Maternity Monday: ‘Bengaline’ Straight Maternity Skirt
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The Bengaline maternity skirt has been around for several years now, and I like the looks of it — it’s simple, chic, and stretchy; everything you need in a pregnancy skirt. It’s $68 at Nordstrom. Japanese Weekend ‘Bengaline’ Straight Maternity Skirt
Building a maternity wardrobe for work? Check out our page with more suggestions along both classic and trendy/seasonal lines.
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Sales of note for 11.25.24 (Great Black Friday Sales!!)
(See all of the latest workwear sales at Corporette!)
- Nordstrom – Early Black Friday, up to 60% off — great deals on Natori, Vince, Theory, Boss, Cole Haan, Tory Burch, Rothy’s, and Weitzman, as well as gift ideas like Barefoot Dreams and Parachute — Dyson isn’t marked down at all but you do get 3x points on beauty purchases.
- Ann Taylor – 40% off your purchase, plus extra 15% off full price styles
- Anine Bing – Shop more, save more (spend $200-$300, get an extra 15-25% off)
- A.P.C. – Shop 40% off
- ba&sh – Up to 40% off Fall/Winter styles, including select colors of reader favorite Gaspard & Guspa cardigans (also included in Tuckernuck’s sale)
- Banana Republic Factory – 60% off everything + extra 20% off (or extra 30% off with your Gap Inc credit card) ends 11/26
- Bloomingdales – Take $25 off every $100 you spend on items labeled BLACK FRIDAY; ends 11/24
- Boden – 30% off on 1000s of styles, including reader favorites like this blazer and these dresses
- Cuyana – Free shipping over $95 (and 10% off your first order over $150)
- Demellier – 20% off with code, free worldwide shipping & returns
- Design Within Reach – 25% off sitewide (including reader-favorite office chairs Herman Miller Aeron and Sayl!)
- The Fold – Black Friday, up to 30% off everything
- Eloquii – 50% off everything + extra 10% off $125 or more
- Everlane – Up to 50% off everything
- Furla – Up to 50% off select styles
- J.Crew – Up to 50% off almost everything – LOTS of winter coats 40% off, down to $204-$230
- J.Crew Factory – 50% off everything, plus extra 25% off orders $125+
- Kule – 30% off sitewide
- Kohl’s – Earn $10 Kohl’s Cash for every $50 Spent – includes Travelpro luggage!
- LaLigne – 30% off in their ONLY sale of the year
- Lo & Sons – Up to 70% off – reader favorite laptop tote is under $200
- Macy’s – 20-50% off beauty brands like Clinique and Armani, 50% off designer handbags, 50-75% off sparkly jewelry, and 40-50% off women’s boots
- Mansur Gavriel – Winter sale, up to 60% off
- M.M.LaFleur – “20% off everything” (but exclusions apply)
- Ministry of Supply – 30% off sitewide
- Mulberry – Up to 40% off, including Bayswater, Islington, and more
- Neiman Marcus – Earn a $50-$1250 gift card, including on beauty and fragrance purchases
- Rothy’s – Everything up to 30% off (some also on sale at Nordstrom)
- Shopbop – 25% off storewide with code, including great blazers from Rag & Bone, IRO, Smythe, and select L’Agence (also lots of nice Black Halo dresses)
- Soma – Early Black Friday $29 bra event (up to 50% off)
- Spanx – Lots of workwear on sale, some up to 70% off, plus free shipping on everything (and 20% off your first order)
- Sue Sartor – Week of Joy sale, 30% off sitewide
- Steelcase – 25% off sitewide, including reader-favorite office chairs Leap and Gesture
- Strathberry – Pre-black Friday, enjoy up to 30% off select styles!
