Hi.
This is Laura Vandercamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist, and speaker.
And this is Sarah Hartunger. I'm a mother of three, a practicing physician and blogger. On the side, we are two working parents who love our careers and our families.
Welcome to best of both worlds.
Here we talk about how real women manage work, family, and time for fun, from figuring out childcare to mapping out long term career goals. We want you to get the most out of life.
Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura.
This episode is first airing in mid January of twenty twenty four. We're going to be talking about kids, stuff that lasts or that has become favorites in our families over the years, because we found you know, when you go into parenthood, you wind up buying a lot of stuff. We're getting a lot of stuff sometimes from people, and it's hard to know what's going to be a winner
and what isn't. I bought one particular pricey stroller was that hit thing of two thousand and seven, I guess, and it didn't wind up lasting as long as a cheap twenty dollars umbrella stroller that I just picked up at babysarus one day. On the other hand, you know, it's great when you have stuff that lasts, but some stuff just isn't going to last, and you kind of have to make your peace with it. I mean, you're probably not going to wind up with heirlooms sweatpants, So
that's a pretty high bar to set for yourself. But now that both of us have seen multiple kids go through early childhood, we wanted to share some thoughts on what might be worthwhile in some of our favorite items. I mean, because Sarah, you're seeing a lot of stuff get used again, as with your youngest versus your oldest, right.
Yeah, I mean, there's definitely stuff that didn't make it, and then there are a number of things that did, some even in almost like new condition, despite the fact that you know, there may be seventy eight years between when they were first bought and now they're still being used.
So it's been really interesting, and some of it's not been what I necessarily would have predicted, but it's always nice to see something in the hands of a younger kid that was used for many years by consecutive children.
Yeah, no, it's always funny to me.
I mean, because there are certain books and toys that you get and then kids don't use them, and they just sit there and I know maybe eventually they get thrown out or give it away or something. But then there are things that do get revisited again and again. We want to go through a few different categories. We'll start with books and magazines and media. I guess we'll start books first and then we can trade off with
other media and such. But some of our favorite I think we have a subscription to baby Bug magazine, which is a little magazine from Cricket, which created is already a magazine for children, but baby Bug is actually for babies, like toddler type children. And we got a subscription in early twenty fourteen. Would have been two at the time, and she loved it. Alex was into it, Okay, who's somewhat a little bit more mixed. But Henry now loves it, so he still has a subscription. I guess we've been
getting this thing for ten years. They've repeated some of the stories, I will tell you that, but he's kept reading it. So we'll show it to a shout out for that. A couple of my boys have actually liked it. Used to be called Boy's Life. It's now called Scout Life because boy Scouts became Scouts. But it's the magazine of the boy Scouts. And you might think it would be like a little bit, i don't know, cheesy because
it's only about scouting or something, but it's not. They actually seem to get little boys in a good way. Like there's lots of jokes and things like that in it, so we've enjoyed that as well. Do a quick shout out for a few books. There's a few that are seasonal that we've really liked. Christmas Farm about Christmas, sugar Bush Spring about Maple's syrup making in New Hampshire and Vermont, Night of the Moon, Jellies, the Summer Book, and then
Fletcher and the Falling Leaves for Autumn. We have also found that kids really like books that have a bit of an edge. So a lot of children's books are kind of syrupy sweet or trying to teach a moral or something like that, and we don't really like that as adults so much, and it's boring for kids as well. So a couple that we've enjoyed the Gruffalo, which is about a little mouse that conquers big animals by being scary.
There's a really funny book that was originally in French called I Really Want to Eat a Child that is told from the perspective of a misbehaving crocodile, and so it's about a little crocodile throwing a fit. So if you have children who grow throw fits, you might like that. The Dark by Lemony Snicket. Obviously Lemony Snicket has books for older children as well, but that's a picture book about Laslow who is afraid of the dark and then goes to visit the dark when the dark comes to
visit him. And John Klassens various Books on Hats, which is about animals possibly eating each other when they have stolen each other's hats. So kids don't like to, you know, have things be too sweet, so we'll go with those, how about you, Sarah.
