A long time ago, in a pre-kid land far away, I was having dinner with a friend at a nice sushi restaurant. At the table next to us was a family with two grade school-aged girls. To my admiration (and slight surprise given my limited knowledge at the time of what kids eat), both kids ate (and liked!) the same sushi as their parents. I decided that if I ever had kids, I would try to raise sushi-lovers as well.
So far, so good! Our oldest feels like a big girl because she tried the raw fish kind a few months ago, and our youngest likes deconstructing his rolls before eating them.
If you have a sushi-loving kid (or hope to raise a sushi-loving kid), perhaps Melissa & Doug’s Sushi Slicing Play Set might be in order. The set includes 24 pieces for your aspiring sushi chef, including “sliceable” rolls, a wooden knife, a dipping bowl, and self-stick chopsticks.
Both my kids love playing kitchen, so I plan on tucking this away as a future gift.
The play set is $17.99 at Amazon and Target.
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Cb says
This is super cute! When my son was 2, we were staying in a hotel while visiting an ill family member. We had bought grocery store sushi and I went to wash my hands. Came back and my kid has systematically eaten all the sashimi. Cue frantic googling about toddlers and raw fish.
Anonymous says
Agree this is adorable. It would make a super cute gift.
Friday says
Oh Cb that is both cute and terrifying. And +2 super cute pick.
AnonATL says
That’s impressive for a toddler! As a mature adult there are still only certain fish types I can eat sashimi form.
Cb says
He’s got funny taste buds – salt and vinegar crisps, mushrooms cooked in soy sauce, smoked salmon. Super adventurous eater despite not eating anything but milk and pouches for the first 18 months.
Anon says
My child was super adventurous (including sushi) until she turned about 18 months and then it all went downhill from there, sigh. Apples, bananas, chicken nuggets and macaroni and cheese are sometimes tolerated, but she mostly subsists on milk and peanut butter sandwiches these days, except that she loves ground beef cooked with a nose clearing amount of ginger and garlic and a smidge of soy sauce so go figure.
Pogo says
Kids are weird like that – mine also enjoys smoked salmon, fancy cheeses and charcuterie. Will not touch lasagna.
avocado says
I have a picky eater with expensive taste. She begged us for sushi and the fancy Szechuan place so often that we finally had to limit these to celebrations only in order to avoid busting our budget. She will only eat cheddar aged a minimum of 12 months, preferably Canadian. When she was little and ordered off the kids’ menu, she used to ask the waiter “Is your mac and cheese Kraft or house-made?”
GCA says
My kids both rejected eggplant parm. What? It’s covered in cheese! Yet the 5yo will happily eat Brussels sprouts, sushi, and octopus. The 2.5yo, the pickier of the two, likes smoked salmon, Japanese curry, and farro. (Lest you think I have raised magical unicorns, neither slept through the night till at least 18 months. Luck of the draw.)
Tea/Coffee says
My kids love sushi and we had this set. I have to warn you, it did not occur to me that we were giving our son a big sturdy wooden knife. I’m pretty sure it “was lost” quickly :-)
FVNC says
Happy Friday! This seems like a parenting 101 question, but I don’t seem to have a great answer — for parents with multiple kids, when do you, if at all, intervene in sibling squabbles? This is run of the mill bickering/arguing; no physical danger from hitting, etc. Kids are 7 and almost 4.
Clementine says
If there’s blood, imminent injury or violence l, or tears, yes.
Disagreement because she looked out your window? Nope. Work it out.
anon says
My parents always stayed out of it as a kid and we ended up all doing lasting harm to our relationships with each other. I try not to solve my kids’ disagreements, but I do insist that they fight fair. No meanness or name calling. No using age, size or strength to take advantage of another. Even when we disagree, we treat our family like we love them.
FYI – my kids are also 7 and 4. We’ve hit a point where they mostly get along and can solve their own disagreements.
Mary Moo Cow says
I’ve been just okay with “How to Talk so kids will listen…” but really enjoyed “Siblings Without Rivalry “ by the same authors. I take the same approach as Clementine, thanks to that book.
AwayEmily says
+1 on the Siblings Without Rivalry book. I also liked a podcast I listened to recently, episode #127 on the podcast “3 in 30 takeaways for moms” called “Why you shouldn’t just ignore your kids’ fighting and what you should do instead.” It gave some really helpful examples of when/how to intervene and I liked that it focused on intervening as a way of teaching skills (with the long-term goal of not having to intervene because the kids would use those skills to work it out themselves). The podcast was an interview with Laura Markham, who also has a book on siblings but I haven’t read it.
blueridge29 says
I also found Siblings Without Rivalry to be a very, helpful book. I am excited to check out the podcast as well. :)
anon says
This is hard. I do more frequently than I’d like to, mainly because I’m still trying to teach them how to fight fair. There’s a big enough age gap (5 years) that I’m really sensitive to my little one getting steamrolled by her older brother, who has so many “power” advantages over her. My litmus test is: are they working it out, even if imperfectly? OK, I can back off. Or is someone at a huge disadvantage here, even if there’s no bloodshed involved.
