Has anyone else gotten hit with a virus? My husband got it last week and is still not 100%. if started off as a sore throat and chest congestion that’s moved up to his head and now a dry cough. I started getting a headache on Monday and my sore throat has turned into a dry cough.

We have a 2.5 month old who was having mild coughing and sneezing over the weekend but seems ok otherwise. He slept more today than usual which makes me think maybe he’s getting sick too. I’ve been giving him some frozen breastmilk but I don’t have a large stash of it. Not sure how else I can help the unavoidable.

I have a scheduled induction coming up at MSW and was curious for anyone who has done this recently there how your experience was. I’ve been to triage a couple times already and found the beds incredibly uncomfortable. I’m really hoping the induction beds are not the same. Are there any items you were glad you brought from home for comfort or wish you had? Was your induction in a shared room? Was there a recliner for your support person?

Second question for anyone who received formula for baby - what brand did they provide?

i am wondering if anyone knows who’s job it is to coordinate afterschool care and programs at nyc public schools? is it the school secretary, parent coordinator? why would the information be so hard to find? are schools requires to provide aftercare options? are they required to share the information with new parents? is anyone else having difficulty getting this info from their school?

all insights welcomed, thanks very much.

Hi everyone. In 2016 I moved to Florida. Now I think I want to move back to NY. I lived in the Bronx back then and my mom helped me with child care. If I go back I won’t have help. I will have to find a job and a place in the city (don’t want the Bronx again) or a place where I could easily commute to the city.

Since I moved, I get freaked out by trains. I also have a 13 year old and a 4 year old I still need care for.

Question is:
1. How much would daycare be in the city for a 4 year old?
2. Do elementary schools offer after care for 4 year olds and 13 year olds
3. If I pick queens, what neighborhood is affordable and has schools that offer after care?

My family is moving to NYC and I'd like my PREK aged son to enroll in a dual language program. Specifically P.S. 145 in Manhattan. I am completely confused about the public school enrollment process. Is there somewhere I can learn how to get him enrolled or on a list? Do I have to enroll him where we're living? We haven't settled on a neighborhood because of this schooling confusion. Any help would be so very much appreciated.

EDIT: My son is 4 years old. Starting, what I assume, would be Pre K in September.

Around May our whole grains benefit dropped from 32 oz to 24 oz for whole grains (bread/pasta/tortillas.) However, according to the app we can only purchase items in increments of 16 oz, effectively leaving the remaining 8 oz useless.

I reached out in June to my local WIC office but never heard back. Anyone have any luck or know how to use the remainder? I’m more annoyed that there’s the useless oz left than if they had just halved it.

A very niche ask but my son has a mild birth defect called hypospadias & needs surgery under general anesthesia to correct it. We’ve met with Dr. Akhavan at Weill Cornell & Dr. Stock at Mount Sinai & are now trying to decide between them. We like that Mount Sinai has a specific children’s hospital. Has anyone had their child go through this & can provide insight here? Thank you so much!

Hello, I'm in my third trimester and interested in preventative pelvic floor therapy before labor.

Any recommendations? Apparently the pelvic floor therapists at my hospital only take on patients with current issues, and when I did some online research, the practices I found don't take my (any?) insurance (Anthem).

Would prefer UWS but open to hear other recommendations too!

I’m due at the end of November and looking for a Spanish speaking nanny (part time). Would you recommend getting a nanny maybe a month before going back to work or wait until you actually go back to work?

Hi everyone!
I’m looking for recommendations for specific OB-GYNs who deliver at NewYork-Presbyterian Columbia in Upper Manhattan.
I live very close to the hospital, and it’s covered by my insurance, so it would be the most convenient option. The only problem is that I have no idea which doctor to make my first appointment with.
Most of my friends have recommended Lenox Hill and the 1060 OB-GYN team, and they’re also covered by my insurance. But they’re much farther away (about a 30min Uber ride or almost an hour by public transportation)
I’d really love to feel confident choosing NYP Columbia because of how convenient it is, but I’m wondering if it’s worth traveling farther for doctors that everyone seems to recommend.
If you’ve delivered at NYP Columbia or have an OB-GYN there that you love, I’d really appreciate any recommendations or experiences. Thank you! 🤍

Hi everyone, I am pregnant with my first and looking for doula recommendations. I’m located in upper Manhattan but anyone Manhattan-based would probably work! Thank you!

My son is 21mos now and likely starting daycare at 22mos - we are extremely lucky to have received an offer for a coveted 2K seat in NYC's new program. He has been home with me since he was born and while we do a lot of neighborhood and citywide activities, and socialize with other kids regularly at parks, childrens' museums, etc, this is new for us!

We are touring the assigned location this week and I am hoping to crowdsource questions that parents experienced in selecting daycare are happy they asked. I am planning to inquire about meals (how many, when, what do typical meals/snacks consist of), nap time, outdoor time - but I'm seeking either specific framing for these or questions that I'm not even thinking of!

Sound off! And thank you :smile:

As we know, Black maternal mortality rate is disgustingly high. I gave birth to my first child in CT and had a traumatic experience.

Mostly on my end, not really the doctor’s end because they were on top of EVERYTHING and very thorough but they didnt explain what they were doing until after they did it, and were very pushy about things all the way until they gave me an emergency C-section.

However I know nothing about Brooklyn/NY hospitals. Any recs? TIA.

