Maternity Monday’s Workwear Report: Alexandra Maternity Dress
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I think if I had an unlimited budget and were building a maternity wardrobe from scratch (and planned on having at least two kids) I’d want to start my shopping experience at Isabella Oliver — everything they make seems so professional, flattering, and sophisticated, it’s hard to compare it to hardly anything else out there considering so many brands think pregnant women want either bodycon dresses to emphasize the bump or hipster slouchy dresses with voluminous fabric. This black maxi dress is unusual for Isabella Oliver in that it’s not your typical knee-length sheath dress, but I kind of like it, particularly for a tall pregnant woman. I think as styled here, with tall boots, a prominent belt, and black tights, it looks great and professional enough for a casual day at even conservative offices. The dress is part of a big sale they’re having — it was $188, but is now marked to $111; use code DRESSTEN to take another 10% off any dresses. Alexandra Maternity Dress
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Building a maternity wardrobe for work? Check out our page with more suggestions along both classic and trendy/seasonal lines.
Sales of note for 2/14/25 (Happy Valentine’s Day!):
(See all of the latest workwear sales at Corporette!)
- Nordstrom – Winter Sale, up to 60% off! 7850 new markdowns for women
- Ann Taylor – Up to 40% off your full-price purchase — and extra 60% off sale
- Banana Republic Factory – 50% off everything + 15% off (readers love their suiting as well as their silky shirts like this one)
- Boden – 15% off new season styles
- Eloquii – 300+ styles $25 and up
- J.Crew – 40% of your purchase – prices as marked
- J.Crew Factory – 50% off entire site and storewide + extra 50% off clearance
- Rothy’s – Final Few: Up to 40% off last-chance styles
- Spanx – Lots of workwear on sale, some up to 70% off
- Talbots – Flash sale ending soon – markdowns starting from $15, extra 70% off all other markdowns (final sale)
And — here are some of our latest threadjacks of interest – working mom questions asked by the commenters!
- The concept of “backup care” is so stupid…
- I need tips on managing employees in BigLaw who have to leave for daycare pickup…
- I’m thinking of leaning out to spend more time with my family – how can I find the perfect job for that?
- I’m now a SAHM and my husband needs to step up…
- How can I change my thinking to better recognize some of my husband’s contributions as important, like organizing the shed?
- What are your tips to having a good weekend with kids, especially with little kids? Do you have a set routine or plan?
Piggybacking on the vacation post above – favorite roadtrips from Chicago with a toddler and a dog in tow? Looking for options 2-5 hours away driving, and would love options for all year round.
I just returned from my 3 month maternity leave and am suffering from major senioritis. I didn’t love my job before going out, but also didn’t absolutely dread going like I do now. I know a large part of it is because I miss my daughter. I know I need to work for my own sanity and to pay the bills, but I hate feeling like I don’t care. Does this fade?
All my 10-month-olds want to do is chew on books, so you’re not alone.
It’s normal for my ten month old to hate bedtime stories, right? DH is obsessed with reading him a story right before bed, but LO just wants to grab the book and tear it up. When he realizes he can’t do that, he wiggles until he’s out of DH’s lap and then tries to leave. Should we keep doing bedtime book or give it up til he’s older?
Please plan a vacation for me or at least give me a plan of attack.
We’re in Eastern PA. We are willing to drive up to 4 hours or would be open to flying 2-3 hours if I can comb the archives here and learn how to fly with little people. Target date is end of May. By then we will have a 2.5 year old and an 8 month old. As of now, the toddler does well in restaurants and enjoys milling around Target and wholesale clubs with us. The baby is too little to have an opinion. Pre-kids, our perfect vacation destination was Asheville, NC because it was the perfect combo of nature (hiking, Blue Ridge Parkway) and food (excellent, all excellent, and very veg/vegan friendly)!
I’d love to do a national park and was looking at Shenandoah Valley, staying in Harrisonburg, VA. Is there enough to do? Where else should we consider? We’re more mountains people than beach people and have low expectations. I just want to get away and be outside.
Fun question: I am in need of a makeup refresh and would like to take some time to re-learn how to do an everyday face. Should I go to Sephora or Nordstrom for this?
Any suggestions for a nursing-friendly dress (but pref not specifically a nursing dress) to wear to a graduation ceremony later this month? At work, i usually just zip down my regular sheaths to pump, but I’ll def have to feed my 10 month old st this event, so need something that can facilitate that. I also have big boobs, so lots of nursing specific clothing can look inappropriate or frumpy. Thanks, ladies!!
Alert: I’m going to sound like an awful person and a super lax parent.
Do any of you not do traditional dinner around the table on purpose (at least some of the time)? It is my least favorite part of the day. I’m exhausted at the end of the day, and I’m over it. I just wanna put on my sweatpants and sit on the couch. Instead, it’s like having dinner with a wild animal with bad manners who refuses to eat, complains, takes things off her plate, and crawls all over her chair and sometimes me and is defiant and tantrumy when I correct her or tell her no. It’s also the part of the day where I’m most frazzled and anxious. Family dinners growing up were terrible for reasons I won’t get into here, so I don’t have warm fuzzy memories of them to help me push through.
