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This slouchy bag is what I’m looking for now. With two kids, I need a hands-free bag, and this convertible bag can be carried as a backpack or a shoulder bag (for when the kids are a little older). It’s made from luxurious Italian tumbled calf leather and lined with linen. It also sports a zip top and several interior compartments to keep your things handy.
It will be a challenge to choose between the four classic, go-with-anything colors.
The Laura Convertible Backpack is $298 and comes in tan, warm gray, navy, and black.
Sales of note for 3.26.24
(See all of the latest workwear sales at Corporette!)
- Ann Taylor – Up to 40% off your full-price purchase; extra 50% off sale
- Banana Republic Factory – 50-70% off everything plus extra 20% off purchase
- Eloquii – 50% off all workwear
- J.Crew – Annual Spring Event: 40% off sitewide; extra 40% off sale styles
- Lands’ End – 10% off your order
- Loft – 50% off Lou & Grey; 30% off new arrivals
- Nordstrom: Spring Sale: Up to 50% off
- Talbots – 25% off your purchase, including markdowns
- Zappos – 37,000+ women’s sale items! (check out these reader-favorite workwear brands on sale, and some of our favorite kids’ shoe brands on sale)
Kid/Family Sales
- Carter’s – 40% off everything; extra 10% off your purchase with code
- Hanna Andersson – Up to 30% off swim; up to 30% off HannaJams
- J.Crew Crewcuts – 40% off sitewide; extra 40% off sale; 50% off kids’ styles
- Old Navy – 50% off Easter deals
- Target – 20% off Easter styles for all; up to 30% kitchen & dining; up to 25% off TVs; BOGO 50% off shoes & slippers for the family; $100 off select Apple products
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And — here are some of our latest threadjacks of interest – working mom questions asked by the commenters!
- If you’re a working parent of an infant with low sleep needs, how do you function at work when you’re in the throes of baby’s sleep regression?
- Should I cut my childcare down to 12 hours a month if I work from home?
- Will my baby have speech delays if we raise her bilingual?
- Has anyone given birth in a teaching hospital?
- My child eats everything, and my friends’ kids do not – how should I handle? In general, what is the best way to handle when your child has some skill/ability and your friend’s child doesn’t have that skill/ability?
- ADHD moms, give me your tips to help with things like behavior in the classroom, attention to detail, etc?
- I think I suffer from mom rage…
- My husband and kids are gone this weekend – how should I enjoy my free time?
- I’m struggling to be compassionate with a SAHM friend who complains she doesn’t have enough hours of childcare.
- If you exclusively formula fed, what tips do you have for in the hospital and coming home?
- Could I take my 4-yo and 8-yo on a 7-8 day trip to Paris, Lyon, and Madrid?
Anonymous says
I don’t usually like backpacks or bags with convertible straps, but this is really sleek. I have been thinking about replacing my OG and this might be the bag that pushes me over the edge.
Anonymous says
I love this and it is exactly what I want to get my sister for Christmas. But twice my budget.
Hotel? says
Scheduled c-section is coming up soon, and DH has pitched getting a hotel room the night before because we’re scheduled to arrive so early the next morning. MIL will be here to stay with DD, whose sleeping patterns are still touch-and-go. I get the logic, and it’d certainly be nice to have a full night’s sleep and a nice dinner out, but I haven’t heard of this before and I’m not totally sold. Any thoughts?
Anonymous says
I would do whatever will get you the most sleep, because unless your hospital is much more compassionate than mine was you will not be allowed to sleep at all after the baby is born.
Anonymous says
+1. At least in earlier Covidtimes, they weren’t taking babies to the nursery unless it was absolutely medically necessary at my hospital. When I asked the nurses, when I would get a chance to rest, they laughed in my face.
Anon says
Why wouldn’t they let you sleep?
My husband and I traded off doing skin to skin with baby girl (whenever she wasn’t actively nursing), so that we could alternate getting sleep, eating, etc. And then we sent her to the nursery for about 1.5 hours once per day, in between nursing sessions, so we could both nap. I EBF so they brought her back when she woke up so I could nurse.
Anonymous says
Probably because it was a baby-friendly hospital.
anon says
My SIL delivered recently at a hospital that had eliminated their nursery, so you had to room in unless your baby was in NICU. I honestly do not know if she slept more than 20 minutes at a stretch from delivery to discharge.
Anonymous says
Wait why? I’ve roomed in with no nursery with two babies. I got sleep both times. Like yeh not a ton because it’s a newborn, but a nursery wouldn’t have helped because I was nursing. I would’ve flipped out if anyone had tried to take my baby away.
Anonymous says
You’re very lucky if you got to sleep. People come in 24/7 to check on the baby and do all of the required tests, check on you, berate you because it’s been 2 hours since you delivered and your milk isn’t in yet what’s wrong with you, mop the floor, etc.
Anon Lawyer says
That’s nice for you, Anon at 1:11, but I appreciated getting 3-4 hours of solid sleep after major surgery.
Anon says
I got no sleep until we sent my daughter to the nursery. She was starving and I wasn’t producing enough milk for her, so she wouldn’t stop screaming but I was told not to give formula because it was “not medically necessary.” She didn’t go 15 minutes straight without crying until we supplemented with formula, and then she slept for 4 hours straight. I still have guilt about how she suffered in her first 48 hours of life, screaming non-stop from hunger, and I needlessly suffered as well (I did not sleep for over 24 hours after delivery). I loved nursing and am happy I was eventually able to breastfeed and I understand there are medical benefits to it, but the exclusive breastfeeding movement is so effed up and puts mothers and babies through so much unnecessary trauma.
EDAnon says
One tip I got from a nurse is to ask them to schedule yours and your baby’s checks at the same time. I don’t know why you have to ask, but I did ask and they did do them together. That reduces the interruptions
SC says
When I delivered, the nurses came to check on me or baby every 2 hours, and baby woke up every 2 hours. But the nurses and baby were not synced at all, so I was woken up every hour. I’m still bitter that one nurse woke me up in the middle of the night to remove the IV port in my hand. That could have waited until morning, or at least an hour when the baby cried again.
More Sleep Would Be Nice says
I learned this the tough way with DS #1.
With DS #2, he went to the nursery. I nursed when I could but didn’t have any milk until I got home 2 days later, and he was tiny (not preemie, just small) so I was happy with him having formula, pacifier, whatever. After a COVID year, the hospital legit felt like a spa.
Anonymous says
I think it’s a great idea!
NYCer says
Seems like a good idea, but I would probably do dinner at home with your daughter before you leave vs. a nice dinner out. That is definitely just personal preference though, and I can see the argument for the opposite!
Mary Moo Cow says
I wouldn’t have liked that, because I am a home body. I wanted to wake up in my own bed, with my own stuff, because it would be the last night in my own house for 3 days. Also, I wanted to be sure I had everything with me, and could grab anything I forgot after a double check in the morning. With my second baby, I especially wanted to be there to do bedtime with our first and say an extra long goodnight because I wouldn’t see her in the morning. Dinner out? Sure!
Anon says
I feel like I sleep better at home, but if it’s a nice hotel it might be nice. Probably your last relaxing night away for some time.
Anonymous says
I don’t think I would be able to sleep the night before anyway and would not want to waste the money on a hotel, but maybe you are better at sleeping than me. Definitely go out to eat though.
Anon says
I wouldn’t. I was like a kid before Christmas the night before my scheduled induction (630am arrival time), and was glad that I was home so I could putter around and ultimately get a few hours of sleep on the couch in the nursery.
Anon says
I would do whatever will get you a good night’s sleep. I was up for three nights before my scheduled c-section tending to my dog who had explosive diarrhea (worst timing ever). I went into the surgery already extremely sleep deprived and there was no rest to be had in the hospital between feedings and check ups from the nurses.
