Hello Fathren. There's a time in most children's lives when they think they are too old for Bluey. (It's okay, they'll grow into it again in about 15 years.) But you still want to consume episodic entertainment with them that features healthy parent–child relationships.

Enter Batman: Wayne Family Adventures.

It's a slice-of-life webcomic featuring the famous superhero and their not-as-famous family of adopted sidekicks. It's got personal struggles and supportive siblings that lead to feel-good-but-not-too-cheesy resolutions. It's got some action but not much gratuitous violence. There are deep cuts for the superfans but also explains things to make lore accessible to newcomers. It's not "made for boys" (in fact, based on the comments section the audience might lean toward women). Each issue is shorter than a Bluey episode, so you can moderate intake appropriately.

It starts off a bit more lighthearted before it gets into the emotional stuff, so if the first few issues aren't for you, it might be worth continuing to read.

I'm not affiliated with the comic or the website, just wanted to share. Viewing the comic is free.

Watching up with my MIL and the scene where he hits the fellow that touches the mailbox comes on when my MIL says "yeah buddy, that's not ok". We had a small back and forth because I feel Carl was in the right for a few reasons:

1 he's old. The guy who is trying to take the mailbox is less than half his age. Carl is clearly at a disadvantage in a physical altercation that could have easily ended in him breaking a hip

2 he gave ample warning and time for the other guy to retreat before using his cane

3 at the end of the day is his mailbox and he said don't touch it. There's not much else Carl can do because of his age, so the whack was the smallest action to stop the situation.

Mil had the "you shouldn't teach him that" face on. Dads, how do we feel about the scene?

Our kids are 6 and 8.

A few months ago, mom (out of frustration at the constant begging) came up with the idea to completely eliminate the screen time of the kids on weekdays.

We did not have a proper rule before, more like the idea that the children should not watch too much TV or play Nintendo.

The new rule is as follows:

• No screen time on weekdays, but more or less unlimited (with parental right of objection) on weekends. Screen time applies to everything that has a screen (Mobilephone, Camera, iPad, TV, Switch, …)
• In this arrangement, the weekend starts on Friday evening, after all homework and chores have been done.
• The kids are allowed to listen to radio plays while playing after all homework and chores are done.
• Exceptions are allowed if we watch something with them, for example a learning video on Youtube about a current topic, or a short report if our home team won. ;-)

Conclusion:

Since we have this arrangement, we have no more begging through the week and there is much less whining when homework or chores have to be done.

From time to time the question comes (mostly from the younge one) if they are allowed to play on the Nintendo. When I answer that today is a day of the week, they mostly just say “ah, yes” and that’s it.

The best part is that the kids still go outside or play games on weekends and don’t want to “catch up” their screen time all the time.

Does anyone else have the same experience?
Or do you have an even better solution?

Also thank you all for enganging in this subreddit, dads rule!

Hey fellas My son was born in 2020. He just graduated to his “big boy bed.” Back in 2020 we bought this Graco Benton Outfit with all of the parts. It included a changing table portion. Parts of the crib convert to a nice headboard and footboard but basically entire changing table half is just dismantled and useless. Any suggestions on what I can do with the extra wood? No more kids in my future (snip snip). Wondering if there’s a better option before I just throw this all away?

Original crib and current set up for reference.

Sometimes the old ways are the best.

And by "old" I mean Millennial childhood.

My wife and I have discussed our approach to handling internet exposure and social media for our kid as they grow up and we've settled on this as our strategy. We'll also get a video game system at some point too. The main emphasis in all of this is exposure with moderation. Depending on maturity and development, we can have the smartphone talk later in high school.

When someone adjusts the temperature my speaker would make a sound effect like a security alarm is going off and announce: "ALERT!! AN SMS TEXT MESSAGE HAS BEEN SENT TO: DAD."

Surely this would send chills down the spine of most sentient beings. Bonus points if I can rig some flashing red lights into the whole setup.

