So my son started teething and will put ANYTHING in his mouth, he will even start sucking on your cheek if he has the chance. He also stopped eating as much as he used to. Before he loved to eat but now he doesn't really want to all he wants is stuff to suck on. I was just wondering if anyone else has had the same problem or has any advise on what i should do so he eats more. He is only eating some baby food and formula.

I'm about 19 weeks pregnant. I read in the newsletter sent by Parenting.com that the raging hormones that make you moody and depressed subside...how long until I start to feel normal again? I feel depressed over little things, I want to cry when someone says something with a slight attitude, and I feel absolutely useless all the time like everything I do is wrong..I'm forgetting simple things and I need a job and no one wants to hire me or my babies father to work. Please help me...This is my first baby and I'm terrified that these feelings will make me have post postpartum depression once the baby is born...I don't know what to do. I've already lost one apartment during this pregnancy, Jumped from house to house...finally in another place again but could lose this one too....I'm a freaking wreck.

lately my son will stop whatever he is doing to lay flat on his belly with his face in the carpet to take a poo. he never did this before a week, and i am not really concerned, although i think he is weird, and just plain hilarious! one minute he is walking around, next thing he plops down face burried grunting, ha!!

So my sons first birthday will be january 12th next year, and i know it seems like its too early to start planing, but its really not! not with the holidays coming up and in my imediate family alone between now and then there will also be 4 other birthdays (mine, my sisters, my dads and my brothers!), so i wanted to start hammering out some of the details and i am really stumped about when to throw the part, the weekend before or the weekend after? the day falls on a tuesday, so if i throw it the weekend before its only 2 or 3 days away, but he wont ACTUALLY be a year, but if i throw it the weekend after he will have been a year for 4 or 5 days. i dont want either, i just want the celebration on his birthday, which i will probably do a mini one for me and him anyways, but everyone wont be able to come, so we will do the big one on the weekend. but which one?!?! im driving myself crazy trying to figure it out :( please help!!!

I am a single mother of a 16 month old girl. We both live with my parents, her grandparents. At this time I do not have the means to support myself and my daughter on my own, and have no other option but to live at their home. My problem is that my parents REFUSE to stop spanking my child, something I absolutely do not believe in. I've tried every single tip I have been given on how to deal with this. I have tried explaining to them that she is MY child and therefore would like to be respected in the decision on how I parent her. I've tried to explain how spanking teaches her nothing. The only response I ever get from them is that they spanked me, their parents spanked them, and they will spank her also. My parents basically have the both of us under their thumb, at least until my finances improve. I cannot simply take my daughter out of the situation and refuse to allow them around her. I work and go to school and am unable to take over every aspect of discipline, and they blatantly disrespect me by spanking her against my wishes. I'm very frustrated with this and have run out of ideas. Any suggestions?

We have lived in our new home for about 7 months. We were excited becasue the neighbors were a couple around our age (late 20's &30's) and they had 3 children aroud 8, 5, 2. I have two kids 7,8. We have been trying to get to know them a little but they just do not seem interested in getting to know us. My daughter gets a little sad becasue she wants to get to know the neighbor girl. Well today, the neighbors had a big bday party. They had a gigantic bouncing thing and balloons and a couple of kids. Eventhough my kids were not here (they were at grandmas) to see it and they will never know, it hurt me so bad. I know I sound stupid. But I feel bad, becasue my kids don't have any friends on this street. And my daughter has wanted so bad to meet the neighbor but they just give us the cold shoulder. And today when I saw they were having this big birthday bash and they didnt even invite my kids it hurt sooo bad. It wouldve hurt more if my kids were here to see it because I know they wouldve been sad. When I have a bday for my kids should I still invite the neighbors kids? I know I need to just get over it but it hurts and makes me angry that they have been so rude to us.

I am not trying to sound selfish or ungrateful in anyway but I had my shower last weekend. It was wonderful all the people that showed up including my aunt who surprised me last min, my mom and sister and nephew all flew in, it was great. The problem lies with we only got a few minor things we needed. My mom got us the travel system we registered for, my friend got us the pack n play and my sister the travel bed. Everything else is clothes and not even plain oneies. We only got 2 packs of diapers (not including the 4 boxes mom and aunt bought while they were here) and 2 packs of wipes.
We are first time parents so we have nothing we need. I have been to plenty of baby showers in my life and hosted a couple and I don't remember any of them not get anything on their registry. Not a monitor, not any of the bedding, we ended up with a couple of heavy blankets and few receiving blankets. We did get a number of gift cards and I am thankful for those as well as the things we did get but I can't help but be a little disappointed in the lack of necessities we didn't get that I registered for. With the exception of the travel system, the pack n play and the travel bed and the receiving blankets nothing else was from the registry. We ended up with 6 bottles that I may need to return because they are glass and I am not sure I want to use glass bottles.
Besides just needing to tell someone else because my husband doesn't seem to get it, he says "well, we got the gift cards we can just go buy it ourselves." The gift cards only cover so much.
My husband has been out of work for a month and everyone knows he has been out of work so things are really tight for us and about to get even tighter with the baby coming. I guess I thought with our situation and those knowing about it and knowing it's our first child there would have been more thought put into the gifts.
Has this happened to anyone else?

Anyone experience this?? I have been searching online for puppies and hoping I accidently get pregnant! If I see a baby I want one. I have 15 month old son already and deffinitly want more kids. But lately I have just been having this overwhelming desire to have a baby!! And I try to reason with myself that I am not really ready and I try to remember the morning sickness and the labor pains but nothing works. I almost bought a puppy the other day! I'm not a huge dog person! Anyone else had this??

