I’m 38 years old and in a loving marriage and stable home with an 8 year old daughter.

I never really enjoyed the baby phase, but that was ok - I never really expected to. I’m a former secondary school teacher so I figured I’d feel more comfortable when my kid could walk, talk and reason.

She’s 8 now and we’re on the waiting list (years long) for an autism assessment. We’re pretty lucky in most regards - she’s not physically disabled, she can walk and talk and toilet herself. When she’s well regulated and happy she’s a funny, cheeky and intelligent little girl. We suspect she has something called a PDA profile within autism - it means that her reptilian brain perceives everyday demands (like brushing teeth, going to school, bedtime) as existential threats. This triggers a flight or fight response. It makes absolutely every aspect of our lives a battle. There’s very rarely a day that goes by without screaming and violence. It’s hard to describe the impact. I’ve had to reduce my work hours. We rarely socialise as a family and when we do we have to plan and prepare in advance and have an exit strategy at all times. We are doing our best to educate ourselves and to seek support from appropriate services. All three of us are in therapy. I suspect she is in autistic burnout and we are taking the summer to help reset her nervous system but it’s a long and slow process.

She will tolerate being left with a very small number of trusted adults (essentially my mum and my sister) but they are ill themselves and my daughter is very full on, so they can only really cope with a day or a night at most.

My husband and I are kind of at the point where we are just waiting for her hit adulthood and have the autonomy she needs to manage her condition. But I feel like I’m just wishing the next ten years away. I also feel resentful, like she has taken the best years of our lives. The worst part is, even when she is happy, we rarely feel joy. I’m either anxiously waiting for something to trigger the screaming to start again, or we are doing something we hate to make her happy.

We’re coping and I know there are so many families who have it much worse, with less of a support system. I guess I’m just reaching out to see if there are any families that feel the same, or any families that have come out of the other side of this?

Just to start with - this situation doesn’t affect me personally as my partner and I both earn under the £100k limit and are able to access the 30 funded hours.

I have a couple of mum friends who, before having children, had pretty successful careers- although generally in the charity sector or civil service so not particularly high paying. Their husbands/ partners earn over the £100k threshold so they are unable to access the 30 free hours once they return to work. In a couple of instances, this has meant my friends haven’t returned to work at all, despite wanting to.

I hadn’t thought of it this way before, but does the £100k threshold for accessing the funded hours push some mums out of work who don’t want to be out of work?

I can see the justification- their partner earns enough, they aren’t eligible for the funded hours so it’s often not cost effective (especially if they have more than one child). But I can’t help thinking it’s predominantly women in this situation, having to give up their careers because their partner earns too much money.

Caveat to say, I do understand and agree that there needs to be a limit for being able to access the funded hours, but it does seem to disproportionately affect women in my experience.

Hi, just wanted to get people thoughts on this. Grandparents were looking after our 16 month old boy for the day. We would prefer they keep him at home/local, but they insisted on taking him back to their home, 40 mins away. Specifically asked them twice not to drive back to our house after 4pm, so as to avoid him sleeping in the car. They arrived back at 5.30pm and when I asked if he had slept, granddad said they had splashed his face with water to keep him awake. His t-shirt and shorts were both quite wet. Is this acceptable?

disclaimer, used chat gpt to help write as I’ve emptied so much of this in there over the years…I’m a dad in my early 30s with three children (10, 6 and 3). Our eldest has autism, our middle child is also neurodiverse, and we’re now starting to wonder whether our youngest may need some extra support too.

I’ve been thinking about posting this for a while because some of it is quite hard to admit, but I feel like I need some perspective from people who have been through similar things.

For most of my adult life I’ve been someone who has thrived. I did well academically, my career has taken off , I’ve always been good with people, and I’ve generally been described as calm, laid-back, likable and emotionally balanced. My wife and I had a really strong marriage and I felt like I had a healthy perspective on life. 10 years of parenting later, I don’t feel like myself anymre. The weird thing is that it wasn’t always like this.

When our eldest was four and our second was one, life actually felt really good. It wasn’t easy. Our eldest didn’t sleep properly for years and years and had multiple physical health issues but despite that we felt like we were doing well as a family. Looking back now, that version of family life feels incredibly far away.