Yeah, So, probably one thing that has surprised me is that sometimes books that don't necessarily seem like they're targeting really young kids have been a hit with like three
year olds. So I will share one such series that has tended to appeal throughout my kids ages, which is called Dory Phantasmagory by an author named Abbie Hanlin, and they actually just released a new one that I bought immediately, and as I was reading it to Genevieve, the other two kids are like suddenly appear in her room because they want to hear it too, because it's just like so appealing, and also I think fits in that category
of like not sickeningly sweet Doris a little offbeat. She's got some very wide imagination and it is a graphic novel that's illustrated in really cute ways. So that's one that we love. Moe Williams. I mean probably if you have kids, you already know who he is. But I will say his books do tend to be read over and over and over again.
In our house.
The knuffle Bunny series makes me cry every couple readings. So but really those books just really do seem to stand the test of time. Both of my girls have been really into two series books, the Pink Delicious books and Fancy Nancy, and then the Russell Hoban Francis books like Brennan Jim for Francis, Bedtime for Francis. I love them like I love them, love them.
They have little songs.
I've made up melodies to all of them, and they're aim towards kids. But like there's just like little Easter Like it's like almost like watching the Simpsons or something. There's like a whole layer of it that like there's a kid layer and then there's like the adult layer. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but I absolutely
love those and I have those. I have a couple of them separate, and then I also have like a one you can buy it as an addition that has multiple stories in one, and that is like one of our most requested books. We've done the illustrated Harry Potter reading together on various occasions, and that's been a hit at times as well.
But yeah, those are the books we pick up again and again and again, and I'll just say, oh yeah.
Graphic novels in addition to Abby, Rena Telgemeyer is kind of like, you know, a very popular graphic novel writer. She did a lot of the Babysitters Club books and then also did a lot of standalones like Guts and I Forget. There's a bunch of them, but my kids have all loved them, all three of them. At different ages.
Yeah, I'll do a shout out for the Bad Kitty series of graphic novels. That's another one that it's not syrupy sweet Tit's about a misbehaving kitty, as you might imagine, and the various adventures they go on. We particularly enjoyed the one where they won a visit to an amusement park and it was really a horrible amusement park. The whole Diary of a Wimpy Kids has actually been read by multiple of my children. They collected the whole series
and have not fought reading that at all. I mean shout out to graphic novels because of particularly kids who want complex stories but may not be quite ready for an entire sea of words on a page. It's just a great thing. And so you know, we've tolerated all sorts of Diaper Baby and whatever Captain Underpants, but kids like them. I mean, I will do a shout out though, for Magic Treehouse series. As a first chapter book series.
The first few are kind of short and not that exciting, but they get She did ones that were then aimed for slightly more advanced readers.
A series of them.
They had a different title, but now they've all been folded into the same baity. So if you sort of start in the middle, you will get the longer ones that are just more exciting, like the more stuff happens and you learn more in them, So shout out for those.
And then also that the Guinness Book of.
World Records will get read by multiple kids poured through, you know, then they'll compare, like if you buy them every year, you can look back at what was the record in twenty fifteen of this and if it changed by twenty twenty four.
So that's been exciting, Sarah.
What television shows would you say have stood the test of time for your kids?
Yeah, so I would say Bluie gets the gold medal for this in the one that I don't find terribly grading, and a lot of kids watched it for like maybe longer than you might have expected that they would watch it. The music is really good, the accents are really good. Again, there's kind of like a layer of adult humor buried
in there, so that definitely gets a shout out. Thunderman's on the Disney Channel, I believe, and maybe also available on like Netflix or Amazon Prime or one of the other streaming services is also one of the things that, like, my kids have watched every episode multiple times and they will all watch it together, which is always amazing. And I have to say just Disney Plus in general has been so nice to have, I mean, access to every
single one of those movies. There's a number of shows on there, like usually they can find something that appeals to most of them, and it's just a nice It's a nice repository to have available. So I'm glad that that. You know, I don't think that existed when Annabel was a little kid, but it's been nice to add that to our toolbox as they have gotten older.
Yeah, I also have to say, oh, go ahead.
It could keep going, keep going.
