Help me figure out a new routine! 3 DC’s 3 & under + nursery pick up/drop offs.

[FreudianShit]

Hi,

I have three DC’s - DC1 has just turned 3, DC2 has just turned 2 and DC3 is 4 months old.

DC1 started nursery this week, he’s going Monday to Friday for the morning sessions which start at 9 and finish at 12. His nursery is about a 20 minute walk away, so 40-45 minute round trip, but if you throw in getting three kids dressed, loaded up in a pushchair and a sling and out of the house, and then unloaded when I get home again, it ends up being closer to an hour and a half of mad rushing about in the morning then again mid afternoon.

My question really is this, as I know many of you on here have been there, done that, so need some advice - how do you juggle the drop offs, housework, naps, pick ups, make dinner, more naps etc!?

Before nursery, we all had a good routine which worked well for each of us. DC2 would go down for a nap at around 11 and would sleep for 2-3 hours. During that time, I could get the baby to sleep for a decent length and give DC3 his lunch, allowing me a nice chunk of time to crack on with the majority of the housework and prepping dinner etc. But now I feel at a loss and can’t think of a routine that will benefit all of us.

The time that we leave in the morning is slap bang when I’d usually put the baby down for his first nap of the day. He won’t nap in the sling, meaning that once we’ve dropped DC1 off and have got back home again, the baby has missed his ‘nap window’ and is overtired and cranky. I then spend forever trying to get the baby to sleep for a while before we need to leave again, but with no luck. DC2 is no longer able to nap at his usual time, due to the time we need to leave to pick DC1 up again. So DC2 now naps much later in the day which will no doubt see a knock on effect at his bed time, but he’s a miserable crank if he doesn’t get a nap, so I now don’t have much choice! The baby hasn’t napped at all today, because again, we was out picking DC1 up when he’d have been having his lunch time nap!

I haven’t managed to get any housework done as I’ve been struggling to stop the baby from constantly crying where he’s so over tired, on top of making DC1 and DC2 their lunch/generally keeping them amused and attempting to prep some stuff for dinner in the 5 minutes of calm I've managed to get.

There are clothes sat on the airer that need putting away, a washing machine full of clothes that need hanging out, a sink full of dishes, all beds are still unmade, there are chalks, pens, 2000 books and blocks all over the lounge floor and I now need to start getting dinner on the go even though right now is when the baby starts to cluster feed (and will not be put down for love nor money!) and will continue to do so up until about 8-9pm tonight!

Help! I wish I was someone that could turn a blind eye to mess etc, but a messy home and things left unfinished really effect my mental state and drag me down; what’s more, we kind of need cutlery and things to wear so not exactly ‘jobs’ I can pretend don’t need doing like dusting or bleaching the bathroom.

Any advice for what things I could do make my day easier/a structure that worked for you will be massively appreciated!!! It’s only day 2 of this new set up and I can already see myself losing the plot before Friday!

And when are you getting your "chill-out time" after your full day of work looking after the children and doing all the housework?

Is there anything you can do nearer to the nursery? A play group, library, soft play, music group? Anything so you haven’t got to do so much waking? I’ve gone through having 3 small dc and am now a childminder, and my routine is pretty much the same. I try to get babies to nap on the school run, then out for the morning (anywhere, a group, the park, the forest, a friends house). Then pick up from nursery, lunch and afternoon naps. While the dc have afternoon naps I run about doing tea/anything else that needs doing.

If you don’t want to stay out though, I think changing nursery hours would benefit you a lot. If your dh isn’t prepared to alter his life to help, I don’t think he has the right to dictate how your day/week is spent. So if it is easier for your dc to do 2 full days, I think that’s what you should do. I get why he thinks 5 mornings are a good thing, but if it’s causing you a lot of stress, it’s definitely not worth it. These things have to work for everyone.

It’s easy for your DH to give a view when he doesn’t actually contribute to the process. Your routine needs to work for you and your children. If I was in your shoes I’d be trying to get DC1 into nursery for 3 full days instead. If your DH doesn’t agree then he needs to explain how he’s going to help make it easier.

Is getting a cleaner an option? I couldn’t manage without mine and we only have one child.

