Worried how on earth i will cope with 3 young children at home and having to homeschool ?

[Worriedlyworried]

DH is a key worker and works long hours. I've only survived the Xmas hols as he used 2 weeks a/l to help me.

I have 2 daughters, one is 3 years old one is 5 and in reception, and a baby boy who is 8 months old. We have had a shit year and my MH is down the drain. No grand parent (or anyone) help what so ever.

Seriously have no idea how I will cope homeschooling for the next 6 weeks and beyond. We had to self isolate last week of term before Xmas and it was pure hell trying to do the work set by school and the zoom meetings. I have no idea how my daughter will be able to access the Google teams meetings as there is no quiet working environment for her, or for me to help her. I literally get zero time to have any quality time with either of my daughters at the moment as my baby has driven me to the edge. I get zero time to do anything.

He whinges and cries from the moment he wakes up till he goes to bed. He will not nap in the day for longer than 20 min unless he is in a quiet environment and i lay with him. Or i take him out the buggy for a short nap, but will wake at the slightest noise. because he is so tired he is just miserable all day and will not be put down or play with his toys. He is so heavy I can barely hold him (he is way over 100th centile) so it's not like I can use a carrier. He just wants to crawl and can't yet and slips over all the time. If I put him in a play pen he will just scream and scream. He has been this way for over 2 months now, Xmas day was pure hell as he was just so miserable. I've taken him to docs to check for ear infection etc and he is fine supposedly.

I had all 3 of them today for the first time without DH and the entire day was a complete shit show. Thr girls wouldn't stay down stairs alone whilst I attempted to feed the baby to sleep upstairs. The poor girls couldn't even do an activity in complete silence (and they shouldn't have to!) Because the scratching from a craft tool they were using kept waking the baby, it was seriously like a mouse scratching.

My poor 3 year old doesn't stand a chance with the baby how he is at the moment.

I just dont know how I will do homeschooling for 6 weeks when I can go pretty much the entire 5 day week without even having a shower until dh is here at home to help with the baby and he works extremely long hours and weekends so its not even like we can just do the home learning at a later time.

Is anyone else facing this? I just dont think I can go on anymore. I love my baby boy so much, my dh got the snip so he was a surprise baby but I feel like because he is so difficult these past 2 months I keep thinking how much easier things would be right now if I just had the 2 girls to manage and I feel.so awful. I'm so sleep deprived and he just constantly nurses but all I care about is wishing I had 30 mins a day to solely dedicate to my daughters.

Honestly, at reception age I would email the school and say homeschooling is not possible in your situation so DD won’t be able to take part.

I'd do 10mins reading with her and that's about it. Don't stress yourself.

Tell school, then concentrate on reading with your girls and getting through the day

Get a white noise machine for the baby’s room to block out the sound of your DDs

Practice a few minutes reading with your eldest when you can. Otherwise, do anything and everything to find a routine that works for you and revert to learning through play.

You're important too and you have to remember that x

I just feel so worried this lockdown will be never ending and will go on till Easter, she can't even read yet so may end up going into y1 without being able to read.

What the first poster said.

Email the school, tell it like it is. You won't be the only ones.

Speak with school but don't worry. Even just do letters and sounds that the 3yo can join in with. Other countries do lots of prep for school before starting much later.

Re. Reading. Put subtitles on the TV. Read cereal packets. Point stuff out to her on posters etc outside. It's all learning.

Just concentrate on reading/phonics

Just do the reading with her, honestly it won't matter in the long run. Tell the school you won't be doing any zoom calls. Cbeebies is your friend while you nurse the baby. They'll learn from it and it's not going to damage them if they watch a bit too much over the next few weeks.

I had exact same kids age gaps as you and I know it's a nightmare until the youngest sleeps properly. You need to just get through it and not get embroiled in extra stress. Your girls will honestly be fine.

I just re-read Boris's speech and he clearly stated schools will hopefully go back after half term so you just have to battle for a few weeks.

Remember the baby won't stay like this forever, he will improve. Will he take a bottle of formula?

Sit them both in front of jolly phonics songs on YouTube. She'll be reading in no time.

I didn’t want to read and run because i was sort of in your position during lockdown#1 and it was hellish, my heart goes out to you.

Not quite the same as i only have dd1(5), and dd2 (4 months at the start of the first lockdown). During months 5 & 6 She. Just. Screamed. She was SO frustrated at not crawling. Wonderweeks and sleep regressions seemes to blur into each other. I told her i hated her once at midnight when i had been trying to feed her to sleep for 5 hours and everything hurt and i couldn’t remember the last time i had more than 40 minutes sleep and I was so, so guilty about the time i wasn’t spending with dd1. Now i’m equally guilty that i said it.

The good news - it didn’t last. Just before the lockdown lifted she learnt to crawl (6 months, so early - i was lucky) and became 70% more cheerful immediately. The crawling led to tiredness, which led to better sleeping. The better sleeping led to a routine which i could (mostly) rely on, so home schooling would take place during nap times (in Reception the majority of the time in class is spent on dealing with 30 kids with different abilities - for 1 you can get everything done in 1-2 hours), or the formal online part would be ditched in favour of writing a story at the coffee table whilst baby crawled around after balls or whatever. I figured learning was important, not specific exercises. We did what dd1 fancied - lots of ancient egyptian history, science experiments (dd2 was propped in high chair with jelly or bubbles or paint in a bag to splat whilst we did), maths & phonics sitting beside the bath whilst dd2 had a splash, setting up dd1 to practice her reading by reading a book to Grandma over facetime whilst i fed dd2 to sleep upstairs. None of it ideal, but it roughly works.

