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Updated: Nov 1, 2018 142 Comments · by

Make My Life Easier Thursday: Return Address Stamp

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Return Address StampFrom the time I graduated college to the time my husband and I bought our current place, I moved eight times, no exaggeration. I don’t think I spent more than two years in one location, no matter how much I loved the apartment. After we bought our place, one of the first things I did was order a return address stamp. It may sound silly, but to me it was such a “grown-up” thing to own — a sign that I had put down roots somewhere. Every time I use it, I feel like such an adult. Since having a child, I am sending out a lot more snail mail — thank you cards, birthday cards, invitations, etc. — and yes, it’s an extra step to break out the stamp and ink pad, but it adds extra polish to the envelope. Hi, I’m April, I send snail mail, own an address stamp, and care about how the outside of my envelopes look to the recipients. College me wouldn’t recognize adult me. (Probably a good thing.) The stamp is $27–$33 at Etsy. Return Address Stamp This post contains affiliate links and CorporetteMoms may earn commissions for purchases made through links in this post. For more details see here. Thank you so much for your support!

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About April

April is a working mom, a longtime reader of CorporetteMoms, and wrote our morning fashion advice for working moms from April 2018 to October 2020. She has one child (born 2/17!) and she’s a public interest lawyer in NYC.

Comments

  1. AIMS says

    I’ve given a stamp like this as a housewarming present before and it was a big hit. But I still use the free kitten and puppy address labels that come with my ASPCA donation myself.

    Unrelated question: can someone explain to me the reason why you’re not supposed to mix breast milk of different temperatures? I just read it for the first time and trying to figure out if it’s a real rule to follow. I often just a wee bit extra at work and it’s annoying to have to wait for it to chill to mix with other bags.

    • Waterproof watch says

      The fat always settles on top, so maybe that has something to do with it? But ultimately, I put this in the bucket of “not harmful, but possibly less than ideal” and went on my way. I am a tiny person and was lucky to get 2 oz per session, so that would be a lot of pointless bottles to pump in and then you can’t consolidate when it chills b/c the fat sticks to the bottle and that seemed to be the most valuable part.

      Kids are now 8 and 9 and didn’t have any issues as babies.

      • Anon says

        Yep I totally ignored this rule. No one pumps in perfect increments. I just made sure if I was switching milk between bottles to try to get as much fat off the sides as possible (by running the outside under warm water and gently swirling it around until it redissolved). And I followed the “spoil” guidelines for the oldest part of the milk. But otherwise, I mixed away. I even sometimes used a frozen bag of milk to top off a not-quite-full freshly pumped bottle.

        My kids are 5 and 3 and doing fine so far as well.

    • Clementine says

      It’s a food safety issue. You need to keep food below a certain temp (like 38 degrees F I think) or above a certain temp (120-140 degrees F) to be safe. In the middle is the ‘danger zone’.

      So theoretically if your milk was 38 degrees and you added your 98 degree breast milk to it, the temperature would temporarily be somewhere between the two. That would put the milk at a higher risk of harmful bacteria growing because it’s in the ‘danger zone’.

      That being said, I don’t really know any babies who have gotten sick because mom mixed different temp milks, sooo…

      • Anonymous says

        This doesn’t make sense to me. If you mix cold and warm milk and stick it in the fridge (says it’s 60 degrees or whatever) it will cool much faster than 98 degree milk stuck in the fridge and spend less time in the danger zone. And it’s not like 98 degrees is hot enough to be out of the danger zone.

        • Anonymous says

          I think the math is more like it exposes the “older” milk to the danger zone twice. So it already went through it’s own danger zone, grew X amount of bacteria, and now the new warm milk gives that pre-existing bacteria from the precooled milk a chance to grow again. It’s a food safety thing, but everyone should figure out their own comfort level. I was militant but mine were NICU kiddos.

          • Meg Murry says

            Yes, I’m pretty sure this is the math. I think dumping warm or room temp milk into refrigerated milk once probably isn’t a big deal, but you probably don’t want to keep topping up the same large container all day with warm milk.

            I think the advice is mainly to avoid having people re-pump into the same bottles over and over again to top off, because then you are cycling bottles in and out of the fridge and constantly warming up and then cooling off the same milk over and over again.

      • AIMS says

        Ah, okay, that sort of makes sense. Mine go straight in the fridge and usually involve small amounts that are inconvenient to freeze/store on their own so I think I’ll just ignore. I also ignored this rule with my oldest since I didn’t know about it and she turned out ok :)

        Thanks all!

    • Anonymous says

      I stuck to this but it wasn’t inconvenient based on the amounts I pumped. I often mixed the milk from both sides from a single session together right after I pumped. I also ended up mixing a lot of chilled milk to make bottles. But I guess just based on how much I pumped I didn’t find myself wanting to mix more than that.