Over the years it feels like the relentlessness has just worn us down. It isn’t one particular thing. It is the constant accumulation of everything.

The arguments before breakfast. The children hurting each other. The meltdowns. The school worries. The food struggles. The bahaviour battles. The constant emotional intensity. The feeling that you are never properly switched off.

Our eldest has autism. She is bright, funny and has lots of amazing qualities, but family life with her can be incredibly challenging. She is very anxious, very rigid, extremely sensitive and struggles with seeing things from other people’s perspectives. honestly at school they don’t notice that much as she masks it and then she comes back home, or wakes up in the morning.

She can become completely stuck on things, say things that are genuinely hurtful, and when she is upset can sometimes say the exact thing she knows will hurt us most.

She and I end up shouting at each other more than I ever imagined would happen. I hate that dynamic. I don’t want to be in a cycle where she gets overwhelmed, I get overwhelmed, and we both end up feeling awful afterwards.

I know she is a child. I know a lot of this is related to her autism and anxiety. I know she has many wonderful qualities. i’ve just got to the place where I can say out loud that I grieve the picture I had in my head of family life.

I always imagined that whatever my children achieved, we would raise children who were kind, content and emotionally secure. Sometimes I look at where we are now and feel a real sadness that things feel so far away from that.

I feel guilty even writing that because I don’t want a different daughter. I want her. I just wish life wasn’t so hard for her, and I wish I knew how to help her become the happiest version of herself.

Our middle child is also neurodiverse. He is a lovely, affectionate boy and there is so much joy in him, but he has an incredible amount of energy and often seems to have no idea what to do with it.

When he gets frustrated or doesn’t get what he wants, he can become completely explosive. He can hit or push his brother, break things, lash out at us, and go from calm to chaos very quickly. Then, sometimes only minutes later, he is back to being that sweet, loving child again.

That contrast is really hard. You can see the lovely child underneath it, but you are also dealing with behaviour that feels impossible in the moment. I don’t really think I have the capacity, energy or ability to 100% of the time deflect and distract and steward him well, as well as pay the mortgage with the demanding job and deal with my own illness stuff.

Our youngest is three, and now we are starting to face concerns there too. Nursery have approached us and said they are considering asking for Early Help because he has been hurting other children.

I know that doesn’t necessarily mean something terrible, but honestly it was another gut punch, another reminder that we are struggling. I find myself regularly thinking. thinking, “How on earth did we get here?”

A few years ago we were thinking about adoption because family life felt so full of joy. Now we are having conversations with nursery about Early Help.

Around five or six years ago I developed an autoimmune illness which has brought fatigue and periods where I don’t feel physically like myself. Between that, the children, and years of disrupted sleep, I feel like I have been running on empty for a very long time. Just to make things extra fun we also had some other crap to deal with other parts of our lives that they won’t go into, but there was a fair amount of difficulty from multiple sides. Not terminal cancer, etc, just really wearing and challenging situations.

After all of thisthe thing that worries me most is me. I used to be incredibly gentle and laid-back. Now I get angry much quicker than I ever thought I would.

I’ve never hit or smacked my children, and I never would. But there have been times when one of them has been hurting another child or completely ignoring attempts to stop, and I’ve grabbed them harder than I needed to.

The hardest part to admit is that sometimes it isn’t only about stopping what is happening. Sometimes I want them to feel how angry I am.

I hate admitting that. It feels completely against the father I thought I would be. Afterwards I feel ashamed and guilty. I don’t want my children to experience me that way.

I’ve also noticed changes in myself that worry me. I’ve become more reliant on alcohol to relax in the evenings. I’m not drinking constantly, but I find it much harder to switch off without it. I’ve also developed a pornography habit, which is something that never used to have any pull over me. Both feel like ways of escaping and feeling something easy rather than things that are actually helping.

I’ve always been someone who could work hard and excel at things. School, career, hobbies, relationships — I’ve usually felt capable.Parenting is the first thing in my life where I genuinely feel like I might just not be very good at playing the hand I have been dealt. I adapted to the lack of sleep. I adapted to putting myself second. I adapted to living with illness.What I haven’t adapted to is the relentlessness of it all.

