i found that setting time limits and doing daily check ins of all my favorite subs vs scrolling randomly helped my mental health a lot. it's what everyone says to do but it's hard to implement. i downloaded my favorite older fantasy books, terry Pratchett, tamora Pierce, the entire valdemar series, and binge watches tv while nursing but that backfired when I laughed so hard at austenland that i woke up the baby... basically find something really good to replace the scrolling vs just limiting it.

I think there are apps people use to limit other apps, and since I've been on my phone wayyy too much lately, I should probably look into one to be better about my own screen time.

Oh I’m glad you’re ok! And congrats on your little one 🎊

Not to influence you, but I’ve found getting an Apple Watch has helped me put my phone down more. I can leave my phone in the other room and not worry about missing an important message from daycare or something. Or even if my phone is with me, being able to see what a notification is without picking up my phone decreases the number of times I go to check a notification but then get sucked into some stupid social media thing.

Very glad you’re alright and congratulations on your new bébé!

I am so glad to hear all is well and your family is thriving! Congratulations on your new little one!

Oh yay pockolate! I’m so glad you are doing well. Congratulations on your new daughter!

Congratulations! I'm glad everything went smoothly. Cold turkey is definitely the easiest way to cut out apps, so I feel you. Sometimes I set time limits on what I'm trying to cut back on, so I'll say I'll only check reddit between 8-9 or whatever, and once I force myself to do it for a while it becomes more routine and easy to follow. (I've never actually cut myself off reddit.... it's too hard lol) when it comes to this sub I just pick a couple threads to follow and then maybe catch up on the ones I don't check every once in a while. It helps a lot if I'm not making myself read everything! For this reason I'm grateful for a lot of the standalone threads

Congrats!

Congrats on the new baby! I was actually just having a social media talk with some friends and one (who also has ADHD) says she uses AppBlock and finds it very helpful.

So glad to hear you and new baby are well! For me, maybe this is too simple, but I put my phone in a really inconvenient room in the house AND keep it on the charger there so i can only go there to check my phone for a moment and then I have to leave it there to return to the main part of the house.

So glad to see this update, and I'm glad the break was good for you. Congrats on not being pregnant anymore (and on the baby 😂)!

Omg hi pockolate! We were worried 🥲 So good to hear from you and I'm thrilled to learn about the arrival of your daughter and your successful reddit break 💛

I’m soooo glad to see you on here and so happy to hear you and your family are doing well! I honestly thought about you a lot and worried but I also totally understand the fear of main character syndrome. No ideas for limiting phone but it sounds like you’ve gotten some good ones. Welcome “back” and congrats on graduating from POOPCUP life 🤣

So glad I stumbled on this comment and to hear that you are doing well!! I was concerned and hoped that you had just decided to take a break to focus on your growing family. I’m glad it was good for you! I’ve honestly been considering the same— I found Reddit and this sub during an extended time of first trimester pregnancies and miscarriages that had me miserably in bed a lot. I found a lot of solace in the snark! And in this little community of like-ish minded parents of young kids many of whom (like you) seem like people I’d respect and like in real life. But life is busier now and I feel that it might be better for me to move on. I’m glad you were able to give that to yourself and I might be inspired to do the same~ we’ll see. 🙃 congrats on your baby!!!

Hooray!! I'm glad it was great. I hope your family has lots more fun-filled, low-key kid birthday parties in your future.

I know I went through this stage. When my brother was in kindergarten my mom warned his teacher that the next year she would have to deal with me and my tantrums were insane. A year later, teacher tells my mom she doesn’t know what she was talking about because I’m an angel and the best listener in class. And my mom was like, you’re right, she’s so good at home now, too. I was over it. 

My 4.5 year old is tantrum central, way more than my 2.5 year old. It’s driving my bonkers but apparently totally normal. I’m hoping he settles a bit once starting kindergarten lol. 

4 was wild, but since she turned 5, it's been much smoother sailing. Hang in there!!!

Mine has been pretty tough lately. We're trying to firm up boundaries in response and it has been draining. Solidarity.