      • LadyNFS says

        I don’t mix temperatures, though never bothered to question why. I read it on Kelly Mom way back when. When I pump, i combine the 2 bottles. MY LO (9.5 months) drinks 4 oz bottles, so if I have enough for one bottle (usually only in the morning, if I’m lucky), I’ll put the “complete” 4 oz bottle in the fridge. If I’m short, I’ll leave the bottle out until the next pump session (usually 3 hours or so), and combine the “fresh” milk with the room temperature milk until I have a “full” bottle. Otherwise, I leave everything in the fridge until it’s the same temperature, and combine cool milk with cool milk. It’s definitely a process but I’m so used to it by now I hardly think about it.

        • Anonymous says

          Right. My daughter didn’t drink the milk out of the Medela bottles, so it really didn’t matter to me. I had to make her Avent bottles anyway, so an extra Medela bottle didn’t matter.

          • AIMS says

            I transfer milk from the pump bottle to a bag right away. I only keep two bottles for the pump at work and pump 3 times. If I have a little extra in the AM, I will put it in a separate milk bag. If I have extra at lunch, it seem wasteful to put it into a separate milk bag to combine later but it’s also annoying to not be able to move it from the bottle immediately because that means I make two trips to the sink instead of one and/or leave a bottle in the fridge and then transfer it before my next session.

          • CBG says

            this won’t help you, but maybe someone else: I bought adapters for my pump on Amazon that let me pump directly into my Avent bottles. We had like 3 people give us their Avent bottles, nipples and sealing discs, so that made more sense than buying nipples/lids for the Ameeda bottles (which like Medela are narrower). So at the end of the day I just switch out the discs for a nipple and a lid.
            I pump into the same 2 9oz Avent bottles all day and transfer directly to the fridge. I bring a 4oz too just in case I’m having a full day. babe is 11 months and never had a problem. I swirl the milk to mix it all together when transferring to other bottles or storage bags.
            I know Avent says to buy new nipples every 6 months, but I think that’s kind of a scam, I just toss them when they start to yellow.

    • Anonymous says

      We have a return address stamp in the shape of the animal that is our family mascot. I only bother with it for “real” mail. On bills, I use the free return address labels.

      • LittleBigLaw says

        I’m so intrigued by the idea of a “family mascot.” What exactly is this?

    • AwayEmily says

      Some of these explanations also seem inconsistent with the rule that you can leave pumped breastmilk out, without refrigerating, for six hours, which also always seemed nuts to me. So I guess in theory, the safest thing to do at work would be to just leave your milk out for most of the day and keep adding to it, and then refrigerate it all at the end? Maybe Emily Oster’s new book will cover all of this because I find it rather confusing. I’d also like to know the *actual* risk of contamination, as I suspect it is very low.

      • Meg Murry says

        The rules aren’t additive. Depending on your source of info, it’s 4-6 hours at room temp OR 3-4 days in the fridge OR 3-12 months in the freezer. But you can’t leave milk out for 4 hours and then expect it to last in the fridge for 3-4 days after that – so if you left it out for an hour, you’ve used about 1/4 of it’s “shelf life” and now it will only last 2-3ish days in the fridge instead of 3-4+. Note that these are guidelines – you aren’t going to poison your baby with 4 day old milk, but there is a good chance it will smell bad and you won’t want to feed it to the baby (or baby will refuse it). From what I’ve been told/understand, milk that has gone bad usually smell rotten before it reaches dangerous-to-baby levels.

        This is the CDC recommendations: https://www.cdc.gov/breastfeeding/recommendations/handling_breastmilk.htm

    • October says

      I don’t know the actual reason, but I assumed it was because it would heat up the cold milk, and then when you went to feed your baby you’d heat it up again, and maybe it’s not great to reheat milk more than once? That said, if the amount of warm milk was much less than the amount of chilled, I’d just mix them together and not worry.

    • Pogo says

      I followed this for the first 6mos or so of kiddo’s life and now I don’t care. At 6mos he was crawling around on the floor licking everything so I started to relax my insanity about him eating contaminated food.

    • rosie says

      I believe the rule is to avoid warming up the cold milk by adding body temp milk to it. As an EPer, I will add a little just pumped milk to a cold bottle–like if I have 5 oz in the fridge that is cold, I would add an ounce of fresh to that on the theory that there was so much more cold than warm that the temp was unlikely to change drastically.

  2. Anon says

    Need some help naming our daughter so taking a poll: how would you pronounce the name Maia:
    (a) My-uh
    (b) Me-uh
    (c) some other way

    • October says

      A, My-uh. I can imagine lots of people also saying “May-uh.” Mia would be “Me-uh”.

      • Anonymous says

        I would wonder if it is MAY-a but probably guess you meant for pronunciation A above.

        I think that (oddly, given my spelling above), if you want a name pronounced MY-a, you use Maya Angelou’s spelling.

    • Anonymous says

      I’d go with (a) if I had to but probably try my hardest to avoid saying the name until I heard someone else say it.

    • Anon says

      I’d probably stumble over My-uh or May-uh until I heard which one you wanted.

      To me, pronounciation isn’t a thing to get caught up about. People are able to understand Andrea as awn-dree-uh or ann-dree-uh, so they’ll figure out your pronunciation too. (Or conversely, they will stumble over something as basic as Ian and Noah, looking at you, Family!!!)

