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Toddler in daycare and newborn at home...how'd you do it?
I'm getting ready to have LO #2 in January. Right now, my 2-yr old DS is in daycare all day. But I'm not sure what to do w/ him when the new baby comes. Did you keep your toddler home w/ you while you were on maternity leave or did you still bring him/her to "school?"
A couple of my issues:
1) I'm not sure if the daycare will let me keep him at home for 3 months while still holding his spot (unless I still pay for the tuition).
2) If he goes to daycare while I'm at home w/ baby, I'd have to pick him up (w/ the NB) everyday because hubby doesn't get off work in time..
What did you all do???
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Re: Toddler in daycare and newborn at home...how'd you do it?
My plan was to have DS at home with me for the first month and then he was going to go to the new sitters twice a week to get out of the house and to get use to the new sitter. However his sitter can't watch him anymore so now he is at home with me again. He has gotten really attached to me so I am worried how he is going to be when I go back to work.
I would check with your daycare and see what their policy is. Maybe they will let you take him part time. I would still take him, it is nice to have alone time with the baby and it will keep your older one in a routine still.
We wanted DS's schedule to remain as normal as possible once DD arrived, so we kept him in daycare. Plus it gave me one-on-one time with the new baby.
During the first 10 days, when I was still recovering from the c-section, DH did the drop-off & pick-up. After that DH dropped DS off & I picked him up. It wasn't that big of a deal to do it. The toughest part was lugging the infant carrier and trying to wrangle DS to the car, but most days someone from the daycare would come out to help me. We live a little over a mile from the daycare so on the nice days I put DD in the double stroller & walked to picked up DS.
My girls are 21 months apart and I still sent my older DD to daycare everyday. I really felt that she needed to keep her normal routine and I needed time to bond with the baby rather than keeping my older DD busy. I swear, she would have been going stir crazy being home with me and a newborn all day. Between the baby's napping and eating and my lack of sleep, it would not have been good for my older DD. She is very active and needs to be busy. I would get up at pretty much the normal time I do for work and some days I would shower and some days not - depending on what else I had planned for the day. I would feed the baby and then get my older DD up and dressed (DH would help with this as well). We all left the house at the same time - DH for work and the girls and I for daycare which is only a few mins from the house. I would drop off DD in her room and she always loved showing off her baby sisters. Towards the end of leave I would ofen stop into the infant room at either drop off or pick-up so my baby could get to know the staff and room and all that stuff. Younger DD would go about our day and then pick older DD up at the end of the day. Somedays those were my only trips out of the house and other days, we did otehr things but I loved that time. My younger DD was not an easy baby - had very bad reflux and honestly, I could not imagine going through those 10 weeks (I had been on bed rest at the end so lost a few weeks of leave) recovering from a c-section and taking care of a newborn with my older DD home.
To answer your other question, a friend of mine took her older DD out of daycare for a month and she was able to pay a holding fee that was less than the normal weekly rate. I'm not sure what the rate is but I know when we are out for a weeks vacation, we pay a $50 holding/vacation fee vs the full weeks rate so it is worth asking what they would do if you decide to pull her out.
ANother option that many of friends did is basically keep the older child in daycare but took her less hours - let her sleep in, pick her up early, skip some days and do special things with the kids. Really jsut dud things day by day depending on how things were going with the baby. If you have a very easy baby, it might be easier to do things with your older child.
I had a 4 y.o. DD when DS was born last November. She had been in daycare FT, and we felt it was important to keep her going just so that she had a little continuity in her now turned-upside-down world. Also, we would have lost her space if we took her out totally.
Our daycare would go no lower than 3 days a week. The tuition for that was the same rate as it would have been if we were just paying to keep her spot. She went 5 days a week the week after DS was born because I needed to rest and recover. After that, she went M-T-W and was home with me Thursday and Friday. I drove her there in the morning and DH picked her up. It was hard to do with an infant, because he wasn't getting on a schedule easily, and it was an extremely cold winter--I hated taking him outside, and then into DD's classroom where 10 4 yo's wanted to touch and love him. I also think I sort of missed out on some of the relaxation, if there is any, of a maternity leave, because I was running around every day and then had to entertain a 4 yo two days a week.
