@southernlady07@jaylii I think a freezer prep thread would be great once we get closer to Sept. it’s probably a little early now though. We did a bunch of freezer prepping for our first and it was so convenient!
@patience7150 Your post made me mad. Not at you.. at the
world. I hate that men are getting extra pay for equal work. And also pumping
at work and questioning if people see you as a professional. If men had to do this..
can you just imagine how different leave, pay, and pumping rooms would be?
FTM/STM? FTM Dou you plan to work FT/PT after baby? Yes. I plan to go back full time after 12 weeks maternity leave. Depending on when the baby is born, I might take the rest of the year off and come back the 2nd of January. With that being said, I am toying around with an intermittent leave so that I can work from home here and there, and go into the office sporadically after 6-8 weeks. Any questions or concerns about working? I had quite a few, but this thread has helped answer quite a few. I have an office, so I will just close the door to pump. I have a mini fridge that I will use for milk- and sounds like parts instead of washing in between. I love love love that you ladies mentioned to book out the pumping on the calendar. What's nice is that a lot of my meetings are done via the phone and a screen share, so I can probably pump during most of those. My only big concern is traveling. I travel quite a bit for work, and a lot of the time it is flying out for a meeting and flying back in the same night. it will be interesting to see how that works after baby.
@jaylii@southernlady07 I would love that thread - and yes, it's probably good to wait a little bit! I also want to have meals frozen and I want to take charge of the process and planning. What I mean by this is: I'm not much of a cook. I'm not bad, I just need to follow a recipe and I get overwhelmed and discouraged by cooking easily. So, of course I meet and marry a man who is an amazing cook. He loves to cook. We both prefer his cooking. I only occasionally cook for us. I do all the dishes! But, 3 things:
1. I know I will need to cook for the kid eventually. I don't want to be so dependent on my husband for all of the food! So I need to practice and gain more confidence. 2. H is not a great planner. He's not really into meal prep ahead of time. When he gets really busy (like this week) we end up eating out a lot. 3. He freezes left overs in big portions and weird ways. So I can't even usually handle reheating things. I get grossed out really easily and defrosting a giant soup or stew - no matter how fantastic it was originally - just tends to disgust me.
So, I just want a little more control over everything. And by preparing meals ahead of time and storing them in a really easy to manage way, I think I can make sure to always have something I want available. Especially during maternity leave when I will be home all the time. I want to learn more about freezing and proper thawing/re-heating tricks. And, I would love to just try make more things on my own.
@jaylii, thank you for starting this thread! I'm enjoying reading everyone's responses, and getting lots of helpful advice. @Patience7150, I hadn't even thought about planning for where to store my breast milk at work. On that note...
FTM/STM? FTM
Do you plan to work FT/PT after baby? PT--I just put in a work proposal and I'm waiting for my boss to approve it. My job is full-time but I'm asking her to convert me to part-time and she said she would be open to it. Here's hoping it works out!
Profession? (If comfortable. Feel free to be as vague or specific as you want) I work at a non-profit agency that works in the child welfare field. Luckily, my boss's philosophy is because we work with families, our agency should be family friendly to employees. The problem is it's a small non-profit so if I convert to part-time, it means other people are going to have to pick up some of my job duties. My boss has already said she doesn't want to hire another part-time person to take the job duties I'd be giving up.
Any questions or concerns about working? I'm just worried about the response I'll get from my coworkers who may end up having to pick up some of my job duties. While everyone at my agency agrees that we should be family friendly, I could see them being somewhat resentful if they have to take some of my responsibilities. Has anyone converted their job from a full-time job to a part-time? Any advice?
Any wisdom to share? I can't remember who was asking, but someone posted that they didn't know how to cover childcare part-time. The way I plan on doing this is using Care.com. It seems like there's a range of prices, and I'm hoping to be able to find a nanny share type situation. It looks like the people on this website are vetted (background checked) which makes me more comfortable with hiring someone random off Facebook or Craigslist. Has anyone used Care? I've heard a couple good things, but would be interested if anyone else has feedback about that.
@runninginva we didn’t end up hiring anyone from Care.com (got a daycare spot a week before I went to work), but we did interview several potential nannies. Overall I was impressed with the site and the quality of the people we talked to. The only issue I had was most of them wanted to be paid under the table and we really wanted someone we could hire legally and use our dependent care benefits on.