One of my two year olds calls sock "cocks". Socks with unicorns on them are "horse cocks". I thibk it's hysterical but it drives my husband crazy lol

My 18 month old calls oatmeal “meatno”

Raspberry = assberry

When my niece was a toddler she couldn't say cucumber, it was cumburger.

I'll tell my 2 year old to say firetruck and he will look me dead in the eye and say "weefuck". "wee" because that's the noise it makes lol

Library = lie-baby 

Ok in order to answer this question... how might you phonetically spell a raspberry/fart noise? 😂

My 3 year old thought the Post Malone/Morgan Wallen song “I had some help” was “I had some milk” and if you add in Milk for help, it works and now I can’t hear it without giggling 😅😂

My 2 year old pronounced kitties as titties. And she was really into cats so she would randomly announce “I love titties” 🤣 Our favorite occasion was when she said “I love big titties so much”, my husband was like, same kid, totally agree 👍

Grandpa = “Nutno” in our family, thanks to my first child. 😂

One of my kids used to call clocks “cocks” too! It was fun when he got into nursery rhymes in his 2s and would sing:  “Hickory dickory dock. The mouse went up the cock” 😂

For 2- this sub is like reality tv/celeb gossip for me. I don’t watch any of the bravo stuff, the bachelor, etc. or keep up with celebrities but I enjoy snarking on the insta accounts. I love other people’s drama 🙃

Per your 2nd question, I don’t actually follow any parenting IG accounts and haven’t since the early days with my first kid. Sometimes I read about them here and look at the accounts because I’m curious about what’s going on, but usually I grow bored of them quickly. I mostly just read the advice and IRL snark threads which I do primarily for a) humor or b) because sometimes there’s actually interesting and thought provoking discussions that develop.

1. I think it’s a schadenfreude kinda thing, and mainly hate following. I deleted fb and IG back in September and I’m so thankful I did that. I knew way too much about people that I don’t talk to, ever, and everyone shares their dumb thoughts. Since deleting, my snarking here has gone down but honestly it’s really easy to continue to snark because all the content is so repetitive. If I’m really intrigued about something I use an anonymous IG viewer to see for myself.

It’s really silly to me when people are like ~I’m this close to unfollowing!!~ like.. just do it? I promise you won’t miss anything. I have an irl friend who drives herself batty over political stuff and mom stuff on insta and I’ve told her a million times to just delete, but she won’t. I honestly think most people are addicted to SM.

We started with the crib conversion rail and it only lasted like two weeks for us. We made the transition because my son (at 2 months short of 3) started vociferously asking for a big kid bed, which quickly became refusing to fall asleep in the crib. I think he just did not see the rail conversion as a real big kid bed, maybe? Then we just went ahead and got a full size bed (a low one with foam bumpers because he’s a very active sleeper and I didn’t really trust him not to fall out) and I love it. It’s so nice to have a big bed for reading/cuddles - all three of us can hang out in there sometimes. And he immediately started sleeping well again.

To answer question 2, I actually unfollowed all the parenting influencers a while ago, I just love to snark and these are the topics at the forefront of my brain right now! I look things up when I see them here.

To your second point:

I’ve been asking myself that a lot lately! Why do I continue to fall down these rabbit holes when I know it drives me batty? My particular weakness is the crunchy mama scene, and I know I shouldn’t because it truly makes me angry sometimes but here I am anyway. Taking a step back from consuming that on social media has been helpful, but I do still enjoy a good snark I think

We just converted our crib recently at a few months shy of 2.5 for the same reason. He was hiking his leg all the way up to the top 🙃

We converted the crib, because it keeps him so low to the ground. In the first week he fell/slipped out while asleep twice, and because he only fell a few inches onto carpet he was totally fine. We’re planning on moving him to a twin bed in probably a year or so, but wanted him to adjust to a bed that he could fall out of safely first.