Anonymous says
I intervene for physical violence or meanness like calling someone stupid/ugly or continued exclusion from group play (issue with 3 kids).
I also use the interactions as opportunities for asserting themselves. Your brother won’t stop lying on top of you after you tell him to get off and then you punch him on the back? Fair game. You won’t get in trouble. Very clear rules about no touching if someone tells you to stop.
Redux says
That is one of our bright line rules, too– no touching if someone says stop. I hope/intend that this is foundational to lifelong lessons in bodily autonomy. We also say “if s/he’s not having fun, you have to stop” which is a little more nuanced, but this stuff has to be nuanced imo.
Anonymous says
My basic approach is to enforce guardrails against actual harm, and let most everything else go. Kids are 4, 6 and 8. They get along really well or solve disagreements themselves the overwhelming majority of the time.
I discourage name-calling and will not allow insults that are targeted, hateful or gendered. “Poophead” gets a warning, but not an intervention, but “girly” gets a time out. I enforce fighting fair and remembering size/strength differences while wrestling. Wrestling must happen away from stairs, corners, and anything fragile, preferably outdoors in the grass. The thing I most often intervene on is yelling, but that’s just to tell them to take it farther away from my ears ,otherwise they’ll all be in time out so I can have peace and quiet.
FVNC says
Thanks for the thoughts and suggestions! I’ve got an old copy of How to Talk but for some reason the Sibling Rivalry book didn’t occur to me. And I’ll check out the podcast.
Anon says
I’ve noticed over the past month that my clean clothes are getting odd spots on them. They look like oil stains, but don’t seem to be that. Just a faint darker area on my clothes. I’ve only noticed it on my own clothes other than a few pairs of my kids socks. They’re in elementary school so we’re not talking bodily waste mixed up in the laundry.
We do full cleans on our front loader washer regularly, and we use wool dryer balls instead of sheets. I can’t think of anything that’s different about our routines the past month. Any ideas on what I can look for or do? I finally got a Pranayama cardigan for myself for Christmas and it’s already got two stains on it. I’m so sad!
anon says
Did someone have chapstick or crayons in their pocket that got washed?
Realist says
Some detergents do this in my laundry, but only sometimes. Biokleen sport and Seventh Generation are my culprits. I only use them on sheets, towels and athletic wear and switched to a powder for clothes. For some reason it is worse in the front loader than it was in my top loader.
Another possible culprit is hand sanitizer.
Pogo says
ooo hand sanitizer is probably what it is on my son’s! They sanitize constantly at school and I could def see him getting it on himself.
I had thought it was oil of some kind, like he ate salmon the day (see above lol) and then I didn’t treat it, but this makes way more sense.
Anonymous says
I don’t have any ideas re. the cause, but have you tried scrubbing the spots with Dawn? It will get out a lot of set-in greasy stains with one or two washes.
Anon says
+1 to Dawn
It is also the only thing that gets breastmilk out of all of my tops.
Anon says
Oooh thanks, I’ll try the Dawn to save my cardigan. I hope it’s not time for a new washer!
Lyssa says
I had that happen to me several years ago. I never could figure out what it was (and many of the spots eventually faded), but it stopped when we replaced our (practically antique, hand-me-down) washing machine. (I hope there’s a better solution for you, assuming you’re not looking to buy a new major appliance right now.)
Anonymous says
We started seeing grease spots in the wash shortly before our front-loader experienced a catastrophic breakdown.
Anon says
I’ve had this happen with a few of my whites, totally annoying.
I haven’t solved anything, although the one thing I did do is I used to often wash my whites on the “white” setting which uses warm water, and now I do everything on cold. Usually some level of light colors end up in my white pile, and I was thinking maybe the warm water was making colors bleed slightly? I don’t know.
TheElms says
I don’t know why this happens, but it happens to us too occasionally. When it does I add white vinegar to my wash and it both gets most of the spots out and stops it from happening.
Anonymous says
I had this happen earlier this year and discovered a random piece of dark blue fabric (likely denim from a new pair of jeans) had lodged it self under the gasket in our front loader. It was stuck there but getting wet/washed with all of our loads. And it definitely ruined some whites, which I sometimes wash on warm.
Anon says
DD has asked for sparkly high tops for her birthday (6). With laces. Any favorite brands? We’ve mostly been Cienta or New Balance people before this.
Anonymous says
Converse!
Anon says
Around that age, my daughter got a pair of JoJo Siwa glittery high-top sneakers with a large bow on them. I thought they were obnoxious but she wore those things until they fell apart, and all her friends begged their moms for a pair. They were a gift, but based on the person I’m guessing they were either Kohls or Walmart.
