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I love a shirtdress for early spring, and this one might just take you all the way through summer.
This version comes in a universally flattering midi length and sports a self-tie belt and relaxed dropped shoulders. The flat patch pockets, sharp point collar, and shirttail hem evoke your favorite dress shirt, but without the formality.
For now, add a trench or longline cardigan and tall boots; for later, lose the layers and add some low-heeled sandals.
Banana Republic Factory’s Utility Pocket Midi Shirtdress is on sale for $59.49 and available in “barely beige” or “red parrot.” It comes in sizes XXS–XXL (most sizes still available) and petite sizes as well.
Looking for other washable workwear? See all of our recent recommendations for washable clothes for work, or check out our roundup of the best brands for washable workwear.
Sales of note for 7.10.24
(See all of the latest workwear sales at Corporette!)
- Nordstrom – The Nordstrom Anniversary Sale has begun! Here are all of our picks.
- Ann Taylor – Semi-Annual Sale! (Ends 7/12)
- Athleta – Extra 30% off semi-annual sale (ends 7/10)
- Banana Republic Factory – 40-60% off everything + extra 20% off your purchase
- Boden – 10% off new women’s styles
- Eloquii – Extra 50% off all sale
- Everlane – Up to 70% off
- J.Crew – End of Season Sale, up to 60% off all sale styles
- J.Crew Factory – 40-60% off everything + extra 60% off sale styles
- Lo & Sons – Summer sale, up to 50% off
- Loft – 50% off tops
- Madewell – End of season sale, up to 70% off with code.
- M.M.LaFleur – Save 25% sitewide. (Please correct me if I’m wrong, but I think this is the biggest sitewide discount I’ve ever seen…)
- NET-A-PORTER – Up to 60% off sale styles
- Rothy’s – Lots of great finds in the “final few” section
- Sephora – 25% off a ton of shampoos and conditioners (ends 7/10)
- Talbots – Semi-annual Red Door Sale, extra 40% off markdowns
- Banana Republic Factory – 50% off everything plus extra 15% off purchase
- Eloquii – Semi-annual clearance, up to 85% off
- J.Crew – Up to 50% off warm-weather styles; extra 50% off sale styles
- Lands’ End – 50% off your order
- Loft – $39 dresses and 40% off your purchase (ends 6/26)
- Talbots – 30% off all markdowns, summer favorites starting at $24.50 (ends 6/25)
- Zappos – 26,000+ women’s sale items! (check out these reader-favorite workwear brands on sale, and some of our favorite kids’ shoe brands on sale)
Kid/Family Sales
- Carter’s – Summer clearance up to 70% off; 50% off tops, shorts & more
- Hanna Andersson – Up to 50% off all dresses; up to 50% off all baby items
- J.Crew Crewcuts – Up to 50% off warm-weather styles; extra 50% off sale styles
- Old Navy – 50% off all polos; 60% off steals
- Target – 20% off women’s swim; 50% off patio furniture, garden items & accessories; up to 30% off kitchen & dining
See some of our latest articles on CorporetteMoms:
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And — here are some of our latest threadjacks of interest – working mom questions asked by the commenters!
- The concept of “backup care” is so stupid…
- I need tips on managing employees in BigLaw who have to leave for daycare pickup…
- I’m thinking of leaning out to spend more time with my family – how can I find the perfect job for that?
- I’m now a SAHM and my husband needs to step up…
- How can I change my thinking to better recognize some of my husband’s contributions as important, like organizing the shed?
- What are your tips to having a good weekend with kids, especially with little kids? Do you have a set routine or plan?
Esquinkle says
Checking back in after posting about my sister and hurt feelings. Thanks to everyone who responded – even the comments that called me entitled, which definitely echoes some of my internal dialogue! I know the issue is in my end and I’m the only one who can get a handle on my feelings. They just tend to surge every couple of months or so. Family dynamics are tough but I am very lucky to have the family that I have. I wasn’t able to respond that night but I also appreciate having this community as a sounding board, hence the follow up.
Boston Legal Eagle says
Hugs! I don’t have siblings but we’re not close with my husband’s siblings and part of me is sad that my kids won’t get that close family relationship. But they are all living different lives and honestly, they’re not very interested in our “boring” suburban little kids life. I’ve found some close friends who are like sisters to me, so I am leaning in to those relationships.
Anon says
+1 I’m an only child, and my husband’s sister is not close to us (geographically or emotionally) and childfree by choice. I would love for my only child to have biological cousins she sees regularly, but it’s just not happening. So I’ve leaned into my close friendships with her honorary aunties and their kids, who are similar ages.
Anon says
Hugs to you. I remember reading your post late at night so didn’t respond on that thread but I didn’t think you sounded entitled at all. You just want a sister who wants to be a part of your life (and I’m sure you want to be a part of hers too) and to be a part of your kid’s life and there’s nothing wrong for wanting that. I do have a sister who is like my best friend and we’ve just grown apart over the years as she’s going through some stuff so she hasn’t really been involved in my baby’s life, which hurts and makes me super sad at times but I try not to think about it and I have to remember that she has stuff she’s going through and not to take it personally. Like others noted, relationships have seasons and I hope one day we’ll find a way back to each other’s lives and I hope my baby will get to meet and become close to this amazing auntie he has.
Cb says
The school uniform shop is having a sale and I bought my son’s polos for P1 (our kindergarten equivalent). Reeling at the fact that my child will be starting school in 5 months. Anything you wish you had done before your kid headed off to school?
The school readiness is not nearly intense here – kiddo knows all his letters and numbers and is nearly there with writing them (on his own volition) but no expectation to be able to do so.
Anonymous says
Since he is already used to functioning in a group setting, he should be very well prepared! My biggest observation is that parents tend to get much more worked up about kids’ starting school than the kids themselves. If you present it as a fun, exciting new step and don’t make a big deal out of it, he’ll be much less likely to get worried. Whatever you do, don’t break out Daniel Tiger or similar books and shows unless he’s already expressed a lot of apprehension over the transition.
On a purely practical level, make sure he is able to zip his coat, use the restroom, tie his shoes, handle his school bag, open his lunch containers, etc., entirely on his own.
One fun tradition is to take a photo of kiddo at the front door before they head off on the first day of school every year. I love looking back on those photos and seeing how much they grow and change from year to year. Some of my friends whose kids have started college still send first-day photos home to their parents.
Cb says
His bestie is in P1 now, and his Monday/Tuesday nursery is in the same school complex, so hopefully it’s an easy enough transition. Sometimes they use the school gym facilities (for Scottish country dancing, naturally, go and watch the big kids play rugby, and they’ve recently had some P7 kids in doing reading time etc.
Pogo says
yeahhh on the potty front. How does one teach a child to wipe their butt?
Momofthree says
We explain it step by step. “Take x # of squares”, “wad it up”, “go from front to back”, take another x number of squares, repeat until clean, flush. Then we have them do it first with us doing a “double check” until they eventually do it well enough on their own.
HSAL says
My law school roommate took a picture of me on the first day so I could send it to my mom. :)
Anonymous says
I love this so much.
One of my colleagues asked her daughter to send her a first-day picture from college. She got a picture of the view out the dorm room window. Clearly the tradition was not as strong of a memory for the kid as it was for mom.
Anon says
This site skews very intense about school readiness. In real life many American kids start kindergarten not reading or writing or even recognizing all their letters.