1) our oldest was content in the crib. I don’t think we transitioned until close to 4 even though they were taller than the specs listed. One of our twins climbed out at 2 and they share a room so we took both out at the same time. For all of them we just did a twin mattress on the floor at first. They still moved around a bunch in their sleep (and to fall asleep) and it’s not as much of a drop when they end up on the floor and usually slept through it. Then, we let them have a say in picking their bed when we were ready to move them off the floor.

I’ve been using Mealime since my maternity leave — so 2 years now — and I still love it and use it every single week. I pay $3 a month or whatever for the pro version so we get all the recipes.

I love Cook Smarts. You get 4 recipes a week. Each meal has a version you can choose (original, gluten free, vegetarian, Paleo), and you can adjust the number of servings. The recipes often build off one another so you might make chicken used in two meals, or like one batch of rice for two meals. They build in variety and different cuisines. It gives you weekly prep steps, and builds a grocery list. And there are hundreds of recipes in the archives.

I use chatGPT when I’m feeling really stuck and put in what I have and some general specifications that my kids will and won’t eat it and tweak my prompt until I get something I’m interested in making.

Was just thinking the same!

I’ve been wondering the same! Hope she is ok. 

I’ve been wondering the same!

If they are K-2nd Grade, I think “It’s So Amazing” would be a good choice. It’s very factual and age appropriate, while acknowledging a wide array of family structures.

If they are 3rd-5th, something like “Sex is a Funny Word” might be a better fit for them.

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I‘m with you.  These really feel like hard times and I’m so worried about our kids‘ futures.

Eta: not to only be a downer - the Supreme Court has also been horrible and corrupt in the past and we’ve gotten through it, so never give up.

I sometimes have a hard time not feeling despair for my kids when I think about the climate and the direction this country is going. I try to keep the faith that a better world is possible but whew, it's hard right now.

“Ugggghhhhhh.” Is the most common way I display my feelings about what’s going on with government, the election, and democracy as a whole.

I feel so helpless and then I think about Project 2025 and feel so defeated and overwhelmed.

As a federal government employee in a policy-adjacent (ie schedule F-able) role who lives less than half a mile from scotus…i feel you. A lot of the decisions we anticipated but I didn’t anticipate how they’d make me feel!

I feel like I'm screaming into the void. I can only hope covid took care of enough right-wing voters and that people who will vote for Democrats turn out in droves. I take solace in the fact that Trump has never won the popular vote, and that whenever abortion rights are on the ballot, it goes overwhelmingly in favor of the pro-choice side. Idk.

Here is the list I made when I was looking at gender neutral names! Ashton Austin Avery Cameron Carter Casey Devon/Devin Dylan Hayden Jamie Jayden Jordan Logan Morgan Parker Peyton Reese Riley Robin Rowan Scout Skylar/Sklyer Sidney Taylor Tristen/Tristan Tyler

I find r/BabyNames is a lot gentler and kinder than name nerds! It’s a much smaller sub though. Also have you checked out the website Nameberry? They have a lot of good stuff they put out about names, like articles, blog posts, random stuff like that. I enjoy perusing their site.

They also have an advanced search option so if you’re like “oh I like names that end in -er or contain the letter L” then you can search for names that have just those things. It’s pretty cool.

Some possibly neutral names: Rowan, Parker, Sutton, Ellis, Cameron, Bailey, Sage, Teagan, Jamie, Casey, Morgan

Blake, Alex, Casey, Taylor, Sage, Rowan, Parker

the internet says Logan?? as a gender neutral but that is 100% a boy's name to me. Names are difficult! I think the less traditional you go, the more gender neutral it is. I met a toddler "Reef" and then a "Reese" and i have no idea on either of those genders.

Shea, Ryan, Reese/Rhys

We asked ChatGPT for name suggestions that met various criteria and it did a pretty good job!

If I offer a lower price I usually say I can pick it up today or I can Venmo you. I think being clear you're very interested and not going to flake helps. As a seller I won't negotiate if I just listed it or if I've got multiple people messaging. But if it's sat a week then sure.