Sitting on a plane right now, the last of 3 flights to get home. As I boarded with my very tired kids, I nicely asked a woman sitting in a window seat (12F) if she would mind swapping seats me, to another window seat closer to the front of the plane (5F), because I was travelling with my kids.

She was quite rude and downright refused, even though she was travelling alone, I thought that maybe she’d appreciate being closer to the front. So now I have to sit in my assigned seat beside my two overtired kids for 5 hours.

My son is a super sweet kid. He’s shy and doesn’t like confrontation. We’re at our gymnastics class right now and there’s a bigger kid (too big to be in this class in my opinion) who’s cutting in line and throwing fake kicks and punches, just generally being a nuisance. My son is letting it happen, not really making an effort to get him to stop. I was the same way when I was a kid. I don’t want to teach him to fight or be aggressive, but I do want to let him know it’s ok to stake your claim to things. How have you guys taught this to your kids?

Edit: he’s 6

Looking for some advice dads and I guess just want to vent a little. We have 4 year old twin girls and a just about 15 month old at home. The twins were potty trained a little before they turned 3 but now we’ve seemed to have regressed with them. Unless I prompt them to use the bathroom throughout the day they will just have accident after accident. They play pretty well so we will let them play together and will pretty frequently find them just sitting in their own pee covered pants without a care for who knows How long. Any suggestions on how to sort of retrain them to listen to their bodies and use the bathroom before it’s too late?

I called it a threek and my partner said it should be a thrork..

My four year old has some snot drainage from being sick and gaged and threw up all his dinner, Burger King. While I’m wiping him off he has the audacity to look at me with vomit still dripping from his chin and say, you need to get me another burger right now.

I'm stuck, almost paralyzed. I'm a federal employee experiencing the daily anxiety of being RIF'd.

My agency recently sent information on another "deferred retirement program." I did not consider it the first time, but now I am considering taking it. I like my work and I believe in the mission but I am slowly breaking. I am confident I could find work elsewhere but at a significant pay cut. I don't want to quit; I have supportive colleagues and supportive immediate leadership. However, it's hard to be in a job when the people ultimately in charge are actively making your job harder, illegally closing agencies, and will likely fire you anyway.

All of this stress is causing me to not be present for my spouse and our young child. I feel disconnected, angry, and just afraid of an unclear future. I've been exhausted before, but I'm more exhausted due to earlier mornings, the commute, and being in an office 5-days a week (I was previously full-time remote). My wife is supportive and very understanding, but I know the uncertainty and my stress is making her anxious, too. I'm worried I am just going to break or snap.

I don't know what I am asking here. Maybe I just need to vent. Or maybe there's someone else out there experiencing something similar. I'm just overwhelmed, anxious, and at a loss.

So. I find myself in this bind.

Son was out with his friends, due back at a certain time. 25 minutes beyond that he's still not back and I don't have anyway of contacting him.

Bundle his younger sister in the car and head on out to look for him. Not at the park he's meant to be at. Panic sets in. All's well, he's at his friend's house and told mates mum he was due back at a different time.

He's 10. I'm trying to balance the tech with giving him the freedom/responsibilities I had as a kid to go and play and come home when he meant to.

Question I think we need a way for us to contact him if he does go out/goes AWOL. But I don't want him to have a normal phone.

Does anyone have any recommendations for apps that will lock a phone down?

Ideally something that will only allow whitelisted contacts?.

I know there are the old style button clam phones, but that doesn't fulfill the whitelisting brief.

Hey dads!

My wife and I are the proud parents of an amazing 1 year old. Unfortunately, those first 3-4 months or so were really, really hard and I suffered from some bad post-partum depression.

My wife and I just found out that were unexpectedly pregnant again (we wanted 2 kids, just maybe not this soon).

For those dads who suffered from postpartum and went on to have more kids, do you have any advice or suggestions on how to work through some of the postpartum symptoms? What was it like adding more to your family?

I already have a therapist and am on anti-depressants, and am actively working with my doctors, but are there other resources I should be working with/reaching out to?

My wife and I had a dog for 10 years, 8 of which we were childless.

