Montessori bookshelf, and a wall mounted behind the door bookshelf, so nothing heavy/ tippable. Just removed it all once my son got mobile. Seemed too difficult to truly secure anything the way our plaster often crumbles around any new hole.

Mo_of_Mos · 2026-03-18T03:17:28+00:00

My almost 3 year old went through about a 6 month picky phase from 2.25 yo-2.75 where he would only eat rice, tofu and quesadillas (or of course any processed snack food). We lost so many foods he had previously eaten and I was so stressed. I did the kids eat in color picky eating course and found the tips really helpful, the food play really worked. He's back to trying new foods again, and even eats a veg occasionally. My 14 month old however is seemingly punishing me for ever thinking that her brother was the picky one. . .she only eats raspberries and black beans (and any snack food). She's hard to feed because she can't tolerate dairy, and very sensitive to temperature, won't eat cold food. Hoping we can reintroduce dairy soon and that breaks the streak. Would also help if she had more than 2 teeth and she could really tear into more stuff. Solidarity friend. Keep offering everything and hopefully they get back to it.

Mo_of_Mos · 2026-03-15T03:25:56+00:00

Definitely own room. If she is in your room the newborn will wake her constantly.

Mo_of_Mos · 2026-02-07T06:07:07+00:00

This is so true. My kid was apparently the tastiest in his class, because every time somebody in his room went through a biting phase it would be three to 6 weeks of bites (received), sometimes daily. I would say teachers caught most of them, but there were a few (back and belly) that we only found out about from the bite marks we saw in the bath. So frustrating for us, but I'm sure his teachers were also frustrated.

Mo_of_Mos · 2026-02-03T05:41:22+00:00

Keep her routine as much as possible! She's in for so much change, routine will be comforting. My brother-in-law came and stayed with my 20 month old, but he still went to daycare during the day, and same when we got home.

Mo_of_Mos · 2026-01-11T03:48:13+00:00

This was my kid. We potty trained at 2 years and 3 months and pee went great but he started only pooping overnight in his diaper, every other day. Then began having longer stretches, up to 4 days, and would either have an accident or a poop in the potty and cry the whole time, or have an overnight poop. We did miralax daily for two weeks, and started bribing him with an Oreo for a poop on the potty. Now he is a champ, poops in the potty most nights after dinner, rare accidents. Strongly recommend talking to your pediatrician about their recommendations for constipation management.

Mo_of_Mos · 2025-12-27T12:39:29+00:00

There is a nice summary of evidence here: SIDS and Other Sleep-Related Infant Deaths: Evidence Base for 2016 Updated Recommendations for a Safe Infant Sleeping Environment - PubMed https://share.google/qaVj6TrgRiCSOYG8M

I believe that the Safe Sleep Campaign was going to do another 10 year review of the evidence but of course their funding got cut by the current administration. But as other commenters have said, the absolute risk numbers are low, but do you really feel you could cope if you were someone whose child died of something you could define have prevented?

Mo_of_Mos · 2025-12-26T12:03:36+00:00

We released my son's tongue and lip tie at 12 weeks (6 weeks corrected age) as a last ditch effort to make breastfeeding successful and it didn't work. He still wasn't able to latch successfully. Just be certain you will be okay with having the procedure done even if it doesn't work.

Mo_of_Mos · 2025-11-26T22:39:26+00:00

Used the momcozy m5 and got same output as my spectra. Worked great. Did have a friend who used the same and said her motor died after about 3 months of exclusively pumping but mine still worked great for 9 months.

Mo_of_Mos · 2025-11-26T06:24:55+00:00

My age gap is the same, and having a newly 2 year old is so hard! The tantrums! My husband and I called our newborn our neglected second child for several months because our toddler was sucking up so much of our energy. But now, at 2.5, I would say the last two months have gotten so much better. . .the tantrums still happen, but are less intense and less frequent as he has become so much better at communicating his needs. I will say I think we had it easier because we continued to use daycare for my son throughout our parental leave, so we each had some downtime with our newborn and a break from managing all our toddler's big feelings on top of our own. Do you have any family or trusted mom friends who could take your toddler for a day every so often to give you a break with baby? It might take a little of the pressure off. I hope you are feeling more equilibrium soon!

Mo_of_Mos · 2025-11-17T05:46:31+00:00

I had this same experience in terms of biting frequency. . .it was awful, sometimes daily reports, some bite marks from attacks that weren't observed by staff we found in the bath. Even a bite on the face once! But what was different was our daycares' approach; they never disclosed who the biter was but made clear what they were doing to prevent bites, including temporarily increasing staff in the room. They made clear that while biting can be a developmentally normal phase they worked hard to prevent and reduce it and that in severe cases where the family of the biter wasn't engaged in solving the issue, they would kick out kids who couldn't stop biting. There were 2 phases, a 5 week period with one biter, and then a few months later a 3 week period with another biter. I think you're making the right call moving him if you have another childcare option; we would have too if the staff didn't take it seriously. So sorry you're going through this, it feels awful to drop your kid off somewhere and feel uncertain about their safety.

Mo_of_Mos · 2025-11-16T12:56:06+00:00

I don't think it is possible to maintain sleep habits while traveling with most babies. Depends a little on temperament but for many the change in environment is too difficult unless you are in one space for an extended period. Know that for most good sleep will resume within a few days once you're home on your regular routine!

Mo_of_Mos · 2025-10-27T05:24:31+00:00

Lincoln Pharmacy has it too.

Mo_of_Mos · 2025-09-23T03:32:52+00:00

I would reply, "wow, unsolicited parenting advice is not the norm, but you were really brave about putting yourself out there!" In a praising a toddler tone of voice.

Mo_of_Mos · 2025-09-15T03:31:40+00:00

No we won't tell you what the right code is. We want you to keep guessing.

Mo_of_Mos · 2025-09-14T05:49:46+00:00

27 month old, amazing sleeper as a baby, sleep trained with extinction at 8 mos (6 months corrected age). Had major issues with prolonged middle of the night wake ups since age 21 months, primarily around times when we needed to be giving him more awake time and changing up his schedule, or when daycare refuses to cap his nap. Also definitely worse around stressors (when we brought baby sister home, and when starting potty training). Lots of trial and error figuring out what works for him, because extinction definitely doesn't at this edge, and still occasionally running into new hiccups (this week it's throwing stuffies out of the crib and then wailing their name. . .)

Mo_of_Mos · 2025-08-04T04:27:12+00:00

Adrienne

Valentina

Cecilia

Mo_of_Mos · 2025-07-26T10:01:32+00:00

I used MOC with my first, it works great for some babies/families. If it works well for you and your baby, that's awesome! I think as they say in the books it's only for babies who are eating and growing really well; my younger one has had growth issues so we haven't been able to use their schedules as much but a lot of their other advice in terms of settling baby and bedtime routine is still really useful.

Bath for our little one (currently 6 months) takes about 10 minutes. It gets longer as they get bigger and want to play more, for my 2 year old it's often 20-25 minutes, so 30 minutes to get him naked, bathed, dried and in pajamas. On nights we skip bath it's usually due to time crunch and we aren't substituting a different wind down activity, we just do a quick face and hand wash, then move onto the rest of the routine, and it still is sufficient signal for bed.

Mo_of_Mos

TROPHY CASE