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Updated: Nov 1, 2018 89 Comments · by

Washable Wednesday: Floral Printed Pencil Skirt

Machine-Washable Work Clothes· Recent Recs

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Striped Work Skirt: The Limited Floral Printed Pencil SkirtI feel like I was just ogling a similar skirt for something like five times this price — not only is this one on deep sale, but it’s also machine washable (and available in tall and petite sizes as well as regular sizes 0-18). It is a bit of a mystery why it’s called “Floral Printed Skirt” when, you know, it’s striped, but for $27 I’d take the chance. It’s actually part of a pretty great sale at Limited, so do poke around a bit if you have time — lots of lucky sizes, so start off sorting by that first. The Limited Floral Printed Pencil Skirt Here’s a plus-size option. (L-3)

Sales of note for 9.10.24

(See all of the latest workwear sales at Corporette!)

Kid/Family Sales

  • Carter’s – Birthday sale, 40-50% off & extra 20% off select styles
  • Hanna Andersson – Up to 50% off all baby; up to 40% off all Halloween
  • J.Crew Crewcuts – Extra 30% off sale styles
  • Old Navy – 40% off everything
  • Target – BOGO 25% off select haircare, up to 25% off floor care items; up to 30% off indoor furniture up to 20% off TVs

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Comments

  1. LSC says

    My daughter is sixteen months old. We did away with her pacifier cold turkey almost two weeks ago. She does ok at nap times, but at night she tends to cry for up to thirty minutes (or some combo of crying/yelping/squirming) before falling asleep. She also now protests going to bed as we are winding down for the night with stories, music, and lights off. She will scream, run, and kick to avoid getting in her crib! With the pacifier she would calmly and sweetly go to bed immediately without a problem. I thought this would resolve more quickly than it has…Has anyone had this experience? Advice?

    • TK says

      Nope, I’ve been putting off the inevitable – little TK almost always falls asleep easily with a pacifier and he turns 2 on Friday … any advice appreciated! I feel like I missed the window where I could take it away without a big fight, now I’m worried I’ll have to wait until he’s 3 and can better understand some kind of elaborate ‘reward’ idea – “when you can go to bed like a big boy, you’ll get ___ (some kind of toy.)” right now he has big, big feelings about things but doesn’t understand far away future things like “tomorrow.”

    • Anonymous says

      Can I ask why you got rid of it? I can understand getting rid of it for daytime as it can interfere with their speech development at that age – less babbling/attempts at words in the daytime when using soother. I’ve been to two dentists with my children – both confirmed that there is no issue with pacifier use as long as it’s limited to bedtimes/naptimes and they stop before their permanent teeth come in.

      • LSC says

        Mostly, I wanted to avoid taking it away later when she has a much stronger attachment to it. Our doctor recommended getting rid of it for this reason. Another reason was that she would lose the pacifier at night (out of the crib) and then wake up several times wanting it back. I also just felt like it was time, and I try to listen to that intuition. Interestingly, I actually hear her doing a lot more babbling at night, so maybe it is helping her practice her speech in some way? In any case, she doesn’t seem to actively miss the pacifier itself…It’s just like she knows something is missing or different.

    • EB0220 says

      Does she have a replacement comfort object (blanket, stuffed animal, etc)?

      • LSC says

        Yep! Part of me thinks it will just take time and readjustment, but all the books I have read are like “Oh, it will just take three days!!” LIES!

        • EB0220 says

          Did you do anything when the pacifier went away? My youngest (now 18 mo) never liked the pacifier, but was attached to the b**b. I weaned her around 16 months, and we spent a few weeks talking about how there was no more mommy milk, but we will still cuddle before bed. She seemed to understand a surprising amount. But who knows? Kids are so different!

          • LSC says

            Nope, I decided on a whim one night (after considering it for a long time), and just put her to bed without it. Now I think you’re right and we should have had a few nights of preparation by talking with her about it. Blast!

          • IMHO says

            Take this for a lesson as your children get older — they need to know expectations beforehand. Whether for restaurants, flying, family members, parties, school, car trips, religious ceremonies, babysittting, whatever… they NEED to know what to expect!

          • Anonymous says

            This. I was SHOCKED to learn how well books worked, even at a young age. “Teeth are not for biting” at 16 months and “potty” at 22 months both got the job done for me!

