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Weekend & Family Friday: Books to Bed Set
This post may contain affiliate links and CorporetteMoms may earn commissions for purchases made through links in this post. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
Cb says
Oh we don’t have this one! One to check out for my very train and book obsessed toddler.
Another book recommendation, we’ve been reading ‘There are no bears in the bakery’ every night and it still hasn’t gotten old for either of us. The language is just really clever and beautiful and I love the illustrations.
AwayEmily says
It is such a roll of the dice what resonates with kids. My 2yo thought the bear in the bakery was zzzzzzz (though I liked it!) but has recently become obsessed with a “Duck and Goose Honk Quack Boo,” which I can objectively say is a SUPER LAME BOOK. We are ordered to read it several times a day. I can’t wait to return it to the library.
lsw says
I hadn’t heard of this book before! And my son is all about 1) dinosaurs and 2) trains so this looks perfect. I would also be delighted to give Oh My Oh My Oh Dinosaurs, How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight, and We Don’t Eat Our Classmates a break.
Anonymous says
Steam Train Dream Train is one of *my* favorite books to read. It has good cadence/rhyme and nice pictures.
Anonymous says
I love that! We have a few books I could honestly read my kids 1,000 times in a row and not get tired of. I struggle to nail down what makes the difference, because usually I get quickly annoyed rereading books.
Recent favorites for kids and adults here: Tree (Britta Teckentrup), It’s Not Time for Sleeping (Lisa Graff), and, thank you hive, the Gruffalo and the Gruffalo’s Child. I also love the “movie” versions of the Gruffalo books– they’re very calm and slow-paced. They’re about 30 minutes long each, so watching both is shorter than a full-length movie, but I prefer the content. They follow the books exactly.
Beth @ Parent Lightly says
If you like the Gruffalo, Room on the Broom is also great!
Anonymous says
Also Zog!
Anon says
Thanks for reminding me about the movies! Adding them to the list for our next plane trip.
Anonymous says
The Snail and the Whale is my favorite book by Julia Donaldson. I also like the Giant Jumper and What the Ladybird Heard. In the US, it may be called the What the Ladybug Heard.
ElisaR says
somebody recommended the no bears in this bakery book on this board. I bought it and at first reading I thought it was weird…. but now it’s one of my son’s favorite. I’m so happy I had the recommendation since I clearly don’t know what works for him!
Anonforthis says
Posted this late yesterday on the main board, but hoping to get some more feedback here so I’m re-posting.
I’m in my second trimester with my first kid and have been feeling super sensitive lately at work. Part of it I’m sure is hormones, some of it is feeling insecure since I’ll be out for a quarter of the year. I never used to really think twice about asking tough questions or making observations about tasks, but lately I second-guess everything. And it’s lot of internal dialogue about is boss mad at me etc. I have pretty good seniority in my role and have been with this firm for several years so I’m not a newbie. It’s a lot like the impostor syndrome feelings I had when I started in this role years ago, like I am somehow now under a microscope because I’m pregnant.
I’m not sure what I’m asking here.. has anyone else gone through this? Any little pep talks you gave yourself that helped? Trying to reframe my thoughts to being as productive as possible in my shortened year, but doubting myself makes that hard.
lsw says
Would you consider talk therapy if you aren’t already going? I suffered from some extreme guilt at work during my (very difficult) pregnancy that culminated in a panic attack where I actually had to pull off the road because I couldn’t drive. I had just started talk therapy on the recommendation of my doc because of my predisposition to PPD/A. Turns out I didn’t have that but I did have prenatal depression/anxiety, which I didn’t even know was a thing. Anyway, if you can make time for it, it might help a lot and certainly wouldn’t harm. I’m sorry you’re feeling this way.
Alanna of Trebond says
Hello everyone – I may need to search the archives for this question, but has anyone found a good nutritionist and personal trainer who has been effective in helping new moms lose the “baby weight”? I am looking in the NYC area.
Jessamyn says
Has anyone here sent their kid to a child psychologist? Why did you decide to do it, and how did it go?
I’m a believer in theory that “mental health care is health care” and that everyone should go, even healthy people, and I myself go regularly. But for some reason I’m more hesitant to take my children, since nothing is very seriously wrong. Should we go?
Anonymous says
As someone who has used therapy myself, and sought a couple sessions for one of my three children who had a short term issue (food avoidance), I think of mental health care as more like phyisotherapy than dental care or eye care. With dental care or eye care, you need regular check ups to maintain health. With phyisotherapy you are usually treating an acute or chronic injury. For most people, good mental health is maintained by eating and sleeping well, exercising regularly, and reducing stress. A therapist is useful if there is an acute issue to be treated but you don’t need regular office ‘check ups’ like with a dentist.
And I include eye care in this because I have horrible eyesight and have worn glasses since I was 6, maybe non-borderline blind people don’t need to go every year? Just realized I don’t know what other people do on that front!
Jessamyn says
Those of us who wear contacts are forced to go every year to get more contacts if we only order a year’s worth at a time, to update our prescription. ;)
Thanks for this perspective, that makes sense.
Anonymous says
Everyone is supposed to go once/year, even people with 20/20 vision! I have ok vision (I need a mild prescription for distance but the prescription doesn’t change much over time) and I really hate the eye doctor for some reason, so I only go every few years. They yell at me every time about it.
SC says
My 4 year old is in weekly play therapy led by a child psychologist and also sees an individual psychologist once a month to check in (although I want to go back to twice monthly appointments because things are pretty off the rails right now). He also sees a psychiatrist for medication management. And he sees an occupational therapist twice weekly—it started with sensory issues and gross motor an balance and now is mostly fine motor.
Since Kiddo was 1, he’s been struggling with emotional regulation, impulse control, and aggression. Basically, he gets mad very, very quickly and bites, hits, kicks, head butts, throws things, and/or slams things. When he was 1, he’ mostly hurt himself by hitting his head on the floor or biting himself. (He was never the biter when it was age appropriate.) Since around 2 or 2.5, he’s hurt others. His sensory issues (especially sensitivity to noise and other people being too close—basically the entire daycare classroom environment) were a major factor when he was younger, but now it is at least 90% behavioral.
Kiddo has made a LOT of progress, and I’m really grateful to all of these providers. In my area, mental health resources are stretched thin. The individual psychologist and psychiatrist don’t take insurance (at all), and it takes months to get appointments. We’ve found it impossible to find someone who does take our insurance without a more specific diagnosis, and even then, wait times are 6 months or more. I agree with the general benefit of therapy, but I doubt we’d send a kid to therapy if nothing was wrong because of the difficulty of finding someone and the expense. Your area may be different though.
Anonymous says
Our experience with trying to find behavioral health care for a child in a large Northeastern city is exactly the same. My suspicion is that it is very difficult everywhere.
