Please help me organise my life!

[AmpleBosom]

I have 3 boys aged 1, 3 and nearly 5. I work full time and so does DH. Eldest DS starts school in September.

I need some help in planning the day, we just never seem to get everyone up and out in the morning or fed bathed and in bed at night at a reasonable time. I'm hoping you can all give me some idea of what timetable you run to and get me sorted.

Here is the plan:

My DH will take DS1 to school for 8am breakfast club and then go to work

I take DS2 to nursery and DS3 to Grandma's

DH picks DS1 up from afterschool club at 5pm and I get DS2 & 3.

We bath the kids everynight but the evening just seems to run away with us and before I know it it's 9pm and they are only just getting into bed.

Also DH & I seem to be still up at stupid o'clock and then knackered the next day because we have hardly had any sleep and the whole cycle starts again.

So what time should we be getting up in the morning? Aiming to have our evening meal? etc

I know this should be easy but i'm just not getting it right! I'm still breastfeeding DS3 and he is sometimes not sleeping well due to teething.

Is it even possible to do this with 3 children under 5 and both of us working full time? Help me!

Personally, I'd stop bathing the 1 yr old, get dh to bath older 2 together and straight to bed.

Do you meal plan for the week? If you can cook ahead, you'll save thinking time.

But ultimately, it is exhausting having small children! Don't beat yourself up if they're all in bed late, and put yourself to bed at the same time as the dc once a week. It's a big treat!

Thanks Boo, we do bath the older two together and the baby tends to get in with me.

I think we definately need to meal plan, it just all seems so exhausting and i'm completely lacking in motivation at the moment.

I finish work and on the drive home start making a mental list of everything i'm going to do, i pick the boys up and by the time i get home i'm fit for nothing and just knackered!

'mental lists' are exhausting! Don't do it - just tune out to the dc and drift!

So, meal plan on piece of paper on fridge, so dh can see too and start. Just one week's worth and repeat.

Any chance of getting a cleaner? 2 hours/ fortnight even will make a huge difference.

Would love a cleaner! But would be mortified if anyone saw the state of my house at the moment but certainly on the list for the future.

We do now and again send our ironing out if it piles up just to get it done. I tend to iron the kids stuff.

I'm currently sorting out the ridiculous amount of clothes we have ready to sell at the next NCT nearly new sale in our area, i'm determined to get this house sorted if it kills me!

Adult life isn't exactly the fairytale i imagined as a child

make sure you are doing things the easiest way you can - e.g. shopping online, bills by direct debit, a cleaner if you can. I can also recommend flylady.com for helping you get your house in order.

Thanks for all the great suggestions

Can anyone help me with timings of when i should be doing stuff? I just seem to spend all day running round like an idiot being late and rushing. Really need to get my act together ready for DS1 going to school in september

Hiya, ohhhhh i feel for you as i have a 14 month old DS and a step son who is 9, we only have stepson thursdays to sundays but i find it hard going. Me and DH both work fulltime also and im at the stage now where i want DS settled into a better bedtime routine as like you say the night whooses past you and befor you know it its 9-9.30pm.
You must be shatterd.

Me and DH usually get up around 6.30am get washed ready ect. Ds usually wakens around 7ish i then feed and change him and drop him at my mams for 8ish i then go off to work.
When we have my stepson the same goes apart from DH takes him to school then off he goes to work too.

After work we have tea around 6.30 ish, if they need a bath thats usually around 7.15-7.30 then pj's and try to settle but at the min DS isnt settling to around 9pm.
It is hard and i hope you get a plan sorted that will suit and work for you. Theres just soo much to be done in 1 day.
Like Bookangawonders mentioned try to go to bed early with DC once in a while it may help.

Keep me posted to see how you get on.

whispers do you know how tiring school is when they first start? An eight to five day as quite long for a beginner - what kind of afterschool club is it? Activities or sitting around chilling and watching tv? Will ds1 get dinner there or do you all have it together at home?
And have you factored in school holidays?
Could you afford to reduce your hours?

Sorry to sound prssimistic but we've just been through this

Oh top tip is to do the washing on a Sunday so that you dh and ds1 have a wardrobe of five outfits mon - fri so you don't spend the evenings ironing

Also is there any chance grandma could look after ds3 at your house so that's one less child to get ready and one less pick up in the evenings
she might even fill your freezer with yummy homemade meals while ds naps
or would it be cheaper to get a nanny who could do school and nursery runs?

Slow cooker is good cos you come home to a cooked meal. Takes 10 minutes to chop and chuck stuff in the pot. Have even done it the night before, put the pot of raw ingredients in the fridge, then in the morning put it in the slow cooker and just turn it on.

When kids are asleep, get everything prepared as much as possible for next morning. Clothes ready shoes together car keys on hook, bags in car, packed lunches in fridge. I even straighten hair sometimes at night so ready ish. I also take a flask of tea to bed and sit in bed in the morning having a brew

Do your lists at lunch break at work.

Could granny bath the little one for you?

I want to come round and give you a hand, where do you live?