      • Anonymous says

        When I was a kid, I had no idea how to say “Iowa”. My first attempt was “YO-wah.” Damn that phonics!

        • Anonymous says

          Isn’t phonics just sounding out words? If you sound out Iowa it’s pretty accurate – I-Oh-Wa. I feel like there are lots of English words that are pronounced really illogically but Iowa isn’t one of them.

          • Anonymous says

            In English, a lot of 2-vowel combinations are . . . dipthongs? Where you don’t pronounce the letters individually.

            I-owa works (like e-mail). IOWA is not as straightforward maybe?

            But in “mail” you pronounce “ai” as long A, not as MAY-I-L (unless you are really southern, where there are no one-syllable words (possible exception of “Hey,” which takes two seconds to say).

    • Anonymous says

      A friend just named her daughter this. I assumed it was My-uh (like Maya) but she says it is MAY-uh. I think she’s set herself up for a lifetime of disappointment at people mispronouncing it since MY-uh seems very logical to me.

      • Anonymous says

        It seems that you need to use Mariah to get a name pronounced like Mariah Carey, but I know a lot of Marias who pronounce it Mariah. Maybe it is a southern thing?

        I remember the season of the Real World where there was a Maya and an Amaya and I loathed them both — that name-family seems fraught with potential missteps unless you are Maya Angelou.

        I envy boys sometimes — how many ways can you say James or Luke?

    • Anonymous says

      (a) but I’d be open to be wrong about it. I think (b) would be spelled Mia.

      Can I ask a sincere question – not trying to be snarky at all! – what is the appeal of an uncommon spelling of a name with a common spelling? I’m curious but cant think of a way to ask this IRL. I know sometimes it’s an older spelling for family reasons but are there other reasons?

      • Anonymous says

        I’m Elisabeth instead of Elizabeth. I don’t know why my mom did it, she claims she the “z” looked “harsh” and the “s” softer. People sometimes role their eyes when I say “Elisabeth with an S”.

        • Anon says

          Are they pronounced different? With the “s” I would think it would be Ah-lyssa-beth instead of A-Liz-A Beth

      • Pogo says

        Sometimes it is related to the family’s country of origin or ethnicity (z vs s as explained above comes to mind).

        Other times, I have no idea. One of my coworkers has kids whose names all start with the same letter, even though that means 2/3 kids have an uncommon spelling of common names.

        • Anonymous says

          I’ve never understood people who do this. Unless she has like 10 kids it shouldn’t be that hard to come up with a bunch of normal correctly-spelled names that start with the same letter.

    • Anonymous says

      C – May-uh. But that’s probably because I assume that a) would be Maya and b) would be Mia.

    • Anonymous says

      My-uh. I suggest spelling it Maya if you want people to pronounce it that way.

    • Meg Murry says

      a) My-uh (probably, unless I’d recently been introduced to a little May-uh or similar). But I’d probably mispell it as Maya until corrected.

      That said, we’re self selected internet strangers who generally well educated. Who you really need to poll are the people you interact with in real life, especially if it will drive you insane to have family, friends, in-laws, daycare teachers, pediatrician’s offices, etc use a pronunciation other than your preferred one.

  3. Anonymous says

    I love the idea of these as a housewarming present but most of my friends kept their birth names and I’m not sure how they’d want the name portion of the stamps to read- “the Smith-Jones family,” “Jane Smith and Dave Jones,” “Jane and Dave” etc.

    • Anonymous says

      I refer to my friends as the Smith-Joneses.

      My female friend is Smith. She married Jones. They came to a party just after they got married and I announced them to the group (most of whom were at/in the wedding” as “the Smiths / wait! the Joneses / f*ck it, it’s the Smith-Joneses” in a bit of alcohol-induced stumbling. And . . . it stuck. They are always referred to in our set as the Smith-Joneses and many people who don’t know the story think that that is their last name. I’d almost give them a Smith-Jones stamp, but think it would be a useless trinket. I send their xmas cards to “The Smith-Joneses”.

      They are actually just the Joneses.

    • avocado says

      In my observation, couples with different last names tend to decide on a name for the family unit once they have kids and can no longer get by with calling themselves “Jane and Dave.” It usually seems to be “the Smith-Joneses,” even if no one in the family actually has a hyphenated last name.

      • EB says

        This is why I ended up changing my name after several years of marriage – I decided I wanted the same last name as my son (and any future kids). Young just getting married me had not even thought about that!

        • Anonymous says

          That’s why many of us hyphenate our kids’ last names. Curious you don’t see many dads taking one for the team that way.

          • EB says

            I see what you’re saying. Change moves slowly. It was a thing among my circle to move your old name into your middle name, which I did and then didn’t give it another thought.

            And truly, it just didn’t matter so much to me anymore. And when I got married, I felt very strongly that my name was a piece of my identity and I couldn’t imagine changing it…and as time went by, that feeling just went away.