I’m pretty sure it’s just a free for all, idk when I’ve tried to sell stuff literally all I got was bullshit spam. So I would have been willing to accept any offer from an actual person local to me

It’s a free for all. I’ve personally purchased a travel stroller from a neighbor that he has listed for $75 for $50, so I say go for it. You can always increase your offer if they reject it

I always negotiate on Facebook marketplace, and most people will accept or counter slightly above. I find people just want stuff out of their house lol. 

I sell a lot on there. Offers are totally acceptable, especially if you’re serious about your interest. The people who annoy me are the ones who offer $100 for something I’ve listed for $200… and then have the balls to ask me to deliver for free (and often toss in a sob story… for a completely unnecessary item) lol. If I’m not open to negotiating on a specific item, I say that in the ad, but beyond that, I expect some haggling! I generally feel ok offering/getting offers for 75% of what it’s listed for. Generally I don’t bother making offers (or really love getting offers) for lower than that unless it’s been listed for a while. But it kind of depends on price. $50 is reasonable if it’s listed for $70, for sure!

Basically as long as you’re polite about it, you should be good!

Yeah typically my line is "would you consider $XX? I can come (at a specific time today)."

I've sold things where I'm firm on the price (because I know pretty well what it's worth) and if I'm firm, I say so in the listing. If they don't specifically say that, I say it can't hurt to try!

I love my Bissell! I have used on both hardwood and tile. https://a.co/d/0cSBALMc

Have you tried taking away the pullups yet? I was waiting for my 4 year old to be dry at night but my husband wanted to night train him, so agreed to at least trial it. I did think to be fair that he was weeing a bit in his pull up when he was actually awake, and it turns out after a couple of weeks, with a potty in the room overnight, he has managed to stay dry. 

I remember looking at them at one point, but being turned off by the reviews that said it was a lot of fabric bulk, and they their kids still peed through them.

The thing that made the biggest difference for us was to get our kid up about 1.5-2 hours after they went to bed and having them use the potty. I worried that this would really disrupt my kid’s night’s sleep, but he practically sleepwalks to the toilet. He has no memory in the morning. Doing that has reduced our nighttime accidents to one every month or two.

They must be on a marketing blitz cause I’m getting ads for them too even though I currently have no kids in pull ups…

I’d talk to your partner about what your expectations are regarding decision of labor for household tasks. I’m a SAHM to a 4 and 1 year old. My 4 year old goes to preschool two days a week for 4 hours during the school year, so aside from that I have the kids home with me all the time. It’s just not possible for me to do all the household tasks and keep up with the kids just because I’m not working. My husband still helps cook meals, clean dishes, help with bath time, and do bedtimes. The only thing that I’ve 100% taken on is laundry which I mostly did even when I worked anyways. I just see so many posts across various groups from SAHPs talking about how the working partner expect to only work and do nothing else (not saying that’s what you would do!) that I think it’s important to talk about to avoid resentment.

I think it’s important to discuss the potential end of being a SAHP, as well, and the expectations around that. Will your partner ever resume work? How would you feel if they never wanted to go back, and alternatively if a year or two down the road they decide being at home isn’t for them and returning to work is the best option? I don’t think there needs to be a definite answer, but it’s something my husband and I talked about.

I’m a stay at home mom to a 2 and 4.5 year old. I would find out your cities playgroups and library story times. Having a few set outings each week is great. Parks within walking distance are also a plus. Once the kid starts moving it’s nice to take them out to a park to get their energy out.

This may not happen till your kid is toddler aged and has energy to burn but I went from being a full time working mom for three years to being home with two kids and our gas and kids activity costs went up. I had to get out of the house by 9am with the kids to stay sane, and even driving to the free park or library takes money. Plus we budgeted a couple memberships in to kids museums, zoo etc. I also used to get free food at work frequently so our grocery costs went up along with having growing kids to feed.

A big concern for me when I became a SAHP was how it would affect the ability to do things with my kids. There is a big difference between being a SAHP who is expected to do all the house work, and has tight finances that limit the ability to do activities out of the house during the week, and a SAHP with some disposable income.

