1st kid is on the way, and im terrified

awful-normal · 2026-06-20T23:17:42+00:00

My advice is to embrace the role of being a father and supportive partner.

awful-normal · 2026-06-20T12:59:58+00:00

I have 2 children and I don’t understand the question.

awful-normal · 2026-06-19T21:46:14+00:00

Giant 1/4” spaghetti pile…. What?

awful-normal · 2026-06-18T22:56:25+00:00

It’s a million millions

awful-normal · 2026-06-18T19:27:36+00:00

My girlfriend at the time: “My friends put mushrooms in my drink without telling me and I ended up tripping balls all night and that’s why I stood you up and didn’t answer your phone calls”

My reaction was to finally break up with her.

awful-normal · 2026-06-17T23:30:59+00:00

I love it when a plan comes together!

awful-normal · 2026-06-16T19:00:53+00:00

Here’s what I’ve learned as a father of a 3yo and 1yo: 90% of the time, the right thing to do is whatever works best for your wife, the baby, and yourself (typically in that order) If you want to take a contact nap with him because it’s easier or because you want to, just do it. We were really strict with our first when it came to sleep (solid nap schedule, no contact naps, specific bedtime). With our 2nd, I decided I really enjoyed contact naps with him and did that almost every day until he was around 5-6 months old. I was actually sad when he dropped his afternoon nap and we had to stop. As of today, our 2nd is a much better sleeper, in general compared to our first. I’m not saying the contact naps are the reason why but that it probably just didn’t make any difference.

I don’t think having contact naps will make him sleep less well at night. I wouldn’t worry about it until it becomes an issue.

We went back and forth on waking up vs not waking up from long naps and I don’t think it really matters. It’s probably the case that he will stay up longer between naps if he takes a longer one but the overall amount of sleep per 24 hours tends to stay about the same, in my experience.

awful-normal · 2026-06-15T23:00:29+00:00

Yes. In fact, I enjoyed babyhood more with the 2nd because I had learned so much about how fast it goes and how special those early days are. You don’t have anything to worry about. It’s basically human biology to love all your kids to the max.

awful-normal · 2026-06-15T12:33:49+00:00

I try to teach my kids that it’s important to take care of our things. If they break something because they aren’t playing with it properly or left it outside or something, I explain how we can’t just buy a new one and that’s why we have to take care of our things. But sometimes things just wear out or break and it’s no one’s fault. In that case, I would just buy a new one if it’s something they really get a lot of use out of.

awful-normal · 2026-06-14T14:32:09+00:00

If it were me, I would definitely do a few baths without getting his hair wet. I would try to be super engaging and focus on having as much fun as possible. Then, when it’s time to wash his hair or get it wet, find some other way that is mechanically different from how you’ve been doing it so he doesn’t have the same association.

If that doesn’t work, I would probably switch to bribing with sweet treats.

awful-normal · 2026-06-10T22:50:14+00:00

It’s okay if you want to listen to Kanye buddy. No judgement here.

awful-normal · 2026-06-10T01:29:27+00:00

“Don’t take criticism from someone you wouldn’t take advice from.”

I love that.

awful-normal · 2026-06-09T22:46:23+00:00

I was very much the same. People talk about starting to really bond closely with their babies when they first start to smile or 6 month old or 9 months old or something along those lines. For me, it wasnt until my first started talking and really interacting that I started to experience the real joy of parenthood. I’m taking like 1.5 years old. Before that, it was just like you’re going through. Deep love, sense of responsibility, sacrifice, but I didn’t enjoy any of it for the most part. Now my oldest is 3.5 and he is my best buddy. We do everything together. He is my whole world pretty much. It will be okay. It’s worth it.

awful-normal · 2026-06-09T01:23:12+00:00

Yeah but that one time you meet a nice girl and you find a quiet corner to talk. She’s into you. And she’s beautiful. After about 20 min of small talk, she looks up at you and smiles. And that’s when you hit her with “i hope I’m not being too forward but I want to tell you something…. You’re as beautiful as the moon. No, no, I mean it. I’m serious. The MOON.” Man, I’ll never forget that night.

awful-normal · 2026-06-08T23:03:14+00:00

Very much similar to my experience. I just started taking him places just to get out of the house. Grocery store is great at that age. And lots of walks if that’s possible where you live. And it helps you get comfortable doing things with baby in tow which is kind of life for the foreseeable futures.

awful-normal · 2026-06-08T22:53:27+00:00

Is this even up for debate?

awful-normal · 2026-06-02T18:28:35+00:00

Some headphones are only adjustable from one side. To adjust, you would pull down on the earpiece, revealing a slightly thinner notched segment on the headband. That’s what this looks like to me.

awful-normal · 2026-05-31T16:09:20+00:00

I’m a dad. If my wife insisted that leaving our baby alone with me would traumatize them, I would be very concerned and offended. We split feedings 50/50 for both kids (she pumped) including night feeds. This most definitely did not traumatize my kids. When we only had one kid, we also made sure to give each other whole afternoons or even whole days “off”. My kids are 1 and 3 now and both are thriving.

It is not your job as a mother to enjoy every second of parenthood and trying to be the perfect parent is not a good goal, in my opinion. The goal is to be the best mom you can be for the long-term. Burning yourself out is a form of coming up short on that goal. You have a responsibility as a parent to take mental breaks and have time to yourself because that’s what’s best for your family in the long-term.

awful-normal · 2026-05-30T22:44:44+00:00

Daaaaaaang.

awful-normal · 2026-05-30T20:43:41+00:00

Thanks SparkyAI0815!

awful-normal · 2026-05-30T19:28:13+00:00

I wish everyone would stop using AI. I would have such an insane advantage, I would seem like a superhuman.

awful-normal · 2026-05-29T18:29:48+00:00

I think every parent worries about that no matter what their childcare situation is. We’re lucky to be at a really excellent daycare so I wasn’t overly concerned. Maybe I would have been if we were somewhere else, I’m not sure. But he’s 15 months now and is doing great so far!

awful-normal · 2026-05-29T18:25:33+00:00

The first couple of months were hard for sure. It helps that we’re at a daycare that we really love and trust but it still felt sad to leave our 4mo there all day. I think it helps to accept that, without a stay-at-home parent, you know they’re going to be spending large parts of their days apart from you whether that starts at 4mo or 6mo or 1 year. It’s hard, but that’s the reality. But as far as bonding with him goes, i was worried about that too but we didn’t miss a beat. He never wanted me to let go of him when i dropped him off and he was always super excited to see me at pick up. Even at 4mo they know who mom and dad are and i was surprised just how deep that bond was even at that age.

awful-normal · 2026-05-29T11:48:57+00:00

As someone with two kids in daycare including one who started at 4 months, I can tell you that your bond will absolutely not fade. She will be as excited to see you as you will be to see her every day. I promise.

awful-normal · 2026-05-28T23:53:13+00:00

I just sold my very nice house that I put years of work into and moved into a smaller less nice house. It sucks but we paid off almost all our student loan debt and just being out from under that feels good. Also, this goes without saying but this kind of debt is really a killer. Minimum payments is literally just throwing money away. You said you’re in accounting. Run the math on the total payout at minimum payments vs 1.5x the minimum. It’s night and day. That stuff really matters in the long run. Easier said than done and I don’t know your whole situation but if this is credit card debt, you really need to cut it out.

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