- Stuart Weitzman – Extra 25% off full-price and sale styles
- Talbots – 40% off your entire purchase + daily deals
- Theory – 25% off sitewide + up to 40% off select outerwear
- Tory Burch – 30% off $250+
- Tuckernuck – 20% off sitewide
- Universal Standard – At least 30% off sitewide, up to 70% off all styles
- Victoria’s Secret – 30% off everything, and 7/$35 panties
- White House Black Market – 60% off clearance, 30% off sitewide for WHBM members
- Zappos – 26,000+ women’s sale items! (check out these reader-favorite workwear brands on sale, and some of our favorite kids’ shoe brands on sale)
Kid/Family Sales
- BabyJogger – 30% off sitewide
- BestBuy – Lots of deals on gaming consoles, including PS5, XBox Series X, and more
- Carter’s – 50-60% off entire site and store
- ErgoBaby – 25% off bouncers
- Graco – Up to 30% off sitewide
- Hanna Andersson – 50% off sitewide
- J.Crew Crewcuts – 50% off almost everything, prices marked
- Nordstrom – Lots of deals on Stokke, Maxi-Cosi, BabyJoger, Posh Baby, Silver Cross, and more
- Old Navy – Everything on sale
- SNOO / Happiest Baby – 30% off Snoo, up to 50% off sitewide
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?
Good for you! I did this and had another very pleasant 6 months of nursing morning and evenings. Still had that supply, but didn’t get uncomfortable during the work day.
Anyone else see this? (link to follow) Maybe there’s more to the story, and yes, it’s the 24 news cycle problem (things seem common because we see every little instance on TV), but it really scares me. My kids are obviously way (waaay) too young for us to be worried about this sort of thing yet, but I am honestly afraid that I’m going to decide they’re old enough for something and wind up having to prove to a court that I’m a fit mother. Actually maybe my kids aren’t too young. We park on the street, but it’s right out in front of the house and I can clearly see the car and its interior. And yet when I forgot my phone in the house recently, I unbuckled the kids, put them back in their stroller, and wheeled them back into the house to get the phone rather than leave them in the car for 3 minutes (it was 50 degrees and cloudy — not at all dangerous for three minutes, all of which I’d spent in sight of the car except for maybe 20 seconds). Why did I do this? Because I thought my kids would be unsafe? N o. I did it because I was afraid someone would walk by and call the cops to say someone had left two babies in a car alone. I’ve told the au pair to never never leave the kids in the car even for a second — because it would be dangerous? no, I trust her to know what’s safe for the kids or else I’d never leave them in her care 45 hours/week — no, I said that if someone saw they might call the police and take the children away. And even an hour of my children being in state custody would be agonizing. Plus the follow up. I’m sorry for the rant, but there are children who are actually in danger. This approach (1) takes up police, court, and CPS time on cases that don’t merit attention; (2) leaves our kids unequipped to be on their own as they grow up; (3) forces parents to face criminal charges for behavior that isn’t codified in law most places (so you’re supposed to use your judgment for what your kid can handle but then random passer-by will use his/her own judgment to determine whether to call 911, and then a court, based on no actual law, will decide ad hoc if you guessed right about what the court and random passer-by might think your kid, who is a complete stranger to them, is capable of); (4) makes children face the scary, scary situation of being forcibly separated from their parents. How is this a good idea? Okay, that’s my rant. It just makes me so angry, sad, and very scared that I’m going to be the parent in court someday fighting to get my kids back.
Decided that I am DONE pumping at work. Still nursing at night, and babe drinks a bit of milk at daycare. Am beginning to introduce cow’s milk and will mix that with thawed b*milk from freezer until he is good to drink all cow’s milk. If he needs anything else at daycare until then, he can just drink formula. I made it a whole year (9 months at work). I am really proud of myself for doing it but now I am DONE.
For those of you who have to send food to daycare with your child, what is your prep approach? My 8 month old is eating solid table food, but I can’t cover her entirely on family leftovers. I’m sending things like black beans, rice, cooked peas/carrots/sweet potato/etc. I have a ton of little tupperware containers. I’m thinking of just doing one meal prep session a week, but will the food last that long? I would cook the food, store in individual containers and stash in the fridge. Maybe I need 2 sessions? I just don’t have time in the morning to be steaming peas (or whatever needs to be done.)
Editing: Just remembered that there was a post on this recently. I will go back and check it out.
I had some interesting baby shower drama this weekend…I live about 45 miles (which is about an hour drive to two hours if you hit bad traffic) from my 3 aunts, and I talk to one of them a couple of times per month, and the other two pretty much just on weekends and holidays. I’ve lived this close to them (versus 600 miles away) since 2003, and the only time they’ve ever come to see me is for funerals of our relatives that live near me. If I want to see them, or go to lunch or whatever, I have to go to them. So that’s the background.
