Our fall schedule is going to be very different than our shelter in place time since my work will be different and so will school for both my kids. So everything that worked then won't work for us this fall. Time to rebuild a routine from scratch.
I'd love to have a space for people to share what their schedules look like. What is working for you? What little thing turned out to be brilliant. What age kids and what work situation are you managing?
pomelo / 5258 posts
In Spring our wins came from:
-Swapping school days for weekend days (e.g. doing school work on Sat/Sun and allowing two 'free' days during the week so fewer of our days work work and school
-Splitting the day with DH. I took the kids from wake-up until 10am. He did 10-1 including time outside. 2-6 was TV time for the kids (yeah, it's a lot).
Fall will be different because we'll have two kids in school instead of one. There's a big demand for synchronous learning in my district so my weekend school hopes might be a bust. While my boss has been very understanding as long as my work gets done my short days can't go on forever. My workload has increased tremendously. I'm also now spending about 1/3 of my work time in the office/lab.
Our plan A is to get the kids spots in two of extended care's pods (assuming their safety protocols are appropriate).
pomelo / 5084 posts
@MrsSRS: Following along because we just made the decision to withdraw my son from preschool. The school (not their fault of course) is planning on distance learning and they don’t know how much / how many days / whether it will all be online. Not really possible for a four year old with two fulltime working parents, so we are going to need a new plan and ASAP....
nectarine / 2987 posts
I'm a teacher back in the classroom now. This spring I had one in distance learning and essentially switched to running a small in home daycare, so I wasn't trying to do anything other than childcare and teaching, albeit for more than just my kids. It was pretty great.
This fall I'll have a kindergartner and a second grader both doing distance learning in a school that's new to all of us. I will hopefully be in a new job in a new industry trying to manage that remotely full time. I'm in interviews now. Backup plan is to reopen my in home. And I'm a single parent. So. 🤣
pomegranate / 3272 posts
I also have a kindergartner and a 2nd grader. So far our schools are back full time except for a 1/2 day on Weds. We have decided to send them vs doing virtual b/c the end of last year did not work with one kid in school. I have a feeling that we'll end up all virtual at some point if cases continue to rise. Until then, DH and I will have to hope that our jobs will still be cool with us WFH (or at least switching off) so that we don't have to have the boys in before and after school care. I'm really nervous about virtual schooling b/c my oldest gets migraines and one of his biggest triggers is too much screen time. The thought of telling him that he can't have any screen time b/c he has to do 5 hours of school work on screens every day will not go over well especially if DH and I expect to remain employed.
persimmon / 1495 posts
@Mommy Finger: For your son with migraines, can you ask for an accommodation from school - either printed packets that they can mail to you/PDFs of work that you can print or some kind of recorded lessons that he can watch to spread screentime out more?
pomegranate / 3272 posts
@Chuckles: A great thought for sure. We have a virtual appointment this Friday with his neurologist so I'm very curious to hear what her thoughts are on this. I feel like it's a no win situation because he'll hate the packets. But thinking about it a bit more, Last year, he did all of his work using the iPad. I know the district invested in Chrome books for every kid this year. I'm wondering if hooking that up to a larger monitor will help. We did get him the blue light glasses but I can't tell if that has helped him that much. He probably just needs a lot more breaks and DH and I need to have some serious talks about how we can change our schedules to accommodate.
kiwi / 702 posts
Great thread idea. Everyone's situation is so different in terms of employment, flexibility in schedule, school, state restrictions, etc. but it is so interesting/helpful to hear how parents are making it all work somehow in these crazy times!
We have a preschooler (3yo) and soon to be kindergartener. Back in March when preschool closed we hired our morning nanny to come 30 hours/week while we both work from home fulltime. It's been a fantastic solution and actually cheaper than sending 2 kids to preschool fulltime! Their preschool is back open with strict pods but we are so happy with our nanny and feel like it's safer, so we're sticking with this, especially since public school is up in the air. It will most likely be 100% virtual until Christmas (not official, but my guess what will happen as our county is on the watchlist for the state).
pomegranate / 3438 posts
Our schools will most likely be virtual for the beginning of the year (find out tomorrow I think). I have one child going into 3rd grade and my 3.5 year old.
The 3.5 year old is going to preschool full time unless they have to close.
I'm working from home but DH is in sales so he is in and out all day long or travelling. I will be directing 99% of at home learning. Since we don't know what it will look like this year (all I know is they will be doing more on zoom), I will probably just play it by ear. DS can pretty much do it all on his own, I just need to answer questions that come up or help keep him on track. Luckily my work is pretty flexible as long as it gets done.
nectarine / 2460 posts
This is a great thread idea. I hope we can keep updating it as the school year actually starts. I was on maternity leave during the crisis virtual schooling in the Spring so I mostly handled it all so DH could WFH.
School starts back in a few weeks for us. DS1 will be doing 1st grade completely virtually. Our daycare for DS2 (3yrs) and DD (3mo) is still closed. DH and I are both working from home. I am anxious to see what the virtual school day actually looks like so we can plan out our schedules. What's working well right now is we've basically divided the day into chunks of 3ish hours between food. So breakfast -> lunch -> snack -> dinner. Either DH or I try to actively engage the kids for the first hour or so of that time chunk and then we encourage them to do something without us for the 2nd half. It seems to give them enough time with us to feel good and it means we're only taking 1-2 hrs each away from work during the day.
nectarine / 2987 posts
Yes, I'd love if we kept it going with brainstorms/wins/troubleshooting help. Also if anyone has any ideas that aren't swapping with a spouse drop them here because I know I'm in the minority being single, but even some married parents are basically handling this solo like @KT326.
pomelo / 5084 posts
@Mrs. Pajamas: This gives me hope! Our (revised) ideal situation is finding a nanny for 30 hours for our son. I have no idea where to start though. I’m terrified of just placing an ad cold.
kiwi / 702 posts
@wrkbrk: it has been really successful for us so far so good luck! we totally lucked out in that our nanny was already working for us pre-pandemic very part-time (8 hours/week) to supplement her waitress job. But then she lost her job and we were stuck at home so after trying to balance it all for 2 weeks without her (and to isolate) we brought her back in and it has been wildly successful for all of us. Her restaurant is slowly opening but she is not going back and we are so thrilled!
We found her originally through care.com and I would recommend that route. As for covid-related concerns I think it's totally appropriate to pay for a covid test for a candidate (maybe after doing video interviews?) and ask lots of questions about their activity and living situation, whereas pre-pandemic I would never ask those types of questions.
Good luck!
pomelo / 5084 posts
@MrsSRS: Done! Haha! Wish you lived here. Where do you live?? We are in stl.
nectarine / 2987 posts
@wrkbrk: 🤣🤣🤣 nannying is my back up plan if this career change doesn't work out
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