My DH was out of town for work a few weeks ago and I let our child watch tv and eat in the living room and I ate in the kitchen. It was a huge wonderful relief but I also felt horribly guilty. Everything I read makes it sound like if you don’t have these perfect Norman Rockwell Family Dinners your kids will turn out stupid and unhealthy and it’ll be all your fault. It never occurred to me that there was any option other than trying to force it until today, when I suddenly thought… “maybe I don’t have to”…. Thoughts?
My 6.5 year old stepson has 2 sets of parents – his dad + me, his mother + stepdad. This weekend, at my house, he had a long emotional conversation with his dad and mentioned that stepdad is mean to him when stepson wakes up in the middle of the night with nightmares. On the main s!te today, someone said that they have nightmares more often when they are too hot. Any environmental changes DH & I could suggest, to help the 6.5 year old deal with his nightmares? This has become a problem only over the last couple of months, but he complains about nightmares daily. Also open to book suggestions, etc., to try to help stepson work through this issue.
I thought of you all (specifically avocado) this weekend when the gloves I ordered for my son arrived. I got the 4 yo size (he’s 7.5) thinking SURELY they wouldn’t be huge…. AAAAAND my (average-sized adult) hands can fit into them. Sigh. Why are child gloves so huge?!
I need a gut check. Do you take your kids to the doctor when you think they just have a cold? DD is 6 months old, and has cold symptoms(runny nose, congestion, occasional cough, mild fussiness). No fever, normal appetite, no difficulty breathing. I haven’t taken her to the doctor because it seems like just a cold, but I’m wondering if I should be more proactive. The last time I thought she had a cold, she had RSV. I dont want to be a neglectful parent, but I don’t want to rush her to the doctor unnecessarily.
My husband and daughter have been making noises about getting a dog for the past couple of years. I have been opposed to it because we had a bad experience with an aggressive dog that had to be returned when our daughter was a baby, because I am operating at maximum capacity and just don’t have the energy to take on any more responsibilities, and because we don’t have a laundry room or mudroom where we can keep the dog crate. However, every weekend I wish I could send my husband and/or daughter out to walk a dog, and I really want to give our daughter some of the wonderful experiences we both had growing up with dogs. I have been peeking at rescue websites off and on for a few months, and I’ve happened upon a dog I’d like to meet. She is the right size and breed and the foster family seems to have a really good read on her personality. Am I nuts to be considering this or should I mention it to my husband?
Ugh, so Twin B has started all kinds of mean kid behavior with Twin A. A is probably mildly autistic (we’re still waiting for our appointment for testing) and B is an exceptionally sharp kid (A is bright, but he shows it differently). The boys are 3, will be 4 in March. A is sort of the baby of the family, both because he’s often a few months behind B in hitting certain milestones, and because he honestly is a little faker sometimes and pretends helplessness to get people to do things for him. Overall, B is a good brother to him and often goes out of his way to help A and to advocate for him. But he recently discovered meanness and is often also bossy. For example, A loves playing with a set of foam numbers they have. B usually prefers playing with the letters. The other night, he snatched the numbers A was playing with and ran into the next room with them. When A appeared, chasing B and crying, B laughed at him and waved the numbers at him to taunt him. The au pair says this is a thing that’s been happening. He’s also been telling A what he “can” and “can’t” do (e.g., “No, A, you can’t have apple juice. I’m having apple juice!”), and literally pushing him around.
He’s been getting immediate time-outs for this kind of thing, with clear statements from all of us (me, my husband, the au pair, my MIL) that this kind of behavior is Not Okay. Is there anything else we should be doing? I’ll admit this is a major hot button for me. I’ve never been truly angry with either of my children before, but when I saw him laughing at his brother for crying, I saw red. I had to calm myself down before intervening because my instinct was to give B a hard smack! (There was no smacking, just firm talking and time out, but wow I never felt angry at my kid like that.) Any advice? I’m an only child so I also don’t have much experience from the other side.
This weekend I had the “oh s**t, baby #2 could be here any day” moment (I’m 38.5 weeks). Any words of advice for making the transition easier for my 21-month old? She is in daycare from 8-5 but during the hours she’s home with us, she’s used to undivided attention from both me and her father. We’re also a very routine-oriented family (both AM and PM) and so I worry that throwing a new baby into the mix will be especially disruptive.
My mother (who she loves and lives nearby) will come and stay with her during labor, which will probably be fine but also disorienting — she’s never babysat for more than an hour or so. And we are *not* pulling her out of daycare — she will keep going throughout my maternity leave.
We’ve been reading the “big sister” books and talking about the baby but I feel like there’s more we should be doing, or situations we should be anticipating, or…something? I think I’m partly panicking because I just have no idea what to expect, so hearing others’ stories (good or bad) would be really helpful.
I like this dress but I’m not sure expensive maternity brands are so much better than inexpensive ones. I didn’t buy much for my second pregnancy so decided to splurge on a Seraphine dress and while it fit great and made me feel good, it started to look a bit tired after maybe 5-6 wears. The one nice thing about it was that many of the dresses I tried on from Seraphine looked flattering (vs the more hit or miss experience from other stores) but the fabric still felt shoddy on most items.