Nursing/Postpartum Tuesday: Compact Refrigerator
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If you are a nursing mom and you don’t use the office fridge to refrigerate your pump parts or your breastmilk, a small fridge like this can be a great option for your office — and they’re pretty inexpensive. I also loved these for storing Diet Coke, or yogurt, or low-fat shredded cheese in my office, or a salad dressing that I didn’t want other people at work to use.
Some of these are really tiny and only fit about six cans of soda — and they use very little energy. (Check out my Corporette post on buying a mini fridge for your office, because I included specific details on energy use.)
The pictured fridge is a bestseller, but Amazon has many more options to choose from; you can also find similar ones at Target and Walmart.
Psst: Looking for info about nursing clothes for working moms, or tips for pumping at the office? We’ve got them both…
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Sales of note for 1/16:
(See all of the latest workwear sales at Corporette!)
- Nordstrom – Cashmere on sale; AllSaints, Free People, Nike, Tory Burch, and Vince up to 60%; beauty deals up to 25% off
- AllSaints – now up to 60% off (some of the best leather jackets!)
- Ann Taylor – Up to 40% off your full-price purchase; extra 50% off sale
- Banana Republic Factory – 50% off everything + extra 20% off
- Boden – 15% off new styles with code — readers love this blazer, these dresses, and their double-layer line of tees
- DeMellier – Sale now on, free shipping and returns — includes select options like Montreal, Vancouver, and Venice
- Eloquii – $29 and up select styles; extra 50% off all clearance, plus ELOQUII X kate spade new york collab just dropped
- Everlane – Sale of the year, up to 70% off — reader favorites include their scoop tee, Dream Pant, ReNew Transit backpack, silk blouses and oversized blazers! New markdowns just added
- Hannah Andersson – Up to 30% off all pajamas;
- J.Crew – Up to 40% off select styles; up to 50% off cashmere
- J.Crew Factory – 40-70% off everything
- L.K. Bennett – Archive sale, almost everything 70% off
- M.M.LaFleur – Tag sale for a limited time — jardigans and dresses $200, pants $150, tops $95, T-shirts $50
- Spanx – Lots of workwear on sale, some up to 70% off
- Talbots – Semi-Annual Red Door Sale – 50% off + extra 20% off, sale on sale, plus free shipping on $150+
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?
Thanks, that makes so much sense!
Just found out (very early still) I’m pregnant with #2! Our daughter is 20 months. I did a whole journal while I was pregnant with her, but am wondering if people did something similar for #2. I feel a little meh about it but I also don’t want #2 to feel like we did fewer sentimental things for him/her. Thoughts?
Also, when is the ideal time to tell a toddler that a baby is on the way? She’ll be 2 in November, baby is due in April. I assume I will be showing by November.
Sigh. I am just venting here…I’m in a state that is barely on the other end of the peak. In my city, while hospitalizations are decreasing, we’re still seeing crazy high positive rates. We moved here in late-December, in large part to be closer to family. I have one highly immunocompromised parent, so now all our visits are masked and/or distanced. Right when I started being social and re-connecting with friends, the pandemic hit. Two of my best friends live here, but one is a single mum managing her young daughter/joint custody/work in this pandemic, and the other is taking extra precautions/is generally very anxious so I haven’t been able to see them, even socially distanced. It’s also just been tough to coordinate with friends and extended family because although everyone is being “careful”, as discussed here what that actually means varies greatly.
We found a school we love for DS (2.5), but he hasn’t been really since mid-March (we did send him back briefly, but then there were cases in his class, so we have opted to wait until the COVID+ rate in our city lowered….which doesn’t seem to be happening). Now I wonder if we don’t send him soon, given the projections of how Fall will look, what this delay will do to his development. He’s jolly and fine now, and I keep trying to focus on that.
DH and I both work from home, and we’re very fortunate to do so. My MIL is here to help with DS and new house right now which is great; fortunately she lives alone and is about a 10 hour drive away. I’m pregnant, which is also exciting. We are able to get groceries/takeout delivered and only really get out for home-related errands, which DH largely handles.