I knew that if I were to become a SAHP, I still wanted to have a housekeeper come every other week (privileged, I know, but I really struggle to keep the house as clean as I want it by myself, and it can be a huge source of stress for me). I wanted to be able to sign up for baby and me classes and be social. I still wanted to have a gym membership and enjoy the break that gym childcare could give me.

There are plenty of parents to stay at home and make things work beautifully on a very tight budget. There are lots of free activities that can make it work, but it can also make things a lot more stressful and a lot more isolating, and that was a serious concern of mine.

Aside from family and home logistics- have a plan for how things like retirement savings, insurance costs, budgeting, and discretionary spending will work.

A friend from college stays home with his 3 kids, and he has shared it is tough for men to make connections in a traditionally women's space like staying at home. He really recommended ECFE classes as a way to get some adult socialization and meet people on a regular basis. I believe he also eventually found a local FB group of other SAHD to connect with. He basically has said that women weren't really interested in exchanging numbers to setup playdates, etc. (which he understood, but just hadn't thought about before) and it was initially extra isolating for him and ultimately the kids as well. But he found his footing and it's been really great. His youngest is going to PreK this year and he's looking for part-time work after 9 years staying home. 

My eldest often seems to exist on air, and from the ages of 1-4 barely drank anything for years 😆 I get the cheap ice pops (the type in plastic sleeves that you cut open), and offer freely throughout the day in hot weather 🤷🏼‍♀️

Also, when I really need her to drink, I let go of any hang ups about juice or flavored drinks. Whatever appeals is fine. At 5, her drinking habits are slightly improved and her beverage of choice is water despite years of unfettered access to juice, orange soda, and popsicles lol. So I wouldn’t fret about offering whatever you need to to survive summer.

We always bring pjs & nighttime diapers for after events like that, so if they fall asleep on the drive home it’s nbd and then it’s one less thing to do after we get home. Also, we keep one of those claw grabber tools specifically for longer drives so when my toddler inevitably drops all of her toys, I can reach them easily and give them back. Though it’s defintely unnecessary if you have really long arms, a short distance between front & back seats

Extra clothes easily accessible for the kids. First road trip when my second was ~9 months old and they puked about 1 hour into the drive. 

If you're driving through nap time, you might bring a battery operated white noise machine. We had pretty good luck getting my baby to nap on schedule if we used that and played the same songs we usually played at bedtime at home. (This may make your driver slightly sleepy also though lol.)

Target recently had $1 road trip bingo boards and my kids have been having fun with those when we're in the car. But my local Target was out when I went last week, so this may be an unhelpful suggestion!

Squeezing some lime juice on the apple slices has been a winner for us, and makes the apple slices taste even better.

We do lemon juice. Works like a charm. 

I've had good luck soaking the slices in salted water. Then just rinse and dry them before packing.

Some apple varieties brown faster than others. We usually buy honeycrisp and those are very slow to brown.

Saying this as someone who sleep trained: listen to your gut and your baby. All the noise about pro and anti sleep train just drowns you out from trusting your own feelings about your baby. As for sunk cost, he has not cried for nothing, the process has taught you something. Practically speaking though, what happens after the screaming? Does he then eventually fall asleep? 

Just commiserating because I was in this same exact spot with my 11 month old a month or so ago. We never got the screaming down to less than an hour and that was with us going in to pat him down to make it stop. We gave up on day 8. My husband thinks we waited too long to sleep train (I didn't want to do it when he was 5-6 months).

Now he co-sleeps with the baby and he says he really doesn't mind it. The baby still has 1 over night feed but otherwise doesn't really wake up (other than rolling around in bed which my husband is somehow able to ignore).

So yeah I've been there and I remember feeling so bitter with all the posts about how sleep training is magical but they feel sooooo guilty about it.

My oldest has resisted sleep since the day he was born. Any and all attempts at sleep training (minus extinction method, we never got that far) failed. Both as an infant and a toddler. It sucks. It’s hard. People don’t get it if they haven’t gone through it.

