And for the few things that are seasonal the only way to guarantee your child fits something in advance is to have too big and too small and not the right one. But they are barely mobile and so will fall too much in the too big one.
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Truth. I used to think I’d game the system by buying next year’s [seasonal thing] at the end of season sales, but then I ended up with a part Viking for a child and I don’t know what next year’s size will be, so unless it’s buying ahead for a thing I need all year around, I only start to look close to needing it.
That said, I’m willing to keep around a free one in case it might work even if I wouldn’t go out of my way to get one.
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We did not need 2 outfit changes per day most days. I think we have needed an outfit change like 5 days total so far? We also got a warm sleep sack/swaddle and just sleep with him in that and a diaper (midnight diaper changes are MUCH easier for us when there is not another step).
We probably had 10 NB onesies (between short and long sleeve), 2 pants, and 3 sleepers. I feel like each thing was only worn a few times and there were still some clothes we never got to! We were doing laundry 1x/week sometimes 2x/week.
As far as socks go, we couldnt keep socks on him so we got these booties and love them.
Most of our gifted clothes were 0-3, 3, 3-6 mo not newborn.
For what it is worth we didn’t have the nursery finished until like last weekend…the baby is still sleeping in a bassinet in our room. So no stress or pressure to figure that one out yet. We had family assemble the crib/dresser before the baby was born but it was haphazardly in the room.
With keeping/getting rid of clothing goals I would say this depends. If you’re finding it stressful to have so much stuff and are thinking it is hoarder tendencies then I think culling the outfits could help. I know hoarding tendencies are seldom about the actual things. I think that not getting anything else, putting everything that isn’t NB or 0-3 into a box to deal with later could also be helpful. Not procrastinating, you just don’t know what you like/works for you yet so dealing with it later you will have more information on what to keep.
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For those of you that breastfed, how did you decide how long you were going to BF for and when did you decide to be done? What were the things that led to your decision to stop?
People keep asking how long we plan to BF for and my answer has been “until it doesn’t work anymore” but I don’t really know what that means for us.
Also if you have any resources or suggestions for pumping in the office (process, clothes, tips that you found helped) please share!
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Second question - what kind of activities did you do with your newborn?
We are trying to make a list of things to do on our adventure days and so far I have:
- farmers market
- hike/ find new parks to walk around
- some of the downtown areas have special monthly events (like the second Saturday lots of vendors/live music/food trucks, or another downtown has a car show on the first Saturday of the month)
- Brunch/coffee dates
- Movie at home during a nap
- museums/zoo’s, but only if we want to, the kiddo likely doesn’t get anything from this yet
- Breweries
- Picnics in local parks
- Host smaller BBQ’s
What would you add??
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We did a ton of park time, feet in the grass, let her touch different textures. Lots of baby wearing walks where she could look at stuff. Laying her on a blanket on the grass under a tree. Letting her splash in water- in the sink, in a shallow under bed Rubbermaid type bin, in a shallow tub.
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For me, I wanted to BF as long as I could and we were both happy with it. We ended up breastfeeding until just after her second bday, (2 and 2-3 months?) when I dropped the last feeding she had in case it was interfering with fertility treatment stuff. They drop feeds as they age so after like 8-12 Months for us it was really easy, just at nap and a couple times overnight really that gradually whittled down to just bedtime and nap time. But I didn’t pump much and she never took bottles so it was an easy, pleasant bonding and sleep routine type thing that didn’t cause us any trouble, and it was nice to have as a soothing tool for toddler bonks and scrapes. 
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I feel like with baby clothes, you have to be realistic about your laundry habits. If you only do it once a week now, you are going to need more baby stuff than if you never let more than one load accumulate, and you need more if you use coin laundry that if you have your own machines.
I didn’t have all that many baby clothes, and it was mostly onesies and leggings, and I bought 0 newborn sized things (and my girls were not especially large babies.) They grow fast and they don’t care if stuff is too big.
We lived in a one bedroom apartment and I just didn’t buy much baby stuff and I don’t think I missed anything, really.
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I think I may be in the minority, but I never made a plan for stopping breastfeeding ahead of time. I just kept going because it just kept working for my babies and me. I stopped with the first one when I was pregnant with the second and it started hurting. That was for sure what led to my decision to stop. This hurts, she doesn’t technically need it anymore, I’m done. She was about 31 months, I’d say.