Allie says
I would not want to have been away from my daughter more than needed since you don’t know how long you’ll be gone on the other end.
EB says
I was VERY sentimental about leaving my first born the night before. I would have spent a lot of what would have otherwise been a very nice evening with my husband sad about missing my last night with my kid. If that doesn’t bother you then I’d totally do it.
Anon says
I had a scheduled induction with my daughter, so my husband and I had a nice “last dinner” the night before. It was lovely and I appreciated having a final date night when it was just us two. If dinner and a hotel room is your guys’ idea of romance, I’d say go for it! If it’s just to try and get more sleep, though, I’d probably save your money. Neither of us could sleep the night before anyway due to excitement.
Anon says
Make sure it is a refundable hotel room. Just because it is scheduled for a date certain doesn’t mean that baby is going to cooperate with that date.
TheElms says
Just coming back to say thanks for all the comments yesterday re: going to a movie theater. I definitely would not be taking my unvaccinated kid — just me and DH. We’ve done very little for ourselves or us as a couple in the last 18 months. I did go to a wedding for a very close friend (DH stayed home with kiddo) and I was surprised at how good it felt to just do some semi normal things with friends, which is what got me thinking about movies. DH and I used to enjoy going but I wouldn’t say it was a priority for us but with cold weather coming and me becoming increasingly pregnant (with an activity restriction at the moment) eating outside and going for hikes/walks are less attractive than they were (and we can do those with kiddo). I was looking for something we could do just us that would only require a babysitter. We have no family that’s in good enough health to watch our kiddo so a weekend away is probably not in the cards.
Anonymous says
You can go to the movies. People on here are a very anxious sample. Put on a mask and go enjoy!
Anon says
+1,000 to this. I don’t know anyone IRL who, post-vax, is still as anxious as most people on this board. Nothing wrong with individual risk analysis, but just some anecdata.
Anon says
As a counterpoint, I feel like I’m cautious compared to others here and my IRL friends are all more cautious than me. Most people I know haven’t eaten in a restaurant (even outside) since before times, and quite a few of my friends have their kids in nannies or with family because they think daycare is unsafe. We don’t do much, but we do daycare and occasional outdoor dining.
NYCer says
FWIW, I agree. (No judgment, we are all doing our best and what feels safe for our specific circumstances – but this board definitely skews more cautious than my “real life” circle of friends/family.)
Anonymous says
No <12 year old is post vax though. I know a lot of childless people who are back to normal ish, but everyone I know with kids under 12 is continuing to be cautious, which is not “anxiety.” I have zero worry about getting Covid myself as a vaccinated 30-something. Everything we do or don’t do is to protect our under 12 kid and my 70-something parents we see regularly (who are vaxxed but statistically still fairly likely to get hospitalized if they got it).
Anonymous says
+1. My risk analysis would be much different if I didn’t have a kid <12. I would definitely be back to normal-ish if I was childless. Right now, it's not so much that I'm worried about getting sick, it's that I don't know any family that's missed fewer than 3 weeks of childcare after getting Covid. DH and I are both in our busy seasons at work (and for me, that involves clients with urgent life-or-death situations almost daily), and that will last until mid-December. My mental health could not handle doing this for 3 weeks stuck in a small house with a toddler.
Anon says
You do you. No one is saying anyone’s personal decision/risk assessment is wrong, and yes, we are painfully aware that there is no vax for kids <12 right now.
I do think, personally, a lot of (reasonable) anxiety is driving decision making I've seen on this board. I have a somewhat-large all vaxxed extended family that is local and we are seeing them indoors, same with a few close friends, which I believe would be considered risky for this community.
Anon says
I’m Anon at 10:05 who said we do nothing indoors except daycare but we do see vaccinated family and close friends indoors without masks if we know they’re generally cautious. That’s far less risky than going to a movie theater with a bunch of people some of whom are almost certainly unvaccinated (40% of adults in my county aren’t vaccinated) or masked.
Anonymous says
@anon at 11:00, I feel better about wearing a mask and going out in public – where masks are still mandated – than I do seeing friends and family, unmasked, although at this point, I do both. Our friends have covid right now. The kids got it at school, vaccinated parents got it from kids, and it’s just dumb luck that they weren’t able to join us for dinner at another mutual friend’s house last week. I trust them, they’re vaccinated, they’re generally cautious (friend’s dad died of covid last year, so they absolutely take it seriously) but if they hadn’t turned down the invite, we’d be quarantined right now.
Not knocking anyone’s choices at all. Reasonable, intelligent people can disagree on this, and it’s both hugely personal and hugely regionally-dependent.
Anon says
Yeah, I hear you and agree that if masks are required going out in public is MUCH safer, and probably safer than seeing anyone indoors without masks regardless of vaccine status. Masks aren’t required in my area and no one wears them, so we feel safer around people whose vaccination status and general habits we at least know. In 2020, we felt comfortable going to relatively uncrowded public places like the library and grocery store because everyone was masked, but now – with no masking and a far more contagious variant – the same behavior doesn’t seem safe anymore. It’s really frustrating, and I’m really jealous of everyone who lives in a place where masks are mandated or at least commonly worn indoors.
Anon says
Anxiety is by definition irrational or unreasonable fear, so you actually are saying there’s something wrong with people who don’t make the same choices you do. A reasonable risk assessment that is different than the one you would make is not necessarily anxiety. And you can’t really say what’s reasonable or not without the context of what the local Covid rates are. There’s 10 times as much Covid in Alaska as there is in Hawaii right now, and I assume far fewer people are vaccinated and wearing masks. What is anxious in Hawaii might be entirely reasonable in states like Alaska with much lower rates of vaccination and much higher rates of Covid. I live in one of the least vaccinated states in the US and no one here wears masks anymore, so we do nothing except daycare because we don’t want our kids to get Covid before they’re eligible for vaccines and be the one in daycare that forces the whole class to quarantine. If we lived in MA or the Bay Area, we would be doing way more.
Anonymous says
+1 million. So tired of seeing reasonable risk assessment classified as “anxiety.” A lot of the claims of “anxiety” seem to come from people who just want to be done with COVID whether or not it’s done with us.
Risk Assessment says
+1 million also. Everyone has a different risk assessment depending on their situation, which includes health conditions of family members, community spread in their area, etc. a lot of people also confuse their understanding of the risks with their understanding of the stakes. I browse the Herman Cain Awards and people post about how 99% survive Covid but then start singing a different tune when they or a loved one are in the ICU with that 1% starting to look like a sure thing for their case.
Anon says
Thank you. This board has a very Boston/DC/NYC/Bay Area-centric perspective (of life in general, and of the pandemic), but much of the US population lives in states with no mask mandates, even bans on school mask mandates, and low vaccine uptake and the risks of Covid are much higher for us. I remember someone here saying rather dismissively in July or August that Delta was nothing to worry about unless you lived in Mississippi, as if that was unimaginable to her that someone here could actually live in Mississippi. But some of us do! Or similarly under-vaccinated states. My pediatrician told me in so many words at the beginning of the school year “You either keep child home from everything except daycare [where adults and kids 2+ are masked], or she will get the Delta variant within the next six months. As much as you might want to believe otherwise, there is no option C.” and so far our daycare experience this school year supports her statement. Six of the 16 children in my daughter’s class have had Covid in the last 2.5 months, apparently all independently of each other. And this is a university daycare where essentially all the parents and the majority of the teachers are vaccinated. The entire school had two cases total in the 2020-2021 school year. I get that in certain large cities with high vaccine rates and indoor mask mandates things are safer now than they were before, even for unvaccinated children, but that’s unfortunately not the reality in many places in the US.
Anon says
I just don’t want the outcomes that I see less cautious people experiencing (unfortunately my local context is very covidiot though, so I feel going out and about here amongst the anti-maskers who are also definitely not masked is different from going out and about in a place with good vaccination rates).