+1 to wanting a freezer meal thread! I did this with DS and it worked out great! I have a few solid recipes that are freezable that I can share. That being said, we are better off waiting til around July when we can actually start safely freezing meals without them going bad! I ended up making a lot of huge batches of dinners and just freezing half or 2/3 for future use. This time around, I’m thinking of taking a day off work to do this near late July/early August. I’m going to just bulk buy everything I need to make everything I want in that day. Also, it was helpful to also make breakfast and lunch items too.
Im also planning to do another day of this before going back to work so I’m stocked again for those first weeks back.
Right now we use Home Chef delivery, which I love, but does require prep time that I know I won’t have again until #2 is much older.
@Redpuma119 your work and travel sounds a little like mine. I too think it will be interesting on travel days to pump. Depending on supply and what I have built up at home I’m considering hand pump and dump on trips where I am just in and out in a day.
I too would like a freezer meal thread when we when we get closer to Sept.
@Redpuma119 and @klj0228 I hope that you're both able to be successful traveling and pumping! I've got no experience with that, but I do travel to and from multiple facilities within a 30 mile radius at least 2 days per week which makes pumping/storage interesting.
@klj0228 While I think you could use a hand pump for a day trip, I'm guessing once you start breastfeeding and/or pumping you'll think of your breastmilk as liquid gold and won't want to dump it! Just my two cents. I would check out La Leche League's website (https://www.llli.org) and go to their community support boards since they have specific groups and threads on travel and those moms probably could tell you which ice packs to buy and how to make pumping and traveling as easy as it can be. I'm pretty passionate about breastfeeding and making it work as long (or as short) as you want to, so I mean all of this in a "you got this!" way, not in a passing judgement on plans way.
For those on day trips- breast milk is safe and stable at room temperature for a fairly long period of time. I wouldn’t leave it in the car in the heat, but if you have to leave it for 4-6 hours without a fridge it should be ok based on my understanding from a few years ago. Also, the Sarah Wells (and several other pump bags) have insulated compartments inside. So if you are carrying your pump anyways, you should be able to just toss the milk in that area. No need to waste milk you are going through so much effort for. Even flying for a day trip- the tsa check only takes an extra minute and isn’t too cumbersome.
@spottedginger I obviously need to be doing a lot more research on breast milk. I appreciate that feedback on time sitting out. I probably do need to make sure I look into a good insulated bag.
@nlc8424 you are probably right that I won’t want to toss it since it is so important. I’ll look at la leche leagues website. Information from people who have done it is so valuable, that’s why I like the bump so much. Thankfully my clients have started saying they only need to see me twice a year instead of 4 times a year unless there is a high priority issue. Hopefully that means I won’t be faced with this too much.
I have a friend at work that use to pump through meetings sometimes, because we didn't care. She would cover up and just have her pump quietly pumping away. What is the etiquette for a plane ride? I'm being serious. Breastfeeding isn't an issue, and is actually encouraged for take off and descent since the sucking/swallowing can help with pressure in the ears.
@Redpuma119 well you're bound to get judgement no matter what unfortunately since as normal and encouraged as breastfeeding is, some people prefer you to keep it in the privacy of your home or whatever. BUT, totally up to you! If you're comfortable, go for it! I'd recommend getting a pump that has a battery pack for ease of use, throw on a nursing cover and you're good to go.
@Redpuma119 I don’t have any experience personally, but have heard good things about the Freemie cups and how descreet they are. May be an option for you.
I am all in for a freezer prep thread when we are ready. I am already a freezer meal person and would love to expand my repertoire and share what I make.
FTM/STM? STM Do you plan to work FT/PT after baby? FT Profession? (If comfortable. Feel free to be as vague or specific as you want) HOA management Any questions or concerns about working? I'm the primary earner in the family, so I have a lot of anxiety about making sure everything goes smoothly. DH is a freelance photographer, so that money is not super consistent. Any wisdom to share? DH has been super helpful when I've been stressing about my job. (Which is part of the reason I'm not here a lot.) He offered to go back to a traditional job to help out, but I thought it would cause more stress, since I carry the insurance, etc. He's been sending me encouraging emails, helping me more at home, helping me with organizational strategies, etc. So, advice is to ask for help when you need it!
