Ok. One more post on the daily schedule and then I promise to move on to another topic. You guys had some good questions about the evening part of our Monday-through-Fridays, and as Tessie says, it's good to preserve these things for posterity.
--ACTUALLY, before I get into that, I feel like I should admit something. I feel sort of nervous about telling you the details of our daily schedule. Because I am (you should know) overly sensitive about what you might think. And all the comments were SO KIND from the last post, so I'm feeling more bold. If I could wrap you all up in a big ball of hugs, I would!
But I'm not feeling so VERY bold that I am no longer concerned that you might put all these details together and think, "Ugh, what awful parents! They only spend a few waking hours a day with their small children! Young kids should be wintering in their jammies all morning, lounging around and not having to rush out the door pre-dawn five days a week. Bad, bad mom!"
To which I would hang my head and say you are RIGHT. Absolutely, without hesitation, RIGHT. There are many first-world, middle-class sob stories (term credit: Tessie, again) we can tell. Yet this is our life. And for the most part, it's working just fine.--
My official work hours are 7am to 4pm, though there are many, many exceptions where things get shuffled around to earlier or later or weekend hours. Brett works 6am to 3pm some days, and others he works 7am to 4pm. We split drop-offs and pick-ups evenly. If I drop off, he picks up; vice versa.
One of us is always heading to pick up children by 4pm. The littles are fetched from the babysitter by 4:15; Emmett from preschool at 4:30; Calum from after-school care at 4:45. We are home by 5pm. We eat dinner, sometimes take baths, read books, do dishes/ laundry/ etc., and play games. The boys are REALLY into checkers and mancala these days, which is super fun because I HEART MANCALA as one of my favorite games. (Calum will be learning CHESS next week [thanks to a wonderful before-school child care worker], and I have, um, never played chess? So I will be learning a new trick along side him.)
I put Willa Mae to bed between 7- 7:30pm, depending on how much she is yelling at us (lately, I'm bolting up the stairs with her at 7:00 sharp). Brett puts the big boys down between 7:30- 8pm. I typically nurse Abram for an entire hour between 8-9pm, which is Brett's & my precious, brain-numbing hour of television & internet. I put Abram down and head to bed by 9:30 at the latest.
Minus an hour or so per night when I'm up with Abram, the house is quiet from 9:30pm to 4:30am.
I'd really like to know, what are the quiet hours in your home?
19 comments:
My quiet hours are about 9:30 PM to 5:45 AM. My oldest is 4.5 and has been having sleep issues lately so some nights, though he is in his room, he is not asleep until between 9:30-10. But the youngest sleeps well all night (knock on anything wood!) and then mt oldest is bolting upright the second he hears our alarm.
Thanks so much for sharing...our schedules are a bit similiar but we only have 2 kids now ( hoping for more) but my husband adds grad school and a job that he puts in about 12 hours a day. We are up by 5...out the door by 6:30 - I work till 3:30-4pm then do all the after school sports, scouts, piano etc...then dinner, homework, ( if I can squeeze a workout in GREAT) then the bedtime routine...its a lot to juggle and sometimes I wonder at the futility of it all. I love reading your blog thanks again for all the details makes me feel not so alone!! :)
I really love these logistics posts.
I doubt that most WOH parents spend more than the 3 or so hours you've detailed here with their kids. Sounds pretty typical to me. Your day just starts earlier, that's all.
On days when I HAVE Ava, I wake up at 6:15 and I drop her off at school around 7. I get to work by 7:30 and try to leave by 4:30 so I can pick her up by 5:15. She goes to bed around 7:45, usually asleep at 8. I go to bed at 10 at the latest, often earlier if Scott is not home.
When I DON'T have her, I try to get to work by 7 and stay until 5.
Every evening is different at our house, because sometimes it's just me, sometimes me and Scott, sometimes me and Ava, sometimes me, Scott, and his girls, and sometimes all of us. It can be hard to get into a routine for that reason, which sucks both for us AND the kids.
COMMENT TOO LONG. MUST STOP.
I am going to boldly say that scheduling is probably the #1 stressor in my life right now. I am not fundametally suited to it, and it makes me feel like I'm living someone else's life. Cheery.
I think this doesn't sound too far out of the norm, although I feel like you could use some sleep. But I like to sleep. :) Everyone! Get more sleep!
It takes me an hour to leave from work and get kids and get home everyday, too. And we are all in the same town/area. It just takes a while.
You're doing great! I am so impressed with how advanced your kids are.
Oooh... Mancala! I forgot about Mancala! I'll have to get one of those for my household ASAP.
Whoever knows if how we raise our kids is the right way, you know? In contrast to your schedule, mine is a lot lazier, a lot more time around the house, a lot of times letting the kids get bored and unruly and shhh... watch too much TV. So I really do admire your business, your energy.
