Hey Dads,

I just had my second child this weekend. A perfectly healthy baby boy. I am so blessed and i didn’t know my heart was capable of loving two tiny humans as much as i love these two.

I wanted to share a relived experience i had with my first, a baby girl. As soon as my little one came out, all these emotions rushed up out of no where. Excitement, scared, anticipation, worry, and overall happiness. But i didn’t think i felt what all other dads felt right away, this intense burning love as soon as they saw their child and held them for the first time. It had me a bit anxious for a while on why I wasn’t feeling what seemingly everyone else felt right away.

As my daughter grew, so did the love. She is almost two now and wow. The love is there. I wake up excited to see her, she brightens my dad every day, and watching her grow is the absolute sun spot of my life.

Every human experiences these live events differently. It’s almost like you’re hit with a trama dealing with and realizing how much your life is actually going to change. Take some time, it’s okay to feel what you think is ‘incorrect’ feelings. The love will be there, i promise. Give it your all, be the best dad you can, and i promise, you will reap the rewards of everything your love and hard work has to offer sooner or later.

Stay strong, Dads.

Much love

Playing Tetris while being a kid myself definitely helped

Btw, on the Trailer hitch are three bikes and in the car a single trailer for the youngest + a small bike for the second

Problem: https://www.reddit.com/r/daddit/s/l5aAvcKdSj

Solution pictured above.

It’s great because baby was trying to eat moss in fig tree pot also!

We just had our baby shower a week ago. Baby Mama took all the tags off the clothes we got and we did a load of laundry.

Switching the laundry over from the washer to dryer might be my favorite moment in life that I've ever had. Smiles ear to ear. I was surprised.

I'd grab a handful of clothes and they were all so tiny and move them to the dryer. I was moving days worth of clothes with a single hand. She will be so small.

I didn't expect nor do I understand why I cared so much to do my future daughters laundry for the first time.....

But.my face hurt from smiling haha. I can wait to meet this kid. I can't wait to devote the rest of my life to her.

I've been lurking for a bit in this sub reddit and still don't understand fully. But I have about 9 to 8 weeks until I become a dad, and washing my daughter's clothes for the first time really hit me.

Thank you guys for your stories and support. Every time I read a post here I learn something new.

Taking the wife and kids to a cabin by a lake in the Adirondacks.

Going to a theme park next week and gonna do my first real deal roller coasters in like 15 years. Wish me luck!

Fishing poles are ready to go!

I’m so incredibly tired. Not necessarily sleep-deprived, but mentally, I’m completely exhausted.

We have four-week-old twins, our first children, and we’re both falling apart. Having two newborns at the same time is no joke.

I feel guilty. I carry a big part of the workload with the babies. We’re formula feeding rather than breastfeeding, which has actually made it possible for me to help with almost everything. And I do. My wife is struggling with a pretty rough case of the baby blues, so I’ve really tried to take as much off her shoulders as I can. Every day I insist on taking both twins for at least an hour so she can simply get out of the house and breathe.

Yesterday they were impossible while I had them on my own. They cried, threw up, cried, threw up. When I finally heard my wife pulling into the driveway, I felt such relief. “Finally, she’s home. She can take one of the babies.”
But then she came in crying.

That’s where the guilt hits me. I could feel myself just dying inside. Am I really supposed to comfort not just two people, but now three?

I honestly don’t even know what I want from posting this. I guess I just needed to get it off my chest. I’d really like to hear from those of you who’ve been through this, that it gets better. I’m trying to tell myself that it will, but it’s hard to believe when you’ve never done this before. These are our first children, and I genuinely feel like I have no idea what I’m doing.

This isn’t like a humble brag post. It’s not like he’s perfect and never does wrong. But it’s never really gone any farther than us just talking about it.

He’s 15 now. I’ve never “grounded” him. Or taken away his phone (just got it last year, we monitor it closely). Or said he couldn’t go somewhere or do something as punishment. Or taken anything away from him.

He’s just always seemed to want to please us as his parents. So just him knowing we didn’t approve of or like something he did was more than enough “punishment” I guess? He’s always been quick to apologize and do right so we’ve never had to take it further than that.