    • Pigpen's Mama says

      Almost a year and a half here and we still use the pacifier for bedtime and naps at home (I don’t think they use it at daycare) and in the car seat. If she sees one she goes bonkers and demands it.

      I was waiting on getting through some travel to pull the plug, but I keep coming up with reasons to put it off (we’re sick, we’re super busy, etc.).

      She also still has a bottle of milk in the am and pm during the week, and before naps on the weekend. She’ll drink milk out of a sippy cup at daycare, but not really at home.

    • Meg Murry says

      We took away my oldest’s pacifier at around 14 months, and he switched to sucking his thumb, which was an even harder habit to break (it wasn’t until kindergarten that he was really willing to try, probably due to peer pressure – and we had to put band-aids on his thumbs every night for 2+ weeks).

      We didn’t want to go through that again with my youngest, so at around 15 months we started just making them disappear and only offering once he asked for them (same at daycare, and he almost never asked there) and then around 18-20 months we instituted a “only in the car or in bed” rule. Which actually worked really well, because sometimes he would say or sign for his binky, and we would say “only in bed!” so up he would go to his bed for 30+ minutes to cuddle with his stuffed animals and his pacifier, and he almost never fought bedtime. We would also scatter his bed with 3 or 4 pacifiers at bedtime so he could always find one.

      At a little over 2, his brother was getting visits from the tooth fairy, so we decided to take advantage of it and suggest he “give his binkies to the binky fairy so she can give them to another baby”. We talked about it for about a week, asked him what big-boy present he wanted the binky fairy to bring (he picked a yellow ball, which whatever kid, that’s easy enough) and then one night we put all the binkies in a basket and they disappeared overnight, to be replaced with a yellow ball. Now at 4 he still points out “the ball the binky fairy brought me because I’m a big kid”.

      He had one or two rough nights, but after that he was fine with no more binkies. I know a huge part of that was that we just got lucky and hit on something that worked for our kid, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

    • TBK says

      B still has his wubanub (with a new, toddler-level pacifier attached) in his crib. He happily pitches it into the crib before going downstairs, but woe unto us all if Lion isn’t there at nap/bedtime! (But then my kids still get a bottle first thing in the morning at 23 months because B had a complete meltdown when I last tried to switch them to cups for morning. I consider it a prime example of picking my battles.)

  2. Zika Virus says

    Would any of you consider going to Brazil this summer? I’m having some second thoughts about traveling to Brazil given the publicity around the Zika virus, but I’m not sure if I’m overreacting.

    • Anonymous says

      I would avoid unless I had a specific reason – e.g. watching family member participate in Olympics. If I went with SO I would double up on birth control (usual method + one additional method). Would not go if TTC.

    • MomAnon4This says

      Long sleeves + repellant should help, too.
      I’m pregnant now, so no…

  3. A spa for mama.... says

    So I’m thinking of taking a solo trip, probably to a spa, in the next few months. I feel guilty for leaving the kiddo with her dad for a few days, but it was his idea. And of course I’ll miss her. I also am worried about actually unplugging from work, but I really need to and can’t seem to do that if I’m in town. And the cost, we can afford it, but the money could also go towards a family thing or the college fund. I’d like to take a trip with my husband, but we don’t have anyone we could leave the LO with.

    I should do this, right? It just feels so decadent and indulgent that I feel like I need permission or a better reason than ‘I’m stressed and sick of winter’. Stupid mom, wife, and worker bee guilt.

    • Momata says

      You should do it. I personally would feel MUCH less guilty if I were able to get some other girlfriends to join me; that way the trip also lets me catch up with friends, thereby being valid because not only am I stressed and sick of winter, but also because I never get any time with my girlfriends.

    • Anonymous says

      I did this last year for a weekend following a h3llish stretch at work and 2.5 months of being a single parent while my spouse was on an extended business trip. It was totally worth it — I came back feeling recharged (for about half a day, until I put in an 80 hour week to make up for taking the weekend off) and much for patient with my spouse and my child. I’m planning to do a similar trip this year.

    • anonymama says

      You should do it. You need it. Agree that it would be fun and less guilt if you had a friend join you. But, sometimes I don’t want to be with other people, even people I love (introvert!)…so I’d bring lots of novels and no computer and just enjoy myself.

