We also had a creep on my first BMB. She was really pregnant and due when we were but she was constantly starting drama, reporting pics of kids in the bath and other things, messaged some people’s husbands, and even someone’s employer.
@coldbrew Someone’s employer!!? I also can’t get over @anitamargarita_82’s comment about sending someone in the group money? No offense y’all, I can’t imagine sending any of you money lol.
My (apparently) unpopular opinion is that some people post WAY too many photos of their kids on Facebook. And “funny kid” stories that could potentially be embarrassing to the kid when they’re older, etc etc.
Jeez I have trouble talking to my family about money let alone strangers... some people I just dont get.
My UO is spending 10 grand decorating a nursery that will just get redecorated in a couple years is ridiculous. Also painting murals on the walls looks cool but is a waste of the time it will take to scrape it flat when the kid out grows it.
@coldbrew yep that's why I don't want anyone to have my real name until I'm ready. My group didn't have anything like that happen, but we were super careful and probably only brought in 50% of the bump group in. Maybe that's my UO. 😬
And my previous bmb has gone in on GrubHub giftcards for people when their kids are in the hospital (mine was in the hospital for several days at 9 mos old), but not money directly. We are a small group and they are my good friends at this point and we all really care about each other's kids, so I don't think that's weird.
I will say from my first board one of our moms was diagnosed with cancer and many of us sent her gifts but by then our kids were almost 3 so we’d known each other for a long while. I always thought I was paranoid, but these stories are Making me question how much I share.
My BMB for DD1 sends money and gifts to each other all the time. We have been locked down since 2014 though so we all know each other very well, and I’ve met at least 10 of them in person now.
@coldbrew my other BMB is like that too. We do “random acts of pizza” (aka anything kind) when someone is going through a rough time. Many of us have met in person and traveled for meetups though, and we didn’t start that or gift exchanges until we’d been on Facebook for awhile and weeded out some lurkers.
I LOVE the Facebook platform for mom groups and honestly hate the bump interface but don’t think this BMB is there yet as far as moving anywhere.
Wow, a day without checking this and it went from UO to creepy people in groups!
I agree, keeping things anonymous is better for now. I'm slowly removing a lot of personal information from Facebook and such but it's just so easy to find me online!
Continuing with privacy, my UO today is that I don't like public pregnancy announcements. I've seen some people posting their very first US on Facebook and I always wonder if they sre announcing a kidney stone or a baby, specially those people that I met once 10 years ago and have never seen or talked to again.
UO2 for the day, I don't like/understand nurseries (the pictures that some of you have shared look awesome though). It's not like the baby is going to sleep there from day 1. Maybe it's because I rent an apartment and still have to move to a new place before the baby arrives but I just don't find a nursery useful. He will have his own space at the right time.
@glupglup I’m sure it depends on how your home is laid out but my son slept in his nursery from day one for naps. He slept in my room overnight but I definitely used the nursery for nursing, changing diapers, his swing was in there. Maybe my UO is that I hate portable stuff/ having baby gear all over my house. I’d rather go to a designated baby space.
I’m thinking *I* might sleep in the nursery because it will be the quietest place in my house! 😅
I am trying to catch up and respond to some of the juiciness from last week, good Lord!!
Good ones this week. I'm 50/50 on the jewelry. I have one bag of milk in my freezer because I thought I wanted a little bm charm but haven't pulled the trigger yet. I do like the idea of commemorating the journey and don't find it particularly gross.
Two absolutely INFLAMING topics for me that you touched on this week...MLMs and the re-opening. I'm so super vocal about hating MLMs. No, it doesn't make you a small business owner. You're owned by a corporation. I could go on and on. I support two companies that are direct sales because the products are actually good (IMO) - Beautycounter and Usborne, but the people I buy from know that I don't want to join the "team" so they cut the BS 😂.
I'm all for a smart re-opening but I'm constantly ragey (and also want to delete FB people/stop trying to reason with trolls or idiots) about the fact that the numbers in southern California DO NOT support a lot of the reopenings that people do. I hate people saying wearing a mask is against personal freedom and people who say deaths in nursing homes don't matter. It's just disgusting how selfish people can be. I also know I'm lucky to still have my job but people need to understand that it's ok to TRUST SCIENCE and at the same time start a smart, phased reopening.