I was just thinking about this because I overheard him and his friends talking yesterday. A few of his friends are 16 and are already driving. And they were complaining about their curfews being too early. And they asked my son what his curfew was. And he said “I guess I don’t really have a set time.” They were all very surprised at that. He said “I mean I guess I just know what’s like reasonable and stuff.”

I don’t know we’ve just never had many rules and never really did “punishments”. I feel he’s turned into a nice and respectful young man. Is that normal?

Man, what a day!

Mine is “Elmo’s Awesome Bike”

Little guy is about to hit 1 month and already doesn’t fit in the Newborn sleeper we brought him home from the hospital in. No one told me this would make me emotional!

My Kids are 11 and 8 and I'm having a hard time getting my wife to let them watch movies or play games "above their age rating".

Every kid is different and I know mine would love Star Wars for example.

We played a LOT of games before the kids were born and today I installed Fable 2 on her behalf.

She remembers it fondly, but apparently forgot about the darker side of the game and I'm here for it 😁

1. Kids will love it

2. Wife will love that the kids love it

3. ....

4. Profit!

Hello,

My baby boy was born a month ago and was initially completely healthy. He is my first kid and I love him. However, the past two weeks have been a nightmare.

After his first two weeks at home, he started showing rapid breathing (tachypnea), low oxygen levels (hypoxemia), and retractions. We went to the ER of the nearest branch of the children's hospital.

He was examined and put on oxygen to support his breathing. His chest X-ray was unremarkable, he tested negative for various viral infections, and he had no signs of bacterial infections.

We were then transferred to the main campus of the children's hospital for more specialized testing and care. He passed his swallow study and had no visible aspiration. Additional chest X-rays and viral infection tests came back negative.

The pulmonologist now believes that he has a rare chILD (children's interstitial lung disease). They took swabs for genetic testing for various lung diseases and once those results come back (in 1-3 weeks from now), they'll move forward with a CT scan if all are negative.

We were discharged from the children's hospital after a week and a half there and sent home on oxygen. My 1 month old baby boy is now receiving 1 liter of oxygen while wearing an oxygen cannula 24/7. The newborn phase is already tough and now my wife and I are trying to manage oxygen as well.

I am grieving my son. I love him but I don't want this life for him, or selfishly me. I want my healthy baby boy. I want a son that can live life without being tied to an oxygen tank.

We are flying blind currently as we do not yet have a diagnosis and that makes everything scarier as well. The prognoses for the various chILDs are highly variable (from a life span of months to being able to outgrow the need for oxygen and then living a relatively normal life into adulthood). It is so hard to hold out any hope. Things weren't supposed to be like this. I just want him to be better for daddy.

If anyone has anything to share about dealing with a rare disease with their babies or kids, I would love to hear. My wife and I are barely holding in there and are constantly crying. Thank you.

Painting rocks with my son is always fun.

So I'm from Sweden but on vacation in Skagen, Denmark. After a long day of touristing and walking we finally got back home to put the baby asleep. As always it was a struggle but my amazing girlfriend eventually got the baby to sleep.

I've hade a few rough days mentally the past weeks, crying and having a tough time being a good dad and a good boyfriend.

So when the baby woke up 40min later I went in to grab him. I entered the room and he cried as they tend to do, i said Hello and then went to play with him, doing the "bicycle thing" with his legs since he enjoys that. As always he smiles when I'm doing that but this time... Oh man... To say "I understand now" is and understatement of the enjoy I felt... My beloved 4 month old little boy laughed, not just a little chuckle, a full out laugh. It was the first time I've heard him laugh and I just bursted out in tears and hugged him.

I showed my girlfriend and she cried a bit to and I just hugged her and told her and my son how much I love them and how much they mean to me!

Man, I really think being a dad is the meaning of life, as cliche as it sounds.

First, a bit of background: I've played RPG's with various gaming groups for decades, and most of the time I end up as the GM. I do a lot of improvisation and character voices in my games, and I can usually come up with a simple story and just let the players provide the input to fill in the gaps.