      • Anonymous says

        This. 1,000 times this. Please go and tell us all about it so we can live vicariously through you. I would love to do this this summer when my littlest one is older.

    • Betty says

      Absolutely do it! It is not decadent or indulgent to take care of yourself. You will come back recharged and more able to take care of those other responsibilities. Last year my husband booked a surprise weekend away for just me. I felt guilty for going for all the same reasons you said, but it was so very worth it to everyone. I felt like it enabled me to shake a bit of the fog from my brain and have the energy to tackle things that had gone astray at both work and at home. Go for it! It will be a true vacation (not a “vacation” where you are actually taking care of everyone else)!

  4. Momata says

    Any tips or anecdata to share on sleeping arrangements for a jailbroken 26 month old? Our options are a crib (that does not convert), crib mattress on the floor, twin mattress on the floor, or queen bed. The queen bed will stay in the room regardless and that is the ultimate goal. Jailbreaks occur even with legless sleep sacks. Right now she’s in the crib with a pillow and duvet, with the door shut and an audio monitor. I’m only asking because we are losing sleep at bedtime and at naps to getting up and roaming about the room. Thanks in advance!

    • NewMomAnon says

      My kiddo sleeps on a twin mattress on the floor when we visit grandma and grandpa. I’ve found that it’s helpful to push one long side of it up against the wall, and a co-worker suggested putting a pool noodle under the fitted sheet on the other side (I’ve had good luck with old bolster pillows that were pretty flat). Otherwise, kiddo wiggles her way off the mattress in her sleep and then wakes up.

      Would also recommend a baby gate in the doorway if your kiddo can open the door, so you don’t have to worry about wandering the house.

      Otherwise, I’m following because my kiddo is so close to jail breaking and I am not at all looking forward to it.

    • Anonymous says

      Have you figured out why she wanders? My DD moved to a double bed at 18 months after a very brief period of crib mattress on floor. She would get up and wander (mostly like her head out of the bedroom) off the crib mattress but rarely gets out of bed, even now at 2.5.

      We had to sit outside her room for awhile and do a no-nonsense pick her up/plop back in bed if she got out but we also made sure she was super sleepy before putting her to bed. It helped a lot.

      • Momata says

        From what we can discern through the audio monitor, she is just interested in playing around her room – pushing buttons on her toddler clock and baby monitor (including the “PAGE” button – not smart, kiddo!), pulling her clothes out of her drawers, pulling books down, and diapering her baby doll at the changing table. We are surprised because she has always gone straight to sleep without crying.

  5. anonymama says

    I would be most concerned about getting hurt climbing out of the crib. Why not move her straight into the queen if that’s the goal?

    My first kid moved to big kid bed (a twin) at about 26 months. The queen may seem a little big (the twin did!) but you could make it seem smaller by getting two of those soft bumper guards (I think they are inflatable so they take up more room than just a solid railing). My kid never fell off his bed, even without a rail, but he doesn’t really move around much and never did in the crib either.

    She may have a couple more weeks of excitement when not bound, but eventually she’ll realize it’s not that fun and start sleeping again.

    • Momata says

      That’s what I’m leaning toward, but I didn’t know if that would encourage even more wandering. I like the inflatable bumpers – better than rails, especially for her big queen bed.

    • mascot says

      Can you make her room really boring temporarily? When we transitioned to the toddler bed, we took out everything we could that he could play with (and strapped the furniture to the wall). We also talked about staying in bed. I’d move her straight to the queen as well. She can make a fort of her stuffed animals and sleep in the middle.

  6. MDMom says

    Any thoughts or advice on not comparing your kid to others? My baby is almost 9 months, so around the age where you are on the lookout for major milestones. I really feel strongly about not being the kind of parent who plays “keeping up with the joneses” with my kids. Part of this is just my personality and part of it is wanting to break strongly and clearly against the culture of my husbands family which is obsessed with judgment-by-comparison (he jokingly refers to his cousins as “age matched controls”).

