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Updated: Nov 1, 2018 29 Comments · by

Pumping Tuesday: Bay’s Nursing Scarf

Machine-Washable Work Clothes· Pump-friendly· Recent Recs

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Bay's Nursing Scarf | CorporetteMomsI recently came across an article that advised pumping moms to bring their nursing covers to work to use as a pumping cover as well — it hadn’t occurred to me but I think it’s great advice. I like the listed reason (that you can have friends in your office to maximize the time without making anyone uncomfortable), but I’ve also seen enough readers trying to figure out how to pump in an office without a lock on the door to think that this might be a great solution. There are a ton of nursing covers on the market, but many have unappealing prints (and don’t get me started on the company names). I like this simple, easy black one from Designs by Bay — it’s available at Amazon for $18.99. Bay’s Nursing Scarf (L-2)

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Comments

  1. POSITA says

    I’m totally baffled by the suggestion that coworkers may stop by to visit while pumping at work. I’m pretty sure all of my work friends would be horribly uncomfortable talking to me while I was pumping, even with a cover. I really can’t imagine anyone doing this unless the only people in their office are nursing mothers. So weird.

    • Carrie M says

      +1.

      But I do like the idea of using it in case anyone accidentally opens your door while pumping. And as an extra layer to keep warm.

      • Philanthropy Girl says

        I had someone walk in on my the other day (in spite of a locked door and a do not disturb sign). The very small burp cloth I keep in my bag did nothing to keep me covered! I keep a cover in my bag now, but I can’t imagine sitting thru meetings while hooked up to a milking machine!

      • RDC says

        Yes – I use a regular nursing cover just in case, since my door doesn’t lock. but I feel like they would be just as uncomfortable as I would be if they accidentally walked in!

    • Jen says

      My own office had a lock on it, but if I was ever traveling to other firm offices and using a visitor office, I would always bring my nursing cover and pump with it over. I also used the cover and pumped on the train, plane, and on a bus. I actually pumped with my nursing cover quite a bit, and definitely almost 100% of the time when I traveled.

  2. EB0220 says

    I have a pashmina that I use to stay warm while pumping.

    I put up a “do not disturb” sign at eye level, put a door stopper on the inside of the door and liberally spread the word that I am pumping.

    Someone did walk in on my once, but only because I forgot to hang my sign and put the door stopper on. Never again! Poor maintenance guy.

  3. Anon says

    Nanny advice needed. I have a nanny starting next Friday. We are finalizing the contract and paperwork now (going through 3rd-party payroll service). My husband and I are both lawyers. She will be working 9-6. The plan is for me to go to work early and come home early (doable at my present job). The baby is six months, about to start solids soon. What small things do you outsource to the nanny that makes your life easier beyond the basic childcare? Should I have the nanny give him a bath before I come home? Does your nanny make babyfood? (Her last employer did not require her to do this, so I’m not sure how it would work out.) Feed baby dinner? Feed baby breakfast? Other thoughts? This is our first nanny. My sense from interviews is that she is good, but she will not proactively do small things around the house unless we instruct her. I guess I’m especially curious re morning and evening transition routines that have worked for you.

    • nyc anon says

      We have a similar set up to you (husband and I are both lawyers…although our nanny works 8 – 7). I try to outsource everything possible to our nanny so I can maximize my out of the house hours. She gets the baby dressed in the morning so I can just enjoy play and snuggle time from when she gets up until the nanny comes. She makes the baby food (pretty easy at this point…just steaming and blending fruits and veggies). She also gives the baby a bath before I get home. Our baby goes to bed really early, so she’s either in bed when I arrive home or I get there just in time to give her evening bottle. I’ve recently started giving her my credit card so she can do our grocery shopping and some baby-related errands. She does the baby’s laundry, keeps the nursery organized, etc. Basically anything and everything baby-related, she takes care of!

    • Spirograph says

      When we had a nanny (started around that age), she worked 7-5 did pretty much all baby feeding except dinner. I’d nurse baby first thing in the morning, and change his diaper, but she’d feed him breakfast and get him dressed for the day. She brought and pureed fruits and vegetables for him – we didn’t ask her to do this, she just thought my store-bought baby food was not good enough for her little angel, so we gave her extra $$ from time to time for the groceries – and did all the baby’s laundry and dishes. I never explicitly asked her to do any housework except baby-associated things, but the house was always neater and cleaner when I came home than when I left. In that respect, was pretty great. I would come home to a clean house and have time to play with baby and make dinner rather than trying to catch up on all the other chores. We did bathtime ourselves, because husband always liked that.

      You absolutely could ask for your nanny to make food for him, if you want homemade baby food. It’s easy and doesn’t take long, and she’s there and “on the clock” during naps anyway. Baby laundry, washing bottles/other baby dishes and tidying the nursery are also pretty standard, I think. The whole point of a nanny – to me, at least – is the convenience. She did all the tedious stuff so that I could enjoy time with my child in the few hours I was home while he was awake.

