Hi. I'm new to this site, and I would love to hear some good advice. I'm a part-time professional (neuropsychologist), and for financial reasons, I need to keep working. My husband and I have been splitting our hours (he's a graphic designer) so that we haven't had to use daycare. This has been stressful but it has at least worked. We started some homeschooling with our son (5) last year, and really enjoyed it. Our daughter will be four in the fall, and we planned to structure some activities for both of them for the coming year and keep homeschooling. I am now expecting in October, and we're trying to see if it will be feasible to handle two careers, two homeschooled kids, and an infant, and keep our sanity. My idea was to try to get someone to come in a few hours a week and help with household chores and to watch the baby for a short time so we could homeschool in the morning, since our window is so short to really focus on that (I have basically three mornings a week at home). Any suggestions about the feasibility of how to do this would be greatly appreciated. To date, I've only found posts by people who were home full time and also caring for an infant while homeschooling, or by people who were working and homeschooling, but not also trying to care for an infant. I just want to keep my sanity and health, and make sure our kids education doesn't get lost in the mix. Thanks much for any suggestions.
If you can afford help around the house, I'd do it! That sounds like my dream! I work part-time as a freelance writer, so I probably enjoy more flexibility with my scheduling than you can. But I do feel that our family has successfully balanced two careers and homeschooling. Soon, we'll also be adding a new baby. (I am due in October, too.) I'll admit I'm concerned over how things are going to go then...but I'll just figure it out as we go along. The good thing about your kids' ages is that you really have to do so little to teach them. You could cover what you need for K-4 and K-5 in a very efficient hour of instruction. And if you skip a month or two after the baby's born, it's not going to hurt your older ones in any way. Good luck!
I am not employeed outside of the home, but I do help run our small business with my dh from our home ( i do all the office/banking/grunt work about 20-30 hrs per week). I also just had a baby in Dec. I have a 5 yo and a 3 yo, and the baby. I am homeschooling the older kids. I do not have the option of having house help, so my house is a complete wreck most of the time (it was that way before the baby came LOL) . But schooling gets done, and my work complete. My suggestions is to stop schooling for a few months after the baby is born. If that means you need to work through the summer to get days in or something like that then do that so you can take time off as needed. Make school easy, for kindy and such we spend right at an hour a day. I do reading and math during that time. All the other stuff can wait, until life settles down a bit, and the kids are older. I want to build a solid foundation before we add in the extras. A plan would be nice, but I just print stuff off the internet as we need it. Since we are working on mastery of the basics. I have a few favorite websites with free worksheets and go from there. I will go into more detail if you would like me too. For the little one check out Kumon workbooks (amazon, walmart, target) they have ones called cutting, tracing etc. The kids love it, you don't have to "teach" them, they gain small muscle skills and they have letters and such as well. I really liked the first 2-3 levels of workbooks from them. As a side note, having a baby didn't really change much around here school wise. I just nurse him while we do school or give him a toy to play with. I am sure that will change once he gets older ( he is 5 months) But for now it isn't that hard to handle. I know that you didn't ask this, but I would suggest that you really do a budget ( check out Dave Ramsey.com ) and make sure it is wise for you to work still. My husband quit his full time job to be self employeed. Which ment he quit driving to work. It saved us $200 a month in fuel ( most don't drive as far I know that) our food cost went down almost $50 a month ( most peoples would be higher then that, I cook from scratch) clothing cost are down too. Our health insruance is so much cheaper with an HSA as well. Our auto insurance went down $60 a month because his car was no longer driving the miles, or "commuting" So just keep you mind open to that as well. It is expensive to work. If you are open to more information on how to do that let me know as well Congrats on the new baby, it is fun. PM if you want to talk more, I am a little busy so I might not get back to this thread again.
