CorporetteMoms

Updated: Nov 1, 2018 60 Comments · by

Finally Friday: MEKU Business Card Case

Recent Recs

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MEKU Business Card CaseI found this stylish little card case while doing our roundup of card cases for work the other day — and I still think it’s pretty, affordable, and I like that it has RFID blocking capabilities. Particularly in days where you may be switching between a diaper bag, tote bag, regular handbag, no handbag, and a clutch (for date night, right?), a super small, colorful wallet that only holds the basics may be just what the doctor ordered. It’s $15.99, and eligible for Prime. MEKU RFID Blocking Slim Leather Credit Card Holder Business Card Case Minimalist Wallet with Cash Clip (L-all)

Sales of note for 9.10.24

(See all of the latest workwear sales at Corporette!)

Kid/Family Sales

  • Carter’s – Birthday sale, 40-50% off & extra 20% off select styles
  • Hanna Andersson – Up to 50% off all baby; up to 40% off all Halloween
  • J.Crew Crewcuts – Extra 30% off sale styles
  • Old Navy – 40% off everything
  • Target – BOGO 25% off select haircare, up to 25% off floor care items; up to 30% off indoor furniture up to 20% off TVs

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Comments

  1. Knope says

    I spent all of yesterday wishing that my baby-to-be (I’m 7.5 months pregnant) would just.stop.moving. for a minute, because he seemed to get stronger overnight and was constantly, painfully jabbing me. Now, despite being woken up at 6 AM to some twists and turns, I’m worried because I haven’t really felt much movement the past hour. I know everything is probably fine and he’s just probably (thankfully) sleeping, but I feel like I can’t win here! Ready to get him out!

    • lsw says

      I feel like I could have written this post back in May. He might be sleeping, and also he’s running out of room to move!

    • Em says

      If you want some peace of mind, drink a cup of fruit juice, lay down, and count movements (I think you are supposed to feel 5 per hour, but if you call your doctor they will be able to tell you for sure). I had to do this a couple times when I was pregnant.

    • Anonymous says

      don’t worry!! They sleep for 60-90 mins at a time now. I’m actually 7.5 months as well (when are you due? I’m March 13th). I also notice that after a day of being REALLY active my baby might be a little more quiet the next day. I actually had the same experience on Monday, I was like “can you please take a nap because I need a break??” Drink some juice, lay on your left side, and look for 10 movements in 2 hours. If you don’t feel them then call your doctor. My doctor also said don’t worry when the baby isn’t moving all the time, it’s just when you should expect them to move (they are kind of on a schedule right now). So like my baby moves early morning and then around dinner/after dinner but it pretty quiet during the workday. Hope this helps!

      • Knope says

        Nice, we are almost due date twins – I’m the 16th! I think you all are right – I had some cold juice and walked around a bit and he was back to jabbing me again :) Thankfully he’s quieted down now that I’m sitting at my computer, which is a big improvement over yesterday. Hope you are doing well, or at least hanging in there, otherwise!

        • Katala says

          Good to hear. This probably won’t be the last time, little buggers :) I’m 36 weeks and little guy’s new favorite move is to hook a foot (?) under my ribs to get leverage to punch my bladder and/or cervix.

    • Anon in NOVA says

      Sigh. It’s the same once they’re born. You spend so much time wishing they would sleep longer, then sleep through the night, then sleep later, etc. but the second they do you’re like “omg they haven’t woken me up in hours clearly something horrible has happened” and you have to get out of bed and check on them. :)

    • Pogo says

      I read somewhere also that when you stop moving (lay down to sleep) they wake up and move around, but during the day when you’re going to meetings, talking to people, etc they’re lulled to sleep by the activity.

      • EB0220 says

        Yep, it’s like babywearing but on the inside. Movement + ambient noise = zzzzz

  2. Wooden Trains says

    My son is obsessed with trains! Any recommendations for a beginner’s wooden train set? My son is 2.