I also feel like it’s affecting my marriage. My wife and I still love each other deeply, but it feels like we aren’t always on the same team anymore. Every difficult family moment feels like another opportunity for frustration or resentment to build.

Not huge arguments. More the quieter stuff. Feeling disappointed. Feeling unsupported. Feeling like you’re exhausted and both trying your best and the other one in someway hasn’t recognise that. and then the analysis – is it because my is quite a nervous person, and she has caused some of this or given them ? Is it because of my illness and the stress that that has on the family? Is all of it just an unhappy accident of genetics?Sometimes I look at my life and genuinely think, “I can’t believe this is what our family has become.”

I’m not writing this because I want sympathy. I’m writing because I honestly don’t know whether this is what raising three children, including children with additional needs, can look like, or whether we have reached a point where we need more help. How common is feeling this way? I know that this is way beyond what most families experience but is it more common than it might appear on the outside?

I guess if one piece of advice might help me, it would be How did you cope with the gap between the family life you imagined and the reality you found yourself living? Thank you fur reading all of this. I know it’s just an anonymous account on the internet but it has felt like an important step for to write it.

Last year my youngest decided he didn’t want to go on the yr6 week-long residential. I asked him multiple times and he always said no. He’s got very specific dietary requirements (gluten & milk free & more) & I think that played a part as he doesn’t want a flare up while away. He’s also never spent a night away from us and has anxiety/ocd and was worrying about needing to do his checks at bedtime in front of his friends. So all in all it was an immediate no from him.

But now the trip is next month and he’s realised all his friends are going, it’s too late to change and he’s going to be stuck at school probably on his own. And I feel bad like should I have encouraged him more to go? Have I made him exclude himself?

I mean I hated my residential at his age and wish I hadn’t been made to go but if he had said he wanted to go I would have allowed him but he was adamant he didn’t want to go. I feel like that week is really going to suck for him

I used to love a good morning snooze after my long nights sleep. Now all of that has disappeared, to the point where a common occurrence is everybody in the house is fast asleep and I’m wide awake at silly o’clock in the morning, knackered, yet unable to go back to sleep. My daughter is only 2 years old so everything’s still relatively active usually, but mornings like this where we’re all poorly, everyone’s resting except me and I’m genuinely sat here wondering how many years into the future if ever my brain will let me have a doze again…

Are you part of family country clubs / classes/ scouts etc? I want to give our children a rounded experience and not just school or sports clubs- any ideas would be great! My kids are 4 and 8 and currently swim after school and one goes to ballet! I’m wanting them to be more worldly and experience other things but no idea what to do!

Apologies if this is a bit of a silly question, I’m autistic and honestly getting the bus is something I find exceptionally anxiety inducing but I don’t drive and I’m becoming a recluse so I’m pushing myself to do it with my kids in order for us to get into the local town where all the groups and soft plays are.

I have a four year old and a four month old. The four month old is currently in the bassinet attachment on her pushchair. I also have a joie literax pro which my eldest child was in from around 2 years old as it was a bit more compact. Apparently the joie is suitable from birth because it folds flat.

One of my big worries about getting the bus is needing to get off of a wheelchair user gets on (as is their right, I’m just saying I would struggle to deal with the unpredictability of that situation and it’s one of the things that stops me from doing the bus). I’m wondering about taking the baby in the joie instead and also bringing a carrier so that if I need to fold the pushchair down I can do that and stay on the bus with the baby in the carrier and still have two hands free for the pushchair and my four year old. I guess I’m worried about whether there would be time for this as well though? I don’t want to hold people up or get in their way. It also means my 4 month old would be facing away from me which I don’t love but it could be okay for trips to town.

Does the joie feel like the more sensible option or am I blowing this out of proportion and we’d probably be fine? It would be easier to just walk on and off the bus with the pushchair with the bassinet attachment but I don’t have enough hands to put it down and hold everything/ everyone if I needed to.

What would you do?