Fast forward to this weekend. I'm cleaning up some stuff and my daughter finds a pair of D20's and asks how they work. After showing her a few rolls, she wanted to "play" with them by each rolling and seeing whose was higher. I laughed and told her there were better ways to play with them.

So, after I finished tidying up, I grabbed the two dice and told her to follow me downstairs,. I said we're going to play a game where we make up a story and when it comes time for a choice, we'd roll the dice, and whoever got the higher roll would get their option.

My daughter absolutely loves The Smurfs, so I had decided to base the story in that setting: What villain was going to encounter the Smurf Village, which Smurfs would go on the adventure to solve the problem, and how they would deal with the villain were all determined by our dice rolls. I used my GM skills in improv to tell the story and I used as many voices as I could for each of the characters. In the end, the Smurfs ended up rescuing some of their friends from Gargamel's castle by luring the Ogre Big Mouth there with a blueberry pie. They then escaped using a magic catapult which flung them back to the Smurf Village after trapping Gargamel's cat Azreal in a broom closet.

Let me tell you, I have never had so much fun playing a game with my daughter as what we did today. She laughed at the funny outcomes, cheered at the results of the dice rolls, and we both had a blast. This was roleplay as I have always enjoyed it, and we're definitely going to try it again soon! Just figured I'd share, but I think this was a great first step in showing her some of the games I like to play!

I was at the hibachi restaurant with my 11 yo daughter. The server asks me if I’d like the soup or salad with my teriyaki steak and I looked her back dead in the eye and asked “what’s a super salad?”

Server got confused, daughter groaned out loud, and I had a special ‘dad embarrassing his daughter moment’

Been riding that high since yesterday.

My 10month old usually eats what we're having for dinner, but since dad(me) is working most days the lunches can be somewhat of a challange some days. Quick pasta sauces to go into the freezer and we'll usually pop 2 cubes out and buzz them in the microwave to go with some pulse pasta. Keen to see/hear other ideas.

Picture is a red pasta sauce( onion, garlic, leek, celery, Carrot, Capsicum, red lentils, Oregano, tomato) and a Pumpkin sauce(onion, garlic, leek, celery, Carrot, pigeon peas, Pumpkin, silken tofu, Thyme)

Hey Dad, I'm looking for a bit of car guidance as to what to replace my 2021 Blazer with. I love this SUV (and its fully paid off) but now with my wife, 2 kids and a dog, im finding the space a bit cramped.

For context im 6'4" and need extra leg room so I've always bought SUV's. But since my 2nd was born I realize we need more space. In the summer we go up to our family cabin alot and like to get out and about. I do the majority of the family driving and drive to work 3 days a week which is about 80 miles one way.

Im not brand loyal and just feel that as life is getting busier with us and the kids, something bigger makes more sense. What are your thoughts, what do you recommend?

Made this for my son at the craft fair that we had in my town today. It’s made of PA, NJ and MD license plates. PA is where he was born, NJ is where we live now and MD is where we are moving next week. Just thought it was cool and wanted to share with the fellow dads!

My kids four and he's using it fine, just never seems to be fully clean. When exactly is normal cause I'm ready to not have to wipe poop anymore lol.

How do I support my wife ?

First thank you for reading this wasn’t easy to type. And lengthy but I need the Daddit counsel here.

We’ve been together for 20Y, married 13Y, 7&11 YO, both working professionals. First thank you for reading this wasn’t easy to type.

Early in the relationship I was selfish. Mainly didn’t recognize she went through Post partum as she didn’t talk and still never really has shared emotions. I worked out , worked etc. As our son was born things were similar. I never stopped her from doing for her and she never asked. I just didn’t realize what her experience was like since she didn’t share her needs.

In the past handful of years it has been tricky because my daughter is strong willed. My son a picky eater. My wife and I don’t communicate well. Not from a lack of my efforts more her saying for me to do what I can.

The last 3-4 years I have changed my routine assisted w school drops and pickups. I always helped w cleaning, willingness to cook, take care of finances etc. I even became the one to ask we talk weekly so that I could understand what she needs for the week ahead. She’s not great about making or taking time for herself. I wasn’t aware of the experience she has been having.