      • AIMS says

        We tend to do Smith/Jones in lieu of a hyphen so that it’s clear it’s not a hyphenated name.

          • Anon in NYC says

            Ummm…… I love the idea of a lightning bolt.

            DH and I have a name that can easily be a mashup, so we use that as our family name. So instead of Smith/Jones we use “The Smines” (obviously it’s better than that!).

        • Mama Llama says

          This is what we do too. One of our names is very long and Slavic, so the slash is also the most space efficient way to do it.

        • Anonymous says

          We do that, too. May have to look into the whole lightning bolt thing…

        • Anonymous says

          We are Jones+Smith because:
          – I am Smith
          – DH is Jones
          – kids are Jones-Smith
          – The kids’ last name was important to me because it’s the only indicator that they are my ethnicity (they look like Jones and their first names are intentionally bi-culturally appropriate)

          Our family name confuses people a lot and we are often called Smith-Jones family by people who know me before DH, which is fine, but people who know DH first, just call us Jones family, which is really infuriating (I AM LOOKING AT YOU, IN-LAWS!)

          But…I am going to borrow that lighting bolt idea to replace my previously clever “+”

  4. anon says

    Today’s the last day of school. To celebrate, I invited all the school-age kids on our street over to have popsicles in the backyard tonight. (Did the same thing last year, and it was awesome. Everyone ended up hanging out for several hours.) This year? Literally two families have RSVP’ed yes. One said maybe. The rest haven’t responded at all. This isn’t the first time recently where this has happened, and I’m having a hard time not feeling a little hurt and disappointed. I don’t know if it’s a personal thing, or if everyone is just really busy, but I am not feeling the love in our neighborhood anymore. At least the people who are coming are the people whose company I enjoy most, but it’s hard not to wonder if we’re being shunned or whether something else is going on. I’ll admit that this kicks off all sorts of latent anxiety I have about social rejection and whatnot. Feels so dumb to be in my late ’30s and still dealing with this stuff.

    • GCA says

      Could they just have forgotten to respond? Are they out of town or have people visiting for the long weekend? Is there literally something else going on (a different end-of-school-year event at other kids’ schools)?

      • Meg Murry says

        Or if they are me, they are still up in the air as to whether one of the kid’s baseball/soccer games that was rained out last week is going to be rescheduled for today since the coach doesn’t always keep us informed until the last minute, and when he does it’s by texting my husband, not me, and my husband doesn’t tell me about it until 15 minutes before we need to leave.

        Oh wait, that’s just me projecting some of my stress and grumpiness onto your situation. Sorry about that. But I suspect there are a lot of families in the area feeling the same way with “what the heck is on our calendar for tonight? Is it correct or has it been changed 3 times again already and not updated?” It’s not you, it’s just May. Have some extra popsicles as backup and enjoy the people that do come over.

    • Anonymous says

      Sending hugs! I suspect they are all planning to come but didn’t bother RSVPing.

    • Anon in NYC says

      Aww, hugs! It’s so horrible that these insecurities can still rear their ugly head. I feel them too (late 30’s as well). Maybe they meant to rsvp and just forgot? I literally forgot to rsvp to someone’s bridal shower, and forgot it was even happening and didn’t go, and I’m usually super on top of stuff like that.

    • anon says

      Unless you did something specific, it’s highly unlikely you are being shunned. It’s much more likely that people are busy or simply forgot. I personally think it is rude to not respond at all, but that’s what happens. This is a great idea though! I might steal it…

  5. ElisaR says

    Advice please! My husband and I have 2 small kids (25 months and 5 months). DH new job is turning out to be a real bear. He leaves for work around 6:30am and gets home around 10pm right now. This wasn’t quite what we were expecting but it’s been this way since our 2nd was born. I do drop off and pickup at daycare and everything else. I am kind of losing it. This morning when I was getting lunches and bottles together for school I realized I can’t keep this up. I am not a super organized person and maybe that is the answer. I should have prepped all that stuff the night before but I was So. Tired. I feel bad bc I sent DH a text that said “This is not working. I need help.” I feel bad because it’s not like he has free time or is out galavanting — he’s working and super stressed. I’m working and super stressed. We both make about the same amt of money so it’s not like one is the breadwinner. Am I unreasonable for asking for more help? My job is very flexible that’s why I take on the household duties but I don’t want to do 100% of them, I’m not a SAHM!

    • Mama Llama says

      You are being completely reasonable! What’s your budget like? Could you hire a mother’s helper to come in the evening to help with dinner/bath/bedtime and prep for the next morning? How about a meal delivery service or a laundry service? If you can’t afford those things maybe your husband could spend a weekend day doing meal prep for the week or something else that would make your week days easier. You are a solo parent during the week, which is SO tough especially with such young kids, so your husband should help you brainstorm ways to lighten the load

    • ER says

      You need more help. Totally reasonable, and start lining it up now. I would go for someone to pick the kids up from school and take them home 2 days/week, or a housekeeper who comes every weekday for three hours to pack lunches, bottles, etc.