Following with interest because we’ll be in this boat next year, eek. I remember someone once mentioning taking time off work to have a chill or week or two at home before their kid started K and I thought that was lovely.
avocado says
My kid is in high school and I still like to take the last week of summer off when possible.
anon says
Have one kid in elementary, one kid in middle school, and same. It’s just a nice time to bond, soak in the last bits of summer vacation, and start school feeling more relaxed.
anon says
I live in a school district with one of the most intense reputations in the Bay Area. To the teachers, it doesn’t matter if the children are reading or writing or recognizing all their letter at the start of kinder. That’s what kinder is for. Kids who are ahead will get more advanced books to read, but the group lesson are still going to be about the sound of whatever letter they’re focusing on that day.
That said, they very much would like the child to have good social-emotional and self-care readiness, like sharing, knowing how to be a member of a group, expressing one’s needs, able to fully handle their own toileting, able to open their own snacks/lunches, etc.
Anonymous says
I haven’t done this myself (kid too little) but read online a sweet tradition of taking your kid out for special outing before school starts. Like, beach and icecream, if that’s feasible for you geographically.
Cb says
Oh that’s lovely! School starts randomly on a Wednesday so we’ve both taken that full week off so we can do pick up / drop off. Kiddo and I are big into a beach + ice cream experience, we moved last year and now we’re 10 minutes drive/30 minute bus from a gorgeous beach.
Anon says
DD starts K in the fall. We’re trying to get in all the long non-holiday weekends here (since her preschool is only M-Th), since that will be a thing of the past once “real” school starts (very strict attendance policies in our district, not like when I was a kid and pulling a kid out for a family vacation was common and accepted as an excused absence).
Anon says
I’m taking my kid to New England in October to go leaf peeping, since it will be our last chance to schedule a vacation in the fall for a long time (there’s no fall break in our school district).
anon says
If you can take a few days off before school starts, it can be a really nice time to bond, do special activities together, and pick up any last-minute supplies. It’s not strictly necessary, of course, but I started doing that at some point and enjoyed it so much that I’ve continued even though my kids are pretty much ready to go.
If I could tell my past self one thing, it’s to not worry so much! Kindergarten teachers are angels from above and will do everything they can to make it a smooth transition. If your kid has been in preschool or daycare, I can pretty much guarantee that they will be fine.
octagon says
Buy one size up as well. My kiddo had a growth spurt midyear and all the normal uniform sources were out.
A week before school starts, start practicing your morning routine – getting up to getting out the door. Don’t think that a switch can flip in kids, at least mine needs a lot more lead time to get used to the change.
We also have a tradition of doing photos on the first and last day of school – I love seeing the changes so much.
Anonymous says
Honestly for us K was not so different from preschool – much easier in some ways because it was a short walk from our house vs a transit commute. His preschool did some transition prep stuff like have alumni come in to talk to the kids about what K is like, and I think his school had some kind of park mixer event in the summer for incoming K kids, but nothing too elaborate. It was fine and there was nothing I wished I had done.
Note that my husband is a teacher in the same public school system, so we were already pretty familiar with its idiosyncrasies, and we live in NYC so almost everyone my son goes to school with lives within a half mile of our apartment (thus we knew many kids in his grade already). Both factors probably eased the transition a bit. And my son hadn’t napped in more than a year before he started and was used to long days out of the house.
Cb says
Yeah, a friend’s son had a tough transition and I think it was because he went from 3 days of fulltime nursery to 4.5 days of school (we have half-day every Friday…don’t get me started). My son’s always been in fulltime care with a decently long commute so a later start, shorter commute seems downright luxurious. Currently panicking b/c I had assumed a breakfast club/aftercare spot would be readily available, and now it seems like there are long waitlists. I am literally not in the country 3 days a week, we need aftercare.
Anonymous says
Oh crap that is one thing I was not prepared for – the main afterschool program at my son’s school fills up within minutes after registration opens. Like under 5 minutes, especially for K slots. We ended up using a different afterschool program that had some advantages but figuring out what other options are available was stressful. Also, afterschool never starts until at least the 2nd week of school and often ends before the last day of school for inexplicable reasons. And there are no camps the week right before school starts. Most families I know have 2 working parents, and we have less need than some due to my husband’s teacher schedule, but it is still oddly complicated to get coverage. So yeah, start researching plan B and C for aftercare now. If your school has a PTA or parent coordinator or someone they may be able to give you other ideas; otherwise, parents of older kids at the school may be your best resources. One tip – do not make yourself solely responsible for finding aftercare – share this job with your husband. Ditto for teacher/school communications – school and aftercare is another big default parent trap.
Cb says
Yes, going to begin looking around. I have a sneaking suspicion that families with 2 full-time working parents might be a minority in our village? My husband is the default parent as I travel for work – so research is the useful thing I can do :)
Mary Moo Cow says
Echoing all the comments to take some time before school starts to have fun. We always take our week at the beach the last week before school starts. It could be a vacation or day trips or lazy mornings at the cafe, but definitely take the time to enjoy your child.
From a practical standpoint, yes, buy uniforms (and extra size up for the inevitable growth spurt), make sure you have all the supplies, lunchbox, etc.
Anonymous says
Getting my kids to drop their nap was probably the hardest prep for starting school, even coming off 1.5 years of pandemic home-all-the-time life. We started phasing it out 3 or 4 weeks before school started and in retrospect probably should have started earlier, since one of my kids still fell asleep at school.
Anonymous says
Do you really have to get them to drop the nap, though? Our K still requires kids to “nap” even though most kids are nearly 6 or even already 6 when they start. It is boring and frustrating for the majority of kids who don’t sleep, so I’d hesitate to force a kid who was still actually napping to drop it.
Anonymous says
Huh, I guess this must depend on where you are! Maryland public schools do not include naptime, even for preK, because of fire code regulations.
Anon says
Logically I understand that there are children who nap until age 5 or 6, but this is so wild to me as someone whose child never napped at school after her second birthday. I’m sure K will be an adjustment in many ways for us, but no naptime won’t be one of them lol.
Anonymous says
Same! Mine stopped napping at home by 18 months and at school by 2 years.
anon says
I know, it’s crazy how big the range is. Getting 5 years of guaranteed daily naptime was great, but the flip side is that dropping nap means my K goes to bed at 6:30.
Anonymous says
Mine went to bed at 6:30 in K despite having dropped the nap years before.
Anon says
My 4 year old stopped napping years ago, but went to bed at 6:30 until very recently. In my experience, many kids who drop the nap early need a large amount of sleep at night. They’re not necessarily sleeping less, it’s just condensed into one stretch instead of two.
Alanna of Trebond says
I still nap….
CPA Lady says
So, my kid was in K last year, but due to online school, 1st grade was her first time in the school building.
I am not sure how many of these things are relevant to school outside the US, but there are two things I wish I would have told my daughter about:
1. the bell. It didn’t occur to me to tell her that there is a bell or some other signal that lets the kids know that the school day is starting that means that they need to be in their classroom. This was only relevant because I (stupidly, in retrospect) tried to let her eat breakfast at school on the first day and she told me she didn’t go to her room until a teacher kicked her out of the cafeteria. She was definitely at least 10-15 minutes tardy from the sound of it, just eating at a leisurely pace. Whoops!