Anonymous says
I’m still actively behaving more cautiously than I feel, because I have an unvaxxed child at home. If there’s a new variant that kills kids we won’t know until three weeks into that wave. When my kid is vaccinated we’ll travel, she’ll go back to indoor activities etc. But I’m not going to risk my kid having lifetime health problems if we can reasonably help it.
Anon says
We already have a variant that kills kids. 600 kids in the US have died so far. A brutal flu season is ~200. Covid is one of the leading causes of death in children of all ages. And of course death isn’t the only bad outcome (although it’s not 100% clear vaccines will prevent the other bad outcomes).
Spirograph says
I responded yesterday that I *have* gone to the movies, and I want to echo your sentiment that it’s nice to do semi-normal things. I’m not even a movie person, but sitting in a recliner with popcorn just felt good. Mental health is health. Take reasonable precautions (eg wear a mask, pick a less-crowded time if you can), but do things that make you happy!
Anonymous says
+1. And echoing a comment from yesterday, we went on a Saturday afternoon and the theater was almost totally empty. Felt safer than a restaurant.
Anon lawyer says
Post-vax, I went to a brewery I used to like to go to, sat at the bar, and had a beer and read a book. I seriously almost burst into tears. Normal stuff DOES matter.
Anon says
My husband volunteered us to bring a side item for my 2 year old’s school halloween pizza party. What the heck do two year olds actually eat? Fruit?
Anonymous says
Definitely fruit! If you want to be a little extra, you can decorate clementines as jack o lanterns (and as I just learned last night, it’s hard to find a marker that won’t smear! I ultimately ended up using fabric paint)
Anonymous says
Might be better to peel them first, but you could get a little piece of celery to put on the top so they look like pumpkins if you still want to be extra :)
TheElms says
My 2.5 year old would love fruit. Thin apple slices, clementines (pre-peeled), all types of berries, or kiwi would all be huge hits. Some kids will also eat veggies/ crackers and hummus or ranch dip too. For carrots you need to at least quarter them lengthwise (I think for that age) and you can cut multicolor peppers in slices or cucumber sticks. If that’s too involved applesauce squeeze pouches or yogurt squeeze pouches would also be well received.
Cb says
Clementines? Or carrot sticks? Something orange. Or can you get pumpkin shaped crackers or pretzels or something.
NYCer says
Fruit, individual goldfish packets, any other type of cracker, cheese sticks, granola bars, fruit snacks.
If you want to go higher effort, you could bring pasta with butter and parmesan cheese, but that is probably more of a main dish. (Cold pasta generally is fine for the 2 year old crowd.)
Anonymous says
Use a marker to make clementines look like pumpkins, or cheese sticks look like ghosts. Always a huge hit and low effort.
DLC says
Yes! Jack o lantern clementines is always super cute. And definitely have your husband do it.
More Sleep Would Be Nice says
OMG. I’m taking cheese and crackers for DS #1’s Halloween party and will 100% make cheese stick ghosts. THANK YOU!
Anon says
I’m going to be the Debbie Downer and say that clementines are a choking hazard and I would not bring them to a party for 2-year-olds. I’d probably just bring goldfish or teddy Grahams
Anonymous says
I don’t know how 2-year-olds would even peel clementines independently.
Anon Lawyer says
Clementines are a choking hazard? My kid has been eating them since she was 1 and so have all her friends . . . I hadn’t heard that before. I’ve heard it about raw apples but no kind of citrus.
Anon says
It was news to me, too, but I’m starting solids with my current baby so was brushing up – I’ve seen varied things, but the membrane on clementines seems to pose a risk until kids are anywhere from 18 mo-3 years. I also think one 2-year-old supervised at home is different than many 2-year-olds in a party setting, so I would err on the side of caution.
Anon says
If you are concerned about clementine choking (it depends on the kid, but my two year old can definitely peel and eat a clementine on her own, but she also bites through and excavates mango flesh), i’ve also bought mandarin or peach fruit cups and drawn faces on those. They’ll need a spoon to eat it, though…
Anon says
I would bring grapes either halved or quartered. I fortunately was up at 11PM when DD’s (4) preschool teacher sent out the sign-up for the halloween party on Friday, so I managed to snag plates and napkins (in time to add to this weekend’s grocery delivery and they were in stock) and that might be my mom win of the week.
Job Apathy says
How do you know when being apathetic about your job means it’s time to move on vs boredom and covid fatigue? I’ve been with this company for nearly 5 years. Promoted once and promised another promotion with additional managerial responsibilities in the Spring. Back from maternity leave for a year now. I just feel super blah about my work and crankier than I used to about the usual nonsense in the past 6 months. I really like my manager and generally like the people I work with.
Part of me feels like it wouldn’t hurt to look, and I have a former coworker who keeps trying to bring me over to a new company. I am not excited about instability and change at this point in my life. I’m starting an online masters program in the spring, and we are actively trying for #2. I’m not unhappy, but I don’t think I’m happy either.
Anon says
I posted about feeling ‘stuck’ last week and got a couple kicks in the pants.
Now I have a job that’s mine if I want it with a 40% pay bump but also no work life balance. Alternately, I also have an opening for a job I really would want, but it would be a big jump.
But today I’m sitting here at my slightly boring job and am also weighing the fact that I can 100% make it to my kid’s Halloween parade this week. And ya know… I don’t know what the right answer is, but just know you’re not alone.
Spirograph says
I dunno if this is the right answer, but job apathy is kind of my default and I’m ok with it. My job is fine. It meets my financial and flexibility needs, and I like my supervisor and my coworkers. It ebbs and flows as far as being engaging or frustrating, but that’s how it goes everywhere. When I feel like I’m in a work rut, I focus on outside-work things (hobbies, family, learning something new), instead. I’ve been happier since adopting the philosophy that my job is just one piece of my life it doesn’t need to be fulfilling; I can get that from other places.
Anon says
+1 this is my situation as well.
Mary Moo Cow says
Yes, me, too! Sometimes I think of a quote that it is okay for women to be ambitious and I think, good for her but not for me. My job is a job. It gives me tangible benefits like healthcare and a salary, but I get a lot more out of my commitment to the PTO board.
OP says
Thanks for this. I always give me husband the same advice about not being defined by his job. I should probably take my own advice :)
There are a lot of great things about my job for where I am in my life. Plenty of goodwill built up from being a workhorse for years pre-kid. The boredom will pass
Anonymous says
I’ve been at the same place for nearly 8 years. Two promotions. Two babies. I’m very ready to move on, but it’s hard to leave somewhere that trusts me and gives me incredible flexibility. I’d say I’m bored/ frustrated half the time, easily. But the other half can be really challenging and fun. I don’t know what the right answer is, but I’m starting to look around.
If I were you, I might stick it out until baby #2 arrives.
Ifiknew says
My 4.5 year old in the last 3 to 4 months has become insistent in things being equal to friends or her brother etc. Like it’s not fair brother gets pink plate, you take care of him more than me, etc. I try to give her a hug and kiss and reemphasize how much I love her because I remember my mom telling me it was silly when I was a kid feeling the same way but I’m not sure what to do because it happens many times a day and is worse when she’s tired or hungry etc. Any tips?
Anonymous says
Earlier bedtime and more snacks
AwayEmily says
The “Siblings without rivalry” approach is to address the underlying need but not the comparison. So, if she says “you take care of him more than me!” you say “It sounds like you want more time with me…tomorrow before bed let’s have some special time together, just the two of us.” They also recommend the mantra of “everyone in this family gets what they need, but they don’t necessarily get the same things.”
It’s what we do…does it work? Who knows. Mostly I just like having a script because it means I don’t have to make a decision about how to address each individual complaint, and that in turn makes me less likely to lose my patience and say “SERIOUSLY?? it is a PLATE. Get it together.”
Op says
Super helpful, thank you. Iv been meaning to reread this book.