    • anon says

      You do need more help, and something has to give. Is the job situation a short-term thing for your husband that will get better when he’s more established? Because I don’t see how it’s feasible to have the job he has, and still have a family life, too. A mother’s helper is great, but that goes only so far.

    • Boston Legal Eagle says

      Absolutely reasonable to get more help. Agree on getting a mother’s helper/babysitter type person to help out on the weeknights (I would do every weeknight if you can afford). As for husband’s job – is this going to be his long-term hours or is there some big project going on now? Are you ok with this being the long term arrangement? My job can have busy days, but I tend to know when they’re coming and it’s not every day for months on end. If it was, I don’t think either my husband or I would be happy with the division of labor at that point.

    • GCA says

      How long is his job expected to look like this? A few weeks? A few months? All jobs have busy periods, but doing this year-round doesn’t seem sustainable. Are you in a place where you can afford to get more help, or could you lean on neighbors and friends for support? (When my husband was on a month-long work trip, we couldn’t afford more help, which was an added stressor, but we have great neighbors and I could drop kiddo off for a playdate while I got stuff done.) If it’s a short-term thing, I’d eat off paper plates, skip the cleaning, save the laundry for weekends when husband can help out. If it’s long-term, something’s got to give.

    • CPA Lady says

      Okay, I would switch over to 100% triage mode until he can help your or you have someone else helping. Can you get someone to come stay with you and help you while you get help in place? Can you take a day off work to get things in place so you can lessen your mental load?

      Ideas of things to do:
      – write down everything you can think of that needs to be done on a running to do list that you keep on your kitchen counter. It’s stressful to feel like things are falling through the cracks.
      -Sign up for subscribe and save for everything you can
      -hire a house cleaner, ask about what services they provide, and get as many of the services as you need to feel sane
      – don’t get bogged down in trying to find the “best” house cleaner. just pick one from google and go with it. if you need to hire someone better later you can.
      -Get grocery delivery
      – don’t bother trying to make dinner from scratch or anything like that if you’re doing it. Get pre-made salads, meals you can just pop into the oven, baby carrots in individual pouches, etc. from the store.
      – Buy duplicates of bottles, pump parts, lunch containers, underwear, whatever you need so that nothing is a chore that has to be done every day.
      – its okay if you eat lunch out every day or get takeout every night. this is not forever.
      – If something can’t be run through the dishwasher, it doesn’t get used
      – come up with routines to streamline your life

      If you have any controlling type A people in your life, they might be happy to help you with this. I would love to. Maybe that can be my second career after I get sick of the taxes…

      • AwayEmily says

        This is such a thoughtful response. Taking some of these ideas for my own life!

    • Jen says

      You need more help. Your husband cannot do it. Talk this weekend about $$ and potential ways to get help–this shouldn’t be 100% on you to figure out.

    • Anonymous says

      Thank you everyone – it’s very reassuring to here all your thoughts and suggestions. We do have housecleaners every 2 weeks (honestly it’s the MOST stressful day to get out of the house because I have to straighten for them but at least our house gets cleaned). My mom comes over some mornings to help me get them out the door when she is available. I’m going to look into a mother’s helper. Especially with summer coming I think that will work. Costs aren’t a major concern, I just am not sure where to get the help. This morning I said to myself “I need to throw money at the problem….. but how do I do that???”

      • Anonymous says

        Ugh that was me, original poster. Lately I have to keep typing in my Screennname ElisaR when I comment and I forget!

      • Anonymous says

        If you can afford it, I would consider switching from daycare to a nanny/FT babysitter – then you don’t have to get everyone out of the house, the nanny can do some of the kid-related chores, and you have less stress about getting to pickup on time.

    • EB0220 says

      We did a similar schedule for about two years while my husband launched a business. It wasn’t quite as rough as yours because he could drop our older daughter off at school/the bus stop in the morning, although he didn’t get back until 10-11 pm. My coping mechanisms were: grocery online order/pickup on the way home from work, extremely low standards for dinner (sandwiches and steamed broccoli), babysitter two evenings a week and cleaners every other week. It was only sustainable because we had an end in mind, which was that he would quit his day job to run his business at some point. BUT in addition to coping mechanisms, I think it’s time to have a tough conversation with your husband. When my husband and I were in this position, we spent MONTHS talking about what was the right schedule for us. We ultimately decided that a more normal schedule was really important to us as a family so he switched gears and went back to his day job. That might not be the decision that everyone makes but I think you should at least set a date of “if it’s not different by x date, you need to make a change.”

    • shortperson says

      having a housekeeper doing our dishes makes us sane. the baby means soooo many bottles and pump parts to wash. if you have your mothers helper do a half hour of dishes every night after helping with the kids you will feel so much lighter.

    • S says

      So this is not a comparable situation at all, but last year my husband was traveling for work a ton, it was way too much for me, and we brainstormed a list of things he could do to make it easier for me. For us it was: prepping all of the daycare bottle labels before he left so I could just stick them on, doing all of the dinner planning before he left (that could be take out, microwave, leftovers of meals he cooked, stuff he pre-cooked for us etc. the key was I didn’t have to think about it at all (and I was very not picky about what dinner meant), and leaving me with all the dishes put away. Could you come up with your own list of things your husband has to do on nights/weekends to make this work for you for the short term?