I was just going to mention that I have been impressed. I guess this does not apply to like young young kids, and in a way that was what our initial angle of what this episode was going to be. But I just want to say that the classic like nineteen nineties early aughts movies have been more of a hit with my kids than I expected. I'm talking about Mean Girls, Clueless,
Bring It On, Legally Blonde. There are absolutely dated, like inappropriate jokes in some of them, but in some ways that's actually not the worst thing because you can actually pause it and then talk about why that joke is no longer okay, or the kid may point it out to you that that joke is no longer okay, and so you know, in a way that can just be
fodder for conversation. But at the same time, the material in them, I mean, there's a reason that we watched them so many times and we want to watch them again as it all, and some.
Were bit into movies and musicals and all the musicals of all of those. Yeah, I would say I'm just gonna mention the Backyard Agains because it's one that people may not have seen, especially if you have really young kids, because it was kind of like in two thousand, like nineteen ninety nine to two thousand and four or something was the peak years of when the Backyard Agains were created.
And so it's kind of funny if you are watching the clips on YouTube, some of them, it's very clear that it was made before a lot of the high def television became so common. But the production numbers are really good. Like if you watch the characters dancing, they're actually doing like actual dance steps.
There's just they thought through.
All sorts of things with these, and the storylines are a little bit more interesting than a lot of cartoon and they're not again trying to teach the syrupy sweet morals.
It's like the Backyard agains.
These kids are having adventures, you know, discovering things and playing with their friends. And so I will do a real shout out for those, and then you know if your kids like it. There are a whole tie in series of Backyard Again books that tell similar tales, and so we have wound up reading through those with Henry, even though I know they were passed down from my older brother who had bought them for his children who were children in two thousand when they were watching The
Backyard Again. So those have stood the test of time. So another show for older children you might want to check out is Avatar The Last Airbender. It's sort of a fantasy series about this civilization where they did air bending and water bending and worth bending and the various elements. But it has held their attention for a long time. There's many shows in the series, so you can watch it. There are some tie in books. People will go out
in the backyard and start fire bending. I mean, it's just the kind of thing where people it really captures their imagination, and there are a few that are a little bit more sort of violent than others. So again it's kids definitely eight plus, And maybe other people have stricter standards than I do and might say it was more like ten or eleven plus, but I thought it was something that they watched enough that I would do a shout out for it.
Cool.
Well, let's take a quick ad break and then we'll be back with more of our recommendations of kid things that have stood the test of time. All right, Well, we are back talking about our favorite kid things that have stood the test of time that my five children now have watched or played with. Sarah's got three kids spanning the age from about twelve down to six, so she's seen a lot of things go through different iterations
as well. And so Sarah, maybe you could talk a little bit about the toys that all three of your kids, or at least some of your kids, multiple of your kids have played with and enjoyed.
So you will notice when we we exchange notes back and forth, I didn't put a lot there because you had mentioned so many of the toys. So I don't want to steal a lot of your thunder, but I'll share a couple of them that have just absolutely I think we just have a lot of common favors, which must mean they're really good toys.
Like they are really good.
So Magnetiles, I mean we had those. I mean I feel like we were just sort of starting to phase out of them, but Genevieve, we'll still get them out sometimes and build something and it's a super fun thing to play with with younger cousins and stuff like that too. But magnetizs are these little magnetized clear pieces and they're not the cheapest. But if you buy a set and then you use it for ten or so years, then you've probably gotten a good amount of value out of
that set. And it is one of those things where the more you have, the more fun they can have with it because you can make bigger and more elaborate structures. So definitely stood the test of time for us. You mentioned a wooden play kitchen. Agree, we have always had one. We just get like the Ikea, like nothing super fancy. I don't think ours is anything great, but they really have enjoyed it, and Genevieve actually asked for like.
Updated stuff for it.
For her, I think it was her fifth birthday, Like it wasn't that long ago that she still really was into it, so that was big. And then I'm gonna steal one more of yours, which is the Nintendo Switch. So my kids also enjoy playing that a great deal. And there's there's some good like collaborative games that they can do all together. They like one called Overcooked, where you're like in a busy kitchen trying to keep this restaurant going. And then they'll do like different variations of
Mario Kart, Cameron's gotten in a Zelda, et cetera. And then I'll say the one computer game that they've been at for years, well, and the girls have been at this one for years. Cameron is he'll delve into it occasionally, but he has other things that he likes more.
