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I recently found an entire list of topic ideas I made for this blog that I had since forgotten about — among them was this link to a PopSugar article about some of the products that will allegedly protect your baby against radiation, like this belly band from Vest (pictured) or the Smart Shawl. What are your thoughts, ladies? As someone who is attached at the hip to my devices, I’ve definitely thought about it. (Although sadly I was more concerned about the issue while I was nursing and I’d hold the cell phone/iPad right above the baby’s head, whether for some binge watching/nursing marathons or a maternity leave project.) I think the last time I looked into it, a lot of people thought this was a fringe idea but noted that if you’re using your phone with a weak signal, be wary — that’s when the radiation will be higher (see, e.g., Forbes, Consumer Reports, Cancer.gov). Ladies, have you sought and found a product you liked in this vein for pregnancy? Did you take any precautions against radiation while pregnant or nursing? Vest Anti-Radiation Pregnancy Belly Band (L-2) Building a maternity wardrobe for work? Check out our page with more suggestions along both classic and trendy/seasonal lines.Sales of note for 3.28.24
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And — here are some of our latest threadjacks of interest – working mom questions asked by the commenters!
- If you’re a working parent of an infant with low sleep needs, how do you function at work when you’re in the throes of baby’s sleep regression?
- Should I cut my childcare down to 12 hours a month if I work from home?
- Will my baby have speech delays if we raise her bilingual?
- Has anyone given birth in a teaching hospital?
- My child eats everything, and my friends’ kids do not – how should I handle? In general, what is the best way to handle when your child has some skill/ability and your friend’s child doesn’t have that skill/ability?
- ADHD moms, give me your tips to help with things like behavior in the classroom, attention to detail, etc?
- I think I suffer from mom rage…
- My husband and kids are gone this weekend – how should I enjoy my free time?
- I’m struggling to be compassionate with a SAHM friend who complains she doesn’t have enough hours of childcare.
- If you exclusively formula fed, what tips do you have for in the hospital and coming home?
- Could I take my 4-yo and 8-yo on a 7-8 day trip to Paris, Lyon, and Madrid?
Anonymous says
Oh goodie, something else to worry about! Honestly, I haven’t given this too much thought though when I have it’s also mostly during nursing and also because I’ve taken to sleeping with the phone more or less next to my pillow now so I can see what time it is when baby wakes up.
Unrelated, for those who have flown with babies and their accessories, is it worth getting a travel bag for the car seat/stroller? I know some like the Uppa Baby bag come with a replacement guarantee if anything should happen to your stroller while using it but I’m not sure I want to spend $100 just for that peace of mind. Is getting a cheaper airline bag maybe worth it though?
AIMS says
That was me. My home computer never fills in the name and I always forget.
NewMomAnon says
I got a travel bag for the car seat last time I flew, in part because the bag has a strap so it made it much easier to carry. I didn’t worry so much about protecting my stroller – it bumps around in my car trunk and rolls through snow, salt, and street grime constantly. What can an airline do to it that I haven’t? The car seat, however, is not designed to be abused. FWIW, I also got a cheap “travel” car seat that is lighter weight than my big regular seat, and also so I don’t have to uninstall my regular car seat as often. I got a Cosco seat for $50. It’s a bit challenging to clip into the LATCH, but still a good decision.
anne-on says
I did get the Uppababy carrier for my stroller since I was going to need to put it in some sort of carrier anyway, and that one fit it perfectly, had the guarantee, and was quite sturdy and easy to wear (kind of like a big hiking backpack). For the car seat we just had the standard red gate check bag which worked fine.
Anonymous says
We have used the uppababy vista bag twice now, once for a short flight and one for a cross country flight. It is AWESOME. I’m so glad we got it.
Anonymous says
We skipped it. We have a pretty cheap travel car seat that we wouldn’t be upset if it arrived with some dirt on it. In bad weather, the airport throws it in a garbage bag, which works for us. When kiddo was younger and traveled in her infant carrier, that rode in the plane with us.