Hi all
excuse me, im not very internet savvy...

I wanted to ask...

Anyone tried pheromone colognes and how do they work?
Which is the best pheromone?

Im very serious.
I need to seduce my co-worker and I think pheromones can help!

Thx

Im 6 months pregnant and going to be a mommy for the first time. Me and my boyfriend werent the type of people who ever thought we would be settled down and starting a family so soon but since ive found out i was pregnant we have been overjoyed and so excited to welcome our son into our lives. The down side of things is that we were not prepared for a child at all and are stuggling just to get by on our own.
I am 22 and have always been very independant! I moved to texas away from my family in California and met my wonderful boyfriend. When we met i had 2 jobs and my own car and pretty much supported us for the first few months... since i got pregnant i have lost my car which broke down and lost my job due to the fact it was hard to commute to work everyday on time. Things have been hard since i havent been able to help out with bills and am fully dependant on my boyfriend. We have just purchaced a used car and it seem like there is no getting out of this hole.
I refuse to put my son in a daycare after he is born! The thought of a complete stranger getting close to my son and taking care of his needs when it should be me drives me crazy. I NEED ideas and help with what i can do from home to help earn some money and take some of the work load off my boyfriend and still remain a stay at home mommy with my first born. Please send any ideas of how i can make this happen.

I think Roo has gotten a taste of independence somewhere and is enjoying it! I tried to give her a bottle a half hour ago and she REFUSED. She was showing all the signs she was hungry AND tired, but instead she didn't wanna eat the bottle I was giving her.

So my new trick now, is that when she gets so tired she won't eat, I go lay her down. She'll fuss herself to sleep. This only works if she's almost completely gone. If I lay her in there and she starts screaming like someone's torturing her? Then I gotta go and get her and try to force the bottle or pat her back 'til she knocks herself out from crying.

So earlier today, I didn't feel like 'beating her' cuz it's really tiresome and she'll thrust her legs into your thighs and scream in your ear. So I decided I'd adjust her to hold her bottle and leave her in her crib. It WORKED. She fell asleep. Woahhhh... surprised!

I didn't even know she could hold her bottle, which I don't think she technically knows how if I have to adjust her hands on the bottle. And she drops it then starts to cry. But it's awesome! I give her her bottle, adjust it, then leave the room. Check on her later [or go in before and readjust the bottle] and she's asleep! Take the bottle away, cover her up. END!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Have to say... days like these make me love m momminess. And there's so many of them, who even remembers the 'bad' days? :]

Oh! Anyone else have a 5 month old animal lover? I have two cats, and whenever I prop Roo up on the couch, they'll both come over to her and she grabs ones face and tail, the other she holds her hand out to and the kitten nibbles on her fingers. I call them love bites. I watch them like a hawk, and only allow them near her if they're not playing and are generally calm. I just think it's too cute. She LOVES the kitties.

One last thing... she's been... trying...? to crawl, I think. She'll get up on her tippy toes and make an arch with her hands and feet, butt straight up in the air. She doesn't really go anywhere, she just does these push up type things lol. It's really cute. I just kinda want it to happen pretty soon. Then I don't, cuz I know I'll be a nervous wreck. But right now, I want it to happen soon. Lol.

My 4 year old is in a Head Start Program and they had a "hoops for dad" last night. Well, my husband went and he was pissed when he got home. Appartently, they were handing out door prizes which I never got any notification of but the director said I did (she is calling me a liar). 4 year old do NOT understand on drawing door prizes. They think "ooh, I get a prize." It's the purpose of teaching children that it's not fair for someone to have something and they don't. They teach this at their school on bringing money for snacks. They say that the children aren't allowed to bring money to school for snacks at lunch because someone will have one and the other not. Then my husband said that there were older kids getting the prize, not the dads. I asked her about that and she said "no they weren't", really rudely. I told her that if they were doing prizes than they should have done the drawing and said afterwards get your prize. But no they had to show the kids the prizes and get their hopes up. Or they couldve should have gave away books or smaller items. I thought that this would be just fun activities for the kids but no it turned it out to be hell!! I really do not like the director she treats me like crap every time I talk to her and I can't talk to anyone else above her because Head Start is separated from the other schools. I'm getting to the point where I will take my son out rather than being treated like that. It seems that she treats all the "hispanics" better than the whites. I make above the cut off for head start but she let him anyway because of the enrollment numbers.Any advice please?!

MONSTER DETECTOR –For iphone, itouch users
http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/M...337465206&mt=8

The MONSTER DETECTOR app lets you quickly scan a room to detect the presence of monsters. Provides comfort & assurance to children at bedtime. Cascading lights and accompanying sounds indicate device is actively scanning the room for monsters.
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This is silly, but no matter how many times you reassure a child that, "There are no monsters," the fear remains. I used this Monster Detector with little ones & the visual proof for them was seriously helpful! They settled down to ZZzzzzs! Happy Mom!

OK so my son's diaper pail reeks!! And it's the plastic that is part of the problem. I have left it outside for days on end, soaked it in bleach and put a thing of baking soda in it and still we open it and it fills the room!! I've lysoled the crud out of it too and still nothing! And to make it all worse its supposed to be one of those no smell battery powered ones that filter the smell and all that jazz! But the plastic reeks! Anyone know how to get the plastic back to normal?

Exciting! We have experts from Novadebt visiting our Family Budget Boot Camp blog next week.

Reply to this message with your credit card / debt management questions! We'll send them all to the Novadebt counselors, and they'll choose a bunch to answer next week on the blog!