3 kids - Daily routine

[Calpolinformula]

Hello,

I have two kids 3 + 1 year old, and I would love a third!

Both go to the nursery full time and if I ever have a third, by the time he/she arrives, my eldest will be at least in reception.

So, I will have a school aged kid, a toddler/preschooler and a newborn/baby.

Can you please let me know what a daily routine with 3 young kids look like in practical terms?

Just for your information, my eldest was and is very difficult and my young one is extremely easy. I found the transition from 0 to 1 much harder than from 1 to 2. Do you think 2 to 3 will be disastrous?

My routine mainly consists of making food, clearing up food, washing, taking children to/from school and clubs, answering questions (often the same question multiple times) and asking children to put their shoes on.

There’s no way of knowing if 2-3 will be harder/easier as it depends on so many things. But I would say that with 2-3:
your kids are used to sharing you and you are used to managing the needs of more than one child
your trickier child will be older and more able to handle the transition

We have 3 and the last one has slotted in beautifully. A bigger age gap (child 2 is 3.5 years older than child 3) helped.

our weekday routine is roughly
Husband gets up with whoever is up before 6.30 (often all of them)
He brings me tea and a baby to feed then leaves for work.
I eat then do the usual morning stuff of tidying breakfast, getting everyone dressed. When the baby was younger this was trickier as she wanted to nap just as we were all busy packing bags/brushing teeth/doing hair. A sling helped.

Bigs are at school. I chill, do housework, run errands, feed, change, play - all the usual baby stuff. Now she’s bigger there is more time spent entertaining as she’s early a toddler.

3pmish we do the school run. Baby falls asleep.
bigs get a snack and play.
this time of day is tricky again and did require more screens than I’d like when she was tiny. But it’s temporary. Once they’re on solids they can join meals with the bigger ones which is helpful.

Hardest things have been trying to fit naps in around big kids and parenting while sleep deprived. But her sisters adore her and I’m so glad we did it.

Thanks so much! Thats really helpful.

May I also please ask how do you fit homework and afternoon activities in all this?

I am having a baby and having to do spellings or go to an activity in the afternoons with the bigger ones, how does it work?

They don’t do any after school activities right now. They are quite young for them anyway but it’s also just very logistically difficult. We try to keep those things to weekends.

Reading etc fits in somewhere between tea and bed usually. The baby is happy to play or feed or will sit and listen too.

Im often solo until bedtime and regularly solo over bedtime as well so homework for small children would not be a priority for me (I’m a primary school teacher myself and don’t agree with primary homework). But you can do things like practice verbally over breakfast/on the school run, have the child read while your bathing/changing/feeding.

you’ll find a rhythm that works for your family. Some things go out of the window for a few months but they come back.

For me it’s the logistics of it all, car size, holiday room size…. House size? Do you have the space

Thanks all so much, you give me hope!

Car is fine as we have a company lease car and we can change it soon to something that suits us.

House not so fine, we have a 3 bed house, so 2 will have to share - possibly the eldest ones (boy & girl) for when the baby is still a baby. Would that be ok?

We are thinking a loft conversion in the long term during their teen years if sharing a room becomes a real issue!

Holidays - I am thinking of how expensive fights will be, but I am not too fussy about holiday rooms as we can stay in Airbnb, so problem solved.

You can wait longer and have a bigger gap?

I have almost 7 years between oldest and youngest. Baby is 1 now. Middle was 4.5 when the baby was born. Baby was born in April and he went to school in the September.

So I had m/t/w with the middle and baby, Thurs/Fri with just the baby while middle was at preschool. Sat and sun with all 3 and DH of course. Then in sept ‘22 middle started school so now I have the whole week home with the baby :)

It makes for a much calmer life. My friend had 3 in 5 years; and another friend had 4 in 4 years. No idea how they are still sane 😄

We have a 3 bed (2 doubles and a box). One upstairs loo only. We are extending and adding a master and en-suite but one kid will still have to have the box room. We are going to do a built in bed in the stair bulkhead. Then can always move in the future - when DD turns 11 DS1 will be almost 18 so maybe she can get a bigger bedroom for her teen years one way or another :)

We will have 14 years with at least one teen in the house 😄

Clubs wise we don’t have that many at the mo - Stagecoach and football which clash on sat mornings. Swimming lessons for the middle. That’s it! Lots of play dates. Trips to London. Walks. Swimming. That’s kind of it really! Love it. DH is around a lot as he finished work at 3 or 4 so lots of time to see the kids after school which is lovely. Lots of flexibility and works from home so he can do the school run, cover naptime so I can go out for lunch with friends etc.

Holidays wise, since DD has been born we have been to Greece and Denmark and a couple of places in the UK. Didn’t really make a difference to our holiday accommodation yet but I’m sure she will! Greece we had a villa and Copenhagen we had adjoining rooms and cot in our room.

I am having a baby and having to do spellings or go to an activity in the afternoons with the bigger ones, how does it work?

This sort of situation will just work out. Don’t worry about the minutiae. Sometimes I take all 3 to middle child’s swimming lesson, it’s totally fine. Spellings take 5 mins which you will get no problem.