For wheeling through the airport, we rig it to roll with our luggage.
Anonymous says
This is a know your airport situation – we always use a bag after having a very wet car seat arrive at the destination. We had to stick our unhappy toddler in a wet seat.
grey falcon says
We have not flown with the stroller but have with a gate-checked car seat many times. Some sort of covering has been invaluable in absorbing a surprising amount of oily grime in lieu of the seat fabric doing so. Not sure about protection from the bumps and thumps of travel, but from a cleanliness (relative, of course) and portability perspective (ours was a $30 job from amazon that has backpack straps), I would recommend some sort of cover.
H says
We got this one: http://www.amazon.com/Childress-Gate-Check-Bag-Seats/dp/B000RRD7UG/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1454956540&sr=8-2&keywords=carseat+travel+bag
And another one for the umbrella stroller. Definitely not $100 and probably not as good of quality (it’s not padded or anything), but I liked knowing that the items were semi protected. Also, I could tell they were a little banged up when we got home (small tears, black grease marks) so I’m glad those didn’t happen on the carseat or stroller. We haven’t traveled by plane since that one time a few months ago, but I could totally throw them in the washing machine and use them again.
AIMS says
Thanks all! I didn’t think about stains, grease and germs – probably a good idea to get a cover for both car seat and stroller, will look into the official UB and cheaper versions.
Anonymous says
The first time I traveled with my stroller, I purchased one of the red gate check bags. It ripped on the first flight. Before the second flight I looked into the UppaBaby bags. Although I was interested in the guarantee, I decided that the additional cost was not worth it if the stroller was damaged on the way to our destination, I would have to replace it before I could contact UppaBaby. Therefore, I decided to purchase the black JL Childress bag. It fit our UppaBaby Cruz and we also were able to put our winter coats in the bag. It worked perfectly and we saved a ton of money. I have the corresponding bag for the car seat and would recommend it as well.
LSC says
Yeah–this is ridiculous. I was sort of concerned about radiation while pregnant because I fly a lot for work, but not enough to buy any kind of gadget. To me, a product like this is just for fear mongering and money. Ugh.
Edna Mazur says
Yup, I definitely rolled my eyes when I saw this.
anne-on says
Anyone else home again for a snow day? I know we had a mild winter in the Northeast so far but this is reminding me why I hate February…
NewMomAnon says
Posted this late last week, and someone suggested posting it again, so here goes:
I checked into the main s!te recently and saw a long conversation between commenters who are all experiencing a feeling of “fogginess.” I’ve been struggling with this; the constant feeling that if I tried *just a little harder* or focused a little better I could probably finish up all the things that are on my to-do list, but that something is in the way of making that little extra effort.
I didn’t want to weigh in on the main board because it can be such a minefield….but I thought I’d put it out on here, which feels safer. I’ve been seeing a therapist for three years now (he tells me everything is fine, objectively, which is true maybe?). I have been on medication (Zoloft) for three years. The urgent peril I felt when I started therapy and meds has dissipated, but the fog is still there and sometimes debilitating, especially at work. I never got much sense of relief when I started meds, and my psychiatrist has upped the dose a couple times but I never felt a difference.
I’ve come to think that maybe this fog just is my normal, but….I would love to hope for better. Commiseration or anecdotes or advice appreciated. (edited to add: I have been practicing ‘mindfulness’ type meditation regularly, and the journaling is one of those items on the ‘if I could only focus a little better….’ list of undone desires).
EB0220 says
Have you had your thyroid tested? I had hyperthyroid post-pregnancy, so I’m a member of a few thyroid support groups. In those groups, ladies with hypothyroid often discuss this exact “foggy” feeling you mention, so it may be worth a check at least.
EB0220 says
Also, what does it mean that the therapist tells you “everything is fine”? How the heck does he know that? Seems to be discounting your observation.
Anon in NYC says
+1 to this. I don’t have personal experience to share, but I don’t think your therapist should be deciding what amount of fogginess you’re need to live with. Perhaps this is a side effect of Zoloft and you need a different medication?
