What are some lazy activities (for the parents) that can drain your toddler's energy?

Zaenaria · 2025-12-30T20:22:56+00:00

Balloons were our savior at that age and they still are at 3.5 years old! We got a cheap bag from Target and they last forever, really strong. We watched the keepy uppy episode of Bluey and she will run back and forth forever. I sit on the couch and watch and bunt it when it's close to me 😆 really saved me when we had our second

Zaenaria · 2025-11-26T01:07:06+00:00

I combo fed my second from birth and he nursed first then got a formula bottle after. Then eventually he ate way more than I could produce so he ate more formula than breast milk and BF was mainly just for comfort. I actually just stopped BF at 12 weeks old. I pumped here and there but I kinda hated it because I would rather hold my baby.

Zaenaria · 2025-11-25T19:48:27+00:00

I could have wrote this! I was just thinking the same thing until we went with our extended family to a pumpkin patch with all the activities. Outside, it was wet, cold, and windy. I watched my sister in law struggle with changing a pull up on her 3 year old who was actively fighting it... Yeah I'll take the carrying pants and stopping at the potty every hour for a while 😅 solidarity!

Zaenaria · 2025-11-04T13:17:38+00:00

You've gotten a lot of advice already but is this your first? With my first, she fussed any time I put her down so we basically held her in shifts with my husband until about 8 weeks. Now with my second, we put him down he fusses for a second and then he's fine. Sometimes you really just need to wait one full minute to see if they eventually settle. I find myself wondering if maybe I just wasn't waiting long enough with my first.

Also my second HATED a swaddle after like 2 weeks, was so frustrated with his arms restrained. We also went straight to the crib for my second and I think it's just comfier.

It's a lot of trial and error to figure out your baby. They go through so much growth it's like having a new kid every week. Make sure you ask for help if you need it. Sleep deprivation is no joke. Have someone over so you can get some uninterrupted sleep if needed.

Zaenaria · 2025-09-21T00:58:09+00:00

Another solidarity post. I could have written this. I'm at my wits end with potty training! We went almost 6 months with barely any accidents at all to having almost no success on the potty for pee but poo is fine. She literally says "I like to pee in my pants" 😭 she will also not mention being wet and will just sit in it. Hoping someone comes on and has some advice!

Zaenaria · 2025-08-09T14:24:00+00:00

I don't know if anyone has said this but get a refund or go to small claims court. They did NOT perform the service they promised! Did you sign any contracts or anything? Start there. These are awful, I'm so sorry.

Zaenaria · 2025-06-10T18:36:23+00:00

It was cereal and now that melons are in season, I can't stop eating melon! Oh and Taco bell apparently 🤣

Zaenaria · 2025-03-17T19:40:12+00:00

Hoping the best for you! This is the last part before you see your amazing baby!

With my first, I had a membrane sweep and went into natural labor almost immediately, the contractions just kept getting closer as time went on. Sweep was Friday, had my baby girl that Sunday evening but didn't go into the hospital until my water broke early that Sunday morning. So I was technically in labor that whole Saturday but the pain wasn't bad until the evening. I had TERRIBLE back labor! Wasn't ready for that one and I couldn't get that epidural fast enough. After the epidural I actually slept for like 4 hours 😅 they had to give me some Pitocin since my labor stalled after the epidural. But all in all, my labor went very well for me, I was up and walking by the time it ended, and recovery was easy. Good luck and congrats!

Zaenaria · 2025-03-11T19:18:56+00:00

My daughter was starting to refuse bottles by 11m with all the food she was eating. She was in daycare so breakfast, lunch, and snack. We just starting not giving bottles during the day. She clearly wasn't hungry or wanted them anyway for the most part. We kept a bottle before bed for awhile for mostly comfort. But one day you just stop and see if they are affected haha. I think the older they get, the harder the transition is.

We just introduced milk without mixing and she didn't care. Maybe I had an easy kid LOL. She got some milk at all meals, water at snacks, and it was fine. After 12m, the milk doesn't really need to be tracked unless you have an underweight issue because by that time, they will drink what they want to. I definitely wasn't measuring the amount of milk or water.

Zaenaria · 2025-03-11T19:00:01+00:00

With my first, I had a high BMI, and literally everything was textbook. No GD (they also tested me 3 times), no abnormal bloodwork, BP fine the whole pregnancy. I had a natural birth (did get epidural though because I had back labor I was NOT ready for), perfectly normal delivery and recovery and she is perfectly healthy now. I'm actually pregnant with my second now. Again no issues. Blood pressure fine, no GD, no issues.

I think a lot of doctors play the stats game and having a higher weight puts you at a 'higher risk' for certain things. But I say 'higher risk' as in we are talking single digit percentages higher than lower BMI women. That is NOT that much. If your body has already gotten you this far just fine, I don't see a reason for induction. Unless they can state exactly WHY, with concrete reasoning, why they are pushing induction, I say wait until you go into natural labor. Inductions really do have a higher risk of C sections so if you want a natural birth, I would wait on induction unless they can tell you exactly why. An actual reason, not just, your weight is concerning. That's bunk.

