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This “kelp forest” tulip-hem top looks great for a nursing top — machine washable, functional, loose, and flattering. I like that with the elbow sleeves it could work now, or layer very neatly beneath a sweater or blazer come fall. It’s $25 full price at Old Navy, available in sizes XS-XXL (also available in gray). Today you can get 25% off at Old Navy with promo code MATH! Old Navy Maternity Tulip-Hem Nursing Top (L-2)Sales of note for 4.18.24
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And — here are some of our latest threadjacks of interest – working mom questions asked by the commenters!
- If you’re a working parent of an infant with low sleep needs, how do you function at work when you’re in the throes of baby’s sleep regression?
- Should I cut my childcare down to 12 hours a month if I work from home?
- Will my baby have speech delays if we raise her bilingual?
- Has anyone given birth in a teaching hospital?
- My child eats everything, and my friends’ kids do not – how should I handle? In general, what is the best way to handle when your child has some skill/ability and your friend’s child doesn’t have that skill/ability?
- ADHD moms, give me your tips to help with things like behavior in the classroom, attention to detail, etc?
- I think I suffer from mom rage…
- My husband and kids are gone this weekend – how should I enjoy my free time?
- I’m struggling to be compassionate with a SAHM friend who complains she doesn’t have enough hours of childcare.
- If you exclusively formula fed, what tips do you have for in the hospital and coming home?
- Could I take my 4-yo and 8-yo on a 7-8 day trip to Paris, Lyon, and Madrid?
KJ says
Ooh, the rare nursing top that wouldn’t make me look pregnant. Nice find!
Anonymous says
I have this top because it looks so great and for all these reasons, and it looks hideous in real life. Each layer is nearly see-through the cotton is so thin and so you can still see the nursing bra, etc.
B says
Plus, I’m thinking… how is this a work appropriate top? Low neckline, and plus it’s kind of a t-shirt. That pretty much sums up my issues with nursing tops for work, in general…
stc says
I was never really interested in nursing tops for work. I wasn’t going to nurse while I was at work and when I pumped I just closed my door, put my little sign up (I know, such privilege!) and took off my shirt, usually with a cardigan.
Anonymous says
Agreed.
Although this would work at my business casual office. (In theory – But not if it’s see-through, etc).
Anonymous says
OP Anon – did the style of opening work? I’ve seen these types of tops and been intrigued, but I worry that they’d blow open or be pulled open by little hands.
Anonymous says
Yes, it worked great as a nursing shirt, although the holes for the B**b openings were actually smaller holes, not like an “open-up” type of area.
Anon says
I just got this shirt as well. I don’t find it see-thru at all. The neckline is pretty modest. But I’m humongous when nursing on a still petite frame and this top just made me look boxy.
Turanga Leela says
I bought it in gray and had the same experience. Very flimsy, see-through fabric. It would be work-appropriate but it’s not flattering at all; the crossover-flap-thing doesn’t hang right and you can see the cutouts for nursing. It’s a good idea but very poor execution.
Photography with kids... says
I have so many questions that have arisen based on the newborn photography threadjack yesterday. DH and I are not big photo-takers. I have gone on entire 2 week international vacations without snapping a single shot. We both take tons of photos of our dog, but that’s it. But we are having a baby, and I desperately want to document the heck out of the kid’s babyhood and childhood, both for ourselves and for the family living across the country. Questions:
1. Should we get an actual camera, or will our iphones suffice? Probably an actual camera, right? Low end DSLR? Figure it out beforehand?
2. How do you handle storage and organization of photos? We rarely print/hang (none of our wedding photos are displayed), and I’m terrified of losing tons of digital pictures. We have an external hard drive, but I’m not sure whether we’ll remember to move pictures there on a regular basis…
3. What methods should we use to share pictures with family across the country? E-mails seem unwieldy and clumsy, I don’t want to flood our FB feeds with baby pictures that most of our FB friends will soon tire of. I was thinking perhaps Instagram? Any other ideas?