I did wonder about finding a playgroup nearby, but honestly, being out the house from half 8 til half 12 every day with a 4 month old and a just turned 2 year old sounds like my idea of hell right now 😩

I do get where DH was coming from with regards to DC1 experiencing a daily routine of going to a nursery without me around, but I can feel that it simply isn't going to work. I'm going to give it a couple more days and see, but can predict I'll be asking about full days as soon as possible.

I'm glad the majority of you have agreed this current set up is a bit bonkers! DH will likely to tell me to get on with it for the sake of DC1, but at least I know this isn't just a case of me not being a good enough and not being able to hack it!

Why bother with nursery at all at this stage? Why not just take all of them to a couple of toddler groups where you can work around your routine? People big up the benefits of nursery but really your kid will learn to socialise in other ways. Does he start school in Sept? I found this a nightmare with 3 pre schoolers but I lived opposite pre school and committed the unmentionable sin of leaving my two youngest asleep in cots whilst I collected her as they would both sleep for a couple of hours after their lunch. The nightmare began when oldest started school on half days and had to be collected at 12.30. School was a slightly longer walk so had to take all 3 and youngest would fall asleep en route and wake up when we got home ( 20 min nap) and toddler would scream all the way there and back as he was tired and grumpy. I begged for full days but had to survive a term and had no solution. It was fine when she did full days. So.... If nursery is a must, definitely go for a longer session. Providing you pay for a day, presumably you can drop off and pick up at your convenience, you would not have to do a full 8-6 or whatever.

Tbh it's pressure from DH and family members that have seen us putting DC1 in to nursery at just turned 3. As soon as he turned 2 and a half, everyone kept asking 'have you got a nursery placement for when he turns 3!?' 'The slots fill up quick you know, better hurry up and sort it out!' 'He'll benefit so much from nursery!!!' 'He really MUST go!' Meanwhile I was sat there like but he has siblings to play with, all the toys in the world, frequently sees family members and is taken out by family members almost every weekend, a routine that works for him, why exactly does he need nursery!? But lo and behold, I succumbed to the pressure from everyone and am at where I am now! Confused, stressed, surrounded by mess and still sat up trying to settle a four month old who slept for a grand total of ten minutes today so is now beyond the realms of restless and agitated!

suggest to DH that he takes a couple of days A/L and tries out the routine for himself whilst you go visit a friend. It all sounds very straightforward as a plan until you try it! Why would you pay out money to someone else to care for your child whilst you are at home with 2 others. If it gave you a break that would be fine, but if it makes life more stressful there is literally no point. None of my 3 went to nursery. They did go to preschool before starting school but only because it was so close.

I had almost identical gaps to you and a similar nursery run and just didn't bother going home in between. It did mean the small two napped erratically and I never had any child free time during the day to get anything done but we would usually go to a playgroup and then they would usually (but not always) nap in the pram on the walk home and if I was lucky stay asleep long enough for me to make lunch for everyone. I just surrendered to the chaos for a while .

It got worse before it got better when I had a school run, nursery run and a 1 year old. Poor DC3 had no routine whatsoever and gave up napping at all in the day by 18 months because there was no stretch of time we were in one place to have one.

The two year old won't nap in the pushchair and never really has, he's very much a 'I'll sleep in my cot but nowhere else' kind of kid - I can think of one or two occasions where we've had a really long day out and he's nodded off literally 5 minutes from home, but then getting him out of the pushchair and lugging him up to in to flat disturbs him too much and he won't go down again.

It's all just a bit of a nightmare. Have woken up this morning dreading a repeat of yesterday, but hoping it won't be quite as bad.

Another crappy day! Baby hasn't napped yet thanks to his missed nap this morning, resulting in him being overtired and fighting all sleep entirely. The two year old is also tired and cranky from being woken up before he was ready and having his nap time pushed back. There's yesterdays washing still sat in the machine, two days worth of dishes still to get through, each bedroom is a complete state and I now need to head back and collect DC1 then sort out everyone's lunches when we return and spend the next however many hours settling a fussy baby before attempting to sort dinner.

Spoke to the head of nursery this morning and luckily they have some full day slots still available which she'll sort out with me when I go back shortly. I can't live each and every day with a baby who isn't able to nap properly thanks to disrupted routine and a toddler who's much needed nap time has been taken from him, all so their elder brother can play in a hall for a few hours 🤷🏻‍♀️

This sounds like an absolute nightmare. I would either do full days or knock it on the head completely to be honest.