2. the bathroom. My kid was pee trained at age 2, and very rarely had accidents. But she peed her pants the first day of school because the bathroom situation is not like what she was used to at daycare, where there were regularly scheduled bathroom breaks. So figure out whatever the bathroom policy is at your kid’s school and let him know (i.e. is there a bathroom attached to the classroom and they just go whenever they need to, does he need to ask the teacher, etc.)
Neither of these are super high stakes, and they figure out pretty much everything really quickly. Like other people are saying, it’s not really a big deal if your kid is used to a group childcare situation.
Anonymous says
I have never let mine eat school breakfast. They start serving 15 minutes before school starts. Even if you don’t have a slow eater, how are they ever going to get through the line, scarf down breakfast, and get to the classroom in 15 minutes?
Emma says
Can I just whine about morning sickness for a minute? I’m 9 weeks, and after a slight lull the nausea is back with a vengeance. I’m trying to sip ginger tea and keep down the diclectin I took. Of course my boss doesn’t know yet so I’m trying to be somewhat productive at work. I literally just started this job (got pregnant two weeks later) and feel really bad having to tell them I need to leave in early October. And I’m seriously in awe of all of you ladies who did this without working from home – I’ve managed to drag myself from my bed to my desk while still wearing pjs on the bottom. The thought of getting dressed, taking the subway and sitting in my office… shudder.
Anonymous says
Commiseration! I have had terrible sickness with both of my pregnancies. With my first we were in the office and it was rooooough. Luckily I have been able to manage with medication both times– diclegis (same as diclectin I believe) did the trick the first time, but with this one I’ve had to be on zofran. Very thankful for medical interventions, otherwise I would have been hospitalized this time. I lost 8 pounds in one week before I started zofran!
If the diclectin doesn’t work for you, ask your doc about zofran (generic = ondansetron). No need to suffer if you don’t have to!
Anonymous says
+1 for Zofran if needed. I had hyperemesis for 9 months and made it through by taking Zofran during the day and Phenergan at night.
Plain carbs are typically recommended for morning sickness, but carbs actually made me throw up. I had better luck with small protein-rich snacks. I had to cut out all added sugars and even sugary fruits. Try different foods and drinks to see what works best for you.
Anon says
+1 to trying more protein rather than carbs. While I had hyperemisis and had to go on zofran, the nausea was better if I ate more protein and less carbs, and if I made sure to snack BEFORE my stomach was empty. Empty stomach = puking for me(before I went on zofran). Yogurt, eggs and cheese were my go-to snacks. It doesn’t work for everyone, but was a huge help for me.
Emma says
Yeah, I was eating a lot of carbs and not doing great. Nuts, hard boiled eggs, yogurt and oatmeal seem reasonably palatable right now. And I have a dog so I have to take him out for a walk (otherwise I get a death stare all morning) and although dragging myself out of the house is painful, I think the fresh air and mild physical activity is helping a bit. But some days are definitely worse than others.
Anonymous says
I ate a TON of cheese. Carbs were really hit-or-miss for me, depending on the carb and the day (and honestly time of day).
Anonymous says
I’m the anonymous from 9:45 commiserating. I also want to say that for this pregnancy I started a new job when I was 20 weeks along (there is a long time between interviewing and starting with this particular job so I was not pregnant when I applied/interviewed). I agonized over the fact that I would have to disclose this before starting, but my boss was absolutely completely fine with it. He’s been nothing but supportive and has acted like it’s truly no big deal. Just a little anecdote to hopefully make you feel better about being pregnant with a new job!
Anon says
+1 to all the meds. And also for me I had to keep *something* in my stomach or it made the nausea so much worse (and TBH the vomiting too because dry heaving or bile is worse than food IMO). I survived my pregnancy on milk (literally a gallon some days, it was the only thing that would reliably stay down), ice cold lemon lime gatorade through a straw or sparkling lime perrier, apple slices with peanut butter, McDonald’s single cheeseburgers, and occasionally mexican food (tacos were reasonably reliable). To this day (4.5 years later) there are restaurants I won’t go to because I have such vivid memories of barfing up their food (argula caprese salad….in the parking lot while passerby stared and I’m sure commented, arby’s, one particular pizza place).
Anonymous says
Are you me? I also could not drink anything but milk and sparkling water, and I still won’t eat the chicken at our local mexican restaurant because I remember exactly what it felt like to barf it up in the parking lot.
anonM says
Morning sickness stinks, but many people (me too) have it subside after 12 weeks or so. So, fingers crossed you may be through the worst! And try not to feel bad about telling your boss. Any decent boss should be happy for you even if it inconveniences them. And if they aren’t, it will let you know sooner rather than later that you might need to find a new job. I know that can be easier said than done, but really — try to put aside feeling bad for your boss. Bosses get paid more to deal with things like employee leaves for many different reasons. Here, they at least get a heads up.
anon says
It is the literal worst. I am so sorry, OP.
Anonymous says
It is awful and one of many reasons I only have one child. Mine never went away but that made the postpartum period feel good by comparison in some ways. My only tip is that it took me a while to figure out that hunger made it worse, and also that walking/exercise didn’t make it worse, so I could keep moving but I needed to eat constantly. I’m someone who never actually threw up though; I was just queasy more or less all the time for 36 weeks of my 42 week pregnancy. The other thing that helped me (aside from zofran) was giving up on trying to make it go away. I just couldn’t fix it and accepting that was somewhat liberating.
Anonymous says
Morning sickness is awful. I’m so sorry. Looking back I should’ve tAken vacation. Pre-Covid I had to take the metro to work and it was just torture. I don’t know how I did it. And I had another kid with very limited nausea, so I now know I wasn’t just being a baby about it.
Octo(ber)Mom says
Emma, just want to say you have my commiseration, and I’m excited to share my timeline with you (8.5 weeks, due early Oct). Hope you feel better soon.
Emma says
Yay October babies! I’m super thrilled to be pregnant, just a little over the sickness part… Congrats!
Anonymous says
I’m due in September. I had pretty much constant nausea, though little actual vomiting from 6-12 weeks, but it noticeably dropped off after 11.5 weeks. For me though, the biggest struggle of the first trimester was brain fog. I’m usually able to absorb and remember a lot of reading material but for that period, I felt like a different person, just staring at a mass of words.
Anon says
it’s the worst. i was so nauseous with my twins. and it was so hard when i wasn’t out yet at work. i fortunately had an office near the bathroom, so i could tell if someone else was in there before going in. and in the interim i would literally pinch myself to prevent myself from vomiting all over before i could make it to the bathroom. the only thing that helped me at all was grazing all day, so i carried around a gallon size ziplock bag of cheerios (again, not the easiest to hide, but somehow i managed)
IVF says
I have to post it here because I don’t think anyone else will appreciate it in real life – I got FORTY FIVE EGGS from my egg retrieval yesterday. I’m 37 with a raging case of PCOS, so that’s clearly why. Egg production is not my issue – I have a very angry uterus, it would seem. However, it’s a great place to re-start this round after a very scary ectopic situation in November, with my then last embryo at my old clinic.
TBD how many embryos we get when the Hunger Games of testing wraps, but I’m actually… excited? Last retrieval, 18 months ago at my old clinic, which is known for being conservative, only yielded 16, which is still strong by all measures but I’m doing an excited dance over here. I’m still in a boatload of discomfort but hopefully it will all be worth it.
Anonymous says
OMG
Anonymous says
Wow! As someone who only had 11 eggs -> 3 embryos from our last retrieval cycle, this seems insane!