Thanks so much in advance! I want to have some sort of plan in place when the kid arrives, as I could absolutely see us being the people who forget to take pictures until he or she is a month or two old.
B from yesterday's thread says
Haha, since I’m the OP from yesterday, I probably don’t have a lot of good advice but I’ll jump in anyway.
1. I have an actual camera but suspect it’s not DSLR because it’s about 5 yo and also because I had to google “DSLR” yesterday.
2. I started doing a lot better with photos when I simplified (ie, quit trying to organize/scrapbook). I upload to Snapfish whenever I have a glob of photos and have them printed and shipped to my house. Then they go in a big fat photo album – the slide-in kind – in whatever order they came in. I give my dad a digital version on CD every year for Christmas, so that is my back up. Plus they are on Snapfish.
3. I’m worried about thsi too. Not doing FB. Read a blog recommendation for 23snaps, but haven’t checked it out yet. Thought about just using snapfish (see #2 above) since I’m already using for prints. Would love to hear more ideas!!
JEB says
I don’t have an answer about the camera…I just use an iPhone. I send everything to a shutterfly account online, figuring that the images are safely stored there if anything happened to my phone. We set up a private Instagram account to share photos with family and a few friends. I swore I wasn’t going to be that person posting a bunch of baby photos on FB, but that didn’t last very long! Although I do try to keep FB limited and most of the baby photos on the Instagram account.
I’m curious to see other responses on digital photo storage. It can feel a little overwhelming trying to make sure you’ve preserved and organized everything!
KJ says
Here’s what we did:
I bought a just-below-DSLR quality camera. I figured I wouldn’t be able to learn how to use a DSLR properly by the time the baby arrived, and I didn’t want to spend the money. We have this camera and have been very happy with the photo quality: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00889ST2G?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_search_detailpage
I made an account on SmugMug, I think based on the recommendation of someone from this site. You pay a nominal annual fee for photo storage.
I did a monthly photo shoot with those “1 month, 2 months, etc” stickers with the baby. That ensured that I took a bunch of photos at least once a month. I uploaded all the photo shoot photos, other fancy camera photos, and phone photos to albums on SmugMug. I made a new album every few months, so there is a 0-4 months album, 5-8 months album, etc.
Every month or two, I email a link to the current album to a list of family and friends. I find this is the easiest way to share photos with the less tech savvy family members. People can order their own prints of the SumgMug site if they want to.
Now that my baby is over a year, I haven’t been doing the monthly photo sets or emailing people as regularly, but I am still trying to keep up with albums, and I think it’s a pretty good system.
anon says
We are using phones and Google Photos, and so far it’s working great. We have real cameras too, but they’re never there when we need them. You will seriously have SO MANY PHOTOS of your kid… I never take photos either, normally, but damn the guy is cute.
Spirograph says
Yup, me too. Our phones auto-sync with google photos every time we’re on our home wifi. I share them – which sends an e-mail with a private link to the photo and associated comments – when I remember to. It’s worked out really well. I also make a photo album (on Snapfish or similar) covering the year as a Christmas present for grandparents, and mail prints every so often… I print tons whenever there’s a “penny prints” sale.
I rarely post photos of my kids on facebook and I don’t have an Instagram account. One because I don’t want to be “that mom” all my friend ban from their facebook feed for spamming with kid pictures, two because the people who would be most happy to see the pictures (family one or more generations older than I am) are the least likely to check facebook for them, and three because I’m slightly paranoid about privacy.
DH and I have approximately a million pictures between us of our kids, and we’re not photo-takers in any other situation.
Maddie Ross says
(1) We bought a DSLR camera when we started trying for a baby, knowing that I would want to try and take baby photos with it. I got pretty proficient before baby got here, but I’ve honestly only used it a few times since, and usually just for big events (first birthday, first xmas, etc.). I do appreciate with the DSLR that I have a memory stick back up. I also upload occasionally to our shutterfly account. 99% of our photos are taken on our iPhones. I think the quality is good, though not quite the same as a DSLR.