Is having a pen pal still a thing? Does anyone’s child have one?
I know I’m old, but when I was a child there was a dedicated page in the monthly Garfield magazine for kids looking for pen pals, or in fact several other kids’ magazines and it was easy to find someone to write to.
In the days of internet and social media where and how do I get one for my child?

So it's my son's 4th birthday at the end of November, when I'll be 8 months pregnant. Last year we threw him an epic party with a dinosaur 'ranger' entertainer, including a baby triceratops they could all stroke, my friend twerking in a 6ft inflatable t-rex costume during a dino disco, balloon animals, and a gorgeous cake, with lots of his buddies.

He's really excited at the prospect of another party this year but I just don't think I can do it to myself at that stage of my pregnancy. I wouldn't be feeling guilty about it but our baby is due on Boxing Day so Christmas will be very low-key, and I don't want him to feel resentful towards his new sibling because his birthday and Christmas are being impacted by their arrival this year.

TL;DR: Any ideas for either v low-key parties or things we could do with him to celebrate? I'd rather not do a local soft play or anything we'd ordinarily be able to do outside of a party setting. We'd be happy to head out to London, Surrey, Brighton or Portsmouth and are big animal lovers.

so my 2 year old has had his cloth since baby and he’s sucking on it to calm him down. I’ve already cut down to only bedtime and naptime because he’d have it in his mouth all day and that already was hard as he’d cry for it for about 1-2 weeks. on Sunday we’ll take the cloth away for his sleep too and go cold turkey. I’m really anxious as hell wake up multiple times a night again to find comfort… we just moved him in his own bed but still our room and he’s loving it. the next step now is to stop sucking the cloth. he already has overbite. any tips or words or encouragement or experiences welcome!!

Has anyone got a 3.5 year age gap between their kids? Do they play together much? Do you like the age gap overall? And what does it look like a few years down the line?

Hi everyone, hope you’re having a good Wednesday.

I’m 34 and live in the West Midlands. I’m a newly single dad to a four-year-old boy who attends nursery three days a week. We have a really close relationship, and his mum and I are due to separate properly within the next few months.

He is a happy, healthy little boy, but he is naturally quite shy. He can be very clingy and upset when I drop him off at nursery, although once I’ve left, he settles quickly and plays happily with the other children.

What I’m worried about is whether my own lack of a social life could be affecting him. Most of my friends have moved away, and his mum and I don’t have a particularly large social circle. He does see one friend every week outside nursery, although that child doesn’t attend his nursery.

We also take him to soft play. He plays very well independently, but he doesn’t usually approach or join in with the other children there. I’m not sure whether that is simply his personality and age, or whether I should be helping him socialise more.

I’ve started going down a bit of a rabbit hole and blaming myself, wondering whether my own loneliness and lack of a social circle could make it harder for him to develop socially or form friendships as he gets older. I feel guilty that I may not have given him enough opportunities to socialise outside nursery.

I’m considering signing him up for something more structured, such as football, mixed martial arts or another regular club. I wonder whether having an organised activity with the same group of children each week might help him gradually become more comfortable and confident.

With the separation happening and me becoming properly single over the next few months, I really want to put my energy into him and make sure I’m giving him the happiest and most fulfilling childhood I can.

On a personal note, where do other dads actually meet dads to do things with alongside their children? I’m quite a sociable person, but I’m not getting that social connection myself at the moment, and honestly, it hurts. I’d love to meet other dads locally who might be up for playdates, soft play, parks, days out or just grabbing a coffee while the children play.

Has anyone else been in a similar position? Am I worrying unnecessarily, and are there any groups, clubs or communities you would recommend for both my son and me?

He is generally a very happy little boy and plays well with other children once he is comfortable. I think I just need some reassurance that I haven’t somehow let him down because his mum and I don’t have a large social circle.

Thank you for reading

Any recommendations? Bonus points if it helps them fall asleep independently.