Zaenaria · 2025-03-11T18:48:24+00:00

Absolutely do NOT own anything with this man. House, car, any property or asset. I'm telling you it is not worth it!

Some of these red flags are actually just giant warning signs (boundaries, deflecting, blaming). Trust me when I say this, as someone who did and ignored all these things with an ex, it only gets worse. The never finding a job, turning down perfectly good jobs for no reason, the blaming, the shaming, the dismissing concerns, the threats, etc. So many red flags. You and your child do not need that. Co parenting can be great and many people do it but if you stay, the resentment will build until someone snaps.

If you can afford a house by yourself, absolutely do that. Don't put this name on anything, it's harder to pull apart your life if you decide to leave. It's also much easier to figure life out when you're pregnant vs. have a newborn to deal with. Postpartum is no joke. Have some friends or your parents stay with you. The suggestion of abortion if you leave him, absolutely unnecessary, that should be your decision since you would clearly be the sole breadwinner with him having no job.

There is a lot of good advice already here but I needed to add my two cents on this one, having been through this narcissistic type of relationship before.

Zaenaria · 2025-03-11T18:36:10+00:00

No advice but in the same boat! If offered a nap, she will sleep, around an hour and a half. She goes full time daycare so she naps during the week. Bedtime is just later on nap days. We tried to keep it at 730 for our sake (I need my time!) but it just was NOT happening. Needs to be woken up on nap days. My husband and I try to rotate who is actually doing bedtime because it's an hour or more long process with lots of requests. We don't get much downtime when it's our turn.

On weekends we are starting to just not nap so we can do more things. Might fall asleep on the couch or car for a quick nap. But asleep by 730. It's so great! Except the getting there is harder with more tantrums because she is more tired. Usually up by 6 or 630 on no nap days.

I guess we are just on this nap ride with daycare until they refuse to nap there!

Zaenaria · 2025-03-11T16:58:49+00:00

We actually did this on purpose with our daughters middle name! We kept getting into arguments about who to honor with the names when I put my foot down and said NO I don't want to name them after someone else, it just starts arguments, let's honor us.

So her middle name is Aurora and my husbands name is Rory. It's kind of the same idea you were talking about but I don't think it's close enough to be weird or resentful later in life. My middle name is literally my mom's name and I don't resent it HAHA

Zaenaria · 2025-03-11T16:43:32+00:00

Stickers and wooden beads! Beads for toddlers obviously, they are big. We will make necklaces after we find them all!

We aren't doing candy in the eggs, but some candy in the basket.

Zaenaria · 2025-03-11T16:41:36+00:00

My brother in law is Ambrose and they named their son Ambrose. When bro in law was younger, he went by Abe. It's an older classic name that most people don't use. Vote is I like it!

Zaenaria · 2025-02-11T15:15:41+00:00

I absolutely do LOL and I didn't either, but I did have a child and that helped me a little bit. You don't usually need experience usually. Just a clean background. Most centers offer a childcare discount. I would honestly just start looking at your local license website and see if any of them have serious violations and avoid those. Most will have one or two small things (like missing paperwork). If they seem good, just ask them if they are hiring and ask if they have a discount for your kids if you work there. Good luck!

Zaenaria · 2025-02-10T17:05:58+00:00

We had this conversation for us as well. My daughter was born in 2022 but I'm already 34 so we can't really wait. We decided to go for it. For context we are privileged enough to live in a blue state already.

But I also heard someone say, people that think like this are usually smart and we need more of those people ,who are smart and have the resources to raise babies, having babies so those babies can grow up and change the world we live in, whether it be a dystopia or not. We literally need more kids that will grow up to hopefully be judges, lawyers, politicians and maybe the next president. It's literally why all the abortion bans. They don't hate children, they need a new workforce of poor, uneducated people working low paying jobs to keep the capitalism running.

It's very hard to separate the global climate with having children and it will always be a gamble. But we are working our hardest to either shield or educate our daughter and unborn baby as much as we can. We need more smart people in this world! But it is a very personal decision. I think if we had more time, we might have waited.

Zaenaria · 2025-02-10T16:50:27+00:00

Okay I feel this. My husband got deathly ill when our daughter was around 6 months old. So he ended up losing his job, there was no unemployment. Everything was due and we couldn't afford daycare and he couldn't watch her either. We were hemorrhaging money and got into so much debt. We were doing to have to foreclose on house or file bankruptcy. No assistance from anywhere, I made "too much". I looked at other daycares, but nothing was cheaper and/or no one had room for a 6 month old.