    • anne-on says

      Does he watch any of the shows? They seem to quickly become obsessed with the characters (Thomas vs/ Chugginton). If not, Melissa & Doug has a good starter set!

    • AwayEmily says

      The Ikea one is good, and compatible with more $$ ones. We also have a Melissa & Doug one that is coming apart, so I wouldn’t recommend that.

      People often seem to give train sets away on listservs, etc — I bet if you post that you’re looking for one you can find a used one.

      • anon says

        The IKEA track we have does NOT connect well with Brio or Thomas track; the bridge is also too low for many trains to go under. (Maybe they changed it recently?) My parents got my son the Brio figure 8 when he was little, which is a nice basic set, but check the Fisher Price website for clearance sales on Thomas sets.

        • Anonymous says

          The Ikea trains are slightly smaller so the bridge works for their trains but not the Brio/Thomas ones. We don’t use the bridge and just use the other pieces. We have Ikea and Brio tracks mostly. Brio is the best but I prefer Ikea to Toys R Us housebrand.

    • Anon says

      My in-laws kept Brios from their 3 kids and handed them down to the grandkids. We’ve added a few pieces ourselves, and they seem to be of the same quality as the ones from the 80s. So if you can afford it, go for Brio. It’s an awesome hand-me-down that your kids can still get a lot of use out of today. And it’s got a wide age-range appeal – my 5 year old and 2 year old both love them and play for a long time together. (The 5 year old loves building the tracks, the 2 year old loves moving the trains around.)

      • Alexandria VA says

        We decided upon Brio. They have numerous, smaller sets than the Melissa and Doug set that has already been posted, so you can pick and choose what you prefer. At some point we will probably get more trains and track.

    • Anonymous says

      We have Brio – there is a set suitable for 18 months which I really like, and gives room to grow. As mine is also interested in cars, I liked that the Brio set attached to the Brio parking garage.

  3. Anonymous says

    Any tips on food-throwing? My son (13 months) has started dropping food off the side of his tray, and I just don’t know the best way to respond. We’ve tried ignoring it, and we’ve tried saying “No” twice and then removing his tray all together, and we’ve tried just removing his tray and putting him down the first time he does it. None of them really seem to work. He doesn’t do it really late in his meal, so I don’t think he’s totally full, although when he’s really hungry he won’t do it. I know he’s too young to be acting out, and too young to really discipline/understand reasoning, but it’s quite frustrating! Everything I’ve read leads me to think we’ll give him some sort of eating disorder if we remove food as a punishment… Any tips?

    • RDC says

      One thing someone on this board said that has stuck with me is that babies that young can’t count – so just one warning, rather than two. I think when we had this problem we would do one warning, then remove the food, but leave the baby in the highchair. After a minute or two, if he still seemed hungry, we’d give the food back.

      Also, my son learned really early how fun it was to feed the dog, so removing dog from the dining area during meals helped reduce that.

      • Anonymous says

        Thanks. We do have cats that circle the high chair, and we recently started putting them away during dinner in case that makes a difference.

    • CPA Lady says

      I was a harda$$ about it and told my daughter that if she threw food the meal was over. Period. And that’s what I did. No matter if it was the beginning or the end of the meal. She learned really quickly.

      (If you do this and your kid is really hungry like an hour later you can still give him a snack, obviously.)

      • Anonymous says

        OP here– this is my inclination to do. I think we also got into the habit of saying “OK, no more vegetables, but you must still be hungry, so how about some berries (his favorite)”, which probably isn’t helping. I think we need to start being more firm. But he’s so little! And cute! And the internets tells me I will create a mindset that food is a punishment/reward! We should bite the bullet.

        • Anon says

          Don’t think of it as food is the punishment/reward. You’re connecting the consequence to the action. If they throw a toy, you take the toy away right? This is the same concept. If you mistreat something, you don’t get that something anymore.

