To ask when it gets easier to get out the house on a morning?

[gettingoutthehouse]

I just want to know if it’s normal to struggle to get out the house before late morning when your husband or partner is at work?

By the time I have played with baby, fed baby milk and breakfast with the appropriate spacing between, gobbled down my own breakfast, cleaned down the high chair, possibly emptied the dishwasher and put a load of washing on, baby is tired and wants their first nap. I have the choice then of either putting them in their jumperoo or cot with some toys while I throw on leggings and a jumper and dash out the house feeling a bit scruffy at 9am (they will grizzle if I do this so I have to rush) OR let them have their first nap at home, usually on me, and then get ready a bit better while they are happy to play.

Is there a secret trick to making any of this more straightforward or does it sound about right? I really (naively) thought it would get easier as baby gets older but I’m not finding that yet… though maybe it’s just me!

I was talking to one of baby’s grandparents and they were confused that I only like to schedule one plan or main activity a day (be that a supermarket trip, meeting a friend, or a class). I plan everything else around this and always like to be home around 1pm to guarantee an afternoon cot nap so I can eat my own lunch, hang the washing to dry and start to prepare dinner. They implied I’m being too restrictive and finding excuses not to do things. I think they are of the mind that your baby should fit in around your day and you should be flexible. I don’t think that works for every baby?

I will budge from this schedule on my husband’s days off absolutely, or for a nice one-off lunch or plan I want to do, but when it’s just me with baby I can’t find another way to do it without it being chaos or resulting in difficult bedtime and disrupted night.

AIBU? Any helpful ideas or words of wisdom?

My personal record though, for getting a child up and out of the house in the morning, is ten minutes. That's ten minutes starting from the time I woke him up - woke him up, brushed his teeth, got him dressed and downstairs, outside clothes on and out the door all within ten minutes (he was getting breakfast at nursery). I was very proud of myself

I’ve always found getting out of the house one of the hardest things about parenting. Sounds so simple, yet … even now I have two young adults, 18 and 20, one will be ready and the other not ready. One will be in the car and the other has gone back in the house for a camera, lipstick, jacket etc.
When I just had one and she was a baby, that was the simplest time and yet still hard as the timing is crucial. I would aim to get out of the house, and most days I managed it but it was so dependent on the stack of things beforehand, breakfast, getting cleaned up, getting dressed. It was easier once she got to about 10/12 months, to have her playing at my feet while I got dressed and ready to go out, but still timing when I left in the morning so that we would be home in time for lunch, before she got too hungry, or home in time for her afternoon nap, was tricky.

Wow. I’m genuinely impressed, ten minutes ! I don’t think I ever managed less than an hour.

You don't say how old the baby is, but if they're having breakfast I assume they aren't tiny any more?

You can definitely streamline and save time in some areas from your OP. Obviously if you like it the way it is and it's not causing a problem, there's no reason to change anything, but you questioning how it is possible sounds like it isn't a choice?
I wouldn't have bothered with playing with the baby on a morning I wanted to get out. As long as there is plenty of interaction, the play can wait until later. Chatting along to them constantly, letting them hold objects as you go about getting ready etc is plenty of stimulation.
Eat breakfast together, embrace BLW if you haven't already. Again, you can chat away about your day ahead as you eat and it's a nice social time. Invariably, you'll finish your food first, so you can get on with the dishwasher etc whilst the baby finishes gumming their toast and squishing blueberries between their fingers (obviously the baby is kept in sight whilst you do this! I'm assuming a kitchen/diner, an open plan space or just dragging the highchair into the kitchen with you). We all always ate the same thing too, so the meal prep was straight forward, with the added bonus of DCs being much more likely to eat what was in front of them if I was eating it too.

And I totally agree with PPs about the baby stage being a much easier life phase to get them out of the door than preschool/lower primary. They no longer have a poonami the moment you are ready to go and strap them into their car seat, but there are new issues...
The struggle to get their shoes on is real! At 11 and 9yo, we now have a well-oiled morning routine, but when they were 2-7yo the call for shoes would be lengthy and ever-escalating in tone and volume: Shoes on time please. Shoe time. Shooooooooes. Shoes NOW please. Shoes! SHOES! SHOES! The only thing worse than this was the toddler "me do it"... Cue 20 minutes of a toddler trying and failing to get their shoes on, getting increasingly angry with the whole thing, with any offers of help only further enraging them. And this will then need to be de-escalated, as there is no way to get an angry, flailing toddler into a car seat without snapping a limb.