But it's called Toka Focal World and.
It's basically a very chill world building game where you're like building a house and character isn't dressing them up, and it just looks like a digital dollhouse. And I don't understand exactly what the poll is because to me, I'm like, wouldn't that get.
Old doesn't seem to get old.
The only downside is there are like packs you purchase to upgrade all your stuff, and so they'll be coming at you, Oh I need can I buy this ninety nine cent thing?
Whatever? But you know it's not violent. It's really chill. There's not a lot of flashing lights.
And to captivate a six year old and an almost twelve year old is pretty impressive.
Do they play that on iPads?
Then? Is that usually on iPads? And that's been for years, Like, it's not like they just started this. It's been like a long time.
Yeah.
We wound up paying for the Doctor Panda app because Henry loved it so much, and I know that other of my children have played with it too. I think Ruth and Alex both played with Doctor Panda because there's all these different worlds you can do, Like there's a Doctor Panda veggie patch, and there's a Doctor Panda restaurant of like a pizza restaurant and a sushi restaurant, and so you could make different things. And it's non word based, right,
it's all pictures. So a child who is preliterate can play it, which you know, sometimes it's harder for involved games to fit with younger kids. So something that we've done during car trips for sure.
So yeah, one of our early.
Investments, I guess on toys was the Thomas the Train train tracks, and so Melissa and Doug makes the set of the train tracks. You can buy those and then the Thomas the Train. Make sure you're looking for the wooden ones. I found the plastic ones are sort of set specific, and then they have a ton of the plastic ones, but we really like the wooden ones a lot better because they just lasted longer. But we got a little train table and multiple children have built train
track structures. Some kids got more into the engineering than others, doing multiple layers of bridges and stuff, and then some kids were more into the collecting aspect, right because there are a ton of different Thomas trains, and so you might set up all eight that are mentioned in the song that brings it in, or you might decide that you like the different colors, so you're gonna get Rosy or Billy or I think he's the yellow one or something.
I don't know.
But you can collect them and then people ask for them for birthdays and add to the set.
And so forth.
That's the upside of the magnetiles too, because you can get sort of a starter pack, like you get a kid a starter pack for like a third or fourth birthday, and then various relatives could give you a set to add to it for the next several birthdays or Christmas. Henry got a Construction Magnetiles set, and he got a Arctic Animals magnetile set for his birthday and Christmas this year, so he could.
Add that to the set that he had.
The upside of the wooden play Kitchen, as we were talking about as well, is that then again you can also add to it over the years, like this year you get the Melissa and Doug spaghetti making set, or this year you get a toy mixer set, and that can kind of add on to the play with that. I will do a shout up for giving some sort of dress up station and now there's no need to
buy like a kit. I mean, that's sort of like a little funny that people have, like a dress up kit that yourself just make either a you know, like a big hamper, or we now have a little garment rack that you can put hangers on with the different outfits so you can see them and then pull them off and put on your dinosaur outfit or your capes or your princess dress or whatever it happens to be, and that can get a ton of play. As you add onto that. Over the years, we actually used their
electric cars. So this is another one you might want to, you know, maybe if you have generous grandparents, ask for But we bought.
Like a tractor, an electric kid tractor, and.
They love that thing, like they played from it from age you know, about two or three is when they can start riding on with their older siblings, Like a three or four year old can start learning how to drive it. But it's you know, something that a kid can definitely play with from about age three to seven, and particularly if you have a playdate. It's a really good thing to drag out. If you have like a two seater a Nintendo Switch, and you can buy the
like Nintendo Labo kits that add on to it. That's just if you don't mind the idea of your kids playing video games, you just don't want them surfing the entire universe of the web something like the play The Nintendo Switch is great because it is limited to games for the most part, and I would just do a shout out for Lego sets and particularly Lego Friends, which Legos were sort of I mean, their legos are for anyone.
I love them growing up, but they definitely had.