Anyone who would say to you that young kids should be wintering in jammies all morning lives in a dreamland.
My husband and I are lucky to have flexible work hours (and we can both work from home if needed, too, which is nice with sick kids, etc.). We share a car, so we all try to be ready by 7:15 to take the big two to school. (This doesn't always happen. We're in a phase right now where it usually ends up being one of us taking the bigs and then swinging back home for the other parent and littles.) Big kids have to be to school by 8; kid #3 has to be at daycare by 8:30 or 9:30 for the bus that goes to the other daycare. Kid #4 also goes to the same place, but he stays there, so there's no time constraints. We typically get to work by 9ish (we work two buildings away from each other). We leave around 5 to swing back by daycare and then school (everyone has to be picked up by 6). Home between 6:15 and 6:30, at which point we start dinner while the kids play. We try to eat by 7:30, which is technically the bedtime of the two youngest boys (they're almost never in bed by then, though). 8:30 for #3, in bed reading by 9:30 for #4. It works for us. Our house is a giant ball of disaster, though, all the time.
I love reading these kinds of posts, too.
The scheduling factor was/is a huge reason why we decided not to have kids. There were a lot of other reasons obviously, but that was the big one. At the time we made the decision, I was driving to/at work from 6:45 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., and Jason was gone from 5:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. One or both of us routinely had to unexpectedly work late, and we didn't have any family nearby who could help out. The way we figured it, we would've been lucky to spend ONE HOUR with our kid in the evenings.
I'm often guilty of feeling like my children would be happier lounging in their jammies all winter long, but then I think that's because it's what *I* would be happier doing. In reality, I remember when I worked nights so I had the kids at home during the day and they were positively bored out of their mind by 8:30am.
Quiet hours? What are those, says the girl with a 2 week old. I saw every single hour last night! Yippee. Try not to be jealous, y'all.
I can't believe you'd be self-concious to share, because I'm just massively impressed. I feel sheepish to admit that things in my house aren't quiet until 11 or 12 most nights. Then except for Brian showering at 6:30, everyone else gets up between 7 and 8. You're halfway through your workday by then! Eeesh!
And wintering in jammies sounds all relaxing and snuggly, but with 4 kids under 7? I doubt that would be the case. We don't winter around in our jammies cuz the children would drive me nutty by 11am!
Daniel is down around 7:30, too, but sometimes up and down again periodically for another hour. Elsa sleeps from 7-9:30 and eats again, then is down. Dan goes to bed at 9:30 or so. We love that hour together we have with the kids sleeping, too. I love the 10-11 hour at my house when I have total silence for myself. Sometimes I stay up later to watch Jimmy Kimmel. Dan is up at 4:45, Elsa eats around 5, and Daniel is up around 6:30. The last few months the kids slept past 7, which was a real delight for me because I could have another Just Bethany Awake hour at the house.
I love reading logistics posts. And I agree with Tessie: it's a great thing to record for posterity (yours & others').
And as always, I like to put working parent (and nonworking parent) schedules in historical context. For hundreds of years children routinely left home for good--either for work or education--by age 7 or earlier. Upper class kids rarely saw their parents; lower class kids were expected to contribute to the household income by about the age kids learn to read now. Jane Austen's family sent babies to a wet nurse in town until age 3 or 4--and yet she was close with both her parents and her siblings.
Our model, even the stressed out coffee parent model, is not at all bad, in other words. We spend plenty of time with our kids.
And as for my household's quiet hours, they now exceed the hours I am awake. Erg. My oldest (10!) usually goes to bed at the same time or a smidge later than I do. And this only bothers because I seem to be only person in the house who cares whether he brushes his teeth, and if I'm in bed, I can't nag him.
This sounds really good. It sounds to me like there's a nice mix of family time and activities, a nice mix of each person doing their own thing and everyone being together. Though of course very, very busy right now for the parents, who have to do all the support work of the system and probably aren't getting enough time for themselves yet. But that will get better. (Notice my sympathies are not with the children but with you and Brett!)
Our house is quiet from about 10:15 until about 5:15.
I love reading these posts too. We are finally getting back into some semblance of a schedule right now after the birth of #3 (she's 7 weeks old). Older boys are just turned 5 and almost 3. I am on maternity leave until baby is 7 months old so things will change drastically once I go back to work...and then 2 months later the oldest starts K so things will change drastically again! Ugh change. To make
Right now, our schedule looks like this:
Mon: husband up with boys (they wake up about 7:00) while I nurse/doze with baby until 8:00. Husband leaves with oldest for school around 8:30 (they bike, it's only 1.5 miles away and located onsite to where husband works - huge timesaver!). I hang out with baby and little boy all day. Husband and oldest home at 5:15.