I did exactly the same with my eldest - 1st nap at home (I slept too!) then out, then back for the next one. Worked for me, broke the day up but we also got decent rest.

It doesn't matter what time it is really when it's just you and the baby - just do what works!

i think the baby stage is harder OP. everything takes forever and you have to do it all. a toddler doesn’t fall asleep randomly at the wrong times, or scream if you don’t interact with them for 5 minutes. they can even eat breakfast in the car if they have to. breakfast isn’t anywhere near as messy and they may even help put the washing on! they also don’t wake you up every 3 hours so you will be less tired.

I reckon the reason people think older ages are harder is more to do with the hard deadline of getting them to school, which you don’t have when you’re on mat leave. So if you are late it’s more stressful for that reason.

It helped that he was too sleepy to make a fuss!

You say you play with the baby before breakfast? If you want to get out somewhere then I'd not play with them at that time but leave them somewhere safe while you get ready, then do breakfast and leave. Have the bag/outfit ready the night before.

I have 4 kids and I have to agree that toddlers are more difficult to get out of the house, young primary aged children can also be a pain. But it does get easier in the later primary years I'd say

And there speaks the voice of luck.

And you're right to a point. My toddler didn't wake every 3 hours like my baby did. She woke every hour instead 😒

If a baby falls asleep at the 'wrong time ' it doesn't matter one jot. You just move them.

DD had dreadful reflux and was happiest upright, so I basically wore her in an Ergobaby everywhere until she was about 18 months (bloody pram still looked like new when we sold it 🤦🏼‍♀️) which definitely helped, we were out more than we were in. I also have two Labradors that needed walking so we had to get out. I walked for miles in those days because she’d throw up in the car. I think that made it easier as I’d just pop her in the carrier, pick up the changing bag and go. She’d nap in there as well and it was actually quite lovely, looking back.

Now she’s 3 I find it impossible to get out of the house sometimes as we’re in peak “I do it myself”/whinging…

Yes it does depend I suppose a lot on what type of child you have. The OP sounds like her baby is a bad sleeper as won’t even sleep in the pram!

When my first baby was asleep there was no way i could move her because she would then be awake and crying for the next 2-3 hours until the next nap time. it was a nightmare. my second baby is better but still a light sleeper.

It's ironic that you speak of luck, then end on "you just move them".

One person's "just do this" is another person's nightmare.

And going back to the OP, it doesn't sound like she has a problem with her day. She didn't ask for tips, she asked if she was doing something wrong, and if she's happy and the baby is, she isn't.

So what if she might handle things differently IF she has another child? So what if she's learning? So what if loving like this suits her for now?

Lots of reasons. The only way they napped, yes at 6 months. Because he still never slept at night so I was just too perpetually zonked to not doze when he dozed off, and if I tried to move him he’d wake. Because he’d nap after breastfeeding and wake if i moved and I couldn’t exactly not feed him since at 6 months it’s quite possible the only food they eat is accidental as they have no intention of putting any of it into their mouth?

You do learn though. It’s all very well saying one is so easy, you don’t know that as a parent of one, it’s not easy at all. I have 3 and had to do the school run with the 3rd and sports activities, but the first was still the hardest. I was like the op and rarely got out of the house before 10, one thing a day max. Dh was gone early so no help at all in the morning.

I know you learn!

My point was that the OP is happy with her routine. Her baby is happy.

She might be curious about other options in the future, but all this WELL, I HAD A JOB TO GET TO TWENTY YEARS AGO isn't relevant.

Yes, the learning curve is v important. I think people would have had more sympathy if the op hadn't trivialised the challenges of older children.

I remember the irritation of having baby who would often poo about 5 minutes into a journey and then immediately demand milk. That felt ridiculous and impossible. It's later when you're trying to get then to childcare, so you can work in your 3 hours of broken sleep, and you've been trying to get him to put shoes on for 20 minutes, and you know your blood ISH happy as this keeps happening, that you wonder what the big deal was about that poo, when you had no where urgently to be, and no work to juggle. 😂

But yes, maybe we should be kinder. As ideally would the OP towards battles she's not had yet.

Parenting is hard full stop. I'm not sure it ever gets easier for a lot of us.

Like everyone, you do what you have to to make it work. I only had 6 weeks paid maternity leave so I took 2 weeks unpaid but we couldn't afford any longer. It helped that I had a true partner in my husband so we were in it together.