Anonymous says
Holy moly- I’ve never heard of retrieving so many! Excited for you! As someone who has recently been through the ordeal of an ectopic pregnancy, I wish you nothing but smooth sailing going forward! Internet hugs!
IVF says
Holy cow, and 36 were fertilized. I have 36 embryos! I need them to grow to 5 day blasts now (Monday – fingers crossed) and then get genetically tested but holy. shit.
Pogo says
Congrats! I also have a raging case of PCOS and I think we retrieved 37, 20-something fertilized and 17 made it to day 5. As my nurse said, “wow you have a whole soccer team!”
Just a warning, I ended up with OHSS and needed to freeze all and wait for my body to calm down (several months of cyst monitoring) before I could transfer. It was heartbreaking at the time but in the end I had a healthy pregnancy, so it was all worth it.
IVF says
We are freezing all anyway so no issues there but 100% on the OHSS watch list as of this afternoon’s set of symptoms. Oy.
anon says
You guys, I had a pregnancy dream last night and it shook me to the core. I am in my early 40s and DH got snipped after our youngest was born. Although the odds of getting pregnant are very low, a pregnancy would be a crisis at this point in my life, both physically and emotionally. Funny how that works. It’s a crisis when you’re young, then you spend years planning and preparing and hoping to get pregnant and then you raise the tiny humans, and suddenly the idea of an unplanned pregnancy is a crisis again. Ha. For whatever reason, there is a small baby boom happening in my circle, and while I am very happy for my friends, it confirms that I am so done. I didn’t dislike the baby years, but I definitely don’t want to go back. Just had to get that off my chest.
Anon says
Nothing wrong with that. I only have one kid and we weighed a second one for a while, but I think at this point a pregnancy would be a crisis for me too.
Anonymous says
I have a recurring nightmare that I get pregnant and my husband wants to keep it.
Cb says
Same. Maybe this is selfish but our lives are cush with one (despite a shocked poster being so confused how we could possibly buy a house on our “tiny” incomes). We have everything we need, some of what we want, lots of time with kiddo, jobs we love. A baby would destroy all that, but equally…what would I do?
Boston Legal Eagle says
I recently had a dream/nightmare that I had to take finals in two days and I hadn’t studied at all. I’ve been out of school for almost 10 years now. Dreams are weird!
Also, the older my kids get, the less I want to go back to the sleepless baby days. That may change but then I also think about the logistics of activities for older kids and the emotional needs of these tiny humans and the tough questions that they ask and… no thanks!
Pogo says
I regularly dream that I am trying to graduate and I have missed my humanities requirement.
Anonymous says
I overslept and missed the first half of my very last college final, in a required course. It was not a dream. Fortunately the TA let me stay after and take the rest of the exam in his office.
Anonymous says
In law school I missed a final because I went to the wrong room. They let me take it but I was so flustered I bombed it. It was my worst grade in law school.
Anonymous says
Same, same. DH is snipped and we are happily living a chaotic life with 3 kids. I hated being pregnant and I really did not like the young years (ours were all 2 years apart +/- so it was rough!). Our youngest is 4 and life is good.
But honestly, if I got pregnant now, other than being cranky as f*ck because I like sleep, money, wine, sushi, fitting into my clothes, and not leaking brea$tmilk all the time, we would be fine. My kids are old enough that they would step up as needed, and after having had 3 kids we are professional baby-havers. There are no sleep or toileting issues we have not been able to overcome (and there have been a LOT of issues!). The kid would spend a lot of time on the sidelines of activities in a wrap, but by the time it was born my kids would be 5,7, and 10. That’s fine. They could even babysit. We’d have to source used baby stuff and all my mom friends would point and laugh and say “OMG better you than me. But could I snuggle that baby for a bit?”
Anyway, we are DONE. But we are also lucky enough that if a baby dropped on our doorstep, we could give it a good loving home without it ruining our lives. In fact, my youngest might actually think it’s the world’s best gift. Her one regret is that she won’t ever have a baby sibling :).
Anonymous says
My kids are a smidge older than yours, but otherwise this is me exactly, too.. If the baby in our doorstep were a girl, my daughter might explode from happiness. She wants a sister more than anything in the world.
Anon4This says
My stress dreams are always that I’m in college/grad school and “forgot” about a class I was enrolled for and have a big exam for…this is after years of “OMG I didn’t study and the bar exam is tomorrow” dreams.
Just putting this here if anyone needs it. Our #2 was a bit of a surprise, and DH really struggled with it, and admittedly, still does – not with the kid herself but what being parents to 2 vs. 1 kid means emotionally, financially, lifestyle wise. He’s also working on getting through it for once and for all, because that vibe isn’t good for anyone in the family. It was an emotionally tough pregnancy and PP for me for many reasons, this being one – but DD is a source of boundless joy for me. Lots of grey in marriage and family.
Anon says
That’s my exact stress dream as well! Down to the “forgot I enrolled” part!!!
So Anon says
That is my stress dream too!! I didn’t realize I had enrolled in a class until the day after the withdrawal period was over, and now I had to study for a midterm that was the next day.
Relatedly – I took the bar when the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie came out. I had a recurring stress dream that summer where pirate code was on the bar exam, and I didn’t know pirate code. Good times.
Anonymous says
I had that dream recently!!!
Mary Moo Cow says
I had a baby dream the other night and woke up with a physical sensation of missing nursing. DH and I are both on a long and slow roller coaster of coming to terms with our decision to be done, and some days I definitely feel like pregnancy now would be a crisis.
FVNC says
I have had this same nightmare! Usually my stress dreams are related to school (20 pg paper due next week about a book I haven’t read; why yes, I was an English major) and I did not welcome this one to the repertoire.
Last week I had a gyn visit to discuss some recent issues, and gave a urine test. I assumed urine test was related to said issues, but it was for a pregnancy test. When the nurse announced I was not pregnant, I told her I would hope not, given my husband’s snip, and gyn chimed in with — oh you’d be surprised how often those fail! WTF dude?! Not cool. Not cool at all.
Anon says
You’re probably fine if you’re a year or more post-V, but yes they can fail after getting the initial all clear. Apparently in some countries like the UK they check the sperm twice within a few months of the procedure, and then check it again at the 1 year mark to make sure you’re still good. But in the US they just test you once and give you the go ahead to not use protection. A friend got pregnant that way!
FVNC says
Oh, we’re almost 5 years after, so I’m not terribly worried. The gyn’s comment made me laugh more than anything!
EDAnon says
I know two women who got pregnant in their 40s post-vasectomy. It’s my nightmare too.
We debated three but the prospect of actually getting pregnant really scared that out of me! We’d be fine – assuming child birth went okay for me (it did not the last time, but I made it!). But it is not my first preference at this point in life (youngest is 3.5).
Pogo says
I know two women locally who got pregnant after a V when husband didn’t go to the second follow up.
Anon says
The person I know who got pregnant after a V said her husband didn’t even have a follow up appointment! They just tested him once and gave them the all clear, but apparently it was not all clear.
Cb says
Shirley Hughes passed away at age 94. We have loads of the books and the audiobooks, and if you haven’t encountered them before, they are so innocent and lovely. Well worth a read. The children in them are cheeky but kind, really quite, unassuming stories.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-60584090
Mary Moo Cow says
Awww. I just found our Annie and Alfie Rose storybook yesterday (DD claimed credit for finding it, because I laid it on her bed to remind us to read it.) I wasn’t aware of Shirley Hughes until last year, and I wish I had known so I could have shared the stories with my older child.