Anonymous says
I like this advice but also whyyyy are kid plates sold in multicolor packs.
Anon says
Don’t buy them! Corelle wear in white is the only acceptable children’s dishes. People bought me cutesy baby plates and they went in the garbage unopened.
The only reason not to buy Corelle is tile floors.
Anonymous says
Folks who have housekeeping help beyond typical housecleaning every other week… Will you explain your situation (what do you have help with, how often, what type of individual(s))? How did you find someone? How much does it cost? And at what point did you finally feel like your workload justified more regular help? Has it changed your life? Thanks!
Anonymous says
I’ll bite. I was laid off in March but we took placement of infant twins (I didn’t think it would be that hard lol what a dummy). A month ago DH hired a cleaning service to come twice a month. He literally googled who could come that day and we hired them. It’s $200 each time (individuals were similarly priced in our area). We live in a Houston suburb in a 3,000 sf two story house. They send three women and it takes them about two hours to: sweep, vacuum, and mop the floors, dust, clean the kitchen, clean bathrooms, then take out the trash. They don’t do windows, laundry or clean my fridge (I could add those in for an extra fee). TBH I look forward to it like it’s Christmas. It’s not a financial hardship for us, but it took a long time for me to accept help. If you can afford it, I say go for it.
Cb says
We don’t have extra help but we have the cleaner come every week and even that makes a huge difference. We have a 3 bed, 1.5 bath house and the two cleaners are in and out in an hour. We never have to clean bathrooms or change sheets, so our housework is limited to picking up toys, cleaning the kitchen after dinner (I’m a messy cook), taking out recycling, and running the hoover if something got spilled or really messy. I’d like to add an 30-60 minutes to allow them to tackle bigger cleaning projects, but our cleaners are booked solid.
Anon says
i’ve posted on here before about how i feel like i don’t deserve the amount of household help that i have, and people have written back with very supportive comments, so i am going to push back on the idea that you need to justify more regular help based on your workload. everyone’s circumstances are different. some people need more sleep than others. some people need more downtime than others. some people have local family who is helpful and some people don’t. some people also have elder care responsibilities or kids with complex needs. some people are single parents. some people do a lot of solo parenting due a traveling spouse. what might be helpful for one person, might not be helpful for another. if you feel like you need more help and it fits into your family budget, then you should get the help.
Anonymous says
I feel like my *house* doesn’t deserve hired help. Our house is 30 years old and falling apart. We could totally afford a cleaning service, but I simply can’t stomach the thought of spending $600 a month for someone to clean a house where the plastic laminate is peeling off the cabinet doors. If I could convince my husband to move to a house that was actually nice, then I’d be willing to fork over the dough to have it cleaned (although he probably wouldn’t be because middle age has turned him into a cheapskate). So I spend my weekends resentfully scrubbing mildew out of the 30-year-old shower.
Anon says
This is insane. It’s not about how nice your house is. If you’re wasting your weekends cleaning, you should have a cleaning service if you can afford it. $600 a month also seems really high to me unless your house is enormous – we pay less than $200 for each cleaning of our 5 bed/3 bath house, and only have our cleaners come very two weeks.
Anonymous says
$150/cleaning x 4 weeks/month
Anon says
So start with biweekly cleaning? You do not need your showers scrubbed every week, I promise you.
Anonymous says
Wow your attitude is atrocious
Mary Moo Cow says
But counterpoint, would you feel better about your falling apart house if it was at least sparkling clean and you didn’t have to do it? Or maybe having someone clean it would free you up or prompt you to tackle the peeling laminate. I also second the recommendation to start with 2 cleanings a month. I would love every week, but every other week keeps our house pretty clean so that I don’t have to give up my weekends to clean.
anonymous says
anonymous at 11:45 with your “old” house…… get a grip and stop feeling sorry for yourself. you must live in the middle of the country where everyone can just build a house anywhere. most of the world lives in homes older than 30 years old.
Anonymous says
… that are gut-renovated.
Anonymous says
No we don’t. You sound super gross
Anon says
There are many homes in my part of the Midwest that are 50+ years old and have not been gut renovated. My parents house is ~60 years and original condition, except they finally made some minor updates to the kitchen about 5 years ago and they replaced carpets (the originals were avocado green!) at some point. It is small but otherwise it’s a nice house and I don’t mind spending time there. You really need to check your privilege here. 30 years is really not “old” for a house, with or without renovations, and obviously many people live in houses that are far older and not renovated. My house is pushing 25 and feels nice and new to me.
Anon says
And fwiw our house looks immaculate right after our cleaning service comes. It doesn’t stay that way for long, but that is a “living with a 3 year old” problem, not a house problem or a cleaning service problem. The idea that a 30 year old house can’t be made clean and nice is absurd.
Anonymous says
Right, my oven is more than 30 years old, lol!
Realist says
Just get cleaners. I had a Biglaw friend that wanted to pay off her house in 5 years and was living in a tiny rundown house in a good neighborhood and had oodles of extra income to throw at help. Her cleaners were more than what a normal mortgage payment would be on her house. And yes, her cleaners were getting $50 an hour to scrub 70s gold yellow laminate countertops. Worth it.
Anon says
Why not get new cabinets or start replacing/maintaining the things that are falling apart? I realize it’s expensive but if you can afford a cleaning service it doesn’t seem like a stretch that maybe you could afford some of this stuff.
Anonymous says
We could, but my husband thinks we can’t.
anon says
Dear older house, we started getting a housecleaner at our prior (older and smaller) house. It was not a luxury house by any means. And my DH is also very frugal (side note, just a shot in the dark here, but if he’s a FIRE follower, I get it!!), but honestly, the 2x/mo housecleaner has become both of our favorites. It was uncomfortable at first and took some convincing (his mom was a housecleaner herself, so we had to get over the feeling guilty part tbh) but now it’s the one big “splurge” thing we do and we both love it. Honestly, in some ways in our prior house it made more of a difference because some of the older stuff is harder to actually get clean, and the regular housekeeping can keep it looking presentable longer. Maybe just schedule a cleaning as a birthday/holiday gift for him and see if you can get him on board long-term. It eliminated so many arguments for us.
Anon says
We switched to weekly housecleaners and added folding of laundry (and that they wash sheets while they are here) about 7 months ago and it is life changing. We pay $155 each week for a 2300 SQF house, 4 BR, 2.5 BA, two adults, one 4YO no pets far out DC burbs. It is a company but they have the same two cleaners come each week so feels more personal. For me it was facing laundry mountain, my general dissatisfaction with the level of cleanliness with all of us being home all the time now, and some health issues that have sapped my energy for even basic things like a quick vacuum and counter wipedown.
Anon says
Which side of the DC burbs, MD or VA? I have friends in MD who are looking for a service that will fold laundry.
Anon says
VA. They don’t generally offer it, but I called and talked through what I needed with the owner and they were super flexible. So if it is not listed, definitely call and ask! I wash three full loads of my and DD’s laundry, leave them in a bucket on the spare bed, and they fold them all. Then they wash, dry and fold as much of the sheets they can get to while they are there (often DD’s sheets are still in the dryer, which is fine). DH handles his own laundry. So that means I really am only folding towels every other weekend and one set of sheets and folding is what I detest most about laundry and I feel like I have joy in my weekends again.
I also have them do a deep clean every 6 months or so and that is awesome too. I think I will do one after the holidays assuming I can marshal the energy to spend the fall decluttering now that I am starting to get some energy back.
Anon says
I sort my laundry by type rather than by color (and mainly because a full basket is too much for my front loader, so I have to divide it somehow). It makes washing and drying easier when the load is clothes of a similar size and weight. You could have two baskets in your room for you and your husband – one for undergarments and things you don’t have to be careful with, the other for real clothes. For kids, I’ve started doing my boys’ together but having a load of jeans/sweatshirts/thick pjs and a load of underwear/sweatpants/cotton shirts/fleece pjs. But if that’s too complicated you can certainly just mix things together and wash on cold (with the obvious exception of new jeans with a white dress shirt, etc).