A slight more of a boy toy kind of vibe as you got older, Like it was definitely aimed at like the Star Wars type things, you know, and then now it's the Lego Friends have been developed in such a way that I think it really reflects how a lot of little girls like to play, Like the characters are developed, like you can pause in the middle of building to have a scene set up instead of having to race through to the end. So we've really enjoyed
doing those. But you know, Legos last forever. Sam got the Lord of the Ring set for Christmas and he has been building that and he is fourteen and it is awesome. So it's something that can last for a long time.
I'll say.
Duplo like for the younger kids also have a fairly long lifespan. And if your kids are at the age where they're going to like stick something up their nose or something, then if your bigger kids are playing with Legos, you can have build little kid play with duplos, so they have their own thing. But I will say also like it's not like at age five all of a sudden they hate their duplos. Like they can continue to enjoy those past what you might think.
Yeah, and especially if you have like a younger guest visiting, the older kids will probably really get into it again because they are fun. I mean, it's fun to build with and it's a little bit less complicated than the small ones. You can sort of quickly put a structure together, and they really enjoyed it. As we're transitioning into big kid world in my house, we've actually made a choice to sort of set up some big kid areas of
the house. And so in the basement there was the person who lived here before left their pool table, but it needed some work, so we actually went ahead and resurfaced it so that it is now really good for playing, and bought a ping pong table, which is again it's not cheap, but they're not over the top expensive. There's definitely ones you can get or by used. There's probably somebody moving who wants to get rid of their ping
pong table. But between the ping pong table the pool table and the dartboard we put down in the basement. It is now like tween and teen Central, like if you have friends over, it's something that they can go do. And yeah, they're gonna wind up on the Xbox as well, And there's nothing wrong with the Xbox playing Fortnite, but it gives them sort of a screen free options too.
So moving into like baby stuff, so you know, if somebody is thinking about what they're going to buy for their babies, Sarah, what did you like in.
Terms of baby raps, like baby carriers, baby raps.
Oh, I was with you.
I was so super into Ergo, Like I I think I might have used I know, I think I gave it away, so I think I had two different ones. But and then they got the Ergo three sixty. But I know those that's not like a traditional like stretchy wrap. Those didn't work for me. My baby's got really big, really fast, and I'm like, this is a heavy lump in this stretchy fabric.
I can't deal.
But the Ergo works from like birth to over age one. And like on every single vacation we took, there's like a million pictures of me. If there's like a baby under the age of one, and they're always like in the Ergo, either asleep or like happily looking around.
Like I never had a kid be upset in that thing. It was kind of magical.
So love, love, love the Ergo, and I would buy that for anybody having a baby that is interested in a caring option that's really really versatile and works for a lot of people.
Yeah, we definitely like the Ergo.
I had borrowed it when Ruth was a baby from a friend because we were making a Disney trip and I had my two older boys and a double stroller, which was the Phil and Ted's double decker stroller. So shout out here if you think you will need a double stroller, if you are having two children, if you plan to have two children, if you have you know, a cousin who comes with you on a lot of things,
or whatever it is. The double decker version is just so much more convenient to move around because a side bar side double stroller is just so wide you can wind up with like problems with doors sometimes or anywhere that is a narrow sidewalk or whatever, whereas a double decker stroller, I mean, granted, the smaller child's view is not that great because they're on the bottom, but maybe you can put a picture up for something, or talk to them, or you know, they can still look out
the side and they can see the world going by that way. It was just so much more flexible for moving around places. But you know, did that baby in the ergo and you know you're transporting three children without taking up a huge footprint of space, which has a lot going for it. We actually bought the baby Katan for Henry and found it was good. He would sleep basically only in that, which has benefits sending it sent its downsides, but the upside is we were passing it
around like it was a me Michael. We had a different summer sitter then because our baby was our normal nanny was out on maternity leave actually as well.
But yeah, the katan was passed around. Each of us would wear it.
He would sleep on anybody in it, but that was the only thing he would sleep in.
I would say that in.
Terms of changing supplies, you can get this from anyone, but a portable changing pad that folds up and has a small wipes container on it. And then we actually the one we use was from Baby boom. And it had a little pacifier container on the side as well, so that you could throw an extra passy in there. And that's just if you had a child who was into their pacifier. Having an extra attached to it.