Anon says
DD fell earlier in the week and hurt her elbow. Initial x-ray didn’t show a fracture but they asked us to follow up with an ortho – and made an appointment with a nurse practitioner for later in the week. I didn’t realize it was with an NP – is this something that you’d normally see an NP for? How do you all think about seeing doctors vs NPs? Curious from those in the medical field too!
I think if you get an NP with lots of experience that’s obviously great – my main concern is its harder to get feedback from former patients or see reviews of the NP versus the doctors in the office and I like to do a little due diligence.
Anonymous says
I love NP and PAs, generally speaking. I think they are the new PCP. Our ER has three PAs and I only see MDs in the ER for “next level” care. We had a rough Fall where two of my kids went to the ER with bleeding faces. In one case the PA triaged and we called a plastic surgeon in to do a dozen stitches on her face. In the second case, the PA triaged and did glue (underside of chin). I saw both hospital bills and the difference in visit cost was over $1k.
Pogo says
Note that a PA is pretty different from an NP – a PA has to practice under the guidance of a doctor, and can’t prescribe, vs an NP can prescribe and perform some procedures and works independently. I have had good experiences with NP’s, and neutral experience with PA’s (I think I still always ended up speaking with a doctor eventually if I saw a PA).
I have had negative experience with DO’s – aka an osteopath. They introduce themselves as a ‘doctor’ which I think is a bit sneaky.
Anonymous says
DOs are actually licensed physicians. I don’t like it. I think an MD should be required.
Anon says
My mom is from a family of MDs and very wary of alternative medicine, but she said DOs are ok because they have to go through the same training that an MD does. The way she was describing it, it’s basically additional training in osteopathy for a DO, not getting out of the regular MD training. But maybe it’s state specific. I’ve never had a bad experience with a DO but I think I’ve only seen them for basic stuff like sinus infections. I never had any problems getting antibiotics from them, despite the reputation for “natural” stuff.
My mom HATES chiropractors however, and thinks they’re all quacks. If you so much as mention the word chiropractor to her she starts ranting.
Anonymous says
DOs are licensed physicians. It was actually a first-year resident DO who correctly diagnosed my baby’s feeding issues. All 10+ MD pediatricians she saw up until that point just accused me of not feeding her. Not one of the MDs thought to, you know, look at her mouth.
Anonymous says
Our ortho’s office has an NP who is absolutely fantastic. In general, across all specialties our experiences with NPs have tended to be more positive than our experiences with MDs. NPs tend to take more time and have a more patient-centered approach. With ortho specifically, NPs seem much less likely to leap to “let’s operate!” than MDs. I would only insist on an MD if it were a complicated issue (e.g., stress fractures) or if I had concerns about the NP’s diagnosis and approach.
OP says
Love to hear this from an ortho office – thank you! I’m going to not worry about it!
Anonymous says
I put zero stock in on-line reviews of doctors. Too much nonresponse bias.
OP says
I have to agree but they sometimes ARE useful for reflecting doctors with long wait times or more efficient practices.
I mostly like to look them up to feel fully prepared even if it totally doesn’t matter and also we have parent facebook groups where people sometimes write about good experiences. But your point is well taken!
Anon says
I’ve generally had fine experiences with NPs. We see one at my daughter’s pediatrician and I actually like her better than our actual doctor. Honestly, I’ve had the worst medical experiences with male doctors – some have been fine (there’s a great male ped we sometimes see when our doctor is unavailable, and I have a great male dermatologist) but all my nightmare experiences with healthcare have been with men who were MDs. Female doctors, nurses and NPs have all been fine. I think women do a better job of listening to women and taking them seriously, and I believe there are studies that support my anecdotal experience. So my preference is always to have a woman, even if that means having someone who’s not an MD.
Anonymous says
Same here, with the caveat that men in traditionally female medical roles (nurse, NP, PA) also seem to listen better than male MDs.
Here’s an example of the research you mention: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/08/well/live/female-male-surgeon.html?searchResultPosition=3
Anonymous says
After learning about the differences in training between NPs and physicians, I no longer see NPs. Here is an recent article I read which is obviously a worst-case scenario: https://newrepublic.com/article/165235/when-urgent-care-doctor-is-not-doctor
Anonymous says
There is a huge difference between routine care and urgent care, though. I would absolutely go to an NP for a small possible fracture, or when I was reasonably sure I had a sinus infection or bronchitis or strep or an ear infection. I would not want a seriously ill child to be seen by an unsupervised NP at an unlicensed urgent care facility, which is what the article is talking about.
Pogo says
ditto. my bad experiences with osteopaths have been the ER. In a potentially life threatening situation (where time is critical), I don’t think it’s unreasonable to want someone with extensive training.
Anon Lawyer says
Osteopaths are doctors and go to medical school then do a residency. Not the same as NPs/PAs.
Anonymous says
Admission is less competitive for DO programs than for MD programs.
Anon Lawyer says
That doesn’t mean they haven’t had extensive training, which was the comment i was replying to. I’m not saying there’s no difference – I’d definitely be interested in seeing studies, etc because I don’t know. But without that, I’m currently more concerned with the training from medical school and residency than how well they did in undergrad.
Anon says
Fwiw, my father, an old school MD in his 70s, says DO used to be not as qualified, but now it’s basically the same. I imagine it’s true that DO school is far less competitive, but I don’t think most people look at their dr’s medical school and training, so there’s no guarantee your MD went to rigorous programs if you’re not checking that info. That said, I’ve never seen a DO. They aren’t common where I live.
Anon says
I mean, even within MD programs there’s a lot of variation in how competitive they are. Do you refuse to be treated by a doctor who went to medical school at a state school instead of Johns Hopkins? I don’t, because I think book smarts doesn’t necessarily translate to actual skill at treating patients, and also that lots of smart people go to less competitive schools because that’s all they can afford or they got a scholarship and don’t want massive loan debt. These days, being able to graduate from a top tier school says more about your background (rich parents) or your attitudes about money (willing to take on upwards of half a million dollars in debt) than anything else. Maybe the money point isn’t directly relevant to the MD vs DO discussion, but I’m sure there are plenty of people who are capable of getting into MD programs who choose DO for whatever reason.
Anon says
i feel so badly. i wrote down the wrong time for my twins’ parent teacher conference and the teacher had to call us and we showed up late on Zoom. i’m usually so organized and on top of things, i hate showing up as the disorganized parent
Cb says
Can I make you feel better? We realised yesterday that there is a nursery mailing list. For the nursery we joined in AUGUST. We just assumed they were weirdly crap at communications? So we’ve missed every Covid contact notification, every dress-up day, and who knows what else. The teacher randomly called my husband at work to have the parent-teacher conference.
I was chatting with a mom at pick-up and said “would it kill them to send an email about this stuff?” and she looked at me like I had two heads. Because they send multiple emails a day!
Anon says
That seems like their mistake. We didn’t join or create the mailing list for our daycare, the school did. And if they accidentally left some parents off, that’s the school’s fault!
Spirograph says
Yeah, this happened to me around this time last year. We didn’t realize it until we literally had our son home from daycare because we didn’t get the “all clear, false alarm!” email after the kids were sent home early one day for a suspected covid case in the classroom. Apparently my husband and I had BOTH been left off the class email distro by the school administration. ffs
Anonymous says
You’re probably far from the most disorganized parent! My SAH mom forgot to pick me up at school at least once.