Anon says
Whoops, clearly meant for the thread below!
No Face says
I have a house cleaner every other week. She does the kitchen, the bathrooms, and the floors for $75 in about two hours while I work from home. To me, it is not “justification”, but about giving myself time and energy to do other things. I never clean the bathrooms or the floor myself now. We do the dishes, but only need to wipe the counters at night.
I am debating a laundry service.
anon says
So I have a housekeeper for 8 hours a day, twice a week. It’s $400/week, and I found her on Care.com. We have a 10,000 sq ft house, three children (hopefully soon a fourth), and assorted pets, and both work full-time (I’m a senior in-house lawyer at a very large company, husband is a biglaw partner) and entertain or host family frequently. Our house gets messy and honestly, spending time cleaning it is not at all appealing, and that’s all it took to make me feel like it was justified. And yes, it’s life changing, because the house is beautifully clean, the laundry is done, and my non-work time can be spent on things I enjoy or derive value from.
Anon says
wow, you are super people! i cannot imagine so many kids or such a big house, but it sounds like it works really well for your family!
Anonymous says
They’re rich people
Anon says
Yeah I have to say even with a family of 5 or 6, I cannot imagine a TEN THOUSAND square foot house. I don’t think I’ve ever even seen a house that big. Many people in my area have 3+ kids in 3-4,000 square foot homes and land is not exactly at a premium here (small Midwest city with a lot of new construction around the city limits).
Anon Lawyer says
I know, right? Yes, it is nice to be rich, i”m sure!
Anonymous says
Sure. We have housecleaners that we upped to weekly from biweekly. I would like for them to change sheets but don’t feel comfortable with that during COVID (totally acknowledge that this may not be evidence-based and others feel differently on this). We recently added about 10 hrs a week from a college student who was our FT nanny over the summer. She comes several mornings and helps get the kids out the door, tidies up in the kitchen and unloads the dishwasher, makes school lunches for the next day, folds kid laundry, and tidies kid toy areas. We can afford it, she makes things so much easier (so nice when I’m not having to pick up the whole house the night before our cleaners come), and we wanted to keep employing her after the summer, so we worked out something that works for both of us.
Anon says
Looking for pregnancy resources, specifically for DH. I’m reading expecting better (her brand of type A statistics gathering is right up my alley). I’d be happy to get a few more recommendations for myself, but specifically looking for something for my partner. He’s more freaked and less excited than I am. He tried to look up some pregnancy articles from a male perspective today and said it was 90% complaining about how terrible parenting is. Not what he’s looking for right now. Anyone’s non-birth partner find any particular resources helpful?
Anon says
We took a childbirth class and a infant care/breastfeeding class, and my husband found those super helpful. He did not read anything beyond the class handouts.
Anonymous says
I found attending the bf’ing class with my husband counterproductive. It convinced him that bf’ing was the only way, leading him to insist that I continue bf’ing when it was harmful to my sanity and I should have switched to formula. In hindsight, I wish I hadn’t even let him attend the childbirth class because it also led to his forming Opinions on something he had no right to have any Opinions about.
Anon says
That sounds like a Husband problem, not a class problem.
My husband’s opinion about childbirth and breastfeeding was “Well, I don’t have to do either – so you decide how you want it to go down and then let me know how I can support you”. So I had an unmedicated delivery with a kick-*ss coach by my side, and then he made sure I had whatever I needed in order to meet my goal of breastfeeding for a year.
Anon says
Your husband sounds awful. Any man who would “insist” his wife continue b-feeding at the expense of her sanity is a terrible husband.
But I second the opinion that the breastfeeding classes do more harm than good. I found them extremely offensive and almost walked out. The instructor was vehemently opposed to combo feeding, which worked wonderfully for me and many others here, and told us in so many words that giving your child even a drop of formula would immediately end your b-feeding relationship, which is just blatantly false. There was also a lot of pseudoscience and misinfo presented (like the ‘virgin gut’ theory).
Anon says
I’m Anon at 11:13/12:18, and that sucks. I’m sorry your class was so terrible. It was important to me to breastfeed, but it was also important to me to understand all of my options in case breastfeeding didn’t work out. Our class was awesome (same instructor for both childbirth and for breastfeeding/infant care). Her whole approach is “I give you ALL THE INFO (that is backed by science) so that you can make the informed decisions that are right for you, and then I support you in those decisions”, and she lives up to her word. She was also her doula, and I know she’s been a doula for planned c-sections as well. She legit doesn’t care what you do – she just wants you to be empowered to know and own your choices.
Tea/Coffee says
My DH found the Bradley classes super helpful for baby 1. This may be HIGHLY instructor/class dependent… he seemed comfortable with the other dads and the instructor set up nice little dad competitions that got them involved with the pregnancy and kind of met them where they were IIKWIM. Very helpful in pregnancy but less helpful during labor bc It turned out that i didn’t want any of the helpful things lol.
Anon says
I got a bunch of parenting books out from the library and my husband was actively offended by the ones targeted to Dads. To be honest, the snippets I read were pretty bad. I’d hand him whatever you’re reading. I have heard that The Birth Partner is good but never read it. We also found some YouTube videos helpful – Maternity Care Midwives had a good prenatal set. That was where we learned that babies can come out with their skull bones overlapping like a triangle – he said he would have been pretty freaked out if he hadn’t watched that video!
Anon says
He didn’t read or watch anything, and it was fine. We both learned how to change a diaper in the hospital with our newborn and he was and is an incredibly hands-on dad who does at least 50% of the parenting.
More Sleep Would Be Nice says
I only read a few things, so I handed him over the books and told him to read the highlighted portions…no idea if he read them or not. I always admire when I hear about husbands sharing the load (as they should) of the reading/research, I just didn’t have that situation.
Mary Moo Cow says
Papadaddy’s Book for New Fathers by Clyde Edgerton was a favorite of my DH’s. It is the only parenting book he read cover to cover.
Boston Legal Eagle says
My husband and I both liked Heading Home with Your Newborn. It’s got some practical advice for babycare. It’s more for post pregnancy, but I’m not sure whether your husband is feeling freaked out by the pregnancy or by the coming baby.
Anonymous says
+1
Anonymous says
The Expectant Father. It had some info in there that wasn’t even covered in MY books. Also gives them info on how to care for mom postpartum, PPD warning signs, etc..
Anon Lawyer says
He might check out the Reddit sub “Daddit.” A lot of new dads find that to be a positive community.
Anonymous says
My husband found the book The Birth Partner helpful. It was recommend by my doctor and my doula. The books written by Clint Edwards I have heard are helpful, but I haven’t read them. My husband LOVED expecting better and recommends it to everyone, so see if your husband would like to read it after you are done.
Emily Oster also has a weekly newsletter if you both want to sign up for that.
Anon says
The Mayo Clinic guide to the first year is wonderful – they may have a similar one about pregnancy. It’s very matter of fact and explains what to expect with a tiny baby, which gave me a lot of confidence as someone who had never spent time around babies before my own.
Anon says
Yes, they have one about pregnancy and it’s pretty good. I only skimmed it to be honest, but it was the only pregnancy book I read.
Op says
Thanks all! I’ll pass on the recommendations
Allie says
The birth class we took was the most helpful for my husband.
Redux says
Those who do laundry throughout the week: how?
I have always been a do-all-laundy-all-in-one-day-be-miserable-but-be-done kind of laundry queen, but I am thinking of trying your way to make time for larger weekend projects. I am stuck though on HOW you sort your laundry in order to just do a load at a time? Do you have three laundry baskets? Or (gasp!) do you not sort at all?
