Random Questions, Parenting Edition

Oooo thank you. She’s been a kicky baby since the womb, so multiple of these may be good to pick up. :joy:

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Teeth are not for biting was great for second child who only sometimes bit but still needed to learn. First child the only thing that helped us was changing daycares twice to a smaller setting. Eldest still does not listen to any conventional parenting advice…

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Uggs are heavy, there was an acceptance delay for my kid. We like the Jan and Jul lite and toasty, unsure of Canada availability. Much lighter.

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I saw them and like them, but he’s borderline or sized out🥲

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Stonz West is another ultra light wide toe option.

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Oh nice! Up to size 2 and cheaper than bogs!

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Does anyone have travel booster seat advice? We are going on a trip next week and I will die if I have to travel with a car seat again. D1 does not use a car seat at all anymore. She weighs 50# and is 50 inches tall and uses a normal small booster on a daily basis.

D2 weighs 40.5 lbs and is 47 inches tall. She officially exceed the height (by a lot!) and weight (barely) restrictions for using a booster seat as well and on very short trips we’ve been letter her use one, while she practices sitting correctly and buckling herself in/unbuckling.

We won’t be in the car very much on our trip so I want to use booster seats. I could just check the 2 that we have but they are still big and bulky and it will still cause an issue with getting ourselves + luggage from car to check in desk and from baggage claim to the rental car on the other end. (DH is blind and uses a cane so he only has 1 free hand. D1 has Autism/ADHD and is a wanderer so one of us has to keep a hand on her at all times in the airport to prevent her from wandering away).

I’m looking at 2 options:

  • The cheap option is the bubblebum inflatable booster seat. It meets US safety standards and when inflated looks similar to their normal booster seats. I think they are small enough deflated that I could just put these in our normal checked bag and take them out when we get to the rental car place. They are only $30 each on amazon. I don’t know why but “inflatable booster” seems really not-safe to me, but it says they meet the safety standards that all other boosters meet, so maybe I’m being irrational about this
  • The expensive option is the ride safer travel vest. It will be $175 per child to buy these. DH’s O&M instructor actually submitted a request for the state to buy these for our family way back in the spring, so he could independently take the girls in ubers, but so far the state has not approved it. They also haven’t rejected it - they just had a massive budget cut due to the new administration and aren’t approving that kind of stuff at all right now. If it has been requested a year earlier we would have gotten them immediately :woman_facepalming:

The travel vest seems like it’s even more convenient than the bubblebum and could just be thrown in a backpack. It would also give us lasting value and be easier for DH to take with him to do things like school pickup or drop off, dr appointments, etc. So it might be worth biting the bullet and just buying those.

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I haven’t used either personally but people in the car seat group on FB LOVE the Ride Safer Vest. You so rarely have such an obvious opportunity to throw money at a problem and get good results, I say you go for it!

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Yeah, I’m seriously considering it. Our travel sinking fund has more than enough to cover it, and we have enough cc points I could get one practically for free. DH and I kind of dropped the idea of buying them ourselves once both girls were big enough for booster seats, with the assumption that he would just carry the big bulky booster seat with him if he did any independent car travel with them. It’s been working out well for a few weeks with him taking D1 to dance class on his own. He just has to carry the seat between ubers. But I think it would be easier for him to just carry a backpack with him to put the travel vest in when they aren’t in the car and WAY easier if he wanted to take both girls somewhere.

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Now the struggle is deciding which size to buy for D1. She weighs right at 50 lbs, with her clothes on, per the last doctor’s appointment. Just now I weighed her on the home scale and it says 48.5 lbs. The sizing for the safer vest is SM: 30-60lbs, LG: 50-80lbs.

I would feel most comfortable putting her in the small size, since she’s right in the middle of the weight range. But if we get the large, that gives us another 20lbs of growth to keep using it. If we get the smaller size, she will grow out of it earlier and we will have to buy a new one at some point. But will she be sufficiently safe in the larger one if she might be at the very bottom or slightly under the weight range?

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We are at the dentist and they just weighed her. 52 pounds on their scale :joy::joy::laughing: I guess we can take the average and say she’s officially 50 pounds

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We have used the RideSafer for a couple of plane rides and a handful of cab rides, and it’s really great. It also makes it possible (well, reasonable) for us to bus/walk one way, and Uber home the other direction.

Sorry I can’t shed any light on the sizing. The way it works is it’s basically a belt positoner bringing the seat belt to the correct points on their body, so it probably depends on torso height, circumference, etc. Do you have a way to purchase it that accepts returns?

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Do you have time to order a small for D2 and try it on both girls? If not, I would personally go with the large but YMMV.

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It sounds like you’ve made the decision to use the vest, which sounds good especially if dh can use it for lyfts and you’ll be using it a lot. We did use the bubble bum and it was pretty sturdy for being an inflatable booster. We didn’t have any accidents or anything while using it so I have no first hand safety data!

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Can the vest double as a walking harness for D1 to make it easier to prevent eloping in the airport?

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We have two of the ride safer vests and have been happy with them and I feel like the kids are safe using them. It doesn’t require them to sit still the way a booster would, they’re more contained. For size, I would measure torso height primarily. If your kid is tall and slim the weight might give you the wrong idea. Torso height is important here for getting the lap portion in the right position.

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My 2 1/2 year old is a picky eater, but I haven’t been too concerned because she’ll always eat string cheese (calcium, protein), corn (carbs, fiber), yogurt, and blueberries and oranges. So I feel like at minimum most of her dietary needs are met. Also she eats most of what is served at daycare due to peer pressure :woman_facepalming:t2:.

Well, lately when she doesn’t like what is served for dinner and she has an extra dairy-filled dinner (cheese, yogurt, multiple servings), she has a “loose bowel movement” the next day and gets kicked out of daycare. What should I add to her “safe foods” diet to avoid this?

Btw I think her “loose bowels” is dietary because she is 100% well otherwise and it’s not like she’s having diarrhea multiple times.

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Probably more fiber. Would she go for oatmeal cookies, maybe with PB, chocolate chips, and/or maple syrup? If you don’t have time to bake from scratch, maybe Made Good oatmeal chocolate chip bites. Or popsicles made with pureed fruit?

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Those ingredients make a good energy ball/no bake cookie.

You can also ask the doctor about trying a lactaid pill.

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Has anyone made Christmas tree ornaments recently that use wallet size pictures, came out cute and a preschooler can meaningfully help with? That you recommended?

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