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For my youngest, we made a half-hearted attempt to do an ocean-themed nursery. This mobile would have fit right in.
This luxe Pehr mobile showcases adorable, handcrafted felt ocean animals. The calming colors will fit any decor and soothe your baby to sleep. If ocean animals aren’t your thing, check out these other options from Pehr, including a variety of animals and stars.
This mobile is $95 at Nordstrom.
Sales of note for 12.5.23…
(See all of the latest workwear sales at Corporette!)
- Nordstrom – Holiday sale up to 50% off; 5x the points on beauty for a limited time
- Ann Taylor – 40% off your purchase & extra 15% off sweaters
- Banana Republic – Up to 40% off select styles; up to 40% off sale styles
- Banana Republic Factory – 50% off everything & extra 20% off purchase
- Eloquii – Extra 60% off all sale
- J.Crew – 40% off your purchase with code
- Lands’ End – Up to 70% off everything; free shipping (readers love the cashmere)
- Loft – 50% off your purchase with code (ends 12/5)
- Summersalt – Up to 60% off select styles & free scarf with orders $125+ (this reader-favorite sweater blazer is down to $75)
- Talbots – 40% off your regular-price purchase; extra 50% off all markdowns
- Zappos – 34,000+ women’s sale items! Check out these reader-favorite workwear brands on sale, and some of our favorite kid shoe brands on sale.
Kid/Family Sales
- Crate&kids – Free shipping sitewide; up to 50% off toy + gift event; free monogramming for a limited time only (order by 12/15)
- J.Crew Crewcuts – 40% off your purchase with code
- Pottery Barn Kids – Up to 50% off toys, furniture & gifts
- Graco – Holiday savings up to 35% off; sign up for texts for 20% off full-price item
- Walmart – Up to 25% off top baby gifts; big savings on Delta, Graco, VTech, Fisher-Price & more
Anon says
Coffee is good in moderation, but you can definitely have too much. My MIL and SIL are like 6+ cups a day drinkers and have had a bunch of negative health impacts. To be fair, this (it’s good in moderation, bad in excess) is true of many things.
Anon says
Oops I was trying to reply to a comment on the main page…sorry!
anon says
Thanks to everyone for your suggestions on our 10-hour road trip with a 3 year old. A lot of people mentioned podcasts – would love suggestions for good podcasts for the preschool set!
Cb says
I like Storytrain, but my friends joke that narrating this is my secret side gig because our accents are so similar? My son had a phase of the Thomas ones.
Anon says
i also like some of the stories available through spotify. i have two girls who like listening to the princess stories
Anonymous says
I haven’t had too much success with podcasts, but if you’re willing to spend a moderate amount you could get fairy tales from audible. I think at that age my kid liked hearing stories she already knew, which means you may end up listening to the same 4 minute version of Little Red Riding Hood for 5 hours (don’t ask me how I know). “Story Party” and “Laurie Berkener’s Song and Story Kitchen” are big hits with my now 5yo and you could always try one or both. An LCD writing tablet can be fun (and will last forever). Also, those Crayola Color Wonder books are good for car rides. We once gave my then 2yo washable markers and she spent most of the time coloring herself. She was quite happy and busy, but got a bath immediately upon arrival. Frankly, at this point I’m also willing to let my kid watch cartoons or a movie while we’re trapped in the car for hours on end. It’s not an everyday thing and it makes everything so much more pleasant.
SC says
My son loves Circle Round! The stories are relatively short, they’re engaging, and they have a good message. I think he started listening to them around 4 years old.
Anonymous says
Circle Round, Sparkle Stories (they release a free one every week, but also have a paid subscription) – These lean Waldorf/very imaginative and we like them a lot. Also Tonie Box! Or a Yoto Player
Audio says
at that age, I found it more for the driver. we did audio books that wouldn’t be objectionable to small kids like the Narnia series (with no expectation that they follow along)
DLC says
If you have Audible, Laurie Berkner’s Song and Story Kitchen is a huge favorite in our house.