Similarly to you my husband’s family are putting a lot of pressure on me to put my ds(2.5) in nursery so he can socialise. Massive no from me as he gets plenty of socialisation with my friends children, at groups we go to and with his brother. Some people really rate nursery for socialisation but for me, it is childcare only, I don’t personally think my son would get anything out of it he wouldn’t from not doing.

Obviously if you want him to go you will have to find a way to make it work but from the sounds of it whatever benefits ds1 is getting from it will be at the detriment of the rest of your family.

So starting next week, he's going to be doing Tuesday and Thursday full day, as opposed to Monday to Friday mornings. I just can't cope with this set up, it's ridiculous.

Baby hasn't napped for the second day in a row, meaning once again, nothing is getting done!!! Takeaway for dinner tonight I think, then will be getting DH to do all of the housework this evening, that I haven't managed to do for the past two days, seeing as nursery every single day was his idea, even though he didn't stop and think about how it would impact me or his other DC's!!

So. Tired. So. Very. Stressed.

Sounds like a much better solution for you.
When the next one goes, also look at 2 longer days as it will be a nightmare doing drop off at school and nursery at 9, nursery pick up 12, school pick up 3 etc.. Means you only get max 90 mins-2hrs in between each slot by the time you walk there and back

Luckily, DC2 doesn't start nursery until next January, and DC1 doesn't start school until September after next! So for 8-9 months at least, I'll be dropping them both off at the same nursery and will be left with just the one child! Will definitely aim to have DC2 on a longer nursery day schedule though, as I've only done three days of this mad morning routine but I can honestly say I haven't felt this tired or stressed out/at breaking point since I become a parent 3 years ago! So frustrating that I had a set up which suited us and worked well 90% of the time, but it's completely gone to shit in the space of a few days

Hope things are a bit better now OP? Fingers crossed next week sees an improvement with your new schedule.

Thanks @Direwolfwrangler the whole family was brought down by the dreaded D&V bug on Thursday night, so DC1 didn't go to nursery on Friday morning.
He's in tomorrow for a full day though then will be back again Thursday for another full day. Keeping my fingers crossed that he copes well with the longer session, and also that I'll have more time to settle/play with the other two DC's since I won't be rushing around quite so much!
Should be home by around 9:30am after the drop off, and won't need to leave until 3ish to pick dc up again - much better! (I hope )

Just doing mornings sounds like hell. It would be much better to do full days and would give your 3 year old a much better experience of being without you.

Mine did 3 full days at nursery but both adapted easily when the switched to 5 shorter days when they started school.

Hats off to you. Just read this and I need a lie down! Hope you’re all feeling better and the new routine works for you.

We live so close to school I can see it from my bedroom window and I couldn't cope with mornings only.

Also make the most of having a few full days without pickups each week because when school starts you'll realise 9-3 is hardly any time at all for days out with the younger ones.

Well DC1 did two full days this week and my god, what a difference!

Today I managed to get the toddler and the baby down for a decent length nap at the same time, meaning they're not only well rested and nice children again, but it gave me enough time to properly clean the kitchen, do some laundry and sort out my bedroom! Massive, massive difference to last week where the entire home looked like a bomb had hit it because I had no time to do anything thanks to a cranky, out of sorts baby!

So relieved I made the decision to change from every morning, to a couple of full days.

When I told DH that I wasn't coping with the mornings and that it was seriously disrupting the baby and toddlers routines and turning them in to screaming nightmares, his response was 'but they'd have got used to it' - yeah thanks DH, I'll just lose my sanity coping with irritable children every single day while you're at work, and let our house descend in to madness in the hopes they'll 'get used to it in the end' suffice to say, digging my heels in and doing what I thought I should have done in the first place, has worked out rather well!

Thanks to everyone who commented and confirmed that a couple of full days would be a lot better than dragging three tiny ones out twice a day and mucking up our decent routine in the process. Mums know best!

DH will likely to tell me to get on with it for the sake of DC1

And if there was only DC1 then he'd have a point. But there isn't. There is DC2/3 who are equally important and who need to have their needs met. Plus everyone will benefit from having a happy mum/wife!!

Sorry!! Have seen your updates!!

I was just so incensed by his opinion l stopped reading on

@FreudianShit please make sure next time the kids nap at the same time that you take a flipping break. Watch something fab, drink tea, whatever. Enjoy it!