Anonymous says
I would NEVER take a young child to a therapist absent a specific need. You would be diverting scare resources away from children with legitimate needs, wasting time that could be devoted to free play or other developmentally beneficial activities, and potentially pathologizing normal childhood struggles and signaling that the child was incapable of handling ordinary challenges herself.
If you have regular check-ins with a therapist of your own, you might use some of that time to discuss parenting techniques to help you support your children’s healthy development. I also highly recommend the books by Lisa Damour, especially if you have a daughter.
Anonymous says
+1 million. It would be the “pathologizing normal childhood struggles” that would worry me the most.
Anon Lawyer says
Agreed on the pathologizing normal struggles. My mom did this when I was growing up and it really did a number on me for years to come.
Anonymous says
This is a little high handed. The OP has enough concerns to be asking about it, so how do you know that the child in question doesn’t have “legitimate needs”?
I do agree, though, that if OP is regularly talking with her own therapist it may be worth raising her concerns with her therapist and getting her therapist’s read on whether there’s something she should be more concerned about that not.
Knope says
Because OP said that nothing was wrong! I don’t think you should send a child to a psychologist as a “maintenance care” thing, for the reasons cited above.
Anonymous says
OP’s words were “nothing is very seriously wrong”. Which suggests that something is wrong, just not “seriously” so. I agree that seeing a psychologist is not (and shouldn’t be) maintenance care, but I don’t think the question would come up if there was truly nothing wrong.
Anonymous says
But OP explicitly says she goes to therapy just for maintenance and wants that for her kids. That’s a nice self-indulgent luxury for a rich, entitled adult, but child psychologists are in such short supply that it’s morally wrong to take up those resources on “proactive” or “maintenance” care for kids with whom “nothing is seriously wrong.”
anon says
whoa whoa whoa. “maintenance therapy is a self-indulgent luxury for the rich”? really? you don’t think lower or middle income women deserve someone to talk to?
Anonymous says
No, I don’t think lower or middle income women can afford to pay someone to talk to the way rich people can. Maintenance therapy is a self-indulgent luxury that only the rich can afford.
anon says
I just question the use of the word luxury. A luxury means people don’t need it. boo to that.
AwayEmily says
+1 to talking with your own therapist, or even asking her for recommendations for therapists who help with parenting issues in particular. One of my closest friends is a child psychologist and she says that successful treatment programs are 90% about helping the parents find strategies to help the kids, not about the therapist’s direct interaction with the kids.
Anonymous says
Along these lines, we had some struggles with our daughter in the 3/4/5 age range with emotional control and anger and sought a therapist for her through our pediatrician. Other than an initial meeting with her to meet her and getting a sense of who she was, the “therapy” was directed entirely at me and my husband and parenting tactics and support. We met with the therapist for a couple of months and it was incredibly helpful. Unless you have a specific diagnosis (we never did), this may be a good way to do it.
Sarabeth says
We did this also, and it was transformative for our family life. Our kid was right on the borderline of something diagnosable, and may yet end up with an ADHD and/or anxiety diagnosis in the future. For now, though, behavioral therapy has helped us adjust our parenting strategies to handle those issues without the need to pursue further interventions.
FWIW, our therapist was pretty dismissive of play therapy for anxiety that wasn’t linked to a trauma. I don’t know the research evidence myself enough to say anything one way or the other, but the behavioral model (essentially exposure therapy) worked really well for our kid.
CPA Lady says
I have a family and personal history of mental health issues (some severe) so I try to be aware of and proactive with my child’s mental health without projecting my junk onto her.
I would not take my kid to a child psychologist unless there was an issue. It’s incredibly difficult to get a spot at least where I live. Like, you’re lucky to get one every month or two, and that’s only if you’re willing to take an appointment at any time of the day. My kid’s counselor wanted to see her weekly at first, but her schedule was too booked to make that even a remote possibility.
I didn’t take my kid to a counselor preemptively, but have taken her a handful of times over the past 5-6 months to try to work on specific issues. The thing that made me decide to take her in the first place was that she was getting so anxious about certain things that she was throwing up, and I felt like that warranted professional intervention. She also has extreme separation anxiety from me. She thinks she can’t be out of the same room from me, and needs me to be right beside her when we’re at home together. I have to tell her where I’m going when I leave the room or she freaks out and starts yelling for me, and if I’m out of her sight for more than a handful of minutes she either comes and finds me or starts yelling for me til I come to her. (yes, it’s exhausting and has been going on for years. I’m over it)
The counselor gives us suggestions of things to talk to her about and little exercises to do with her based on whatever is going on at the time. At first it was focused playtime with her, at this time it’s teaching her that she can play by herself. So the current assignment is to set a timer for 10 minutes and make her play by herself, so she understands that she can exist at home without me being in the same room.
I don’t know if or how this is working especially since she goes so infrequently, but I think it’s good that we’ve taken her at least to get a foundation of “counseling is a good thing to do when you need it”. My mom was from a generation where mental health issues were minimized, shoved under the rug, denied and belittled, and because of that my severely anxious self and clinically depressed sister didn’t get help until we were in our 20s. I didn’t want that for my own kid. I have really benefited from the therapy I’ve gotten and I hope it’s good for her too.
Emily S. says
I would defer to your pediatrician. If s/he is concerned about specific incidents and behaviors you have mentioned, then s/he might recommend it and could give you names. If not, then perhaps hearing that a physician is not concerned would help put your mind at ease.
Anonymous says
No? Why would you take a child to therapy if nothing is wrong? Weird
Anonymous says
I have to agree with this. I came from a family that believed therapy was for the weak, and I don’t agree with that at all, and I want to be careful that my kids don’t get that message from me. Therapy absolutely serves an important function for those who need it. But I don’t understand the idea of therapy as (very expensive) preventative medicine in general. In a specific life situation, like pre-marital counseling to make sure you’re in tune as a couple before taking the enormous step of marriage, then “preventative” therapy makes some sense to me. But it doesn’t make sense to me for kids, absent some triggering life situation like a major loss.
Anonymous says
We saw one a couple of times to help with strategies for behavior issues at preschool. One visit just parents, one with the kid. At age 3 or 4, he just refused to talk to the doctor so honestly the parent only visit was more useful. Psych services not covered by our insurance without a diagnosis (ie both my husband and I have been able to get mental health counseling with a therapist covered for mild depression/PPA but psychologist sessions for a kid not covered unless some kind of diagnosis).
Our health insurance also has behavioral health counselors, though, and that’s been helpful for lots of techniques and strategies absent a formal diagnosis.
NYCer says
Definitely not. But I also do not take myself to a therapist if nothing is wrong, so I might just have fundamentally different views about therapy than OP. I am not against therapy in any way, shape or from, but I just do not really understand why you would take a child if you have no particular concerns about anything.