Its just me & DS, but life has improved hugely once I got more organised

I always lay out all our clothes right down to pants and socks the night before, plus cup by the kettle/ bowls etc laid out so there is no need for nay actual THINKING in the mornings.

DS & I get out of bed at 7.15 and I shower and we both dress to get downstairs for 8am, to eat breakfast and leave at 8.30am
Now he is going into Y1 he is dressing himself mostly which has improved things dramatically

Will your other 2 children have breakfast with their grandma?

In the evenings, as someone said meal planning is absolutely vital
I prepare everything I can the night before- potatos peeled and in water, chicken on a baking dish ready to go in the oven and so on

Good luck with it all !!

Thankyou all so much for the advice.

I think the key to this is going to be getting ultra organised and in some ways i already am. The kids have an allocated colour for their clothes hangers, towels etc.

To be honest we've probably just let things slide a bit and need to pull it back. I suppose i'm anxious because it didn't matter if DS1 was a bit late for nursery or late going to bed but it will when he goes to sschool.

We are going to have 3 DS to get to three different places for the first part of the week, DS1 to school, DS2 to nursery and DS3 to grandma's .

I seem to get to bed most nights after 1am and then i'm knackered the next day. At weekends we try and catch up on sleep and cleaning/washing/ironing.

The evenings just run away with us and i need to get some motivation. It is hard with still breasfeeding but i'm hoping that this will gradually come to an end soon.

I'm having some blood tests next week but have a sneaky feeling that my tiredness is normal given my circumstance and isn't down to some undiagnosed medical condition

I will take all your advice on board and pull myself together, i know they won't be little for long!

Oh forgot to answer some of your questions

Compo our washing machine never seems to stop but i have been ironing all day so that we all have outfits for the rest of the week.

Grandma lives a little bit too far and doesn't drive but luckily not too far from where i work but does give them breakfast and a small tea.

Afterschool club is until 6pm but DH planning on picking him up at 5pm, they give them a small snack and they can do whatever they want activity wise i think.

OnEdge my slow cooker broke but maybe it's time to get a new one. I'm in the north west but thanks for the offer

Sallystrawberry i'm glad i'm not the only one who can't get to grips with washing!

Dreamteamgirl, my DH tends to lay the kids clothes out for them in the morning DS1 can more or less dress himself now, maybe we should do that the night before for all of us.

jmc, i get the flylady emails but to my shame i just delete them without reading

shell, your timings are a bit similar to mine but we get so off track so easily!

Sorry if i've missed off anyone and thanks again

Oooh, I love this stuff. I grew up in a house of four kids with two parents working full time. And my mother had us moving with military precision. Looking back, it's probably the only way she coped. Top tips include:

All necessary ironing on sundays, and cook a few meals as well.

The night before - all school bags packed and at the door. All uniforms and clothes for the day layed out. Set the table for breakfast. My dad used to soak the porridge overnight so that it only took five minutes to cook a huge batch in the morning. All lunches packed and in the fridge.

Get up early and get organised before the kids are up. It sounds cruel and unusual but they were up at 5.30am to get sorted, showered, dressed and eat their breakfast and we were all up at 6.30am.

All kids get up, wash faces, get dressed and sat at the breakfast table by 7am - we had these hilarious aprons (looking back it is a bit OTT) that covered everything.

While we ate Mum would do the generally faffing about and Dad would do three girls worth of hair (he grew up on a massive cattle property and spent most of his life on a horse so that man can braid).

Once breakfast was done we all frogmarched to clean teeth. And it was straight to the front door to pick up school bags and into the cars by 7.30am, and off we would go.

Admittedly it was scheduled as hell, but highly effective. And you should have seen it when it factored in early morning swimming training and piano practices...

Discipline is key and also - NO TV. Not in the mornings and not after school. It is a huge time sucker. We were allowed after school on a Friday and all weekend, but not during the week.

You can do it!

ps - I second supersal, beans on toast won't kill anyone. And quite often we just had grilled chicken/chops, a salad and some boiled potatoes. A dinner which takes ten minutes tops.

hilee where might i find these aprons?

You know when i went to the school for the intro day my first thought on seeing the other kids was at least i won't have to plait hair in the morning! This is definately one perk of having three boys.

I think i'd like a DH who could braid...

Ample - do you know, I think they were big plastic art aprons. I vaguely remember them being in different colours, and we each had a particular colour. Which, incidentally was a system that Mum introduced with towels as we got older, so she knew who was/wasn't hanging out their towel after a shower. Honestly, the woman is a genius.

But do you know what I forgot to mention and only found out when I was much older? Mum used to get up at 4.30am and go for a run, as it was the only time of day she could fit it in. Insanity!

hilee your mum sounds like super woman but i'm glad i've picked up a bit of her genius with the colour allocation

Give me time on the 4.30am run bit, i'd look like this if i did that at the moment

hillee

I feel inspired! I must stop surfing and go and do some jobs/prep for tomorrow. Repeating the mantra 'it is for my own good, life will be easier this way'.

Good luck AmpleBosom, no advice I'm afraid, it's just hard work with kids isn't it?