  6. ER says

    I have a blocked duct for the first time in two years of nursing (two babies, one year each). I’m just weaning the second baby right now, and was down to nursing only morning and night. Should I take Sudafed or something to help, or do I need to wait for the blocked duct to clear?

    • rosie says

      You could take lecithin to try to help clear it. I don’t know that Sudafed would hurt since reducing supply wouldn’t be bad, but I don’t think that will solve the issue. I’d do warm compresses and massage, then nurse/pump to try to get the clog out so it does’t get worse. I’m weaning now and if I end up with a clog (had them a lot earlier on) I am planning to focus on that, then go back to focus on weaning.

      • Anon in NYC says

        Yes, I think the focus need to be on clearing the duct first and then focusing on weaning. I think you can absolutely take Sudafed, but that will reduce your overall supply for nursing. Warm compresses, massage, and pumping would be my first step.

          • Anon in NYC says

            Ugh, I feel you. I nursed for about 15 months and had only 1 clogged duct during that time but it was hell. I think it was about 24-36 hours before it became unclogged. Any longer than that and I would call your OB because you definitely don’t want it to turn into mastitis!

          • RDC says

            Late reply, but lots of lecithin and massage with a Clarisonic was what worked for me. You can use an electronic toothbrush or … other massager, too.

  7. Nanny pay question says

    We’ve had a nanny for our 2 year and 3 year old for about the last 8 months. This summer, we’d like to send our son to a summer camp from 9 until 12. It’s about a 10-15 minute walk from our house, and so we’d want her to drop him and also pick him up. (she doesn’t drive.) Should we pay more for adding on this duty? It does seem like a pain, especially since she’d have to walk with our 2year old as well. On the other hand, for a chunk of the day, daily, she’ll only be watching one child. I feel bad nickel and diming, because she is awesome, and I know the best thing is to just pay extra. But – like most everyone with kids in childcare – money’s tight, so I just want to see what is reasonable.

    • Cate says

      Pay by the hour and include hours when he’s at school, but don’t pay extra for having to do a drop off/pick up unless it’s adding time. does that make sense?

        • Anonymous says

          For context, I used to nanny part time in college and I would have probably quit if my employer took 3 hours of pay for one child away while they were at an activity. On the other hand, I took the older child to all sorts of practices and lessons and just got my hourly rate + metro fare when applicable.

          • OP says

            It didn’t cross my mind to take away pay – just trying to figure out if I should pay extra.

      • Anonymous says

        Yes it does, thank you! That’s what we were figuring – that we’ll keep the pay the same, and so it’ll be a wash, because now for 3 hours of the day she’ll only be watching one child. (The hours will remain exactly the same, because it’s in the middle of the day. )

        • OP says

          Sorry, that was me, OP, responding to Cate’s kind suggestion. (and everyone else’s!)

    • Anon in NYC says

      Personally, I don’t really think this is something that you need to pay extra for unless she needs to arrive earlier than she usually does in order to do drop off. If she’s normally there at 8, well, then this just becomes part of the daily routine.

      • Marilla says

        +1. In a way you’re adding an extra task (walks at scheduled times) but removing one at the same time (watching 3 YO for the morning). As long as it doesn’t mess with your 2 year old’s nap, I wouldn’t worry about it at all. If there’s a park near the camp, I’d plan for daily park time for the 2 year old after morning snack until pick-up time, on good weather days.

    • Anonymous says

      It would not occur to me to pay more for this at all if her hours are the same – she probably takes the kids for walks anyway, right?

    • OP says

      Thank you so much, all! I feel much better about keeping the pay the same – needed a gut check that it’s reasonable, and it certainly sounds like it is.
      Really appreciate your input. :)

  9. shortperson says

    i have a niece who is almost 7 but, according to her therapist, is about 2.5 emotionally. still has tantrums every day, still does mostly parallel play, finds disney movies like frozen too scary to watch etc.

    but she can read at about a third-grade level. any suggestions for chapter books? apparently most books for her “age” are too scary for her — too much conflict, people/animals getting hurt, etc. she’s home for the summer (refuses to go to summer camp) and she needs a big library to keep her busy.

    • Anonymous says

      What about older books like the Bobbsey twins? Or Anne of Green Gables series?

      • shortperson says

        i forgot about anne of green gables. i’ve never read the bobbsey twins so maybe! thanks!

    • NewMomAnon says

      These are old books I remember from when I was a kid, but….

      Amelia Bedelia
      Sideways Stories from Wayside School
      My Father’s Dragon
      Betsy-Tacy series (note: outdated racial norms in one of the books)
      The Boxcar Children
      Winnie The Pooh

    • Anonymous says

      I’ve been reading “Toys Go Out” to my 5-year-old, but I think a 7-year-old would like it. So far, the only scary situations are only scary for the toys in the story, but not for my very sensitive 5-year-old. There are also sequels if she’s into it.