So Anon says
I can definitely assure you that you are not the most disorganized. When my youngest was in Pre-K, the program was MWF at the same school that my oldest attended (he was in 1st grade). I didn’t realize that the last day of school for the K-2 crew was Friday, but that the last day of school for Pre-K was Wednesday. As luck would have it, we also had a substitute bus driver that day. So I put my 1st grader and Pre-K kid on the bus and headed to work 45 minutes away. When I got into the parking lot at work, I had a voicemail from the school letting me know that there was no Pre-K that day, and that I needed to pick up my youngest. When I got there an hour later, she was happily hanging with the school’s secretary.
Anon says
I recently moved into my first house (after decades of apartment living) and am trying to become committed to keeping things tidy! I am level 10 messy by nature, and unfortunately so is my husband.
Looking for everyone’s best tips on organizing, cleaning schedules, purging routines etc. I will take any advice you have. Even if it’s just “hire an organization service to come regularly.”
Anonymous says
Set up the house so that things live where they are used. Coats and shoes live in the coat closet next to the door where we enter the house and take them off, not in bedroom closets upstairs. The steamer lives in the bathroom, not the laundry room, because I steam my clothes right before I put them on. Then commit to the principle of never setting anything down, only putting things away.
Anonymous says
Following. My husband and I are both messy by nature. When I lived on my own I had some systems that controlled the mess and it wasn’t too bad. Now between the messy husband and the tornado of a toddler my old methods do not keep up. It has become increasingly distressing.
Anon says
How old are your kids? Do they have separate play spaces? Being tidy is very hard with little kids, especially if there will be toys in the public areas of your house. Having a cleaning service come every two weeks helps because we have to tidy up for them. But in between our house gets pretty messy, not gonna lie.
I’m pretty good at purging. We don’t save 99% of the art that comes home from school (I photograph it and toss it immediately). A few special pieces on our walls and a few more in the basement. I purge all outgrown clothes, except for a few sentimental things that are mostly clothes from my own childhood (my parents have serious hoarding tendencies which is definitely related to my desire to save almost nothing). I make my preschooler go through her books regularly and pick out books to “give to the babies” at her school or the public library. I haven’t done serious toy purging yet, mostly because we didn’t really buy her toys until she was 3 or so, so she didn’t have very many for a long time. But she’s started accumulating a bunch recently and I need to make her go through and choose some to donate.
Pogo says
+1 to photographing art and tossing it.
same boat says
I did the same, and so can tell you that you are in the best position right now to create homes for everything because you moved from a smaller space to a bigger one. Take advantage of the nooks and crannies in your home. Try to store everything out of sight. DO NOT BUY STORAGE PIECES. Sorry for caps, but these will just invite more clutter, in their surfaces and inside.
Spirograph says
If you can stand the slightly cloying tone, I highly recommend FLY lady. (Un-F* Your Habitat is similar in concept with a different delivery.)
But condensing her main message: Build habits to make small progress consistently.
For clutter, it’s so important to stop at the source. It’s best if you put them where they belong immediately, but if you haven’t built that habit yet, start by setting aside 5-10 minutes at the end of the day (after the kids are in bed works best for me) to hit the big-ROI things: clothes in the laundry or hung back up in the closet, towels hung up in the bathroom, bathroom vanity cleared, “drop zone” just inside the door straightened/mail sorted. If you do it consistently, you can stay ahead of it. Let it go for a couple days and it quickly becomes overwhelming!
Also, I am always on the lookout for things that need to be somewhere else and try to bring them with me when I’m moving between floors of the house anyway. Kids’ toys migrated to the living room? I grab them when I’m going upstairs to tuck them in to bed.
Anonymous says
This may sound crazy, but I find it a lot easier to keep things tidy when I am getting enough sleep. If I’m tired, somehow hanging up that coat or putting that thing away instead of setting it on the counter is just too difficult.
Anon says
Not crazy. I think everything is easier when you’re not tired.
Spirograph says
+1 definitely not crazy. Lack of sleep creates vicious cycles for so many things for me: exercise, eating well, tidying, being motivated at work…
Anon says
I really like the minimal mom on Ytube. Her videos give practical and easy to follow advice.
It’s really hard to unlearn years of bad habits so be kind to yourself and husband.
Anonymous says
My best tip is to make things as easy for yourself as possible. Things like if you’re finding that you constantly just leave the junk mail sitting on a random surface, put a recycling bin right next to the front door, rather than convincing yourself you’ll change habits enough to carry it all the way into the kitchen every time.
Anonymous says
This. Make putting things where they belong the path of least resistance.
IHeartBacon says
+infinity
Anon says
I’m pretty anal about organization.
I think my biggest tip would be, have a place where EVERYTHING “lives” that somewhat makes sense and is realistically accessible by the kids. Be consistent about putting everything back where it lives. Kids can remember from a surprising early age where things are supposed to go, if there is in fact a place designated for them to go. I find a lot of clutter can happen if you simply just don’t know where to put it and it feels overwhelming to kind of start from scratch every time.
Anon says
I have two things I want to gut check with this group about my kindergartener. First, my spouse flagged that the kid’s handwriting has gotten worse since entering kindergarten and I agree. Like, numbers and letter they could write a year ago now are now illegible. We think that basically, the teacher is letting kid rush through practice and so the kid takes full advantage of this. Second, my mom asked me if the kid loves kindergarten. The honest answer is no. The kid tolerates it, but is pretty meh on it. This is a kid who loves to read and learn new things normally, but school doesn’t seem to have kindled their love of learning further. Is this a problem? The school is top ranked, by far the best one we can get the kid into and the teacher is experienced. So I’m worried that switching schools would just make things worse. I guess I’m wondering if I should be really concerned about this. This year the kid is in a half day program, but next year is full day.
Anonymous says
K and early elementary are just inevitably going to be meh unless you have access to a magnet school for gifted kids, and even then it’s likely to be pretty boring. There just isn’t much to the early elementary curriculum. How interesting is it really to draw the life cycle of a caterpillar, even for a 5-year-old? It doesn’t get fun until later on when they are really differentiating curriculum, working on material with actual substance, digging into literary themes, etc. This may happen in upper elementary, in middle school, or not until high school depending on the school.
Anonymous says
The handwriting thing is very true for my K, too. She got really good at the beginning of the year when it was a new skill, but now things like writing the day’s date and weather every day isn’t as exciting, so she rushes through and it’s super messy. I’m just letting the year play out–the teachers are in a really tough spot with trying to get kids up to grade level after 1.5 years of remote school and whether my kid who can read at a 2nd or 3rd grade level always writes her lowercase s’s properly is less important than making sure her classmate can count to 20 and identify letter sounds.
Mary Moo Cow says
Hmm. The deteriorating handwriting would give me pause. My now-1st-grader didn’t love Kindergarten but loves 1st grade, so I wouldn’t worry too much about that. Some kid-teacher pairings click and kid will respond and love the experience and some kids and teachers just don’t click and the whole year is meh. But, skills shouldn’t suffer, even if teacher and kid aren’t the best fit. I would bring it up with the teacher, see what the reaction is and if a solution is proposed. You can always supplement with a workbook if teacher doesn’t send home extra writing sheets. (Our K teacher sent home a packet of extra writing sheets, to do one a night. Special pens and me sitting down with her to do a cursive practice workbook made it more bearable for DD.)
