Maternity Monday: Mama Tights

I’m planning a joint b-day party for my two young kids — one is in 1st grade and one in preschool, and we’re going to invite both of their whole classes (meaning, I don’t know a lot of the kids or the parents). I want to put something on the invitation that expresses the sentiment that, 1. gifts are optional, but 2. if you do want to bring a gift, please only bring for the kid who corresponds to your child (i.e., preschoolers only bring for the preschooler). I don’t want people to feel obligated to bring gifts, but especially don’t want them to feel obligated to bring something for both my kids. I also feel kind of silly stating #1 because duh, gifts are always optional, and by saying it explicitly it almost feels like a passive aggressive way of saying they’re expected. I was considering saying no gifts at all to avoid this entirely, but I also don’t want my kids to be bummed out. :) Help! Any good phrasing to put on the invitation that won’t make me sound like a tool??

Can we talk older infant/toddler menus? My son is 9 months and starting to reject the spoon in favor of finger foods. His doctor said he should be eating smaller portions of what we eat, but DH and I both dislike cooking and eat out a lot. We mostly grab breakfast (really just coffee, in my case) on the way to work and eat a frozen meal or takeout for lunch. Even dinner, we only cook at home maybe two thirds of the time and only one third of the time is it really anything resembling homemade, because we rely on a lot of frozen pre-made meals and ingredients. Obviously he shouldn’t be eating all this processed food, but when I search for toddler menus I get a lot of Pinterest Mom stuff that seems unattainable for families with two working parents, or at least for working parents who don’t like to cook.

Baby food was easy. We did a lot of fruit and veggie pouches, yogurt and baby cereal. Do they make healthy pre-packaged toddler food? I know people are going to say “just start cooking healthy meals at home” but that would be a pretty radical lifestyle change for us and we already feel incredibly pressed for time between work and parenting, and the idea of adding all this cooking on top of it makes me want to cry. It’s also hard because even though my parents were very educated and affluent, we ate a lot of McDonalds, frozen dinners and grocery store rotisserie chickens, and I was basically never served vegetables (to be fair, because I didn’t like them and my parents gave up pretty easily on offering them). So I don’t really have a role model in this regard and also feel like I get judged by my friends because my bar for healthy eating is so low. I consider it a win if he’s eating fruit and plain yogurt, even without veggies, because I was eating brownies and juice at this age.

Hi all. We are thinking about getting a tablet for our 5 year old for Christmas but want him to primarily use it for educational games. Suggestions?

Hey wisehive. Update here from my Friday post. I dropped my before-bed pumping session on Friday night thanks to y’alls encouragement. I feel so much freer!!!! Had a twinge of guilt when getting DS bottles ready for daycare with one less BM bottle, but that didn’t last long, and he’ll have a nice 8 oz bottle of formula instead. Bonus for the big formula bottle – that means after pick up, we can get straight to dinner without trying to nurse (he had been rejecting a post-daycare feed, whether bottle or breast, and just wants to play) but at least I know he won’t be starving!

Now I can get into bed earlier and have energy to be up early riser (he sleeps 7 PM-6 or 6:30 AM, these days. Any later going down and he’s up and overtired at 5:30 AM. Please tell me this is a phase…sigh).

ENDLESS THANK YOUS. I love this supportive, practical community!

I resent my husband. Deeply, truly, seethingly resent him. We have a 3 year old and a 10 month old. He travels for work, which used to only be 1 or 2 nights per week but has increased to 4 or 5 nights per week. He will be home for three weeknights in the month of October. Baby has had two ear infections this month, including fever which gets her kicked out of daycare, which of course I have to miss work for because husband is absent.

The 3 year old has typical occasional tantrums but is otherwise ok to solo parent. The baby is still nursing, wakes up at 5:00 every. single. effing. morning, and as of about three weeks ago wails every moment she is not being held. Just constant whining at all times.

Husband has, since baby has been born, played in seven golf tournaments. Some of these are in town (workable), some of them involve travel (not workable, gone for four days over a weekend, etc). Currently out of town three days this week, not for work, but for golf.

When husband is home, he does exactly 50% of parenting. He thinks he does 75%, because the half he does is all hands on with kids. He does zero behind the scenes emotional labor (scheduling, planning, doctor appointment, buy a halloween costume, buy pants for big kid because its getting cold, unpack handmedowns for little kid because its getting cold, buy food, buy toilet paper, etc etc ad nauseam). Despite multiple repeated conversations where I try to explain how much I do that he doesn’t see, he says I should just ask my mom/his mom for help and that I should handle stress better. More recently these conversations have ended in me pretty much losing my ish. Which he says means I need a therapist. (I do need a therapist, but I might not need a therapist if I had, I don’t know, a co-parent).

I work full time (government) and have about as flexible a job as I could have without officially leaning out, which I have no desire and am not willing to do. Husband makes about 3x as much money as I do, which has never been discussed and I’ve never thought was an issue, but it has become clear that his career is priority and mine is a hobby, to him. If I told him that he would disagree, of course. Husband basically does not listen to anything I say about this and says I’m overreacting. Considering divorce which seems like an overreaction, but I’m basically already single parenting so…. I know everyone says this, but he’s “great otherwise,” a great dad, blah blah blah. But I am at a critical breaking point. I dont know what my question is but please help.

I’m a clueless first time mom – could this be teething? My 7 month old DD went down last night at her normal bedtime. She woke up about 45 minutes later we heard a thud followed by a very high pitched cry. We didn’t rush in immediately (because sometimes she cries out and goes right back to sleep) and by the time we got in there a minute or two later she was absolutely hysterical. We picked her up, soothed her, and I nursed her for comfort and then we put her back down. She didn’t cry, but lay in her crib grunting and rolling and seemed unhappy for about 20 minute before eventually falling asleep. But not even 20 minutes later there were more thuds and she was up hysterically crying again. We soothed her and put her back down, only for the same thing to happen a 3rd time. At that point we gave her Tylenol, played with her for about 20 minutes for it to take effect, put her down and she immediately went to sleep and slept 10+ hours. I feel like she has to have been in pain, since the Tylenol helped so much, but I always thought of teething as more of a dull pain that leads to general fussiness, not hysterical screaming. But maybe I’m wrong? I also thought maybe the first time she hit her head on the crib and had a bruise that hurt and the Tylenol could have helped with that, but I can’t see anything on her head. She has two bottom teeth, but we barely noticed them come in and then she was mildly cranky for a day or two until they were fully through. Nothing like this. It doesn’t really matter I guess, but I’m curious if anyone knows what this could be.

Crowdsourcing an admittedly superficial question: For those of you who were in a position to schedule an induction or a c-section, how much did you take into account scheduling around a birthday that would fall on a holiday? Our second is due in a few days and my bet is that this one will be overdue again (my first was induced and born at 42 weeks). One of our concerns is trying to plan around a Halloween birthday if we end up needing an induction. If it were you, would you schedule the induction as early as you could (i.e. 10/29) or wait until 11/1?

Can you recommend any books or other resources on discipline for a 19 m/o? He’s very smart and sweet – he’s just asserting his independence: spitting out food, biting me when he doesn’t get his way (he doesn’t bite at school, which I find interesting). I’m looking for very practical advice: when your toddler does X, try Y. I’ve read the Whole Brain Child and some Janet Lansbury but I felt like they just explain what your child is experiencing and give little advice on how to address behaviors. TIA!