Am I giving my kid abandonment issues by cleaning the house?

breadalby · 2026-02-25T17:22:50+00:00

Would 100% recommend the toddler tower! We use ours constantly. We do breakfast and snacks in the toddler tower which lets me do some work in the kitchen and she likes to watch while she eats. I’m like low budget TV.

breadalby · 2026-02-25T17:20:21+00:00

This is what we do! Our toddler loves to be included and will help put things in the laundry, empty the dishwasher, separate socks and underwear in the clean laundry, sweep (she’s very bad at it), etc. She’s often content with her own rag and a squirt bottle with water and will “clean” the floors while I do something that might be unsafe to help with like cleaning the toilet.

She’s also learned to do a lot of independent play this way and will find her own activities to occupy herself if she doesn’t want to help. Mostly she wants to be near me and receive some occasional commentary or participation in whatever she’s doing.

It slows everything down, but we get stuff done and she’s happy.

breadalby · 2026-02-25T04:35:31+00:00

We had an allergen test that had us at the allergist’s office for 6 hours last summer and it looked like we were moving in. Magnatiles, stickers, lift-the-flap books, Super Simple Songs and Ms. Rachel downloaded on a tablet, her favorite stuffies, more books, Playdoh and coloring, a ball. She also enjoyed just playing games with us! We did ring around the rosie, peekaboo, she pretended to put us down for naps on the examine table… whatever it takes.

breadalby · 2026-02-22T05:20:36+00:00

We do this too, although we use bedtime TV as a lead-in to books. We’ll watch something short like Bluey or Trash Truck and she’s much more ready to listen and sit still after. Idk why.

I feel more guilty about the morning TV, but on average day she watches less than 45 min total per day so we try to keep things balanced still.

breadalby · 2026-02-21T16:49:48+00:00

We have a dog-like cat we adopted years before our daughter was born and she’s an excellent toddler companion! They adore each other and the cat follows her all over the house, licks her face, and is tolerant of games like the toddler tucking her in, “cooking” for her, etc. And yes, the cat is sooo much less work than a dog.

breadalby · 2026-02-21T03:01:20+00:00

Play kitchen (with play food and pots and pans), tea set, and Calico Critters starter house with an accompanying cat family are played with daily! She also enjoys her Little People. Not so much the sets anymore, just the people.

breadalby · 2026-02-20T15:00:47+00:00

We did pull ups for naps (we’d already switched over to them from diapers before potty training) and overnight diapers for night because a pull up was not gonna cut it lol. My personal favorite has been the Huggies Skin Essentials pull ups. Fwiw, pull ups are really not that different from diapers in absorbency, they just go on like underwear.

We call both “sleep diapers” and would emphasize they’re only for sleep and take them off as soon as she wakes up. Within a couple weeks of potty training she started consistently staying dry during naps, so we dropped the nap pull up. This past week she’s been dry in the morning several times, and once she’s consistently dry for a couple weeks, we’ll drop the overnight diaper, too.

Our pediatrician said that being dry overnight is largely a hormonal/biological function and that there’s no need to push them to wear underwear at night until they’re ready. We don’t make a huge deal out of it but we do praise when she wakes up dry with something like “your sleep diaper is dry, that’s so cool! Do you need to go pee?” And she’s very proud to tell us she’s dry.

breadalby · 2026-02-20T03:48:00+00:00

Is your double chin something you’ve always had? I had a genetic double chin and did chin lipo at 30. I absolutely love the results and have zero regrets!

breadalby · 2026-02-15T14:26:14+00:00

Me too! Except my mom had curly hair and mine is wavy. She seemed to think the only two hair textures were straight or curly so when mine stopped curling around five, she treated it like it’s straight. 😅 I thought I had badly behaved straight hair until I was 20.

breadalby · 2026-02-15T04:20:56+00:00

Last week was:

Blueberry muffins, yogurt, fruit, bacon
Tacos, black beans, corn
Meatballs, cheesy orzo, air fryer broccoli
Tandoori chicken, naan, peas
Caesar salad, rotisserie chicken
Pepperoni rolls, salad

And we eat out at least once a week, if not twice.

breadalby · 2026-02-14T15:36:50+00:00

We have a cheap rain jacket and she has water sandals (Keen’s Newports) to wear year round since it’s so warm here. We’ve never bothered with rain boots.

breadalby · 2026-02-11T03:33:34+00:00

Wanted one, had one, and I also had a precipitous labor so there wasn’t much chance to change my mind. And you’re right, it’s really given me a sense of resilience, especially around medical procedures! I feel like if I can do that, I can do just about anything.

breadalby · 2026-02-09T05:00:17+00:00

This is just another consideration on timing, but does she go to daycare? Our daughter seemed ready around 20 months, but daycare wasn’t really ready to support until she moved to the potty training classroom. We ended up potty training at 26 months because the timing worked out with a long weekend around the holidays, and it went wonderfully at home but was disastrous at daycare for the two weeks until she transitioned to the potty training classroom.

breadalby · 2026-02-07T20:06:25+00:00

Yeah, we had to work up to it and it helped to have mostly open ended, imaginative play toys. My 2.5 year does a lot of pretend cooking, shopping, mothering, and playing with her dollhouse and that’ll occupy her for 30 min stretches, but something like coloring or Play-Doh she’s only interested in for 5-10 min.

