I have a good knock off. Let me find the brand.
Be careful about the off brand magnetiles for younger kids (any of them still in the mouthing phase esp). They’re subject to a ton of recalls because without good plastic and cross bracing, they break and kids have been eating magnets, which can be life threatening.
Update on my caution there- it seems Picasso tiles are also pretty safe/well made, and they’re cheaper than Magnetiles. The issue is primarily the weird ever changing named brands on Amazon etc that super easily break.
I completely forgot my commitment to finding the spin off but my box confirms that our gifted tiles are Picasso. So far can attest they have dealt with toddler abuse and no issues.
@Meowkins my friend told me her pediatric dentist has Cocomelon on a continuous loop at his practice. I think that has to be an OSHA violation for the staff, right?
I don’t actually mind Cocomelon that much, but a continuous loop?!? Ee gads.
I am moving to a city where walking will be our primary mode if transport while out and about. Yay for environmentalism! But no for our shitty $15 fall apart walmart stroller.
Anyone have recs for strollers that are lightweight and durable? I have a 2yr old around 27lbs and would like to at least get a couple years out of it.
Lightweight not so much, but I adore our Thule urban glide. It’s been great both for city with terrible sidewalks (Portland) and for gravel trails etc.
I have a friend’s old uppababy Cruz and it’s not amazing at city life.
I have had a terrible day trying to nurse Lily and it’s killing me. She has 2 teeth and for the past week or so she has occasionally bit me. Usually it’s when she nurses herself to sleep and she is done nursing and it just kind of sits in her mouth and she absently bites down without knowing it. Today I went to feed her for her afternoon feeding and she didn’t even try to eat, she just bit down hard. Bella only did that once or twice and I treated it the same way I did with Bella; I pulled her away, said “no biting”, and then put her down to play for a few minutes before trying again. For the next hour and a half I tried to feed her every 15-20 minutes and each time she bit me really hard! It got to the point where I thought I was going to have to pump and then try to get her to drink it from a bottle (or open cup/360 cup since she is a bottle refuser ) She kept acting hungry but each time we tried she either immediately bit down or gave 1 or 2 quick sucks and then bit down. She finally relented and only nursed for 3.5 minutes on one side and was done, and she bit me when I tried to latch her onto the other side.
Then at bedtime she usually nurses herself to sleep, even if she just ate an hour before. Tonight she nursed for 1.5 minutes on one side and then bit me. When I said “no biting” she started to cry and continued to cry with my rocking her until she cried herself to sleep. She will be 7 months old tomorrow and I don’t know if this is just a phase she is going through or not but I don’t know what else to do and it can’t continue like this.
I’m sorry. that is really hard and emotional. That’s what my son did and it was so bad I decided I was done. Hope you find a solution that works for you guys. Hugs and solidarity.
I have a Colugo stroller. Got the Complete because the regular didn’t have a newborn setting or car seat adapter at the time. It’s really well-built, eats up city cobbles/brick and chunky hiking trails, and is smaller than a jogging stroller which I don’t have space for. Without a newborn I would actually consider the Compact which is 12 pounds vs 25 and also significantly cheaper. Smaller wheels, but I would expect build quality to be good still.
I came here to say this! I have the compact one that I bought pre Covid when I thought I’d be traveling but I still love it. And their customer service is top notch. You can buy and try and return for 90 days I think.
We have a Thule chariot that is an awesome beast but also a beast. It is wild to spend 1200 or whatever on a stroller and then it has to live outside in the rain. We also have two used maclaren strollers (aggressively pink, too pink even for me that lives at my parents, and a black one we bought from Kijiji). These are city beasts. Used we paid 40 and you can buy new parts and we removed and washed all fabrics. They are awesome at cities. The rain cover is pretty decent. They fold fast. The clip is weird but it outsmarts children and grandfathers which is handy. I like it.
If I had unlimited money, I’d have an upmarket stroller like an UPPAbaby Vista or a stokke or urban glide or something (actually if you go to a swanky area and write down stroller names is that creepy?) And the chariot and the maclaren. But because I’d be rich I’d have someone order and install new wheels on the maclaren or maybe oil it or something.
I definitely try to make notes on prams and kids trailers that I see at the farmers market.
I got our urban glide for $250 on marketplace. There was a rip on the foam handlebar. We pulled that off and replaced it with bike grip. Very exciting haha.
The Thule accessory prices are hilarious. I can’t remember what the cup holder was, but I convinced g to go off brand. He paid full price because it was march 2020 and he had suddenly upended his life and decided to solve it with money. Also 3 mc and my 37th birthday later the second seat in the chariot is not seeming like our best choice ever
We have the Baby Jogger city mini gt2, and we walk a ton with it. We live in a very hilly region with few sidewalks, and I find that it pushes very well. I really like the maneuverability of the 3 wheel system with rubber tires. I see it (and similar versions) on FB marketplace for < $100 fairly often.
Cons: Light it is not, but it is rated up to 65 lbs. not a lot of storage space.
It’s likely a phase but a really horrible one. Personally I would keep doing what you are doing(putting her down saying no biting) but know it’s totally valid to say I’m done too.
See, this is where I feel trapped, and where I’ve felt trapped for the past 4 months. I feel like I don’t have the ability to make the choice to be done.
I don’t want to exclusively pump - there is no way in hell I’m pumping 3 times in the middle of the night each time she wakes up to eat, and I’m worried I wouldn’t produce enough milk if I exclusively pumped and didn’t pump each and every time she ate. That leaves us with formula and she won’t drink it. She has a lot of allergies (milk, egg, soy) and she can only drink the specialized allergen-free formula. She absolutely will not drink it, and I don’t blame her because it smells awful. When we hadn’t figured out all of the allergens yet she was rapidly dropping in her weight percentiles and she was getting really sick. The GI specialist at Children’s hospital said we had to give her formula because my milk was just making her worse and we tried everything. I eventually resorted to squirting it down her throat with a syringe, because even if we mixed a bottle with <10% formula and 90% bm she still wouldn’t drink it. The doctor said there are some babies that will drink anything if they they hungry enough, and there are some that will starve until they are given a feeding tube. She is obviously the latter.
Thankfully we finally got all of the allergens out of my diet and she got better and now at 7 months old she is finally back up to the 50th percentile where she started. But, for months afterward she wouldn’t even drink straight bm from a bottle because she didn’t trust that there wasn’t formula in it. A few times over the past few months we have tried giving her a little formula again, and I’ve even used it to make oatmeal for her and she just won’t eat it. So I feel like I am stuck nursing her, even though it means I’m forced to eat a diet that I don’t like and my husband can’t help with feedings.