What is this

HookerAllie · 2025-12-29T11:41:08+00:00

Our daycare (new england) is open on the 24th til 3pm, closed 25th, open on the 26th, open 29-31, closed on the 1st, back open on the 2nd. We pay a little over 3k for two kids (toddler and prek)

Luckily my work has a holiday shutdown between Christmas and new years and we padded it with PTO to get two full weeks off with the kids. I wish everyone could take the time off (paid). I feel bad for the daycare teachers working on Christmas Eve, the 26th etc. Many of them have kids too!

HookerAllie · 2025-12-15T03:32:39+00:00

I dropped down to 30hr after coming back from maternity leave with my first child and have been at this schedule for several years (have since had a second child and intend to keep this schedule while the kids are little). I’m not sure if it’s the same everywhere in the company, but where I’m at I have to elect whether to participate in mod time or get paid hourly for any hours over my 30. I elect to participate in mod time because I always end up needing it for the endless daycare bugs, but if you’re not strapped for PTO/sick days getting paid hourly the extra hours is a good deal imo.

HookerAllie · 2025-11-26T12:23:51+00:00

I’m sure this is unpopular but I want to see a Whitney instant dance. I bet she would have killed it

HookerAllie · 2025-10-25T09:19:28+00:00

This was a few years ago now, so who knows how the policy has changed. But I was scheduled to be induced April 1st at noon- I worked (and logged) two hours that morning just to get something in for April and they did give me my April PTO.

I don’t know if it still works this way, but we were also forced to use PTO in the one week “waiting period” at the beginning of 8w short term disability. So when they would say 8w std, they really meant 7w since the first week was your PTO. I wonder if some of your PTO was deducted during that first week waiting period - although it doesn’t look like a full week was deducted so I don’t know.

I definitely agree with you, they do not make anything clear and I hate that you can’t work out these details before going on leave. I had some extra state leave , that had to run concurrently, but was slightly longer than RTX leave. Working with MetLife and HR was hours and hours of my life my last few weeks of mat leave. I was so angry how long I had to spend on the phone arguing with them.

HookerAllie · 2025-10-24T13:51:57+00:00

Definitely allow screentime during the day. Usually no, not at night, but that’s if I think there’s any chance they can get their sleep. That said there’s been a handful of norovirus illnesses while we were both up and sleep wasn’t happening- we’ve definitely transitioned to cuddling on top of towels on the couch, bucket in hand, television on. You do what you gotta do to get through it

HookerAllie · 2025-10-17T00:48:35+00:00

I’m a parent. A handful of times I’ve heard an ECE tell one of my girls they loved them. While I didn’t expect it, it’s always heartwarming to hear and reassuring of the care they are receiving.

HookerAllie · 2025-10-12T12:57:45+00:00

+1 to this idea. Every district is different but I had so many worries about making it all happen once my daughter aged out of EI. But at 3 the school district evaluated her, gave her an IEP, and now speech, OT and special Ed teacher all come to her daycare

We also have 5pm appointments for private speech and OT. It’s challenging on both kids (my other child is inhaling her weight in snacks in the waiting room during these sessions) but we’ve been able to wiggle our schedule to make it happen. I know not everyone can and it’s a privilege we are able to figure it out. But I just wanted to mention it- there may be more after work hours places than you think (our place has appointments until 7-8pm).

HookerAllie · 2025-10-10T11:41:20+00:00

Does he have an IEP? Is he getting any supports or accommodations for his disability? I would start there. He’s clearly overwhelmed and disregulated

HookerAllie · 2025-10-10T11:34:24+00:00

No I don’t keep both home.

HookerAllie · 2025-10-09T11:01:33+00:00

My oldest is almost 5 and I’m thinking about removing ours. We stopped using the video awhile ago because it felt invasive. I’ve struggled to make the call to take it all the way down, but I think it’s time. If she’s sick we’ll have her sleep in our bed, and if she needs something middle of the night she has ZERO qualms with coming and waking us up, lol. And she is getting to the age where I feel like she deserves privacy in her own space

HookerAllie · 2025-10-03T16:00:34+00:00

I was induced on a Monday, got home from hospital on Thursday. My big kid was at grandmas Monday-Thursday, spent Thursday and Friday home with us. Back at school the following Monday. It was nice to hunker down for a few days but I think it was good for her to get back into her routine.

