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@lilyofthewest: i’ve Been doing two drop-offs since June and I’ll be honest, some days it’s awful if one of them throws a fit or traffic is bad. My youngest is with an in-home babysitter and my oldest is across town at the daycare/preschool associated with our local school system. It is out of necessity, as I am still on the waiting list for a local daycare center that is highly regarded and near the preschool my oldest attends. They were at the same center when we moved here, but I pulled them after my youngest was repeatedly bitten and the staff didn’t do anything about it. So we’ll just deal with it.

@lilyofthewest: 2 dropoffs is not ideal but you can make it work just like everything else. My kids are 3.5 years apart so we have been in double drop off mode since the older one started kinder a year ago.

We were able to start and stay at a center that had good infant care through good pre-k programming but I know that can be hard to find. We were also able to have the older one there over the summer again which was a nice break.

In your situation I think I would be tempted to keep them where they are for this school year and look for a pre K program for the older one to start next fall. A lot of the pre k programs around here follow the academic year so I think it would be more effective to be there the whole time. Maybe there is a pre k close to the current in home daycare?

I'm interested in this discussion as well. Over the summer, I had both kids in the same place temporarily. It was nice and simple.

We left that center for a couple of reasons. The toddler will now be going to a small center a 5 minute walk from our home while I'm returning to taking the older to a school-year Montessori program that we love, a five minute drive away.

Due to distance, I ruled out some toddler options I otherwise preferred for educational or ratio reasons. I don't know if I am making the right choice, but the walking distance center is very small and rarely has openings, so I thought I should pounce on it and see how it goes.

A note on waitlists: it seems like a lot of places around us use their waitlists very loosely. Two times I happened to gain admission because I called to check our waitlist status at the right moment, when they were about to have an opening.

I think this just happens to most people with more than one child. Eventually the older one starts school and the younger is still in preschool and it is what it is. I’ve done two different drop offs for the past two years. Basically the mornings have not been much of an issue but pickup has been a pain. I’m still going to have two drop offs next year and I’m not looking forward to it at all but what can I do.