(2) & (3) We upload all photos to shutterfly and have given our family all access to them. I also have a private instagram account that I only have shared with family members. I post random shots every couple of weeks just to keep them in the loop. With my parents, in addition to this, I send them text messages or videos every couple of days (or when something cute happens).
Anonymous says
I hear you on the avoidance of flooding facebook! My husband and I both have iphones and we use icloud Photo Sharing and created a “Stream” for our babies and invited our family to join. They can comment and like just like FB!
quail says
+1 – the grandparents love this because it alerts them of a new picture and they can like and comment, and I don’t feel weird about putting a ton of pics on Facebook (both for spamming my friends and kid’s privacy).
SC says
+1. We use iCloud Photo Sharing to share with family. We can snap photos with our phones and share immediately, which allows family members to see things basically as they happen (if we want them to). Or we can upload from our good camera to Photos and share that way. Our family members with iPhones or iPads get an immediate notification, and those without can follow a link. We had to help a few family members who aren’t tech-savvy at all set it up (it’s seriously not that hard), but now that it’s all set up, it works great.
Meg Murry says
We have an older camera that is semi-decent, but it only gets used 1-2 times a year for when we want to take “official” photos – for instance, my husband will dress the kids up and take them somewhere during Christmas break and take 100 pictures in search of 1 or 2 where they aren’t making a goofy face or blinking. Then we take that picture to the Kodak kiosk at our local drugstore, add text across it like “Merry Christmas 2015” and have it printed 10 times and put in low end but decent frames. Voila, family presents for all the grandmothers, great-aunts, etc.
Otherwise, we use our phones, and have it linked directly to online photo storage (the photos automatically backup daily). My first smartphone came with a 2 year 50 GB dropbox deal, so that was what we used initially, but that just ran out. I don’t want to pay more for dropbox, so my mom, my sister and I all share a SmugMug account that our phones each sync into and that my mom uploads her camera pictures from. Not fancy, but it’s automatic and it works.
If your family is moderately computer savvy, SmugMug is a good option. You can set albums to share privately to only the people with the URL, or to certain email addresses if your family can handle logging in to a website with a username and password (my parents are used to this now, and are re-using their old rolodex for their passwords. Whatever works).
For us, just using our phones is easiest since we always have them and the camera are pretty decent, and automatic online backup means we don’t have to do anything or worry about losing them. We also have a big external hard drive, so every so often I’ll backup the dropbox and/or SmugMug accounts onto the external drive so we have a duplicate set of the pictures just in case.
sfg says
As the saying goes, the best camera is the one you have with you. I think phone cameras have come such a long way in the past few years that it is entirely possible to take great photos with them alone. I’ve had DSLRs for a few years now, and it was the case when I first got one that it took pictures faster than a point and shoot or a phone camera. I think that gap has really narrowed now. That said, I love using a DSLR and I am proficient with it, but the quality of the pictures has more to do with the lenses than the camera body. My best phone photo tip is to make sure the lens is clean – this makes a huge difference!
We use a Shutterfly share site to share pics with family. There is a phone app where you can upload photos directly from your phone. Whoever is on the list gets an email every week when there are new pictures (though you can set this to be less frequent) and they can comment and order pictures directly. I use the Google Photos app to back up photos from my phone. My other pictures reside on an external that I will back up one of these days…
Anon in NYC says
Re #3: My husband and I both have Flickr accounts. We pay for the level where you can upload an unlimited amount of photos (for the free account there is a limit to how much you can upload). We created a private group and invited parents/siblings to join it (they will need a Flickr account too, but they can use the free one). Only my husband and I are administrators of the group so we can both upload photos but nobody else can. There is a Flickr app and we can upload photos straight from our regular phone cameras. Also, we do have a digital SLR and we can download any nicer photos onto our computer and upload them to the group. It’s working out really well – the grandparents love it.
