Hellobee Boards Topic: If your LO goes to 1/2 day preschool: Questions for you!

Hellobee Boards Topic: If your LO goes to 1/2 day preschool: Questions for you! https://boards.hellobee.com/ Pregnancy, Baby and Parenting blog, by Hellobee en Tue, 14 Apr 2026 09:49:04 +0000 ksnow on "If your LO goes to 1/2 day preschool: Questions for you!" https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/if-your-lo-goes-to-12-day-preschool-questions-for-you#post-2375326 Wed, 02 Dec 2015 09:52:27 +0000 ksnow 2375326@https://boards.hellobee.com/ My LO goes to 9-1 program 2 days a week. Regarding the schedule - I think if you can shift up her schedule a little bit every day it will help. It's hard for me to get her to switch on just certain days. BUT I don't think she needs to wake up that much earlier than 8. My LO sleeps in late too and I just make sure I'm showered, lunch is packed, stuffs in car...so when she wakes we just get her ready which doesn't take long. But ours doesn't have a strict drop off time either. Regarding if you can get stuff done - yes it definitely helps! I work from home and I get several hours of work done while she's gone. I typically though make sure i'm ready to go for the day before I take her and then I just plop into the closest library and work from there. If I go home, my time goes by pretty fast! So I try to work from elsewhere (or plan my errands/appts) for that time. looch on "If your LO goes to 1/2 day preschool: Questions for you!" https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/if-your-lo-goes-to-12-day-preschool-questions-for-you#post-2375298 Wed, 02 Dec 2015 09:34:15 +0000 looch 2375298@https://boards.hellobee.com/ @daniellemybelle: During that time, I was working around 20 hours a week. I found it a challenge to finish something, but that might be the nature of my work. There is very little that I can actually complete myself, I depend on a lot of other people and am a prisoner to their hours, if you will. Ree723 on "If your LO goes to 1/2 day preschool: Questions for you!" https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/if-your-lo-goes-to-12-day-preschool-questions-for-you#post-2375275 Wed, 02 Dec 2015 09:16:23 +0000 Ree723 2375275@https://boards.hellobee.com/ My LO (3.5 yrs) is in preschool two mornings per week from 9:15-12:15. It's the perfect amount of time - I either do something fun with DD2 (usually the grocery store, ha!) or just get things done at home whilst also giving DD2 a lot of the one on one attention she misses out on when her demanding big sister is home. As for sleep - my girls are late sleepers (as am I!) and most of the time, I have to wake them up at 8:20 to do the mad scramble of getting ready for school. On non-school mornings, I let them sleep as late as they want (usually about 9:00) and it hasn't caused any issues with the two days a week where they have to get up earlier. After school, DD1 comes home and has a quick lunch and then it is straight off to bed. She has a 2 hr 15 minute rest, usually half of which is spent sleeping, and the other half playing quietly in her room. I don't find she needs any wind down time before going to bed as she usually gets all her energy out at school! oliviaoblivia on "If your LO goes to 1/2 day preschool: Questions for you!" https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/if-your-lo-goes-to-12-day-preschool-questions-for-you#post-2375268 Wed, 02 Dec 2015 09:09:58 +0000 oliviaoblivia 2375268@https://boards.hellobee.com/ @daniellemybelle: the baby is still mostly on two naps. My oldest will be three next month and is 50/50 on naps lately. I often get a double nap which is awesome. She has lunch at school, comes home has a snack (she eats her lunch but likes her snacks too I guess), then we have quiet time together in her room reading, I leave her reading and close her door to put the baby to bed, and she usually falls asleep while I'm gone. Mrs. Lion on "If your LO goes to 1/2 day preschool: Questions for you!" https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/if-your-lo-goes-to-12-day-preschool-questions-for-you#post-2375263 Wed, 02 Dec 2015 09:03:49 +0000 Mrs. Lion 2375263@https://boards.hellobee.com/ I forgot your second question. LO does get lunch at school, but he won't eat it. He has been having a snack when he comes home and then going to bed right after. I would like to transition to him going right to bed when we get home, and I think that will work because his class has already transitioned to down time when I pick him up (the rest of the kids there stay all day and are about to take their nap). Mrs. Lion on "If your LO goes to 1/2 day preschool: Questions for you!" https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/if-your-lo-goes-to-12-day-preschool-questions-for-you#post-2375258 Wed, 02 Dec 2015 09:02:19 +0000 Mrs. Lion 2375258@https://boards.hellobee.com/ @daniellemybelle: To answer your first question, it makes it SO much better for my 2 year old to get out of the house for a bit. I try to keep naps at home now that we are on 2-3 naps (before I always aimed for 2-3 at home and then others were catnaps...) so I felt like he was constantly trapped in our little house. Him going to preschool twice a week is a huge relief for both of us. We started off