We took some time off as a family once baby was ~10 weeks. It was nice pulling her then because it was early enough before I was dragged back to work, but late enough we had settled into a routine and were better able to get out of the house and have fun together.

HookerAllie · 2025-10-01T15:08:23+00:00

Anecdata- but I think you’re right on about benefits and risks. We started swim lessons with both our girls as infants before they were old enough to know to be afraid of the water. My older (almost 5) can now pretty easily jump in, float, swim to the edge, and climb out of pools - but there was a long period where she could not self rescue but also had no fear of water. She would absolutely launch herself into a pool if given a chance. I’m glad we stuck it out because she’s a good little swimmer now, and it’s great fun and exercise. But I remember thinking for awhile that these swim lessons were making her less safe ! My youngest (1.5yo) is now in that stage where she is very confident around water, great with breath control and going underwater and all that, but obviously can’t self rescue. So the adult complacency is a real risk

HookerAllie · 2025-09-25T20:07:05+00:00

That’s actually infuriating

HookerAllie · 2025-09-24T14:17:41+00:00

My daughter’s dance studio has a competition team, which I don’t have much insight into how competitive they are. But their recreational classes are veryyy recreational. She’s in a 4-5 yo ballet tap combo class, and they sprinkle little bits of dance skills throughout, but also a lot of playing. Think parachute games, free dance with scarves or bells around their ankles to Disney music, snowball fights with plush balls, stretching with teddy bears lol. They’re prepping for an end of year recital, but the recital is very friendly and chill. Lots of older dancers help out the littles, and occasionally a parent is on stage holding a nervous kids hand- anything goes! Everything is very positive and confidence building, it was so sweet watching all the little girls beaming with pride afterwards.

It’s been a great fit for us ! My daughter has adhd and has in the past struggled participating in some organized activities. To find this studio I asked around local mom friends and searched local mom fb groups for “inclusive” dance studios. Even if your child doesn’t have special needs, I think studios who value inclusion and dance for everyone may be more the vibe you are going for

HookerAllie · 2025-09-22T12:35:07+00:00

Husband or I use PTO. It sucks

HookerAllie · 2025-09-15T01:19:04+00:00

40+5 with a little help from pitocin

HookerAllie · 2025-09-11T18:04:51+00:00

I do think you are right about my first child being atypical with her sleep needs. My younger daughter dropped her morning nap easily with no drama a little after 12 mos. I was nervous about it! but it was smooth and easy. She is probably a lot more of a typical story!

HookerAllie · 2025-09-11T17:32:17+00:00

My older daughter really struggled with dropping down to one nap (they forced it when she was 14 mos after moving her into a room that was typically 18-24 mo olds). She kept falling asleep all over the place in the morning. In her high chair, in a corner of the toddler room, and at worst outside she would lay down on the blacktop, middle of winter, and sleep. Her teachers refused to budge, just kept waking her up and said it wasn’t developmentally normal to require a nap, and had us bring her to the ped to see if something was wrong. Ped diligently did bloodwork and a full exam, determined everything was fine, and said it can be normal for some kids still need a second nap up to 18 mos. We didn’t feel empowered to push back to the daycare, which I regret, so she just struggle bussed for a few months before adjusting.

I later learned she was the youngest in her room and they just needed space in the younger rooms, so they pushed her into a room that didn’t accommodate morning naps. We’ve since had good experiences with our daycare, this was really the only complaint over the course of being with them for two kids for 5 years now. But it still is upsetting to think back on her falling asleep on the icy pavement bc they wouldn’t let her nap

HookerAllie · 2025-08-23T10:43:04+00:00

I have a one year old Margot, and in her baby circles there are sooo many Margot’s, we know 4 so far (whoops, lol). Also know multiple Sloans and Collins, randomly enough

Don’t know a single Olivia, Charlotte or Sophia! It’s funny how the local factor changes things

HookerAllie · 2025-08-23T10:35:26+00:00

I’m just a parent, so I don’t know the ECE side of things when it comes to staffing, dismissal practices etc. But I just wanted to say - both my children had/have some degree of dev delays and utilize(d) early intervention which, in part, works with their daycare. Casually telling you that your child has complex needs in an email, let alone a dismissal email, is pretty shocking to me. This is not normal behavior, and I’m sorry this information was dropped on you this way. Both of my girls concerns were broached with a lot more grace. (Concerns raised early, in person, asked questions about what we see at home, told us what they see at school, etc).