Anonymous says
OMG, no. You are setting them up to be special snowflakes. Mental health care is health care for people who need health care, not a luxury spa.
Petite Mom says
How many hours of sleep do you need to function properly? If you wake up due to kids waking up can you easily go back to bed? What routines have helped you wind down at night? Also, is there some magical diet, meditation etc that would help me function with less sleep? I noticed I am short tempered and in a bad mood when I don’t get enough rest. And the more stressful my work day is the more sleep I need.
Cb says
I need 7-8 hours and really struggled with night wake-ups. I’d fall straight back to sleep but would just be exhausted. One thing I’ve found helpful lately is meditation, I do a short yoga nidra recording before I fall asleep and I am much more relaxed and ready to fall asleep. The body scan just totally relaxes me.
AwayEmily says
One piece of advice that you have probably heard a million times before but really does work…shut off your phone at least an hour before bed. I shut mine down at 8:30 (and that means no screens at all — no TV/computer either) and it has improved my sleep immensely. Also, reading before bed for at least a half hour helps me relax, get to sleep and sleep better. This became easier when I stopped trying to force myself to read difficult, often stressful/sad books and embraced genre fiction like mystery and romance novels (I will read Serious Fiction on my commute, but never before bed because it increases my anxiety).
Anonymous says
+1 to genre fiction. And I read it on my commute too. Audiobooks on my phone at bedtime help me with shutting off the screens, since I mostly read e-books.
Anonymous says
I can function fine on 7-8 but I feel a lot better when I get 9.
Anonymous says
I need at least 8 hours of sleep a night on a consistent basis. I have been taking magnesium supplements at bedtime to help myself stay asleep and go back to sleep if awakened during the night, and they seem to help some.
Beth @ Parent Lightly says
+1 I take magnesium at bedtime occasionally and it does seem to help.
Pogo says
I’ve been taking the magnesium for both sleep and supposedly anti-migraine benefits, but I don’t know that it does anything. These two data points will make me keep taking it tho – guess it can’t hurt!
Emily S. says
I can function on 7 but prefer 9. Sleep quality is as important as quantity for me; 7 uninterrupted hours beats 9 interrupted hours. Pre-kids I slept like a log but now I’ve been conditioned to sleep lightly and I hate it. I wake up in the night because DH is a horrible sleeper. Things I’ve done to help: don’t look at the clock when you wake up (I don’t even have one in the bedroom); sleep with an eye mask, no phones after 9:30 p.m., turn the baby monitor to mute (bc I was tired of our 2.5 year old waking me up with singing Daniel Tiger songs to herself); and prayer or meditation for the first few minutes after I shut my eyes.
Anonanonanon says
So, so many hours.
I like to re-read a book before I go to bed. Reading keeps my mind distracted from racing/worrying, but reading a book I’ve read before means I won’t read late into the night to find out what happens next.
Spirograph says
Oh this is so smart! I love to read before bed, but I make very, very poor decisions when I am reading. In this month alone, I’ve stayed up til wee hours of the morning at least 5 times to finish books “just one more chapter” at a time.
(Full disclosure, one of those 5 was a re-read, but I hadn’t read it in 25 years, and I was on vacation, so I won’t count that.)
I have a poetry anthology that I like to read before bed, too.
Quail says
I like this idea, too. I have NO self control when it comes to reading a book – I can’t put it down, even if I have to work the next day. But if I am reading a boring book, I won’t even pick it up from my nightstand and will scroll my phone instead, which is just as bad. Re-reading a favorite sounds ideal – Harry Potter, here I come!
Coach Laura says
Yes, I’ve repeatedly re-read Harry Potter 1-8 for night time pre-bed reading. These are perfect.
Spirograph says
Excellent idea. This outs me to my friends because I know I bragged to them at the time, but my husband gave me a beautiful set of hardbound Harry Potter books for our 9th wedding anniversary, because the traditional gift is pottery. :)
Also, I started reading the first one to my 6 yo, and one day I asked him something like “Harry Potter is a wizard, do you know what a wizard is?” and he answered, “oh yeah! It’s a little thing with hard skin and tail, right?”
Quail, it makes me feel better that I’m not alone in having no self control.
Anon says
It’s all about the level of anxiety in my life – that’s what affects my sleep. I usually get 7.5 hours but sometimes less. I’ve been an on and off again insomniac my whole life. I think it’s important to establish good habits, have an intentional wind down time before bed, exercise when you can during the day, and try meditation, journaling, or stretching if that feels good, but also try not to catastrophize if you really can’t get a lot of sleep. A positive mindset and healthy food and time with friends etc can all help counterbalance a bad night’s sleep. Also naps on the weekends are key, even short ones.
FVNC says
To minimally function? Very few (as I learned with two horrible sleepers for children).
To enjoy life? Many.
After a recent bout of severe insomnia, I saw a sleep specialist rather than trying to rely on Ambien as I’ve done in the past. He really helped me sort out some of the mental stuff around sleep in a way that seems very obvious now, but that I hadn’t realized on my own. One thing he specifically challenged me on was the use of the word “function” (after I complained I was having trouble functioning at work). He told me a story of a colleague in medical school who fell asleep standing up in the OR. That, he said, is not being able to function at work. He asked if my clients were happy and if I’d gotten good performance reviews. I answered yes. He then said, by definition, that I was able to function.
That, and similar conversations, helped me re-frame how I view sleep and a “good” and “bad” night’s sleep. I’m still not a great sleeper — if I’m interrupted in the middle of the night I can’t easily fall back to sleep, if I deviate from my routine I have a hard time sleeping, etc. — but I am able to avoid the anxiety spiral that used to accompany a “bad” night’s sleep because of how I’ve re-framed it in my mind. Good luck; I could write a novel about my sleep woes…I figure one of these decades I’ll feel rested again!
VIH says
I need my sleep. Things I do:
-magnesium does help, try different forms to see which one works best for you
-I have a lamp on an outlet timer, when the lamp shuts off, it is time for me to get ready for bed.
-WiFi is also on an outlet timer, it shuts off when I should be in bed sleeping and doesn’t come back on until just after my alarm
-when I have trouble falling asleep or falling back to sleep after a night waking, I use sleep phones and listen to either an audibook or podcast turned to 50% or 75% so that the voices are low and slow. I use an iPod touch on airplane mode, with no other apps loaded onto it so that I’m not tempted into other distractions.
-white noise also helps, we have a Dohm in every bedroom.
-fresh air in the bedroom can be great, so open a window for a few minutes once a day or even leave it open a teeny tiny bit while you sleep
anon says
For winding down, I like to listen to guided meditation on my phone. The Mindful Movement is great (on You T u b e as well as podcasts you can download). I’ll typically fall asleep listening, then at some point sleepily remove earbuds.