NewMomAnon says
The fogginess pre-dates the Zoloft – I do have a thyroid issue that has been poorly managed postpartum, and the thyroid check is on my list of ‘to-dos’ as well. Sigh.
I think my therapist is totally baffled by the fogginess and sees it as an emotional problem, rather than an energy-level/chemical problem. I was willing to go with it for a while, but I’ve now put in a lot of energy to figure out the emotional stuff but the fogginess is still there.
Anon says
I have this problem as well. I am not taking meds and not currently seeing a therapist, but have been thinking I might need to do one or both. I am hesitant for a lot of reasons, but one is simply adding another thing to my plate that will get in the way of me ever accomplishing anything!! Interested to see what others say.
Philanthropy Girl says
Do you take fish oil? I had terrible problems with fogginess during pregnancy and increasing my fish oil consumption to the maximum per day really helped. I could remember how to spell my own name!
If you haven’t had your thyroid checked yet, you could try adding Vitamin D and Selenium to your supplement routine. Selenium will support thyroid function, and Vitamin D might help clear some of that fogginess. My doctor recommended both to help with similar symptoms (fogginess, lethargy, “not feeling like myself”).
It’s really hard to work on the emotional stuff when the physical stuff isn’t working right. I’d have your Vitamin D levels and your thyroid checked, plus maybe look at iron levels and hormones? I’d definitely also consider an alternative to Zoloft. I know the fogginess can be a side effect of many types of drugs, and while the problem is probably elsewhere, the Zoloft could be making it worse.
I hope you’re feeling better soon!
octagon says
I’m just a few weeks from my due date now and starting to think about what I should have on hand to eat in early labor. I have some gatorade, mixed nuts, and cheese and crackers (all staples for me throughout this pregnancy).
What else should I plan to eat early in labor? My midwife recommended high protein, and to not eat anything I wouldn’t mind see come back up in case labor makes me sick. That’s pretty vague though – would love to hear from others who have BTDT!
Momata says
I liked protein shakes. Easy to sip on, cold, and milkshake-adjacent. My husband found them to come in handy too.
Anon says
I have been told by my NP and the woman who taught our L&D class not to eat dairy in early labor because your body will shut down digestion when you hit active labor and it will, essentially, curdle in your stomach and make you super nauseous.
mascot says
I ate a protein bar on the way to the hospital. When my water broke a few hours later, I had zero interest in food of any sort. I was starving after delivery though (12 hrs and one baby after protein bar) and that hamburger I ordered for lunch was amazing.
mascot says
Oh, and if you are staying overnight post-delivery, pack snacks. I woke up starving around 4 am and had to wait for the cafeteria to open.
Amelia Bedelia says
this. a million times this. I learned this from my first. I gave birth to my second a few weeks ago (via c-section, so no eating during), and I packed plenty of snacks! My husband appreciated that, too. It helps when you are hungry in the middle of the night AND it frankly helped during the day. I don’t think they feed you enough at the hospital — and let’s face it, the food is pretty gross!
I packed: cashews, cashew clusters, peanut butter pretzels, graham crackers, and jelly beans (my sugary weakness). I found nuts were the most satisfying, but sometimes I just wanted a jelly bean! Oh, and I packed pringles for the husband. He was pretty happy about that. If I could have had dairy, I would have packed chocolate, too.
Anonymama says
At my hospital the food was actually pretty decent, and plenty of it (one morning for breakfast I ordered cereal, and they also sent eggs, yogurt, and a bagel… I guess they don’t mess around with new mothers)
But I was also glad to have a couple of Luna bars through a long long labor (on top of the Burmese food I ate right before being admitted.)
Maddie Ross says
I didn’t get to eat anything, as I went into labor in the middle of the night (water broke right about midnight) and I had the baby right about 8am. I did drink a ton of water though – like a half gallon on the way to the hospital – because I was so afraid they would keep me from having water while I was in labor. As a runner, I kept thinking how crazy it would be to be in the thick of things without being allowed a real drink, so I stocked up. Not sure it mattered. FWIW, I packed a bunch of granola bars, but never ate them. I think my husband did though while we were waiting for the post-partum room to open up, as he hadn’t had breakfast.
