Washable Workwear Wednesday: Poppy-Lace Print Sheath

Cute dress!

I’d like to get an inexpensive stroller to keep at my mom’s house for when she has the baby. Is this something I should look for on craigslist or does anyone have any recommendations for something relatively cheap I can buy new? Ideally looking for something that reclines so baby can nap in it, not just an umbrella stroller. Would like to spend in the neighborhood of $100 or less.

Hi ladies. I came over here from the main site. I’m trying to decide whether and how to reach out to a friend of mine to see if she is doing okay post baby. I’m trying to sort out what is just normal new mom chaos and what could be PPD / anxiety. Basically, I’m just concerned because I’ve seen a huge change in her behavior from baby’s month 1-3, to the last two months. Baby is now 5 or 6 months. But, I don’t want to reach out concerned if she’s just overwhelmed and busy because then she will feel like she is failing in the friendship department and that is the least of my worries.

Friend has always been a super busy bee. She works a full time job. She has two large dogs. Her husband works shift work. She also has a night gig where she teaches a class a few days/week. After having a baby, she kept up this crazy life. She’d bring the baby to the class she teaches or hire a babysitter. She’d come to girls nights and bring the baby. She was always on the go. She even traveled for her night gig and I think she left the baby with dad for that but I’m not sure.

Fast forward a few months. She has stopped going to anything we invite her to. She doesn’t respond to group texts anymore. She will respond to an individual text but it is days later usually. I was at our mutual friend’s house on her street. She had said she couldn’t come over because baby was napping. I said we would gladly move over to her house instead so we could all hang out while baby napped. She said she wasn’t up to it. They made it to one other group event we went to but only stayed an hour. Her husband said they were stepping out so she could feed the baby and they would be back. She didn’t come back and texted hours later that she just decided to go home instead.

At her day job, she actually works with my husband. They had to do a one night overnight training this week. Apparently she made a really big deal about it around the office, complaining that it was unnecessary and that they shouldn’t be required to go. She ended up attending but brought her baby and her husband and only attended the mandatory classroom part and none of the other activities, including dinner. Everyone car pooled to this and the guy my husband rode with didn’t want to drive all the way back up to our city. He asked her if he could ride back in her car but she made a whole bunch of excuses as to why it wasn’t a good idea. He understood he’d be sitting in the back seat with the baby but she just seemed like it was the worst idea in the world. These are close friends too so its not like having to ride with that awkward coworker you don’t well. They have done a bunch of work travel together and even stayed at my husband’s parent’s house together and kept their per diem instead of getting a hotel once.

I get that having a baby is a HUGE life change. I’m just really concerned that she went from “I’ll keep doing everything and bring the baby” to suddenly not wanting to be around other people, not wanting to go to anything and refusing to spend even one night away from the baby. I’m pretty sure the baby had done an overnight with the grandparents before so I’m worried that she brought her husband and baby AND didn’t partake in any activities.

Should I reach out and if so how without adding to her stress?

Some (or most) of this could be due to the baby getting older, especially if they’re trying to sleep train or get a routine going. Newborns are way more portable, and they usually don’t have a consistent schedule, so you have a lot more flexibility early on than when they start having clear scheduling needs for naps and feedings–basically right around 5-6 months. That’s also when you might be moving the baby into their own room, so sleeping elsewhere could be fraught, hence maybe not wanting to send baby to grandparents. And teething!

I have a five month old and had to read closely in case you were talking about me–I only have 1 large dog (and this is my second baby) so I breathed a sigh of relief, ha! Obviously you know your friend and if it feels like something is off, do check in with her, but this sounds well within normal to me. The first few months are such a fog, and it’s just now that I’m starting to see what kind of “balance” (ha) might be workable longer term. My baby goes to sleep at 6:30 now! I barely see him on the weekdays so I’ve gotten really picky about what I schedule on the weeknights. So, anyway, a retrenchment period seems reasonable, particularly as you consider the developmental things I mentioned above.

You sound like a good friend. I’d recommend asking what might work best for some time together to chat–coffee in the morning? Lunch? Daytime is often better for me because I already have to be away from the baby for work and I hate to take away from family time…even when I know it can be a good thing, it’s very hard to do. Check in with her and give her a safe space to talk. And check back in, if she doesn’t respond the first time. :)

I have a 2.5 year old and she’s finally getting through the night without any accidents! She doesn’t wake up and pee, but she sleeps rock solid from 8pm-7:30am and wakes up dry as long as she/we remember to pee before bed.

The downside is that in order for her to go to bed and sleep so well, her naps stopped (ie she stopped napping so started to go to bed earlier and sleep more soundly). So, we only get 1-2 naps/week now. But no more diapers!! ::tear:: my little baby is growing up.

I don’t recall if anyone on here has twins older than mine (~26 mos.) but looking for some twin advice. I was thinking about potty training at some point this summer. I’m positive that B will be ready for it, but I’m not sure about A. A has been a little delayed in everything and he doesn’t communicate well yet. It might be that he’s ready by, say, July, but I don’t know. Has anyone potty trained twins separately? Part of me thinks that could be a disaster and just so much extra work, but I also know that B will be far easier to train now than once he’s older. (B hit the terrible twos when he was 9 months. I know he’s going to be the most threenager of threenagers and I’d rather do this thing while he’s still relatively compliant.)

On a somewhat unrelated topic, has anyone had experience with unexplained developmental delays? I’ve posted here about A in the past. I’m not really worried he’s autistic. He doesn’t have any repetitive behaviors, he makes lots of eye-contact and is very snuggly, he loves peek-a-boo or hide and seek (where he hides in a closet and jumps out when you say “where’s A?”), and he isn’t at all rigid about schedules or anything at all. (He’s incredibly easy-going in fact.) But he doesn’t say more than a couple of words and doesn’t often use them for communication (e.g., he’ll say “apple” when he sees an apple, but he won’t say “apple” to ask for some apple to eat). He recently had a one-year assessment after a year of physical and speech therapy. I realize these assessments are used just to determine if the kid qualifies for services, but they still must mean something. When he was first assessed at 13 months, he was at 13 months for fine motor and social/emotional, and was at 15 months for cognitive. He was delayed and developing atypically in speech and gross motor. In the last assessment, he was still at 15 months for cognitive! And he wasn’t past 18 months in any category. I realize that these tests don’t capture atypical development. So for example he can name all the colors, shapes, letters, and numbers (up to 20), but he doesn’t get “credit” for those because there are things in the 18 month cognitive category he can’t do, so he’s at 15 months since that’s the highest level where he can do everything in the category. We have an appointment with a developmental pediatrician in December (an appointment we made in January — it’s crazy how long it takes to get an appointment!). But I don’t even know where to start to understand this. I don’t know what might be out there that could cause these kinds of delays. The pediatrician just referred us to the county for the therapy services and to the developmental specialist. And the therapists and county coordinators seem to be prevented from addressing the problem holistically (I understand — they’re not doctors and can’t diagnose, but it’s still frustrating). Has anyone else experienced something similar? We know that putting him in speech therapy is the most important thing at this age, but it’s so frustrating having no information about what any of this could mean. Anyone have any thoughts?