@jessicag85 I totally understand. My H and I probably make about the same amount of money, but I have all of the benefits. That, of course, makes me nervous because I can't stop working, but at the same time, I'm really proud to be the one providing us all with benefits. He works really hard (his own business - he is a craftsman and he is extremely talented!) and I think he has the potential for more earnings than me in the long-run. I'm happy to have the "more normal" job now while he is building his business. And, I hope to work with him in the future when his business can support the family. And, the good thing right now is that his schedule is very flexible. He is very busy, but will be able to be home with the baby in the mornings/early afternoons.
@Redpuma119 a friend of mine pumped on planes. She also pumped in the car driving between meetings all the time. For planes, she would use a scarf or cover. In the car, I don’t know if she even bothered. You’ll want a pump with a battery pack, but many planes have plugs standard now. For the car, she had an adapter for the cigarette lighter. You’ll get judgement no matter what, so as long as you have no fs to give, go for it. I definitely would if needed.
@magnolia209 I know, I really appreciate that he has a flexible schedule. And this is better for his health too, cause he was working hotel management before and it really affected his stress levels. I'm happy that this works financially for us now and that he's able to help me through the rough patches at work!
Redpuma119spottedginger I pumped in the car between seeing clients with my daughter, hands free pumping bra and a sarong for a cover for the win. I don't know about the plane, but it's definitely worth looking into. I mean, you gotta do what you gotta do!
@Redpuma119 I pumped in the car while driving all the time. Just threw a scarf of too so people at the red lights didn’t get a show. . It was really convenient
I have a friend who’s pumped on planes, in her seat under a scarf/blanket. She said the white noise of the plane drowns put any pumping noise completely and it was no big deal. She said she would tell her seatmate the situation when boarding, so if they were uncomfortable they could ask for their seat to be switched.
I know a lot of ladies who have pumped on planes for sure! I have the Freemie cups and with them pumped behind the bar, in a stadium seat, etc, but even a regular pump style with a good nursing cover should work.
_______________________________________________
Me: 33 DH: 32 Married 7/18/15 1st born at 35+4 on 6/6/16 Team green turned BLUE! 2nd born at 38+6 on 8/30/18 Team green turned PINK! Due with #3 on 6/6/20 Team Green
Do you plan to work FT/PT after baby? Full-time, but I work from home!
Profession? I'm a Texas CPA, but I work from home in California. DH got a job out here as a chemistry professor this past fall, and my TX accounting firm allowed me to continue working for them by telecommuting. Any questions or concerns about working? I'm not terribly concerned about the fall. The university provides paternity leave for DH in the form of part-time hours for the whole semester. Because I work on Texas hours, I finish my workday at 3 in the afternoon, and DH's first class he has to teach isn't until 4, and his last class of the day will end at 6. So I feel like this fall will be very smooth. The only concern I have would be wishing I could play with our little girl when I ought to be working! I am terrified of tax season in the spring, though. DH will be back to full-time hours in the spring, and I work crazy long hours during tax season. So I'm really scared about maintaining some kind of work-life balance, and I know we will either have to put our baby girl in daycare or hire a nanny. I'm a very afraid of trusting a stranger to care for our baby the same way we would.
~Courtney Me: 28 DH: 29 Married since: 2010 Little Sweet Pea is our first baby!
@yosemite2018 I have one of those on my desk! My mom got it for me for Christmas for drinks and snacks. I love the size because I don’t need to keep that much in it. Completely forgot about the car adapter, but would be great for when we are on road trips.
@yosemite2018 thanks for the rec on the fridge, I am thinking it will be great for my classroom. We have a mini fridge that 10 people have to share in my area and that isn't going to work.
Profession? (If comfortable. Feel free to be as vague or specific as you want) Environmental field
Any questions or concerns about working? Just about getting everyone ready and out the door in the morning. I'm in Canada and taking a full year. My work has on-site daycare, but it's small so probably hard to get in and they take >18 mo. We put our application in for a daycare near our house.
Any wisdom to share? Nope.
Me: 34 | DH: 33 Married Aug. 2013 TTC #1 Sep. 2016 ***TW***
BFP Jan. 15, 2017; MMC Mar. 4, 2017 at 10w6d BFP Jun. 5, 2017; MMC Aug. 2, 2017 at 11w6d BFP Nov. 20, 2017; ended in CP All the tests. Everything normal except treated for ureaplasma and DH potentially has high DNAF. BFP Dec. 25, 2017; EDD Sep. 5, 2018; DD arrived Aug. 26th My chart: https://www.fertilityfriend.com/home/63f71d
@SkilledSailor Bring your newborn! At 0-3 months, he/she will probably be pretty easy. And if people don't like it, tough. I think we all need to give women a break in this regard.