    • TBK says

      We have an au pair so we’re more limited in what she’s allowed to do by law. But she does all the baby-related housework during the day. She does their laundry (wash, dry, fold, and put away), cleans the nursery and play area between cleaning service visits (tidies, wipes down surfaces, changes crib sheets, empties diaper genie, vacuums and sweeps), prepares and feeds them lunch, dinner and snacks (I tell her what to feed them and do some initial prep but she cooks pasta and rice, steams veggies, makes sandwiches, etc.), cleans up the kitchen after their meals, empties the dishwasher, cleans bottles, sippy cups, etc. She also helps with things like rotating out clothing that’s too small/wrong season, keeping track of when we’re low on diapers or other baby things, rotating toys. My boys generally get baths twice a week so she does bathtime once during the week and I do one bath on the weekends. She also changes them into their pj’s just before I come home so I can just play with them for a bit and then start bedtime.

      If we had a nanny who could do more, I would consider asking her to do light housework during naptimes since most nannies I know do this. So tidying the living room, washing up the kitchen, chopping vegetables or doing other meal prep for dinner, sweeping/vacuuming all the common spaces. If the nanny will have a car and you’re okay with her driving with the baby, you might consider asking her to run simple errands from time to time.

    • D. Meagle says

      I think it really depends on your comfort level. One piece of advice is don’t get too hung up on feeling guilty about delegating “mommy duties.” In the beginning, I felt like I NEEDED to do certain things — get the kids bathed, dressed and fed, make sure there was food in the house, make sure there were supplies in the house — but over time I realized there is no harm in letting the nanny handle that. While I try to have the kids clean, dressed and fed in the morning, sometimes the nanny does that. I leave money for the nanny to pick up groceries or diapers. I even let her bathe and put them in pajamas at night. Makes it easier at the end of the day when I am not rushing to the grocery store or trying to fight the kids into the tub or pjs after a long day.

    • In House Lobbyist says

      With our first nanny we told her to just play with the baby and spend all your time on that. So she did and she also left her dishes in the sink for me to clean. So we had to work through the “other” things on the back end which was harder. My more recent nannies help with housework (laundry, clean kitchen) when kids are asleep and it is so awesome!

  4. RDC says

    Ladies, can we talk babyproofing? Baby is six months and just becoming mobile – rolling and scooting. We were beginning to think about the obvious things like locking the cabinets (somehow) and putting a bumper on the coffee table. And then the baby managed to bump his head on the wall. Seriously, we can’t babyproof every single surface in the house. Where did you draw the line / how much did you do? Gates on the stairs (tops and bottoms??)? Cabinets? Table bumpers? I’m not clear how much is must-do and to what extent we can just make sure we keep a good eye on the baby. Or if that’s asking for disaster. Help!

    • R says

      This would be a great topic in itself! My son is around the same age. I’m stumped on what to do about cords (tv, lamps, etc). Does anyone have product recommendations?

    • FVNC says

      Our baby was never super-adventurous or fast, so we took a fairly minimalist approach to babyproofing. We keep locked the kitchen cupboard with cleaning items, and have a baby gate in the upstairs hallway (when closed, she can access her nursery, play room, bathroom, and guest room — we make sure all are safe for her to be in unsupervised for short periods). We de-cluttered the tops of tables once she could pull herself up. That was it, and it’s worked fine so far, although if our staircase was designed so that we could have a baby gate at top and bottom, I’d probably do that.

    • Momata says

      We gated the top and bottom of our stairs and put locks on the kitchen and bathroom cabinet doors (except for the cabinet with the dog food and dog toys in it, which we left for her to explore). Beyond that – not much. She is 18 months and has never shown any interest in cords. We had bumpers on the coffee table for a while, but she really enjoyed pulling them off and became a confident walker quickly enough that we just stopped putting them back on. I think the only “musts” are stair gates and cabinet locks on cabinets with soaps/cleaners/pills/other dangerous potential ingestibles.

      • RDC says

        Thanks – this is reassuring. I’m hoping to take a minimalist approach but don’t want to be negligent either :) that sounds like a reasonable approach and we can always re-evaluate if he starts to get into specific things.

        • NavyLawyer says

          Yesterday a friend said she ended up without a baby gate on the stairs because her children learned to do stairs before they purchased gates. I don’t know if I’d go the same route, but I did realize I should probably teach stairs earlier for the inevitable event that we forget to shut a baby gate one day.

          • Carine says

            This reminds me–when we first moved into a house with stairs and my daughter was about 18mos, a friend told me that the only one of her three kids who ever got hurt on their stairs was the one they put up baby gates for. We still used a gate at the top of the stairs for containment purposes, but we focused on teaching her how to go up and down safely. Like a previous poster, we also had a cautious and unadventurous baby, so YMMV if you’ve got a daredevil.