Realist says
Skechers has a lot of glittery options.
Baby Food says
Re-posting since it was so late in the day yesterday. Yesterday’s congressional report about major baby food brands has me concerned. We used Gerber with my first and just started giving Gerber purees to my 6 month old as well, but after reading the information in the report and thinking it over, I want to switch to something else.
I am so not a make-your-own-baby-food person, but I think that may be my best option. For those that have done that, did you buy a baby food maker or just use a blender? Any other tips? Everything feels hard at the moment!
Anonymous says
Making your own baby food will not help with the heavy metals that are in the vegetables themselves. My approach was to use organic baby oatmeal in place of rice cereal (organic to avoid pesticides, not heavy metals) and feed a variety of purees to minimize exposure from any one food.
Anonymous says
+1. This isn’t really new information, is it? This was also in the news when my elementary age kids were babies. We also did baby oatmeal instead of rice cereal, and a variety of purees/foods. Homemade doesn’t change the exposure, and while people say it’s easy…it was one more thing and I didn’t bother.
Baby food says
There is new information in the report that came out yesterday. I knew the old info and was generally okay-ish with it, but I’m not fine with the more recent info.
That said, this is a close call and I’m not suggesting that everyone needs to give up Gerber or whatever. I just would like to do something different.
Anonymous says
I thought the new info was that additives were a source of heavy metals? If this is the case, I’d just avoid brands with additives.
Baby food says
Yes, I think that’s right. I just can’t figure out which brands *don’t* use additives. Gerber only lists the actual food on its ingredients, so I’m fully confused.
Anon says
I don’t know about this particular issue, but unlisted ingredients in general are an enormous problem in food. (Not just contaminants, but actual deliberately added ingredients that the FDA has declared unnecessary to list on labels thanks to industry lobbying.) People with certain allergies and medical issues have to do a lot of research.
Anonymous says
This list is old, but reflects the results of independent testing:
https://isles.org/sites/default/files/Lead%20safe%20baby%20foods%20list.pdf
Anonymous says
My baby would never eat homemade purees. The store-bought ones are smoother and more appealing.
anne-on says
I just used a blender. Steam the vegetables for a bit less time than you think (you want them to turn a nice bright color) and then shock them in water (immerse them in ice cold water to stop cooking). Save the steaming liquid and add it sparingly to the blender to help get to your preferred texture. The silicone ice cube trays are great – once the cubes are frozen I’d pop them out and store them in large ziploc baggies.
If you live near a farm you can often get bulk discounts on ‘imperfect’ produce that will still make perfectly fine purees! Sweet potatoes, apples, green peas, carrots, and spinach were the ones I usually made. In the summer I’d do big batches of plums and peaches when they were on sale. I’d defrost the cubes the night before and do my own ‘combos’ – so apples and spinach were more readily accepted than straight spinach. And we used to joke that sweet potatoes and apples were baby crack in our house.
Beware – my kid would NOT take jarred baby food after we made his. The way they have to pasteurize the processed stuff does (imo) make it taste a little weird/tinny.
Lucky says
You can just use a standard blender, no specialized equipment necessary. As one commenter mentioned, there are still issues with heavy metals even if you make your own, because it is naturally occurring, so you want to limit/monitor things like sweet potatoes, carrots (i.e., vegetables that grow IN the ground), and rice cereal (I use oatmeal cereal instead). I am on kid 2, and I only make baby food once a month or so at this point–I make a an entire blender full and freeze it in the OXO tot containers or Kinde bags. They can be really simple mixtures that you can whip up in about 10 minutes (canned pumpkin and cranberries is a big hit right now), or you can get fancier and steam/cook more complex purees (both of my kids have enjoyed a pureed beef stew). I supplement with pouches. I make my own baby food because I really enjoy it and I’ve done it for so long that its a relatively easy process for me. If you want to do only pouches, you can limit the heavy metal exposure by just monitoring the type of vegetable, and especially limiting sweet potatoes. I don’t think the congressional report went deep into this, but the initial report that sparked the congressional investigation talked a lot about it–the group that did it is called Happy Babies Bright Futures.
Lucky says
Oops, sorry, that was supposed to be a reply to OP!
AnonATL says
We make purées for our 6 month old, but he loves to eat anything and everything.
I use frozen steamed vegetables, applesauce, or I’ll boil something like sweet potato or carrots while I’m cooking dinner.
Whatever is steamed or boiled goes into the blender with a little water and then I freeze some and serve some. It’s not that time consuming but it does take mental energy to plan his menu a bit. I have one of those individual serving size smoothie blenders which is more manageable.
If I forget, like last night, he gets applesauce or rice cereal which I’ve recently read is practically useless for nutrition purposes but it works.