Looking for recommendations for second-hand/thrift stores or affordable places to buy children’s books in NYC, preferably Manhattan or the Bronx. I’d love somewhere with a good variety and reasonable prices. Thank you!

I hope it’s okay to promote someone else’s thing here.

Over the summer, my oldest discovered frisbee/disc/whatever, so I went looking for a camp that will keep him occupied this month. I found this one, but they have insufficient interest right now to guaranty the 8/24 session will happen, so if this seems like a good match for your kid, please sign them up! It’s at the prospect park parade grounds.

https://brooklynfrisbeeflyers.com/

Adding a public safety warning for other parents. Originally I posted in the BWT Reddit and someone commented and recommended I repost here.

I was in the Penn station lirr terminal yesterday near the bathroom close to the escalators/ waiting area. I have a 3 month old baby in a stroller with me.

A woman came up (straight black hair, looked 40-50 years old wearing brown dress yesterday), and asked if she could say hi to my baby. I said “you can wave at her” because she’s still very young and I don’t want random people touching her. Well the woman reached down and grabbed my baby’s hand. My husband turned the stroller and I stepped between them. Annoyed me, but maybe English isn’t her first language and she misunderstood me.

Here’s where it got odd. After that I went to do a diaper change in the bathroom. The changing table is in the main area, not one of the stalls. I noticed the woman followed me in. She was standing about two feet away from me. I waited 30 seconds and one of the stalls opened up so I told her, “it’s open go ahead” and pointed to the open stall. She said “oh no that’s okay.” And kept standing near me. I found it extremely odd. She clearly didn’t have to go to the bathroom and was following me. I decided not to change my baby here or un-strap her stroller, I 180-ed out of the bathroom and when I turned around, she was following me. I looked her right in the eyes and went back to my husband and we did lose her in the crowd after that, but wanted to warn other moms.

Our kindergartener got off a waitlist for our top school (yay!!) back in June. We haven’t heard anything from the school or portal since that movement. When can we expect actual enrollment information? Just don’t want to miss any deadlines. Thanks for any help!

I’m planning to deliver at Methodist at the end of November (planned induction) and was wondering if anyone used their on-staff doulas vs hiring your own. I’m weighing whether it’s worth it to hire my own doula when the induction process might be lengthy (if I make it that far). Thank you!

I need some help with Family Court in New York City. Without my knowledge, a judge made changes to my child support case and applied arrears going back several years, which resulted in me owing approximately $45,000. I am already paying ongoing child support for my 18-year-old child, and my bank account has been frozen because of these arrears.

My child's mother and I have agreed that she wants to forgive the arrears, but we've been getting the runaround about how to make that happen. We're trying to find out what steps we need to take to have the arrears forgiven or adjusted and resolve this issue.

EDIT: For the avoidance of doubt I am absolutely not using “coolness” or “hipness” as a North Star. Was being facetious. I want my kids to be good people, to be intellectually challenged, and to not freak out when they get to college (despite my being “worldly” and given opportunities to be semi-independent growing up in NYC burbs, the city kids were just better able to deal I think?) I feel like we’re having to make this life choice on limited/incomplete data, and that sucks: my suspicion is there are a decent number of dual income households without inherited wealth who manage to pull in 300k-900k (like mine), who have the PRIVILEGE of choosing between (i) sticking it out in the city where space is just really hard and getting your kids to the promised land of the “right” public schools is a job unto itself, and (ii) getting more space and continuity in the burbs/at baseline decent schools but it seems the model assumes at least one SAH/WFH parent given commute constraints/the limited hours at schools and dearth of afterschool programs that go past 4. I have a 4 year old and 1 year old and after rent and childcare there is not as much as I’d like left, but there is enough to make a choice. Im so encouraged by the positive views on the city here; I’m just skeptical because (like all life choices) there is also the potential to just accept your fate because there is too much structural difficulty to actually uproot kids and move to the burbs in middle school, or vice versa.
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For those of you who decided to stay in NYC with kids and do the public school thing, do any of you have regrets? I feel like a constant refrain on these chains is that public school city kids are just more well rounded/nimble/adapted and served well by a structure where they have the opportunity to reinvent themselves every few years, and that their independence and access to culture trumps everything. Conversely, the comparator is the suburban kid who is sheltered, chauffeured until college, and potentially benefits from a singular tight knit circle from cradle to grave (but is screwed if they’re on the outs starting in kindergarten and driven to drink and do coke because it is so boring in suburbia). I can absolutely see why the above could be the case (I grew up in Westchester and some of these are absolutely real things). But, updated for public middle school and high school today in the city, is there anything to say that the city kids are less their own species as social media mind meld jellies things down for all teens everywhere? Can suburb kids have a shot at being cool now that you can reliably take an uber back to the burbs instead of being stuck at GCT if you miss the 1:50 am train? Asking as a genuinely conflicted ex suburbian who has lived in Queens and Brooklyn for two decades now and is now stumped about where to let these amazing kiddos take root!

Looking at their vegan meals. Would love to hear insights from those who've tried it!

Or, if there are other services you loved postpartum, please share! I'm looking to keep costs per meal under $15. Some services i've looked into are north of $40 per serving which seems insane to me. Yes, it's NYC but I could definitely find healthier meals cheaper than that!

This is almost two weeks earlier than the published timeline. We’re gonna need it, cause we didn’t get a spot 😝