Pumping Tuesday: Skipper Collar 3/4 Sleeve Blouse

Pumping Tuesday prompts me to ask: When did you stop or cut back on pumping at work?

My twins are 8 months old, and I’m pumping 4x/day (3x at work plus once in the middle of the night) to fill their bottles while I’m at work. I’m fortunate to have my own office to pump in and just enough supply to feed my littles, but I’m finding it incredibly time-consuming, draining, and exhausting. Yet I can’t quite give myself permission to stop. I don’t judge others for using or supplementing with formula (and, in fact, I myself was combo fed), but I worry that I will judge myself if I stop or cut back now when I could keep going until 1 year.

Paging whoever recommended this blouse (or others in the know): have you tried the white? A professional white blouse without buttons is the holy grail but everything is sheer! Let us know what colors you have and like

Any rec’s for a tandem double jogging stroller? My spin around the internet make this seem like a unicorn stroller. I’ll have a newborn and a 20 month old and live in a neighborhood with uneven sidewalks and frequent need to curb hop, so the massive jogging style wheels have been a godsend on my single stroller.

If not a tandem, are there are narrower-style double jogging strollers? Any of these that have a shot in heck at folding down enough to fit inside of a compact car trunk?

Any double strollers to just straight up avoid?

Any tips for getting a 20 month old toddler to sleep in a queen size bed in a hotel room? Son sleeps in his crib and only his crib. He has never successfully slept for more than 30 minutes in a PNP and even naps are in his crib as he’s home with family during the day. We’re embarking on our second ever trip away with him. The first was when he was 12 months. PNP was a disaster and he slept with us. He’s now bigger and I am pregnant again so sleeping with him sounds even less appealing than it did the first time. When I booked our room, I requested a crib but missed the part where it said crib OR PNP. When I confirmed hotel over the weekend, I learned they have PNPs only.

We are literally on our way, so no prep time! We have a suite style room with 2 queen beds and the main living area is totally separate. It’s only two nights. We have no intention of even attempting the PNP but I have dreams of him sleeping in one of the queen beds while we sit in the other room and enjoy being awake past 7:30.

We have his favorite stuffed animal, books, blankets, etc. and plan to barricade him with pillows and blankets. Is this the impossible dream or is there a chance it’ll work?

Any good tips for traveling with a whiny child? I have just realized how much I am dreading an upcoming four-day trip with my family, largely because of my nine-year-old’s behavior while traveling. She whines whenever we do something other than what she wants (and generally she wants to spend most of her time at the hotel pool, which I would never do at all without her). Sometimes, she enjoys the activity we’ve dragged her to. Sometimes, she whines and sulks long enough to ruin the time for everyone. She also complains about accommodations; she is currently complaining because we booked a one-bedroom suite — she’s mad that she’ll get a pull-out and wants her father and I (and her 7-month-old sister in a crib) to take the living rooms so she can have the king-sized bed to herself — and the hotel does not have a breakfast buffet.

Complicating this is the fact that the nine-year-old is my stepdaughter. Although I have been an active stepparent in her main home for several years, I have limited control over how she’s been raised. When she’s with her mom, her mom doesn’t consider what the kids wants to do or what’s an appropriate activity for a nine-year-old. When she’s with us, my husband goes (in my opinion) too far the other way — there’s too much leeway for whining and he used to plan everything around what she wanted to do. So I feel that she hasn’t learned the natural give-and-take of a family vacation — sometimes you do something you are less interested in because other members of the family want to. Also, I get very frustrated by the whining and incessant questions about when we’ll leave any activities she doesn’t like, not to mention literal feet-dragging.

We have already planned what activities we’ll do, with her input. One of them she is not interested in, and she will also likely complain about seeing her great uncle.

So far my husband and I have agreed that we’ll set a schedule with two pool trips and tell her the schedule; if she harangues us for additional pool time, she’ll lose the scheduled pool time. We’re also only allowing her to bring two comfortable pairs of shoes, because otherwise there will be arguments over what shoes she can wear or complaints that her feet hurt whenever we walk more than a block. Finally, we’re trying to get the great uncle to join us for one of the activities she is interested in, rather than having a leisurely sit-down meal where she’s bored. I’m also planning to use the baby’s early morning wakings to leave the hotel room for some (semi-)alone time with coffee.

Any other strategies to implement or pitfalls to avoid?

Welp, I did go ahead and do the Oh Crap potty training over the long weekend. We made a lot of progress but still many accidents… and I am happy it’s daycare’s problem for the next few days (how convenient that it’s closed on Friday, ugh). The teachers were really supportive during drop-off, said accidents are no big deal as long as there are enough back-up clothes, and my little one was very very excited to show off his underwear (hoping that subsides a bit!). [Side note: How crazy is Oh Crap for insisting on a month without underwear?! I believe that it’s helpful, but most of us live in the real world, thanks.]

As some of you warned, it was a tough weekend, especially with husband gone. The kid does not like being cooped up. And I think I went overboard hovering over him too much. But, if he keeps improving in the next weeks, it’ll be worth it. Fingers crossed!