Maternity Monday: Beatrice Maternity/Nursing Slipdress

This dress reinforces my skepticism about combination maternity/nursing clothes. It’s cute as a maternity dress, with the top flap resting on the bump. For nursing when the bump is gone, it seems like the flap would hang oddly and there would be extra fabric in the middle. At least it looks good as a maternity dress–the combo pieces I had didn’t work at any point, before or after the baby arrived.

Lighter question for y’all this morning.. What did your maternity leave out of office say? I swear there was a post on here once upon a time, but I can’t find it…
I’m taking 12 weeks from a small company where I have occasional customer support-type job requirements, but primarily answer to internal stakeholders who are supportive of my leave. When a customer does reach out to me, it’s pretty time sensitive.
Do you mention specifically that you are on maternity leave? Or just say I am out of the office and will be checking emails occasionally. If you need immediate assistance contact Jane Doe, etc etc. Since I work for a small company, should I even bother setting an internal out of office? All 15 people are going to be very aware I’m out.
I typically have a hard time disengaging from work while on vacation and am hoping that won’t be the case while on leave. Any suggestions on what a “good” frequency for checking work e-mails is so I can force boundaries on myself? Every day just to keep it under control? Once a week? Btw the compulsive email checking is something I put on myself, not an expectation from work.

Does anyone else have a kid who is being beyond miserable? Mine is resisting every part of every day just to resist. If I offer her favorite foods, she wont eat and will declare it nasty just because I offered it. If I ask her to get dressed she declares all of the clothes in her dresser to be uncomfortable even if she likes them once she’s dressed. She refuses all activities except tablet, all food except candy, and basically everything. She has no ideas for what she wants to do or eat and screaches at you if you even ask. Every moment of every day is a fight. Even when I’m willing to do whatever she wants. It’s driving me bonkers. I know she misses school and friends, but I’m really trying to make her life fun and as okay as possible. And she’s just a miserable unhappy person who seems intent on making everyone around her miserable. She’s 6, btw. How do I make this better? Hugs and doing what she wants isn’t helping. She makes any attempt at a fun activity completely miserable.

Does anyone else send their kids to a Bright Horizons daycare and, if so, have you heard anything about reopening? We are in a state where daycares never were required to close, and those that did have been open for weeks. But so far we still haven’t heard anything at all about reopening.

I’m starting to wonder if they are planning to shut down our center permanently or something. I’ve tried emailing but have gotten absolutely nowhere.

Not to rub it in for anyone having difficulties… But I’m actually concerned with how well my child is taking COVID quarantine. He is almost 10 and he does not miss school or other children AT ALL. He had friends, got invited to playdates and birthday parties, etc. but between being in school and before/aftercare and having an after-school activity he didn’t do playdates more than maybe once every 6 weeks? I work full-time and most of the moms here don’t, so it was definitely the kids who wanted the playdates with him and not like the moms and I wanted to hang out. All this to say, I’m kind of worried by the fact he does not miss peer interaction at all. This doesn’t seem normal. I’m an extrovert so I thought I was projecting, but my introverted husband says even he wanted to play with his peers at that age.
He is very small for his age (2nd percentile in height and weight) and I think also might be gay, so I worry there is unintentional bullying (kids making not-quite-malicious jokes about his size he is taking personally) or discomfort with feelings “different” going on that he’s not talking about. Should I see about some kind of counseling to make sure, or just be happy he’s adjusting well and count my blessing? Any introverts out there who would have loved quarantine as a kid??

What does your nanny do during naptime?

We’re in the process (fingers crossed) of hiring our COVID sitter (daycare teacher) to be a full-time nanny for our two year old. She currently only comes from 9-naptime but we’d be hiring her full time starting probably in July. We have one kiddo and we’re both still working at home indefinitely.

Aside from tidying and maybe folding laundry/emptying dishwasher, do you have your nanny do anything else (agreed upon in advanced, of course)? I’m not opposed to giving her room for downtime, too, but just curious if I’m missing anything obvious. This would be my first nanny ever.

Also, full time in a normal world would be 7:30-5:30. Work doesn’t seem to get off the ground until 9 these days and things seem to wrap around 4/4:30. I still feel like if we hire her, we go all in on true ‘full time’ hours. We don’t truly need her all of these hours but it feels like the right thing to do if she’s otherwise committing to us. Am I being too generous or am I approaching this correctly? We love her and want to be as fair to her as possible, but also not over do it. TIA.