Maternity Monday: Floral Print Wiggle Dress

Starting Monday off on a down note today – but I really want to hear from all of you since you are at a similar place in life (young kids, 2 professional parents, etc.). We have two kids – 5 and 2.5. I work full time and husband works full time + launching a business. It’s a lot, obviously. Lately, we’ve been having some disagreements about our s*x life. We still do something s*xual almost every day but there are specific things he wants to do that I am not too enthusiastic about. We enjoy each others’ company and have a good parenting relationship. We have common interests. We find time in our busy days to connect. I feel like we are doing OK – yet somehow, we are still making each other unhappy, misreading each others’ signals, not giving each other the benefit of the doubt. We have been hovering around divorce for months. I was seriously fed up and ready to leave this weekend, so I was doing some reading about young children and divorce. I came across some articles saying that “having children is like throwing a grenade into a marriage” and you really just need to hang on and not do anything stupid until all kids are in elementary school, at which point your marriage will start to improve. (Except in cases of abuse, of course.) Thoughts? Perspectives? I want to talk about this because I feel like everyone expects life to be awesome when a kid is born…but maybe that’s not true. Maybe kids are great for parents’ individual happiness but no so great for relationship happiness.

Another mind-blowing idea from Queen Bees and Wannabes about cell phones and social media…

When to give a kid a cell phone? The author says to do it if the kid is riding a school bus or public transportation (on a school bus, the cell phone could record anything crazy going down) or if they have to let themselves in to the house after school, or if they have activities that you’re dropping them off at and schedules/practices could be canceled or run over. Basically, if your kid has to get themselves around or are in a situation where they would need to get ahold of you, get them a cell phone.

Should you read your kid’s texts and monitor their social media accounts? The author surprised me (and convicted me) about kid’s right to privacy. Above all, we all want our kids to talk to us and come to us if they are in a hard situation, like cyber bullying or some gigantic fight with friends. She points out that if you’re always digging around in her texts/Instagram and acting like this is a super dangerous thing that you don’t *really* want to let her get into, your kid is going to do her best to HIDE any drama from you. She doesn’t want to lose her phone/Instagram/etc. so she’s going to stuff it all down and say nothing to you. Your kid may also be trying to help a friend through a hard situation, or may be processing things with her friends, and reading her texts is kind of like our moms reading the notes we used to pass back and forth to our friends in 1990 or picking up the other line and eavesdropping on our phone calls.

She advised writing up a Technology Contract and having your kid sign it before you give them their phone. I thought it was a brilliant idea and our family made one this weekend. It covers things like asking permission from people before posting their picture to your page, not participating in a group chat until you find out who all the new numbers are, treating people (and yourself) with dignity and respect by choosing words carefully, remembering that once you hit SEND it’s out there forever, that we will apologize and delete anything that is hurtful or embarrassing to someone, we won’t take pictures bathrooms/dressing rooms/lying on our bed and post them to social media, and I also added that phones are private UNTIL we feel she’s lying or acting strangely.

My daughter is 11 and has an Ipod. She’s dealing with dramas and issues I didn’t have to think about until 7th or 8th grade, and I’m trying to adopt the author’s LISTENING attitude. Don’t judge the friends. Don’t ask, “Why are you still hanging out with that girl! Last week we both agreed she’s awful!” because you’ll just shut the conversation down. Bite your tongue and try not to be so heavy with the advice, and just listen to what she’s thinking, or pipe up when she asks for help or seems quiet/calm enough to listen. OMG–the stories that are pouring out of her! I’m looking at her and realizing I don’t have a kid anymore, I have a little teenager, and it’s scary! It’s also exhausting because the girl can go on and on with her venting and I’m wondering how in the heck she has any energy left to focus on actual school work.

I still believe this is a great book to read! It’s helping me enormously.

Can you cut out some of the steps? I can’t see how all of that could get done in 30-45 minutes. Maybe baths not every day (of course, my kid’s O/N nickname IS Pigpen….)? We do showers with dad every other day usually — baths maybe once a week if things are busier in the mornings.

Or the snack and/or books in the bath if that’s possible?

I exclusively BF my one year old and we are down to just the morning feed. I can’t decide whether to keep it for another 5 months or drop it and be done (benefits of dropping it are I can finally buy new bras and use my retinol again!). He wakes up at 5:45 and nurses then goes to daycare and they feed him breakfast at 8 am. I’m concerned if I drop the morning nursing session he is going to be hungry until breakfast. We can give him water pretty easily, but giving him food in the morning is going to add another 20 minutes and I don’t want to have to wake him up earlier than we already are. He’s starting a new daycare in 5 months, at which time we will start feeding him breakfast at home before he leaves. What would you do?

I have a weird one for you. For the past week out 2yo has been exhibiting some odd behavior. She hasn’t breastfed for over 1 year but has started to ask for it in the mornings, has been eating multiple crayons although she knows it is not food, and this morning we found her drinking the liquid soap. She’s got her full teeth and was never been into a “dummy” so this is all very new.

Is this just toddler being funny or is this pointing to something medical? Do we just wait and see if this goes away? I honestly have no idea!

Looking for advice on logistical aspects of leaving b-milk for my baby when I return to work. He’ll be 7 weeks and is a voracious eater. So far we’ve been practicing with 3 ounce bottles in the morning, which he downs with minimal spit up and sometimes still wants more after. I’ll be leaving him with a family member for a few months and will be starting with a 9-5 schedule — hopefully nursing at lunch until he’s 3 months. I’ve seen the calculators on dividing on total amount they need with hours you’re away from baby. Just not quite sure how to make sure he gets what he needs with minimal waste of the precious product… So any words of wisdom are appreciated!

Baby feeding is the theme today! I’ve been struggling with pumping enough to feed my son (4.5 months). This weekend on a trip with my husband, I was pleasantly surprised by how much I was able to pump, and thinking that the steps I’ve been taking to boost my supply must be working- but back at work today, I went from 4 oz from the first pump (a power pump to try to jump start my supply for the week) to exactly zero ounces at lunch- seriously, I just got drops. Now I just want to cry. All the equipment seemed to be working fine, and I’ve done power pumps before and always gotten at least 2-3 at the next pump.

I rationally know formula is fine. But I am now on a guilt spiral. Was it cause I was relaxed this weekend and not expecting much, my body decided to surprise me? Is it because I was anxiously starting at the empty bottles and wondering what was going wrong? I guess I’m just looking for commiseration. Is this even worth it?