I haven’t found a great solution for falling back asleep after waking to help my toddlers, so now I don’t force myself to try too hard. I keep romance novels on my phone and if I feel wide awake after getting back in bed I open the book immediately and fall asleep reading. I’m often up for 30-60 minutes, but this seems to be better than lying awake in bed worrying about how I’m going to fund college tuition in 15 years.
octagon says
Gosh, I’m so envious of everyone here! I track my sleep hours through my fitbit and average about 5.75-6.5 hours a night. I start to feel it after 2-3 nights with less than 6 hours. I’ve tried going to bed earlier and when it happens and I can get 7, it’s amazing — I just don’t feel like I can get everything done in the day that I want to and get 7-8 hours of sleep on a regular basis.
It probably matters that kiddo still wakes several nights a week with nightmares, so I’m interrupted for 20-30 minutes whenever that happens. I feel like I will be a zombie until he becomes a teenager and sleeps all the time.
Anon says
I need 7 on a consistent basis to be OK. 9 is better but I haven’t had that in a long time. I can make do with short stints of 5-6 hours (or less), but it wears on me quickly and a lot. I typically get woken up by toddler nightly, but as I mentioned in a post the other day, I’ve ameliorated that by now making her come to me – if I don’t have to get out of bed or turn on the light, I can usually fall back asleep within minutes. As for winding down, that has never really been a problem for me – DH likes to say I fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow in a dark room (and similar once I’m awake, I’m awake and up and at ’em). I often work from bed late (or am responding to email late) as a function of my job (typically after kiddo goes to bed and while DH is snoring next to me), and I will say that setting the blue light filter on my phone makes a big difference in how quickly I’m able to switch gears to sleeping after shutting down around midnight.
Katy says
I am with octagon above. would love more but 6.5 seems to be what I get. This is not great for my current mid-afternoon performance. A couple observations. 1. less sleep actually seemed more manageable when I was getting up for the gym. 2. it is especially hard for me to get to sleep when I have been working post kiddos bedtime (say until 11ish) – the BEST outcome in this situation is to snuggle up to my already in bed but hopefully not totally passed out hubby and get some “instant relaxation”. Best counteract to stress at bedtime!!
Anon says
My toddler is moving into a 2 year room at daycare where they serve juice approximately twice per week. (We loooooove our daycare, but healthy eating isn’t their strong suit.) DD looks very normal to me, but is technically overweight according to our pediatrician (85th percentile BMI), and our doctor has been VERY emphatic about NO JUICE. We don’t serve it at home, except when she’s ill and we use it to get a medicine in her. WWYD about daycare? I’m sure if we ask them not to serve it to her, they will respect that, but I think she’s at the age where she will understand everyone else is having it and be upset, and I don’t want to make life miserable for her or her teachers. Plus, they sing songs about what they’re eating, and she knows the word juice. Is it crazy to ask daycare to dilute her juice, so while the other kids have 100% juice she’s having “juice” that’s actually 50-50 juice and water? Should I just let it go since it’s not very frequent?
Anonymous says
Chill out, let her have the juice, and don’t give her sweets at home on juice days. If your day care is anything like ours, any servings of beverages will be very small anyway (~3 oz.).
Anonymous says
At twice a week I’d let it go.
Ashley says
Yeah, I’d let it go at twice per week. My 2yo would definitely be upset that other kids were getting something he wasn’t, and 2 servings of juice is not the hill I’d want to die on.
AwayEmily says
Honestly I think you’re fine either way. It’s not a huge imposition on them to do it, but it also seems fine to let her have two servings of juice a week. Do whatever your gut tells you!
Anonymous says
I’d suggest to daycare that they consider diluting the juice for everyone. AAP says this about juice, if you think sharing the expert opinion might help: Intake of juice should be limited to, at most, 4 ounces daily for toddlers age 1-3.
If they won’t go for that, I’d ask them to do it for just my kid.
Anonymous says
But it sounds like the intake is less than that, at least on average, if they are only serving it 2x a week. I say this with a child who is also obese by BMI – 2 cups of juice per week is not a big deal.
Anonymous says
It’s not every day though, and it might not be more than 4 oz. At my daycare the serving sizes are very small.
Anon says
I was in a similar (self imposed) conundrum but slightly different, I am pretty anti regular juice due to my sugar-on-teeth concerns, and was also not thrilled about my preschool serving juice often. I asked the kid’s dentist about it before we started school and even she was like, omg let it go. (I’m paraphrasing, ha ha). Now a few years past I am glad I did let it go, so many other things in life to worry about that really just didn’t need to be one of them, and we are good about stuff at home. Obviously your sitch is different, but maybe ask your ped how they feel about this specific scenario given it is so minimal. If they’re more concerned about the habit forming of doing things at home, she might not even care. (And even if they do, I still say, meh…).
ElisaR says
i’ll be the voice of dissent here. I don’t think they should be serving juice at all! there’s literally no nutritional benefit there. I would try to ask for now juice for kiddo and suggest they should eliminate it entirely for all kids. Roast me!
Anon says
Oh I agree that there’s no benefit to juice and I wish they didn’t serve it, but they do and trust me, there’s no possibility of changing it. Other parents have tried, and the short version of a long story is that the menus are set by a large committee at a level above the director and they follow certain published guidelines that approve juice in moderation. The question is only do I opt my own kid out and I’m hesitant to do that.
Anonymous says
I think it’s unfair to say it has no nutritional value. 100% fruit juice typically has high levels of vitamins that can be hard to get into toddlers otherwise. It also helps alleviate constipation in kids who suffer from that (my preschooler was actually on doctor prescribed daily apple juice for a while for that reason). One thing I have learned from the Feeding Littles page is that very few foods are uniformly “bad” or “good” and labeling them that way is not a helpful way to think about nutrition. It’s all about moderation and balance, as well as addressing your body’s individual needs.
Anon says
Agreed!
Anon says
Thanks all – my gut feeling was that it’s not a big deal, so I appreciate the permission to let it go. I’m not worried about her expecting juice at home bc at least for now she seems to view daycare and home as basically separate worlds, and accepts when we tell her that she only does XYZ at daycare. And while I wouldn’t say she eats amazingly health in general (lots of carbs and not enough veggies, like many toddlers), we do a good job limiting added sugar. No desserts and we don’t do a lot of the sweeter breads like muffins or pancakes.
cat socks says
Thanks to everyone for the Costco advice yesterday. I decided to go ahead and sign up for a membership just to try it for a year. I’m adding Kirkland TP to my list since that seems to be a popular item!
Anonymous says
Ugh, sorry. Meant to post on the main site!
lsw says
Oh man, sad I missed a Costco thread! I love Costco. I hope you love it too!