    I thought this would be easier but I keep slipping into the trap of checking the birthdate on the crib of that kid in daycare who is pulling up already and worrying if the kid is younger or close in age to mine. I also feel defensive when relatives make comments about what he is/isn’t doing already and speculating about how soon he’ll walk or whatever. Or when my husband tells me that so-and-so’s baby is cruising already. Part of the difficulty I think is that it is necessary to be aware of developmental milestones in order to spot any potential delays or difficulties. I’m finding it hard to be aware but not too aware. My goal is to fully embrace my kid as his own individual person. I want to nip this comparison crap in the bud early. I also need to figure out how to guard against outside influences who are judging how my kid measures up without being too defensive. But I think defensiveness comes from insecurity so I need to work on myself first. Any tips? Mantras?

    • MomAnon4This says

      If you’re close to DC I highly recommend a PACE group or similar parenting group.
      When I think of milestones at that age — I think of teeth. Teeth are definitely a milestone. But there’s nothing you, as a parent, can do to help your kid get teeth faster. (massage gums? no.) So, to me, that was definitely a lesson.

      Also, there’s justifications for everything… I know a baby crawling at 6 months, cruising at 7 months — she’s a LOT smaller than my guy, who has just started his scootching at almost 9 months. But he’s chubby and cute! And I’m OK with his level of movement and so are the teachers and doctors.

      I also “collect” stories of different development — a physics professor I know was rejected from kindergarten — because he couldn’t jump with 2 feet. I was designated “gifted” in kindergarten, I still ended up unemployed and living with my parents as an adult, whereas my brother with learning & social disabilities is a popular guy and has never lived with my parents as an adult! Who knows.

      You’re raising an adult, not a baby. Appreciate that kid at daycare who is cruising- gosh, they’re cute! and ask your doctor “when you should be worried”. You’re doing great.

      • MDMom says

        Ha teeth is a great example- he still has none and although I check constantly I don’t really stress about it because it’s out of my control. Plus I dont really fear that he’ll never get teeth. Not why the other stuff feels like it should be more in my control or is otherwise worth stressing over despite trying not to.

      • Famouscait says

        Our mantra about walking was that we’d NEVER met a person who was able to walk and just… never learned how. Your guy will get there (and teeth will come in, etc.) in due time. I don’t read books or developmental timelines, so I think that helps. We just discuss at each doctor’s appointment and go from there.

      • Anonymous says

        If you’re looking for anecdata, a friend of mine didn’t talk until he was 3. He graduated from Yale School of Medicine 4 years ago.

        • Anonymous says

          My stepdaughter also did not talk until very late, and she is now in 4th grade and does extremely well in school and talks nonstop…

        • Sarabeth says

          Ditto my close friend, who now is a professor of English literature…

    • Lkl says

      Our baby is a couple months older. What is really helping me with this is the motto, “What’s the rush?” Our 11 month old is not interested in walking yet. What’s the rush? Why should he be, just because some of his friends are? (This is not a great example because I actively don’t want him to walk early, but maybe a better example is drinking from a cup, which he struggles with.) I try to remember he’s his own little person doing things his own way. It’s also helpful to talk to my mom, my husband’s mom, and other mom friends and realize that there is a VERY big range of when normal babies develop different skills — my sibling, for example, who is now a college professor in a very literary area, didn’t talk until many months after I did. I just try to look at him as he is now, and enjoy where he is. Why speed things up? Then if there are any actual concerns, I note them and plan to ask his doctor about it. Mostly they’ve resolved before his next check-up and get crossed off the list. Plus, my own baby will always win any cuteness competitions in my mind :).

      • MDMom says

        In my case, the grandmas make it worse! My mom does it unintentionally by talking about how I walked really early (9 mos) so I feel like she expects my kid to be similar, even though my older sister walked on regular schedule around 12 months. She definitely isnt meaning to put on any pressure but it has that effect. My husbands parents are…well, they’re the reason he refers to his cousins age-matched controls. We saw them this weekend and my MIL stood my kid up (while holding him) and declared that she did not think he would walk by 12 months. This is ridiculous for many many reasons and I know it shouldn’t make me feel defensive but it does.

        I think the daycare ladies have a great attitude about it and are really good about just enjoying and celebrating each individual kid. I need to emulate them…

        • Lkl says

          It might be helpful to remember that it’s not “better” to walk at 9 months than at 13 months. Maybe more trouble for the parents, actually! There are plenty of developmental benefits to crawling, too. As people above have said, when the kid is 30, it’s not going to matter. I just try to remind myself that when I find myself comparing. I know I talked really early, could write my letters at 2, etc., and am a little more worried I’ll be comparing our baby to those milestones as they come along. But again, my spouse had a different timetable and he’s a perfectly well developed adult; other relatives had developmental delays as babies and you’d never know it now, etc.

