Washable Workwear Wednesday: Ruched Tank Top

TLDR, I need advice on just chilling while my mom is here.

My mother is coming tonight to take my SD to an amusement park for her birthday present. My mom loves her but also occasionally blames my husband/me for not being grateful enough for what she does for someone who is not her “blood relative.” This makes me so, so angry that I need to chill, and I have distanced myself a bit for this and other reasons. (Talking about this in therapy and have some ideas on working on this.)

Normally I try to clean the house extra and take care of some things I know she would harp on/comment on/make me feel defensive about, but this weekend my husband worked three 12 hours days, I was solo-parenting our 2 year old who was sick but also tantrumous and insane, then I got sick myself on Sunday, missed work Monday, and left work early yesterday because I was still bone tired. All that to say, I wasn’t able to do anything beyond empty the dishwasher and put away the laundry.

So I need some zen tips on just getting through the next two days, letting everything wash off my back, and letting the kids have some fun time with their grandma. Any tips on breathing deep and just letting it go? My mom tends to put me on the ultra-defensive, and I really am working on that reaction.

My twins have the Fisher Price Space Saver high chairs and I HATE them– the trays are too big to fit in our dishwasher so I always have to do them by hand, and the straps are not easily removable and they get truly revolting when you combine the applesauce/yogurt consumption in our house with the twins’ mediocre spoon abilities.

I’ve been thinking of switching them to booster seats at the table to avoid the tray issue, but I’m running into the same easiness-to-clean problem looking for boosters! I like the look of the OXO ones but Amazon reviews seem to complain about their crumb collection. Does anyone have a unicorn booster seat that a) straps to the chair below and behind (we’re still having some dinnertime tantrums and I don’t want them to be able to fling the chair over) and b) is legitimately easily cleanable, preferably with removable straps? If I could toss the straps in the washing machine once a week I wouldn’t get so stressed out nightly trying to scrub out the applesauce.

Just at my wits end with my 13 month old sleep issues.

She is a super spirited, high energy kid and I don’t know if I should just resign myself to sleep sucking for a few years, but ugh, if anyone else has been in a similar situation and has advice would greatly appreciate it.

We bedtime sleep trained her at 6 months. She woke up 3x night until 9 months, when we let her CIO in the MOTN and she started sleeping through the night for a month. An illness and she regressed back to MOTN wakings. We did CIO again at 10 months, she slept. Another illness, another CIO few days, then she sleeps.

After 12 months of age though, it’s just been terrible. She cries for 10-15 minutes at bedtime (7:30) and then is up anywhere from 45 minutes to 5 hours later. All she wants is for me to hold her and she sleeps in my hand, but when I put her back in the crib, it’s another 10-15 minutes of crying every.single.night anywhere from 1-3x night.

We just did CIO 10 days ago, she cried for 38 minutes at 1 am. She was sleeping great for 10 days after that night and then a few days, she’s started waking up again in the MOTN.

Just SO so so so so frustrated. I just can’t hold her all night like she wants me to, but I also hate hearing her cry so much in the middle of the night and having to repeat the CIO every 10-30 days. The crying also feels worse now, because she’ll say mom or dada and cries longer and louder than when she was younger.

She falls asleep independently at bedtime and she’s no longer eating at night. I’ve tried giving her motrin and it doesn’t seem to make a difference, although I do think her teeth are bothering her. I think she’s just having seperation anxiety, but I just don’t even know what to do.

Can we talk about baby-proofing? Is it a reasonable plan to make her nursery super baby-proofed (furniture strapped to walls, cords put out of reach, electrical outlets covered, sharp furniture edges covered) but then do minimal baby-proofing elsewhere in the house? Gates for stairs and putting chemicals/knives in the kitchen out of reach makes sense, but strapping all the furniture in our house to the walls just seems really excessive, especially our basement TV since she’s hardly ever down there (and can’t wander down there on her own if there are gates on the stairs). Do we really need to baby proof all the toilets or can we just leave the bathroom doors shut? Right now I’d say she spends 95% of her time in her nursery but I don’t know how that will change when she’s crawling.

So I’ve realized that I’ve fallen into the trap of buying my 3-year-old too many clothes. To add insult to injury, she has gotten super picky about what she wears. She snubs tops and shorts and even knit skorts; she looooves soft knit dresses. (I didn’t know that was going to become such a big issue when I bought the clothes originally.) I’m guessing our local consignment shop or a cousin will end up with a lot of nice pieces from summer 2018.

Until her tastes are settled, I may be done buying ahead for the future. And, I probably need to pare down what I purchase this fall. (We’re in a four-season climate.) I feel guilty about the amount of money and waste, yet it is so, so hard for me to resist the lure of little kids’ clothing. Has anyone had the realization that they just need to … shop less? And what was helpful in breaking the habit?

Also, realistically, what’s the right amount of clothing? I’ve gone down the rabbit hole of minimalist blogs, and while I admire the discipline, no, I’m not going to get by with having 5 shirts for the week.