Anonymous says
So let’s start a new one? Maybe everyone’s fav costco thing they never bought pre-kids but now find super useful/essential? For me, it’s having school lunch items on hand in bulk – granola bars, fruit cups etc. Give me lots more options on what to pack, and I only have to stock up every second month instead of remembering lunch box items at every grocery store trip. Never bought that stuff pre kids.
Anonymous says
The big bags of prepared salads and these chicken skewers they have. Before kids, I had time to chop up all my own veggies and cook chicken for lunch for the week on Sunday. Now, I just get two of those and half of each back for lunch each week and two chicken skewers and I have salads for 4/5 days of lunch at work.
And the kirkland brand formula. I’m thankful my baby is just fine with the new recipe they have.
lsw says
Great idea! I get so much stuff for the kids there:
-diapers, obviously! and wipes
-school lunch stuff (mandarin oranges, string cheese, Aussie bites)
-snacks like dried seaweed (my picky teenager LOVES this and my toddler occasionally eats it too), bulk applesauce, pouches for trips, bulk goldfish, granola bars, fruit snacks for potty training
-frozen veg, fruit, chicken breasts, salmon, tilapia
-bacon! we love their bacon
-five dozen eggs as my 3.5 year old can eat six scrambled eggs and ask for more
-bulk steel cut oats, amazing when they have them
-pre-cooked chicken breast strips to throw in a lunch or add to a salad or meal for protein
My only true Costco complaint is that the produce section at our store is pretty bad. Avocados and the colored pepper variety pack are typically the only things I buy. Sometimes D’Anjou pears.
AwayEmily says
Basically everything lsw said, including about the meh produce (the big salad bags go bad in like a day). Also: chicken stock, canned whole tomatoes, sardines,
We got a sous-vide for christmas a few years back, and I thought we’d never use it but it turns out to be super useful for cooking Costco salmon and steak, which we buy lots of and keep in the chest freezer.
What is an aussie snack? It sounds like a train I need to get on…
lsw says
The Aussie bites are sooooo good (and nut free, so I can send to daycare). They are like little mini muffins – so we treat them like a treat, but they have dried fruit, seeds, and whole grains. I love them so I take one to work to have with my second coffee. Highly recommend.
I’ve been curious about their chicken stock. Do you buy the ones in boxes?
I should have added – canned beans and tomatoes. Especially when the beans go on sale, it’s a heck of a deal.
AwayEmily says
Yup, the ones in boxes. We get the low-sodium kind (we are by no means a low-sodium family but I prefer to add my own ginormous spoonfuls of salt while cooking). I’m not a chicken stock connoisseur but I think it’s pretty good!
Anonymous says
My city has no Costco and this thread is making me sad :(
Anonymous says
You can order a lot of their stuff online, including some of their food stuff!
Anonymous says
I make back my membership fee by buying allergy meds at Costco. The Kirkland version of claritin (for me) and Allegra (for my DH) both work great and are way less than the generics of the same at Walgreens or Kroger (like shockingly so).
octagon says
Yes, and the Sudafed generic is ridiculously cheap, like $3 a box. We also buy name brand zyrtec and flonase at a deep discount.
AwayEmily says
Related: contact lenses! SO CHEAP at Costco.
Anon says
FYI to people who are not in the know, but you can shop Costco online without a membership for a small surcharge. If you only want one thing like diapers, it may be cheaper to skip the membership.
Anon says
My costco favorites (regardless of kids):
– glasses. I don’t do a work vision plan because my prescription is pretty stable (first new glasses in 5 years), but they have a licensed independent optometrist and then you can just get glasses filled there. $300 for a pair of regular glasses and then prescription sunglasses, with designer frames that actually fit my super wide face this month.
– TP, paper towels, dish detergent, tissues, trash bags (and DH is a name brand person, not to be swayed). Could I find them cheaper somewhere else by shopping a sale, yes, but if I buy them during their rotation in the “coupon book” every few months, I’m consistently getting an acceptably low price and don’t have to think about it.
– gas – Costco is only about 10 minutes out of the way (and I’m not driving by a bunch of other gas stations in my commute typically). Combined with the credit card, we make our membership fees back in gas alone between our three cars, two of which require premium fuel.
– Raos Marinara Sauce – got a two-pack of the 28oz (I think) jars for $5 last week
– rental cars. So much cheaper!
– Low Sodium Chicken Stock – they used to not carry the low sodium, so excited to see this – it was 0.50 a can when I picked up a case this week.
-Flowers – a guilty pleasure, the bunch of peruvian lilies is $10 and double the size at the local grocery store.
-Steaks and Salmon
-Deli Meals – DH likes the cilantro lime shrimp. I like the stuffed bell peppers. We both like the ravioli lasagna.
-Wine – excellent value on decent wines in the $15-25 per bottle range (although I find I can usually find something I like drinking at Wegmans in the under $15 crowd, so depends on the event).
– Annies mac and cheese packs (we eat a lot of mac and cheese)
– Zyrtec during allergy season
Katy says
In Canada (so products may be different). The Kirkland brand frozen salmon filets have changed my life. Thaw in fridge during the day, squeeze lemon all over, olive oil, S&P, cook 10 mins at 400 F (pretty much always exactly 10 mins). I used to never buy any of their pre-packaged stuff but with kiddos I do. The taco kits are probably the best option, the chicken pot pie is ok and the “pho-ish” soup is good. The Kirkland pesto is much better than other grocery store brands (freeze in ice cube trays, the baby food tray. Produce is excellent in our Costco and berries in particular and 1/2 the price or better compared to my local grocer. AB raised beef and lamb also 2/3 price of local store and better quality. Other new-ish to me – individual balderson cheese slides (yum), love the bacon, Schwartz’s smoked meat (another 10 min dinner), secret pantyhose (although they only carry one nude shade so YMMV), carters sleepers for $7, Halloween costumes, liberte yogurt. ALSO cake to feed like 50 = $20. It is not gourmet but kids love it. And books!
Anonymous says
This Canadian thanks you for the salmon suggestion. Will definitely pick that up and try! And I hadn’t noticed they carry Liberte – the 0% greek plain is my go-to at the grocery store.
rosie says
The frozen wild salmon is great. And I *hear* the cake freezes well in individual portions….
Anonanonanon says
Our house is just too small and my kids too fickle to make buying bulk worth it :( Back when we did, it was usually:
-peanut butter
-paper towels
-k-cups coffee to take to the office
-individual sweetener packets (My husband likes a particular kind of sweetener and uses like 5 per cup of coffee, so he takes them everywhere)
-fruit cups
-gold fish crackers
-ritz crackers
We’ve used Boxed dot com a few times and were pleased. I had really delicious pulled pork a while back at someone’s house, that they told me was frozen from Costco.