With my second, there was not third pregnancy to put an end to it. I honestly don’t remember how old he was when we stopped. I do remember that I was feeling pretty done with it and tried to stop, but he didn’t want to. I kept going for a couple months longer and then we stopped. But I didn’t remember a specific ending, a stop date, a “this is the last time” or a specific reason. I think he asked once and I said no that time and then he didn’t ask again. So that was that. I think it was a month or two after his third birthday.
Obviously, I went a long time but I feel it should be noted that breastfeeding toddlers is pretty different than breastfeeding an infant. I don’t remember the correlation between specific ages and frequency of feedings, but I do remember that it became less and less frequent. I’d say when they were two and up, it was pretty much just at naptime and bedtime. Or sometimes for comfort. Fall down, get an owie, have a cuddle and drink, move on with toddler life. Or maybe a little more when they were sick. It definitely changes to a comfort activity more than anything else, and only happens two or three times a day.
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I vaguely thought that I would breastfeed 6-12 months and then I’d go back to work and just wean to a cup. But we moved across country when I was pregnant and I didn’t go back to work and nursing seemed easier and cheaper than the alternative, so we just went one. I did stop nursing my oldest when she turned 3 but she was only nursing at bedtime then. The other two pretty much weaned themselves right before they turned 2.
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Ok for the first part with my first she was a little over 2 and breastfeeding started to become a bit of a chore with her. Sometimes it seemed to cause tantrums if I said not right now. Basically I was getting annoyed and she was barely getting any milk. It was a slow process to be done. Like it took probably 3 months to cut out one feed at a time.
Now with number 2 she is getting the same way. So I’m cutting out day time feeds now. She is 22 months old at the moment and will probably be done breastfeeding around 2.
For pumping at work keep extra sets of parts in a drawer if you can. Also if you have access to a fridge put your pump parts after they are used in a baggie in the fridge.
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All of my children self-weaned around 9 or 10 months because I develop low milk supply with older babies. I stopped trying to nurse when it started being kind of a fight. When they didn’t want to. My sister nursed her first two kids until they were approaching age two, then she said she knew it was time to stop when she said it started to feel like “kissing a boy you don’t like.”
My mother said it seems like there’s a window around the time when they are learning to walk when it is easy to wean because they are so busy. If you miss that window, you can wind up like her, breastfeeding your 2 and 1/2-year-old in your ninth month of pregnancy. Sorry Mom.
Anyway, those are just sort of example perspectives for you to try on. Obviously there’s no right answer!
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I keep thinking about this. Why are people asking this? This bugs me. I just can’t figure out why this is a question people are asking you. I find it so weird. Why is it a question? Leave Ginja alone!!! I guess the pediatrician. Maybe your own doctor for the reason that some people are under the incorrect impression that breastfeeding is birth control and your doctor should tell you that’s more myth than truth. But anyone else? Why? I can’t remember if anyone asked me that and if I was annoyed then, but I’m annoyed now!
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I like the answer you are giving people, but I agree it is a weird question. My plan with number one was to bf until age 2 because thatcis the WHO guideline. I had needed to supplement with formula off and on, so that is what he had for his bottle on the 1 day I went back part time at ten months. I night weaned at ten months and started reducing daytime bf at a year. We did baby led everything and by that point I needed more control over my body. I was also having a lot of chemical pregnancies and was told it could be that my body couldn’t support both. At 18 months he was at just a bedtime feed, and then I got pregnant and hated bf so weaned by 20mo.
With baby 2 I am starting night weaning at 11mo/should be done at 12mo. I have 3 milks ready for him to try and will get him to a manageable number of feeds over the next few months
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I had low supply exacerbated by NICU time and getting covid, and required 6 supplements a day + power pumping just to even get 75% of his consumption through BM. This made BF a big ordeal and probably led me to be done sooner than I would have if everything was easy. We went until 6/7 months.
I also went back to work at that time and despite WFH, back-to-back meetings made it really hard to eat, hydrate, pump, wash parts etc.
This was all around 6 months old. The baby also bit me pretty hard and started getting much more interested in food. So I went off the supplements and intense routine, and tapered over the course of the next month.