Anon says
We have three hampers:
1) towels
2) all adult laundry
3) baby laundry
For 2), we don’t sort by color. I have no whites; my husband has a handful of white undershirts and doesn’t care if they’re not bright white.
I do laundry every other day, generally. Sheets every 7-10 days.
Anon says
We have 3 laundry baskets for the 3 people in our family. I thought that was normal?
Anon says
Ohh I didn’t realize the question was about sorting by color. I’ve never sorted my laundry by color. My child does not own white clothing for obvious reasons and DH and I only have white underwear/undershirts, so we wouldn’t care if other clothes bled onto them but it’s never happened. I wash everything on delicate (cold temp and low spin) which is a lot gentler on the clothes.
Redux says
Yes, sorted by color, I mean. We all have our own laundry baskets, but on laundry day, they all get piled together then sorted into darks, lights, and whites. I am behind the times though, if this board is any indication– maybe sorting is entirely unnecessary??
Anon says
I think it’s unnecessary unless you have white clothing you really care about keeping bright white. I’ve never had any of my clothes bleed, although I do usually wash new dark clothing (like dark blue jeans or a bright red sweater) with other dark clothes for the first wash.
Anonymous says
That’s how we do it. We have a gigantic HE washer that takes an hour per load, so we pool everyone’s laundry and then sort by color. If each person did their own laundry we’d be running that thing 24 x 7.
We sort on laundry day because we do not have room for multiple laundry baskets in any of our closets.
Anonymous says
Anon @ 12:01, I have learned through experience to sort by color and fabric type, especially since the quality of dyes, fabrics, and construction has declined over the years. Jeans will make holes in t-shirts if they are washed together. A red item, no matter how many times it’s been washed, will turn the entire load pink. Washing cotton with workout gear will leave lint all over the workout clothes. Drying items of different weights together will shrink the items that dry more quickly. Etc.
Anon says
I have never had jeans create a hole in a t-shirt, and I’ve never had a red item turn anything pink. I don’t really own much spandex (when I work out it’s usually in cotton leggings) but I don’t much care about lint. I’ve been doing laundry without sorting by color or fabric for 20 years and my clothes are fine and generally last for years. You do you, but I see absolutely no reason to sort my laundry by color or fabric when it’s been fine not sorting for so long.
Anon says
I sort darks, lights and pinks (red, pink, yellow). Even though I sort I still wash on cold, it keeps everything the color it is supposed to be. And when I accidentally get something in the wrong load, I can definitely tell (a hot oxiclean soak and rewash before it gets dried will often reverse most of the color transfer). And yes, between me and my daughter, the pink load is full every week. Sheets are separate, towels are separate, rugs are separate, mostly because I don’t like the fuzz transfer.
anon says
I don’t sort. Everything gets washed on cold and dried on delicate, except sheets and towels. Anything that doesn’t go in the drier goes in a delicates bag before the wash so it’s easier to pull while switching loads.
Anonymous says
I do laundry throughout the week. I just grab a basket and do it. Usually wind up combining mine and husband’s, throw the kids in together if there’s enough. I don’t sort clothes at all- everything can be washed on cold. I do sheets and towels together so I can do those on hot.
Anonanonanon says
There is a laundry basket with two sections in the laundry room, and I try to dump the kids’ clothes in there whenever I think about it (and mine but I’m not great at remembering to do that until I have an actual laundry need). One side is delicates/air dry items, the other side is things that can be washed and dried. I put stain stick on stains before they’re in there. When I find a moment during a telework day, I throw a load in. I sort by lights/darks as I grab stuff. I don’t do more than one load a day because it’s not going to get put away if I do. Weekends are for bigger laundry projects (couch cushion covers, sheets, etc.). I listen to NPR news now because it’s a quick 5 minute news update and it is usually enough time to switch out or fold a load.
Anonanonanon says
And to clarify, everyone has a small laundry basket in their bedroom. The larger sectioned one in the laundry room is where it all gets dumped together.
AnonATL says
We don’t sort by colors or fabrics. We both WFH and are super casual people. Each person has their own bin, and the rule is whoever is running their load has to grab our son’s clothes. If there’s a specialty item like my cashmere sweaters, that’s on the owner to clean it properly. For the longest we had a combined bin, but my husband is a major laundry procrastinator and I ended up washing things 99% of the time which ticked me off.
I’ll toss a load in and go swap it over after an hour. I reserve folding for watching tv before bedtime or if I’m on a passive call.
I probably do laundry 2-3 times a week depending on how much I worked out that week. Sheets we run on the weekend.
Anon says
I’ll periodically go round up the towels/sheets, but otherwise we throw everything else in together.
anon says
We have multiple baskets so that everything in the same basket can get washed the same way. Kids’ clothes go in the one in their room and get washed on cold and dried. Our room has one for hot + drier and one for cold + hanging. The basement has one for all the towels and clothes from the kitchen.
TheElms says
We have 5 (!) laundry baskets for 3 people. Sheets/towels; adult darks; adult lights; kid clothing; rags/gross/dog. The sheets/towels; adult darks; adult lights bins live in our master bathroom. The kid basket is in her room (we do her sheet with her clothes). The rags/gross/dog basket is in the kitchen. We tend to wash it all over the weekend, but we can do just a single load mid week if we want. I just grab the relevant basket throw it in the wash in the morning (basically on my “commute” to my office which is at the top of the house), then move it to the dryer when I grab lunch, and move it from the dryer to the spare room to be folded later at the end of the day. We are bad at folding and the spare room bed is typically covered in laundry. Oh and all the stuff that goes in the wash but not the dryer gets put in mesh bags that hang over the laundry baskets so I just grab and zip the relevant color mesh bag when I’m doing adult laundry. Its a good system because it means either me or DH can do it. DH does most of the laundry but I help when he is swamped at work and falls behind.
GCA says
We do maybe 4-5 loads a week – usually 2 midweek and 3 on the weekend, sometimes more if we’re washing sheets that week. (Mostly in the evenings when we’re at home anyway.) We just have one large hamper and sort right before dumping into the washer. Everything is washed cold (saves energy!) and either air-dried or dried on low.
Anonymous says
Each person has a hamper (kids’ are in their rooms; my spouse and I used to share but now have two). We don’t sort laundry by color, and wash on cold except filthy kitchen rags. I guess if we get anew red item I wash it separate first, but we don’t have any problems with not sorting. Any delicates are put in a mesh bag at the time they are put in the hamper (I’m the only one with delicates). Just throw a hamper in the wash whenever it gets full. We keep a basket in the kitchen for rags and napkins (use rags instead of paper towels and use cloth napkins) and just throw that in when we run out of rags or dish towels.
Folding is inconsistent but happens a tight or rarely during a phone mtg.
No Face says
Everything gets washed cold, on delicate, with “free and clear” style detergent, except for a single load of white towels in my house (same but hot with bleach).
I also bought the SONGMICS 4-Bag Laundry Sorter cart from Amazon. Things can get dumped in there throughout the week as they get dirty. When one of the bags is full, it gets dumped in the washer.
Anonymous says
I do kiddo’s laundry on its own twice a week. Adult laundry happens on a different day typically, but all on one day, so it is sorted all at once. Usally three loads will suffice, so that is doable in an evening. Towels usually happen whenever as needed.
IHeartBacon says
We have one small laundry basket that all 3 of us throw our clothes into. I put everything in the basket inside the washer in the morning before I walk out the door and move the clothes into the driver in the evening. Everything (towels, tops, bottoms, and undergarments) goes in at once, except whites. In toto, the 3 of us have very few little white clothes (some socks, a couple of shirts), so the whites just go tossed aside in the laundry room until there are enough to make a small load. I fold and put away the clothes in the evening. Since the load only consists of one days’ worth of clothing from the 3 of us, it takes about 5 minutes to fold the clothes and put them away. All the towels throughout the house get rounded up over the weekend for 1 load. Bed sheets get washed every weekend.