AnotherAnon says
When my kid was 6 months I got a gentle reprimand from our ped that I hadn’t been offering solids. I was working 80 hours a week and traveling and hadn’t had mat leave so I just did the easiest thing for me: started giving some of what we ate at breakfast and dinner. He got: tiny bits of scrambled egg, mashed avocado (he projectile vomited it but now at four he loves avocado), yogurt (he ate so much yogurt), mashed blueberries, tiny mashed pieces of banana, tiny bits of baked salmon, tiny bits of ground beef (did not like), mashed beans, tiny bits of rotisserie chicken. I made exactly one batch of pureed vegetables and he would not eat them. Lots of moms on this board have more helpful advice re making your own purees though.
Knope says
We did exactly this. I never really understood the desire to give babies perfectly pureed food. I’m not a baby-led-weaning purist, but it really was not at all hard for us to offer very soft mashed foods (banana, avocado, sweet potato, scrambled eggs), steam vegetables and mash with a fork, or offer naturally smooth foods (canned pumpkin, yogurt, applesauce). It really took very little effort at all. Kid is now 4 and we had no issues with this approach – he’s a pretty good eater.
Anonymous says
Some kids won’t eat purées unless they’re super smooth. We tried things like mashed banana and canned pumpkin and even blended-at-home foods and nothing worked until we offered store bought purées, which are much smoother. Kid started eating finger foods around 10 months and has no issues now (except standard toddler pickiness) so it was probably just a preference but she’s very stubborn and it was much easier for all of us to just accommodate her preferences.
Anonymous says
My baby learned to crawl early and therefore burned a ton of calories. When we started purees at 6 months, she was not old enough to accept lumpy homemade purees, but she needed massive quantities of food: minimum 3 jars of purees, a baby yogurt, and 3 bowls of baby cereal per day. Just yogurt, cereal, and applesauce would not have provided enough variety. At around 8 months we could mash or chop up table foods as you describe.
Anonymous says
My daughter never really took to purees at home and got most of her calories from milk/formula and then finger foods, but the pouches were life-saving for travel, especially in foreign countries where the food we were ordering in restaurants wasn’t something she would eat. As she got older we brought her stuff like crackers too, but she’s easily constipated so the pouches were necessary to get fruit and vegetables in her while traveling (and sometimes at home too). They’re also amazing on planes because sucking on one can relieve ear pressure and they’re less messy than most finger foods. YMMV but we used pouches until she was almost 2 and I feel like they saved us an enormous amount of time and stress even though she was a pretty good finger food eate.
AwayEmily says
I agree making your own food is a huge PITA but it is for a super, super short time (maybe a month or two?) and then they can eat chunkier “real food.” And you don’t have to get fancy with purees…we just stuck to foods that were already in puree-ish form (yogurt, applesauce, mashed sweet potatoes, mashed bananas, avocados, soft scrambled eggs). I never bothered making purees of chicken, broccoli, spinach, carrots, or any of the many other foods that go into most homemade baby food.
Baby food says
Thank you! It feels more doable when I think about doing it that way.
Pogo says
Agreed – that’s basically what I did (see below). It’s truly such a short time.
Anon says
I generally made our own baby food and used an immersion blender, which is very easy to clean. It wasn’t that time consuming because each batch makes so much, so if you freeze them in ice cube trays you can get months worth of each food. I would cook rather than steam where it made sense – baked sweet potatoes, squash, etc tastes so much better than steamed. You also don’t really need to blend things that are baked to be very soft. I also would cook fruit down a little on the stove and then strain raspberries or other things with seeds. If you need recipes definitely ask, I’m sure everyone here has lots we can share.
Anonymous says
This is what i would do too. For a couple of weeks I cooked extra of the veggies that we were eating / cooked a little ground beef with no seasoning etc.. I did poach a couple of chicken breasts in broth and used the immersion blender on that. Worked like a charm. (I did squash, carrots, chicken, sweet potato, ground beef, broccoli, spinach)
for fruit i would often just soften some frozen fruit and smoosh with a fork. I never strained out seeds.
By the time my initial stash ran out, i really didn’t need purees anymore. i was just cutting up small normal foods.
Except sweet potatoes…. the magic delivery device. I made several batches of that. Half turkey chili / half sweet potato = win (for example)
Pogo says
I would steam or even just microwave frozen food (peas, squash, broccoli, etc), then immersion blend. I portioned it into an ice cube try, froze, and would defrost the little cubes as needed.
However my kid also ate baby mum-mums (rice husks) before I learned they were a major culprit. He loved those things.
I also transitioned pretty early on to finger foods and honestly I think I “made” baby food like 6 times. I’m lazy and I fully bought into the “food before 1 is just for fun” so I didn’t really care how much he ate. Other than the fact that I did start w/ purees, I basically did BLW. He was a great eater until he became a picky toddler at 18mos.
