Nursing/Postpartum Tuesday: Ergobaby 360

My almost 4 year old is driving me to a meltdown. Our bedtime routine is out of control. We lie down at 7:45 and he doesn’t go to sleep until 9:15 most nights. My husband travels and I need to work most nights but the toddler wants someone sleeping with him the whole time and when I try to leave he sneaks out into the hall at least 4 or 5 times until I give up and go into his room again. My husband doesn’t mind – he thinks it’s quality time and will fall asleep in our toddlers bed most nights. He also naps 1 hour each day and the nanny insists he needs it. We aren’t comfortable locking him in his room bc my judge mental mom told me her friend was traumatized as a child from that (and I think that’s bogus but have a complicated relationship with her and don’t want to hear her make digs for the next year). Rereading this I know we should cut naps, right? Any other suggestions? How do we make the transition to get him used to falling asleep alone? He used to be great at it. I was up till 2am working last night and am about to come unhinged and am frustrated with my husband and am in a really bad place right now…

My almost 11 month old is rejecting her bottles. She has consistently guzzled five 5-6 ounce bottles per day for a number of months now. Over the last 30 days she started to leave half an ounce to a full ounce with most feedings, which we figured was fine given her total intake was sufficient and she was probably filling up on other stuff (water sippy cup, folid foods). However, in the last 10 days she abruptly started rejecting 2-3 of these bottles per day, both at home and at daycare. We’ve tried to reduce distractions, but that’s not helping. I’ve also noticed she’s eating less quantity of solids – she’ll try anything but if she ate a full waffle or half a banana before she now only has a quarter or even less. The combo of such a quick drop in formula intake plus her trending toward eating less quantity of solids has me scratching my head.

So, the impossible question: is this normal? Worthy of a call to the pedi? Just wait and see? She also woke up last night screaming and would not fall back to sleep for almost an hour – first time for this in months. She only has her two middle bottom teeth, so we suspect many others are coming in at the same time. So, maybe this is all related to teething?

How do you handle a good cop/bad cop parenting dynamic when it comes to things like chores? My first child is only 15 months, so obviously very young for real chores. But I’ve started asking her to pick up her toys before she goes to bed, and she will usually do it if we sit down on the floor and do it together. The problem is that my husband sees no value in picking up clutter (he’s clean but not tidy, if that makes sense) and he doesn’t believe she should have to do it. He has made joking comments to her about how this is pointless “make-work” or that she won’t have to do it when I go out of town, and they’ll conspire not to tell me that they left toys all over the floor all week. She’s too young to understand the meaning of these comments now, of course, but will eventually. I realize that as the one who prioritizes this task, I need to take the lead on asking her to do it/doing it with her, but I don’t feel like it’s fair for him to undermine me and tell her in front of me that picking up toys is not important. Fwiw, he says he believes in chores generally and is supportive of eventually asking her to do things that are “useful” (like load the dishwasher, etc) and he says just doesn’t see this as useful. So maybe I’m borrowing trouble by fretting about this very specific thing. But it does worry me because he had no chores growing up himself and I know people have a tendency to slip into the same parenting habits that they were brought up with. (Despite never having chores and having a mom that basically waited on him hand and foot, he turned out really well and more than pulls his weight around the house. This is not a complaint about how many chores he does himself.) Any advice?

I posted about the nanny yesterday. Thank you everyone for your advice!! We decided to give her an offer this week, and I am taking the advice of offering above market that someone suggested later in the day. Is there anyone from the northeast (or specifically in CT, 1 hour from NYC) who can give me an idea of what the weekly market rate is for 50 hours per week? We are moving there so I have no clue what’s standard there. I will at least give her what she asked for in her interview / what she is getting paid now for 60 hours per week (1000 net per week after tax), but I wasn’t sure if that was above market or not, it honestly seems low-ish for that area. I really want her to take this offer because I have no idea where else I would look for a nanny if she turns it down, all the other ones I interviewed were so meh.

I also ideally would like to have someone who can commit to 1-2 date nights per month, but idk if it would be too much to ask a nanny. I can also work on finding a college sitter :)

Also, do you generally do nanny background checks after or before she accepts the offer? I don’t want to spend 100+ on a background check if she will turn it down. I was thinking of just giving her the offer pending clearing a background check.

I know room sharing is generally recommended, but I have a specific logistics question. I have a 7 month old who still nurses one time at night, and also can wake up crying, and a 2.5 year old who is a pretty good sleeper in her crib. We would like them to share a room once the baby is sleeping through the night with no nursings (hopefully in a month or two), but at what point do we move the 2.5 year old out of her crib? My take is wait until she wants to move, because who knows when that will be, and then just see how it goes with both of them in the same room, my husband thinks we should put her in the toddler bed now so she gets used to that first before we move them in together. Thoughts? Warnings?

I’m always so inspired by the Week-in-the-Life posters who are able to fit regular exercise into their routines. I’m curious: when do you find time to exercise?

I have two daycare-age kids and an hour-long commute each way. I never exercise. Like, literally never. I’m trying to start small by adding a few little things to my day, but I need help! I have tried in the past to do a 15 min fitness blender vid after the kids go to bed, but usually I am just too tired. I have a standing desk, so do light stretches during the day, but I need a real ramp up. Now that the weather is warming up I’m going to try to walk a mile over my lunch break. Other, ease-in ideas? Or is easing in the wrong method and I need to carve an hour into my day at some point to get a real workout in?

How reasonable is it to ask our nanny not to take the baby on stroller walks in the middle of the day and go in the late afternoon instead? Nanny has been with us a few months but temperatures in our area are only just now becoming moderate enough to willingly spend time outside, so it wasn’t an issue until now. I will ask her to apply sunscreen, but even with sunscreen I try to avoid outdoor activities from 10-4 when the sun is most intense. However, I’m aware I’m more paranoid about the sun than most (I’m fair, have had some suspicious moles and have to see a derm twice yearly for skin checks).