Clementine says
I ate dinner and then some dry cereal… Once I was in labor I had absolutely zero interest in food.
My husband brought a PBJ and ate it halfway through labor. I think he might have also had some other snacks.
Interestingly, although they wouldn’t let me eat anything while I was in labor, when I needed a surgical procedure immediately following labor they treated me as a ‘full stomach’ meaning I was treated the same as if I had just eaten Thanksgiving dinner (they said those exact words, in fact!). For me that meant that I had to be awake and have wicked wicked chills from a spinal for a D&C immediately following labor (no pain meds during labor).
NewMomAnon says
If my doula is on this board, this will totally out me – I ate an entire bag of clementines while in labor. I have blood sugar issues, so my OB and I decided that I would have to eat while in labor or I would very likely pass out. I didn’t know what I would want to eat, so I packed crunchy and salty snacks (pretzels), cereal, bananas, chocolate-y snacks (nutella with crackers), and juicy snacks (clementines). I think I brought some cheese sticks too and some nuts, which were helpful after labor ended. I ended up only wanting clementines and my doula convinced me to eat a bowl of chicken broth 12 hours into labor.
I threw up several times during labor. Vomiting was basically a blip on the radar compared with the intensity of the contractions/pushing (which were tolerable, that isn’t meant to be a horror story).
Anonymous says
I ate the breakfast and lunch I had packed to eat at the office (because I didn’t realize I was in labor and went into work…oops) and it was fine. I was in labor for 24 hours (with an epidural after 18 hours) and it wasn’t until the final 3 hours when I was pushing that keeping food (or, at that point, water) down was a concern.
Anonymous says
Hit post too soon … Meant to conclude by saying that I would advise eating normally early on and not eating once it is a few hours from when you will start to push.
Mrs. Jones says
I say eat what you want, within reason. I ate 3 large pieces of pizza before I went to the hospital. I don’t remember eating during labor at the hospital but might have had a cereal bar or something like that. I never threw up.
Butter says
When I was in early labor at the hospital (water broke spontaneously, Group B strep positive so had to go hang out wayyyy earlier than I planned), I was allowed to order off the menu anything I wanted. I vaguely recall eating some super boring bagel with butter, a plain yogurt, and possibly a banana or an orange juice. And I think coffee, ha. Later I ate Cliff granola bars, which I love. Not the healthiest thing in the world but they’re yummy and easy to eat.
Fwiw I didn’t puke until I was much further along, about an hour or two before pushing, and by then whatever was coming back up in no way resembled what had gone down 7-12 hours earlier, so I wouldn’t worry too much about that. Do bring snacks for the partner and anyone else you have in there – we had a big stash of Kind bars on hand.
Butter says
Sigh, this was meant for Octagon above!
SC says
As an alternate view, my water broke spontaneously around 4 am, I was induced at the hospital around 8 am, and I delivered about 4-5 hours after that. I hadn’t eaten anything since dinner the night before, and I still threw up during labor. I’m glad it was just liquid. I’ve heard that you’re more likely to throw up during labor if you were nauseous during pregnancy, but I’m not sure if that’s true.
DC Mom says
Dried fruit for post partum to help with the first BM.
Switching schools? says
Can anyone comment on switching schools mid-year? My oldest is in 1st grade – we’re looking to move (locally), and originally we had been planning to move over the summer, but for some practical reasons, it would make more sense to move now. We could keep him in the same school through the end of 1st grade or try to get him enrolled in the new school (which would be his permanent school) right away. Socially I don’t think it will be that big of a problem; he knows kids in both 1st grade classrooms at the desired new school, but I wonder whether it will be difficult academically (keeping in mind that it’s 1st grade, not, say, 8th grade). He is the most laid-back of my kids, FWIW (the other two will stay in their current preschool).