TK says
I don’t know what kind of camera we have, but the only cute baby picture thing we did ourselves (other than the newborn photo shoot my sister did) was take a photo of baby next to the same stuffed animal on the same day every week for the first year. It was pretty remarkable to see how much he changed from week to week – at week 30 you could go back to compare to week 12, etc. Definately became more of a challenge once kid was mobile, but we did actually manage to stick to the once per week plan for the entire first year. Neither of us have Facebook or other social media accounts, but we did (usually) remember to e-mail those to out of town family on a fairly regular basis.
Now, at 18 months since I don’t have a weekly event to commemorate, I’m not even sure where the camera is –
Tunnel says
1. Your iPhone will suffice. Realistically, you will probably not learn how to use the DSLR camera well enough to make it worth it. Plus, then you need to go through the added step of uploading all of your photos from the DSLR camera.
2. Amazon Prime membership comes with free photo storage. There is even an app that allows you to auto store the photos from your iphone!
3. I use LifeCake and invited family and friends to use it. It automatically puts your photos in chronological order and alerts people of new photos as often as each individual selects to be notified. Plus, there is also an app for LifeCake, so again you can do it all from your phone which enables you update the photos regularly. And regularity is key in my book to avoid it becoming a daunting task that you put off.
Baby shower dilemma says
So, my best friend wants to throw me a baby shower, and I’d love advice from the hive. As much as I would adore having a shower, I don’t know that I’m comfortable with it, as it would involve inviting people who don’t live in my current city. I’m someone who has a decent amount of friendly acquaintances, but only a small group of 5-10 close friends. Only two of these close friends live in my city, other close friends live scattered throughout the country, and my family couldn’t attend, as they are across the country. Even my best friend would have to travel 8 hours by car or 2 hours by plane, which she is apparently enthusiastic about doing.
I don’t know, a shower is basically about giving gifts, and though I know one or two close friends would probably make a weekend trip for a shower, I feel bad even having them invited. That’s a big ask. I think I’d feel guilty if they came. And if they didn’t, I’d be having a pretty small shower with maybe way more friendly acquaintances than close friends, which feels…awkward.
So the options I am considering are as follows.
(1) Politely decline, and perhaps have a fun weekend with my best friend in which we do a baby-related thing or two…
(2) Suggest a post-baby shower a couple of months after the baby is born (i.e., so anyone from out of town could actually come meet the baby)…
(3) Say yes to my best friend organizing the shower.
Thoughts?
Marilla says
1 sounds like the most fun option, although 2 may be more in line with what your friend wants to do for you. I would suggest the first one and just say you’re not so comfortable with throwing a shower people would have to travel for, but that you would love to see her and spend some time together (including celebrating your good news)?
Anonymous says
Why cant you have a 5 or 10 person shower? I feel like you really arent thinking outside the box enough here. I had a shower with seven friends – it was a brunch and everyone brought a favorite childhood book as a gift. They enjoyed doing something for me, and I had a great time! Showers are about the people sharing the experience with you too.
anin says
I agree – in my circle it is totally normal to have a shower with only people who actually live in the same city, and small is fine. Why not have a fun afternoon with your close friends?
B says
Agree, I had a shower with 8 friends in a mutually nearby city instead of where I live (I drove about an hour and a half, most other girls drove 2-3 hours. It was intimate and wonderful. The focus was on pedis and lunch, not gifts. Instead of doing registry stuff, since the girls really wanted to get me something, I asked for “all the embarrassing breastfeeding stuff I don’t want to get from my MIL” and they loaded me up. We just opened the gifts at lunch, it wasn’t a traditional shower.
The point is you have these great close friends that are happy for you and they want to share this moment in your life in some way!! I’d make room for that. :)
AEK says
I think she’s saying the 5-10 close people are NOT in her city and she feels awkward about how few people will be able to attend in person.
Baby shower dilemma says
AEK’s right…only two close friends live in my city. It just felt a little strange to me that if others can’t travel (understandably), my shower would be two or three close friends + friendly acquaintances. A little less than a critical mass?
