Arrival of a new baby

[tohaveandhavenot]

We were planning on starting HE our children (5,3) beginning next year.

Now we are expecting a new baby in May.

How much time off do you think I should take for adjusting to the new baby ( I have difficult labours and pregnancies )

We are also getting married in November next year.

I'm not entirely sure I understand the question. Time off from what?

Is the eldest currently in school?

Congratulations on your pregnancy and wedding!!!

Among the people I know, it's quite rare to do much formal academic work with a child that age. Many families do none at all, others might do half an hour a few times a week. Individual attention is so efficient that it takes very little time to cover what takes hours at school. And informal learning is quite effective too. As you don't have to have a schedule and can do it whenever suits your family, you'll probably have no trouble fitting that in.

That isn't to say that a new baby won't be a huge upheaval in your lives, but I don't think academics as such need to be a problem. You're more likely to have struggles with managing to get all the kids out so they can have a run around, see friends etc. In that respect home ed is more flexible than school, because you don't have to haul everyone out the door at exactly the right time twice a day.

One thing you might want to do is this. If your eldest is quite outgoing, you could do some networking now among local HE families and pursue friendships in hopes that this may result in offers of playdates and taking your child along to home ed groups etc. In my circle, the arrival of a new baby often triggers offers of help with any older children who might want to go out with other families. But obviously you'll need to get to know other families so they'll be aware that such offers may be welcome and so your kids will trust the other parents enough to want to perhaps go off without you. Why not start going to local home ed groups right now?

Congratulations . I definitely feel qualified to comment on this as this is almost exactly what we have been doing for the past two or three weeks! I would be lying if I said it had been easy but I think we're doing OK. We took shared parental leave for 3mths. Our older children are
very active and I think we would have struggled to get them enough exercise and give them anything like an education otherwise. We maybe do 15-20 mins reading or maths with the eldest daily, and have science kits and art materials which they sometimes ask to play with. They go to some quite active groups and it's definitely a bonus being able to stay at home with the baby and let DH take them. Personally, I wouldn't want them going to groups without us at that age. But for obvious reasons childminding is a common home ed profession, so you should be able to find someone (crb checked and all that) give you a day off from the big ones every now and then! The other joy of home ed is that you are not bound to school timetables, so if it does all go pear shaped for a bit, you can always count it as your 'summer holiday ' and do more another time. I second the opinion that you will definitely benefit from freedom from the school run!

As for the wedding, what a wonderful educational opportunity the planning of that should be! Plenty of life skills to be picked up and likely some maths into the mix