If your workdays have a packed schedule, it’s helpful to have everything (including food & water for you and insulation for the pumped milk) ready at your desk/pumping station. Buy 3-4 sets of pump parts so you can just wash everything at the end of the day. I prepped it all in a basket on my desk before starting work each day. I found the self-contained design of Elvie pumps to be very convenient (though it’s not crazy strong, so shouldn’t be your only pump if you have supply issues or are exclusively pumping).
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We always supplemented with formula, which was awesome in evenings when my supply was low and the baby insisted he was sTaRvInG. He caught a bad case of RSV at six months old and had other health stuff going on we weren’t aware of at the time, all of that added up to him being sick enough to be hospitalized. I pumped while he was sick (which was the one and only time I ever had a stash) but even when he came home after that my supply seemed to fizzle out over the next month or two. Having to pump at work by hiking to a whole other building didn’t help things at all. By the time he was seven or eight months old we were formula only.
Newborn activities - weekly new mom lunches hosted at the hospital, we tried going to the library once or twice, and I took him to a coffee place once. Honestly we didn’t leave the house much, I just tried to nap whenever possible.
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My mum is funny about this. Her milk supply dropped when her babies were 9-12 months, so she stopped then because it didnt work anymore, and seemed to think I should do the same even though I keep making milk. Neither of my children was inclined to wean themselves so far. We are indeed doen to nap + bedtime + a couple times overnight + some morning snuggle feeds with Pumpkin, and Duckling was the same. I weaned him at 2.5 years because I was pregnant and horrifically ill. He hated it. I haven’t had such a strong reason to wean Pumpkin yet and I have been feeling rather over it the last couple months, I want to snuggle and cuddle without my shirt getting yanked up. Also I’d like a full nights sleep. So we are working on it to a lot of tantrums and little progress.
Other people can get this 
In order, depending on how they push the issue. As long as its not affecting your & baby’s mental and physical health, it should be fine to keep going.
(My mum got herself firmly into territory and has stopped asking).
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I also just breastfed until they weren’t interested anymore.
That was around 21-22 months for us? I think the bedtime feed was the last one to get dropped, but honestly I don’t remember anymore 
Until they started weaning I always felt like I was on the verge of not having enough for daycare, but I kept pumping after they dropped feeds so I could donate my frozen milk it to the milk bank. I think Mother’s Milk Bank is the one most active in Colorado.
For pumping in the office:
- Definitely get a pumping bra
- Probably get more than one set of pump parts
- I put my pump parts in a Tupperware in the fridge during the day, then washed them every night, but I am a microbiologist who falls on the side of “meh, germs are everywhere and it’ll probably be fine”, not the “germs are everywhere so be extra careful and sterilize everything” side. It definitely saved time, because I didn’t have to trek to the kitchen after pumping and wash everything.
- I tried to pump at the times daycare was giving my kids bottles, so we’d be on vaguely the same schedule for nursing on the weekends.
- I know someone already said this, but don’t wear dresses, or you’ll likely be there in your underwear pumping
- I ate lunch while I pumped, because I felt guilty about having so many “breaks” that other people didn’t have. Not sure it was the best plan, but I got a lot of reading in, so that was nice.
- Sometimes I take naps in the lactation room, because it’s dark and the door locks
Especially if you’re not getting enough sleep at night, it’s nice to have a place to close your eyes for 10 or 15 minutes.
ETA - we never used formula, but there were definitely times when I probably should have, just for my own peace of mind when I was freaking out about maybe not having enough supply and unwittingly starving my baby.
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I did mason jars and, same (I mean, nurse, not micro, but 100% same vibe. If I had a preemie or a medically fragile kid I’d have reassessed but yeah, my mega term baby? It’s fiiiiine)
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I think that’s a weird question to ask someone, too, and also that you can’t know until you try it. With my first my supply dwindled rapidly once I went back to work and had to pump. Some people seem to have pumping success and others don’t. My second had cow’s milk protein allergy so I was on a very restrictive diet (no dairy or soy) and I guess I must have also had low supply because I was feeding him every two hours around the clock even at 8 months old and he was not gaining weight. Or maybe he was just a snacker. In any event, it was killing me to be doing that many feedings while also caring for a toddler and the restrictive diet. Breast feeding for me was wonderful and awful and I couldn’t wait to be done and I was so sad it was over and and and…
Baby activities, we mostly stayed near home. Sitting outside watching the grass and leaves. Walking around the neighborhood. If you need to go places for your mental health then all those ideas you have are good. The baby won’t care very much where they are as long as they’re with you.
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