Hellobee Boards

Hmmm, well, by the time DS was 4 months, he was on a pretty predictable schedule. And DD didn't really have a lot of scheduled activities outside the house. Once a week we went to a playdate and once a week we went to the library for storytime; every other day was pretty flexible.

When DS was a newborn, it started by me taking DD and DS on a walk every day at the same time. Pretty soon, DS was sleeping through the walk and soon after that was his regular "nap time," walk or not. So I scheduled activities between his morning nap and lunch (after lunch, both kids laid down for another nap). I didn't usually have a lot of time, but we could spend about an hour at our destination between DS's wake up from his morning nap and when we had to be home for lunch. One thing I did to maximize the time we did have is to prepare everything to go out during his nap (including getting DD ready), so I would just have to put DS in his carseat and leave once he woke up. I also changed and fed him at our activity, instead of doing it before we left.

Drop off/pick up are fixed times so I work around that with the baby's schedule. In the beginning, my baby was always overtired in the morning as she would be ready for a nap at drop off time and I couldn't put her down. That was so sad. It's still a challenge at 10 months, but you just have to roll with the punches and do what you gotta do. As for my 3.5 year old, she knows that she has to stay home if the baby needs to sleep. She whines about it sometimes, but I try to make up for it. If the baby doesn't need to nap, then I will do something fun outside with them for sure. And I invite people over to our house for play dates because that is easier for me if the baby needs to sleep.

I have scheduled activities for my 3.5 year old on the weekends because DH is around so I know that I can take her.

I would say that the baby's schedule does change a lot! I think everyone just needs to be flexible with a growing family.

My kids are almost 2.5 years apart.

When my younger daughter was born, and I was on mat leave again, we kept my older gal in care for the first 4 months full time, and then worked down from there. She spent shorter days in care, but it gave me a little time to get life sorted out.

And then we moved across the country.

And everything fell apart! I was home with both, sorting out baby needs with preschooler needs with navigating a new city and no friends or family super close by.

My kids are getting bigger now (4 and 20 months) so my life is pretty relaxed (only in terms of scheduling!). We do school drop off at 8:50, home for lunch from 11:40-12:30, and nap for the 20 month old happens when the big girl heads back to school! The little one wakes up, and it's about time to get the big one!

I always took the lead from moms I saw with like...4 kids in tow. Someone might be crying-that's ok. Someone might be sleeping-that's ok. Someone might be eating a kinda-bad-for-you cheese string somethings-that's ok. In the end, I just knew that I wanted to get to bedtime with as few meltdowns as possible. I tried to ensure that one baby nap a day was actually at home, in their bed, but tried to be relaxed if other naps weren't. And somehow, it all worked out.

So this isn't really an answer. But I guess I am just saying that I was surprised about how resilient my littler gal was. It was like she knew that there were a whole lot of us, all wanting to get things done, and she (mostly) let us do it!