Anon says
Hi, I’m 8 days late to this party, but I wanted to recommend Deep Blue Sea on Spotify. It is a huge hit with my 3 almost 4 y.o.
Anon says
PT Help? Please be kind. :)
DS will be 3 next month. We practice sitting on the potty but haven’t gone yet. He lets me know when he’s gone in his diaper. We practiced with underwear on Sunday afternoon and went and sat on the potty every 15-30 minutes for a few hours. He had a few accidents but I expected that. He sits on the potty and reads his books every AM when we get ready for school and every PM before/after bath. Nothing produced, but he’s content sitting there for a bit “reading” his potty-related books.
I sent daycare a bunch of underwear and asked them to help with him sitting on the potty. When I picked him up, he was in a diaper and the teacher said “He didn’t want to sit today, but we’ll keep trying!”
What are my next steps? Do I push daycare to help more?
I trained my older kid around 3.25, and he NEVER was ok sitting on the potty or told me if he went in his diaper.
I feel like this kid actually has some interest so I want to take advantage.
Anonymous says
I’m in the middle of this with my twins. I’ve had some success with them going on kid potties rather than the adult potty. Maybe try that? Also it seems to help to put them in the bath with warm water and that can “help” them go #1. Once they get used to that sensation you can move them from the bath to the potty before they go, so they make the association of “I have this sensation; then I go to the potty and do my business.”
Anon says
In my experience, daycare is not going to do the potty train. You have to get your kid fairly potty trained and then they’ll keep it up.
It sounds like you kind of did the Oh Crap method but for only half a day? I’d probably just do that for the full 3+ days then if you had some success.
Anon says
+1 Others seem to have had a different experience, but daycare expected us to do the heavy-lifting on potty-training. They’d support it, but if your kid is not well on the way to being potty-trained, yeah they’d be putting him in a diaper.
Anon says
+1. Daycare is probably not going to take too much ownership over this issue. There just usually isn’t enough time to focus like that on one child. I’ll also chime in and say that Oh Crap doesn’t work for every family and every kid. Potty training was a long process for my kid, but there were literally zero tears shed over it by the kid or by a parent and a grand total of two pee accidents. Keep doing what you are doing at home and encouraging daycare to help when they can, but they aren’t going to want him in underwear until he’s had a proven track record of dry diapers.
Anon says
rip off the bandaid and do the 3 day method
Anon says
Do the Oh Crap 3 day method. Take off a Friday or Monday. No underwear until accident free.
OP says
Thank you, all. I’ll think about using the first weekend in December as the 3+ day method. Until then I’ll just encourage.
Yes I have yet to have the “daycare just kinda did it for us” experience with potty training that seems to come up occasionally. With DS #1, he was 3+, his preschool was closed for spring break, and I was out on ML with DS #2, so we used that week to potty train. It was terrible, but, hey it got done.
Glad to know I’m not alone!
Anonymous says
Our day care only did potty training in the 2.5-year-old classroom, and our daughter was only in that classroom for 2 months before she was even 2.5. She was ready to train a couple of months later when she was in the 3s room but the teachers told us we were on our own because she hadn’t trained in the previous classroom.
No Dad says
My almost two year old has decided he does not like his dad. He gets mad when dad comes home from work, he squirms and runs away when dad tries to hug him and just generally avoids him a lot of the time. He is thrilled to see me when I get home from work. I do hear some sweet interactions every now and then, but the majority of the time he’s indifferent at best. His dad is very involved and continues to be patient, but I can see it’s starting to wear on him. Any tips on how to handle this or is this something that’ll just run its course? I’m also worried that maybe my continued legitimate frustration with my husband is a contributing factor that my kid is picking up on.
Anonymous says
It will pass. What helped us was specific one on one activities that they did together when I wasn’t around. If you’re around, kid will seek you out as an option. This can just be going to a certain park and getting a cookie at the nearby coffee shop while you are out at a yoga class. Or maybe they do playdoh together while you get a shower. It should be at least an hour long and you should be unavailable. Doing that once a week at least always helped smooth over periods of parental preference.