Is really good.
But the idea is it was small enough with just this small wipes container, small foldable portable changer, you could just throw it in your purse.
Right.
You can put that and two diapers like in a ziplock bag in your purse, and then you don't actually need like a full on diaper bag maybe, which I never really liked carrying around diaper bags.
All that much.
So I had a backpack, a regular backpack. Actually we still use it sometimes because it's just a black backpack. And it happened to have exactly what you're saying, like a foldable week long since gotten rid of that part of it, but it had like just a cute matching foldable thing that went in the backpack.
And yeah, I liked being hands free. I didn't want anything slung around my body.
I often would have the baby on the front and then the backpack could go in the back.
Yeah, yeah, balance it out.
You know, this is how we line up with back trouble later in life. I get carding around all these heavy babies all the time. So in terms of so we use the event bottles and we like those, And then I just want to say, like baby cups, like for kids, like once they start being able to use straws weirdly enough, and we have kept using them. Now we still have them, the freebie cups from Sesame place and from Chuck E Cheese, Like both of them come with straws and lids and they can go in the
dishwasher and they have lasted perfectly fine. We have kept using those from you know, when the kids are like two and stop using sippy cups, through to like six, when they can start using normal cups and not spilling all the time. We have just used those sometimes. You still even use them for older kids without the lids. But it was no need to spend extra on that.
You just throw a party at Chuck E Cheese at some point and you wind up with like ten of them, and your dishware needs are solved for the next six years.
Apparently, there you go. We went a little fancier.
I guess what did you use?
We used Zoli for these straw cups and we had them for many many years. They're not They lasted through like one kid each, so I'm not sure they fit this category. Because they have a silicon straw. You can technically replace the straw, but it's hard to do and my kids would cheo through it, but it would last a couple of years and they were good. And the nice thing is they didn't spill when the kid like
threw it across the room, so that was nice. And then Pura was my favorite, like baby water bottle, because it had like a nice thing you could like they would like to chew on it, I don't know, and it was metal. I like try to avoid plastic if possible, although tho Zoli cups were pla So those were our favorites. We actually still have a couple of Pura that we converted into like they have different tops so water bottles. So it's a pretty long lasting option, longesting option.
And then in terms of pumps, I'm going to do a shout out here for the Medella pump and style. So I bought this baby in two thousand and seven and proceeded to use it through to twenty twenty one with slight gaps in there. I replaced all the like pump parts. Obviously, I rebought the tubes and rebought other things because they you know, that's a long time to imagine things will last in a clean condition or anything.
But it worked fine, and in fact, for Henry, I bought one of those hands free new pump options they had.
I didn't like it.
Maybe there are people it works for, like if you have a job where you really need your hands and can wear it for a long time because you know it's not necessarily going to be the quickest thing in the world. But for me, the Medella was it's just fine, Like it served the purpose it was supposed to serve. And I brought that thing everywhere for a long time and now now it's finally done with it.
But yes, it's uh, it lasted.
I think technology still has work to do in this arena. I mean I didn't think any of them were that great. None of them were as good as a baby, Like none of them are for me anyway, Well you say, of course, I mean for some people they're better than a baby, and they have trouble with the baby, and they're great with the pump. For me, like, I kept upgrading or changing it to feel like this one's gonna be awesome, and then like, yeah, they all kind of worked, but
they all were kind of torture. So I had the Pump and Style, a hospital grade Medela, which I don't think was in retrospect much better than the Pump and Style and was like a rental and very expensive, and then a Spectra, which I feel like was the pump DuJour in like the late what do you call the twenty tens, the late twenty tens, And now I feel like there's all these hands free ones that people like.
So actually I do feel like I'm not qualified anymore to weigh in here, and I'm just someone tell us that there's something awesome available now, because I would just hope that that's coming down the pike.
And we had a disagreement over the diaper Genie, so this is another thing people off and buy when they first have a kid. We just it didn't seem to really contain the smell for us, and then it just be you know, one more thing to think about, like when you have a kid and you're there with the diaper, like having to twist it into there as opposed to just like throwing it in a trash can and then taking the trash out frequently. That tends to be what
we wound up doing. When you're a busy household, you're taking out the trash pretty much every day anyway, so it's not lingering in there all that long.