The stories about the catfish accounts are scary. I had no idea the bump had private groups! I'm all for it if that's what we decide to do. Definitely no FB until after babies are born. My old BMB is pretty tight and at this point it's only 20 of us and we are all very close. We do secret santas every year but that's the extent of gifts we have exchanged. Honestly I'll go with whatever allows me to keep knowing you ladies better seems like we are slowly forming a tighter group and that makes me happy.
I am also totally in favor for turning the group into a private group. And I too am not ready for a Facebook group yet.
@glupglup We’re not planning on having a nursery either, but we’ll see if that sticks. We are in a 2 bedroom place, and my boyfriend has worked from home even before the pandemic. I want him to be Able to continue to have his own space. But if that doesn’t work we’ll figure out plan B.
My unpopular opinion is that I don’t like bacon. I will eat it in very limited recipes, but I don’t like it on burgers or just plain. It works out when my boyfriend and I get breakfast though because he doesn’t like eggs, so we swap the eggs and bacon.
@aefsparrow I agree with you - I think it depends on your home layout and just what works best for you. Our baby will be in a bassinet in our bedroom at night but definitely napping during the day in the crib. And that room in our house will be their bedroom after it’s a “nursery” since our other bedroom in the house is all the way in the basement. So it’s not a pointless room at least for us.
I totally planned for my kid to be in my room for a while but was so glad I had a nursery reasonably ready because we moved her there at 2 weeks old. None of us were sleeping. DH and I heard every movement and coo and my snoring (oops) kept waking baby up. 🤦 So I'm basically right there with @themoonandme. Plus I was more comfortable nursing in the chair in the nursery and then at least one of us could sleep while the other (okay me) was up with baby.
I've thought about getting a piece of breast milk jewelry at some point. Nothing that obviously looks like breast milk, but something for me to commemorate that time, relationship, and work that went into it. I get that some people think breast milk is gross in general, I ran into that attitude a lot in public, but I see no problem with wanting to commemorate it for yourself. Then again, if I'm going to spend the $$ to get a nice piece of jewelry, I might just wait to get a mother's ring or necklace (or just upgrade my engagement ring because we were 22 yo poor students when we got engaged).
We did a nursery in our 2-bd apartment for our first baby—just set up a crib and dresser/changing table, obviously no painting or anything. It was something that I could control that helped me feel more prepared. Like others have said, he slept in our room at night and in his crib for daytime naps (if he took them... but that’s another story).
This time, we're putting A LOT of work into the “nursery,” but it will be both our boys’ room. We bought a house last fall and didn’t touch the room when we moved in, hoping we’d be pregnant within a year and would have to make decisions about whose room it would be—we hadn’t decided if the kids would share or if we would move the toddler downstairs, etc. Originally our only plans were to paint and build a custom organization piece in the closet, and it has turned into a minor remodeling project. We found the last two (?) owners “put a lot of work into the house,” (according to our neighbors) but did everything very sloppily. So we’re fixing as we find issues. A weekend project has turned into a multi-weekend project (we don’t have a lot of time during the week). But, especially in this time where everything feels out of control, I’m enjoying having a hands-on project that is helping me mentally prepare for baby.
I’m actually super excited to be planning a nursery, even though the baby will definitely be sleeping in our room for the first two months. We have a 3 bedroom house and all the bedrooms are in the same hallway, so it’ll be easy for me to go back and forth at night if I want. Also, I’ve never had the chance to customize a room before. I was a military kid so we lived in a lot of rented homes and couldn’t paint the walls. The closest I got to customizing was picking out my own furniture when I was in elementary school, but that furniture transferred over to my sister when I left for college and I was using my mom’s furniture when she was a kid when I was still living at home. A lot of our furniture now has been passed down/bought by MH before we moved in together. So the nursery is my first chance to completely plan a room so I’m loving it!
