u/crustybread28

Hello! My family recently moved to SE Evanston, and are looking into local daycare options for our 15-month-old. She’s currently enrolled at a daycare center in Chicago, but now that we’ve moved, the commute’s a bit of a pain, and we’d also like to connect with our new local community of parents and families.

I recently toured Chiaravalle Montessori and McGaw YMCA, and they both seem wonderful, but the sticker shock of tuition for those was a little startling. We’d love to find some solid options for closer to $2k/month (or less!) if they exist. I’m looking into touring Toddler Town and Total Child which look more affordable, but their minimum age is 2, so we’d have to wait a bit. That said, I’m also totally open to recommendations of places to consider when my daughter turns 2!

Thanks!

I’ve been weaning my 14-month-old gradually for a little while now. Daytime breastfeeding was easy to drop bc she mostly took formula during the day. She naturally dropped overnight nursing when she started sleeping through the night, and I made sure to only soothe her via non-feeding methods when needed. Then we weaned off formula (no problem, she liked cow’s milk), and then we dropped the before-bed nursing a few weeks ago, which was surprisingly easy (she didn’t seem to really want or need it, so we just skipped it, and that was that).

But the just-woke-up feeding…this one seems tricky. The moment I pick my daughter up from her crib, she starts fussing to nurse and trying to wiggle into position. I offer her a sippy cup of milk, but she rejects it until she’s done breastfeeding. Breastfeeding seems like her way to wake up slowly, as she often seems like she practically falls back asleep when she does so. I’m wondering if we’ll have to totally change up the morning routine. When we dropped the evening feed, all we did was cut nursing out of the routine, and everything else stayed the same.

Or do I keep the routine as-is with the exception of dropping the breastfeeding, and just try to gut through her getting all upset from the lack of nursing when she wakes up?

Our 12mo baby is in her second week of daycare. Over those last two weeks, she has also spent three nights out of her usual environment, sleeping in the same room as me and my husband—two nights we were on vacation, one night we had to stay with family bc of hazardous air quality in our neighborhood. I didn’t realize what a dangerously powerful thing staying in the same room as us for a few nights would be when she was dealing with a little separation anxiety from daycare. She still goes down for naps effortlessly, but bedtime is now…a nightmare. She is freaking out nonstop unless we basically stay in her room with her until she falls asleep. She’s totally calm as soon as we come in, but any indication of moving towards or opening the door sends her wailing to no end. I don’t know what to do besides let her cry it out, and it’s torturous. She’s also a little under the weather and I don’t want this to make her sicker. Help?

Hello! My husband and I just moved to SE Evanston from Chicago with our one-year-old daughter, and are excited to expand our community here. We've lived in IL for less than a year, and while my husband is from here and has a great social network, it's all still pretty new to me, so I'm especially interested in meeting other moms at a similar stage of parenthood and making some new friends! Our daughter is starting daycare soon, but in Chicago, not Evanston. If folks have suggestions of where/how to get acquainted with other local parents of little ones, I'd really appreciate it! Thanks!

My squirmy gal NEEDS to have her nails dealt with before they become talons and she leaves claw marks on herself and me and her dad…but she makes it so difficult! Lately if I’m lucky I can get maybe a couple of her nails filed in a day. We’ve always used one of those gentle motorized nail files for infants and it seems like the file is not the issue. She just doesn’t want to have to keep a hand or a finger still for even a moment, and wriggles away. She’s getting too strong and fast! I try to distract her with toys, compelling objects, and even try to file them while she’s holding these things, to no avail. Using any screens as a distraction isn’t on the table for us.

Any recommendations?

Hello! I'm going to be moving into a condo in SE Evanston over the next couple of months, and I'm looking to have the trim and walls painted. It's a vintage 3br/2ba. Has anybody worked with a reasonably-priced, high-quality local painter they'd recommend?