Anonymous says
Ok, I actually made baby food for a family I babysat for in college. It took a couple hours once a week.
Preheat oven. Use a large pot with a double boiler. Bring water to boil while peeling/chopping potatoes. They go in the water before it’s boiling. Trim green beans to steam in double boiler. Peel carrots/ sweet potatoes, toss with olive oil. Roast them in the oven. Cut up broccoli. Pull out the green beans and purée in mini food processor. Scoop green bean purée into glass jars/boxes and set on table to cool to room temperature. In a small pot boil frozen peas. Clean food processor. The broccoli should be done. Purée, scoop, clean. Potatoes should be done. Purée, scoop, clean. Peas should be done; purée, scoop, clean. If orange vegetables aren’t done roasting, spend some time labeling, cleaning potato pot. Purée, scoop, clean for the orange vegetables.
Clean and label while you wait for purées to cool to room temperature. Freeze half.
I did a mix of this, day of purées, and lots of finger foods for my kid, but I was working part time, unlike my college boss.
Curious says
Talk to me about maternity clothes. I’m just starting to pop a button on my tighter jeans. Did you use and like belly bands? Did you buy maternity jeans or stick to leggings? What about tops? When do you need what? I cannot believe how lost I feel about this :) For what it’s worth, I’m WFH with a casual jeans-and-nice-top workplace and will be until at least month 8.
Curious says
I just realized that I’m so confused because normally I would go places and *try things on*… Not really what I want to do right now, and I would like to minimize trial and error with online shopping.
Anon says
I used belly bands for the early stages that you are in. I bought (actually, mostly borrowed) maternity jeans, but I’m kind of a jeans over leggings person in normal life and I wasn’t pregnant during a pandemic. I was able to wear my regular Lululemon leggings for workouts all throughout my pregnancies, but that was back when waists on pants were generally lower, so maybe it would be different now.
This is one of those things where, while annoying, I wouldn’t “pre-buy” for too much bigger sizes than you currently are too far ahead. It’s really hard to know how your body & your belly will specifically change, and time that with what the weather might be at that time. You might also find you are able to get by with a lot less than you would otherwise assume – also where the pandemic comes into play.
Tea/coffee says
Congrats!
I liked belt bands for the early “regular pants aren’t comfortable but I’m not ready for maternity pants “ stage and the postpartum “don’t quite fit back in my regular pants” phase.
In between – def maternity pants. Jeans and leggings both. I would get jeans in your situation also, even though wfh, bc you might need them post partum as well (i did)!
Idk if old navy still has their maternity ribbed tank tops but my youngest is nearly 6 and i still wear them. Mostly to sleep, but still…
Are people still buying/selling clothes on Craigslist/fb marketplace? What i would do is try to find a few pieces in decent shape at a reasonable price point… under belly leggings, over belly panel leggings, a few tops, etc. try everything (which you may not need right away anyway) and then buy more of what you liked.
I did not need maternity undies or bras but ymmv
Anon says
I feel like so much of this is trial and error based on how you feel in the clothes. Personally, I did not like how belly bands felt on my stomach for some reason, but I know that many people love them. I went straight to maternity pants/jeans or larger sized leggings. For tops, I just wore larger tops until they became noticeably not large enough. Then, I went to maternity tops. Mostly from Motherhood Maternity. Some brands are better for certain people based on size availability. FWIW, I was a 16/18/xl/xxl petite.
Anonymous says
I did not like the belly bands. They were uncomfortable and I was always afraid my pants would gap or fall down. If they interest you, I’d buy just one to try.
I liked “demi panel,” under-belly, or foldover waist maternity pants from the very beginning.
Anon says
As others have said, this is really going to be trial and error for your body type. My hips expanded in the first trimester, so even though I wasn’t showing, none of my normal pants fit even with a belly band. I ended up wearing my regular Everlane work pants two sizes up until about 24 weeks. I was also able to wear some under-bump maternity style pants– I think I got some from Gap. Otherwise, I wore leggings and elastic waist skirts etc. in the early stages. At some point, I switched to all maternity leggings. (I’ve been pregnant all winter.)
For tops– I was able to wear a lot of my normal tops that were oversized until about 24 weeks. This is really just going to depend on how your body carries the weight, etc. GAP has some cheap maternity tops that I’ve been wearing at home. For bras– just try to buy sizes bigger than what you’ve been wearing but buy more forgiving things like bralettes, etc. if you’ll be at home.
I also really encourage you to not pre-buy. Try to only buy a few things for what you need at the time– they may fit you longer than you think. You may also have to have several capsule wardrobes throughout your pregnancy.
AnonATL says
Something random to consider about leggings, when you are massively pregnant they are super hard to get on and off because you can’t easily bend over and pull them over your feet. Or at least I couldn’t.