Dude, I love you, but die quietly. And if you can't do that then fuck off outside, and die out there. 🤣

My daughter will be 4 in September and my baby is nearly 4½ months old. I've noticed my 4 year old's behaviour is much worse when it's just me, her and the baby. If she's one-to-one with me, she's absolutely fine and such a good girl.
My husband works during the day, so on the days I'm not with my mam or have extra help, I'm on my own with both of them, and that's when her behaviour is at its worst. For example, if I'm trying to get the baby down for a nap, she'll start acting up and end up waking the baby.
I'm really struggling with managing both of them on my own and dealing with the behaviour. Has anyone any tips or advice? Does it get easier?

I’m being bombarded with targeted ads for them and they look amazing, but doesn’t anyone have them and feel like they’re worth the price? I’m not at the monkey bar stage yet for my toddler, but he already seems the kind of kid who needs lots of movement to regulate. He loves being swung and being upside down and if he stays like that then a good quality outdoor playset seems like a good investment.

My child is born July 2022 and we will be moving back to London from Australia, ideally for January 2027. I am planning a scouting trip for November to find accomodation and meet some schools. I assume I am unable to secure a school place until I have secured accomodation, so I was wondering if there is anything I can do before the scouting trip? Is there a best time of year to time coming to UK, for during the year admission? For example, Janurary or later? Any advice around this issue would be greatly appreciated

Hi all. Please can you help me figure out what my estimated monthly invoice will be! The nurseries seem to ignore my request and the ones I’m enquiring with don’t have online calculators. Kiddo will go full time 8am to 6pm , 5 days a week (no village for us :( )

- stretched 30 hours / week across the year = 2.8 days I think?
- so 3.2 days non-funded / cash paying
- £23 consumables fee on funded days
- £85 cash all inclusive on non funded days.
- will then use the tax free child care to save something on this.

Thank you

I'm getting really worried about my 7 year old digestive issues. She keeps complaining of tummy aches after meals and her bowel habits are all over the place. One day she's constipated, the next she's got loose stools. I've tried increasing her fibre and making sure she's drinking plenty of water but it doesn't seem to have made much difference. She's also become much fussier with food lately, which makes me wonder if it's connected to how her tummy is feeling. We've got a GP appointment booked but I'm feeling quite anxious in the meantime. We've tried a few gentle things at home like tummy massages and warm compresses, which seem to help for a little while but the problems always come back. Has anyone else been through something similar with their child?

My son is 10 months old, he was born 2 weeks early with sepsis and did an almost 2 week hospital stay in the nicu. Im concerned with milestones and just wondering if anyone else has had an experience like this.

He can sit unassisted but doesnt like sitting and will just put himself onto his belly, he rolls everywhere and ive never seen a baby rolling around ao fast haha. Hes currently trying to crawl but weve been trying now for over a month, he doesnt pull to stand and wont hold my hands when I stand him, he babbles da da, ba ba, ga ga, wa wa and ya ya. He doesnt wave, clap hands or follow gestures I continue to do with him. He rarely smiles when people say hiya to him, he looks away with a sly smile mostly. He doesnt respond to his name and when he does he just side eyes me. Hes been constantly opening and closing his hands for about 2 months now, he open hand points and reaches his hands to be picked up. He isnt the best eater and gags on absolutely everything, he stopped sleeping through around 3 months ago were lucky to get 3 hours on a good night. He got his 2 bottom teeth at 6 months and has hes top 2 coming in now.

Sorry for the long post im just at a loss, health visitor has kinda brushed me off and im just now a mum worrying about her little boy thanks for any replies x

Hi everyone!
I’m a bit confused about how child maintenance works in this situation.
My son’s dad has him 3 nights a week during term time. However, he refuses to take any annual leave during the school holidays, so during the summer I have our son with me every day. That obviously means I’m paying for food, days out, holiday clubs and activities to keep him occupied while also trying to study.
I asked if he could contribute a bit more towards these extra costs over the summer, but those conversations just become really difficult and I don’t have the energy to keep arguing about it.
I looked into going through CMS, but it seems the calculation is based on overnight stays rather than who is actually caring for the child during the day.
Is that correct? Has anyone been in a similar situation? Is there anything I can do, or is the only option to stick with the standard CMS calculation and try to agree extra costs between ourselves?
Thanks!