SC says
Honestly, I don’t think it’s a problem. I was a bright kid and went to good private schools. I felt pretty “meh” about my elementary and middle schools. Mostly, it was the structure, sitting in my chair, being told what to work on and when. I also loved reading, but I preferred Babysitters’ Club and Nancy Drew and Sweet Valley everything to any children’s literature an adult might consider “good.”
I enjoyed high school more, but I still wouldn’t describe it as “love of learning.” Some of the classes were more interesting, but some weren’t. Also, I was incredibly busy and stressed out all the time. I got into a good college, and I think that’s the first time I really enjoyed and appreciated my educational experience. I went to grad school, which I also enjoyed, and am a mostly functional adult with a job I like on a day-to-day basis.
As for the handwriting, I wouldn’t worry. From what I hear, the kids will be taking all their tests on computers by the end of elementary school.
Anon says
I think both of these things are pretty normal and not a big deal. To be clear, I’m reading your second question as your child not loving the school day itself, not that starting K has completely killed your child’s love of learning, even at home. If it’s that scenario, that would give me pause. But if it’s just not finding school itself particularly interesting, then I think the answer is enrichment outside of school, and it doesn’t necessarily have to be academic. Sports, music, art, language classes are all good for bright kids who aren’t very challenged by school. Universities also offer weekend or summer enrichment programs for elementary age kids who are identified by teachers as being bright/gifted (not trying to start an argument about semantics, but in our area, generally anyone who is in the top 10% of the class as identified by a teacher rec qualifies).
Anonymous says
1) does the child have friends? My K daughter went from complaining about K to loving it once she made some true friends. My older one went to K with 3 good friends in her class so loved it from day 1.
2) are there weird COVID issues at play? Our K had kids in rows and had “solo” recess (you can play but alone). My K-er hated it. Once they were back in group seating and could play with each other during recess she changed her view.
Anon says
omg solo recess sounds awful! where do you live?
Allie says
Are you paying for this school? If so, that would give me pause. If not, not.
Spirograph says
For those of you with more than one kid, especially boys…. what’s your philosophy on physical play? My sons (5 and 9) love wrestling each other. I don’t have a problem with that on the face of it, as long as both are happy and they’re playing vs trying to hurt each other, but I’ve gotten feedback from the kindergartener’s teacher that he’s having trouble keeping his hands to himself at school. In a perfect world, he’d understand that school rules are different than home rules, and brothers are different than classmates. He can get all his wiggles and grappling out at home, but needs to have self control and not touch people at school. But maybe two different rule sets are developmentally inappropriate for a 5 year old and I need to shut this down at home, too? (The energy has to go SOMEWHERE, though! It’s a closed system! Maybe I should sign him up for jiu jitsu.)
Anonymous says
Kids don’t need to touch other kids to get their wiggles out. Sports are a good idea.
Anonymous says
Okay I only have one kid, but I have 2 very mild mannered brothers who still seemed to like to wrestle well into their 20s and 30s. And I think having different rules at home and at school is 100% appropriate for a 5 year old, particularly if the difference is partly related to how we treat family members vs how we treat anyone else. A 5 year old can understand this. He’s just not necessarily going to be good at keeping his hands to himself regardless of what the rules are.
Anonymous says
PS – my only child and his friends seem to love pushing each other. I hate to say it but I think this may be somewhat gendered.
Related funny story – before I had a child I used to get a ride home with a coworker, who would pick her daughter up at preschool before dropping me off. One day the daughter hopped in the car and said “Mommy, I want to have a boy over for a playdate so we can have some rough play!” (Consensual, ostensibly). We were dying trying not to laugh. At age 4 she clearly associated boys with rough play.
EDAnon says
My boys are littler but we definitely have different rules for school and home. My kids are in the same preschool class, so they’re navigating different rules with each other in each context (and managi by so far!).
FWIW, my husband and his roommates wrestled each other in their dorm rooms in college! Sometimes at reunions they still get into it a little (and they’re all turning 40!).
Anonymous says
My guy friends in college also wrestled, like actual wrestling because a few of them had been wrestlers. My husband has learned over the years that he should never try to put me in a wrestling hold because I do not like it and am capable of fighting back.
I don’t like being touched and teach my kids to keep their hands to themselves, always.
Anonymous says
Y’all, I posted a vent a couple weeks back about how frustrated I was with senior management and their various shenanigans. I redoubled my advocacy efforts and can finally claim a small victory. I just learned that one of my staff is going to get the promotion she so richly deserves, and that this one opened management’s eyes to the business need for us to recognize performance.
EDAnon says
Yay! Nice work!
Spirograph says
Hm, I must have put a banned word in my first post, trying again:
Do you let your kids wrestle each other? I don’t have a problem with this in theory – my sons both really like playing this way, and it helps them get their energy out in a non-destructive way – but I’ve gotten complaints from the K teacher that kiddo can’t keep his hands to himself. We do talk about how school has different rule than home, but maybe it’s the having-different-rules part that is confusing.
Anonymous says
Rough housing is GOOD for kids. Research on this is available. I would definitely talk about how school has rules on this. And definitely introduce the idea of consent & personal space (most people don’t want to be touched all the time, stop touching someone if they ask, etc..). But frankly, I think the modern educational system is the culprit here. He probably just has pent up physical energy at school.
anon says
I was a gentle, sensitive child and I would have been absolutely horrified if another kid had tried to rough house with me at school! Good or not, I would have been extremely upset as a kid
Anonymous says
Absolutely agree!
Anonymous says
I’m sorry I wasn’t clear. I totally agree! But consensual rough housing and rough play between siblings is good from a developmental standpoint. It helps them learn where their body is in space, how much force is appropriate, etc.. I’m not talking about a child being randomly tackled at school haha!
Anonymous says
I don’t allow wrestling because I am big on consent and bodily autonomy. Even if you teach kids to ask before touching another person and to stop when the other person asks them to stop, they are not always going to obtain consent before entering a wrestling match, and there are too many power dynamics at play to be confident that all participants will be comfortable voicing their preferences. Plus that, kids who wrestle with each other also tend to body-slam adults, and I don’t like being on the receiving end of that.
Anonymous says
Please tell me how to prevent your early elementary age boys from playing this way. Mine are 3.5 and 7 and unless I am physically holding them apart, they are playing pretty physically. If I take the 7 year old to the pay ground with his friends, they are roughhousing 100 percent of the time. I NEVER played like that as a kid so it’s pretty foreign to me but we just work really really hard on consent and stopping when someone says stop. I have basically no ability to totally prevent the kids from physically touching each other.
EDAnon says
My sister and I got into it physically as kids. No one could have stopped us. I think it’s normal for home!
Also, I was shy and quiet in school and would not have touched anyone (I wasn’t even a fan of hugs from anyone but family and maybe my teacher #teacherspet) but it was totally okay at home with my sisters.
Anonymous says
It absolutely blows my mind that anyone would allow roughhousing, but perhaps that’s because in my mind physical sparring is definitely not play and has negative associations.
EDAnon says
That is really interesting to me. My kids and I roughhouse – they try to knock me over and I try to raspberry their bellies so we get super tabgled. It’s one of their favorite games. I had similar games with my dad and loved it as a kid.
To be clear, no one is “sparring” in the boxing sense. We have a rule that you can only touch between shoulders and hips. You can never touch anyone’s face, etc.