at a more traditional church preschool, from 9-12. For us that was a disaster, because my daughter needed to take her first nap at 8:30. I tried moving it to different times and it just never worked. So waking her up after 20 minutes was awful. Trying to keep her up later was awful. We pulled him out for that reason (and other reasons too). I thought we would just skip preschool this year, but my work picked up and I really wanted to be able to do a bit more, so we found the program he is in now. For us, the longer program is perfect. DH takes him to preschool on his way to work, so I only have to do pick up. Our program technically runs 7:00-1:00, but the kids in his class go down for their naps at 12:45, so I try to get him before that. My daughter takes her second nap at the same time as my son (somewhere between 1-4) so it works to put her down when we get home. Sometimes she falls asleep in the car, and that little cat nap pushes naptime to the 2-4 range instead of 1-3, but we are making it work. I am actually able to get quite a bit of work done on those days. I put my desk in our dining room (we moved the table out) and set that room up as a playroom with a gate. The baby can play in there while I work, and I can be with her while she plays on her own. I can stop when I need to and play with her for a bit or feed her or whatever, but she is usually pretty content. She takes an hour and a half nap, so I can work during that time, and then she will either play in the room with me the rest of the time or I will take her to the YMCA and she can play in the nursery while I work there (they have tables and free wifi!). Then, once we pick up my son we come home, have lunch, and then it's naptime. I can reasonably get in about 6-7 hours of work on those days, which is pretty decent I think. It isn't ideal...I would love to have them both in from 7-4 (they offer a 9 hour day as well) but financially it isn't possible unless I was to drastically increase my income. What I make now is okay, but it wouldn't pay for two kids in daycare. The morning program works great for us since I can combine it with naptime. It seems silly to pay all of that extra money for them to nap at school, since I am working at home anyway. It does have its downsides though. Yesterday my girl was really fussy and I had to hold her through her entire afternoon nap, so I only got 3 hours of work done. Which is not enough to even cover the cost of preschool. So there is some additional stress on me now to make sure I can make up some hours elsewhere. This is relatively new for us, so we are still working out the kinks. But LO has such a good time at school and I think it is really good for him to be out of the house and interacting with someone other than me for a while, so even if it is not financially "worth it", just that aspect of it is enough. Sorry for the novel! haha KayKay on "If your LO goes to 1/2 day preschool: Questions for you!" https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/if-your-lo-goes-to-12-day-preschool-questions-for-you#post-2375254 Wed, 02 Dec 2015 08:58:21 +0000 KayKay 2375254@https://boards.hellobee.com/ @daniellemybelle: i thought having LO1 in school when LO2 came along really helped. it gave her something that stayed the same, even once LO2 was here, and it was something *special* that she got to do bc she was big. also, it was nice to be able to put sole attention to LO2 (or me, when LO2 was napping) without feeling guilty that i was ignoring LO1. and i definitely thought the benefits outweighed anytime that LO2s schedule conflicted with drop-off/pick-up. as for the nap, LO1 has this issue now. they eat around 1130 or 12, she comes home at 1 and then does "quiet time" (she doesn't nap very often anymore). i've found it helps to let her watch an episode of Daniel Tiger or similar after coming home and before quiet time. it's something she does quietly on the couch while I put LO2 down for her afternoon nap, and she totally needs the time to decompress after the craziness & stimulation of school. daniellemybelle on "If your LO goes to 1/2 day preschool: Questions for you!" https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/if-your-lo-goes-to-12-day-preschool-questions-for-you#post-2375238 Wed, 02 Dec 2015 08:49:31 +0000 daniellemybelle 2375238@https://boards.hellobee.com/ Thanks everyone! This is helpful! Two more questions that I've come up with: -- Those of you with newborns/infants: Do you feel like it helps to have the older LO out of the house for the morning, or the issue of midday drop off makes that less helpful? Aside from the obvious educational and social benefits, I feel like it will be good for LO to have her own thing and for me to have time to focus on the new baby or just rest a little. (Counting my chickens here of course.) -- If your LO eats lunch at school, then comes home and takes a nap, are they able to just go right into their nap routine or they need to wind down? I feel like it could go either way - totally beat and ready to crash, or wound up and refusing to nap! @oliviaoblivia: That's great that it's working for you! How many naps is your littlest LO taking? Do you achieve the double nap? @2littlepumpkins: That's my fear - that she will adjust to the school