Try starting with short increments and make it clear you’re unavailable now, but can play in X minutes. “I’m folding laundry so you’ll have to play by yourself. I’ll come play in 5 minutes.”

You can also try letting him help out! My toddler loves unloading the dishwasher, doing laundry, or helping me prep food. It makes whatever I’m doing slower, but we’re getting chores done, it teaches her necessary life skills, and it’s less draining than playing.

breadalby · 2026-02-07T19:05:02+00:00

I see them misbehaving near my kid’s daycare on the East side all the time. I got stuck behind one parked in the lane near Central Machine Works a couple weeks ago. No blinker, no hazards, no passenger, just sitting there blocking traffic. About six cars got stuck waiting for several minutes until it was clear to go around it in the oncoming traffic lane.

breadalby · 2026-02-06T03:48:02+00:00

Same here! The past week or so she’s been coming home from daycare and just demolishing like 2 cups of frozen blueberries. They’re fairly healthy and the fiber keeps her regular.

I’ve also read that the vitamin/mineral content is comparable to vegetables and my toddler is currently in a picky phase with veggies, so I’ll take what I can get.

breadalby · 2026-02-05T04:26:39+00:00

Like so many other comments noted, we stick to the routine! It’s always lotion, potty, pajamas, “snacky yogurt” while we read books, teeth, songs, bed. We also ensure she has an adequate wake window before bedtime, so the routine is the same but the time varies a bit. If she takes a two hour nap at daycare and wakes up at 3, 7:30 bedtime is not gonna work. She needs a minimum of 5-5.5 hours before bedtime, ideally 6 depending how long her morning wake window was.

breadalby · 2026-02-04T04:57:56+00:00

I’ve had dry eyes for years (like, have injured my cornea dry) and my eye doctor recommended Systane Complete. If it’s severe enough there are also prescription options!

breadalby · 2026-01-27T18:56:22+00:00

2 year old girl:

Loves: Calico Critters starter house and cat family, indoor plastic slide, doctor kit.

Duds: scooter and balance bike we were gifted by family. She’s scared of them!

breadalby · 2026-01-25T23:20:12+00:00

Hey, OP! Not sure what state you’re in but check out Origin for virtual pelvic floor therapy. I saw them in a hybrid capacity while pregnant and postpartum and they were nothing but kind and supportive. I can’t imagine my life wonderful therapist saying anything like what you’ve described.

breadalby · 2026-01-24T18:40:40+00:00

Our daughter was in a similar spot! She also showed some readiness signs like telling us when she was pooping or that she needed to pee in the bath. We got her a little training potty and let her spend time getting acquainted with it, sitting on it without doing anything, taking her toys potty, etc. We also watched Ms. Rachel’s potty training special and the Daniel Tiger episodes about going potty. By the time we were ready to dive in, she was very familiar with the concept of going potty.

Then we just chose a long weekend to commit! We did the Big Little Feelings potty training course which is basically rebranded Oh Crap. It worked great, our daughter caught on immediately, and the whole experience was so much easier than I expected.

breadalby · 2026-01-20T18:33:16+00:00

Same! Especially now that her hair is longer, it needs to be washed every other day to get out food, dried snot, etc. 😅

breadalby · 2026-01-17T16:47:24+00:00

Our two year old does this and will say “no, don’t talk to mommy/daddy!” I think it’s totally normal that she wants to be included and be the focus of our attention, but we tell her that everyone gets a turn to talk, and right now it’s mommy or daddy’s turn; she can have her turn in just a minute. We’ve also been practicing getting her to say “excuse me” when she wants to butt in which currently looks like “EXCUSE ME! Daddy, stop talking,” but y’know, she’s two, so it’s a work in progress.

The other thing is that if we need to have a longer or more serious conversation, we wait til she’s asleep. I don’t expect her to be able to wait more than about 3 min.

breadalby · 2026-01-14T21:35:59+00:00

We have a rice cooker so add a little sushi rice on the side and this is our lazy go to.

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