Maternity Monday: LILLEbaby Carrier
This post may contain affiliate links and CorporetteMoms may earn commissions for purchases made through links in this post. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Sales of note for 2/14/25 (Happy Valentine’s Day!):
(See all of the latest workwear sales at Corporette!)
- Nordstrom – Winter Sale, up to 60% off! 7850 new markdowns for women
- Ann Taylor – Up to 40% off your full-price purchase — and extra 60% off sale
- Banana Republic Factory – 50% off everything + 15% off (readers love their suiting as well as their silky shirts like this one)
- Boden – 15% off new season styles
- Eloquii – 300+ styles $25 and up
- J.Crew – 40% of your purchase – prices as marked
- J.Crew Factory – 50% off entire site and storewide + extra 50% off clearance
- Rothy’s – Final Few: Up to 40% off last-chance styles
- Spanx – Lots of workwear on sale, some up to 70% off
- Talbots – Flash sale ending soon – markdowns starting from $15, extra 70% off all other markdowns (final sale)
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?
After no prompting from me, no actual teaching, “training” or reading books on the topic, and no tiny po t t ies in the house, my daughter, who is about to turn 2, asked to use the toilet yesterday and did so successfully. Her daycare teacher commented on her dry diapers when I told her about it this morning.
Is it possible that she is ready to toilet train at this age? I was expecting she wouldn’t be ready until she was closer to 3. I thought that she had never expressed an interest prior to yesterday, but now looking back, I am remembering another couple of incidents where she was grabbing her diaper and trying to take it off while saying “poo”. This is my first kid and I have no clue what to expect.
So one of the comments last week made me wonder if I’m approaching my long-running toddler sleep conundrum appropriately. Wonder if I can get some input from this awesome group.
My daughter (2.5 years old) has been a rotten sleeper since day 1. At a year, I did sleep training. That fixed the night sleep for a little over a year, and then around the preschool transition a couple months ago, night sleep started breaking down. Bedtime became a struggle sometimes lasting an hour and a half or more. She asks for me to stay in the room with her, and if I leave, she gets so upset that it prolongs bedtime significantly.
As long as we start bedtime by 8 pm, it doesn’t matter how early we start – she doesn’t fall asleep until 8:45 at the earliest. I’ve started as early as 6:30 pm, but I can’t make that work long-term (and 2 hours of bedtime leaves me a wreck). So I’m stuck in her bedroom for at least an hour or two.
Unfortunately, once she’s asleep, she usually wakes up between midnight and 3 am and just screams if I’m not in the room with her. Again, if I don’t stay in the room until she falls asleep, she gets so upset that it can take hours to get her back down. So I’ve taken to sleeping on a daybed in her bedroom from that first wake up until morning. During that time, she generally wakes up 1-3 times and requests that I replace her covers; if I do that and lay back down in her room, each wake up is a 30 second blip in my sleep (and hers).
She consistently takes an hour and a half to two hour nap at daycare, and her night time sleep is usually 8:45 pm to 7 am. Naps at home are awful struggles (awful, awful, awful) and it can take 2+ hours to get her down for a nap lasting an hour and a half. The alternative is a volatile toddler for the rest of the day, so nap struggle it is….
I’ve been taking the long view and just waiting it out. But someone last week commented that a similar situation sounds like kiddo is missing contact with mom and looking for confirmation that mom is available….and it occurred to me that the sleep change also coincided with an increase in dad’s parenting time, and that I’ve started drawing firmer boundaries about when kiddo can touch me, pinch me, climb on me, pull my hair, etc. So kiddo is getting less access to me and may be struggling with that? She also may be afraid of the dark; one time she woke up at night and the lights were on, and she just blinked and said “mama?” instead of wailing.
Anyway, strategies, consolation, advice, anecdotes are all greatly appreciated. I miss my bed and I miss my productive evenings.
Hi all! I’m a long time reader. I’m going through my first pregnancy and I have a question – Did any of you hire a doula? What was your experience with a doula? Do you recommend it? FWIW, I’m not interested in an all-natural birth, but I’ve read that doulas may help with the anxieties of the labor process.
Favorite clothing brands for a tall, skinny toddler? The 3T shorts and pants I’ve purchased for him (Gap, Zara) are too big in the waist. It hasn’t been a big problem during the summer, because he just wears 18-24 mo. or 2T shorts, but I anticipate it will be a bigger problem in winter. Any recommendations?
Posted this on the regular page, but wanted to get thoughts here too:
What would you do? I have an easy/fairly interesting job in government with pay I would consider to be fair but not great. 9-5 hours and plenty of flexibility. I don’t like my coworkers or my boss. There is little room for professional growth and no mentors. No paid maternity leave.
I have a job offer to make a lot more money (45k), but along with it comes more work (1700 billables) and stress. Paid maternity leave. Some flexibility as long as I meet my hours target. I have a toddler and hope to have another child. We could obviously use the money, but it is not urgent. I keep going back and forth. Help!
I am surprised to see so many of you wear your young toddlers. Perhaps I’m missing a good way to get our family out and about. I stopped babywearing once kid could sit in a stroller. When do y’all wear the kids?