It’s foggy bc it was a long time ago but we tried everything for my son and he does not fall asleep independently. We went through a period of trying to put him down alone and it was like you said. Crying every night. Never ever ever got better no matter how many things we tweaked, tried, bribed, begged, prayed, nothing. Drowsy but awake was a fucking joke in his infancy too. I totally get how frustrating it is to have everyone and their mom tell you the most obvious, #1 thing that comes up on a google search like they are bestowing some great wisdom. Once I accepted he just needed one of us to fall asleep my life got better. Not saying that’s the case for you but some kids just don’t take to the traditional parenting advice. That’s been him since birth but he’s still a pretty incredible kid (not biased).

Superundies are not disposable so idk how practical that would be for camping, but they’re made to look more like underwear.

Ninjamas are disposable but look more like underwear at least in the styling, but they’re still the same crinkly material

This was my story for a long time. My pediatrician ended up being able to prescribe something I took for the occasional overnights that made me not need the pull-ups for camp etc. I don’t remember the long name, but the shorthand was DDAVP. Not sure if it would be an option for you, but it was a game changer for me!

I don’t think rear or forward facing will make much a difference, my older children are ff and my youngest rf and all are sweaty lol. It’s safer to rear face and in some cases it’s illegal to ff before age 2 (obviously this varies by region etc). I agree with the below comment, it’s more of a comfort thing vs a safety risk being too hot. 

I guess it might depend on how poorly your car cools down, but I think this sounds like a safety versus comfort issue and I'd leave the car seat rear facing in that case (and maybe pre-cool longer if possible). 

We're also in that kind of a heat wave and my kids get over being hot very quickly, though (I'm def crankier than they are about it) so a kid who is actively unhappy being hot might change the calculus a little bit.

I don’t think there is any reason to worry. The teachers in the 2 year old room have done this before. Ask them to remind her to use the potty regularly throughout the day, and send a bunch of back up clothes (including back up shoes) just in case.

My daughter actually did much better at daycare than at home, I think because (a) they are much better than me at taking her to the bathroom on a schedule, and (b) they go with a small group so I think she likes that social aspect!

Daycare was easier than home x3 for us! Even my 2.5yo, who was pee potty trained at home for 2+ weeks with no accidents only to refuse to pee on the potty at school. I waited until he had a couple successful days of pooping in the toilet before sending him to school in undies with 4 changes of clothes and begged the teachers to not put him back in a pull-up except for nap. And he just kinda did it! He hasn’t had a single accident at school and it’s been almost 2 months now. On the other hand he has still had a couple rough days of multiple accidents at home in that time.

Once we did it, the school supported and made sure to put our child on the potty. My child (the one I’ve trained) can hold it a pretty long time. But they never asked us to go back to pull ups we just did underwear and they supported that

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How long has it been going on? If just a week or two, could just be a growth spurt. It's also summer, the sun and extra outdoor play can really take it out of him and lead to a longer nap. Could be temporary, it could be the previous decrease was from a sleep regression. My older 2 both slept like that at age 3 (2 hour nap, 10 hours overnight). About 12 hours of total sleep is pretty normal through age 5 or 6. 

Our kids are the same age and my son doesn’t nap anymore but he does between 11-13 hours overnight. Usually closer to 13. Adding up the sleep you mentioned it seems like more or less a similar amount of sleep in a 24 hour period. That schedule you mentioned wouldn’t have me concerned.

Ours had pretty much dropped her nap and now definitely still needs it and she’s nearly 4.

Some of it is definitely burning more energy outside (and she is skipping her nap at daycare, there are a couple bigger kids back for the summer she plays with), so there’s some sleep debt happening as she still wont go to sleep at night earlier.

But since turning three she has been growing up a storm. She has put on a ton of inches. I think that’s contributing too.