schedule. But maybe if DH is doing drop off, he will still let me sleep in... especially if I am pregnant! :D @pinkcupcake: The school is about 15 minutes away, but I am really grateful that DH can do drop off! That will maximize the time I have in the morning for sure. @erinpye: That's far! But the up side is I bet you get all your errands knocked out in the morning! @KayKay: That makes sense re: nap & bedtime. Who knows what her schedule will be like in several months but I figure everything will kind of naturally shift up. :/ She'll nap early on a school day, and then go to bed early, then wake up early the next day even though it's not a school day, so she'll nap early again, and she'll need to go to bed early anyway that night because the next day is a school day... so it just seems inevitable that we'll have to shift to an earlier schedule. @Mrs. Lion: That's awesome! Do you work during that time? I'm hoping to be able to. @fancyfunction: That sounds perfect! Especially the sleeping later part :silly: @gracecat: I don't know if she would continue to sleep in on non-school days but one can hope. I think ultimately we love this school so it's a worthwhile trade off. @looch: Do you work full time? I only work about 10 hours per week (sometimes not even that) so I really hope it will be good work time, and that I can maybe even take on another small freelance client. Right now I basically just work during her nap. Wishful thinking? looch on "If your LO goes to 1/2 day preschool: Questions for you!" https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/if-your-lo-goes-to-12-day-preschool-questions-for-you#post-2375151 Wed, 02 Dec 2015 07:18:16 +0000 looch 2375151@https://boards.hellobee.com/ I think it's a fine amount of time if you're not trying to get work done (not housework or chores, job stuff). My son is in school from 9-1. I had some childcare issues the last few weeks and I was trying to get some hours of work in during that time and I found I was always rushing. The drop off and pick up alone adds at least 20 minutes to the whole process that I didn't account for. gracecat on "If your LO goes to 1/2 day preschool: Questions for you!" https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/if-your-lo-goes-to-12-day-preschool-questions-for-you#post-2375130 Wed, 02 Dec 2015 05:32:31 +0000 gracecat 2375130@https://boards.hellobee.com/ 4 hours is a good block of time to get stuff done, though sometimes not enough for sure! Yeah, I would not be that thrilled about getting up at 6 am every morning either! Especially having to wake a toddler who actually sleeps in! But I guess you just have to decide what is more important to you. I think if you do 2 or 3 days a week you can just let them sleep in extra on the non-preschool days. fancyfunction on "If your LO goes to 1/2 day preschool: Questions for you!" https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/if-your-lo-goes-to-12-day-preschool-questions-for-you#post-2375023 Tue, 01 Dec 2015 22:25:59 +0000 fancyfunction 2375023@https://boards.hellobee.com/ M is up by 6:50 for school days and sometimes sleep longer on non-school days. I drop her off for 9 and usually do some errands, come home and either do some stuff around the house or relax a bit. Pick up is at noon and it's been working out well so far. Mrs. Lion on "If your LO goes to 1/2 day preschool: Questions for you!" https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/if-your-lo-goes-to-12-day-preschool-questions-for-you#post-2374986 Tue, 01 Dec 2015 21:44:30 +0000 Mrs. Lion 2374986@https://boards.hellobee.com/ lo goes to preschool for 5 hours (7:30-1230).and I am able to get a ton done, even with the 9 month old home. he goes 2 days per week and it's perfect for us. 2littlepumpkins on "If your LO goes to 1/2 day preschool: Questions for you!" https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/if-your-lo-goes-to-12-day-preschool-questions-for-you#post-2374901 Tue, 01 Dec 2015 20:47:04 +0000 2littlepumpkins 2374901@https://boards.hellobee.com/ @KayKay: Ditto to waking up the younger to get the older one. Our second baby is just having to go with the flow! KayKay on "If your LO goes to 1/2 day preschool: Questions for you!" https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/if-your-lo-goes-to-12-day-preschool-questions-for-you#post-2374879 Tue, 01 Dec 2015 20:21:13 +0000 KayKay 2374879@https://boards.hellobee.com/ I think 4 hours is not a bad amount of time. Right now, LO1 is in preschool 9a-1p 3 days a week. I do both drop-off and pick-up, so I can easily plan on about 9:30a-12:45p to do whatever I need/want to do. I can never do everything I want (ha!) but the highest priority things always get done. Also, with a newborn, it really won't matter too much. There will definitely be times you have to wake the younger up to go pick up the older. I always tried not to do that, but some days it was just inevitable -- even once we were on more of a schedule! As for the waking/etc schedule, I would just go with it on the school days -- get her up when she needs to in order to make it on time, nap/bed earlier if she seems tired. She may end up taking a longer nap and then just doing normal bedtime. And on non-school days, I let mine sleep in til whenever they want and then