@nlc8424 Oh the pack mule stage. I don't miss that. I see a lot of my new mom friends use a bookbag vs. a purse, which I am thinking of copying.
I'm a FT WM. I fear the illnesses the most. I hate missing days of work for mild things like pink eye or random strep with no real sick symptoms. My kids always seem to catch everything, despite being daycare babies!
Pumping wasn't an issue. I made it work. I forgot pump parts so I ran home to get them. I pumped under a cover while driving to meetings. I pumped on conference calls. Sometimes I didn't pump and had to use formula. Don't get too crazy or stressed out about it. Give yourself a pat on the back for each day you make it through. That's my big plan - lol.
Re: Working Moms Chat
We did a bunch of freezer prepping for our first and it was so convenient!
@patience7150 Your post made me mad. Not at you.. at the world. I hate that men are getting extra pay for equal work. And also pumping at work and questioning if people see you as a professional. If men had to do this.. can you just imagine how different leave, pay, and pumping rooms would be?
Dou you plan to work FT/PT after baby? Yes. I plan to go back full time after 12 weeks maternity leave. Depending on when the baby is born, I might take the rest of the year off and come back the 2nd of January. With that being said, I am toying around with an intermittent leave so that I can work from home here and there, and go into the office sporadically after 6-8 weeks.
Any questions or concerns about working? I had quite a few, but this thread has helped answer quite a few. I have an office, so I will just close the door to pump. I have a mini fridge that I will use for milk- and sounds like parts instead of washing in between. I love love love that you ladies mentioned to book out the pumping on the calendar. What's nice is that a lot of my meetings are done via the phone and a screen share, so I can probably pump during most of those. My only big concern is traveling. I travel quite a bit for work, and a lot of the time it is flying out for a meeting and flying back in the same night. it will be interesting to see how that works after baby.
1. I know I will need to cook for the kid eventually. I don't want to be so dependent on my husband for all of the food! So I need to practice and gain more confidence.
2. H is not a great planner. He's not really into meal prep ahead of time. When he gets really busy (like this week) we end up eating out a lot.
3. He freezes left overs in big portions and weird ways. So I can't even usually handle reheating things. I get grossed out really easily and defrosting a giant soup or stew - no matter how fantastic it was originally - just tends to disgust me.
So, I just want a little more control over everything. And by preparing meals ahead of time and storing them in a really easy to manage way, I think I can make sure to always have something I want available. Especially during maternity leave when I will be home all the time. I want to learn more about freezing and proper thawing/re-heating tricks. And, I would love to just try make more things on my own.
FTM/STM? FTM
Do you plan to work FT/PT after baby? PT--I just put in a work proposal and I'm waiting for my boss to approve it. My job is full-time but I'm asking her to convert me to part-time and she said she would be open to it. Here's hoping it works out!
Profession? (If comfortable. Feel free to be as vague or specific as you want) I work at a non-profit agency that works in the child welfare field. Luckily, my boss's philosophy is because we work with families, our agency should be family friendly to employees. The problem is it's a small non-profit so if I convert to part-time, it means other people are going to have to pick up some of my job duties. My boss has already said she doesn't want to hire another part-time person to take the job duties I'd be giving up.
Any questions or concerns about working? I'm just worried about the response I'll get from my coworkers who may end up having to pick up some of my job duties. While everyone at my agency agrees that we should be family friendly, I could see them being somewhat resentful if they have to take some of my responsibilities. Has anyone converted their job from a full-time job to a part-time? Any advice?
Any wisdom to share? I can't remember who was asking, but someone posted that they didn't know how to cover childcare part-time. The way I plan on doing this is using Care.com. It seems like there's a range of prices, and I'm hoping to be able to find a nanny share type situation. It looks like the people on this website are vetted (background checked) which makes me more comfortable with hiring someone random off Facebook or Craigslist. Has anyone used Care? I've heard a couple good things, but would be interested if anyone else has feedback about that.
Im also planning to do another day of this before going back to work so I’m stocked again for those first weeks back.
Right now we use Home Chef delivery, which I love, but does require prep time that I know I won’t have again until #2 is much older.
I too would like a freezer meal thread when we when we get closer to Sept.