          Food becomes a punishment/reward when it’s not connected to the action. If you give berries after he takes a bath, or if you say “no snack” if he throws a fit in the living room, then you’re creating that association. This instance is not the same thing.

        • CPA Lady says

          Have you ever read anything by Ellyn Satter? I swear I’m not making money off of this for how often I recommend it, but reading her book “Child of Mine”, about children and eating, was very eye opening for me. It talks about how small children know how much they need to eat, and what they need to eat. Very reassuring to me for a variety of reasons.

          • Anonymous says

            I haven’t, until this, he’s always been a great eater. I’ll check it out though, thank you!

    • H says

      We take the food away and the meal is done. Period.

      Later, I might offer a piece of fruit if I think he didn’t eat enough. But, typically, if my LO is throwing food, he’s not hungry and just bored so he’s trying to create entertainment.

    • SC says

      We take the food/tray away too. I don’t think it’s helped curb the behavior at all, and Kiddo has been throwing food on the floor for 6 months–I wrote a similar post when he was 14 months, and now he’s 20 months. I think Kiddo throws the food when he’s not hungry or bored though, so removing the food gave him what he was looking for and reinforced the behavior. The only thing that has led to a decrease in throwing food was teaching Kiddo the sign for “finished” (with the words “all done” because that’s easier to say) and waiting for his language development to get to the point where he can say “all done.” Actually, now that I think about it, I don’t think he’s thrown much food in the 2 weeks since he learned to say “all done.” Oh, and he seems to do it less if he’s watching a video while eating, because he’s less bored, but that’s probably terrible parenting advice :)

  4. AwayEmily says

    Daycare scheduling for the 6-12 month set….is there something I just don’t get? Pretty much all daycares I’ve looked at have kids nap once in the morning at around 9, and then in the afternoon from 1pm – 3pm. My 9-month old happily takes both of these naps (an hour in the AM and two in the afternoon), but is *exhausted* by 6:15pm.

    But if we put her to bed at 6:15, she’s up at 5:30 (she sleeps about 11 hours at night), which is (1) annoying and (2) a really long time before her 9am daycare nap. Are other kids just able to go for longer in the evening without sleeping? In theory I guess we could give her a late afternoon nap, but she doesn’t get tired until 5pm, which seems really late for a nap.

    It seems like most parents put their kids to bed around 7 or 7:30, which seems ideal, but I just don’t know how to make it work with the daycare nap schedule.

    • anon says

      I think it is just an unfortunate thing that happens when kids are kind of between 2 naps and 3 and why so many young children wake up at an ungodly hour. Daycare has to cater to the most common denominator in scheduling, but you could ask if they could start her morning nap earlier (and let it run longer maybe). She’ll grow out of it soon.

      • Anon in NYC says

        Agree that sometimes it just happens when kids drop a nap. But all daycares in my area for infants (sub-12 months) are guided by the individual child’s schedule. A 3 month old and a 9 month old are going to have different sleep cycles – and the same with a 6 month old and an 11 month old – so the caregivers just roll with it and put the kids down when they’re tired and don’t wake them up. Can you talk to the provider about letting your daughter get more sleep, whether through an additional nap or just letting her sleep longer? It could also be that at 9 months she’s sufficiently distracted by the activities at daycare that she won’t sleep more.

        • AwayEmily says

          That sounds lovely. The daycares we looked at around here had a flexible-ish schedule, but still a schedule, at least for kids six months and older (infants are another story, they can sleep when they want). They won’t ever wake a kid up, but they do try to get it so all the kids are sleeping/eating/etc at around the same time. Which I’m sympathetic to — it’s tough to accommodate seven different sleep schedules. And I bet they would be willing to put her down for a third nap (that’s a good idea), but we pick her up at around 5, which is when she’d be taking it.

    • Momata says

      This was just how it was for both my kids — daycare schedules required early bedtimes, which required early wakeups. It stinks, especially in these winter months when the wakeup is two hours before the sun comes up. Hang in there.