Tues: husband up and out of the house by 7:30 am and I am usually up when he leaves with the boys although sometimes he puts in a DVD before he leaves so I can get some extra sleep with the baby. Hubs home at 5:00.
Wed: Same as Mon, except both boys go to school so I have the day with just the baby. Awesome! BUT hubs has a night class to teach so comes home, eats dinner, puts boys in jammies, and then I am on my own from 6:30 - 11:00 pm.
Thurs: Same as Tues.
Fri: Same as Wed. but no night class!
Boys bedtime is 7:30ish. Baby has no bedtime yet - she is fussy in the evenings and just wants to be held/nursed so that's what we do. We take turns holding her so we can workout at night. I run on the treadmill or if she has just nursed and is sleepy I go to an exercise class. (She refuses to take a bottle). House is relatively quiet after the boys go to bed, but we try to fit a lot in then like the workouts, picking up the house, and my husband is often working on lectures, etc. We usually go to bed around midnight.
And I think when it comes to kids absence does make the heart grow fonder. I am a better parent when I have some time away from them - esp. the older ones. The boys would kill each other if we stayed inside in our jammies all day long.
In our house my husband and I wake up at 6:00. Whoever is in charge of my son's (9) lunch that week puts lunch together while the other of us gets in the shower. My daughter (2.5) wakes up anywhere between 6 and 6:45 so the person out of the shower and mainly ready gets her up, changed, and eating.
We usually have to wake my son at 6:50 (perversely he is ALWAYS awake before 6:30 on week-ends). Son gets dressed, eats etc. I leave by 7 or 7:15 so I can get to work by 7:30. My husband waits until my son leaves with friends to walk to school around 7:30 and then drops my daughter off at daycare.
I leave work at 4:30, get my daughter, then pick up my son and we are usually home by 5:00. If it's a night on which my son has soccer clinic, I leave work earlier so I can get kids earlier, jam some food in their mouths and take both kids to the soccer clinic. My husband meets us there and one or the other of us takes my daughter home. During regular soccer season my son's practices are just at the end of our street so he changes and walks there himself by 5:30.
In any event, we are all usually home between 6:15 and 6:30 then it's bath time for daughter if necessary, shower for son if necessary, husband and I alternate putting daughter to bed usually between 7-7:30 and son to bed by 8:30. I usually fall asleep between 9:30 and 10 husband a little later. House is quiet between 10 or 10:30 and 5:30 or 6:00.
All of this gets crazy in the summer when we attempt to work the logistics of camps for my son into the equation, but I can't even think about that now!
Your day is certainly more hectic than mine, but it works because you and Brett split the work. I know it is not always 50/50....some weeks maybe 40/60, some weeks 80/20, depending on work schedules. And I think it is really very COOL that this works for you all.
In my world, my husband is not a hands-on dad. He is very much a "have to be told everything" husband and father. So if I attempted to work it would feel like a zillion more burdens on my shoulder, so I don't work.
But I would certainly be more game to at least take on part-time work if I had a partner who was willing to do the dance with me.
As it stands, it just wouldn't be worth it psychologically, even if it might help financially (although I doubt it since I was a teacher).
It depends on the day of the week.
heidi moved to a big bed and wakes anywhere from 5-6am. The boys stumble out around 6:30.
Raph is off to the bus at 8:15
8:45 I leave with Colin to go to school. If its a t/th Heidi goes to a different school
11:30 on T/Th I pick up Heidi
1:00 I pick up Colin
4:15 Raph is home from school
Unless its Wednesday in that case I pick up Raph at school at 3:30 and take them to gymnastics by 4.
6:00-ish Dinner
8:00 bed for kidlets
10:30-ish bed for me. not sure when Mike goes to bed, later.
Mike's alarm goes off at 5:30. If Heidi isn't awake I get up around 6:00
So 11-5:30 is quiet in our house.
It is amazing you ever have time to talk to me, at all, seriously.
I don't know Erin - I'm sure there are lots of times when you feel like you're just barely holding things together. But I think what you guys do is amazing and I admire the way you make time for what is really important to you. AND I think your kids have really rich lives.
Will you and Calum visit and teach me how to play chess? Harper too?
I think you and your husband are doing a great job managing everything! Very impressed!
We all just do the best we can, you know? We make the decisions we feel are right for our family under our own unique set of circumstances, and go from there. Your kids are happy, well-adjusted, and know that you & Brett love them. That's what matters.
It seems like just yesterday I was playing mancala against you in the 101 living room, and now you are playing with your SIX YEAR OLD son! That's amazing. How on earth do you manage a game with the other kids lurking about? If I tried to play with Ruth, the other two would swipe up the marbles (and likely be attempting to swallow them) in a heartbeat.
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