Do you and your spouse have secret nicknames for your kids?
Fun! My Daughter has a middle name starting with the letter “B.” My husband often calls her “beeswax.”
But not so secret, no.
When dd was little we called her monkey because she was jumping on the bed. (3 little monkey’s jumping on the bed)
Yes…,our youngest son we refer to him as “peewee”, but not on a regular basis. Normally when we are missing him or worried about him…“I wonder how Peewee’s doing.” He has no idea we call him that. Our oldest we don’t have one. I have no idea when it started with DS2 and why we don’t have one for DS1. Well, sometimes I refer to him as “that little $hit”…haha.
We sometimes call D “Bean or Beanie”, shortened from Jelly Bean. She has threatened dire consequences if we ever refer to her that way in front of her boyfriend. I’m going to have to be very careful at graduation in May… 
S, not so much. We used to call him “Teddy Bear” or just “Bear” when he was little but it’s been years since we’ve used it.
Our kids are 34 and 31, but when we’re discussing them just between ourselves, we often refer to them as “the Girl” and “the Boy.”
Like “emotional terrorist”?
Not secret, but when DD, a musician, went on tour in the UK with a group of British musicians, they asked if she had a nickname. When she replied, “Well, my dad used to call me ‘Goober’” they all went crazy. For all time, she is now “Goobs” and “Princess Goober” to her UK mates.
Not secret but we do have a few nicknames for each kiddo. Some were given to them by my parents or my siblings; some were given by us…depending on our mood at the time.
True story: When S1 went to preschool, he told his teacher that his full first name was (insert about 10 first names, and Peter Pan was stuck in there as well). He insisted that he be called the whole string of names! Teacher met me at the door at pickup time for clarification.
NoWe'reNOTtheParentsofTalulaDoesTheHulaFromHawaii
Yes. The girls had nicknames. They do not like anyone outside of our family (extended) to call them by their nicknames. People in my family will call them by their nicknames at times.
Yes, in order, Sven, Gooch, Rhino, Harpo and Babyx…(a variation on our last name).
Sven gave himself the nickname in middle school when he decided he was a Viking. Ironically, both H and my DNA Ancestry results showed tiny amounts of what could be Viking ancestry but that was just this year.
Gooch was given her name in utero by H.
Rhino is because middle boy was so tiny when born but almost quadrupled in size by 3 months. Someone said he was as big as a rhinocerous and it stuck.
Harpo has very curly blonde hair which he used to wear very long. His scoutmaster wanted him to cut it so he began calling him Harpo to embarrass him. Son checked out the Marx Brothers, loved them, introduced his friends to them and proudly adopted the nickname. Even the scoutmaster calls him Harpo now.
Youngest refused any nickname, even a shortened version of his first name. This year. someone he likes named him babyx. He uses it online but we can’t call him by it.
As an aside, when I was pregnant with Rhino, H asked the older two what we should name the baby. The choices were Pinocchio Cinderella and Barney Dumbo. Needless to say, neither made the cut and we did not solicit input for children 4 and 5.
We have nicknames for our kids, but we also have safety names for any weird situations.
When DD was a baby, she loved splashing in the sink when we bathed her. We called her Splashley Ashley, but that was soon shortened to just Splash. It turned out to be a good nickname for a competitive swimmer. She’s 28 now and I call her that almost always, as do several friends and family members. She seems fine with it.
Secretly, we always refer to one of our kids as “The Prodigal”.
When our first daughter was born, DH started calling her “doll”. Through the years we had 3 more girls, so they are (in age order): doll, little doll, tiny doll, and baby doll.
My youngest, H has always called “Peanut” because she was smallish when she was born (6 pounds, 4 oz.). For reasons I can’t recall, I have always called her “Baby Boobah” now just “Boobah” which she wrote in a memory book for me just recently that she loves hearing me say.
Older D is “Blondie” to my H, I just call her a shortened version of her name. Same with son.
DH has always called D “Bells” which was the ending point of some weird nickname evolution which is now lost in the mists of time. I call her “Bailey” which is also the ending point of an entirely separate nickname evolution. Neither has anything at all to do with her real name.
S16 was Mr. Tiny as a baby, but by 6 months was over the 100th percentile for height/weight. At 6’2" and growing, he’s now Big Tiny. D is Peanut, for some odd reason. I call both kids by their nicknames, but not publicly.
Our 2 boys are known as Frick and Frack between DH & me, older is Frick, younger is Frack…
We called our middle child Disaster Boy for the longest time, because he ended up in the ER so many times. Once, a friend was fishing and cast his hook right into DB’s arm. Another time, DB fell off a short stool in the pediatrician’s office and split open his chin - the doctor said his office didn’t do stitches, so we waited in the ER for two hours only to have them say, “Oh, he doesn’t need stitches!” etc., etc., etc. It’s amazing he survived since we found out he has a bleeding disorder!
We call our youngest, The Princess.
My BFF used to call her brother Boofer when he was little, and the name stuck through high school. Now he’s a distinguished English professor going by his given name, but I will always think of him as Boofer.