Okay, I keep trying to post a question about p*tty training, but it keeps getting either eaten (the first one) or stuck in moderation (I assume the second one). Besides the three day marathon version, what other methods exist and what ages are they best for? (Apologies if my other post show up and it appears that I’m posting endless comments about the topic.) Let’s hope this shows up.
My post seems to have gotten eaten (not in moderation — it appeared with the other comments, then the screen just showed my comment as the only comment, and now it’s vanished). Short version: what methods of potty training have people used besides boot camp/Oh Cr&p? Trying to see what might work for my boys. TIA!
We are having my kid’s first “friend” party in a few weeks (he’s turning 3) and on a Saturday afternoon. We are having my local(ish- about 90 minutes away) up to celebrate that weekend as well, but don’t want to have the family at the friend party because they’d just be superfluous adults (divorced parents, dads girlfriend, brother, bro’s fiancé, maybe my sister). We’ll either do dinner say or brunch Sunday.
BUT my mom is now telling (not asking) me that she’s going to come to the kid party on Sat, “to help.” I don’t need her help, and she’ll just be in the way. More importantly, an extra grandma isn’t a big deal, but I’m sure my dad would want to come too. And with dad comes dad’s GF and now we have 3 adults, maybe 4 if my sister gets a ride with my mom.
Do I suck it up and let my mom come? Invite dad etc too to avoid hurt feelings? Tell everyone fire code won’t allow it (white lie) and we’ll see them for dinner as planned?
I have a 4 month old and thought I could get mom to “help” by staying home with the baby but apparently she just wants to be at the party (and offered to watch baby there…)
Since it’s babywearing day – what is the secret to getting my kid into the back carry? I have a Tula but I imagine it’s the same for all the structured carriers. Have watched many YouTube videos but cannot figure it out.
Potty training question. Has anyone tried a method other than boot camp/Oh Cr*p? I’m not necessarily ruling out that method, it’s just that I’m wondering what else is out there. Also, at least Oh Cr*p really focuses on going young — 20 to 30 months. My guys are just 30 months and they just started going to preschool two days a week, and they’re now down with their “we’re now going to school” colds, so I don’t see doing potty training within the next month or so. But then our au pair is leaving at the end of November (sigh) and I cannot imagine such a massive transition is the right time for potty training. They do have to be 100% trained by next fall for the 3 yo room at school, but that’s a long ways off. Just wondering what our options are, and what the drawbacks of waiting until closer to 3 yo might be.
How much do you take into consideration your child’s privacy and dignity when you post stuff on facebook/your own blog/what have you? I read the article “Why I Decided to Stop Writing About My Children” by Elizabeth Bastos and it’s really made me stop and think. For instance, my kid used the toilet for the first time ever this weekend. I posted about it on my mostly private blog but not facebook. But is putting it on the blog too much too? I didn’t give gory details. I just wanted to write it down somewhere, and I use my blog as a journal.
This post sparked a kind of terror in me that I question whether is normal….I’m 14 weeks now, and I am finding the thought of deciding what baby “gear” to get to be overwhelming and terrifying. Some extremely generous friends and coworkers have offered to give me a lot of their old stuff, but I feel like I can’t even begin to process what will be useful/best for me. I already am worried about finding clothes to wear (it seems like I can wear less and less of my pre-pregnancy clothes every day), getting projects done around the house that we’ve been putting off, turning our office into a nursery, and figuring out post-baby childcare options – the baby gear stuff just feels like too much for me to handle now. When do I actually need to start thinking about it?
(Before anyone asks, yes I have a partner and he is very supportive, but my job gives me more free time and he is spearheading a lot of the household projects we need to get done, so this isn’t something I can totally outsource to him).
I used a homemade sling (literally just a folded over loop of fabric slung over one shoulder) when kiddo was tiny. I tried a Moby wrap, but it was too much of a production and stretched out during use, so it was a hassle. Kiddo also liked to get her feet under her and push up, which felt really unsafe. It was also really hot, and I didn’t like the way I looked when wearing it.
Once she was big enough I used the Ergo (I didn’t like the infant insert). I still use it, and she’s 35+ pounds and over 3 feet tall. I do only back carries now because the front carries hurt my back, and the straps cut across my throat in a hip carry. She never tolerated the hood, and the pocket is too hard to access in back carry, but the shoulder stance fits my narrow shoulders.
I also got the Boba Air when I started doing more travel with her. It folds up into a tiny pouch which makes it easier to pack. I like it for travel or throwing in my purse for a weekend day out and about, but it’s definitely not as comfortable as the padded straps on the Ergo.
I wish I had tried the K’tan and/or the Boba wrap (which looked softer and stretchier than the Moby), and I wish the 360 soft structured carriers had been available when my kiddo was little – she would have loved to face out once in a while.
Any clog wearing moms out there? I love clogs and work in a casual workplace. Not necessarily professional dansko-type clogs, more like No.6 or Sven or Bryr. Specific styles or types you like for stability and comfort and style? I know clogs aren’t for everyone but I love them. Thanks!