just figure out the rest of the day based on that. erinpye on "If your LO goes to 1/2 day preschool: Questions for you!" https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/if-your-lo-goes-to-12-day-preschool-questions-for-you#post-2374811 Tue, 01 Dec 2015 19:17:06 +0000 erinpye 2374811@https://boards.hellobee.com/ My oldest, 3, is in 5 days a week, 8:30 to 11. We live 30 minutes away, so unless I want to spend most of the AM driving, I don't go back home and my littlest and I go do something during that time. It's definitely enough time to get a few errands run, and if we lived closer, it would be enough time to go home and get some household things done, and it's a bit less time than you will have. I think you'll like it and be able to get plenty done while she's in school. pinkcupcake on "If your LO goes to 1/2 day preschool: Questions for you!" https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/if-your-lo-goes-to-12-day-preschool-questions-for-you#post-2374809 Tue, 01 Dec 2015 19:14:37 +0000 pinkcupcake 2374809@https://boards.hellobee.com/ We are on a MWF, 115 - 415p schedule. Preschool is about 20 minutes away so some days, it doesn't necessarily feel "worth it" for me to come home during the 3 hours. I wish my husband could do drop off or pick up , but unfortunately it falls on me right now. I will usually drop her off and then run errands (grocery shopping, bank, any Doctor appts, etc). Sometimes I'll come home and nap for an hour before heading out again. I do wish the school was closer to me so I wouldn't have to spend so much time driving. As for timing - last year we went to school 9am -12pm and those days, I just forced her to go to bed earlier the night before , or we took an epic nap when we got home. 2littlepumpkins on "If your LO goes to 1/2 day preschool: Questions for you!" https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/if-your-lo-goes-to-12-day-preschool-questions-for-you#post-2374728 Tue, 01 Dec 2015 18:00:05 +0000 2littlepumpkins 2374728@https://boards.hellobee.com/ My lo started waking up at 6ish every day anyway, so I don't know about the schedule but you could try it! We are also on a MWF 830-1230 schedule. Honestly I don't feel like it's that much time but that's probably just because we have a newborn in the house so a lot of the things associated with newborns are also time consuming. Before the newborn got here I felt like it was a decent amount of time. I used to have coffee, run errands, clean up... oliviaoblivia on "If your LO goes to 1/2 day preschool: Questions for you!" https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/if-your-lo-goes-to-12-day-preschool-questions-for-you#post-2374698 Tue, 01 Dec 2015 17:25:21 +0000 oliviaoblivia 2374698@https://boards.hellobee.com/ My oldest is in MWF 8:30-12:30. Some days 12:30 arrives really quickly but most of the time it's perfect. DH does drop off, I run errands or take care of myself, get the baby up from her nap, we eat lunch and then get big sister. I think the rhythm works well for us. I like having her home a couple days a week but will probably send her for five days for a couple months after #3 gets here. She used to be a later riser but we've adjusted to the school schedule just fine. On non-school days I stick to the same schedule. daniellemybelle on "If your LO goes to 1/2 day preschool: Questions for you!" https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/if-your-lo-goes-to-12-day-preschool-questions-for-you#post-2374694 Tue, 01 Dec 2015 17:18:12 +0000 daniellemybelle 2374694@https://boards.hellobee.com/ We have found a great Montessori preschool where we plan to send LO in the fall of 2016 when she's almost 3! The only full day option (8AM - 6PM with pick up as early as 2:30) is 5 days per week, and since I SAH there is no need for full time preschool while she is barely 3 (and no budget for it really either). So, that leaves us the choice of half days (8AM - 12PM 2, 3 or 5 days per week). We feel good about this because they do their Montessori "works" in the morning plus circle time, outdoor play and lunch, and after 12PM it is just naps & then free play until pick up, so she won't be missing much. All the kids in her classroom will also be half day so she will not be out of rhythm as far as that goes, either. The questions I have, though, are mostly around logistics & LO's schedule: -- They need to be in class by 8AM at the latest & right now LO doesn't wake up until about 8AM! They have lunch at 11AM, as well, while right now she has lunch about noon. So I feel like her whole schedule would have to be shifted up including bedtime. Or, if it is just 2 or 3 days per week, could we just do wake-up/lunch/nap earlier on school days only and stick to her usual schedule other days? I really don't want to have to wake up at like 6AM every day, haha. :/ -- Do you feel like you have any time to get anything done with LO in school for such a short time? Luckily I think DH can do drop off but I still feel like noon gets here so fast! I WAH very part time and we also think we'll have another LO at some point during the 2016/2017 school year so there is part of me that thinks an afternoon pick up would make life easier, but that's not an option. So... lemme know what you think! Thanks! :)