Anon says
For those of you who have kids in OT for fine motor skills, how did you know your kid was behind enough that it’s concerning? Kiddo just turned 3 and is one of the older kids in her daycare class, but is definitely at the bottom of the class in terms of drawing lines/shapes, cutting, stringing beads, etc. Her teacher has brought it up a couple times and sent things home to practice with, but every time we try she just gets super frustrated and gives up.
Do we need to be worried about this or will she figure it out in time? Anyone have good at-home fine motor activities we could try on the weekends? We draw, play with playdoh, and do puzzles, but I don’t know if there’s something more I could introduce that would help.
anon says
My son gets OT at age 6. We knew he was pretty clumsy for his age starting around 3/4. A friend whose son could not sit “criss-cross applesauce” at age 3 was immediately referred for early intervention and got OT, which surprised me. At 4, we started getting OT privately through our insurance and then in kindergarten, he was evaluated through the IEP process and now gets it through school. Honestly, we want to do the right thing by our son, but I find these therapies can only have limited results because it just isn’t that much time out of his life. Our OT has suggested that his problems come from a lack of core strength, so play and exercise that strengthens his core are really the best medicine. Rather than stressing about the fine motor tasks, I would suggest gymnastics, playing on the monkey bars, swimming, and other activity to build her strength overall.
Anon says
Thanks!
Anonymous says
This sounds like a pediatrician question to me! They are usually the ones who would refer you for this sort of thing anyway. If you can get your daycare teacher to give you more examples of what she can’t do that they think she should be able to do, that would probably help inform the conversation with the ped, so I’d ask for more information if you can. But remember that the daycare teacher is not a medical professional either.
Activities we like at home: Usborne tracing books, lacing games – M&D makes cute ones, putting cut up straws onto pipe cleaners and turning them into bracelets or other shapes.
Anon says
Yeah, we’ll bring it up with her ped at her 3yo checkup, so I’m mostly just trying to figure out what information I want to have going into that convo so I can point out specific skills that I’m wondering about
Anonymous says
You can also start the early intervention process and have her evaluated for a preschool IEP. It will give you a better sense as to how she is stacking up to kids that are the same age as her and if she qualifies, it is free and the occupational therapist comes to you rather than having to drive her around a million places.
anon says
It is not necessarily true that a free OT will come to her. It depends where she lives. For example, I live in a densely populated suburb of NYC, but because of limited roads in and out of our town and high traffic levels, very few OTs want to do in-home services here because their travel time is too high. If there is no supply, you have to take what you an get. In our case, that was a center about 20 minutes away.
Emily S. says
For my nephew, it was at the pediatrician’s advice after my sister relayed what preschool teachers were telling her. Ped did some exercises in office so he could see what was going on and then prescribed OT.
For our own kids, gross motor was a concern, so we “practiced” something everyday, in a relaxed way. “Let’s jump to the kitchen!” or made excuses to go up and down stairs. I think not calling attention to it as “practice at something you’re not good at” (bc I think kids can be highly attuned and sensitive to that even when we don’t use those words) and not letting them give up was helpful. It’s hard, hard, hard to have them keep going when they get frustrated; I don’t mean to diminish that.
For fine motor, lacing beads, drawing, coloring, play-doh, are all good. I would check in with your pediatrician, too, if you are concerned.
anon says
Wiki sticks are great for fine motor practice too. You can keep them in your purse for restaurants or waiting or even in the car.
Anon says
I haven’t offered wikisticks, so will try that! Lacing beads are one of those things that lead to frustration (even at daycare, where she’s usually more even tempered than at home), but may be worth a try again. Drawing lately leads to “you color while I watch, Mommy” which defeats the purpose… I definitely don’t want to pressure her, so am struggling with the balance in letting her figure it out on her own or seeking some sort of intervention (whether parent-driven or OT).
I think I will bring it up with her pediatrician, so thanks for the acknowledgement that that’s a reasonable thing to do!
SC says
As I said in my comment above, we were referred for other issues which were deemed more important at the time. But for fine motor, it was pretty evident that Kiddo was behind by the time he was 3.5. He hadn’t picked a dominant hand but did a lot of “switching” when one hand got tired. He was still defaulting to eating with his hands and had to be encouraged to use utensils. He only used a fist grip for utensils or crayons, pencils, etc. He didn’t know how much pressure to use when drawing, etc.
His temperament also played a role. Both we and his teachers had a hard time getting him to practice because his frustration about not being able to do it would lead to explosive anger, which would lead to physical violence. (There’s a constant balancing act on when to push him vs. when to let him be.) We had drawing, coloring, play-doh, lacing, etc. available to him, but he avoided those activities.
He’s been working with the OT twice a week on fine motor since the fall, and we’ve seen huge progress. The OT has fun games, knows him well, and is great with kids with sensory and behavioral issues. He has picked a dominant hand and rarely switches. He now uses utensils without being asked. He uses “power fingers” when writing or drawing, or at least starts with them until his hand gets tired. He can write the letters of his name in the right order, although their spatial relationships to each other are still wonky :) He can trace most of the other letters pretty well. He played with small Legos a lot over Christmas. I believe he needed the OT’s help to get him there, but obviously, not every kid does.
Anonymous says
Yeah, she switches hands when eating or drawing, mostly still uses a fist grip, would prefer to use her hands for eating rather than a fork, can kind of close scissors but can’t open them and can’t cut an intentional line, can’t pinch clothespins, can’t draw circles, etc. which sounds like some of the same signs you saw around the same age.
Good to know that OT worked well for your kid!
SC says
Given those signs and the avoidance you mention in the comments above, I’d encourage you to talk to the pediatrician and/or get an evaluation.
Quail says
I think my breast fed four month old is reverse cycling – started when I went back to work. Pediatrician is also concerned that she’s not gaining weight as quickly as the ped would like. Anyone else been through this? Any way I can switch her back to sleeping a good chunk at night? Before I went back to work, she could go 7-8 hours without eating – but now I’m reluctant to cry it out because of the weight gain issue.
Anon says
Can you offer a bottle of either pumped milk or formula right before bed? A bottle “top off” (even if she’d nursed recently) always helped my daughter sleep longer. Also I don’t want to tell you to ignore your ped, but I sort of feel like you can’t win with peds and weight. I had a chunky baby who delighted my ped, but now we’re getting told she’s overweight as a toddler. I’m not sure why 85th percentile is great as a 6 month old and terrible as an 18 month old. It seems to me that some people are just built bigger than others and being a lower %ile isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Birthweight has a lot to do with gestational age at birth and other factors, so a baby who will end up on the 20th percentile curve as a toddler (which is fine!) is going to appear to be losing ground as an infant.
Quail says
I’ll try the bottle before bed – break the association with nursing/bed. My other thought was to substitute a bottle for night feedings to see if it was really hunger.