      • AwayEmily says

        Thanks, this makes me feel better. Hopefully it will just work itself out as she’s able to stay awake longer…

    • Marilla says

      Any chance of a car nap on the way home? 9 am is definitely late for a first nap if she’s up before 6:30. I also think at that age 3 naps rather than 2 wouldn’t be amiss, depending on the baby.

      • AwayEmily says

        A little catnap like that would be exactly what she needs! Unfortunately we walk rather than drive, and it’s only about five minutes…maybe I could put her in the Ergo and take the long way home, though.

    • Anonymous says

      My kids are older now but I dealt with this by mostly doing babywearing when I got home. Watching me cook supper was interesting enough that they didn’t fall asleep but it was still restful for them. I wore on my front so we could interact/sing songs etc.

    • Butter says

      So my kid barely sleeps at daycare (a good day is 1.5 hours, a bad day is 37 minutes) and often falls asleep on the way home at 5:30. I’ve noticed that even if I let him nap until 6:15/6:30pm, he can go to bed at his usual time of 7:15/7:30pm (I basically wake him up to feed him dinner and do the bedtime routine), and sleep through until 6:30/7am. I’m sure someone would say I’m doing it wrong, but it works well for us. (Fwiw he naps more at home on the weekends, but just has too much fun at daycare to slow down, and since it’s not effecting his nighttime sleep we just go with it.)

      • Em says

        This is my son as well. Around 6 months he decided he didn’t want to miss the party at daycare so he hardly naps at all (he is 10 months now and naps for 45 minutes total on a bad day and 2 hours on a good day). If we can get him to take a nap in the car on the way home we take it because it seems to improve his mood immensely. Otherwise, we implemented a 6:30 bedtime because he was exhausted by 6 pm. We are just now starting to stretch that to 7 pm. We also let him nap as long as he wants on the weekend and will sometimes do a third nap if he is really cranky (usually all the naps total about 3 hours).

      • AwayEmily says

        Doesn’t sound wrong to me! I guess the night sleep drive is so strong that even a nap shortly beforehand doesn’t interfere with it too much. And while it sucks that he doesn’t sleep too much at daycare, it’s kind of adorable that it’s because he’s having so much fun.

    • Anon says

      Ours still needed a small late afternoon catnap at 9 mo. By that point he often would sleep if they put him down at daycare, but would doze 15 mi. In the car on the way home or, on the weekend, would take a nap in the Ergo if we took him for a walk. Did not drop that final catnap till nearly 11 mo.

  5. Test Results - help says

    16 weeks pregnant and worried about some test results. I’m old/advance maternal age (almost 40) and my MaterniT21 results were normal. But, when I did the NT screening and accompanying blood test, my down syndrome numbers were a little high. My doctor doesn’t seem too worried (attributes the slightly higher score to my age) and otherwise NT and MaternT21 were normal. I’m still freaking out. I don’t feel like this justifies the risk of an amnio. Anyone else experience this???

    • Anon in NYC says

      I had a similar experience (although not Downs). My blood work indicated that the baby might have Tay Sachs even though both me and my husband do not have any significant risk factors for it. We re-did blood work (twice, if I remember correctly) and my doctor sent us to a geneticist who told us that we could have a full genetic workup done on both me and my husband (likely not covered by insurance), and we debated an amnio. Eventually the blood work came back normal. Apparently the test results can be affected by lots of things – the time between when the blood was drawn and when it was tested, for starters, or if the blood had to be sent to an offsite lab, etc.

      If you’re really nervous, ask your doctor if you can repeat the blood test. But, hugs! I’ve been in your shoes and the anxiety is hard.

    • mascot says

      It helped me to re-phrase the numbers in my head. 1 out of 1000 sounds worse than 0.1%. I had a friend who got a result that was a 1 in 64 chance and her husband reminded her that there’s the correlating 98.4% chance of the issue not occurring. The odds worked in their favor. But, if you want more comfort, ask your doctor for options on re-test or genetic counseling.