          • Edna Mazur says

            Agree. I had an early walker and when he fell he lead with his head. My sister’s kid was at least four months later and mastered the art of “safe landings” right away.

    • NewMomAnon says

      Gosh, this is so hard. What helps me is imagining my ped’s response to any developmental concern I might raise. Every time we’ve had a well-baby check, the doc’s answer is, “She is doing so well!” I know that. I know that deep down, I have *no* concerns. Deep breath, it’s all OK.

      For me, the bigger concern is that my family all wants to coo about how “ahead” my kiddo is, and I know from experience that the effect of being “ahead” can be a strong desire to stay “ahead,” to the point of not taking any risks for fear of losing that treasured status. So I try to just chuckle and say, “She follows her own path. It’s fun to watch her learning,” or something like that. I try to let her know that I don’t care about development relative to other kids, so much as development relative to herself. Because being ahead as a toddler doesn’t mean anything when you’re 30, but I do want her constantly challenging herself and growing.

    • Anon in NYC says

      I hear you! My daughter is right around the same age (8.5 months) and just started to roll. Roll! I know babies born at the same general time who were rolling at 3.5 months. And she doesn’t even roll in all directions yet! She’s not even close to crawling or pulling herself up, and has no teeth. But I remind myself that she sits really well, babbles constantly, is curious and playful, sleeps really well, and is generally a happy baby. The pediatrician is happy with her development. So when I start to feel anxious, I just remind myself of those things. Sometimes it works better than others.

      No real advice, but definitely commiseration.

    • Anon says

      If it helps at all, uneven development has its own headaches. My DD was running at 9 months, but didn’t talk until well after 2. Her favorite activity from 9 months – 18 months was running out of reach to eat trash off the ground. She also threw huge tantrums because she couldn’t tell us what she wanted. It would have been so much easier if she’d walked later and talked earlier.

      • Anon says

        And now at 2.5 I couldn’t tell you who in her class walked early or late. No idea.

    • Pigpen's Mama says

      Mom of a ‘late’ walker here — she was ~15 months, so not late, just one of the last of her cohort to walk. Even though I kept telling myself she was within the normal range, I wanted to scream every time anyone asked if she was walking yet.

      What helped me was something a friend said ‘Don’t worry, she’ll get there, you don’t see middle-schoolers crawling to school with their backpacks’. I think because it was such a ridiculous image, it really hit home the idea that there’s a relatively wide range of normal development and in a few years it won’t even matter if a milestone that’s supposed to happen around a year happened at 11 months, 13 months, or 17 months.

      And also checking with her pediatrician. If she wasn’t concerned, I wasn’t going to be worried about it.

      Of course, this is all with the caveat that if your mommy/spidey sense is tingling, then push for more evaluation, but it doesn’t sound like that’s the case here.

      Also, my kiddo was one of the last to crawl or walk in her group of friends. Looking at them now, less than two months after she really took off walking, you couldn’t tell.

    • MDMom says

      I guess part of my concern is that this will be a life long issue- there will always be a milestone or something that someone else’s kid is doing that mine isn’t. Do you all feel that this comparison crap got easier or harder as your kids got older?

      • anon says

        On the other hand, there will also be something that your kid is doing that someone else’s isn’t. It evens out!

      • goinganon says

        I think you get better at dealing with it and ignoring the noise. My kid didn’t walk until 14 months, but now he’s super fast with surprisingly good athletic abilities.
        But, sometimes it’s helpful to listen to that voice that is triggered by watching your kid with a bunch of like-aged kids. Hearing other kids talk (and being able to understand them) helped solidify that we needed to get speech therapy. Watching my child struggling to control his emotions and impulse control when other kids weren’t having the same struggles anymore confirmed that maybe we should look at repeating that school year.

