katiefleck's Unofficial Guide to Surviving 3 or more children under the age of 6
Volume 6: Schedules
Volume 1: The Diaper Bag
Volume 2: Children Proofing and Decorating Your Home
Volume 3: Cleaning
Volume 4: Meal Time
Volume 5: Keeping Your Sanity
I think most parents are over the strange anti-schedule movement that happened years ago. I don't know what the backlash was all about, everything runs on a schedule: the universe, buses, McDonald's. Schedules for young children make sense like purple dinosaurs singing on PBS.
Exception: Babies under 6 months old rarely do well on a schedule tailored to toddlers and older children. Babies have their own schedule: eat, poop, cry, sleep. You'll get different mileage depending on your model. The best you can do is guesstimate nap and feeding times, leaving a window of an hour on both ends. Think that's fun? Try having twins on different "eat, poop, cry, sleep" schedules. Ai yi yi!
Wanna build a daily schedule? Follow these simple steps:
- Start with job times. If you work outside the home, obviously you already have a bit of a schedule framework in place. If you are the stay at home parent, keep your spouse's leaving/returning times in mind. I hate to sound all 50's housewife-ish but it is nice to have the kids off the ceiling, the one thousand piece lego set picked up, and the baby in a clean diaper when your spouse returns home from the "Man Party" (more on that another day). Besides you have to know what time he/she is driving home so you can call and ask them to pick up take-out for dinner.
- School Times and Extracurricular Activities. May or may not apply depending on the ages of your children. Pretty much the same as above but toss in a half hour before hand to handle emergencies: "Mom! I need a 3-D colored/labeled model of deoxyribonucleic acid today!" and "Mom! The baby ate my 3-D colored/labeled model of deoxyribonucleic acid!"
- Meal Times. Ya Gotta Eat! Fed kids are happy kids. Think Snicker commercials. Junior just chewed a hole in your expensive draperies? An unfortunate side effect of hunger. If there's a regular time during the day when the kids seem to hit the wall and nothing you do alleviates this (naps, activities, a change of scenery), try a snack. I'm a big fan of "small meals several times a day." This makes a lot of sense with little kids and their small stomachs. A mid-morning snack is common with young toddlers, especially if they eat a light breakfast. Most adults need afternoon snacks, kids even more so.
My son Zach was so taken with scheduled meal times that at no matter where we were (exploring the wilds of Africa, flying to the moon, or more likely the grocery store) at 9am, 11am, 3pm, or 6pm, he had better be sitting at the kitchen table with food in front of him or the world was ending. Even though we don't follow those times anymore due to school (it's more like 8:15am, noon, 3:45pm, 6:30pm now), on weekends he'll still say "3pm! Snack!"
- Sleep Times. I had a tough debate with myself on whether Meal Times or Sleep Times were more important. I love me some sleeping children! I'd rather tear off my fingernails with rusty pliers than give up the kids' 8pm bedtime. But food is generally more important in the whole "staying alive" department so there ya go. 6 month or older babies generally like two short naps (1 morning, 1 afternoon) or one long nap (afternoon). At some point (i.e. before you ready), they completely give up naps. Be flexible as sleep habits change. If your 3 year old is cranky mid-afternoon, maybe he could use a half an hour of "quiet time" where uh, he watches a brain neuron stimulating educational TV show (yeah that's it!).
Remember toddler naps often mean a later bedtime. So if you want an earlier bedtime, you might have to deal with a grumpy child for a bit in the late afternoon. If you have one of those kids who runs on a cat nap or two, I'm so sorry. I mean, enjoy your time together and in 12 years when they hit high school, then they'll make up for their lack of sleeping now. - Fun Stuff! (Or Housework for Parents) This is the most flexible part of the schedule. Go crazy with it! Schedule some coloring for 9am, sorting socks at 10:45am, Dora the Explorer at 11:30am, scraping encrusted toothpaste off the bathroom sink at 1:15pm. See? Fun for all!
A quick sample of my weekday schedule: 8am, kids out of bed and dressed, breakfast. 8:30am, drop Zach off at school, return home to do housework (um, surf the internet, hehe) while the kids play. 11am, help Emily and Ally with their schoolwork while Kyle and Kelly color. Noon is lunch time and at 12:30, drop the girls off at kindergarten. 12:45pm , either nap time for Kelly & quiet time for Kyle while I work on my to-do list or we run errands (Kelly's flexible enough that she can go without a nap occasionally) 3:30pm, pick up kids, snack time, homework time, after school activities if applicable. 6:30pm, dinner and getting ready for any 7pm activities, if no activities bath time at 7:30 which brings me to... 8pm, bedtime!
Schedule making is truly easier than it sounds. Give it a week trial run and then tweak it until it works for you and your family. Don't forget to give your children schedule warnings as you all adapt, "After lunch, we'll color" or "To get ready for bed, we brush our teeth, go potty, and put our PJ's on." They like to know what's going on as much as you do. But don't go more than one or two steps ahead, it'll confuse younger children or cause the older ones to drive you batty if you let "The Fun Activity Planned after Dinner" slip at breakfast time.
Soon your household will be running as smooth as a Ford Model T production line. Oh wait, you still have children at home! Never mind then, you'll just have slightly more controlled chaos and be able to count the hours to bedtime.
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