However, I needed to have a spot for him at the same daycare, and he got preference if we had another child at the center. So I had to keep DD attending to secure his spot for when my leave was up. I would have loved to save the $$ we paid in tuition while I was on unpaid leave, but I love having my kids at this center. It was also not a huge transition to start DS in daycare, because I had been bringing him in there for weeks and everyone knew him.
I kept DS in daycare while I was home. We felt it was important to maintain his routine. I also really enjoyed the alone time I got to bond with DD. I can't imagine what I would have done with DS those first few weeks when all I was doing was sitting on the couch bfing.
DH did the drop off and pick up the first week and after that I had to do the pick up. It was a little intimidating at first but went surprisingly smooth.
I kept the older boys in DC when the baby came for a few reasons...
1) I wanted to disrupt their schedule as little as possible.
2) There was no way my DC (in-home at the time) would hold their slots.
3) I wanted time to bond with the baby one-on-one.
4) The thought of establishing breastfeeding and tending to a newborn while trying to keep two toddlers entertained and out of harms way was more than I could handle!
The dropping off and picking up was an issue though. For the first few weeks my mom was staying with us. Her "job" was to shuttle the older boys to and from day care and to be with the baby in the evening while DH and I went through the older boys' dinner and bedtime routine. Again, we were trying to keep their schedule as consistent as possible.
Once my mom left I had to pack up the boys and the baby and drop the boys at day care. At the end of the day I had to pack the baby up again to go pick them up. It became routine but it seemed ot be a daunting task at the beginning.
My twins are 5! My baby is 3!
DS#2 - Allergic to Cashew, Pistachio, Kiwi
DS#3 - Allergic to Milk, Egg, Peanut, Tree Nuts and Sesame
DD will be going to daycare. I don't know why you wouldn't, an infant is exhausting not to mention healing from birth, and if you have the option to get a break from one child for a while , I'd take it!
1. You WILL have to keep paying for daycare even if your kid doesn't go
2. Ok...I don't think thats a really big deal.
My DD went the entire time. She didn't always go full days, but I LOVED LOVED having time to bond with DS, nurse without chasing a toddler all the time, NAP when I needed too, etc.
The first week after DS was born my DH was off so he took her, after that I took her. It wasn't that hard, someone from the center usually was begging to hold DS, so I'd hand him off while getting her stuff, etc. They'd even help me out to the car usually. Just ask for and accept help.
DD -- 5YO
DS -- 3YO
Thanks for posting this, as I was going to post a similar question.
I should mention that we're expecting to have a LOT of leave. I get up to ~4.5 months, DH gets ~3 months, and we're hoping MIL will help watch the new baby for a few months during the summer (she's a teacher). So we're looking at hopefully 8-9 months with someone home with the baby, which would be a LONG time to keep DD out of preschool completely.
Luckily, her preschool is really flexible... she currently goes full time, but they separate the "school day" (9 AM to 2 PM) from the "extended care" time before/after school. So we're thinking about pulling her out of extended care, and just sending her school days.
We can also drop down to 4 or 3 days a week. From reading through the other responses, I think we may start off staying at 5 days/week, and make the decision about going to fewer days based on how I'm feeling.
We also have the option to pay by the week during the summer (June-August). So we might pull her out for a week or two here or there, especially if MIL is here.
We do have the option to pull her out completely -- enrollment for the next school year starts in February, so we could just pull her out for the spring/summer and re-enroll her for the fall. But I think we can afford to leave her in, and she loves it so much. So I don't think we'll pull her out if we can help it.
As for dropoffs/pickups, I'm a little nervous about that, too. Luckily, DD's preschool does car dropoff/pickup, so I just have to pull up to the school and they'll get her out. But I'm envisioning having to go pick her up while the baby is napping... stuff like that. Oh well, I think that inconvenience will be fairly minor, and it'll be worth it for DD to get to play with her friends and have fun.
Good luck figuring it all out!
Mommy to DD1 (June 2007), DS (January 2010), DD2 (July 2012), and The Next One (EDD 3/31/2015)
DS is going but on a reduced schedule - 2 days vs the 3 he normally would go. Its been 2 weeks and I love sending him - :-).
He gets to keep his schedule and stay familiar with the people there and I get a break. I'm exhausted and need some down time during the day when I don't have to entertain him and care for the baby at the same time.