And I totally agree about the percentiles. My older kid was also a smaller baby and is still on the lower end of the curve. I mean, someone has to be there or its not a curve!
Anonymous says
The percentile that matters is the weight for height. Not either weight or height separately. Also, as only as they are maintaining their curve, it shouldn’t matter if they are 20th or 85th. Good peds. know this stuff. My kids have always been like 90th for weight for height because I’m tall, their Dad is tall and they will likely be taller/heavier. Ped has never been concerned because they have been consistent on their curve from like birth.
Anon says
I feel like, at least in tall kids, high weight percentile translates to high BMI percentile though. My kid is 98th percentile for height, 80th percentile for weight and 85th percentile for BMI. She’s been that way for most of her life. The only way she could drop BMI percentiles – which her doctor wants now that she’s a toddler – is dropping down the weight percentiles, since she is already kind of “maxed out” on height. Not literally maxed out of course – but taller than almost all kids her age so there isn’t a lot of room for height growth relative to other children her age.
Anon Lawyer says
Get a new doctor. This one is trying to pathologize your normal child.
Anonymous says
https://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/bmi/calculator.html
This is the BMI calculator for children. There’s no magic difference between babies and toddlers. Appropriate weight is based on height.
Anon says
I’m aware that BMI computation is not based on age. I’m just saying that society loves a chunky baby but not a chubby kid, and I think doctors do have a different attitude about heaviness based on age. At least in infancy we heard that it was great she was at a higher BMI and she would slim down when she started crawling or walking. We were also told you can’t overfeed a breastfed baby, and that weight or BMI could only be issues if they were too low. In toddlerhood it’s been the opposite – suddenly no kid is too skinny as long as they’re growing well, but lots of kids are too heavy. Not saying the doctor is forcing our kid onto a diet, but all of a sudden it’s “85th percentile BMI is overweight, we need to discuss ways we might lower her BMI.” I know several people who had similar experience with doctors loving their chunky infants and being concerned about chunky toddlers so I don’t think my doctor is some kind of crazy outlier.
Re: changing doctors, it’s something we have considered because we don’t love her for a variety of reasons. But my doctor isn’t telling us anything that’s factually false (85th percentile BMI is the definition of overweight) and so far her solutions don’t seem that drastic. My parents couldn’t hear ANY negative feedback about their children, and I’m (perhaps overly) cautious about not being like them in that regard. So I have been hesitant to change doctors just because she’s telling us something that’s not easy to hear.
Sorry to hijack your thread, OP!
Anonymous says
Cluster-feeding or a bottle of formula before bed?
Re. weight gain, our ped was happy as long as the kid stayed on the same curve. Dropping to a lower percentile was the problem.
Quail says
Yeah, baby dropped to a lower percentile so that was the concern – and she was only at 15% to begin with. She’s still nursing the same number of times so I don’t know what the deal is – and I’m pumping more milk than she’s drinking so I don’t think my supply is the issue. Babies, argh!!!
Pogo says
How long has she been at daycare? Mine started at 4mo home w/ dad on paternity leave then 5mo at daycare. He did not drink what I pumped until almost 6mo – it just took him awhile to warm up to the bottle. Like some days home w/ dad he had a whopping 2oz.
Also how many feedings are you considering “reverse cycling”? It may help to consider that this could be partly sleep regression and partly actual hunger/reverse cycling. Again, around that same 4-6mo stretch mine was waking every hour and wanting to nurse, but I knew he could go 7-8 hours like you say bc he had done it. I accepted he might need some nutrition (2 feedings) and worked on eliminating the other wakings through a combination of CIO and sending dad in – because a lot of the wakings were just sleep regression. Good luck!
Quail says
She’s been with the nanny for three weeks now. About a week in she started eating less during the day – like 2 oz some days. So maybe it will get better with time.
She’s basically eating every three hours – so before bed at 6:30, then up at 9:30, 12:30, 3:30, and 6:30. Sometimes it’s every two hours. Which isn’t really that bad – on this schedule, we’ve just added in the 12:30 feeding because she used to sleep between a dream feed at 9:30 and 3:30 (which was when I got my longer stretch). I think you are right that this is probably not all hunger. She’s still sleeping in our room (in a crib) so CIO is…less than appealing. But at some point I need to get a longer chunk of sleep… (I’m getting 7-ish hours cumulatively, which really isn’t too bad.) So it might be time to try.
Anonymous says
Can you try doing a wake to feed at 9pm and then going to bed yourself immediately after? That way you get a 3 hour stretch before the 12:30am feed.
You could also alternate with your DH doing the 3:30am feed so you get a stretch from 12:30-6:30 every night.
With the nanny, does she walk or rock while feeding? One of my twins hated bottles and formula (combo fed as I didn’t make enough milk) but he would generally take a bottle pretty well if DH or I walked him around in a nursing positon while feeding the bottle. Maybe change up the bottles as well. Playtex drop in nursers worked best for my babies.
Pogo says
Based on your notes, I’d make an effort to cut the 9:30 feed. That’s what I did first. I slept somewhere else and made DH deal with it til I went upstairs at midnight (obviously this is tough as you don’t want to wake the other kiddo). Wasn’t full CIO but little dude was MAD that he was not getting the b00b immediately upon waking up. It was rough but we got it to just the 12:30/3:30 wakeups from there, and then he dropped the 12:30 about a month later, and the 3:30 a month after that.
After only 3w at home with dad, mine was def only doing like 2oz a day. It took time. I think honestly you’re showing good signs that this is partly just sleep regression and not true reverse cycling and while it’s painful, I think you can get past it (as opposed to leaning in and co-sleeping so LO can eat all night long, which is not ideal but what friends have ended up doing who had true reverse cyclers – you can’t let the kid starve and you need to sleep, at some point).
Anon says
Try having your partner dream feed a bottle
Anonymous says
Try cluster feeding in the evening, like between 6-10pm, then you should get a decent stretch of sleep between 10pm – 4/5am, feed again and hopefully get another couple hours of sleep.
Anonymous says
The wakings seems more likely related to sleep-regression than hunger. This happened with our first and he ended up eating so frequently during the night because I automatically fed him when he woke up that he started eating very little during the day. If night time feedings are 5 mins or less then it’s a good indication that they’re comfort feedings not hunger feedings. If that’s the case try sending your partner in with a 2 oz bottle or a soother and make a plan to sleep train (a lot of experts recommend waiting until closer to 6 months but I’ll leave you to your own sleep training research). Concern about weight gain can be addressed during the day, which is far more likely to happen if your baby hasn’t been eating all night.
Anon says
Do you buy clothes for your kids for next year in bigger sizes? I ask because Primary is having a big end of season sale, but I’m nervous about buying too much because I don’t really know what size my toddler will be wearing next winter or what she will like.