@klj0228 While I think you could use a hand pump for a day trip, I'm guessing once you start breastfeeding and/or pumping you'll think of your breastmilk as liquid gold and won't want to dump it! Just my two cents. I would check out La Leche League's website (https://www.llli.org) and go to their community support boards since they have specific groups and threads on travel and those moms probably could tell you which ice packs to buy and how to make pumping and traveling as easy as it can be. I'm pretty passionate about breastfeeding and making it work as long (or as short) as you want to, so I mean all of this in a "you got this!" way, not in a passing judgement on plans way.
@nlc8424 you are probably right that I won’t want to toss it since it is so important. I’ll look at la leche leagues website. Information from people who have done it is so valuable, that’s why I like the bump so much. Thankfully my clients have started saying they only need to see me twice a year instead of 4 times a year unless there is a high priority issue. Hopefully that means I won’t be faced with this too much.
Do you plan to work FT/PT after baby? FT
Profession? (If comfortable. Feel free to be as vague or specific as you want) HOA management
Any questions or concerns about working? I'm the primary earner in the family, so I have a lot of anxiety about making sure everything goes smoothly. DH is a freelance photographer, so that money is not super consistent.
Any wisdom to share? DH has been super helpful when I've been stressing about my job. (Which is part of the reason I'm not here a lot.) He offered to go back to a traditional job to help out, but I thought it would cause more stress, since I carry the insurance, etc. He's been sending me encouraging emails, helping me more at home, helping me with organizational strategies, etc. So, advice is to ask for help when you need it!
DH: 32
Married 7/18/15
1st born at 35+4 on 6/6/16
Team green turned BLUE!
2nd born at 38+6 on 8/30/18
Team green turned PINK!
Due with #3 on 6/6/20 Team Green
Do you plan to work FT/PT after baby? Full-time, but I work from home!
Profession? I'm a Texas CPA, but I work from home in California. DH got a job out here as a chemistry professor this past fall, and my TX accounting firm allowed me to continue working for them by telecommuting.
Any questions or concerns about working? I'm not terribly concerned about the fall. The university provides paternity leave for DH in the form of part-time hours for the whole semester. Because I work on Texas hours, I finish my workday at 3 in the afternoon, and DH's first class he has to teach isn't until 4, and his last class of the day will end at 6. So I feel like this fall will be very smooth. The only concern I have would be wishing I could play with our little girl when I ought to be working! I am terrified of tax season in the spring, though. DH will be back to full-time hours in the spring, and I work crazy long hours during tax season. So I'm really scared about maintaining some kind of work-life balance, and I know we will either have to put our baby girl in daycare or hire a nanny. I'm a very afraid of trusting a stranger to care for our baby the same way we would.
Me: 28
DH: 29
Married since: 2010
thanks for the rec on the fridge, I am thinking it will be great for my classroom. We have a mini fridge that 10 people have to share in my area and that isn't going to work.
FTM
Do you plan to work FT/PT after baby?
FT
Profession? (If comfortable. Feel free to be as vague or specific as you want)
Environmental field
Any questions or concerns about working?
Just about getting everyone ready and out the door in the morning. I'm in Canada and taking a full year. My work has on-site daycare, but it's small so probably hard to get in and they take >18 mo. We put our application in for a daycare near our house.
Any wisdom to share?
Nope.
Married Aug. 2013
TTC #1 Sep. 2016
***TW***
BFP Jun. 5, 2017; MMC Aug. 2, 2017 at 11w6d
BFP Nov. 20, 2017; ended in CP
All the tests. Everything normal except treated for ureaplasma and DH potentially has high DNAF.
BFP Dec. 25, 2017; EDD Sep. 5, 2018; DD arrived Aug. 26th
My chart: https://www.fertilityfriend.com/home/63f71d
@nlc8424 Oh the pack mule stage. I don't miss that. I see a lot of my new mom friends use a bookbag vs. a purse, which I am thinking of copying.
I'm a FT WM. I fear the illnesses the most. I hate missing days of work for mild things like pink eye or random strep with no real sick symptoms. My kids always seem to catch everything, despite being daycare babies!
Pumping wasn't an issue. I made it work. I forgot pump parts so I ran home to get them. I pumped under a cover while driving to meetings. I pumped on conference calls. Sometimes I didn't pump and had to use formula. Don't get too crazy or stressed out about it. Give yourself a pat on the back for each day you make it through. That's my big plan - lol.