Anonymous says
Unless it makes logistics really challenging, I would keep him in the same school through the end of the year, but you should be talking to the principals of both schools and his current teacher to get their take. I can’t imagine it’s going to make a difference academically, particularly if the schools are in the same district, but it’s pretty disruptive for a kid to have to learn a new school/classroom routine halfway through the year. My daughters’ school gets transfers in all year long for various reasons, and one of the teachers just mentioned to me how hard she finds integrating newcomers.
mascot says
Realistically, you’d move in what, March at the earliest with a couple of months left in the year? I’d keep him in his current school until the end of the year. Even a local move has some stresses to it and adding a school change on top of it would be a lot to process for a 6-7 year old. Have some play-dates with kids in his new school over the summer so he has some familiar faces when he walks in.
Betty says
I agree with talking to the administrators at both schools and your child’s current teacher. That being said, I would go ahead and switch now. By switching now, you get all the change over at once and give your child to make friends that he can play with this summer. (I did the mid-year and summer jump many many times as a military brat.)
Meg Murry says
I agree that it makes sense to switch now, for the purely selfish reason that right now he’ll be the only new kid so he’ll probably get a little more one-on-one introduction to the school (here’s where the cafeteria is, here’s where the bathrooms are, etc) whereas I feel like our school district doesn’t do as great of a job at the beginning of the school year with kids transferring in. My oldest is also kind of anxious though, so I may be projecting – but the just before every school year he always starts freaking out about “what if my teacher is mean?” “what if I don’t have any friends in my class?” etc, etc, so I wouldn’t want to add anxieties about a new school on top of that.
But in the end I think it makes sense to just do what makes the most sense for your family, logistically. I could see getting up 20 minutes earlier and driving across town for dropoff getting old really fast, as an argument against keeping him at his old school – vs if his school is still going to be on your way to work and it makes sense to just keep him there for the rest of the year.
Anon says
The whole reason “common core” exists is to make moving between schools easy academically — because they are all supposed to be teaching the same stuff the same way. Also, he’s in first grade, so academics don’t matter (third grade seems to be when it really gets going).
Anon says
My husband and I have been going through a rough patch that we both agree is mostly just the dual-career couple with small children minefield. We’re both trying to be more forgiving of the other person and just try to focus more on each other to the extent possible. But then he does things that make me feel like our fundamental understanding of how things should work is totally misaligned. For example, even though our jobs are very similar and are with similar employers, my boss is just a lot more flexible than his is. Because of this, I’ve wound up doing most of the kid doctor visits, working from home when we need someone at home, etc. He’s currently being recruited by another employer and two of the major perks would be that his commute would be anywhere from 50%-65% shorter (we both commute about 50-60 min each way now; the new job would be about 20-30 min each way), and that his job would be as flexible as mine now is. We were talking last night about family schedules and I said something like if he winds up at this new job, we can re-shuffle the responsibilities like taking the kids to the doctor. And he kind of paused and said “well, we’ll see.” Also, as I said, we work in very similar areas, and sometimes our respective employers put on events and invite outside people. I always invite him, and I always attend his events when he invites me. But he invites me only rarely, and attends my events even more rarely. I know he takes my work seriously. I think it’s that he really stresses about work. He has some anxiety issues and he’s always worried that he’s doing a terrible job, and he compensates by being super focused on work. But the thing is that I also feel stressed sometimes, and I resent feeling like it’s always my work and my employer that’s asked to take a backseat to family stuff. His stress about doing a bad job just makes my life harder. And it’s not that there’s any real basis to his stress. He just got the highest pay raise in his office, and his boss is putting him up for promotion a year early. Plus he’s getting courted by another company. I don’t want to be resentful and b!tchy all the time, but things like that comment just get under my skin. He says it’s not a competition and it’s not a zero sum game, but when we’re trading off chores and when we’re deciding who should take on what, it kind of is both of those.
Anonymous says
I would wait on pushing him to take on more kid responsibilities until he has the job with the shorter commute. One thing at a time. I would also think strategically about what he will take on so you can get the most value out of his additional kid duties.
