give me all the practical tips for managing a baby, 2 year old, and 4 year old

[Anonymous]

That's the same spacing my 3 kids. In the early years, DC#3 either went to bed earlier or laid in the bed with me while I read to the older two if DH was busy. The older kids have shared a room since they were 5 and 3, which means the youngest would have been 1 when we made that change. I highly recommend the shared room/shared bedtime routine if your kids are on similar schedules. When DC #3 went to bed earlier, DH and I would alternate who was reading to her vs. who read to the older kids.

We kept the 'divide and conquer' up for years. For that 4, and 6 age group I read a lot of books to my 4 yo and 6 yo that I ended up re-reading because the 4 yo was entertained at the time, but had no recollection of the story. We read the Little House series twice, for example, once when DC #1 around 7 and again when DC #2 was around 7.

In the past year, we've consolidated and read to all three at once. DH and I have books that we read to them on our nights. It's not hard to find books that appeal to a wide range of ages for read aloud, even if it's not something my oldest would want to read on her own. I Google for books that are good for this, because some books are impossible to read aloud (Anne of Green Gables lasted 1 night before I gave up, and it's one of my favorite books).

Right now, when it's DH's turn, he's reading the Penderwicks. When it's my turn, we're reading Tuesdays at the Castle. They are now 12, 10 and 8, and they still like being read to. The 10 and 8 year old go to bed afterwards, but the 12 year old stays up later reading on her own.

[Anonymous]

I agree that I read books tailored to specific ages at times other than bedtime. I used to read to my oldest in the mornings while he was getting ready for kindergarten. My youngest is 6 now, and I just read him the first Harry Potter and the older kids could listen in if they chose to, and sometimes they did. Right now, we are reading Howl’s Moving Castle, which appeals to all of the kids, ages 6, 8, and 10.

One tip was that I moved bathtime into the much bigger master bathroom when my youngest was a baby. It was so much easier when I had the extra space. I taught the oldest to take a shower then too, so I just had the two to bathe.

[Anonymous]

I have 4 kids 7, 5, 3 and 1. It’s always chaotic from 4:30-7:30 but my husband usually gets home by 5 and he’s very helpful because he likes to cook and pitches in with baths and bedtime. If he was a slug it would be impossible. This past summer I had a great nanny to handle the two older ones 5 hours M-F and that really helped. The good news with a lot of little ones is that without realizing it you easily do 15,000 steps a day.

[Anonymous]

Don't be afraid of using a playpen. My 4 yr old wanted to get in, occasionally, to get away from baby sister. The four year old *wanted* to play without getting bothered. Wanted to play with some toys alone, or they weren't age appropriate yet for the baby.

And the reverse. Sometimes you just need to put the baby somewhere safe. Safe while you attend to the 4 yr old.

Bet I'll get flamed for mentioning a play pen, but mentioning anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here - on the book routine in particular i'm loathe to combine them always because its currently kind of a magical time with my oldest who is usually a tornado of activity but during evening books / cuddles, he calms down and has very thoughtful conversations that wouldn't be possible with a little sib competing for attention. I guess I can always rotate who gets individual time vs budded up when they get older.

Aww...you can keep this. Just say that your oldest goes to bed 15-30 minutes later than the younger kids. He can play in his own or watch television while you put your other two to bed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm a mom of 4 kids that are each about 2 years apart, so I've had kids at those ages twice.

I guess I didn't worry to much about having books "tailored" to stages. The babies would enjoy the same books as the older kids at bedtime, and the older kids would enjoy re-hearing their baby favorites.
By the time my kids were 4 or so they were able to read some on their own, so it was also good to have the big kids read to the little kids sometimes.
And also, we'd read a lot at other times of day, not just bed time--so if there was a certain book that I felt was best for babies (like a board book) I'd just do that one with the baby while the older kids were at school or doing something else.

This. I mean, your baby doesn't know what you're saying anyway, so you could be reading Dante's Inferno and they would be fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hire help

If you have unlimited resources, what is the full list of help you'd get? (just curious....i don't have unlimited resources, but do have some options for throwing some money at it to try to make this phase as enjoyable and fun as possible. i love love love the toddler stage and don't want it to just turn into a blur under a pile of exhaustion and chores)

To combat this, hire a maid to clean your house and do your laundry. I would also see if you can find one who would be a house manager of sorts, restocking pantry items and replenishing items like toilet paper, paper towels, hand soap, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Don't be afraid of using a playpen. My 4 yr old wanted to get in, occasionally, to get away from baby sister. The four year old *wanted* to play without getting bothered. Wanted to play with some toys alone, or they weren't age appropriate yet for the baby.