AEK says
Say yes! I had all the same concerns but “let” my friend go ahead with it. I gave a list of my friends and just left it at that. Most of my closest friends didn’t make the trip, but one bought the cake, another sent flowers, so they could feel like they were helping “host,” and other long-distance folks sent gifts for me to open at the shower. We had a group of 7 who came in person, plus my mom. It was absolutely lovely. No one took offense or was put-off by being invited; I had no expectation that folks would fly out to my city for it. Two people did, which was amazing, but above-and-beyond. Your friends are probably eager to wish you and baby well; give them an easy way to do it (by coming or sending a gift).
CT says
Nothing to add, but so glad you wrote this! I’m in the same boat as OP (closest friends live far away so feel guilty about inviting them, despite one person’s offer to host a shower). Have been mulling over what to do for a few weeks, so it’s nice to hear that my fears about people feeling put off are probably misplaced :-)
Clementine says
It’s an invitation, not a summons.
I’ve been invited to out of town showers and ya know what? I was touched that I was invited. Did I go to all of them? No. I sent a gift, maybe flowers and a nice note to the hostess saying I couldn’t make it. Done. no guilt, no stress.
ANP says
Baby is one month old today and I am sooooo tired. Ugggghhhh. Pretty sure she’s having a growth spurt bc all she wants to do is nurse and she won’t take a bottle so I can get a break. This is making my return to work look pretty d@mn appealing.
AEK says
I feel for you! Hang in there! Try to do as little as possible, and if you can, just make yourself comfortable on a couch or in bed with the baby and let her do her thing. She very well might be cluster feeding. I remember being in tears one day when my husband came home from work and I had been nursing for about 6 hours straight. It’s tough, but it IS temporary. You can do it. Just don’t try doing too much else!!!
(Also, NOTHING you said indicates this, but just in case you are secretly concerned, it turns out my DS had a lip tie. Because he wasn’t nursing efficiently, he nursed *non-stop*to get the calories. It almost broke my spirit. If this goes on unreasonably long and you suspect the latch isn’t working quite right, definitely follow up with a lactation consultant or the pediatrician.)
AEK says
Oh, also, even if she is unhappy about it, it is OK to put her in a safe place nearby—bouncy seat / rocker, etc.— and take a shower to just relax and exhale for a few minutes without having a little parasite stuck to you. (I assume you are caring for her solo at the moment.) If she cries, you’ll be back with her in just a few minutes, but the break / separation might be just what you need to refresh and take possession of your own body for a few minutes.
sfg says
+1000 to this – so hard to make myself do it, but the baby was always fine and I always regained some of my sanity.
pockets says
It gets better! At 1 month I was like, screw this I’m going back to work at 6 weeks, but then by 3 months I wanted to prolong my leave as much as possible. Do you have a swing? In my list of things that are magic, swings are second only to epidurals. Put the baby down someplace safe and go take a 10 minute shower. The water blocks out the sound of the baby’s crying :)
KJ says
I could never figure this out, but some people swear by nursing in a carrier. If you have a Moby or an Ergo or some other carrier you could experiment with trying to nurse with baby in the carrier so you could at least go for a walk or something. Otherwise, I will just say, I’m sorry, I know it sucks. I promise it doesn’t last forever, but I know that doesn’t really help when you are slogging through those seemingly endless days and nights.
Anon in NYC says
Ugh. I feel you. My 9.5 week old just went through this period where she wanted to nurse for roughly 4 minutes every hour. After the 4 minutes were up she would refuse to nurse any more until an hour later when she was screaming for food. No real advice other than to just ride it out as best as possible! Try to get outside for a little bit even if it’s just to go to the library. I’ve found that if I can get out once a day that it helps so much.