    • Spirograph says

      We’re pretty minimalist
      – Gates at the top/bottom of the stairs
      – baby-proofed knobs for bathroom the half of the basement where we keep al lthe dangerous things (we also moved all chemicals in there to top shelves).
      – Locks on the cabinets under the sink with cleaning chemicals, and the cabinets that have all the oil, vinegar, sauces, etc, but we left the pots and pans cupboards and the drawers with dishtowels and utensils free.
      – Moved all the soap/shampoo/lotion/cleaning supplies to the top shelves of the linen closet, but left the door unlocked
      – Anchor the kids’ dresser to the wall (admittedly, we did this a lot later than we “should” have, but it’s done now)

      I tuck up the strings for the blinds if they’re long enough for small children to reach, and I put a zip tie around loops of my super-long radio cord, but otherwise I just hid cords behind the furniture and called it good.

      Here’s one I didn’t think of until I learned the hard way: Put your toilet paper out of reach. Not because it’s dangerous, because it’s a gawdawful mess when your kid unrolls entire supersized rolls of it and then the cat tears it to shreds.

    • Carrie M says

      This is making me realize we’ve been really behind the ball for parents with an active 16 month old. We have outlet covers on all the outlets she could reach. We haven’t done anything with cords, and she hasn’t been interested. We have no bumpers. We haven’t locked the kitchen cabinets. We don’t have gates on the stairs (up or down), and we never let her walk or play upstairs unless she’s in a room with us and the door is closed.

      Two instructions we’ve taught her: Please take this to the trash. She knows how to pull out the drawer with the trash can, and she loves throwing trash in there. And please sit on the step. We don’t have a gate on the stairs, and if we tell her to sit on her step, she just sits there and looks outside (it’s right by the front door). I will leave her on the stair for a minute or two, but not much longer. I’ve only caught her trying to climb once. But I clearly need some gates because I fear our good luck will run out.

      • rakma says

        “Please throw this out” is a wonderful, fun game for us. Our garbage is not in a cabinet, but DD loves taking the receipts I hand her from my purse one by one and throwing them out!

      • Jen says

        Our 20 month old was doing stairs like a nut at 16 months- it will happen in a blink. She also learned to open doors a few weeks ago….ugh. Be careful with the trash game if you have a dog….baby will quickly learn that the dog LOVES trash!

    • rakma says

      We’ve got a gate at the bottom of the stairs (top of the stairs is a weird set up, so we haven’t figured out how to gate it, so we just make sure she’s supervised up there) cabinet locks on most of the kitchen cabinets (she’s allowed to empty the tupperware cabinet, and is now pretty good about also putting it all back) and outlet covers.
      She was very interested in cords for about 2-3 weeks, and lost interest before we found a good solution for the 1 or 2 we couldn’t hide or shorten well.
      We haven’t put up any bumpers or corner covers–the things she’s really hit hard are things we can’t cover (walls, doors, sides of bookcases) I figure a few bumps and bruises are just part of being a toddler.

    • TBK says

      Be sure to bolt furniture and TVs to the wall. That, covering outlets, and putting a gate between the kitchen and living room have been our big things. We also went through all the lower cabinets/drawers in the kitchen and moved anything that was dangerous. Now those have mostly tupperware, cutting boards, measuring cups, etc. — things that are totally fine for babies to drag out and play with (and that’s what they do most mornings while I’m making breakfast). We do have a completely fenced in area where our dining area used to be — we took two play yards and linked them together and made one big play space. Kind of like a giant playpen big enough for grown ups to be in (it even has armchairs for grown ups in it). We feel very comfortable that they can’t hurt themselves in there (too badly — they do still manage to bump their heads on the floor or pull each other’s hair sometimes). So if we can’t keep an eye on them 100%, into the play area they go.

    • Jen says

      We had a dog before the baby, so some things were already baby-proofed- we had gates in certain areas we didn’t want the dog, we had lots of higher shelves for things that the dog shouldn’t get, cords we didnt’ want chewed, etc.

      What we did at the first signs of mobility:
      – removed all things baby could pull onto herself (emptied freestanding wine rack, removed or mounted bookshelves that could topple if pulled on)
      – childproofed any kitchen/bathroom cabinet that we didn’t want to give her access to (note that we did a bit of re-arranging to minimize the number of locks we needed. Garbage was already on lockdown (dog).
      – swapped out all electrical outlets for tamper resistant ones in areas where we use the outlets a lot- we HATE the plastic childproof plugs wanted to keep them to a minimum
      – gates at top of stairs (added bottom of stairs once she started learning how to do stairs)
      – checked all screen doors to make sure she wouldn’t hurt herself if she put her full weight on them
      – we have 1-2 realyl sharp corners that are approx toddler height that we put rubber corners on– these are corners sharp enough that iv’e given myself a good bruise from runnign into them. We didn’t put bumpers on tables.

      • In House Lobbyist says

        On stairs – we taught ours to “sit and scoot” down the stairs and to go up on all 4s. We didn’t do gates because they were both climbers and could have climbed them in an instant and I felt that was more dangerous. We did ababy gate to their bathroom which doesn’t have a door (why do you put bathrooms in bedrooms and don’t put in a door?)

  5. Anonymous says

    Some asshat (who never ever otherwise came to my office) kept intentionally coming into my office when I was pumping always with a nursing cover on. And yeah, it’s obvious when someone is pumping that thing makes a ton of noise and my door was completely closed every time. Glad I no longer work there- what a creep.

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