Anon says
This is so hard. My kids both went through it at age 3. It helped to have one special activity to do just with dad – going out to get ice cream, daycare pick up and a trip to the playground, etc. Opportunities to be with just Dad are helpful – if we were both there as an option, the kids picked Mom.
Anonymous says
It doesn’t even have to be a special activity – just one on one time without Mom around. Grocery shopping with Dad was popular in our house. I was very ‘sit in the cart and look with your eyes’. DH is much more ‘well you opened and drank from that bottle of vanilla so I guess we’re buying it now’. They loved wandering the aisles with him and suggesting things to buy.
Spirograph says
I doubt a two year old is picking up on any adult frustration unless you’re being overtly icy to your husband or badmouthing him to or in earshot of your child (what is this “legitimate frustration?). It’s really normal for kids to go through phases where they prefer one parent over the other, and it ebbs and flows. Continue to do one-on-one time with each parent individually and family time together, and it will all even out.
Anon says
I’m not sure if you’re doing this, but just in case, don’t swoop in to rescue kid if dad is in charge of the task. If you as a family have decided dad does bathtime, even if kid throws a fit dad is still doing it. This sounds in part a stage, in part boundary testing (“how much control do I have in this family?”) and if you present a united front and calmly push through, it should pass sooner
Anon says
Holiday gift thread…..We’re considering a Yoto or Tonie for our newly 4yr old for x-mas. Would love any thoughts on this from people who own one.
Anonymous says
No experience, but we’re thinking a Yoto mini for a 3-yr-old. Not really into characters, and we (and kiddo) like the idea of essentially making a mixtape using a blank card.
OOO says
We don’t love the Toniebox. The Tonies look exactly like toy figurines, so DS plays with them and they get lost in his toy bin (DS is 3, so a bit younger than your kid). We have Tonies for all of DS’ favorite characters, but he would almost always rather watch the cartoon than listen to the story (we are lax on screen time). We use the holiday Tonies for Halloween and Christmas, but not sure that is worth the price of the Toniebox.
CCLA says
Team yoto forever. We have both and the yoto gets way more use. I’m probably going to get a second yoto at this point since we have two kids. The cards stay in the yoto securely whereas the figures fall off the tonie. The tonie has lots of cutesy designs like the volume buttons but they are annoying, the yoto dial is easier. Also nicer to travel with a stack of cards for the yoto and not a clunky set of figurines.
anonM says
CCLA, any thoughts on Yoto v Yoto Mini? And, do you find the Yoto better than just getting a CD player/boom box? Not OP but had a similar question. TY!
CCLA says
I haven’t tried the mini but the big one if you get a case has a nice handle and is easy to take from room to room. We’ve also traveled with it and the case is nice and protective, but I am thinking about getting the mini to use exclusively for when we’re traveling just because the regular one is a bit clunky for stuffing into a suitcase.
We don’t use any CDs so I can’t compare to that unfortunately but I will note that the cards are just so nice because they are small and don’t need special cases, no concerns of dropping/scratching etc.
We still keep and alexa in the kids rooms which they mostly use for music.
Anon says
Yoto mini is all we have and we love it! Perfect for home and travel!
An.On. says
I have a younger kid (2yo) and we have the toniebox. I’d worry about the yoto cards getting bent/torn at this age, so the toniebox characters are nice and solid for us. Plus my kid has given all the characters names and says that “they’re going to sleep!” when it’s time to put it away, it’s super cute. For our family, I think it’s reduced our tv watching, and my kid mostly likes to set it up and let the songs play in the background, and we keep the characters in a carry case, so we haven’t had trouble like the other commenters. I will say that I don’t like the forward/backward mechanism which requires you to bang on it with a bit of force in a specific location, but we never really use it, so it doesn’t bug me too much.
Anon says
We also have a designated place for the Tonies — a tray that sits next to the box — and they’ve been easy to keep track off. My kids have plenty of toys and other figures, it’s been easy to set the boundary that Tonies stay in X place (even with infants and toddlers).