Emily S. says
I do and it is hit or miss. I look back at the ped records to determine how much she’s grown in the past 12 months and guess what she might grow in the next 12. It works better as they get older; from about 3.5 to 4.5, my kid had steady growth and only went up one size, so I feel comfortable buying up one size for next winter. But my 2.5 year old grew so much over the past year, I’m not buying anything (although I’ve been tempted by the Primary sale, too!) Primary doesn’t have tags, I know, but in the past, if I’ve purchased NWT I leave the tags on and don’t wash it until they’ve tried it on in the season in which they will wear it. That way if I’ve guessed wrong, I can resell it a higher value than if I had cut the tags off and washed it. I also have no compunction about sleeves or pant legs being a little too long. As for style, I try to buy identical or similar to what they like now with the idea that we can add a few pieces with their current favorite color/theme/character.
Anonymous says
I do for things that can be used all year long or most of the year like underwear, swimwear, pjs, tshirt, socks, pants (my region). That gives me a bigger window of time when the item is likely to fit.
Anon says
I guessed using the growth curves and matched it to the weight range sizes, but she’s stayed on her curves very consistently. I also typically only buy a season in advance. Normally I would be starting to think about spring and summer now, but my 2.5YO is in 5T and I am holding on picking up summer stuff because I know her growth will slow down soon (or so everyone keeps promising) and I can’t tell if she’ll be in 5T still or if we have to move to 6’s. She also doesn’t have opinions about what we buy (although she certainly has opinions about what is in her closet). On the other hand, she wears the same long-sleeve pjs year round, so those I do stock up on in a size or two ahead with big sales.
GCA says
I typically buy only the consumables (underwear, socks) ahead, but a mom from my area created Sizecast, which predicts pretty accurately and by brand what sizes we’ve been in and what we’ll be wearing in the months ahead.
Anonymous says
This is the most genius thing I’ve heard of especially because sizing across brands is inconsistent even for kids.
Anon says
I used to but definitely stopped/slowed down on it as my 4 year old girl has gotten suuupppperrr opinionated about what she will wear, and that is one where for the most part I am not choosing to battle. I have a few beautiful Janie and Jack pieces I got on sale a year ahead of time that she will have never even worn :(
Anonymous says
Spring break planning advice: WWYD
1. Fly from Boston to Myrtle beach, stay 6 nights/7 days
2. Drive from Boston to Myrtle beach, stopping at Sesame Place (PA) on the way down and in DC on the way back, spend ~4 nights at Myrtle beach.
Relevant factors:
– 3 kids ages 2/4/6
– Good friends in DC that we’d love to see
– free lodging in Myrtle Beach
– flights are $2500+ for the family, and the only direct flight is on Spirit Air at 6am; indirect flights are going to take 6-7 hours
– we would need to rent a car if flying
– we just bought a brand new “fun” minivan with entertainment systems and our kids travel well by phone.
Quail says
If Spirit is your only direct option, drive. We took a direct Spirit flight to Myrtle Beach from La Guardia for a family reunion and were delayed for many, many hours with zero communication (granted, LGA is the worst). I would maybe fly Spirit if traveling by myself, but NEVER AGAIN for a family trip.
AwayEmily says
It sounds like you want to drive, so do it!
AwayEmily says
(sorry, that sounded more intense than I meant it. I just meant “it seems from your question like you have a preference, but are asking for people to reassure you that it’s ok to drive. It definitely is! Sounds like an amazing vacation.”)
Anonymous says
I mean, I hate spirit. I hate indirect flights. But 13-15 hours of driving…eh.
I wouldn’t be a super opposed to the $2500 of airfare if it were *not* spirit.
The other option of course is not to go at all but I’m trying to get a sense of if the drive is a bonkers idea or not.
Anonymous says
I’d drive for sure. Sounds like there are good stops in either direction that enhance the trip.
Anonymous says
I am normally much more pro-flying than most people I know with kids (I only have one toddler though), but I would drive in this situation.
Anonymous says
Drive. No question.
avocado says
“Our kids travel well by phone.” LOL–I am assuming this is a typo and was meant to be “plane,” but so true. My kid always travels by phone.
Spiprograph says
I had decent luck flying with kids those ages last year, but that would have been a 20+ hour drive with no compelling stops along the way. Since you have good waypoints planned, I’d enjoy the “fun” minivan! Flying with 3 kids is so expensive, and the minivan really makes long drives tolerable. Our most frequent destinations are 5-7 driving hours away, so here’s our tactic in case it works for you:
We tell the kids they can’t have their tablets until after they nap. If we leave mid- morning, they are usually interested enough in looking out the window or at books for a couple hours, then we stop for lunch somewhere with a playplace, then they zonk out for a couple hours. By the time they wake up, it’s time to stop for a bathroom break, then tablets for 2-3 hours and we’re done driving for the day before anyone gets too stir crazy.
Music for the first couple hours, then naptime and tablets with headphones leave the grownups free to listen to podcasts.
Anon says
We did the DC to Charleston drive this summer with a 2 YO. We did not hit traffic, and it still took close to 10 hours with kid (and husband) stops. Myrtle is 2 hours north of Charleston, so maybe you’re looking at 8 hours. On the way down, we left at 6 am and kiddo blessedly slept the first 4 or so hours. On the way back we had to leave 2 days early due to a hurricane evacuation and we drove all night long – kiddo slept great, but it was almost worse because we got home and the adults had been up all night and kiddo was bright eyed and bushy tailed. That being said, it was still way better than flying would have been.
Anonymous says
Ugh. The smug little 20-something new hire who just got her master’s in social work and is going to save the world is holding forth about how selfish it is to have kids. I did not like her before and now I really do not like her. And she is going to work for me on a project. I cannot stand having to overhear this conversation. Time to go get coffee.
Anonymous says
That’s the worst. Taking a glass half full approach, I’ve tried to pivot these conversations to the importance of excellent access to birth control and abortion as many pregnancies are not intentional and subsequent discussion re how extensively/badly these things are currently being restricted.
As in, “regardless of whether I agree with you about having children as selfish, I think we can both agree that no one should have a child against their will.”
Anonymous says
That’s a bold move! I 100% agree with you, but bringing up reproductive choice in the office (unless your work is directly related) seems like a very touchy political conversation to have in the office.
Sorry you have to deal with this, Anon at 3:58. There’s a 20-something masters in social work person in my church group who is always talking about how meaningful work to help people is more important than salary, and it similarly rubs me the wrong way. I’d love to save the world, but I live in the DC area and have daycare-age kids, so there’s a minimum salary I need to maintain the lifestyle I want (which isn’t terribly extravagant), and social work does not cover it. I’m sure (or at least I hope) they’re thoughtless rather than intentionally jabbing, but it’s still frustrating AF to listen to.