@morethanamama MLMs and reopening just to reopen are totally hot topics for me too! Have you seen the jon Oliver on MLMs? I totally do not understand the mask is against my rights thing either. Maybe it's bc I work in healthcare bit trust in science is important
We did decals in my son's nursery to avoid painting and plan on doing the same for this one
@animalandplantrescuer I'm also just "meh" on bacon. I'd rather have sausage as a breakfast meat. And if I do eat bacon, I like it super floppy - HATE crispy bacon.
Current pregnancy - First BFP on 1/4/22. Due date 9/13/22.
Four prior losses, no living children - 1 first trimester miscarriage, 1 blighted ovum, 1 chemical, and one extreme premature live birth daughter who died at 15 days old.
With DD1 and DD2 we did really cute nurseries and never freaking used them lol. With DD1 we built our house and moved before she was out of our room. With DD2 she slept in our room until recently because of her medical issues. Her nursery turned into a playroom and now she and DD1 share a bedroom. The baby is going to sleep in our room and then eventually that room but we’ll make it over as a little girls room when the time comes.
I’ve been mostly vegetarian since 2018 and I haven’t had bacon since then, but I’ve been craving it now. Maybe I’ll send my husband to the farmers’ market to try and find some.
It would be fun to have a nursery, but we live in a small house (700ish sq ft) so we don’t have the space. My son slept in our room until he was 10 months and we did sleep training and now he sleeps in his own room (he actually overtook our room due to the size and proximity to the wood stove for cold nights in the winter). With the new baby, they will sleep in a bassinet with us at night and take naps in the same room as my son when he’s not napping in there. Once we do sleep training with the new baby both kids will share a room.
At that point I might do some more decorating for their room, but I’m sure it won’t be much because I’m not the type to spend money on unnecessary things. We are hoping to do an addition on the back of the house to add another bathroom and bedroom. We love our house and the location, but we are quickly outgrowing it. We started buying items to remodel our current bathroom and I want to paint the kitchen cabinets and add new handles to spruce things up. It just seems like there is never any time to get things done since we’d rather be outside enjoying nature than working on our house on the weekends.
We're actually building an additional bedroom this summer, so we will have 3 bedrooms instead of 2. @jgrodo I was thinking about some decals, but I'm still vacillating on of what.
I'm on the no bacon boat! I'm allergic though, so no pork at all, also no red meat or nuts... we're a mostly vegetarian household with a few bits of fish here and there and a little chicken when I'm having cravings for real wings. Lucky for me my H was raised fully vegetarian, so he is all good with our system.
@jgrodo Tell me more about the decals. Where, what, how, etc. Like @aefsparrow I am considering decals, but they seem really intimidating to me. I might just do one of each boy’s name but don’t know how to narrow down my search... options are endless on Etsy and not sure if that’s even the best place to start.
I was looking at decals to dress up DDs "big girl room" that she will be moving to in the next few months. The walls are already light pink so that's semi convenient (they were that color when we moved in and we've used it as a guest room before). I saw a lot of Etsy but haven't settled on any yet!
@baseballismyfavoriteseason I've used them before in my offices, especially ones without windows. Good ones are like high quality stickers that you can remove without ruining the paint job. They can be a little touchy to put on to minimize air bubbles, and I've found that wiping down the wall with alcohol before hand helps the a smooth adhesion. I've gotten them from Amazon before, but etsy has some great options! If you have a LO that likes to pick at things though you'll want to place them high enough that they wont peel them all off lol...
I'll admit I'm terrible at decorating but had I had a 3bd home like I do now with my first I would have probably decorated my son's room more. I think I'll go a bit more crazy once they start sharing. My son was with us for 5 months and room sharing was just fine but I know some kids actually benefit more from being in their own room! I still don't understand over the top nurseries with a bunch of stuff that the kid is gonna start knocking off once they are mobile. I'm too lazy for stuff like that, plus we live in California, so with earthquakes we don't hang too much stuff on the walls.