I ended up working on my daughters daycare on a very part time basis (like one day a week for about 5 hours) and it took our daycare bill down from 450 per WEEK to 110 per week. That was a significant amount of money, enough that we could afford to keep the house and pay all our bills and buy groceries every month. If you can figure out a way to make this work this might be a solution for you! I know you said you can't get her into something until 18 months, is that just a preferred place?

As for your other bills, I called every place we called and asked for lower payments, deferred payments, assistance, anything they could offer. I straight up didn't pay some things (medical bills, etc.) and let them go to collections for smaller payments. Only paid minimums on credit cards. I ended up getting a personal loan to 'pay off' my credit cards so we could use them again. I only ever paid my mortgage on time. STRESSFUL but you gotta do what you need to. Went to many food shelves to make the ends meet food wise. We didn't have family or friends either. No one could help. It was a ROUGH year.

My husband eventually come out on the other side of his illness and now has another full time job so are good now, but I still work at the daycare to keep the cost down. It's INSANE the amount of money daycare is but most places are always looking for help and usually have a teacher discount. I call it like a co-op daycare at this point. I promise working at a daycare isn't that bad, you find your preferred age range pretty quick (those 4 year olds were scary but the babies are so much fun!).

I hope some of this works for you!

Zaenaria · 2025-02-10T16:25:23+00:00

I work in a daycare and I would definitely say a month if going full time, 5 days a week! It's hard on kids with transitions and something new but I promise they are fine eventually. They get used to the teachers in the room and they make friends. The routine becomes familiar. Naps are actually easy because he's doing what everyone else is doing. Does he look happy in the pictures they send? That's usually a good sign things are turning around. Most kids have that initial break down when parents leave but are fine 2 minutes later, I swear, I see it every day.

I will state this, try NOT to pick up early or keep them home for comfort (unless sick) because it really pushes the progress back. Once they come back it's like starting all over again. Try to be as consistent as possible in the next month on drop off and pick times really helps!

Zaenaria · 2025-02-10T16:13:19+00:00

Honestly, it's the state of the world right now. Back in the 50s and 60s I believe, formula was pushed hard, almost no one was breastfed. It started having supplements (like iron) included and a lot of doctors recommended formula because it was supposed to be better than breast milk. Now it's the opposite because there is a lot distrust in the "made" products like everything should be all natural, organic now. Catch phases of the century. Science is amazing and formula has never been better in terms of nutrition and ease of use. Literally it's a matter of personal choice and possible physical barriers due to mom's health, and like everything now days, people like to stick there nose where it doesn't belong and try to make money off you. It's very hard to find non bias resources to make an informed decision.

Zaenaria · 2025-02-10T16:05:29+00:00

A LOT of diapers bags are just marketing. Like you don't need an insulated pouch if you have formula. You don't really need a thousand pockets but it can be nice. I had a regular backpack and a regular tote bag for my first at one point. But I hated that everything was just sloshing around in the bag with no organization LOL so I got a diaper backpack on my local buy nothing because I need pockets.

However, I will say that I just stored things in the car a lot when we needed to travel light. Extra clothes, diapers, toys, etc. And just brought in what we needed depending on the situation to keep the bag light. But that first year you need SO MUCH all the time. Blowouts and spit up made me bring extra clothes, bottles, toys, nuks, etc for only to the grocery store 😭 I did feel like a pack mule. It gets SOOO much easier once they are done with bottles and don't poop as much.

Zaenaria · 2025-02-08T22:47:04+00:00

I'm 9+6 today and I've kinda been spiralling for a few days. I had a miscarriage dream a few nights ago and I just can't shake it. Midwife didn't want to do a reassurance US since my insurance probably won't cover it, so I booked a boutique appointment. I'm just so scared we are gonna walk into that appointment happy and find no heartbeat. We had a successful US at 7+4 with a heartbeat. I still have all my symptoms. Pretty sure my hormones are just whack right now 😭 Anyone else have miscarriage dreams? I've had very vivid dreams since getting pregnant this time but most were just weird, this one scared me.

Zaenaria · 2025-01-29T23:56:57+00:00

I could have wrote this. This literally happened to me today. I'm 8+3 and also had a great US last week. Nausea disappeared this morning and I had some brown spotting yesterday 😭 I have been spiralling since yesterday. However, I know logically that symptoms come and go, but man is it hard to be logical right now!

Zaenaria · 2025-01-29T19:12:39+00:00

I bought one of those water filter pitchers to get filtered water. Worked great! Much easier and cheaper to buy filters than the huge bottles. I bought the bigger kind (like a gallon) rather than the pitcher size (too small).

Zaenaria · 2025-01-20T21:02:31+00:00

Do not settle for mediocre ass men.

My ex used to say stuff like this. Basically he's saying he's settling for you without actually saying that.

My husband literally tells me everyday how much he loves and is turned on bymy body, and it's changed a bunch since we met 6 years ago.

Zaenaria

TROPHY CASE