Anon says
The Yoto cards are almost indestructible. My 10 month old plays with them all the time.
Anon says
The yoto cards are like extremely durable credit cards. There is no way they could get torn.
Anon says
We love our Toniebox, and I’m giving my 6yo a Yoto mini for Xmas. For age 4, I’d probably go Yoto.
Toniebox is excellent for babies and toddlers because the figures are easy to manipulate. My youngest has been playing his own music since 9 months old! I also like it best for music, and we add a lot of our own content on the creative Tonies.
Yoto seems more portable, since the cards don’t fall off like a figurine would. I also think it seems more geared toward audiobooks and podcasts.
Toniebox is in my top 3 kid purchases ever (I waited years to get it, when it was available in the UK but not the US). I am similarly excited for the Yoto. (Caveat that we are low screen, don’t do tablets in the car, etc, so this a form of media my kids always have access to).
Anon says
we have a Tonie box bc Yoto didn’t exist (or at least i didn’t know about it when we got it). I have 5.5 year old twins who got it for Chanukah two years ago at 3.5. They listen to a Tonie every night to fall asleep. They don’t listen to it as much during the day, but that is also because they aren’t home much. We actually have 2 Tonie boxes, one we keep upstairs and one we keep downstairs. What I like about it is that the Tonies hold up very well, the kids get excited to get a new one in part because of how they look. I wish I’d have gotten it when they were 2 because then we could’ve used it for longer. If I were buying them now, I’d get mini Yotos so they could bring them on the go. I actually think both are kind of overrated. Often they just want spotify on my phone to dance to.
AwayEmily says
Just in case you are looking for alternatives, we have a Sonos speaker in the kids’ room and use it to play library audiobooks from Libby, podcasts, music, etc. Of course, the downside is that a grownup needs to actually start/stop it with their phone, which may be a dealbreaker — but my kids are Extremely Into audiobooks and so a Yoto or Tonie would have bankrupted us. But most people I know who have one love it!
Anonymous says
Our kids are slightly older but we use our kindle fire tablets for Libby. We have really strict rules about use and have been successful so far in compliance so we do let them have the tablets in their rooms etc for audiobooks. (We allow very little screen time but allow almost unlimited audio books.)
Cb says
Yes, that’s our experience, my son would have bankrupted us. As it is, he watches the calendar for a new audible credit. An old iPad with only audible installed works for us.
anon says
We solved this by getting a very cheap music player, so now the kids can start Spotify and stream it to the Sonos speakers with no adult involvement!
Anon says
Welp, I didn’t get the job. I was one of two finalists. I’m still processing but weirdly OK for now? Just annoyed that I had to sink so much time and energy into something I ultimately didn’t get, but that’s the process, right?
I’m in a leadership role at my current org, with a great boss, and after a very toxic time with a former boss (who has left my current company) I have a lot of opportunity internally without the stress of figuring out a new organization. This is a good thing, right?
Anonymous says
You don’t have to convince yourself that not getting a job you wanted and invested time and mental energy into getting is a good thing! It’s ok to be sad for a bit.
Anonymous says
I’m a big believer that everything works out the way it is supposed to.
Spirograph says
I’m sorry, that’s disappointing! But yes, that’s the process. And honestly, interviewing is a skill and a learning opportunity… so even though this didn’t pan out as you hoped, the process helped prepare you for a future opportunity and probably taught you something about yourself, your current organization, or your priorities. It’s ok to be sad and disappointed, then you can decide how you want to channel that. If you were really excited about the prospect of leaving your current company or doing something new, maybe you keep looking.
Betsy says
In the long term, I have never regretted not getting a job or turning down a job I was offered. The interview process got you thinking about what you want and might be opening a door to what should actually be next for you. In the short term, absolutely let yourself feel your feelings! And maybe do some journaling about how you’re feeling and what this has you thinking about your next career moves. Either way, definitely treat yourself this weekend – you’ve put a lot of energy into this interview process.