I lived in the Levi’s maternity jeans on Amazon that were under the belly from 12w on. I carried super low and couldn’t wear regular pants quickly. I got a skinny Jean and boyfriend cut.
Walmart also has great deals on maternity basics like tanks and tees. And old navy.
AnonATL says
Oh and I liked the belly bands for the gentle support in those early growing pains. It also helped reduce the beer gut look I had going for a while (again I carried pretty low). Somewhere around the 20w mark when things really started growing, I wore a belly support brace daily because my back was killing me. I wore that thing up until 36+w and it made a huge difference.
Congrats btw!
Anon says
I did a hair band looped through the button hole, and then used a belly band to cover that up as if I was wearing a longer tank top under my shirt. Esp if you’re working from home, this should be sufficient for a few months.
But once that stopped working, I had to go with a full belly coverage maternity pant because I carried high and those half-belly pants just rolled down under my bump. I also carried my second high and all out front, but it was the dog days of summer so I just wore maxi dresses with an unbuttoned blazer over top and dared anyone to say anything to me about it. You won’t know until you get there what is most comfortable for you.
Anon says
I hated belly bands and just wore regular leggings until I had to switch to the maternity type. If you have any foldover waist leggings, those ended up fitting me all 9 months. I preferred dresses so that I didn’t have to deal with waistlines.
Minimal says
I bought one pair of maternity jeans, but I didn’t end up wearing them. I used hair ties on my regular jeans until that no longer worked, and then it was warm enough for me to switch to sundresses. I bought 5 maternity maxi dresses and wore them in rotation. I bought a few maternity tshirts that I wore in the first trimester but not afterwards. My regular workout capris fit throughout (i just pulled them below-belly once belly got big), and workout tanks also fit b/c I had three with ruched sides. I did buy two pairs of Lululemon align leggings so I could wear after pregnancy as well. I needed new bras fairly early on but only once (didn’t continue to grow), and around month 8 I started wearing my post-partum undies (i bought 10 pairs of nice black high-waisted pairs from Soma on supersale). I also bought four nursing tanks that I wore in my last month or two of pregnancy as well.
I work from home under normal circumstances, but generally travel 1-2 times per month. This didn’t happen b/c I got pregnant in January 2020, so my last work trip was at 9 weeks pregnant. I bought zero work-appropriate maternity clothes. I just threw on a blazer or cardigan over my maxi dresses for Zoom calls.
Anon says
I’ve been pleased with GAP (leggings, jeans and tops). I tried to stretch out my regular clothes as long as I could in previous pregnancies, but this time I switched to maternity sooner (by 20 weeks) and it was the right choice. I felt more comfortable and I looked better – oversized regular shirts made me look boxy, maternity clothes felt cute.
anon says
My first time around I tried really hard not to buy anything until I was big enough to need maternity clothes, making do uncomfortably with a belly band. I ended up regretting this because I had nothing in a size up for my return to work, when I wasn’t yet back in my very fitted sheaths and suits and had to go shopping with a breastfeeding infant.
My second time around for first tri/early second tri I bought a capsule of affordable floaty dresses in a size up, as well as a couple of blazers in a size up (to help with my increase in cup size). The blazers worked through my whole pregnancy over maternity dresses and I was thrilled to have the floaty dresses for return to work.
If you need larger tops, just get a few in a size up. They’ll likely be useful later. No need to hobble along until you’re ready for maternity tops. On bottoms, wear whatever would be comfortable. I ended up preferring dresses because they worked well to hide my belly, but was also grateful to have jeans in a size up post-delivery.
Curious says
This is all so helpful! I appreciate the advice not to buy ahead. So many of the words here are helpful (didn’t know about demi and full panel, for example). Thank you all!!!
Pogo says
Honestly with WFH I’d go straight to maternity leggings and jeans (jeggings really). I found maternity jeggings super comfy (I was a full-panel person) and that’s what I wore the entire pandemic: jeggings, maternity tank or tee, and an open cardigan. I found the belly band super helpful in the Before Times to extend the life of nice work pants, but who needs those these days.
I had dresses left over from my first pregnancy that I wore this past summer with my second, but again, with video-only I’d often just wear shorts (non-maternity running shorts or elastic waist, below the bump) and a work appropriate top if needed. So I wouldn’t go crazy buying a bunch of warm weather clothes until you get there.
Anonymous says
I swelled up in the belly area very early. I could not button my regular jeans from about 8 weeks and the belly band was really uncomfortable for me. I made do with dresses and skirts for a while but purchased maternity jeans VERY early (I just double-checked my email and I purchased them when I was 12 weeks so probably started wearing them around 13-14 weeks). I found the side panel more comfortable than over the belly but ymmv.