And the reverse. Sometimes you just need to put the baby somewhere safe. Safe while you attend to the 4 yr old.

Bet I'll get flamed for mentioning a play pen, but mentioning anyway.

No flaming here. I did the same when my kids were 4, 2, and infant. It was a good place to put the baby while I attempted some dishes where she wouldn't get accidentally stepped on or loved to death.

[Anonymous]

Get a nanny. For bedtime, each kid gets two books. Ten minutes each, max.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hire help

If you have unlimited resources, what is the full list of help you'd get? (just curious....i don't have unlimited resources, but do have some options for throwing some money at it to try to make this phase as enjoyable and fun as possible. i love love love the toddler stage and don't want it to just turn into a blur under a pile of exhaustion and chores)

To combat this, hire a maid to clean your house and do your laundry. I would also see if you can find one who would be a house manager of sorts, restocking pantry items and replenishing items like toilet paper, paper towels, hand soap, etc.

I'm not a big cleaning service person for personal reasons (no judgement for those who have them regularly or all the time), but when my third was young we had one for about a year. We didn't need to go to the extent of household manager because DH is good at that stuff, but the cleaning service was a lifesaver.

[Anonymous]

Have 3 with the same spacing. What worked for us was to do bedtime for the youngest first, then the older two after. The older two were in the same room, so it made sense. Part of that was that I've almost always done bedtime solo except when we had a very new newborn - DH's contribution around the house has been tons of housework. One parent can pretty easily do 2 bedtimes, but 3 was beyond my breaking point.

We definitely bathed 2 kids together until they were old enough that it would've been a bit weird.

I've read in most of the books about reading aloud to your family to aim read-alouds at your oldest kids. There are a few lists out there about read-alouds good for the whole family. You'd be surprised how early your youngest will adapt to "listening" to chapters of chapter books, if it's just what you do every day.

I do think you are right to worry about the "baby is mobile" stage as the hardest. I remember vividly a point when I had a 5, almost 3, and almost 1 year old in a pool changing room. Another mom I knew with 3 older kids saw me struggling to keep them from touching everything while getting people changed and said, "don't worry, this is the hardest point." And it is! For out and about, definitely strap people into strollers, make sure your older kids have touch points on the car or a place to hold on the stroller if they need to wait for you for a minute to unstrap somebody, etc. Baby proof everything you can at home.

[Anonymous]

We had a housekeeper 25 hours a week from when my youngest was born until she was about 3 years old.

She did nearly all of the cooking, cleaning, laundry, grocery shopping and general organizing. Did you hear that...it takes about 20-25 hours/wk to do all of that. You cannot get it done in the little moments of time you have between taking care of three little kids.
You either have to hire it out, find a way to incorporate it into your life, live without it being done, or split it with your husband and make time to do it after kids go to bed at night. (my husband would rather be doing other things after the kids go to bed...that's how we ended up with three kids in four years).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here - on the book routine in particular i'm loathe to combine them always because its currently kind of a magical time with my oldest who is usually a tornado of activity but during evening books / cuddles, he calms down and has very thoughtful conversations that wouldn't be possible with a little sib competing for attention. I guess I can always rotate who gets individual time vs budded up when they get older.

My kiddos are 6, 4, 1. We group the older two together for shower and books. Each kiddo gets to pick one book and then the parent chooses one. Over the summer I chose a chapter book that was a better fit for the 6 yo (one book we read was The Secret Garden). By 1-2 pages into the chapter the 4yo was sleeping, which let me spend some extra solo time with the oldest. Sometimes we would stay up extra late reading a couple chapters. Maybe give that a try? You can still read a book for each child that they pick that interests them and still get you solo time with your oldest. We read in our bedroom so we were on neutral territory and there was less arguing over whose bed/room to read in, etc

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is going to sound like a weird piece of advice (and I only have one right now, so I can't even give personal experience) but we're planning on a bigger family (3-4 kids) and I've found a LOT of blogs with tips for large families. Warning: a lot of what you'll find is very conservative, religious types. But tons of helpful, practical tips, and the fact that they hate gay people doesn't ACTUALLY impact their logistical advice. I think that would get you a lot more helpful info than DCUM, which tends to veer quickly to "well it's not possible to care for 4 kids well" or "well, you just have to do it, being a mother is tough!!" which is... not my attitude.

Haha, I'm this poster and the two posts right above mine REALLY proved my point!

I like watching Quiverful families on Youtube. 6-8 kids under 10 usually and its both hilarious watching them trying to handle them all and good tips for caring for a much smaller sized brood.

[Anonymous]

My favorite big family Youtuber examples -