      • shortperson says

        yes that is way too sad for us too! but reminded me of eb white and trumpet of the swan.

    • Anonymous says

      Boxcar children!! I’m reading this series aloud to my 4.5 year old now :) I do some minor editing (the second one has a near-drowning and the kids find a skeleton) but I think even if I read it straight through she’d be OK.

      I’m not wild on the gender roles but…it is pretty dang wholesome.

    • anon says

      Is 7 too young for Babysitter’s Club? I think I was in about 4th grade when I read those and loved them.

      Also loved Boxcar Children and anything by Louis Sacher.

      • Marilla says

        Definitely a big yes to BSC (and the younger books in the set as well – Babysitter’s Little Sister) and Boxcar Children. The “original” Boxcar Children books are more dramatic though – the later ones written by ghostwriters are lighter.

  10. Anonymous says

    Important PSA – the post office is going to issue scratch and sniff popsicle stamps in June. You can preorder now on their website. (Actually this is one of my time-saving tips – I like having interesting commemorative stamps and my local post-office is a nightmare, so I always buy stamps from the USPS online. $1 shipping but so much easier).

    • Spirograph says

      Oooh thanks for this, I just preordered some (and Mr. Rogers commemoratives, because I love him)! I keep normal Forever stamps from the grocery store in my wallet, but I also buy interesting stamps online to use on personal mail. Right now I have a National Parks sheet that is so pretty that I’m quasi-hoarding and only give them to people I really like. Yes, I realize that treating a stamp like a gift when it’s going on an envelope that will be thrown away is ridiculous.

  11. anne-on says

    Can I just take a moment to whine about May/June and the end of year schedule? There are SO MANY stepping up ceremonies/teacher recognition weeks/end of year gifts/sports banquets/class parties/etc. etc. etc. I feel like every single day has a different activity/outfit/gift/whatever associated with it and I am about to lose my mind. We’re about to go away for memorial day which will be an awesome trip…but getting us packed up to go is also causing my anxiety to spike and I’ve definitely been crabby/exhausted. I cannot.wait for summer camp to kick in!

  12. Child spacing says

    I’m sure this has been discussed many times before, and I promise I’ll read the archives, but I wanted some fresh opinions too.

    How close is too close to have kids? My first is coming up on a year and I surprisingly really want another already! If I didn’t work I think we would definitely try this fall. However, it feels like I *just* got back from maternity leave. Granted, once you’re pregnant you still have 9 months of work left, but I would feel… embarrassed? To announce another pregnancy this year or even early next year.

    Not sure what I’m looking for, maybe stories of kids spaced <3 years and your career didn't end?

    • ElisaR says

      mine are 20 months apart. Life is crazy. We didn’t plan it but this is the way it happened and frankly at 40 years old, I’m thankful.

      I didn’t think twice about taking maternity leave the year after I took maternity leave. There’s plenty more to be embarassed about–coming in with 2 different shoes, coming in with spit-up on you, coming in with leaky br*sts, running out to leave bc your child is puking at school due to norovirus and people think it’s the plague (ok it kinda is) and this was all in the last 2 wks……your childbearing is your business — no shame there!

    • EB0220 says

      Ha, well I can assure you that I had my kids 2.5 years apart and my career did not end. I’ve actually gotten promoted twice since I became a mom 6 years ago. In a way, it’s nice to just get the whole baby phase over with. Although your maternity leave looms large in your own memory, I guarantee that most people barely remember it. Plus, I found that it took longer to get pregnant the second time around…busier lives or something. So I say if you’re ready, go for it!

    • Delta Dawn says

      Mine are two years apart. The spacing hasn’t had any affect on my career, at least not that I can see. I work with several other moms who also have kids 2-3 years apart. I would not let work determine the spacing of your kids, if that’s the only thing that makes you want to wait. If you want them to be close in age, or want to get the diaper years knocked out all at once, or whatever other personal and family reasons you may have, then go ahead! But don’t at all let potential embarrassment deter you from having the family you want at the time you want it.

    • FTMinFL says

      My kids are 21 months apart and I have loved it. I took 12 weeks maternity leave with both. In my experience, this age gap works best if you are generally confident in dealing with kids. If getting out of the house with a 22-month-old and a four-week-old scares you, you may want to wait until your older child is a little more self sufficient. If you can relax and generally do well in joyful chaos, then I highly recommend it!

      Some caveats: we have a nanny and that helps a lot. She doesn’t do household tasks beyond making snacks/lunch for the kids and cleaning up after them, but it is really nice to not have to pack bags and schlep two very small kids to daycare every day. As a result of this arrangement we also don’t have to deal with sick days x2, which has been important for my job.

      The greatest challenge was/is the fact that my oldest still needed/needs a lot from me and I have definitely felt guilty about short-changing him. However, I’m not sure that would change too much with a greater age gap. My sister and I are 17 months apart and I remember nothing about our toddlerhood, but we talk every day in adulthood in spite of living on opposite sides of the country.