All of us here are obviously a little biased about homeschooling, and once you've homeschooled it is very hard to give it up. On the other hand, it sounds like you have an awful lot to deal with. Caring for 3 kids including a newborn is challenging even if you are not working. Working, and homeschooling, and the baby together may be an rather unreasonable amount of work to ask of yourself. Just because someone else has done it doesn't mean it will be the right thing for you. I'm all for having it all - a career, and kids, and do homeschooling, but I never did it all at once. Please take care of yourself too. You don't want to be an exhausted mommy who snaps at her kids or is too tired to give them the attention they need. I know I may be unpopular here for saying so, but if you find things getting rough you could send your oldest to public school for a while and homeschool again later. Otherwise, yes you should have lots of help around the house, and not feel the least bit guilty about it. Erna.
If you can afford someone part time to help clean the house (if that's super important to you) then do it..... I need my house cleaned BADLY! The ages that you have can do what some call "busy work" - but my kids LOVE workbooks..... coloring, letter recognition, number recognition are all you really need to cover (if that) and it can be done with coloring books, worksheets.... and get them started listening to books and play music in the background of "play time." I'm starting up having classical music play all day in the house... I'm HOPING it will have a calming effect on the household as well (I'll let you know if my experiment works - LOL) Make a schedule for yourself, your kids and anyone else who you have involved (I can't make a schedule for my DH he'd shoot me I think) Reading aloud is a huge one too. Hope this helps a little.....
Thanks so much for that post. I think you're catching some of the desperation that I feel. I want so badly to continue homeschooling, but I"ve also learned that no one can "have it all" all the time. I just hope I have the wisdom to pick well what things to put off for later. Being pregnant this time, I have slowly become the tired angry mommy who yells way too much, and I don't want to keep down that road, hence my strong desire to only take on what is going to be manageable. Anyway, thanks for that thoughtful post.
i do not work outside the home. i do have a 5 1/2yr old, 4yrold and 16 month old. i did take off a couple months when my 3rd was born to keep sanity and my children did just fine. even now it can be challenging to to homeschool because a lot of things require me being right there (reading) etc at this age. Generally, my 4yrold only takes 30 minutes to do her "preschool" and maybe 1 hour for my son. so i think it is doable. i think don't be afriad to take some time off. if you just continue to work thru the year your kids will be just fine. i find i am the one who needs to be more disciplined as to when we do our lessons. i can get caught up in things that need to be done around the house. i would think that if you have some kind of a schedule, you will do just fine. just enjoy these young years. there is learning going on in our children's minds when we don't even realize it. we decided to do learn a little about oppossums a few weeks ago when we had a baby one in our house! the kids really got excited about it. hope that helps. you are strong for beign able to balance work and homeschooling. Jenn
When I was homeschooling my boys (they grad last May) I could not imagine working and homeschooling. I always felt homeschooling took up most of my time and I barely had time to cook and clean. When they were not schooling I was preparing for the next days lessons and grading their papers. I would have to make it a point to get my shower early in the am before they got up or I would not have time to shower until the afternoon. Some days I would feel overwhelmed due to the demands and expectations that I placed on myself. My dh and I decided early on that I would stay home with our boys and home school them and we would sacrifice things like fancy vacations and a fancy house so that could happen. If you can do it all, you are Super Woman! (((( ))))
I am not sure who posted it, but really at those ages you do not need a stringent hs schedule or cir. After my baby was born we took 2 months off from any type of school. We read a ton, I needed to nurse and everytime I sat down the kids would run up with books. Then we started up with 1 or 2 days a week to see if I could handle it. Now he just turned 5 months and we have had just a few full 4 day weeks so far. You can also be flexible. Not all of the school needs to happen at one time. We sometimes will work for a few mintues on one subject, then come back to something else later in the day. It also doesn't have to be on a M-F schedule. We do school on Sat when we miss a day during the week, or if the kids ask for it. Kindy should not be stressful for either you or your kids. I know they spend hours in PS teaching. But you are more effecient and don't have to fill their day with busy work. Right now really isn't the best time to be making life changing decisions come to think of it. you most likely have raging hormones, I think that if you were doing it alone I would say that you can't do it all. But if your husband is going to help ( with the kids, the house and the HS) then go for it. Nice and easy take it slow.
