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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My kids are 5 mo 4 and 8. We joined a pool for the second year in a row and I really want it to work for us. I see families with kids my age..sometimes even 4 kids or families with a set of twins...staying at the pool for 3,4,5 hours everyday. I can't seem to get that down. I try and stay organized.  A bag for towels, cooler, bag for toys, bag with extra clothes and diapers.  It seems by the time I get everyone in their gear, get the bags ready, get into the car and going we are - 45 minutes.  Older kids do well for the first hour usually. I try and get the baby to sleep in the stroller and join in. My 4 year old is fine in the baby pool so we maybe splash with the little one until she tires out. Then kids want to eat and then by hour 2 we generally break down. Baby either is up and overstimulated or tired and can't get into a good sleep. 4 year old wants to do more in the big pool but I'm unavailable for that. 8 year old sees friends and wants to stay longer but little kids can't handle it. It seems like I spend 45 minutes getting ready, maybe 90 minutes there are decent, last 30 terrible, then 45 minutes to get everyone back home and changed and repack the bag/wash towels/empty cooler. I don't know what to do to make this easier and longer?? What am I missing here??[/quote]

I'm really fascinated by all of you that only stay for an hour or 90 minutes.  How terribly [b]wasteful[/b] and boring...

1- We do bathing suits at home, and sunscreen, and they eat lunch on the drive or walk to the pool.  I set up camp in the middle of the big and little pool, so I can keep a monitor on all, and nobody swims alone unless they can pass a swim test.  I'll do laps of the pool deck with the stroller, or put baby in a carrier and stand up to my knees on the stops with the 3-5 year olds.  Also, ALWAYS shower there, or at least rinse off, and if nothing else, everyone takes off suits and puts on dry clothes/diapers or undies.  The drive home has never not made anyone of my 6 fall asleep, in 13 years of doing this.  We go at 11 or 12 depending on the day, and are there until 4 usually.[/quote]

What, exactly, is being wasted?

And you can't say time, because to my kids and to me, 1.5 hours is a great amount of time to be at the pool. That's a great and fun time for US.

Tell me what's being wasted? My community pool membership is built into our HOA fees. So using it a few days a week for as long as *we want to* feels just fine for us. And we aren't pinching pennies and desperate to make the most out of anything like that. [/quote]

Right?  What's wasteful about it?  We used to go to a pool that was a five-minute walk from our house.  The nice thing about it was that we didn't feel like we needed to stay all day to make it worth the trip--we could go, swim a bit, have dinner and head home.  It didn't have to be a Big Thing.  If you're having fun and want to stay longer--great!  If not, what's the problem?  To me, boring would be staying at the pool even after everyone was tired of it and it wasn't so much fun anymore.  [/quote]

Effort. Effort is being wasted. Its a lot of work to get everyone ready to only stay a short while. I only have two kids but didn't take them much by myself until the older one was a decent swimmer on her own.[/quote]

LOL. I’m the poster you’re responding to. I guess we have different definitions of effort. My rising first grader gets herself totally ready except for sunscreen. We all chat and work together. My life isn’t effortless, but fun time with my kids is pretty effortless.[/quote]

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