    • Anonymous says

      My first 2 are 2.9 years apart. This was perfect as my 2.9 year old was potty trained for 9 months before #2 came along. She was speaking in clear, full sentences, sleeping through the night in her own Big Bed, etc. She knew exactly what was going on when baby #2 came along and couldn’t have been more excited.

      My second and third are 23 months apart. We decided to start trying when my second was ~15 months and I got pregnant on the first try (had been 6 and 8 months). #3 just arrived and even though we prepped #2, she still didn’t quite get what was happening and now that new baby is here, she’s into it…she just isn’t in Full On Big Sister mode. #2 is still in her crib and we’re working on potty training. I’d hoped to have both of those out of the way before #3 came but unfortunately we had some back to back illnesses and teething and general upheaval so sleep has been tricky for #2.

      The three kids will be 2 grades apart in school due to their birthdays/cutoffs. I wouldn’t plan to have them any closer than that. If you have to pay for daycare, you may want to leave 3 full years to minimize time paying multiple tuition.

      • Anonymous says

        Oh, and to add, I was out of “baby mode” when #2 was born and it totally threw me for a loop. When #3 was born, I was still in diaper/not quite sleeping through the night mode and so it was NBD to just keep on not sleeping through the night. I’m not getting any younger and it was nice to frame it as “well 2 years from today [day baby is born], we will be DONE. We will be X years old and ready to sleep again.”

    • OP says

      Thanks for the quick responses! It is good to remember that maternity leave feels longer to me than anyone else, and that in the grand scheme of my career it’s not so long.

      There are no other women in my office with young children so it is hard to compare. Many of the guys have kids spaced closely, but of course their wives are home and they only took a week or two off each time so it didn’t really affect them the way it would me. I just got promoted to a totally new role and it feels like I haven’t got my feet yet, so that’s why I’m hesitating. But we may want 3 and if I don’t want to be pregnant at 40, closer is better. I think if I knew we were only going for 2 I’d be content to space further.

      sorry, I’m just rambling. I really just wish time would freeze while I was home with my newborn!

    • Anonymous says

      I have a 9 month old and plan to start trying again in December (so they will probably be spaced roughly two years apart IF we get pregnant right away again and if not, well, I’ll be glad we started “early”). I am 31, turning 32 later this year, and we want 2, maybe 3 kids before I am up for partner and-or 35. I have a hard stop at 3 anyways (assuming no multiples) because my OB won’t do more than 3 c-sections (and given my other high-risk factors, all of my pregnancies will be C’s). Most of my co-workers have babies 2-3 years apart, and it doesn’t seem to be an issue.

    • Spirograph says

      Mine are all around 21-22 months apart. Granted, I changed jobs before #3 was born, but I had no qualms about taking two maternity leaves so close together. I’ve been promoted (actually was promoted during my first maternity leave) and my salary is up 50% since my first child was born, so definitely not a career-killer. Literally no one at work, or anywhere else, commented on the spacing of my children.

      Fair warning, toddler + infant is exhausting (and infant + toddler + preschooler even more so). But there are plenty of positives to having kids spaced close together, and the really physically exhausting painful part mostly passes once the youngest is 1-1.5 years old.

  13. Boston Legal Eagle says

    Not sure how helpful this will be as I’m not yet on the other side of mat leave + 2 kids as my second is due in October, but ours will be 2.5 years apart (3 grade years apart with birthday cutoffs). I definitely was NOT ready for another one when my first was under one but felt more ready earlier this year so we went for it. I think some of the advantages of having kids close together would be that you can do similar activities with both and they can more or less entertain each other, which you wouldn’t get if the age difference was larger. Also, if you’re already in the thick of sleep training, diapers and tantrums, etc., might as well keep going with that and hopefully get that over with within a shorter timeframe. Disadvantages of course are that you have to take care of two little ones at the same time and the older one might not be as much of a helper as they still need a lot of hands-on care.

    As for work, most people at my office have had kids within 2-3 years of each other, so I’d say that’s pretty common and you have nothing to feel embarrassed about. Most people assume that when you’re in the baby phase, you’ll be there for a bit within a short timeframe.

    Totally a personal decision, but if you both feel ready, I say go for it!

  14. Anonymous says

    For LittleBigLaw re. family mascot: This will totally out me IRL (good thing my nickname is not automatically populating for some reason!), but we are known to family and friends as “the three bears.” It comes from an encounter we had with a family of bears when our daughter was little. People give us all sorts of bear gifts—Christmas ornaments, coordinating PJs, etc. We even have a license plate. Some of our siblings already had similar family themes/nicknames/mascots, so we just ran with the bear idea.

    • Edna Mazur says

      That is adorable. I had assumed your last name was Fox or something.

  15. GCA says

    Nickname auto-fill – oh good, it’s not just me. I switched browsers in an attempt to help my elderly laptop run faster and it didn’t work, but I thought that’s what was causing my screenname not to auto-fill today!

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