    • Meg Murry says

      It’s difficult, but it’s definitely something you need to keep in check because otherwise it will only get worse as they get older, and next thing you know you are worried that your kid is colorblind because how come he doesn’t get colors yet and the little girl next door is obsessed with them, or Johnny is reading chapter books in kindergarten and your kid can barely string together c-a-t, or Susie is playing crazy complicated piano pieces at 6. In my case, my oldest is book smart but stresses himself out about not being the best in his class and isn’t very physically coordinated, so we talk a lot about trying hard, not giving up and how everyone has some skills they are strong at and others they struggle at.

      One thing that helps is to remember that development isn’t linear, it usually happens in bursts. So all of a sudden, your kid will get into pulling up and cruising on furniture, and that is all he will do all day, while meanwhile another kid is working on babbling or the hand-eye coordination of picking up cheerios in a pincher grip and getting them to her mouth. So for every one thing your kid *isn’t* doing, they almost certainly *are* doing something else that the kid your are comparing them to isn’t.

      The other good news is that as they get older it all gets blurrier as to whether they started walking at 13, 14 or 15 months (I know if was spring and warm out, so …. etc) and really doesn’t matter so much.

      Our daycare does the Ages and Stages Questionnaire (ASQ) with us at least once a year, and it’s always been re-assuring to see that when my kids score low on one section they are high on another, so it’s a wash in the end – and even if they score in the “concern” area, often it just takes a little time and exposure and they catch up (and if not, you have specific items to address with your pediatrician). For instance, one of the questions on the 9 month ASQ is about picking up a string or toy on a string. My kid got a “not yet” because we didn’t have any toys with strings so he had never tried – but after letting him play with a few items with short ribbons he did that skill just fine on that skill by in a few weeks.

      The ASQ from 2009 is still floating around on the internet if you google “ASQ 9 months” or “ASQ 12 months” etc.

    • Anonymous says

      Mantra: “who cares?” My kid was on the earlier side for almost everything, but didn’t roll until like 5 months and didn’t get teeth until she was 14 months. We lovingly called her Gummer and laughed as she mashed steak with her gums ;).

      W/r/t other kids, I kind of kept tabs on the kids that were 3-4 months older than her to see what to expect. I.e. “Baby L is eating yogurt! I should think about that in a few months for DD!”

      She’s now 2.5 and the kids that were 4 months older than her but not walking when she was (she walked at 11 mos) all caught up.

    • SC says

      So, my son and his cousin get compared all the time because they’re 6 weeks apart, and were due only 2 weeks apart. But I try to adopt the perspective of, “Isn’t it so cool how different they are and how they have different personalities and abilities this early?” It will be so easy to compare them for their entire lives, but it’s more important to find joy in their differences.

      • Anonymama says

        Yes, start trying to repeat, and believe, the mantra that every kid does things on their own timeline, and as long as they are in the broad range of where they should be its not worth it to worry. Maybe the kid that starts to talk way late jumps right in to complete sentences, or the kid that’s a picky eater slept through the night right away. There will always be other kids who do things sooner, better, faster than your own – do not teach them that they have to be the best to earn your love.

  7. Anonymous says

    I have a friend who likes to brag about how she walked at 9 months. You read that right: the friend brags about her own self having walked at nine months (not her baby). I find it so odd. Once I said something along the lines of, oh yes, that must be why you’re such a gifted walker now. It just makes me so confused as to why that would be a point of pride. We both walk now. Like, THE SAME.

    I think projecting it a few years (or in this case, decades) ahead helps to put it into perspective.

    • Edna Mazur says

      My husband would do this too (mostly jokingly, he is athletic and I am extremely uncoordinated) until we were visiting my folks and my mom overheard him and mentioned I was an early walker too. Turns out I walked a month earlier than the hubs :)

    • MomAnon4This says

      This is hilarious and sad and reminds me of the Monty Python skit about the school of silly walks, or something like this. So funny!

  8. Buyer's Remorse says

    I love our city and moving “home” (where my parents/family still live) isn’t something I’m actually considering. But I’m looking into daycare options for our baby due in July, and I’m feeling jealousy/remorse/regret about life decisions when I found out how basically all moms I know here have their family taking care of their kid, either full or part time. For one, it’s been hard to get good daycare recommendations. And second, I’ll be paying $18,000ish a year in some kind of “independence tax” because I didn’t move home like literally every other member of my extended family when they had kids. I have six aunts that all live within ten miles of my parents, and almost all the aunts are involved in various cousins’ kids’ lives. I’m not at all worried about my kid not getting to see their family – we go back east quite a bit (only 3.5 hour drive) and I’m sure my parents will be here often visiting. My husband’s family is local, but his parents both still work and they aren’t “baby people” like my family – good to watch our baby in a pinch, but not for part time day care.