Despite all of these good things, I just feel….I dunno…kind of lost socially? Which is odd because I am more of an extroverted introvert. Any interaction with close friends is virtual, and then when I pop online I feel like folks are being a lot more social/hanging out. I’ve invited friends over to hang out on the porch via masks/social distance but although met with initial excitement, I think my friends nearby are just busy managing all the various pandemic logistics/feelings that come with it, and I’m feeling burned out to follow up/organize too much since the day-to-day is so much of that. Anyone else feeling similarly? What do you do to cope? The Zoom calls with friends help but it’s just not the same…
Thanks everyone who shared some recs for a 3 year olds bday (this weekend). I ordered a couple and they have been huge hits – I can already tell that I will be reading Room on the broom about 1,874 times this fall! For any Canadians out there, we were also gifted “Carson crosses Canada” and it is a delight. (Especially because we had the bday on a road trip to visit the west coast.)
We’re in the process of hiring a temporary person to fill my role during my upcoming maternity leave, and OMG it is bringing up huge feelings of imposter syndrome!
My inner monologue is being so critical. What if she does a better job? What if they are sad to have me come back? What if they discover I made XYZ huge mistake that I’m not even aware of?
Please tell me this is normal :)
New mom during the pandemic, and everything has just been… hard. Our baby was born sick and some treatments made her immunosuppressed, but she has now recovered. So we are slowly doing things, but we are constantly being pushed and pulled by relatives (especially my MIL, this is her first grandbaby), and trying to navigate feelings and expectations and make things fair is… a lot. My MIL (widowed) and my father are still working in person. My mom self-quarantined and traveled to visit (without my father) when our baby was 4 months old to help for a week (the first help me and my husband got!). That caused an uproar with MIL. Then we had MIL come over twice to hold her with a mask/changed clothes/sanitizer, but then my father hadn’t met the baby, so had to navigate that unfairness. Now, it’s the baptism. We decided to do a Zoom baptism, only godparents attending (masked/distanced). My MIL is flipping out that she “needs” to be there. Why are all decisions so hard? Why doesn’t anyone accept boundaries? Why do I feel like my husband and I need to be the arbiter of everyone’s feelings and keeping things “fair” and we put so much emotional work into this, yet we get pushback whenever we draw clear boundaries, even thought we have stuck to our boundaries EVERY SINGLE TIME for 5 months now? Why do people still feel the need to challenge our boundaries and yell at us for them? It’s exhausting… but we are not giving in. No real question here but, commiseration?
Can someone explain Shopkins to me? My kiddo (almost 5) wants some and more than earned them by helping deep clean her play room over the weekend and sort through toys. I don’t know anything about them. Is there an original or starter set I should be looking at? Or just get whatever? Thanks!
How many toys do you have for a 6-12 month old? Any rule of thumb as LO grows? My LO is, of course, easily entertained by any piece of plastic, and the internet suggests just 3-5 (!) may be appropriate, but I’ve been tempted to buy all kinds of toys recently. Surprisingly we haven’t been gifted many either.
Any one with early elementary kids – ideas on indoor play equipment? This summer hasn’t been awful because I can “supervise” the kids in the yard on our swingset and with soccer balls. I’m dreading the winter and trying to get their wiggles out. We have a small unfinished basement that has indoor/outdoor carpet. Any ideas on what I could buy for down there? They’re too old for stepping stones and pickler triangles that were suggested yesterday.
Speaking of pumping…
any new or soon to be new moms want to chime on their thoughts around pumping on leave and building a stash? With #1, I was a lady on a mission. I had a trip planned, plus back to the office, plus plenty of work travel in my first year. I knew I’d want a really sizable stash – I think I aimed for 100 oz.
Now…not so much, right? I can’t imagine the next time I’ll be away from the baby. *maybe* in February or March?? (between my leave and my husband’s and wfh for the foreseeable future) I’m thinking about pumping some, but not with any size stash in mind? Bare minimum I need the amount to send with baby the first day he goes to daycare.
What have others done who’ve delivered recently?
A fridge in your office is amazing if you’re on the billable hour. It made pumping possible for me.
When I was starting at my firm with a 4 month old, HR originally told me I’d have to use a common pumping room, scheduling a reserved time on a outlook calendar at least a week in advance and traveling up several floors to the room with all of my stuff. That was never going to work. I had to appeal to the management committee at the firm for permission to get a lock on my door and to have a fridge. It was mortifying to have my decision to pump reviewed, discussed and approved by a group of old, powerful men (plus a token women), but I’m glad I spoke up and got that policy changed for subsequent associates. I billed 2300 hours that year while pumping.
I wish I’d had one of these upstairs at home when I was EP with a newborn. I was constantly up and down the stairs to put pumped bottles in the fridge or to get a bottle to feed the baby. Eventually I started keeping bottles upstairs in a cooler overnight, but a little fridge would have been so much easier.