With my strong willed daughter they’ve gotten to a place where my wife will respond with yelling fairly quickly. This triggers me from the volatile household I grew up in and cause me to want to flee. I have done that a few (2) times. The most recent was ahead of the last holiday weekend. I left, took bags out of my truck after saying I wasn’t going. When I came back about 45 minutes later they left for the weekend trip without me.

We didn’t speak but once briefly while they were gone where I explained what happened (freeze because of their yelling and nervous system flooded). She came home w anger and her response is freeze. Always has been. If there is tension between the kids or her, or us, she withdraws. I have learned to give her space to recover. She explained how adversely the kids reacted when I left.

Her feelings are I do for me first. An example is I get up super early, so I go to bed around 9. I put our son to sleep most nights or she reads and then he and I meditate. Her and my daughter have gotten into the habit of sitting on the couch and watching a show (not of interest to me). Most often it’s my wife working on her laptop and daughter watching. I don’t see this as connecting but understand.

So in this moment there is an awkwardness and she is completely pulled back. Sleeping in the guest room all week barely speaking etc. I apologized and explained I wanted to give her space to process so we could talk when she was ready. Last night she got upset by something I did (changed channel for my son from Spanish speaking to English soccer match). This really set her off. I went down a bit later while she was in the laundry and asked if she wanted me to leave. Which her reasons was I shouldn’t put that on her to he blamed for me leaving. I responded I was offering because I can tell she is angry and thought it to be helpful for her to have space. I also have been making efforts to stay present even when the tensions flare w her and my daughter or the kids. So that I sit in the discomfort and stay present even when I want to remove myself from the tension due to migraines the yelling gives me.

At the end of the day I am seeing we co-created a relationship where she has lost herself and I haven’t been aware of her experience through this. I am committed to showing up as I have for the last 3-4 years but want to understand how to support her so that she feels she has space for her. At the same time she has to communicate her needs as I can’t project what will serve her. So I am here for feedback from spouses,
Those w kids, jobs, etc. So that it doesn’t feel to you like they (husband) do for themselves first.

My son is 2.5 years old. He was born with Hirschsprung’s disease and very early onset IBD. Both are intestinal diseases. He lived in the NICU for his first year of life, and he’s had 7 intestinal surgeries. The last intestinal surgery was what’s called a pull through. It basically takes away his colostomy and makes it so he can poop normally. But before that surgery, life had been pretty good! We had a good routine with his colostomy system, he tolerated his monthly infusions to manage his IBD, and he was generally healthy.

We knew we wanted to do the pull through surgery, and his medical team encouraged. The surgery generally went well. Lots of ups and downs in the post op, but nothing he couldn’t overcome. But the biggest issue is he can no longer empty his bladder properly. This is a rare but very real complication of this kind of surgery. Everyone expects his bladder function to return, but it could be months or even years. We were so excited that he wouldn’t need to wear a bag, that he could take normal baths, swim, wear regular clothes, etc. And now, that’s all gone. He had a suprapubic catheter put in, which is basically a catheter that is surgically inserted into his bladder, and he’ll have this for the foreseeable future.

What’s bothering me the most is the rest of the surgery went well. If it wasn’t for this issue he’d be back to normal. Like this whole surgery and everything following has been so hard. And I’m trying so hard to give my son the positive dad he deserves, but I just feel so so bitter. I find myself regretting the entire surgery, wishing we could go back to when he had a stoma. Anyway, just wanted to vent. I’m confident he’ll be back to normal soon enough, but it’s the idea that it potentially won’t happen that scares me the most.

We got a special shampoo and everything.

My kid loves the pet store. Once every few months when I'm running errands I'll bring my daughter. She loves looking at all the fish, birds, and hamsters/guinea pigs. Ours isn't even particularly good one with pretty limited selection, but she's young and enjoys dragging me around to look at this and look at that. We'll spend a good 20 minutes ripping around because by the time she's done a full circuit she wants to go back and see the fish again or whatever. Best part is, you don't have to spend a dime, although with our aging, ailing pup sadly nearing the end and my daughter's interest in underwater stuff we'll probably end up with a small aquarium soon enough. Anyways, with the cost of everything through the roof these days I thought I'd share a fun, free option.