OP says
Thanks, all. I appreciate all the kind words and encouragement. I was 1 of 2 finalists, so I knew there was a good chance it could easily not go my way.
Weirdly, as excited as I was at the prospect of the job – now that I know it isn’t happening, I’m excited about what’s to come in my current role. It’s been hard for me to have 100% focus at my current job while navigating the interviews and prep, so I’m looking forward to having that space back and being (hopefully) less exhausted. I’m also excited to not be looking for a new job (for now), as I applied for this job at a time I where I was trying to leave my then-boss.
I’ll have to reflect a bit more on what excited me about the role, etc. and see how I can push for growth in my current space. And yes – I need LOTS of rest and a mental re-set. Trying to figure out how to make that happen this weekend may be tough but definitely soon…
Anonymous says
Going back to work after maternity leave (4 months) in less than two weeks. Baby will stay with dad for two months, then start daycare. I will work full time in the office, maybe 1 time per week from home.
What are your tips and tricks to make this work as smoothly as possible?
Currently still breastfeeding and planning to combo feed baby when working.
Atlonymous says
block out pumping breaks in your work calendar now. record some video of baby crying or eating to save for later use for pumping letdown
Anon says
I went back to work at 4 months for 2 kids.
If baby isn’t already used to bottles start that process ASAP. Be out of the house when Dad gives bottles.
100% block off time on calendar to pump. I did 3, 30-min blocks at 9/12/3. Get 2 sets of pump parts and 2 sets of bottles. Keep a dedicated pump at your office. Pour pumped milk directly into bottles and store in a freezer cooler bag. If you don’t have your own private office you may need more than 30 min to get your stuff from a fridge, set up in pumping room, pump, then put it all away and make it back to your desk. Be prepared to potentially have to make up some work time at night bc while you can work on computer when pumping, there’s downtime (see prior sentence). Make sure your husband is in charge of washing pump parts and bottles.
Good luck! :)
Spirograph says
It’s been a minute, but that’s basically the schedule of parental leave we did with each of my kids, too. +1 to all this advice, especially the part about having a dedicated pump at the office. I kept an extra set of bottles & pump parts at the office just in case… the cost was well worth it the couple of times I forgot.
I only pumped 2x/day, and could be in and out in a half hour even with time to walk to a different floor of the building and get everything set up and put away, but every body is different. I did not wash or sterilize pump parts during the day — I just wiped them with a paper towel and put them in a (labeled!) gallon ziplock bag in the mothers’ room fridge with the milk.
I also did *not* attempt to work while pumping. Frankly, I needed that mental downtime; I wasn’t getting great sleep, and I felt like the 30 minute brain break made me more productive when I got back to my desk.
Something I wish I’d been better at when I was coming back to work after baby #1: speaking up to excuse myself during my scheduled pumping time. Especially if you need to use a room at a scheduled time & it may not be available later, get comfortable saying, “Excuse me, I have a hard stop at [time], but am available to pick up this discussion again at [time].” You can state the reason or not, but don’t be like me and just anxiously look at the clock as you get progressively more uncomfortable while waiting for your boss to stop yammering.
Anon says
i posted yesterday that Twin A was upset about going to school without Twin B, well apparently Twin A liked it so much that this morning she was upset that Twin B was healthy enough to go to school and said (in front of Twin A) that she wished Twin B would die. They are in Kindergarten, in separate classes, only see each other at school at recess, and I get that it is hard to be a twin. DH is out of town, I am sick, and they have to be at school between 7:10-7:20am. Two questions:
(1) How do you reset for the day when you feel like you’ve negotiated world peace before your day even starts?
(2) from a sibling perspective, I always tell my kids that it is ok to have mixed feelings about having a sibling, but should I encourage them to discuss them not in front of their sibling? I have a sister who was VERY difficult to grow up with and I ended up resenting her and my parents a lot and I’m trying not to make the same mistakes and hopefully foster a better relationship
Anonymous says
I wouldn’t think any more about this? Seems fine. Your job is not to make sure your twins are never mean to each other.