We also try to divide up tasks based on personal preferences. I hate emptying the dishwasher or trying to fit everything in after supper – so DH does that every single day. In contract, while he sometimes takes kids to appointments – I do all the coordination of when/where/what for dentist/doctor/vaccinations/playdates etc.
We also have the motto of when something can be heard two different ways – we are both responsible to actively chose to hear it in the more loving of the two ways. This moves it away from being just a responsibility for the speaker to say everything in a calm, non-annoyed way because that is hard when you’re tired/stressed.
mascot says
Wow, that’s a great motto. It’s hard to give the benefit of the doubt about snappy tone. We need to work on that in our house.
The rest of the advice is good too. OP, if he’s already anxious about work, I can see where he might get nervous when you ask him be flexible when he’s thinking about making a good impression in a new job.
Also, have you talked about how much you need to be at each other’s events- both from a professional level and a personal level?
Anonymous says
thanks – honestly it came from couples therapy and way too many fights about who was annoyed/snappy or who just sounded annoyed because they were tired. We still try to not be annoyed sounding/snappy but it mostly refocuses things on trying to hear the best from our partner.
OP says
This is great. I’ll definitely file this away. We both admit we have been too snappy with each other and not fair, so this is a great way to try to fix some of that because otherwise we wind up in a snappy spiral.
Anon in NYC says
I think this is a situation where you’re borrowing trouble. He doesn’t even have the job yet. If he gets the job, you should have the discussion again, but I also think it’s reasonable to give him a little while to ramp up (say, a few weeks) before trying to more evenly balance the sick kids/work-from-home thing.
Especially if being anxious about work is one of his things. There are certain things that my husband gets really anxious about and while it may occasionally be annoying for me, because I know this about him I try to adjust my expectations about his responses. If I give him time to get through that initial wave of anxiety we can usually reach a good middle ground.
OP says
Thanks. I think it bothered me because it fits into an overall pattern of me being the default parent, and I resent that. I asked if he could do one well baby visit and it was this huge thing and ultimately I wound up doing it (it was fair that I wound up doing it — he had something legitimately come up at work, but I didn’t understand the run-up when I do well kid visits all the time). Or he travels a lot and so I’m solo with the kids frequently, but when I travel, it’s like he’s taking on this gigantic task and should be accorded all kinds of dispensations because he’s doing this huge thing…that I do all the time (without getting the kinds of accolades he seems to think he should get).
Anon for this says
I can appreciate the tone of the other commenters above – to give husband time / space to accommodate his anxiety – but man, you all must be better people than I am. My husband has anxiety, and I completely resent that as a result, I do far more than a fair split of child care duties. I work two jobs and do all daycare drop off and pick up. My husband is self employed and works from home about 6 hours a day. How did I end up getting stuck doing everything? Bringing this up with him only makes him more anxious.
So, Anon, I hear you – no solutions, but definite commiseration. There’s no room in my relationship to complain about the difficult things that I deal with at work / home because its always about *his* issues with everything. He refuses to get appropriate treatment or medication, which compounds my resentment.
And I love him, and he loves me, and everyone loves our kids – but its tough.
TBK says
I came across this today on The Atlantic and thought it was just really sweet in a certain way (also made me glad I didn’t have to pack my own gauze). http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/02/hospital-bags-around-the-world/460434/
Anon says
“Did you take any precautions against radiation while pregnant or nursing?”
Umm, yes. Yes I did. Want to know why? Because during my first pregnancy I lived downwind of the Fukushima Dai-Ichi Nuclear Reactor in spring of 2011. After the third reactor exploded, I started to worry about the effects of radiation on pregnant women.
You know what else I started to do? I started to hate–I mean really hate, with an intensity I didn’t know I had in me–all the vultures who crawled out of the woodwork that spring trying to sell useless crap to people who were scared and suffering. Masks, water filters, air filters, geiger counters, even ‘anti-radiation soap’. It was the most predatory environment I’ve ever experienced and it was disgusting.
Please don’t foster even a fraction of that ethos here.