Spirograph says
We have 2 laundry baskets for collecting dirty clothes – one in my/DH bedroom, one in the kids’ bedroom. The kids’ laundry often gets dumped in without sorting, unless there’s too much for one load anyway. I usually sort the adult clothes lights vs brights/darks. I wash everything on cold except towels, which get their own load. Biweekly housecleaner washes sheets, except when I do it every time a kid wets the bed (which is thankfully getting less frequent, because those loads cut the line and it really backs up the clothing loads rotation). Anything that shouldn’t go in the dryer goes in a lingerie bag so it’s easy to identify and pull out. The loads that are waiting to be washed just sit in piles on the basement laundry room floor.
I do have three laundry baskets for CLEAN clothes, because my system is to just kind of throw in a load whenever I think about it and then collect the clean laundry until I have time to fold. I wash and dry at least one load of laundry most days, but I don’t fold every day. I fold laundry exclusively while watching TV, so a couple nights a week I veg and fold a mountain for an hour or so.
ElisaR says
sometimes i sort, sometimes i don’t. depends on my mood/needs.
one tip though: I have a setting on my washer that allows me to delay the start. I will put in a load before I go to bed and set it to start in 7 hours or so. then when i wake up I (try to remember to) put it in the dryer in the morning and take it out when i get home from work. I often fluff the dryer for 5 min or so at that time since wrinklely laundry annoys me.
octagon says
We have 4 laundry baskets – the CleverMade collapsible ones from Costco. They store flat when not in use. Typically it’s one for adult darks, one for adult lights, one for kid clothes and one for sheets/towels. Kid clothes get run weekly — he’s in uniforms and we don’t have enough to go longer than that. I do adult clothes whenever I need to based on exercise clothes and what I want to wear, usually weekly or every 9-10 days. I do sheets and towels every other week after the house cleaners come. I’m WFH so typically I put a load in the wash in the morning before I start my day, then move to the dryer at lunch time. Occasionally I will pull it out midafternoon and fold it if I’m on a boring call, otherwise it gets folded and put away while I’m waiting for the kid to brush his teeth and get ready for bed in the evening. But I love laundry, it’s so low-stakes and feels so productive.
Mary Moo Cow says
I have a ridiculous number of hampers. Here is my system:
(1) Hamper in each kids room. Kids have to put laundry in the hamper or it doesn’t get washed. Kids laundry days are Tuesdays and Fridays (they wear school uniforms.) On a work from home day, laundry gets done during the day. On Friday, it gets done as soon as I am home and folding gets done the next day.
(2) Laundry basket in the laundry room for each kid. I empty the hamper into the washer and walk it right back to kids’ room. Laundry goes from dryer to basket and I fold the clothes in their room. Empty basket goes back to the laundry room.
(3) I have a towel and sheet basket, a darks basket, a whites basket, a delicates basket, a dryel basket, and a professional dry cleaning basket. My laundry day is Thursday, but sometimes I have to squeeze in a load on Sunday or Monday.
(4) I have a dedicated kitchen linens (towels, placemats, napkins) basket in the laundry room that usually gets washed on Tuesdays during the day.
(5) DH is on his own.
Having a day for each person and dedicated baskets is key for me; it is the only system I’ve been able to keep up for more than a few weeks.
Anon says
DH does his own laundry, normally on weekends. I don’t think he sorts or folds it at all.
I do my own laundry, usually on weekends but with WFH it’s not hard to do it on a weekday either. I don’t sort by color. I do fold or hang most of my clothes. I’m not sure if we have a larger than average washing machine or what, but especially since the pandemic began I don’t need to do laundry weekly. I tend to wear sweatpants and cardigans a few times before washing them, so the only laundry I generate on a daily basis is a t-shirt and a pair of underwear and it takes a long time for those items to fill up our washing machine.
Kid laundry needs to be done 1-2 times per week. DH and I take turns running it and she puts it away. She doesn’t fold it and we don’t care.
Anon. says
I wash everything on cold. I don’t sort, at all except for a very few precious sweaters that don’t go in the dryer. Sheets get washed after the cleaners strip beds every other week. Towels usually separate and ad hoc. Kids masks go straight from backpack to washing machine so they get washed whenever the next load runs.
We do have two hampers in our closet that used to be whites vs darks but I’ve given up on sorting I think after I added kids clothes.
Anonymous says
This is a super interesting thread. I have a 4 yo and 8 mo old twins. I do at least three loads of laundry every day. I try to take Sundays off. It all ends up in one basket for me to sort. Kiddo: dumps laundry downstairs on Saturday, I wash it all together. I don’t fold his stuff. Tbh I should grab him a basket so he can take it all upstairs and sort into drawers himself. Note to self make that happen. Twins: I do one load of whites per day, one load of darks on cold (their bibs and some other stuff can only be washed on cold). DH: only wears white shirts to work. I wash these once a week by themselves. Me: usually jeans and workout clothes. I throw them in whenever. DH and kiddo’s white Gis get washed every other day (after practice) together on hot. Once a week I wash sheets. I also wash our sauna towels every morning on hot, usually with the previous day’s workout clothes. We have a lot of laundry, but it’s mostly due to babies and working out a lot. We looked into Hampr app recently and I decided it was too expensive. I don’t mind laundry that much, but I don’t have a job atm. If I were working we’d outsource it, 100%.
anon says
3 loads a day? That is a LOT!
Anonymous says
Yeah, I’d just buy extra gis and towels and workout clothes and wash them once a week!
Anon says
I also only sort by type. They all have their own (over the door) hampers, with the exception of bath towels, which just hang on the towel rod or on an over the door hook:
1) baby laundry
2) kitchen towels. I go through at least two a day because I try to avoid using paper towels.
3) adult clothes.
4) DH scrubs
5) bath towels.
I do laundry almost everyday while I WFH. We live in an apt and our combo washer dryer does not dry very efficiently, nor can it wash large loads. I have to hang my laundry to dry, so if I don’t do it daily we do not have space to dry all our clothes. It helps that the laundry is not very far from me. If I had to go into a basement I would not do laundry often. I have considered sending out laundry to a service but (despite doing so much laundry), we don’t meet the minimum weight requirements unless I didn’t do laundry for two weeks at a time.
anon says
I’ve started keeping a separate towels-only hamper and it helps a lot. Do that hamper last in the day/evening because it can get wrinkly/left in dryer no issue. I also have tried to limit laundry -reusing work-out pants, kids re-use towels at least once, etc. It does help!
HSAL says
I’m loving this thread. It’s so interesting seeing how different everyone is. We’re a family of five, kids are 6 and 3. In our closet I have a big pop-up hamper for all our everyday clothes. I also have a three section sorter – one holds bras, one holds special care items (used to be workwear pre-Covid), and one holds workout clothes. My son has a hamper and my daughters share one. I also have a small one in the kitchen for kitchen towels/rags, and a big one for bath towels and sheets. Generally each hamper is washed on its own whenever it’s full or I run low on something (but I don’t mix sheets and towels because I’d fabric softener). With the exception of reds (usually just in December) I don’t do any other sorting.
Curious says
We have five hampers / bins and a bucket:
Our clothes (mine and DH, washed together)
Our clothes that need to go in laundry bags for protection or to not tangle (sweaters, dresses with long ties, bras) — these we wash with our clothes but then use the bags to pull out this batch and air dry it
Baby’s hamper (I often wash my nursing bras with this batch, and any clothes that got a lot of spit up, as well as masks)
Baby’s bucket (soaking anything that got too much spit up on it to diminish stinky cheese smell)
Kitchen towels
Rags/ anything with a chemical on it such that it really needs to be washed separately
We are in a phase where we need to do baby laundry almost daily, but the rest of our clothes are once a week. Towels get thrown in with baby laundry or sheets when we decide anything is gross and then we tend to put them back same day.