@aefsparrow that was a great description of the decals! I have a love of Australia after having lived their for a about half a year so we went with koalas for ds and I found cute kangaroo for this little ones room Building and addition! Wow that's awesome! How is that going? So hard to pick a theme! @baseballismyfavoriteseason they are really easy to put on actually it's just like putting on a sticker. I had got the ones last time from Amazon. This time I saw ones on this site called wallum that I liked. This time I plan on picking ones with less stickers (decals) to apply. Attaching all the leaves for the trees became cumbersome and when we moved they were just annoying to take off from a time perspective but they didn't cause any damage or anything. It's just putting it on slowly so it's in the right spot and no bubbles like aeasporrow described. Because I wasn't sure how'd they work last time (first time using them) cost was def a factor and went with less expensive ones but also really liked the design. I figured bif they didn't work it was only $20. You def get more confident as you go through the application process. I was surprised how many compliments we received on the decals actually. My aunt thought I had painted the wall! Is there a theme you're thinking of doing? The ones in Etsy I've seen look so nice too, such a tough decision @carrotsandpeas3 nice! Can dd help you pick a decal?
@jgrodo she's only 21 months, so she's pretty suggestible. I found some really cute rainbow hearts that I think she would like and I don't think she would age out of too quickly.
Mehh, we own our 4-bedroom house and all the bedrooms are in the same hallway, so we intend on LO using the nursery from Day 1 for most baby-related activities (nursing, changes, naps). MH and I have spoken about how we'd like to keep most of the baby stuff in the nursery, so that the only stuff that will be in our bedroom is the bassinet she'll use for the first few months. He has to go back to work long before I do after she's born, so I'll most likely wind up sleeping in the nursery between nighttime feedings for a while so as not to disturb him at night. And we're both artists, hence the mural. It would have been exponentially more expensive to buy the art directly from the artist who inspired the mural (even copycats on Etsy), so this was actually more cost-efficient. And since we own our house we have the liberty to do what we want with the walls without stressing too much about painting over it (at least for a few years, which is fine).
My UO is I'm not a big fan of decals. I'd prefer framed art to decals, actually.
I like some decals I see but we have a new construction home and all of the walls are textured so decals are out because they won’t stick. I will say though don’t be cheap if you paint. Buy good quality paint. I bought Sherwin Williams best paint when we did DD nursery. It was expensive but so worth it. She’s taken an entire tub of Boudreaux’s maximum strength butt paste and rubbed it all over herself and the walls of her bedroom. I had to use dawn dish soap to get it off but it wiped right off and you’d never know. She’s also colored on her walls too and those come right off as well. My husband is planning to paint one wall of the new nursery an ombré blue to look like you’re swimming up from the bottom of the ocean. This nursery is going to be an ocean theme.
@anitamargarita_82 I agree with you on paint brand choices! My grandpa is a retired painter who owned his own business, and my summer job was to help him paint. He only ever used Sherwin Williams. Sometimes Diamond Vogel but I think that’s more of a local chain. When we bought our house two years ago we painted the nursery room and the bathroom next to it with Sherwin Williams paint since they were god-awful colors.
I love themed nurseries in theory but definitely failed when it came to DS. I had grand plans. It did not work. We also had him in our room until 11 1/2 months and used his room basically only for storage and diaper changes. Haven't figured out a plan for this LO yet and living plans are kind of in flux so I'm not sure what we'll do. My DS's room now is superhero themed. We have wall stickers - I guess decals? But they were super cheap online and are all over his room.
We’re using SW paint right now because it’s the only place that I could get the little swatches delivered for free during quarantine. But it’s been great—since they operate out of small stores, the people are starting to know me when I call. But I love the testimonial @anitamargarita_82—always love to know I made the right choice even if it was by default. 😂
@jgrodo we are in the beginning process of the addition, the architect is drawing up the plans for us, but we at least have a contractor nailed down and a tentative plan to be fully complete before the LO arrives. It helps that we have a simple concrete slab build and its adding to the front of our house so it's easy access. We have a 2bd2bth (1100sqft) right now so itll bring us to 3bd (1400sqft). I'm torn between going with slightly woodsy or just natural leaves. I do know I want to do only one section of decal to add some depth, then I have a large framed painting/screen print from my college days that is a stained glass style dreamcatcher that will hang in there along with a few pieces I plan to make (including a mobile and frame for a mirror) I'm thinking lots of mixed metal tones, greens and greys with pops of bright colors in the framed works and pillows.
