Baby is currently 7 months old and is tall and skinny. In April we have the big semi-annual consignment sale. What clothing brands should I be looking for? What toys/accessories/general things that I might not have thought of should I be looking for for my “older baby”?
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Maybe a push/walking-type toy? I couldn’t remember what they are called but I googled and this type of thing: https://www.amazon.com/Baby-Einstein-Musical-Activity-Walker/dp/B08FBXT2KP/ref=sr_1_17?keywords=baby+push+walker&qid=1678557374&sr=8-17
Stacking toys. Put-in toys like https://www.amazon.com/Taf-Toys-Permanence-Montessori-Educational/dp/B0BL7FTZFM?source=ps-sl-shoppingads-lpcontext&ref_=fplfs&psc=1&smid=A1FWGZVO4P6W9Y
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I don’t know about “should” be looking for, but I remember some of my favorite brands of clothing when my kids were toddlers. Some brands that I thought were super cute and good quality that I loved finding used were Naartjie, Hanna Andersson, Mini Boden, Tea Collection. Gymboree can be pretty cute, too.
All my information is old, though. 
I don’t know what the cool kids are doing these days.
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LOL, same, and also this is the first person in my family to EVER be described as “tall and skinny.” Her poor li’l legs are sticking out 
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Burt’s bees, Hannah Anderson, basically most of the spendier boujie brands run longer/thinner than carters or Oshkosh or cat and Jack. girls will generally be cut thinner than boys.
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Some of the Montessori/lovevery toys are great for this age. Coin drop, ball drop, magic scarf box. That sort of thing.
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Oh and if you have space at that age, a picklers triangle is fun as they learn to pull to stand and everything.
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Burt’s Bees makes clothes?? TIL…
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Adorable ones;
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My pregnancy app is telling me to start interviewing pediatricians. What. Already? Baby isn’t even half baked yet.
Do pediatricians actually do interviews? How do you ask for one in scheduling? What do you asked when there? How do they even bill that? When do I like… Book them? If I don’t know exactly when baby is coming out?
Considering just taking the rec of a friend that has a similar set of beliefs as me on the medical front and change if I hate them because the idea of interviewing a doctor honestly fills me with dread.
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It’s definitely worth it I think because they’re gonna show up in the hospital and give your baby an exam and it’s nice to already be familiar with who they are. You’re gonna see them a shitton the first weeks. They can cover office policy and stuff like that too, and you see the practice, and all of that is super nice to have out of the way before you’re trying to navigate it while leaking from every orifice and on a baby timer.
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In my area, newborns get VIP scheduling so you just call the pediatrician the day before you’re released and they book you for a visit the next day.
I looked at 3 practices and read their philosophies/policies on their website (I was looking for a pragmatic-to-cautious approach to antibiotics, specifically). Some offered virtual info sessions or their staff answered questions, but I don’t think it was very easy to actually talk to the pediatrician at least around here. I didn’t have time to actually pick before my preemie was born, but I asked our neonatologist where she went (she lived in an adjacent neighborhood) and that one also happened to be the most appealing to me for various reasons so we went with it, no regrets.
Going with a trusted friend’s rec has worked out for me on a bunch of fronts, so that seems like a good way to go too!
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Hm, some ideas:
- Playpen - if you don’t have one yet and might want one
- Baby gates
- Push trike - starting around 10 months, our baby really loved a push trike even if he fought a stroller (the Doona Liki, but there are many other options)
- If you come across any Kyte Baby clothing, those are great esp at consignment prices - bamboo, breathable, stretchy so you can get almost 2 sizes worth of wear out of them, and durable. They have nice sleep sacks too.
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A lot of them don’t do meet and greets. IME it is one of those recommendations that rarely happens.
I think whether they come to the hospital varies by location. Both my hospitals only used in house docs. And for the cuckoo, they sent a nurse to the house instead of me taking her to the pediatrician for that first checkup after we came home from the hospital.
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I know it was recommended but I didn’t do it. The hospital had plenty of pediatricians, and I just called around in time for the 6 week appointment. The only baby I took to the pediatrician before the 6 week appointment was the one not born in the hospital.
I’ll say that I didn’t awfully care about the pediatrician’s philosophy, as I was strictly interested in medical advice and not baby care advice. The first two went to a big practice with a bunch of doctors. I chose it based on the fact that they took our insurance and I could get there by bus. The third one we were in a different city and we were in an HMO and just went to their pediatric clinic.
YMMV, of course.
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I didn’t interview, but towards the end of my pregnancy I think my OB’s office was asking who we had selected. I think they also had a list of like 10-12 local pediatricians if we hadn’t picked yet. Because I put too much time into it, I got a list of all the pediatricians in my area (as in my corner of town) and then I stumbled across a Facebook post that was basically asking for recommendations for anti-vax/alternative vaccine schedule pediatricians (they tried to ask in code but they wanted pediatricians that would support them in not vaccinating) so that was actually a great help in cutting down my list. Local online moms groups are a gold mine for this stuff. (I’d say local parent groups but they’re 99% moms in my area.) I don’t honestly remember how I officially connected with them but I’m sure the receptionists are old hat at “Hi, I’m expecting sometime around [date], how do I get set up with your office?”
For the pediatrician and for day care, distance from our house was a factor - if your kid is miserable and possibly throwing up, you want minimal car time between daycare/home and home/doctor.
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Location is huge. Also whether or not they have same day appointments and a 24/7 nurse line. I didn’t have one before I delivered kid 1 because she was early. I just googled and wrote down a name from my hospital bed. We went to that one for a bit and ended up switching because I liked the doctor I picked but I haaaaated her partner and he was the one always available. That shit happens but you can easily switch.
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I think I was 28 weeks…30 weeks? Something like that, when my doctor asked who to put down for baby’s doctor. There’s one pediatrician in the town, and he was at the clinic I was already using, and good recs from friends. And then COVID happened and the doctor who delivered the baby ended up doing the NB exam because the pediatrician wasn’t going into the hospital anymore. After the first few appointments I decided it wasn’t working with him anyway and switched to the doctor I had in the hospital (family practice, so that worked).
So maybe that means it’s better to know people beforehand, or maybe it means it’s fine to switch, or maybe it means you can do everything “right” and there’s a gorram global pandemic that screws everything up (did I mention the doctor I had in the hospital wasn’t even my planned doctor because it was effing COVID and they were doing weeklong shifts instead of coming in as needed?) and it ends up fine because there are a lot of ways to get to a good fit.
There are useful factors if they are present: location (irrelevant in my small town), practice/clinic (useful to keep both of us in the same system), availability of short-notice appointments (though that can always change and urgent care is there anyway), vibe (can change or be switched as needed if it’s no working). And 100% doesn’t need to be a permanent, perfect, one-time decision.
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Unfortunately some paediatricians “dont believe” in milk allergies or tongue ties (my first had both) but I’d just make sure you have a first choice and back-up rather than going into a bunch of detail. Second opinions easier to obtain than stressing over perfect choice.
Uh, though I say this from an entirely different system where my baby saw a paediatrician only in hospital and at the 6 week mark, otherwise its the same GP I see and we get them assigned, no choice, unless we have issues later and go back (which is how I found one we saw just once to cut Duckling’s tongue tie).
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The practice we went to “believed” (fervently) at weaning from the bottle at 12 months on the dot.
They were all stunned when I was still nursing at that point and said I wouldn’t be weaning, and wasn’t interested in their opinion anyway. LOL
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