SE says
We have three hampers — kids clothes, colds, regulars. Kids clothes and regular hampers get done together twice a week, colds once a week, and sheets/towels once a week. We have a laundry schedule on the fridge of what gets done on what day.
SC says
We have 2 laundry baskets in our room, one for delicates and one for regular clothes. Kiddo has his own laundry basket. Towels get hung up and taken down to wash. Sheets get washed immediately after stripping the bed in most cases. Dish cloths, rags, towels used to clean up a spill, etc. just get put on top of or in the washing machine for the next regular load. We do 5-6 loads of laundry most weeks, and I prefer to keep everything separate so they can get folded and go back in rooms/drawers separately.
anon says
LA/Disney folks: will Disney/Universal be crazy on President’s Day? I’m thinking of flying in on Monday, Universal on Tuesday/drive to Disney in the evening, Disney Wednesday and Thursday, fly home Friday. Is that too compact/crazy? Should I fly in Sunday and make Tuesday a rest day? Worried about how busy Universal would be on a Monday. Kids are 8, 10 and 13 so I don’t need to factor in nap/meltdowns (other than for me). Unfortunately kids are going camping Friday night so Friday is out.
Anon says
“Kids are 8, 10 and 13 so I don’t need to factor in nap/meltdowns (other than for me).”
No Disney advice, but this made me laugh :)
Anon says
President’s Day is always the start of February vacation week in the Northeast, so I would assume that whole week will be crazy. Pre-COVID, flight prices out of Boston to Florida typically doubled during that week, to give you a sense of the magnitude.
Anon says
+1 February vacation week in the northeast is a bigger deal than the federal holiday, but yes they normally (always?) overlap.
Anonymous says
World not Land here. Our travel agent recommended that we avoid Disney World the week of President’s Day when all else was equal on our end. We went the next week instead.
DLC says
Has anyone tried one of those clothing subscriptions for kids? I’m contemplating a couple shipments from Stichfix or some such for my ten year old as a Christmas/birthday gift. In August, I thought I would be efficient and we did a big clothing shop at the beginning of the school year but she has already started to outgrow things. Argh!
Anyhow, I thought this might be fun for her, but part of me wonders if it will just be a waste of money? Like the stuff that will come will either be poor quality or not practical or she won’t like or she’ll be lukewarm enough to keep it….
Thoughts or other clothing subscription ideas? I guess I just want an easy/ fun / mentally unstressful way to replenish her wardrobe since actually going shopping with her is quite painful and tedious.
anon says
Not the same thing, but we just did Stichfix for my 2yo and it was nice. I think we got 10-12 pieces and kept 4. It let us try on a few brands I’ve been curious about for fit info, which is helpful even if we didn’t keep the item. And the stylist did actually read the notes I put in about what wardrobe gaps we had to fill for the fall, even if not everything was a hit. I generally don’t pay full price for kid clothing, so that was kind of annoying, but over all it was fun and useful so we plan on doing it once or twice a year from now on.
AwayEmily says
Could you guys get a big Target order and have a try-on party at home, maybe with some popcorn and music? Then return things to the store that she doesn’t like. Of course, replace “Target” with whatever other clothing companies are her style…I like Target because returns are easy and they have a huge selection, but you could also do a department store, Old Navy, etc.
Anon says
Any tips for helping an almost 4 year old cope with frustration at not being able to do something? My DD is really struggling with this lately. Today she didn’t get her coat off the first time she tried and instead of just trying again she burst into tears, started screaming “I’m never wearing this awful coat again!!!!” and then once she finally got it off she took the coat and THREW IT IN THE TRASH (fortunately our guest bathroom trash, which is not that dirty). It was frankly pretty hilarious, but clearly we need to work on developing resiliency and not losing it when something doesn’t go right the first time.
anon says
I think you’ve described 4-year-olds in a nutshell. I don’t think there’s much to do, really.
ElisaR says
i know this is not funny but also….. it’s a little bit funny.
i am no help, but your kid sounds cute.
Anon says
Oh it’s definitely funny! We were trying so hard not to crack up.
anon says
Curious how much people spend on Santa gifts, especially for kids out of the baby/toddler/preschool range. Kiddo has her heart set on a $90 Barbie camper and has for months. DH thinks it’s ridiculous. He’s not wrong, but I’d rather spend the money on one gift that she loves completely rather than several smaller things. I’ve always taken more of a minimalist approach, but part of me thinks, what’s the harm?
Anon says
Jewish so no Santa, but $90 seems reasonable to me if it’s the major gift for the holiday. I’m far more minimalist about the quantity of toys that come into our house than the price. I’m with you that one toy that is loved is far better than several smaller things that may not be used much.
ElisaR says
i feel like this is the perfect santa gift. i mean hey “mommy/daddy would never buy such an over the top gift, but that santa….. you never knew what he will do!”
caveat: i know i have read posts in the past about not spoiling kids too much because santa can’t do this for all kids.
anon says
Yeah, I get that POV but I’d frankly never heard of that until a couple of years ago, and I’m unlikely to change my strategy at this stage in the game.
Anon Lawyer says
Yeah, I would 100% make that a mom/dad gift for the reason in your caveat. For me/my family, Santa gifts are more on the order of a teddy bear. But it’s FINE for mom and dad to spoil a kid on a holiday too.
Anonymous says
No comment re Santa (Jewish and don’t get it) but I still remember how much I loved my Barbie camper as a kid. It had a detachable jeep. I used it as a horse trailer as well with my toy horses. I don’t think it’s a ridiculous gift all.
anon says
She played with a cousin’s Barbie camper and looooved it. She’s completely obsessed with campers; it’s actually pretty hilarious. She asked me if I could sell the minivan and drive a camper instead.
Anonymous says
$90 seems pretty low to me for a Santa gift. We live in an MCOL area of the SEUS, and typical “big” Santa gifts seem to be on the order of a Power Wheels car, a trampoline, a Pottery Barn play kitchen, a piece of home gymnastics equipment, etc. This is on top of a bunch of smaller gifts. I have had multiple conversations with parents who are trying to figure out what to splurge on for their kids who already have everything, typically in the $300 – 500 range for a younger kid. I suppose this is why they don’t have room in their garages for their cars. Older kids tend to get fancy iPhones, headphones, paddleboards, etc. And these are not even rich or fancy people like the ones who post here.
Anon says
“And these are not even rich or fancy people like the ones who post here.”
Anyone who is spending $300-500 on a single gift for every child is rich. Or in massive amounts of credit card debt, I guess.
As a counterpoint to this insane level of spending among allegedly middle class people, we live in a small Midwest city but everyone we socialize with is pretty affluent (mostly professors, doctors and lawyers, most people have HHIs in the $150-250k range) and I feel like we’re on the high end for holiday spending on a per kid basis and we spend about $100 on our preschooler at both the winter holidays and her birthday. Granted, I don’t know many people with kids over 8, but I don’t know anyone who has ever spent anywhere near $500 on a single gift for a child. Big gifts (play kitchens, AG dolls, etc.) are often purchased by grandparents but are typically in the $75-150 range.
DLC says
I’ve never been big on Santa (not something I grew up with), but my husband is, and his take is that he wants credit for the big expensive presents, not Santa. So in our house, Santa gives the little presents – like a Barbie outfit. But the Barbie Dream House definitely comes from mom and dad.
Anon says
The FDA outside committee voted 17-0 with one abstaining to recommend vaccination of the 5-11 cohort! The FDA will officially issue the EUA probably tomorrow and then the CDC will sign off next week and vaccination will begin. Kids 5+ should be over two weeks out from first doses by Thanksgiving, which I know isn’t perfect but it’s much better than nothing. Hooray for being one step one step closer to having our kids protected!
Spirograph says
Yaaaaaay!