So you know, that was our experience. I love that thing. We kept it.
We use it for all the kids. Yeah, I felt like it did eliminate the smell. And I guess in like kids rooms and stuff, I don't usually pick out the trash every day. We take out like the kitchen trash every day. But it was able to contain things for usually several days in a row. I mean, I did hate when you get to the end and you're like, goddamn it, like it's this is the worst diaper and now like I have to, you know, empty it just when this baby is like crying and sitting on the
thing whatever. So it had its downsides, but we actually, we actually did get a lot of use out of our diaper. Genie.
We did not have a snow. Did you have a snow?
I bought the snow for Henry because you know, why not. It was the hip thing, right, like going to try it out.
It was okay, I don't know.
I mean it was there were occasional times when I think it maybe soothed him a little bit. But remember this is the kid who only wanted to nap in the guiton, so it was just not going to be the equivalent of napping on a human being no matter what you do.
And so I.
Mean it was fine, but I don't know if I would call it a miraculous.
Sort of thing. So not a magical solution. Not a magical solution.
Well good, it makes me feel better that I never tried it.
Yeah, yeah, why do we go ahead to clothes? Can we move on to close? I mean, just a real quick thing here.
I mean, one of the first things you realize as a new parent is that your kid grows out of those newborn and zero to three month things like fast, probably probably in less than three months, which is not a long time anyway. So you know, you can wind up with a lot of zero to three clothes if you're thinking like, oh, that's the first size I should buy, and then you know you might not even wear some of it because it just you know, your kids in pajamas all the time or who knows, just onesies if
it's warm. But then so you can ask for bigger clothes for people you know, or just get a few hand me downs of the zero to three size and like something cute for a photo, but then you don't have to worry about it that much and pass them on when you're done as well.
That's true secondhand for zero to three, especially if you want to get some like higher end things. Often they're like unused because people do get so many as gifts that then they use thirty percent of them and the rest of them go on eBay or Poshmark or whatever.
So that that is a great place to say about I do feel like I have like fond attachments to some of my kids newborn outfits and zero to three, not that I have them physically, like I don't keep that stuff, but I like the pictures and like those are going to be the pictures you look at again and again and again during those very special like first month periods, And so I'm kind of glad that we did have a few really nice things. But I agree
you do not need high volume whatsoever. So maybe just a couple of really cute, memorable outfits and again looking secondhand, maybe great for that age range.
What brands have you found?
Yeah? Have you because I know you've used some for both of your girls. Oh yeah, Oh my gosh. The number of Mini Boden and Tea collection items that have made it from Annabel to Genevieve is actually a high high percentage. Dresses, even legging, sometimes sweatpants, jean shorts, like sweater everything, so those tend to last more than the target stuff that gets like stretched out and just doesn't seem to make it, or maybe it's trendier. I don't know what it is, but their stuff really does seem
to last. I love Gap for like really durable basics like pajamas and swim and that kind of stuff. And I would say Land's end is like a very if we need something utilitarian like a fleece or a school uniform stuff, I feel like they have good stuff at really nice prices. And for shoes, Natives and Crocs and then Nike Flex Runners. I don't know how many of those I've bought. They're actually not the most durable shoes or I have very.
Rough well kids shoes.
I mean, I think it's a that would be a high bar if you could like last and pass those down.
I mean, kids wear them, they get dirty, they.
They're passed down.
No, no, no, I've just bought a lot of them.
Yeah, that's a brand. Yeah, We've done a lot of Nike Flex Runners too. I mean, because they slip on and kids like not having to tie. I mean, I'm I feel like tying maybe like a skill that children don't even learn anymore. I mean because I mean we've done like kissick shoes as well for some of the kids that you just slip them on this maybe throw them for a loop when they're finally like needing athletic shoes or dressed shoes, like, wait, I have to tie this?
