My favorite time is ~secret~ time, so let's spill the tea! Reddit user u/brookeaat recently asked fellow moms to share their "mom secrets" so she "didn't feel too bad about herself."
She went first, sharing what she secretly does as a mom that is frowned upon. "Sometimes, I give my 5-month-old a little bit of water (like a capful from a plastic water bottle). She loves it so much, and since it’s such a tiny amount, I don’t mind, but I know most other moms would judge the shit out of me if I said that," she said.
If you didn't know — babies aren't supposed to have water until they are over a year old, or at least six months old. According to James P. Keating, MD, retired medical director of the St. Louis Children's Hospital Diagnostic Center, too much water dilutes a baby's normal sodium levels and can lead to seizures, coma, brain damage, and death.
That being said, babies can safely consume about two to three ounces of water. So, u/brookeaat is not harming her baby in any way by giving them a teeny cap full of water. But would other moms judge? Yes, probably so.
After her confession, floods of "mom secrets" started pouring in. The biggest shared secret was about screen time:
"My toddlers have unlimited TV time. As in...it’s always on. I needed that background noise and distraction when I was home alone with twins, and now, it’s just become a part of our lives."
"My 3-year-old gets way more than an hour of screen time some days — especially if her baby sister is having a high-maintenance day."
"Screen time is ongoing at my place. I’m 37 weeks pregnant, and I don’t think I could do toddlering without Blue's Clues. When this baby comes, I definitely will continue the screen time. Survival."
"I don’t even have the excuse of pregnancy, and we have 24/7 screens. I don’t care. I put it on something at least semi-educational whenever I can. If I can’t get something with numbers/science/animals/etc., I at least try for stuff where the characters are sharing and helping each other. But sometimes, she just watches Cars 3 over and over while I get some chores done. Whatever."
"I don’t limit screen time and don’t want to; I feel no guilt over it at all."
And the second biggest one was about food:
"I don't care what my child eats. I mean, I CARE. I TRY. But it's so draining for me to fight him about food. He turned 3 in April, and you know what? He gets almost all of the important vitamins/nutrients from smoothies. I hide zucchini and carrots in banana bread. Spinach is tasteless in smoothies. He eats pasta and refuses veggies most of the time. He will eat chicken if it is fried or in nugget form but no other meat and no other way. If my child is gonna sit there and eat a whole loaf of bread, I really do not care anymore. I DO care about his sugar consumption. That's all."
"My 2-year-old had two slices of cheese and an ice cream sandwich for dinner. 🤷🏻♀️"
"My kids get Oreos or a brownie for breakfast about three to four days a week. It’s not worth the meltdown and food refusal. We make up for it with our other meals, and she usually doesn’t ask for any other sweets the rest of the day. Besides, I’d rather her have sugar earlier in the day than at night, after dinner, before bed."
"I don’t care what my kids eat as long as they are fed. I don’t care if they eat sweets, and my daughter will binge on them, and the result is she gets a stomach ache because that’s what happens when you binge on sweets."
"My 3-year-old ate four pieces of cheese pizza today. My 2-year-old ate two pieces of pizza and two whole cupcakes. My other 2-year-old had a lot of juice. My secret, I guess, is I let my kids eat a lot of junk at one time. Also four pieces of pizza!? It was impressive."
Many moms also secretly co-sleep with their kids:
"My son slept in our bed until he was, like, 13 years old. Sometimes, when he visits (he’s 23 now and turned out fine!!), he will still get in my bed with me and read or watch videos. He also camps out in our bed (on my side) when I’m not there, so I think he just likes our bed."
"Both my kids slept in the bed with me when they were newborns. With my first, I really, really fought it — but my wife deployed a month before my second was born so I was alone that entire first year. She slept with me from the day she came home from the hospital for about six months."
"I’ve napped on the floor on a makeshift pallet with my baby, and it always makes me wish I could bed-share. I love falling asleep looking at her and just knowing she’s next to me."
"I loved bed-sharing with my kids. My husband hated it. He’s a heavy sleeper and a big guy so I do get his fear, and it’s valid. With my first, I had the sidecar sleeper and tried for the longest time to make it work. And then, I finally moved into her room on the floor and went back and forth between rooms."
And there are a significant amount of moms who don't dress their children if they don't leave the house:
"I don’t usually bother to put anything more than a diaper on my 1-year-old while we’re at home unless it’s cold or she’s going to bed. She eats in her PJs, and they get covered in oatmeal, so I take them off, and she just stays like that, not worth the fight and distress of the manhandling that she hates just so I can do even more laundry."
"My 2-year-old is naked unless we leave the house (sometimes naked even in our privacy fenced-in back yard)."
Hygiene is a shared battle for some moms:
"I rarely wash my kiddo's hair. I brush it, and she takes baths daily, but I can’t justify her screaming every night."
"My kids wear the same clothes for school and sleep in them two days straight. We bathe every other day, and I’m too lazy to change their clothes other than after bathing. I only brush their teeth once a day."
And others just need to sneak away to release themselves:
"When I get unbearably crabby and stressed, I put on my kid's favorite show and lock myself in the bathroom to pleasure myself. Listen, it improves my mood considerably. The best vibrator I've found that works for me is a $35 rabbit-style vibrator that I bought from Target."
There are moms who are casual with the coffee:
"My daughter started sipping off my coffee at 13 months. She’s 6 now. If she asks for an iced coffee when I make my own, I make her one, too."
"My firstborn learned to drink from a straw from my Starbucks coffee. Yep, at 1 and a half years old — don't worry he's just like any other kid. One of his favorite yogurt flavors is coffee."
And there are moms who are casual with the cussing:
"I swear a lot around my daughter. We are all great moms...we just have our own unique styles."
Lastly, whether they admit it or not, many moms just want alone time:
"Sometimes, I just seriously want everyone in my house to leave me the fuck alone."