Anonymous says
That sounds like absolute torture to me. Partly because I hate tickling/raspberries, and partly because I grew up getting tossed around and pinned down as a form of punishment. I do pick up and restrain my children when necessary for safety reasons, but I would never grab them otherwise, or allow them to grab another person.
Spirograph says
Anon at 2:56, do you have boys between the ages of 3 and 20 (or maybe older, as someone above pointed out)? Because I’ve heard from enough boy-moms to be confident that it’s really easy to say and hard to do. Even my daughter gets in on it with gusto, just not as frequently as the boys. It is very obvious to everyone involved or watching whether it’s play-wrestling or they’re actually mad and trying to hurt each other, which is obviously never OK. I shut down fighting immediately, but I let wrestling go unless they chose an unsafe location to do it.
I have the same mindset about it that others have mentioned that it’s developmentally normal and in fact pretty universal for small mammals, including human children, to roughhouse. I do think there’s a time and a place, and it is obviously not at school and/or with kids who didn’t agree to it. I didn’t know if I was some kind of weird outlier for not stopping it at home. I wrestled my siblings for fun, but that was in *gasp* the 80s, and we’re evolved since then. The responses are making me feel both better and discouraged that some people clearly view it as inappropriate, so I’m likely to get judgey-ness from some quarters.
Thanks, all, for the points about consent and bodily autonomy. My kids actually are pretty good about asking “wanna wrestle?” before tackling each other, and agreeing when the wrestling is over, but that’s always good to reinforce. They don’t body slam adults that I know of… there’s a family “tickle wrestle” game that is kids vs dad (and DH is going to get hurt one day, calling it now) that they all love, but DH is a willing participant.
EDAnon says
I am so sorry to the person who was pinned as punishment.
Rough-housing with kids is nothing like that. I roughhouse with my kids, I do not pin them – they can always escape and tickling is actually banned in our games because it incapacitates people. They are only tickled upon request and stop always means stop (even when they didn’t mean it and want you to keep going). They always “win.” To me, it is all really good learning about size, consent, and communication.
We basically follow the rules outlined here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/parenting/2021/12/27/roughhousing-benefits-kids/
2:56 says
To be fair, I have girls. I do have several boisterous nephews who I don’t allow to roughhouse when I’m supervising them. When they were very little they would sometimes body-slam me, and I would pick them up, set them down at arm’s length, and say “I don’t like that” in a stern voice. They now understand that there is no roughhousing at auntie’s house, but I can see that it would be difficult to police 24/7. Apparently my dislike of roughhousing is not the norm.
Anon says
To the anon dealing with past abuse history- just wanted to offer some solidarity. My family member sexually abused a child in my family. I really have a hard time separating out what is normal parent protectiveness and what stems from my history. He groomed with roughhousing, tickling, candy, etc. So it’s sensitive for me too. No answers for you, but I do get that what you’re saying and in my opinion it’s ok if you err on the side of caution in order to stop generational cycles. I’m sure I’ll seem over the top about my own triggers (sleepovers for example) but I am willing to risk that over repeating trauma. You’re doing what is best for your family.
Anon says
Same here. My sister and I used to get into it physically at home when we were elementary-school age and younger. We were very close in age and basically the same size as kids. I was a shy, well-behaved teacher’s pet otherwise and would never have put my hands on anyone else. I think it’s developmentally normal, honestly. We have a great relationship now as adults. We honestly used to think it was kind of fun?
So frustrated says
So annoyed with NYC getting rid of indoor school mask mandates. I actually support the optional outdoor masking change, but could we maybe wait three weeks and get data and see if it impacts community cases?!?
Also, there are OTHER THINGS they could have brought back before ditching masks entirely. Like field trips! 1 million kids haven’t had a field trip in two years, maybe let’s try that first instead.
We’ve got one grandparent on chemo and an out of state grandparent on immunosuppresents and I was really hoping we’d keep masks until after spring break.
Anon says
I’m with you. Our preschool just dropped masks, even though the majority of the kids aren’t eligible for the vaccine. At least they have also dropped quarantines, so we’re going to have consistent childcare again. But still no field trips, schoolwide parties, parent mixers, preschool graduation, etc. And the kids are still ordered to not get within 3 feet of each other! To be fair, compliance on that is certainly less than perfect, but I think being constantly reminded not to touch or get near other people has far more negative developmental impacts than wearing a mask – my child is genuinely scared of getting near other people at this point. I am truly baffled by the rush to drop masks while keeping so many other pandemic restrictions that IMO have far more impact on kids’ happiness and development.
Anonymous says
I was surprised it happened so fast but we are in the CDC’s green zone so maybe it is the right thing? My teacher husband is glad, as is my son. You can of course continue to have your kids wear masks, but I know that is hard to enforce.
Re: field trips – are you sure they are banned? I know some high schools at least are doing them, possibly illegally. Perhaps the rules are different for elementary since they don’t have to take transit to school, whereas middle and high school students are getting on buses/trains every day anyway.
I work for a theatre and am really curious if they will be ending their mask or vaccine mandates. So far, no changes until at least end of April (Broadway League policies).
Anon says
My work involves elementary field trips regularly. Those are definitely not allowed in NYC yet.
Anonymous says
Our county school district dropped its mask requirement at the beginning of February. Last week our infection rate started to rise exponentially. I do not think it is a coincidence.
anon in brooklyn says
I’ve asked my kindergartener to keep wearing her mask, even though not everyone will be. I expect at least half of the kids in her class to continue to mask. I doubt she’ll continue to forever, but at least for the first few weeks so we can see how it goes.
2:20 anon says
My daughter is still wearing her mask and has brought home two non-COVID viruses in the four weeks since the mandate was dropped, after making it through the first half of the school year without getting sick. Two-way masking is definitely more effective than one-way masking.
Meg says
Opposite anecdote…we dropped masks 2 weeks ago and infections have not increased at all. My theory is that they were wearing masks very poorly anyhow (based on photos and what my kids told me) so the change is probably pretty minimal.
Anonymous says
Get back to us in two weeks.
Anonymous says
Does 12 months seem super early to switch to one (2.5 hour) nap a day? Both my twins, who don’t normally nap together, seem to prefer this as of three days ago. It’s funny how different every kid is. Virtually nothing that worked for my oldest works for these twins and it’s a funny exercise in humility.
Anon says
No, I think it’s right around the average age, although (as with any average) some kids will definitely not be ready at that point. If they’re naturally switching, don’t fight it!
Anonymous says
Our day care put them all on one nap at 12 months, so I’d guess that it’s pretty standard.
Anonymous says
It’s a little on the young side but not by much. I think the normal range is 14-18 months. But I’ve also known 2 year olds who take 2 naps a day still! So every kid is different.
anon says
2.5 hours of daytime sleep should be enough at 12 months. the problem might be the wake window between the nap and bedtime, so it might be better to split it still. Our daycare switches to an after-lunch nap only at 12 months and it is so rough, kid is a mess by the time we get home at 5:45, falling asleep at dinner, screaming while we put his pjs on, then waking up at 6am. If I can leave a bit early I lay him down for a 30 -40 min nap if I can get him home by 5.
Anon says
Oh man if I’d put my 1 year old down for a nap at 5 pm, she would have been awake until midnight.
Anon says
My kid stopped taking two naps right before 1. I don’t think it’s early.
anon says
Does anyone have experience with the Optum Specialty Pharmacy for fertility injectables?