Anon says
Agreed, I think you’re overreacting a little. Kids this age don’t understand death. My K-er has gone through periods of talking about death a lot, including casually speculating about when her grandparents will die and occasionally saying (often while laughing) that she wishes she were dead. She’s not su*cidal, she’s just a kid who has no real understanding of what she’s saying but knows that it gets a rise out of people.
If it makes you feel better, I have a close friend whose close in age kids (not twins, but ~14 months apart) still physically fight a lot, including scratching and biting each other (and they’re in K and 1st, not toddlers). I know words can hurt a lot too, but I would take mean words any day over the problems she has.
Anonymous says
I don’t agree that they cannot understand death at this age. Kindergarteners understand death and may well have lost grandparents or other close family members. They are not two or three years old.
Anon says
I think they can but many don’t. Mine definitely does not understand what it means.
Anon says
I think encouraging kids to think about other people’s feelings before they speak is the right message. And maybe you can tell the sibling that if he ever wants to complain/vent about his twin, he can come to you and you will always listen to him, but that he shoudl think before how his sibling might feel before saying things in front of them. I also think it’s okay to say that all feelings are okay but it’s not okay to say you wish someone died.
Anonymous says
Not sure if it makes you feel better but my sister and I went through a very rough period when I wished she were dead. The only reason I didn’t say so to her face was that I was 16 and not 6. I felt very much that we were in direct competition with each other and that I was losing. We’re not twins, but very close in age and look very similar. Teachers in school didn’t necessarily think of us as separate (even, in the case of one callous gym teacher, asking my sister ‘which one are you today’.) I don’t know if that is the dynamic here but it might be worth checking with the school to make sure your twins are not compared there. I will also add that my sister and I get along very well as adults. At some point we felt we had to run our own race, and frankly since we live in different cities not too many people can compare us.
Anonymous says
That’s so hard. Our rule is that you don’t have to be friends with your sibling but you do have to be kind. At least as kind as you would be to another child not in our family. A kid would get in trouble at school if they told another kid they wished another kid would die.
In that scenario in our house, kid would have been told to apologize for being mean. Then one of us would have had a separate chat with each – conveying that their sibling was thoughtless and did not think about the impact of their words to the hurt kid and conveying that you can want time alone and you do not have to play with your sibling at school but you cannot say things to them that are unkind and mean to the kid who lashed out. That it is not okay at school and it is not okay at home. If only one parent present, separate kids and take a minute or two to speak with each. Start with kid who was hurt.
Anonymous says
You can confirm from my real experience that yes, if your kindergartener tells another student they wish they would die, they will get in trouble. Particularly if they write a note with that sentiment.
Anon says
does anyone have a light up dance pad that their kids like? kind of like dance, dance revolution, but without the screen?
Anonymous says
Hi. Any moms use the Nike Fitness app? I’m intrugued since online reviews seems good, it’s free, and fits into my busy schedule. I’m ready to get back in shape!!
Anon says
I would appreciate any advice people have about boundary-setting with local, involved grandparents when no one is doing anything wrong. They’re wonderful grandparents and helpful caregivers who began gradually moving to an apartment in our city a few years back, and we’re trying to adjust to the switch from them being here one week a month (where we basically rearranged our lives to maximize time with them) to the current situation where they’re here ~60% of the time and doing nothing else when they’re here is not practical. Kid is also getting older and want more of a social life outside the home, which is completely normal, but the grandparents seem to be having a harder time adjusting to this than we are.
Also would appreciate a gut check that I’m not being unreasonable for accepting a friend’s invite to go out of town with her and our kids for one night on the Saturday-Sunday of Thanksgiving break. My parents are here for three weeks straight from this weekend to the end of November and we’ll be seeing them pretty much all day Wednesday/Thursday/Friday of Thanksgiving break. They’re pretty hurt, but as noted above, when they’re here this much it’s hard to avoid stuff like this coming up during a visit and I think these kind of opportunities are special and important for my kid. It was a different story when they were here a lot less.