You all convinced me! For some of you a nursery is super useful and convenient and I admit, those decals, paintings and decor that you describe sound so cute.
I guess my living situation is not ideal (hence the opinion on nurseries). We currently live in a 1bd basement and our lease ends by the end of August. Ideally I would like to find a nice 2bd 2bathroom apartment near the downtown because my family is going to stay with us for at least 3 months (Sept-Dec), then we'll be away for Christmas and back in January. I've seen some similar priced single houses in the suburbs but we only own one car that boyfriend would have to take to work everyday (yay! He's graduating from his PhD in September!) unless we live near public transit.
Because we rent, even if I had the space I wouldn't be able to decorate much anyways. Plus, we are not going to stay in this city forever so minimizing the amount of baby things we buy is essential. I'm the kind of person that has to fill every space in the house so I would totally go crazy buying toys, furniture...
Even in a year or so after baby sleeps in his own room we will have to bring him with us every time someone comes to visit. I feel a bit sad that he is not really going to own his room for now but I don't think he'll care much until he's a bit older and we can think of buying a house or relocating to something more permanent.
@glupglup He won’t care for awhile. Our 18m old has been sleeping in our room for about a week, after being in his own room for a year. He’s very independent, so when we put him to bed he likes to walk to his room by himself and then be picked up and took in his crib. Every night since that first night, when we say “okay, time for night-night,” he walks over to our bedroom door. All that to say, don’t beat yourself up over it. Loving family? Roof over head? Food on the table? He’ll never know or care that he didn’t have a designer nursery. ETA: if we start a nursery board like someone suggested above I’ll post pictures of our first’s nursery in our rented apartment.
@glupglup I too am hoping to do this with as little new stuff as possible, and as I’ve said I hope to have her with us for the first year or two. I know things might change our plan. I really think one's living situation really dictates how one looks at things. If we had another room I would definitely make a nursery.
If it makes you feel any better my cousin was in an owned small one bedroom with her husband, and then had twins. I haven’t seen how they do it because they live in London, but so far they’ve made it work for a couple years. They are planning on moving soon.
I also had a friend who had a third, and they live in a small 2 bedroom. The youngest slept in the living room for at least the first year. So whatever you two decide will be fine, as long as it works for both of you.
Just came here to say that I thought I'd be spending a lot of time in the nursery but I didn't, aside from maybe the first 2 weeks? You really want to be close to the kitchen and have access to food and water, I found it way easier to spend most days in the living room (plus,TV!). It helped when my mom and/or in laws were here as there is no sitting space in his room except from the rocker
Re: Unpopular Opinion - 5/21
My UO is spending 10 grand decorating a nursery that will just get redecorated in a couple years is ridiculous. Also painting murals on the walls looks cool but is a waste of the time it will take to scrape it flat when the kid out grows it.
And my previous bmb has gone in on GrubHub giftcards for people when their kids are in the hospital (mine was in the hospital for several days at 9 mos old), but not money directly. We are a small group and they are my good friends at this point and we all really care about each other's kids, so I don't think that's weird.
I LOVE the Facebook platform for mom groups and honestly hate the bump interface but don’t think this BMB is there yet as far as moving anywhere.
I agree, keeping things anonymous is better for now. I'm slowly removing a lot of personal information from Facebook and such but it's just so easy to find me online!
Continuing with privacy, my UO today is that I don't like public pregnancy announcements. I've seen some people posting their very first US on Facebook and I always wonder if they sre announcing a kidney stone or a baby, specially those people that I met once 10 years ago and have never seen or talked to again.
UO2 for the day, I don't like/understand nurseries (the pictures that some of you have shared look awesome though). It's not like the baby is going to sleep there from day 1. Maybe it's because I rent an apartment and still have to move to a new place before the baby arrives but I just don't find a nursery useful. He will have his own space at the right time.
Good ones this week.
I'm 50/50 on the jewelry. I have one bag of milk in my freezer because I thought I wanted a little bm charm but haven't pulled the trigger yet. I do like the idea of commemorating the journey and don't find it particularly gross.