LC says
A question for the hive about working from home with an infant:
My job is fairly work-from-home friendly. I’m expecting my first baby this fall, and I’m thinking of asking to work from home one day a week (the same day that my boss is already working at home, which means all of our work is done electronically anyway, and there’s an almost-zero risk that I’ll miss something at the office). Childcare isn’t an issue, since my husband will be watching the baby anyway. But I think that one fewer day of commuting, pumping, etc. will really make a difference in my sanity. For context, I’m not able to take a very long maternity leave, and will probably have to return to work when the baby is around 14 weeks.
One of my friends insists that this is a terrible idea, and that I’ll never be able to get any work done at home because I will be so distracted by the baby. Any thoughts from experienced moms about this? My job is pretty flexible and mostly research-oriented, so I won’t have to contend with conference calls or anything like that.
Clementine says
You know, it sounds great and sensible to me, but hey- maybe it won’t work out. That being said, if it doesn’t work, you could just skip the work from home day and make it an in-the-office day, right?
As someone said earlier in a discussion about childcare: don’t forget that you can make changes and adjust if you needed. What you decide right after leave isn’t necessarily written in stone.
TK says
I think you won’t know this until the baby is here. On the one hand, I am fine letting other people (ie, grandparents) spend time with kid while I work in a different room, and I don’t find it distracting at all … until the baby starts crying. Ugh, biology. While in my head I realize that babies and toddlers cry all the time, and that the people watching him are perfectly capable of dealing with whatever is going on, I can’t concentrate during tears. Also, for as long as you’re nursing, baby sounds might cause some leakage. Not as big a deal at home as it would be in other settings, but still a distraction to consider.
NewMomAnon says
I think it will depend on your kiddo. Mine was NOT HAPPY to be put in a swing or in her crib (and still is not), so any work that required two hands or phone calls was challenging. But I have friends whose babies napped like champs in their cribs, and one of my friends even managed a part time CPA practice working from home with her baby (largely due to a 2 hour morning nap and a 3 hour afternoon nap). You might have to make the decision once you meet your kiddo and get a sense of your own parenting style.
Another thing to consider: I have a coworker who works from home with the baby in the mornings, and then comes into the office around 10. It makes for an easier commute to work, and she says she gets a lot done in the mornings (which I think is true, she is always sending e-mails and turning out work product while working from home).
I would line up full-time childcare and count on paying for full-time childcare. It’s hard to find part-time childcare, and often hard for them to ramp up if the part-time thing doesn’t work for you.
Anonymous says
I am not experienced by any stretch, but I did study full time for the bar exam at home while my husband was the primary caregiver during the time our kid was 4-6 months old. I thought I would try to go to the library, a coffee shop, or anywhere out of the house to study, but the thought of pumping/traveling with pump, even on my own schedule, ended up feeling very overwhelming – so I understand how reducing that one day a week sounds good.
It worked out fairly well. I studied in the office and baby was brought to me for feedings. If I was diligent, I could get a full day’s work in and feel good about it. If I lingered after feeding the baby, took long lunch/snack breaks, took an extra half hour to get started – that didn’t work so well and then I was crabby and at home to spread the crabby around, and I still had to work again after the baby went to bed.
I think as long as you can shut the door, ignore the monitor, and get to work for a set number of hours you will be fine. I wasn’t any more distracted by the baby than by any of the other distractions around the house (I wrote a dissertation at home, too, pre-baby and still found many ways to procrastinate.) It remains to be seen if my study habits translated into good enough results for the bar exam…
pockets says
I work from home occasionally with my toddler in our apt with the nanny. It works fine. First, there will be definite times when the baby is sleeping, and you will be able to work uninterrupted. Second, even when the baby is awake, your caretaker can take the baby out – to the park, the library, wherever – if you absolutely cannot stand to have the noise in the background. I would try for a few months and if it’s not working just re-assess.
kc esq says
Working from home with the kids there was easier for me when they were infants. I’d time my “lunch break” to go out and play for a little while, which was fun, but otherwise I could focus. Now that they’re toddlers, they can’t know I’m home or it’s a disaster. So I “go to work” and hide out upstairs.
Katarina says
This would have worked while my son was an infant, but not as a toddler.