    Ugh I know I’m being immature about this, and I wouldn’t trade our life here, but MAN it would be nice to have family helping out.

    /whining

    • anon says

      Ha, that’s funny. FWIW I know no one who has family helping out regularly. I think I’d just remember that’s not the norm? Maybe it’s a cultural difference? You do you?

      • Anon says

        +1 I live within 10 minutes of both my parents and my in-laws, and 20 minutes from several aunts, but our kid will still be in daycare. Both sets of grandparents still work in some capacity, and that is just a LOT to ask.

        • Buyer's Remorse says

          You are both so right. We live in a city where tons of people have lived here their whole lives/moved back home, and I think it’s just unusual that I know so many people who have local family. And my friend whose parents live in Ohio but keep an apartment here so they can watch their grandchildren? Well that’s just pretty darn unrealistic. So thanks for the reality check – I was just feeling that opera-man character from Scrubs singing, “Mistaaaaaaaaaaake!” behind me as I held a daycare bill.

          • Anonymous says

            Mistake: living in Massachusetts, home of the $25k/year bill for infant care. We are under the $20k mark now in the toddler class but have another on the way ::weep::

        • ChiLaw says

          Yeap! My parents are ~1 mile away, but they have stuff going on, so baby’s starting daycare. I’m grateful my parents have been around to step up in an emergency, but day-to-day, I want the reliability of daycare professionals — not having to deal with the schedules of two people whose job is something other than caring for my kid.

    • Cdn lawyer says

      I’m also surprised at how common it seems for you. I’m in Canada so taking a 12 month mat leave. Many day cares here start at 16-18 months so we are lucky to have both sets of grandparents planning on providing care from 13-17 months. But that definitely isn’t the norm. Most people I know that want a similar daycare use a nanny for the first 6 months. To be honest I am pretty nervous about how it will go with grandparents but only time will tell! And I wouldn’t be comfortable with it being a permanent solution for a variety of reasons.

    • Philanthropy Girl says

      Sympathy from me. My parents are 2 hours from us, DH’s family is 10 hours from us. DH is a SAHD because there was no financial benefit to putting kids in daycare. My entire network is made up of those who have family watching children, those who are SAHMs or those who were SAHMs until their kids went to school. I personally don’t know anyone who has kids with a nanny/sitter/daycare.

      It must be a cultural/regional thing. It’s honestly a bit lonely in my community to be a working mom, and even lonelier for DH as a SAHD.

      You’re right – having family nearby would be a huge plus. But I wouldn’t leave my current home for anything short of my dream job. It stinks, and I’m sorry.

    • Lorelai Gilmore says

      Sympathy from me too. We live in the Bay Area, and even though I thought this would be full of transplants, an unbelievable number of my neighbors seem to have local family that provide at least some care – not full time daycare, but a few days a week, or a date night on the weekends. We don’t have any of that, so when we want a date night, we pay (our beloved and trustworthy) babysitter $25/hour for that privilege. Childcare expenses are just so, so hard.

      • Youngster says

        We are also in the Bay Area and got the brilliant idea from some of our friends to swap babysitting. Have you become close with any other families through your daycare or a mommy group you were in during maternity leave? There are two ways to swap: baby awake time – you take their kid while they go on a date and then switch roles the next time. (We’re doing that this weekend for Valentine’s Day and doing mid-afternoon dates.) Or you can swap after the kids go to sleep and go on a later-evening date. Leave your spouse at your house with your kid; you go over to their house and just sit and read a book/watch tv while their kid sleeps and they can go out on a desserts date. Then swap the next time. This saves a lot of money on babysitters :)

    • MomAnon4This says

      You know you’re just exaggerating in your head, right?
      I mean, that’s the way it is in your circle, with the parents you know now. But if that were true, there’d be no daycare centers or nannies in your town. There are a ton of other families in your situation, you just have to meet them! I highly recommend a helpful parenting class or mommy-and-me group — please, ask your pediatrician, ask your ob/gyne. You will need a support circle and you will need to feel supported. That’s the primary issue here.

