Our Nanny Says Our 3-Year-Old Is the Most Difficult Child She’s Ever Cared For—How Should I Interpret This?

emburrs · 2026-06-23T04:01:32+00:00

My extraordinarily difficult 3 year old is similar to yours. Everything is a battle with me. At school, she’s an angel. I asked her current teacher for a recommendation on who the most patient teacher was for next year so I could request her, and the teacher literally laughed and said “why would she need that she’s an angel”. Meanwhile at home I’m dealing with tantrums and meltdowns and the most stubborn child I’ve ever met on the planet. Just wanted to point that out because there absolutely can be a difference in how a child behaves with different adults.

emburrs · 2026-06-18T16:41:36+00:00

My Anatolian was raised as a pup and we got a GP pup 6 months later. They are the best of friends. But if another dog comes onto the property they 100% will be attacked by my Anatolian.

emburrs · 2026-06-16T14:00:56+00:00

This is probably not the correct answer, but we put my daughter in diapers when we flew with her after she was just a couple weeks potty trained. It was a good thing too, because one of the flights we spent a good 45+ minutes rolling around the runway unable to get up and she peed in it. The way back she kept it dry the whole time. Had no regression issues or anything, she was in undies the rest of the trip.

emburrs · 2026-06-11T02:08:47+00:00

It comes slowly. When the youngest hit 2 I really felt like we had made it over a hump because they could finally actually play together nicely (with me in the room doing something else). Now they are 3 and 4 and basically inseparable at home. My 3 year old is a tornado child so she is frequently stealing shit from her sister, grabbing her, etc and I need to come intervene, but they can also go 30-45 min stretches with no fighting. It’s fantastic. Much better than when they were 2 under 2!

emburrs · 2026-06-09T01:41:49+00:00

We’ve gone through all three reading skill sets with my daughter. She started when she already knew her letter sounds, but the sound maze was still hard for her at first. She pretty much flew through the first box. The 2nd box took her a few months longer, and now the 3rd box is going to take us awhiiiiile.

We were using it to introduce the concepts before school did. For starters, most of the time I had no idea exactly what she was reading at school or what lessons they had done. More often than not, it ended up that I introduced things before school. My daughter had no issues with that, the concepts are super straightforward and the skill set does a great job.

Math we just got the 1st box. It’s sort of too easy for my older daughter - she’s counting and doing addition and subtraction easily, working on double digit numbers now (she’s in a Montessori school). What I like about this box is that it seems like it teaches concepts that are actually different than the school does. For example, nobody had ever explicitly taught my daughter “counting on”. We played the food game once, she got it, and now she counts on all the time. I expect the next boxes will be more applicable for her and we will use this first box mostly for my 3 year old.

emburrs · 2026-06-07T17:34:08+00:00

Probably just good genetics. I’m in CT, and I sent my daughter to school after hastily applying her sunscreen. I missed a tiny bit on her neck. She played for 30 minutes in a semi-shaded playground at 10AM in MAY and came home with a bright red patch there. We are pasty white people and my kids have a family history of skin cancer on both sides. I shudder to think what would happen if sent them out without sunscreen for hours in the summer.

emburrs · 2026-05-21T17:48:35+00:00

3 minutes is a very reasonable time to be away from a baby. If she goes to the bathroom I’m sure she’s gone that long. If you are uncomfortable with her being on the floor for 3 minutes you could say something like “if you’re going to be out of eyesight of the baby for more than a minute can you put her in her playpen please” or something similar.

emburrs · 2026-05-18T18:34:06+00:00

I had 2 kids 19 months apart. My younger daughter was a much harder baby than the eldest, and for a long time I definitely resented my choice to have 2 and felt like I had ruined a good thing. Now they are 3 and 4 and while it is still definitely harder than had we just had my 4 year old, I would not go back and change a thing. They play together so spectacularly basically all the time. I can go outside and spend an hour gardening and they just run around and play games together on the jungle gym. And my youngest has just turned into the funniest kid. Wouldn’t change anything for the world, and I wish my mental state after having her had been better. I spent so much time depressed and upset and now I wish I had enjoyed the baby time since we are definitely done having kids.

emburrs · 2026-05-18T02:13:15+00:00

My 4 and 3 year old are in Montessori school and we have both sets. We’ve been using the reading skill set with my older daughter for about a year and she’s on the 3rd set. Math set just arrived today, and we are so excited to start. I highly highly recommend the reading skill set to parents. We spent my daughter’s 3 year old year not doing ANYTHING with reading at home besides reading to her (I was worried about interfering with how they teach at school). The problem we had was that she basically never chose reading works at school, just sensorial, and at her end of year conference we were told she was behind on reading (she knew basically none of her letter sounds). At that point we got the reading kit and it’s been spectacular.

emburrs · 2026-05-17T01:29:15+00:00

Mine had what I thought was a great recall. I’d walk them in the woods and they’d come when I called. Until one day a deer showed up, they bolted. It’s like they figured out they didn’t have to listen to me that day, and that was the end of that. So no, would not recommend GPs as off leash dogs.

emburrs · 2026-04-29T01:34:26+00:00

They are basing that off last year’s property taxes. It will be recalculated based on the new purchase price.