He passed from cancer, and is missed so dearly.

During our second kids mat leave we got another puppy, but he’s so reactive, now 1.5 years old.

We have done training, and I’ll be honest haven’t given him all the time he deserves as most dogs miss on when there are kids in the picture but with the reactivity snd training, it’s a bigger miss.

We both work full time, both kids in day care, and my patience gets sucked up by this dog. When he doesn’t listen, I snap so fast and it’s unfair on everyone. In the time after, I’m short with everyone, it’s just compounding stress.

I can’t imagine how guilty I’d feel rehoming him, but there are days where I can’t figure out how this isn’t the most fair option to everyone and dog involved.

I know he’s a puppy and will grow calmer but I also know needs more of my time.

People who have been through this. What course did you take and what were the results.

This isn't actually for me, but for my 15 year old nephew (my boy isn't old enough for this problem yet, all he wants to watch on youtube is Snake Discovery). As he gets older, my sister is looking for some ideas on youtubers/tiktokers/other content creators that are a positive male influence? I'm thinking of people who encourage continued education, respect people of all shapes, sizes, ethnicities and backgrounds, etc. Like if we could find the opposite of andrew taint, something like that. Any suggestions for people that are fun and interesting, and also a good influence?

Edit: wow this blew up, thanks everyone for the awesome suggestions! Lot of good ideas to check here. I knew I could count on the awesome dad's of daddit to come through

My wife and I welcomed unexpected twins back in November. Our life has been absolute insanity, we have a 5 and 3 year old on top, and I work a demanding job. Since then my parents, who live ~15 minutes away have REALLY stepped up to help our family out. Financially and physically, helping us with our toddlers extracurricular costs, being available to watch our older boys when we need a few hours, or to run somewhere without the insane stress of bringing two crazy toddlers. They are so happy to do it, and they are never obligated. But they're retirement age and while the boys behave way better with them, I know it's not the most ideal thing ever for them. I want to show my appreciation for them, I was hoping to come here for some ideas. Let me know what you got!

Looking for any and all advice for maintaining some sort of work vs. parent vs. individual vs. couple balance. We've traded parental responsibilities during the work week nights and weekends, but we'd really like a night (even 1 hour) out together without the baby.

This issue is mostly driven by our limitations: --We live away from both of our families. --We have a reactive dog (different, but related issue), which makes it difficult to have a babysitter or anyone in our house that's not us.

Moksha, Mickey Mouse!

Looks familiar..

Crib I found a mini crib since the little one will be with me. Price and color great. Has the same height and width of non-fun size criba. Is a 5 and 1 crib. Only difference is about 20 inches with length. With my first child I didn't have a 40 inch tall toddler. Was thinking the mini crib.

Any use or used in past a mini crib?

My wife and I are expecting our first child in August and the stroller options are all overwhelming.

We live in Boston which is a very walkable city and we currently commute most days by foot. My mother in law is retired and has offered to babysit 3 days a week and we are hoping that we get into the daycare that is on our walk into the office for 2 days a week.

I am honestly not sure how we would plan on using the stroller beyond the commute though so I'm having a hard time imagining what I should look at for features.

I noticed that uppababy and mockingbird offer bassinets that plug in to their strollers which you can use with a stand instead of a crib. Are those worth it?

We do plan on having 2 kids eventually and I'm the first in my family having kids so my parents are planning on investing in the system as well so I think a system that grows with us is the way to go.

Budget isn't really an issue but I wouldn't want to feel like I'm wasting money either.

We recently let my four-year-old daughter watch Labyrinth and now she is on a David Bowie kick which is awesome, because finally I don't need to listen to the Rock badly rap in Chee Hoo (from Moana 2) 10 damn times a day.

It got me wondering - what other non-Disney kids musical movies are out there? Ideally something with actually decent music because I am gonna need to listen to it a lot.

Rabbit Turtle Rodeo, Gimme That Garbage, dude is pure talent. I don’t even know if I’ll stop listening when my kids outgrow it.

This question has divided my kid’s preschool class.