I had a pretty limited maternity wardrobe, but I worked from home a lot pre-pandemic so I only had to look presentable two or three days a week. I think in the end I had two pairs of maternity jeans, one pair of maternity leggings, about 5-7 maternity tops, and 2 maternity dresses, plus a couple of non-maternity dresses and tops I could fit into until very close to the end. And then I won some maternity sweatpants in a raffle. I didn’t really need them (I could wear regular sweatpants below the bump) but they were super comfy. Actually I still wear them, ha. I gave birth in late February in the Midwest but never purchased a winter coat, I just wore a big ski jacket of my husband’s on really cold days (and I ran very warm while pregnant so a lot of days I just wore a regular coat unbuttoned). I got my favorite pair of jeans at Old Navy, another pair of jeans and the tops at Pea in the Pod and the dresses were Seraphine brand. There was no pandemic but I purchased all this stuff online because I hate going into stores and trying stuff on. if you’re full-time work from home, I would probably just start with a couple pairs of maternity leggings and then start purchasing tops as more of your tops start to not fit.
Anonymous says
Even without a pandemic, going into stores and trying on maternity clothes is not really much of a thing. A Pea in the Pod/Motherhood and Target are the only chains that carry maternity clothes in store, and my experience was that the selection was limited and they never had my size in the styles that interested me. There was a fancy maternity boutique in town when I was pregnant, but it was $$$ and has since gone out of business.
Anon says
+1
Anonymous says
If I were WFH, I would just wear my pre-pregnancy PJ pants. Not even kidding.
Anonymous says
Me too. I worked from home a lot even before and this is what I did when I was pregnant.
Curious says
This is a great idea, actually.
Anon says
Has anyone had experience with putting a child in immersion program where neither parent is fluent in the immersion language? It’s French, if that makes a difference. I’m okay, not bilingual and my husband is absolutely not. Kid will be going into kindergarten and the immersion program is by far superior to the English school kid would get into.
anon says
I went to a French immersion from grades 1-3. My parents spoke zero French (and frankly not great English). I don’t remember any particular issues, but my parents probably had no idea what they were doing. I assume the teacher will speak English? That was one issue I do remember coming up, at one point one of the teachers only spoke French, which seems like a giant safety issue in retrospect and also much less likely to happen now.
Anonymous says
If you’re in Canada, it is very common for the parents to have no or limited French. It’s easier on the parents if the parents know French but the programs are designed to work for kids with non-French speaking parents. Like I can just correct kid as he is reading the book vs relaying the audio file from the teacher for him to listen to.
Anon says
My kids are in an immersion Spanish program but neither parent speaks it. We’re thrilled with our choice and the kids are thriving.
How many grades are immersion? Consider if they can maintain their language beyond elementary and not “lose” it once they hit middle school. Ours is full immersion in K and 1, but then start adding some English in 2-5 so they can transfer to any of the area middle schools since none are fully Spanish. One local middle school, which they’re guaranteed to get into if we want, offers about 30% of the classes in Spanish. And our zoned high school has several Spanish classes, including some AP selections, and seemed to add more each year (until this year). It also offers the ability to earn the Seal of Biliteracy on their high school diploma.
One thing we’ve run into as the kids get older is help on homework. Since we don’t speak the language, it’s hard for us to help or check homework – for example, we don’t know the life cycle of a butterfly in Spanish or how to read through a math word problem in Spanish. Luckily, the school offers online English translations of the textbooks, and have a rotating teacher on-call during after school care hours for assistance. We send the kids to that after school program and “highly encourage” them to get homework done at that point, since it’ll take a lot longer if they need our help at home. The school also offers the ability to call a conference at any time to help non-speaking parents understand their child’s progress.
We’ve also committed to the language and community as a family. I’ll never be fluent, but we make an effort to watch cartoons in Spanish, buy age-appropriate books in Spanish, attend local events geared to that community, to speak enough of it that we can roughly text with their Spanish-speaking friends’ parents about playdates or school events (in prior years). We have a diverse set of friends and neighbors so in normal times we get several opportunities to hear and speak it. This year I can tell our Spanish is fading without that constant social presence in our life.
Redux says
Where do you live? This sounds awesome!
v says
My child is in K in an immersion program and neither my spouse nor I speak the language. In my kid’s class, it’s 80% the non-English language but both the lead and assistant teacher speak English. So far it’s been fine, my kiddo was frustrated a bit at the beginning but now is excited to come home and tell me about what new words and phrases she knows.
Katy says
I did 12 years of immersion (Canada) and my parents speak about enough French to order in a restaurant. It was never an issue with homework etc (They must have sounded out spelling words, i guess?). The program I was in was 100% French K to 3. The vast majority of my classmates growing up did not have parents that spoke French.
Our son is now in an immersion preschool. It is amazing what they can learn.
With the pandemic, and the risk of school getting shut down, it was nice that i spoke French when his class was shut down in the fall because I felt like i could help him “keep it up”, although he is so young, i really don’t think that this matters. Hopefully, by the time your child is in grades 2 + when they are doing more complex assignments, homeschooling will no longer be a concern.
