Nursing/Feeding Tuesday: Nite-Nite Light Bulb

Sometime in the last few weeks/months there was a discussion about someone’s little being the youngest baby in the infant room at daycare by a wide margin. Can anyone point me to it? We’re looking at a similar situation and I’m trying not to freak out about it,but I can’t find the thread.

I wondering what those of you with nannies do in this situation. We are going on vacation in a few weeks for 4 workdays. I’m not sure if I should pay my full-time nanny for those days. I’ve had this nanny for about 5 months and love her. In the past, when we haven’t needed her for one day, we haven’t paid her. If it makes a difference, she is 22, lives with her parents, and attends college part-time. We don’t pay her as much as the “professional” nannies in the area make, and this is her first nanny job. She also seems quite happy and has told me informally that she doesn’t want another job. She has taken leave without pay for her own travel, which we accommodated without question.

I know this makes me sound cheap, which I am a little bit, but I mostly want to do what is fair. We do give her bonuses occasionally- holidays, that time my potty-training kid crapped all over the hallway and she cleaned it up, etc.

I cannot believe I’m asking this, because I totally don’t think of myself as a Disney person, but we’re taking the plunge and going in late summer with friends and taking our 3 yo. She’s not a stroller person. At all. Ever since she could walk, it’s been a fight to get her to sit in it. That said, I’m told that if someone is under about 7 practically you want a stroller option at Disney. Is that true? Personal recs? And if so, what stroller? We have a City Mini and a Bob. Do I take one of those? Maybe I’m being paranoid, but I hate to lose either of them. Or do I buy an umbrella stroller? Or something else?

Any recs on great books for a 4.5 year old girl? She loves to read and loves princesses, but but no means do I only want princess books. Her mom is an engineer, so maybe some STEM themed books could be good. But bottom line, just some great books for that age (or even a bit older). Open to any and all ideas!

I’m pregnant and live in an area of the country that will likely end up having local transmission of Zika at some point this year. I’d like to be prepared and have some supplies at home before the network news headlines cause major panic. According to the CDC and EPA, they suggest pregnant women treat clothes with permethrin, use DEET, wear pants/long sleeves, avoid being outside at dusk and in early morning, etc. I’m also thinking about buying some indoor and some outdoor bug zappers. Should I consider getting our yard sprayed? Other ideas or thoughts on steps to consider taking?

I have never heard of these light bulbs before, but my husband had the idea to get a red light bulb for our small lamp in the nursery and it worked out great while we still had middle of the night feedings and diaper changes. I still use it for bedtime bottle and book reading. Yes it is like being in a photographer’s dark room, but it was cheap and does the job well.

My husband and I have very similar jobs. Similar titles. Similar roles. Similar employers. Our jobs are incredibly flexible. We’re expected to be in the office most of the core business day, but working from home or on alternate schedules is completely fine. We have two small children. Most mornings, I get up at 6:30, shower, do hair and make-up, then get kids up and dressed and downstairs. I start their breakfast then at 7:30, my husband takes over and I leave for work. The au pair comes on duty at 8:00 and my husband leaves for work at that time. His commute is about 30 min each way but mine is an hour. I get home at 6:00 to relieve the au pair (Fridays are different, but that’s a different story). I watch the kids while I make dinner. We eat at 7:00 and the kids go to bed about 7:45 (lights out around 8:15). My husband is typically home for dinner, but he kind of comes home whenever. He often says he has to work late. He also makes off-hand comments about how he works more than I do. When I have more work to get done I have to start at about 8:15 after the kids are in bed and work into the evening. He’s offered to do dinner/bedtime one night a week so I can work later. But it often seems like he wants that evening to work with his schedule. I feel like he has unlimited time every evening to work while I have to squeeze in dinner/kids and then try to get my head back in the game at 8:30. He’ll often have gotten home about that time, dig through some leftovers, then go watch TV. (It’s not like I was relaxing in the 2.5 hrs since I got home.) Between my longer commute and being on duty for kids in the evening, I feel like I get significantly less time to work than he does. He seems to have this assumption that he needs to work more than I do, that his job demands it. But as I said, we have almost the same job. We really just do the same thing at different employers. So I feel like my employer is getting the short stick (and I’m not putting in the hours I need to put in) just because, frankly, he’s the man. He doesn’t see it this way. If I say “I feel like you think you need to work more because you’re the man” he’ll deny it. But I can’t think of any other reason that he would think he needs to put in more hours.