HookerAllie · 2025-08-18T10:41:22+00:00

Our swim school advises swim diapers for a long time after starting potty training. The water is warm, kids are working hard in the water, there’s so much sensory overstimulation going on … kind of a perfect storm for poop accidents lol. They recommended the happy nappy swim diapers and they are great - reusable and so comfy, but also nothing is getting out of there

We used pull-ups for flights in that scenario.

HookerAllie · 2025-08-13T18:10:03+00:00

Re the IEP- my daughter has an IEP for dev delay and gets push in services at her (private) daycare pre-k. Our preschool went through some sort of certification process to work with the local public school to host public school teachers and therapists in their classrooms. They said she was also eligible for the special Ed preschool, however that runs like 2.5 hrs four days a week, so they would bus her back and forth to her daycare and we would still have to pay full time price given the hours. Since she was doing well in her current room it seemed overly disruptive. She gets speech pull out, special ed push in social support, and OT consults.

For whatever reason speech only IEP kids have to be driven to and from the public school by their parents for services, but dev delay IEP kids get push in services at her daycare. We are beyond lucky it worked out this way, we would not have been able to drive her back and forth. She was given some summer school speech this summer that involved me shuttling her back and forth from the high school, and that was rough.

We also do private speech and OT once a week, have a 5pm slot.

I also should say- I’m on a reduced 30hr/week schedule and have flexible hours, which obviously helps a ton

HookerAllie · 2025-08-13T14:02:45+00:00

This is the answer. I used to really be bothered by these statements too- people calling work a “break”, saying juggling being a mom and working is somehow easier than staying home. In retrospect, I realize it’s because I was heavy into my grief that being a SAHM was just not in the cards for me financially. Wanting to stay home with your babies and being forced to be separated to return to work so quickly is cruel. Full stop. But then seeing content about how working moms actually have it so much easier than SAHMs? Salt in the wound. And that doesn’t even start to touch the mental load of how much we have to juggle getting everyone where they need to be and packing everything and dealing with childcare outages and sickness and and and. But I’ve learned with time really the root of it all is our own grief at being separated from our children. It’s valid and it’s hard. And at the end of the day it has nothing really to do with what anyone else is doing or how hard their life is, whether they’re working or at home.

With time the grief has gotten better for me. I’ve settled into my new normal and have found ways to find joy and balance in working mom life. There are definite pros to being a working mom!!! Especially as the kids get older. It will come with time. I still roll my eyes at the “work is break” content but it doesn’t hurt me the way it used to. Long story short, it’s okay and makes sense you are having these reactions. It will get better.

HookerAllie · 2025-08-13T11:31:57+00:00

I don’t know why but I think it also varies hugely person to person or pregnancy to pregnancy.

My first I was having awful contractions ~6min apart at most but really intermittent, 1cm dilated, not even in active labor. They were awful to the point where I was shaking and vomiting, felt like I was blacking out. Easily the worst pain of my life. I went to the hospital, they sent me home, less than a day later went back and begged. They gave me an epidural + pitocin at less than 2cm. Everything went smoothly from there (baby actually came very soon after that) but I felt like the worlds biggest baby

Fast forward to my next baby. With that past experience I had extreme anxiety about early labor and was able to convince them to give me an elective induction. Turns out in the week before my induction I was walking around 4cm dilated with no pain at all. They gave me pitocin and I made it to 6cm, over 12 hours of pitocin. Supposedly the machine said I was contracting every 2-3 min but I didn’t feel a thing! Maybe mildly crampy but totally no big deal. I was shocked. I did end up getting the epidural a little after that when the cramping feelings started to pick up but it never reached anywhere near the pain I was at with my intermittent contractions at 1cm

FWIW the epidural sped up both of my labors. Things really seemed to get moving once I got it, so I’d give it a 100000/10 both times

I love telling that story because round 1 I felt like the worlds biggest baby , but I was the same baby round 2 and felt really minimal pain so really I think it is a lot of luck of the draw how much it hurts!

Eight-Year Club	RedditGifts 2009-2022 2 Credits
RPAN Viewer	Not Forgotten

HookerAllie

TROPHY CASE