More importantly my mental health improved when the screaming stopped, amd i fully sympathise with how awful the frustrated phase is. There is nothing we can do to speed it up, just keep repeating “this too shall pass” and cross everything that it is sooner rather than later. I remember in my bleakest moments asking DH what life would be like if it turned out we didn’t like dd2. She’s 13 months old now, has been walking since 11 and is (mostly) delightful. And i’m pleased to find that i like her after all

I have 3 children with similarly spaced ages but older than yours (3, 5 & 8) so I appreciate how all consuming it it when you’re youngest is so young & feeds a lot etc & you have little sleep. Given your eldest daughter’s age I wouldn’t be hard on yourself about homeschooling at all. These are exceptional times after all. A little bit of reading, some basic writing & time to draw would be more than enough & better than most! Something you can all do together - games like eye spy, educational programmes on YouTube etc...it’s all learning! As someone here said, if you can tell the teacher that you can’t juggle it all but will do what you can when you can they would surely understand if you can’t follow the tasks they might set. Your sanity matters more than rigid expectations of what you ought to be achieving! Perhaps a snuggly film in bed to give you a little rest too would be an ideal activity on those extra exhausted days. When you are rested you can give more after all. Really easy meals too! Don’t exhaust yourself doing more than necessary, don’t worry about the housework & don’t beat yourself up. I know it doesn’t help your situation now but your youngest will become easier soon, he’ll become less reliant & all consuming - there’s light at the end of this tunnel, keep going & go easy on yourself x

Ah I do feel for you . Do you have some friends you can zoom during this time to help your MH? I think you need to focus on what will save your sanity so seriously lower your expectations. Full lockdown isn't easy and I think it's perfectly acceptable to throw the rulebook away at this time. Your daughter is still very little so tbh I wouldn't worry about formal learning. There will be plenty of time for that. Hopefully your school shares this view. Cooking, helping with jobs around the home or garden, getting outside for a walk each day, lego, singing/dancing together, watching some feel good films, reading a story, all of these can provide learning opportunities without the pressure. Whatever works for you and creates less stress for you all is the way to go.

Make that ‘I spy’ not ‘eye spy’- & i’m meant to be home educating the next generation too! ☺️

As an experienced infant teacher I’d say just let them play, watch CBeebies or Disney, sing songs, colouring in, threading or sorting activities, Lego just like at school. You sing Alphabet/phonic songs and read to them everyday. Don’t worry it’s more important that you’re all coping. That’s what I’d do and I bet they’ll enjoy it.

Your daughter isn't even compulsory school age, please take some of this pressure off yourself. She has plenty of time to learn to read and count and write.
Arm them with crayons and paper, let them watch CBeebies, try and read them a (short) book a day, get the building blocks out of the dolls and let them play. Will they go in the play pen so their mess is contained?

Is baby teething? If even possibly what are you giving him for it? Could it be reflux or something like that? Any chance a GP would check him over?

If you're breastfeeding, would your life be easier on formula? I'd he's in formula and your faffing with powder and hour water, how about the ready made?
Will be sleep in the buggy? An hour's walk every day?

I do feel you, I have a yr1 bit and 1 year old twins. DH is at least in basic office hours upstairs, I couldn't imagine doing it all alone.

Can you talk to DH about his work life balance? He must barely see our know his children. It's that acceptable? It's it avoidable?

And is your have mum fully from TV,if you have iPlayer the educational ones are Alphablocks and Number locks for basic literacy and numeracy, both girls should enjoy them. Yakka Dee for speech and learning words. Melody for music.

I have 3 at home and working FT (single parent), thought not a baby which must be hard!

Honestly? I’m not homeschooling the younger two and eldest will but only if she engages in google classroom (her school offer it all Fay) by herself with no input from me.

Personal opinion is kids will catch up eventually, especially as young as yours. Just survive and get through parenting and fuck the homeschooling 🤷🏻‍♀️

In your situation I wouldn't even try to homeschool when you are alone with all three kids. Just do what you have to do to get through the day as happily as possible. Then try to do some reading/numbers at the weekend or when your partner is home.

Good luck x

Don't worry at all about flipping Zoom lessons!

You can just learn in situ eg while you are tidying up ask the big one to find something that is a circle, a sphere, a triangle etc..When you are in the kitchen do rhymes together (cat, mat, cup, up etc.) and ask the big one to count things and add and subtract, have story time for all three of them, get the them drawing a lot etc.
Try and get the 5 year old to be sitting quiet concentrating for a little piece of each day, maybe when the baby is napping, but if you can't just don't worry.

The do very little at school at this age, honestly.

They do

Do you have one friend who will take your baby for a walk in the stroller every day? So that you have one on one time with your girls? Or you could all take a nap together.
If you don't have a local friend, can you afford to pay someone to do it?
Even if the baby screams, he is outside and safe.

Can you find any child minders for baby?

Don't home school.

Go outside in waterproofs where ever you can as much as you can.

They'll learn more from that and sleep better too, be happier to just veg in front of tv when you're home. Give you peace. Baby will respond to that too.

Shove a chocolate button in his mouth to put back into buggy if he has issues going back in (I had one like that.)

Honestly, at that age, there's no lost learning at all. Reading to them is as good as hearing them read.

@Worriedlyworried

I just feel so worried this lockdown will be never ending and will go on till Easter, she can't even read yet so may end up going into y1 without being able to read.

Many countries start in y2. Honestly, it will be ok.