    • NewMomAnon says

      I’ve had three friends all go through scares like that, and all have given birth to healthy kids. I’ve read that the false positives for down syndrome are actually a bigger problem than the false negatives, because people terminate pregnancies when there was no need.

      But all of those friends really struggled throughout pregnancy, worrying that baby might not be healthy, worrying about what it might do to their family, etc. Most of them eventually got some comfort when later ultrasounds showed no problems.

    • Test Results - help says

      Thank you so much for the comforting words. I’m meeting with a counselor next week just to further understand what all this means so I can put it in perspective. I’m still super worried, but I’m trying to absorb the calm vibes. Thank you. Seriously.

      • Anon in NOVA says

        I am so sorry you’re going through this stress. “next week” sounds soon but I’m sure feels like a lifetime when you’re worried. Take care of yourself.

    • Pogo says

      The MaterniT21 testing looks at your baby’s actual chromosomes… so I would think if that’s normal, the likelihood is really, really low that the markers on the scan are indicative of abnormalities. They’re correlated with higher rates of certain abnormalities, but like mascot says it’s a statistical increased risk, not a diagnosis.

      • Katala says

        This. The MaterniT21 is much more accurate for chromosomal issues, I think. And the NT markers have high false positive rates (relatively). But, hugs. Pregnancy is so scary and involves so much waiting and anticipation. Do your best to stay calm over the weekend. Maybe a massage or (lukewarm ;) bath, funny movie, etc.

    • EB0220 says

      I haven’t had time to actually research this, but I recall that the NT probably is some equation based on age, the blood test and the scan measurements. Your likelihood automatically increases a bit based on age, so I’m guessing that’s what your doctor was referring to. I would also expect the Maternit21 test to be more accurate since it’s looking at the baby’s chromosomes but again didn’t research this to confirm.

    • Anon says

      Your blood test results were normal, right? If there isn’t an extra chromosome, your baby doesn’t have Down’s. Am I missing something? What does the amnio tell you that generally testing wouldn’t?

      • Anon says

        Ugh I meant MaterniT21 genetic testing. Not the blood draw that goes with the NT. My OB doesn’t recommend the genetic testing unless you have abnormal NT/blood results (it’s pricey), but they use it to rule out Down’s after elevated blood results.

    • Anonymous says

      MaterniT21 is very, very accurate, though not perfect. NT is no where near as dependable. Combine the likelihood that MaterniT21 is wrong with your “a little high” NT probability and your odds are very, very, very low. I assume someone in your OB’s office can explain how NT works (or doesn’t) today and make you feel a lot better.

  6. Noooo says

    So, daycare just sent out a notice saying a few children in another classroom (not my son’s, but a small center) have a stomach virus. We all just had the stomach virus in November (once for me and DH, twice in one week for our poor kid). UGH.

    • ChiLaw says

      Sympathies. We haven’t had a household where no one was sick for a long time… It’s so disruptive. I’m just hopeful that she’s building an immune system of steel so that when she starts Kindergarten this will be less constant.

      • avocado says

        Yes, she is building an immune system of steel. Our pediatrician told us that kiddo would be sick twice a month for the first two years of day care, and then it would slow down. That was about right. She is now in fifth grade and has taken exactly one sick day since the beginning of first grade. I credit it partly to early exposure to the cesspool of germs that is day care and partly to exceptional timing (she usually gets sick over school breaks).

        OP, my sympathies to you. Those notices are enough to make you feel sick just thinking about what is heading your way. Hopefully the weekend will help interrupt the spread of germs.

    • anne-on says

      Sympathies. My kiddo got the ‘puke up everything for a day straight’ bug yesterday, combined with pneumonia on my part. So fun! On the plus side, he used to get these bugs 3-5 times a winter, and now in pre-k this was his first one so far, so progress!

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