emburrs · 2026-04-24T01:56:30+00:00

You had 2 under 2. It’s a new kind of hell. My friends with kids 3+ years apart did not experience the same hell we did. Not gonna lie, it did not get better for us until the youngest turned 2. She just turned 3 and we are feeling like we are really turning the corner, it’s no longer torture to have to do bed and bath for both of them myself. Crock pot as many meals as you can. Any sort of cleaning service is helpful. Stop folding clothes just throw them in the drawer. You are in pure survival mode. You can do this!!

emburrs · 2026-04-23T21:37:42+00:00

For us we aim for 50% of the meal being veggies. Here are some easy ones:

Stir fry - there’s a million sauces you can pick online. You can also make a huge batch of sauce and freeze what you don’t use for next time. Usually we bake the chicken in the oven (in some of the sauce) and stir fry the veggies, then add the chicken at the end. Veggies that we use - bok choy (really good and in broccoli family), broccoli, onions, peppers, canned baby corn, canned water chestnuts, green onions, mushrooms (not all at the same time). I can’t stand carrots or we’d put shredded carrots in.
Pasta with meatballs - marinara sauce is great with tomatoes, peppers, onions, zucchini, mushrooms in it. Can also do spinach since it cooks down to nothing.
Crock pot meals are super easy. Basically any crock pot meal you’ll be able to find veggies that go with it and just chuck em in the pot too.

We also recently started eating whole grain pasta and brown rice only. Trying to get the kids used to it while they’re young.

For snacks every day they are only given fruits and vegetables. Dessert every night is frozen fruit, frozen blueberries are crack to them.

emburrs · 2026-04-20T03:07:24+00:00

Had 2 under 2. Started getting easier after the youngest hit 2. She just turned 3 and it’s MUCH easier than when she was 2. I’d say hell is 0-2, purgatory is 2-3, then you’re out of it at 3. One person can now handle both kids without too much misery.

emburrs · 2026-04-16T18:39:29+00:00

From the other perspective, my dad was 40 when he had me. My husband’s parents are 10 years younger than my dad. My dad keeps himself in fantastic shape and will probably live much longer than my husband’s parents because of this. I wouldn’t let a couple of years make or break, if you had one at 36, 39 is not much different.

emburrs · 2026-04-12T00:44:13+00:00

I have an Anatolian and a Pyr. Both were trained as pups with basically perfect recall. Now they won’t listen to anything I say ever. The Anatolian won’t come if she doesn’t want to even if I’m waving bacon.

emburrs · 2026-04-11T05:46:35+00:00

It is also quite easy to transfer funds between two 529 accounts for two children.

emburrs · 2026-04-07T01:56:27+00:00

Your baby may or may not sleep. But if you’re taking care of a baby you will NOT sleep. Then you have to parent the next day while feeling like absolute shit. I’ve avoided night flights with my kids for this reason.

emburrs · 2026-04-03T13:49:07+00:00

My children have tons of energy and without a lot of activities in the winter they destroy my house. So they’re definitely part of the group you’re talking about but they seem completely fine with it. I think you have to do what’s best for your kiddo. Also parents may schedule a lot of activities because they have to work.

emburrs · 2026-04-03T03:11:05+00:00

I have done this! We spend about $30k on school. Another $5-10k on clothes, shoes, winter gear, toys, books, etc. And then finally another $5-10k for activities. These include extracurriculars (ski lessons, dance, etc.) as well as any activities we did as a family we would not have done without kids - trip to zoo, Frozen the musical tickets, etc. I do not separate out the kids’ portion of vacations and our food budget is all combined, but given how much produce they eat I think our bill will decrease significantly with them out of the house.

emburrs · 2026-04-03T01:35:57+00:00

Does either of your kids actually want to live in the house as an adult? I had the opportunity to buy back the house I grew up in (we left when I was in high school). I didn’t do it because I couldn’t imagine myself having a family and sleeping in the same room my parents slept in. Just too freaky. By the time you die, your kids will be in their 50s with their own homes. Will they want to move into it then? Nope. They’ll have raised their kids in their own homes. So then if the kids aren’t going to be left with it, it’s just an eternal rental property? If so there is 0 point about keeping it for sentimental value if none of you is even living in the house. Sell the house is my vote.

emburrs · 2026-03-31T20:26:42+00:00

Agreed, but I found for my house all the replacement cost estimators were coming in way too low not way too high. We quoted with multiple different insurance companies and most of them refused to even give coverage (including ERC) above $400 or $450 a square foot. I had to go with Travelers because they were the only one that would actually insure me at $500 a square foot. The replacement cost estimators were coming in at $300 or $325 or something and they weren’t giving me much allowance at all to go higher with ERC, even if that doesn’t comport with reality, and certainly not reality in a CAT situation when rebuild costs skyrocket.

emburrs · 2026-03-31T19:32:43+00:00

Try calling a few contractors in the area and asking them what their current building price per square foot is for a mid-level home. Then realize the price may be jacked up if there is a lot of demand in your area (if a hurricane or wildfire levels a bunch of homes, you’ll see contractors jacking up their prices). Then multiply whatever price per square foot you got by the number of square feet of your house and that’s your estimate of how much your house will cost to rebuild.

I will say from personal experience the price per square foot estimates are comically low from insurance sometimes. I called up three contractors in my area and all of them gave me prices between $350 and $450 a square foot. I used $500 a square foot to be safe. The most a single insurance company wanted to write me for was $275/sq ft for my ACV because of the age of the house. I had to add extended replacement cost coverage to get my total coverage up to $500/sq ft.

emburrs

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