Two absolutely INFLAMING topics for me that you touched on this week...MLMs and the re-opening. I'm so super vocal about hating MLMs. No, it doesn't make you a small business owner. You're owned by a corporation. I could go on and on. I support two companies that are direct sales because the products are actually good (IMO) - Beautycounter and Usborne, but the people I buy from know that I don't want to join the "team" so they cut the BS 😂.
I'm all for a smart re-opening but I'm constantly ragey (and also want to delete FB people/stop trying to reason with trolls or idiots) about the fact that the numbers in southern California DO NOT support a lot of the reopenings that people do. I hate people saying wearing a mask is against personal freedom and people who say deaths in nursing homes don't matter. It's just disgusting how selfish people can be. I also know I'm lucky to still have my job but people need to understand that it's ok to TRUST SCIENCE and at the same time start a smart, phased reopening.
The stories about the catfish accounts are scary. I had no idea the bump had private groups! I'm all for it if that's what we decide to do. Definitely no FB until after babies are born. My old BMB is pretty tight and at this point it's only 20 of us and we are all very close. We do secret santas every year but that's the extent of gifts we have exchanged. Honestly I'll go with whatever allows me to keep knowing you ladies better
Married 6/15/13
BFP #1 5/8/16, EDD 12/31/16- DD born 9/10/16 at 24 weeks
~In our hearts forever~
BFP #2 10/14/17, EDD 7/1/18
I've thought about getting a piece of breast milk jewelry at some point. Nothing that obviously looks like breast milk, but something for me to commemorate that time, relationship, and work that went into it. I get that some people think breast milk is gross in general, I ran into that attitude a lot in public, but I see no problem with wanting to commemorate it for yourself. Then again, if I'm going to spend the $$ to get a nice piece of jewelry, I might just wait to get a mother's ring or necklace (or just upgrade my engagement ring because we were 22 yo poor students when we got engaged).
This time, we're putting A LOT of work into the “nursery,” but it will be both our boys’ room. We bought a house last fall and didn’t touch the room when we moved in, hoping we’d be pregnant within a year and would have to make decisions about whose room it would be—we hadn’t decided if the kids would share or if we would move the toddler downstairs, etc. Originally our only plans were to paint and build a custom organization piece in the closet, and it has turned into a minor remodeling project. We found the last two (?) owners “put a lot of work into the house,” (according to our neighbors) but did everything very sloppily. So we’re fixing as we find issues. A weekend project has turned into a multi-weekend project (we don’t have a lot of time during the week). But, especially in this time where everything feels out of control, I’m enjoying having a hands-on project that is helping me mentally prepare for baby.
We did decals in my son's nursery to avoid painting and plan on doing the same for this one
Taco bell - totally agree I don't get it.
First BFP on 1/4/22. Due date 9/13/22.
I'm on the no bacon boat! I'm allergic though, so no pork at all, also no red meat or nuts... we're a mostly vegetarian household with a few bits of fish here and there and a little chicken when I'm having cravings for real wings. Lucky for me my H was raised fully vegetarian, so he is all good with our system.
@carrotsandpeas3 nice! Can dd help you pick a decal?
My UO is I'm not a big fan of decals. I'd prefer framed art to decals, actually.
Due with baby #2: Feb 2022
Maybe we need a nursery decor board.
I guess my living situation is not ideal (hence the opinion on nurseries). We currently live in a 1bd basement and our lease ends by the end of August. Ideally I would like to find a nice 2bd 2bathroom apartment near the downtown because my family is going to stay with us for at least 3 months (Sept-Dec), then we'll be away for Christmas and back in January. I've seen some similar priced single houses in the suburbs but we only own one car that boyfriend would have to take to work everyday (yay! He's graduating from his PhD in September!) unless we live near public transit.
Because we rent, even if I had the space I wouldn't be able to decorate much anyways. Plus, we are not going to stay in this city forever so minimizing the amount of baby things we buy is essential. I'm the kind of person that has to fill every space in the house so I would totally go crazy buying toys, furniture...
Even in a year or so after baby sleeps in his own room we will have to bring him with us every time someone comes to visit. I feel a bit sad that he is not really going to own his room for now but I don't think he'll care much until he's a bit older and we can think of buying a house or relocating to something more permanent.