How does that even work? There'd be lots of bunny or something in adults. I would say that just a couple of things that we have used a lot. We have this one baby bigosh snowsuit that's like an eighteen month snowsuit and literally my older brother's kids wore it. My kids all wore it. It has just lasted this
whole time. We also have this Lllbean full body fleece that is again it's about an eighteen month size, and the kids could wear it because it's you know, it doesn't need to be a certain size necessarily.
They wore it from about the time.
There were nine months to two years, more or less if you get the eighteen month size, but it's a.
Full body fleece and we called it the Snoogie.
And little children obviously you can't put blankets in the crib with them because it's a hazard. So they need warm stuff on them, and you know it's hard to make the house warm for comfortable for them and the adults sleeper or whatever. So you know, you put them in pajamas and then put the snoogie over it when you are in the winter months, and it helped them sleep better because they were nice and cozy. So big shout out to that. And again it's one of those
things that my older brother's kids wore like. I have this distinct memory of my niece, who would have been twenty months old, coming to say goodbye to me when I got on the bus to go to the airport to go to Australia for several months her study abroad. She was in this fleece and my brother joked about it being sort of elf gear because it's got a pointed hat and now my babies of all warn them Like I had a baby wearing this in like twenty
twenty one. So this thing went from the year two thousand to the year to twenty twenty one with not continuous use obviously, but a lot of use during that time. So shout out to Elbean for doing that. And that's truly stuff that lasts. Shout out to the name Snoogie Snoogie. Well know, my kids were all snooky bear too. I call them snooky bears. They're in they're snoogies, So.
I love it.
Those the nicknames wind up lasting too, which is a funny thing. And then so real quick, just a shout out for some food items. Obviously food doesn't last, but things we've wind up using a lot of if you happen to have highly selective eaters, I'll just do a shout out here that Kirkland makes a brand of pouch. This costcos brand pouch apple sauce that has veggies in it, like spinach puree, carrot pure If there's no other way you're getting veggies into the kid, that's one way to
do it. And Stonyfield Yogurt also has a brand in pouches that has a beat berry flavor, which is fine for kids who like berry flavored yogurt. And they also have a peach mango spinach one where spinach pure is again it's like the second or third ingredient, so there is some in there if you're not getting it into them anyway.
Both of those so many many times, you're right, those are classics.
That is the way to do it, Sarah. You have some lunch stuff that you guys use, and.
They've been mentioned on the podcast before, and then I always get a million emails because like they're like, wait, what but we've had our metal metal boxes for sorry.
I interrupted yet, Okay, all right, it's coming. Okay.
They're called lunch bots b ot st as in tree, so not lunch box lunch bots. You can get them on Amazon. I think they have their own website as well, and they're metal lunch containers. And I think we got them when anibubble was like in preschool, and we still have them, like many of them, and just year after year they just go in the dishwasher. They don't rust, they don't stay, and they don't collect food. They just
last and last. The only problem with them now is that my kids are eating more than they fit, and so we still use them. We just pack additional items, so lunch bots with all kinds of snacks in it plus a sandwich instead of like that being the main lunch. But they're just they're great, and we use neopre lunch sacks. I've we've talked about that before because I like my lunch pouches to be able to go in the laundry, washer and dryer because my kids are very messy and this helps awesome.
Well, this has kind of been an all love of the Week episode, so I guess we don't have a separate love of the week.
Do we have a question?
I thought we did, but I don't see it here, So I think we can just call it because we're at forty minutes and it alone or by now you want to check off this episode and move on with your day, We.
Move on with your day exactly. You're at work now, you've major forty minute commute. You're done, all right, Well, this has been best of both worlds. We've been talking lots of our favorite kid products and things that have lasted over the years. You know, if you have a specific question about any of these or If you have a recommendation of something that has lasted for you, feel free to email me. It's Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. I would love to hear about it, or you can
post on either of our blogs. I'm Laura vandercam dot com. Sarah is the shoe Box, so thche s h U b o X dot com. We would love to hear your recommendations because probably there's some other helpful product out there that we didn't make it through even with eight children between us, so we'd love to learn about that. In the meantime, we will be back next week with more on making work and life fit together.
Thanks for listening.
You can find me Sarah at the shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram, and you.
Can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This has been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please join us next time for more on making work and life work together.