Well...from a child development stand point free play is where kids do the most and their best learning so your friends aren’t too far off. Interestingly, the hippies have a lot of overlap with good solid child development, they just often take it too far and/or misinterpret the ideas. Secure attachment (the most…

For their customers’ sake and the baby’s sake. You seriously have to handle breastmilk better than that or you risk it getting contaminated and making your baby sick.

Can I star this forever?

Probably in cloth diapers, they come in the velcro or snap variety. Velcro is easier for changing, but snaps keep the kid from taking the diaper off. Always go snaps!

I’ve only flown Alaska Airlines with my kiddo, but he was 2 1/2 and is a giant and we were able to use the provided changing table in the bathroom on the plane just fine. I mean, it was a little awkward bc of his size and trying to fit more than one body in the tiny bathroom, but way easier than using a tray table…

I grew up with CC because my dad is deaf. I actually put them on for my son for this very reason. I figured it would help him with word recognition. I have also shown a subtitled movie in a reading class to help kids with reading expression. The expression and tone of the foreign language as they read the english…

Family dinners are not a trend. They were the norm at one point and went on the decline and then loads of research showed that they are important and so it’s a common talking point/recommendation in parenting media. Looking back at polls from the early 2000s shows less than half of all families eating most meals…

This times 1,000!! Children learn by copying others. They will always do what you do rather than what you say. If they don’t see you eating and modeling appropriate table manners, they won’t learn those things. It’s basic child development.

If meal time with kids is chaos, you’re doing it wrong. I think there are a lot of great points in this piece, most of them related to parents putting too much pressure on themselves. Your job is to provide healthy food for your kid. Your kid’s job is to eat it. You do not need to force or encourage or anything…

Except that when you fat shame him, every other person who has been fat shamed feels it. We all know the truth, you think his fat is disgusting means you think our fat is disgusting. You’re just too polite to say it to us, but you think it and the proof is when you use it against your enemy. I can’t stand the guy,…

ugh, I am right there with you. I went from a D cup to a G cup after having a baby and I can’t stand it. It feels like they are always in my face or in the way. It’s such a foreign experience, I feel like it’s not my body anymore. I thought it would go down after breastfeeding, but he’s 3 now and stopped…

I think it is still a problem. Everyone thinks you’re weird when you worry about safety that actually matters. Drowning is the number one cause of death for children ages 1-4 and number 2 cause of death for all other ages of children. Car accidents are the number one cause for other ages and number two for the 1-4…

There’s not going to be much you can do for them overall, but kids will respond to consistency and will develop different responses to different caregivers. If you have consistent rules and responses to their actions, they will start to behave for you. Natural, logical consequences are the best. Be sure to tell…

That is a fantastic idea!

Don’t we all!

I’m afraid of how my son will be at the beach this year. We didn’t make it last year because I had a foot injury, but his first experience was pure joy and frightening for us adults. He ran straight for the ocean and loved it, absolutely fearless at one years old. That leash on the life jacket idea may be just the…

We have the tommy bahama backpack chairs from costco. They have built in coolers and storage pockets. We’ve always been able to fit what we need food-wise for a day trip in those. Also, the ikea tent is pretty awesome. I pack some gallon ziplocks so we can use it by the pool when there is no sand to fill the…

So how do we repeal congressional healthcare? I mean, since healthcare isn’t a human right and we shouldn’t be paying for others’ healthcare, we definitely shouldn’t be paying for theirs, right?

Yeah, that was my first thought too. How messed up is it that people are willing to put themselves at such risk to become viral sensations? It seems to be a double-whammy lottery and fame effect. It’s that chance of getting rich quick and easy and that chance of being famous. I don’t know how we stop it either. …

I still can’t figure out the point of email signatures in the first place. Is it really that hard to type your name each time? Once you’ve seen the email signature, every subsequent time is just repetitive and annoying. Especially the this is confidential crap, and the pictures, and the everything else. It’s just…