    • SC says

      We live near all of my in-laws, who all liked to talk about how helpful they would be before our son was born. Nine months later, not so much. They all work and are actually busy people, so the reality is they want to be there the fun stuff and will help in an emergency or for an occasional night babysitting. Last week, when my baby and I were actually sick and everyone was miserable, my (retired) parents drove 10+ hours to help us out for a few days because the in-laws were too busy and didn’t want to get sick or pass our illness around the family. Now that we’re feeling better, they’re calling about how much they missed him and want to come over and see us. I appreciate the help we do receive and just having extended family in our son’s life. But having extended family around does not necessarily mean they’re available for full-time childcare.

  9. TBK says

    My kids did not fall asleep until 10:00pm last night… and were up at 6:15 this morning. No advice or questions, just ugh wtf kids?

    • layered bob says

      my daughter does that sometimes. like… kid, that is hardly enough sleep for *me*, how is that enough sleep for you?!

    • Edna Mazur says

      I feel you. My youngest didn’t go to bed until ten, woke up at midnight and puked on me, and my alarm went off at 5:30. WTF Kids indeed.

    • JJ says

      My oldest does that, too. And he’s got really fair skin, so he’ll get dark circles under his eyes after nights like that. You’d think he’d be tired, but no….

  10. Anon in NYC says

    What sort of child proofing would you do in a rental apartment? We don’t have any stairs inside our apartment but do have a lot of open shelving. We plan to live in this apartment for at least 1-2 more years (so we’re looking at a 1.5-2.5 year old). Is it worth it to hire a service?

    • Lorelai Gilmore says

      We were in the same boat (and also in a rental apartment in NYC)! We anchored all of the shelving units to the walls so that they wouldn’t tip over. We also added doors to the bottoms of our shelving units (we were using the Ikea Billy system) and child-proofed the doors so our child could not open them. We also added child locks to our lower kitchen cabinets. Finally, we got rid of our coffee table. which helped create enough space for her to toddle, roll, and practice crawling and walking.

      But child proofing is an iterative process – watch your kid, and adjust accordingly.

  11. Anonymous4 says

    Advice on job burnout?

    Things have been awful and wonky since coming back from maternity leave a little over a year ago. My job was totally changed when my position was merged with another, unrelated position – what in effect was a form of demotion. My boss is thrilled with the arrangement and there is no visible hope of any change in my position or any hope of a promotion or lateral move to a different position. The restructure that impacted my position is a severely limiting factor in my job performance. My original position is getting shuffled to the back burner, and my skills are growing rusty. Every time I seek to reintroduce original position tasks, my efforts are defeated by urgent demands of add-on position. I’m questioning my desire to remain in my original field and even looking to move into a new field – but I find myself stabbing in the dark randomly at anything that piques my interest.

    I’ve been applying for jobs for a year, with a number of promising interviews and no offers. I’ve been battling depression, which my counselor says is purely situational and will resolve itself when I get out of my current position. I scrape by doing the bare minimum, but no one seems to notice – I just had an excellent performance review because my boss is so happy with how I’m “saving money” by working both positions – actual results don’t seem to matter. I hate my job, I hate getting out of bed in the morning, and I resent leaving my kiddo behind to do something so miserable. Quitting is not a financial possibility, as DH has been laid off.

    I’m grateful to have a job. But it is slowly killing me.

    Hit me with your best survival tips!

    • MomAnon4This says

      Can you get meds? Even situational depression can be helped with meds. It sucks.

      • Anonymous4 says

        I’ve been working with my doc on a number of issues, which can contribute to depression. Next up to try is meds, so it’s on the table after some test results come back.

    • anon says

      in addition to inquiring about meds, if you have the energy, consider changing counselors – being told that you’ll be fine once you change jobs isn’t really helping you function NOW.

      • Anonymous4 says

        I’ve been feeling like this guy hasn’t been a good fit. It took me ages to find him, what with insurance complexities, but I agree a switch is probably necessary.

  12. meme says

    Can anyone recommend a good, easy-to-use, small baby food grinder? I want to grind up what the rest of the family is eating for the baby (starting a few months from now). TIA!

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