FWIW: we made almost no effort to do French during Christmas break, and he was fine in January.
My parents used to send us to a week or two of French language day camp in the summer “to keep it up” in the longer breaks (depending on what the childcare needs for the summer were). As we were older, it was encouraged to read a French book (independently) during other school breaks.
Trish says
My son just broke up with his HS sweetie after almost 7 years. They started dating at 14, went to college together and got an apartment last year. The living together helped my son realize he wasn’t ready and I am broken hearted. We had a rough start but I was completely ready for her to be the mother of my grandchilden and she was part of our family, Christmas, vacations, dinners, etc. Just looking for hugs and commiseration on an anonymous platform.
Anonymous says
If your son has the maturity to realize that he is not ready to commit to someone that he must be very comfortable with, you have obviously done a good job raising him. Based on this, I would guess that when he is ready he will pick someone lovely.
I think it is ok to miss someone who has been that integrated in your day to day life for a long time where it is unlikely that you will have a relationship going forward.
Anon says
this means you will be an amazing MIL one day. I’m sure it feels weird/sad after having her in your life for so long. And you sound like a lovely person so I’m sure she’ll miss you as well. Kudos to you for raising a son who realized this at 21 rather than after marriage and 2 kids or in a few years after stringing her along. Though if the issue is less their relationship and more that he isn’t ready to get engaged/married right now there is no reason that they can’t just date for longer
Anonymous says
In my experience, once you know you don’t want to marry someone, dating for another few months/years/decades is never going to change that. I think her son did the correct and mature thing, even if it is painful now.
Anon says
+1
Anonymous says
Oh, he definately doesn’t want to be with her anymore and she is devastated. She did not see it coming at all. I wish I could take away her pain and anguish but I cannot. I also wish he had decided before they moved in but he didn’t.
Redux says
As the eventual mother-of-my-MIL’s-grandchildren who came after my DH’s beloved high school girlfriend, know that I say this with love for your future self: get over it. They are children. They dated as children and are breaking up as barely adults. Sure you loved this person– you watched her grow up! and love your son! But they are so young and still discovering themselves as adults in this world and you only see a sliver of what they are going through together and separately. You are not there yet, but please commit to letting go of the fantasy you built for your son and his childhood girlfriend and embrace the partner he brings home next. It’s ok to be sad now but please: get over it.
Anonymous says
Yeah, this. (And I say that even though I was my husband’s first serious girlfriend.)
Anonymous says
Redux, I know I will get over it. I know that she will, too. I am just sad now and knew there would be stories here about similar experiences. That’s why we share, right? I know he did the right thing, 100 %.
Anonymous says
OOF I’m late to this but I also broke up with my HS boyfriend right before everyone was sure we’d get married. We started dating at 14, he got into Harvard and I “settled” by going to the (great) college in Boston I got into that was not nearly as good as the best school I got into. We dated all through college and broke up our first year out of college.
I broke up with him [long story, but we were different people- he kept putting his career first and I wanted something else] and it took a lot of years to heal. We are now 37, both married with kids. He came to my wedding and I was in his wedding as a groomswoman. He has a high profile job, lives in Manhattan, has a work to the bone sort of job with 2 kids, a Very Powerful Wife and two nannies with kids in Schools you Know. I live in the suburbs with a husband that coaches soccer. Our live is half the speed his is, which is how I like it. We’d have been miserable together. I really did love him, though.
Your son will find someone, and he has his whole life ahead of him. I really do know you will all look back in a decade and think it was the right thing.
Anonymous says
That was so sweet and what we needed to hear.
Anonymous says
We have to write our 3 year old a letter to be read by her teachers during “love week” (which I guess is the school’s alternative to V-day). Has anyone had to do something like this? How long was it? (I’m guessing it should be like a paragraph or so?) What did you say? I write for a living but am very stumped by this and not sure how to strike the right balance between sweet enough and not overly personal.
Anonymous says
That might be the worst preschool parent homework assignment I’ve ever heard of. Yuck. If they are reading all the letters in one session, I’d be very tempted to keep kiddo out of school that morning or afternoon.
Anonymous says
No unfortunately it’s all week! And they want multiple letters, so they suggested we ask grandparents or other loved ones to do it too. Thanks for the validation that this is terrible. I would much rather do something more time-intensive but less personal like making valentine’s cards for every kid in the class.
Anonymous says
Homework for the extended family too? That is effing insane. Although if you have enough doting grandparents who are willing to do this kind of stuff, you might be able to outsource the whole thing and skip writing a letter yourself. I have been known to send grandma to “mommy and me” preschool events in my place, and both kiddo and grandma love it.
Anonymous says
OMG. I am laughing out loud. this is terrible.