I am about to see how this will work for me....I don't work outside the home but I do run a daycare.I only have 6 daycare kids but there not here all together most times plus my 3 so its really not that bad) I have 3 kids of my own and this will be my first year homeschooling. I think I can manage it. Hubby is also self employed so that really helps out. You can probably do great if you have a schedule. I would also do what somebody else on here suggested....DO you HAVE to work outside the home. If yor husband goes back to full time do you have to work? I would start with that first if that's what you would want to do.... Good Luck!
Personally, I am not sure I would be able to do it as I am finding shift work and homeschooling dd 6 and ds 12 a challenge already, despite the fact that I share these duties with my husband who does the same job. I don't feel that I get any time for myself or for just my husband and I, and lately I have been sick frequently with annoying colds. We realise that something has to give soon, and are currently trying to work out how to simplify things for all of our sanity. What's the point in having a family if you are too exhausted to enjoy them??
Thanks for the update. Actually, I think being able to focus on the kids right now alone would be really great, but no one tells you to think that far ahead when you go to graduate school and then end up with nearly $100,000 in school debt. I am very thankful for my own opportunities to learn and go to school, but when we sold everyone on women being able to "do it all", we were buying into a lie. Taking care of things at home DOES take time and energy and presence of mind, and I just wish I had the freedom right now to back off from the professional world to take care of things in these precious early years for my kids. Again, I am not putting down the fact that God has gifted women in wonderful ways to contribute in professional settings, but I wish as a culture we had a better way to work this out, so that we don't miss taking care of our little ones when they need us the most. As for fancy homes and cars, we drive one used car, live in a marginal neighborhood, and buy about 98% of our clothes at Goodwill, and we've never taken a vacation as a family except to the local park in town for the afternoon, but even with all that frugality, that only allows me to work part-time, not to take off several years. Anyway, I think there are many of us out there who are working really hard to be able to give our kids what they need, and I don't think we'll regret it, even if it's not always perfect. Again, thanks to you and all of the others who have shared their thoughts. It's encouraging to join with others who have the same values when it comes to our kids.
Amen sista! :wink: I hear ya on that one, which is part of the reason why I am working so many part time (at home) jobs right now! You gotta do what you gotta do. That pretty much sums up my world view.
Well, until I read about the school debt, my answer was very simple... decide what is most important and go that road. (ie giving up an income because being a stay at home mommy was more important). Here is my story... hubby isn't my oldests bio father, when we got together and married Garrett was 4, I worked as the manager of a convience store, hubby worked for Verizon. We both made good money, but we discovered we were paying more than my salary for daycare (I had to have a provider that offered 24/7 services because both hubby and I could be required to work any time of the day or night), and the gas for my truck. I didn't feel right having hubby support a child that wasn't his, but he was determined that I stay home and raise my son (who he later adopted).. a week after I quit my job, hubby got laid off! We went from bringing home a few thousand dollars a month (about 5,000) to bringing home nothing but his unemployment. He ended up taking a job locally.. Verizon, though the pay was amazing, required travel, sometimes being away for months at a time! We wanted to have more kids, and he wanted to be here to help raise them.. so though the local job didn't pay anywhere near as much as his Verizon job, it did offer him the ability to be home, the drastically reduced cost of meals (he could pack a lunch every day), gas (he no longer had to drive more than 10 miles each way everyday), lodging (he now is home every night), and clothing (no special clothes to wear to work, in fact they supply him a uniform where he is now if he wants it, and give him plenty of free t-shirts). It was a horrible blow to our lifestyle, but we make do on the one income and I wouldn't have it any other way. Being home with my kids is more than I could ask for out of life. But being that you can't just quit working, I would definately suggest getting a mommy's helper a few hours a week so you can do what you want to do.