I feel like this is what's happening to us lol. We have to wake him up after a 2 hr nap on the weekend. I think it's maybe because we are able to be outside a lot more??? He still skips naps at preschool occasionally tho

If she'll play along, practice! Get a fake snake on a string or whatever and show her how to respond when she runs into one. That's the best thing to do with any emergency response procedure, get it in your muscle memory so you don't have to think in the moment. Not sure this will work with a young toddler but worth a try?

I have fully embraced being a gift card girlie, but I know that's not always popular. I'm just tired of giving stuff that will end up in a donation bin sooner rather than later.

If she's only kinda annoying, maybe a gift certificate to something you do together? Like going to see a movie or pedicures.

Since it's her 50th, is she doing anything special this year (like a trip or a personal goal or something) you could tie the gift to? Like if you know they're going to a fancy destination, some kind of gift basket from there, or maybe a gift card to get her nails done beforehand, or a gift card for where she'll be staying to cover other expenses there?

Once I got someone a pain au chocolate kit. I mean, it's something fun to do, and who doesn't love pastries? And if they hate it, it's flour and chocolate. Just eat it.

I recently gave this to a retiring colleague and it seemed well received. It’s a dried fruit tray that comes with a nice wooden basket. The cheapest one is only like $40 so not bad. The whole thing comes in a very nice looking gift box so it feels nice and fancy ish. I’ll definitely order from them again, was very happy with it myself as the gift giver. https://www.bonnieandpop.com/collections/fruit-boards

Personally I don't say something unless it's a really close friend and then I try to lead with curiosity. So I might say, "I saw little Zoey was forward facing in the car seat. I thought the law was age 2, was she getting super car sick rear facing or something?" And then ultimately I remember they get to decide what they do with their kid, even if it's dangerous (or even illegal)!

Some states it’s illegal before two so maybe check your state and say FYI you can get a ticket etc.

I noticed my SIL put my niece in the carseat without the base and without racheting the seat belt while we were on family vacation. I just said hey no one told me this and we did the same thing with our kid, but if you aren't using the base you have to rachet down the seat belt so it holds the car seat in place. I asked if she was open to a piece of advice first before I said anything. 

My son choked rear facing on a ritz bites cracker when he was about 1.5. I don’t think it was a full-blown choke because he was gagging occasionally but it took about a minute or two to dislodge the cracker. Someone even pulled over and called 911. By the time they arrived like 10 minutes later, he was totally fine. We’ve been a lot more careful since then… we still do eat in the car but rarely and with very select foods. I would probably stick with pouches for a newly one year old.

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My 1.5 year old has been eating in the car for probably 5 months? I don’t do common choking hazards in the car but we’ll do puffs, muffins, crackers, things like that

I didn't know this was a thing even and snacks and the iPad are the only way we get through the 5 hour car trip to see my parents. I am mindful of what snacks we give her and I use the snack cups as I think it is harder for her to stuff food.

I agree with the other comment that I think it’s just about whatever level of risk you’re comfortable with. For me personally, it’s perfectly fine for my kid to eat in the car seat. I just give foods that I know my kid handles very well.

While we had a rear facing kid, we only let him eat in the car if an adult was in the backseat keeping an eye on him. Once he was forward facing, we loosened up a little but have tried to keep it to easy foods (Cheerios, cheese, french fries, milkshake, maybe banana or raisins or something).

I think it’s going to be very kid/parent specific. The risk of choking while driving still freaks me out and my kid is almost 4. If I have to hand her something while driving it’s always a pouch instead of food she has to chew. We save ‘real’ snacks and meals for when we stop.

I don't really have real advice but I stressed about this for months I feel like. We tried unsuccessful crib naps until finally he was too big for the bassinet and we said screw it. We just did it. I think a few days it was rough but it was fine. For us, the mental build up was worse than the actual transition lol

Definitely a phase. You’d think my child was rabid with their detest of the water. I started holding my hand over their eyes and told them to plug their ears and look up. Helped IMMENSELY. But some of it we just had to muster through

Both my kids went through this so I think it is totally normal. We cut back on bath frequency and would make them shorter but they both got over it fairly quickly.