Anonymous says
You’re not unreasonable. You can expressly say ‘we love having you here and are so excited about the move but one change from vacation only grandparents is that we are not able to drop every thing to have time together, it will be more about integrating into regular life which will look a bit different but overall be so much better and we are so excited’
On your end, you need to accept that they may not be 100% happy with how things play out. That doesn’t mean you are doing anything wrong on handling it poorly.
What has worked for us is to have certain special activities that are just grandparents and kids – like my parents take the kids afterschool at their house twice a week. And then every third Saturday afternoon they take the kids the children’s library to exchange their books. (insert applicable activity of interest to your parents). In the winter, they host us for dinner on Sundays but we go at 5:30pm and leave at 7:30pm.
Driving to/from activities also helps them stay engaged without having people in your space. For example, my mom takes my oldest to swim on Thursdays, I meet them there, have a chat with my mom while she swims and then I take her home. But this means I can get my kid into an earlier lesson at 4:30 which is not as hard to get a spot in compared to the 5:30 lessons but I don’t have to leave work early – I can meet mom at the pool at 5:10/15 and have a chat before the lesson ends.
Anon says
Slightly different scenario here, but my parents moved across the country to spend more time with the grandkids … WITHOUT NOTIFYING US FIRST. They moved a block and a half away. They get along with the kids great, but I’ve felt pressure since they’ve moved here to incorporate them into our lives in a way that I don’t necessary love – I grew up with divorced parents, so I was familiar with the careful balancing act of spending relatively equal amounts of time with all branches of the family, and their move … disrupted that balance since the other grandparents aren’t local.
A frequent boundary-setting conversation we’ve had is that they made a choice to be ‘normal life’ grandparents rather than ‘vacation time’ grandparents when they moved here. We’re still going to leave town most holidays to see the family members that don’t live locally. We’re still going to go on vacations with the other grandparents who don’t live locally because I want my kids to have a relationship with them too.
I don’t think you’re being unreasonable with boundary setting if your kids want to spend time with friends during a long weekend. This is normal, healthy stuff .. and frankly, much needed after the years of Covid isolation.
Anon says
Vent. I’ve been posting and this community has been great.
My almost 3-year-old has a speech delay and is now in weekly ST – yay! Whenever I read something in their class group text about something another kid verbally told their parents (e.g. “Lucy told us that Jack loves cupcakes”) it makes me…irate, envious, and of course starts my anxiety spinning. Any mums of speech delayed or formerly speech delayed kids want to tell me what helped them?
It also probably doesn’t help that there’s a lot of weird parental humble bragging/faux modesty in this group generally.
I am usually NOT a comparer to other kids but this has got me going there.
Anonymous says
As the mom of a formerly speech delayed kid, the fact that there is a group chat is bananas. It is SUCH an individual thing! I don’t think I had any contact with the other parents outside of the class.
I’d just hit the thumbs up and move on. Set your notifications so you don’t get any push notifications and only check once per day/every second day/whenever appropriate. Or ask your DH to be on the contact on the group chat instead.
Anon says
Yeah my kid has done multiple years of speech including private one-on-one, private group and public school group and I’ve never heard of a group chat for the parents. This is wild to me! Definitely mute it.
OP says
Oh – I should be clear. This group chat is for his daycare CLASS – not the speech therapy!
Anon says
Ohh ok. That makes more sense and is harder to ignore. I’d still consider muting it if it’s making you feel bad about yourself. Maybe I’m biased as I have never been in any sort of official class group chat (I have them with friends of course and I’ve been added to a few informal ones with moms I’ve met in person, but never an official one for the whole class) but I don’t think they’re essential and this group sounds really unpleasant totally aside from any speech issues.
anon says
I encourage you to consider leaving the group chat.
I refuse to use the app parents in my community use for grade level/class group chats. I’m friendly with other parents in person and reachable via email/text if anyone needs me. In addition to not having full confidence in the privacy practices of the app’s parent company, I think the annoyances outweigh the benefits of participating in parent group texts.
Anonymous says
this is how I feel about all “blast” electronic communication, especially social media.