So unexpectedly the aunt that I almost never talk to wants to take me/husband to lunch Sunday. So we go…and she starts talking about having my baby shower down there by my aunts at a restaurant I like. Hmmm….that’s interesting…you want all of my friends to drive 1.5 hours to my baby shower? Including me? I let her know really nicely that my best friend was going to do it for me, because she has a great backyard and the two of us are the “party planners” of the group, and I just want to have a really informal “come hang out” type event in the backyard, and she has a pool, so that is going to be easier. (Also, none of the three aunts have backyards, they all have too many pets and smoke inside their houses, and all three of them are having a hard time paying their bills right now, so I didn’t want them struggling to do a shower).
Aunt clearly isn’t listening, and says, oh, we’ll find a restaurant to have it at, we’ll talk later. I said, “no, I don’t want to have it at a restaurant, I want everyone to be able to mingle and hang out and come and go without the structure we’d need to have for a restaurant…and I want my friends to be comfortable bringing kids to run around…” She didn’t hear me at all. So weird. So I get home, and other aunt calls, and asks how it went, and I filled her in, and she got all huffy about them being “entitled” to throw me a shower, and it isn’t going to be co-ed, and this and that, and I need to give her my best friend’s phone number. I kind of just sat on the other end in shock, and said, “no, this is how I want it to be, invitations are going out already so…you guys can help and participate if you want to…” And she got pretty mad and hung up on me.
It is so bizarre. These aunts have never really been a big part of my life. I don’t have a lot of family here, my mom and all my grandparents have passed away, I just have one much younger brother, and my dad lives 600 miles away, up near my in-laws. I find it so crazy that now that I’m pregnant they think they are going to be this guiding influence in my life…I wouldn’t even trust them to babysit! I’m pretty sure I shut down the crazy, and did let my dad know (they are his sisters) so if they call him to complain he’ll be ready (dad’s response – you’re the pregnant one, do whatever you want!).
Just so strange. I never thought I would have family coming out of the woodwork like this.
Wondering if anyone has had high blood pressure readings early in pregnancy that turned out fine. Had my 12 week appointment last week, and my bp was 140/90 which is quite high for me. No protein in my urine, but my Doctor ran a full preeclampsia panel and I had to do the 24 hour pee collection. Returning on Friday for another blood pressure check. I’m hoping it was a one off reading, but I have literally never had high bp before (this is my second pregnancy) so I’m obviously a little concerned. Any good stories? TIA.
Did you or will you send a printed birth announcement? I love receiving them and planned to send them but my spouse thinks they’re unnecessary (him: isn’t that what the email was for?). Just curious what others do.
LOVED this skirt when I was pregnant, and still love it (my waist isn’t what it was, and regular pencil skirts are kind of uncomfortable by the end of the day). I will say, though, that because you aren’t tucking a shirt in to the skirt, it takes a very specific top. Blazers work, but depending on how pregnant you are, might not be an option. I was pregnant over the summer, and wore this with a cute peplum blouse. Now, I wear it with blazers or sweaters so that it’s a more streamlined look. Also, this thing wrinkles like crazy and is kind of a weird texture. I wouldn’t recommend trying to match it to a blazer for a suited look.
I just wanted to follow up from my post last week re: early pregnancy anxiety and thank everyone who responded. I really appreciated all your comments and commiseration!
Kind of funny–shortly after that post I had a pregnancy-related issue that sent me to my doctor the next day (very painful but not serious or threatening), my daughter came home from daycare with a high fever and threw up hourly all night, so I stayed home Friday to take her to the doctor (it was strep), and spent most of the weekend off schedule, in pain when I was able to think about myself, and barely sleeping. What sleep I did get was rather poor quality due to the thrashing, sickly toddler in my bed. Needless to say, I have had very little time or energy to worry about this pregnancy!
She is feeling much better, last night everyone slept a full night in their respective beds, and I am very happy to be back at work in some semblance of normalcy. I’m not feeling anxious about the scan Wednesday, just excited, but when it inevitably creeps back, I will be sure to look back at your comments to help me through! Thanks again.
I loved this skirt when I was pregnant. I wore it with a non-maternity blazer to fake a suit on several occasions, including two interviews for my current job. Highly recommended.
Yay, Baby due in about 5 weeks and we got the nursery mostly set-up, and I got registered this past weekend at Target for friends who wanted to give. I feel very productive and on-top of things, and Husband was a great help, and even Big Brother (age 6) was patient and helpful.