I am a career nanny who specializes in twins. By 6/7 months, they aren’t that hard, IF you get them into a good routine and have their naps synced up. The hard part is birth-4/5 months when everyone is doing their own thing.

My concern would be that the nanny won’t be able to focus pn establishing a routine for the twins and give older child what he needs, unless one or both parents will be home for that whole 6-month period to help so that the nanny can take the toddler out for outings during twins’ naps. Is that the case?

If your nanny can actually handle all three and you are able to go full term with no medical complications then co-op or all three at home starting at 6 months is fine but I am worried about the fact that your nanny hasn’t done this set-up and is overconfident. I have done this exact set-up before and I would be raising red flags left and right about “what if X, Y or Z? Then I might not be able to handle all three during this stage?” E.g., What if twins come early and have special needs (pretty common for twins).

Given that concern, I would be looking at full-day care bc it will be easier to replace nanny for twins only if it really doesn’t work out.

OP back again.Not sure if anyone still looking at this. But really needing reassurance and advice on best option for toddler.

Hoping for insights from PP who identified as twin moms and said FT preschool for toddler + nanny for twins.

Having a lot of hesitancy, sadness, and guilt about sending toddler to FT school. Nanny insists she could manage all 3 at home and would be sad to have toddler go. I trust her, but it is so hard to imagine how that would work and toddler would be happy - how he'd keep his schedule with library mornings, playgrounds, etc. Nanny is incredible but has no direct experience with this situation.

Have thoroughly looked at all half-day and coop programs around us. None within a reasonable distance offer the quality of the FT one or allow parents to opt out of the coop portion - so it seems all or none.

Anonymous wrote:Preschool is half day.
Full day is day care.
It’s fine to put your toddler in daycare and have the nanny handle the twins at home - makes a lot of sense for all involved.
You or your spouse could even do the daycare pickup/dropoffs if it matches your work hours so the nanny isn’t hailing the twins to and fro for that.

NCRC is a preschool and they offer both half days (3 hours) and full days (6.5 hours) programs.

Many Family Daycares are Preschools too. They have a Preschool Teacher and are open 5 days from 7-30am -5pm. You choose the times

Preschool is half day.
Full day is day care.
It’s fine to put your toddler in daycare and have the nanny handle the twins at home - makes a lot of sense for all involved.
You or your spouse could even do the daycare pickup/dropoffs if it matches your work hours so the nanny isn’t hailing the twins to and fro for that.

At our PRESCHOOL (from 2 to 5 they don’t have babies in preschool), half day is for kids that are 2 to 3 and it’s from 8:30 to 11:30. This is what my kids did. We still had a FT nanny and it was not daycare. At 3/3.5 to 5 it’s FT preschool from 8:30 to 3. Again, they don’t keep kids until 5 or 6 and it’s not daycare.

OP, your plan seems good to me. It will be hard and a transition, but it is what you need to do. Many kids have trouble starting school. It would have been ideal if your DD had been in half day preschool this past year, but that’s ok. She will be fine

That is a lot for nanny to get all 3 of them bundled up and into the car twice a day to take 3 year old back and forth to daycare. Maybe she would prefer to just have him home with her for the first year or so? I would talk to her and see what she prefers. Your 3 year old will be fine either way.

I say keep looking. You will find the perfect preschool for your child. I'm sure there's a nice half day preschool you just haven't found yet.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FT preschool (i assume you mean 9-5 daycare) us asking a lot of your 3 yr old. That will be a super long day and a hard transition from what he's used to. Throw in TWO new (and needy)baby siblings and it will be miserable.

Is the coop preschool shorter? Like 9-12 MWF- type? Have you asked about parent commitment? Not all coop are the same so just bc you both work FT doesn't mean you still can't be part of the classroom experience.

Agree.
"FT preschool" = daycare.
Preschool only lasts a few hours a day, preferably in the morning when the kids are fresh and ready to absorb the experience. By afternoon, they are worn out. It's a lot to put on a little kid.

Yes, Family Daycares are Preschool too. Our Provider has CDA, she's a preschool teacher with a family daycare of 8 kids total. We love it!

Yes, most academic activities are in the morning then they take a nice nap. But children recovers after the nap and they enjoy a nice afternoon in the Daycare eating snacks with their friends and babies, caregivers. Then they play free play inside. They choose their activity or just have free play with their friends.

Theres also a quiet room where kids go to lay down, read a book or watch the preschool drawings in the wall. That room is for kids who gets tired and got a lot of stimulation and needs an nice relaxing room for a bit.
But any kid can go there and read a book away from the noise.

An hour so so the kids go outside if they want to. There's 1 assistant inside with 2 babies and the other one is outside with the older kids and a baby.

This sounds like our daycare too. Lots of home daycares have a prek program, with naps in the afternoon and lots of outdoor play. My kids all learned to read in our home daycare and were well-prepared for kindergarten. Not that you need that! But don’t assume all home daycares are just free play all day (which is fine too!).

Yes you are right. Not all family daycares are free play. The county makes them to take early child development classes every year and most Providers are preschool teachers with CDA. Some other Family Daycares opens 5 days of the week teaching prek 3-5 and preparing kids for kindergarten.

A good family daycare is with a preschool teacher who opens Monday-Friday, kids gets educational activities in the mornings then after nap time they are relaxed with snacks and free play or engage in individual or group activities. The child chooses. Children are learning all the time.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FT preschool (i assume you mean 9-5 daycare) us asking a lot of your 3 yr old. That will be a super long day and a hard transition from what he's used to. Throw in TWO new (and needy)baby siblings and it will be miserable.

Is the coop preschool shorter? Like 9-12 MWF- type? Have you asked about parent commitment? Not all coop are the same so just bc you both work FT doesn't mean you still can't be part of the classroom experience.

Agree.
"FT preschool" = daycare.
Preschool only lasts a few hours a day, preferably in the morning when the kids are fresh and ready to absorb the experience. By afternoon, they are worn out. It's a lot to put on a little kid.

Yes, Family Daycares are Preschool too. Our Provider has CDA, she's a preschool teacher with a family daycare of 8 kids total. We love it!

Yes, most academic activities are in the morning then they take a nice nap. But children recovers after the nap and they enjoy a nice afternoon in the Daycare eating snacks with their friends and babies, caregivers. Then they play free play inside. They choose their activity or just have free play with their friends.

Theres also a quiet room where kids go to lay down, read a book or watch the preschool drawings in the wall. That room is for kids who gets tired and got a lot of stimulation and needs an nice relaxing room for a bit.
But any kid can go there and read a book away from the noise.

An hour so so the kids go outside if they want to. There's 1 assistant inside with 2 babies and the other one is outside with the older kids and a baby.

This sounds like our daycare too. Lots of home daycares have a prek program, with naps in the afternoon and lots of outdoor play. My kids all learned to read in our home daycare and were well-prepared for kindergarten. Not that you need that! But don’t assume all home daycares are just free play all day (which is fine too!).

*An hour so so before pick up they play outside and play

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FT preschool (i assume you mean 9-5 daycare) us asking a lot of your 3 yr old. That will be a super long day and a hard transition from what he's used to. Throw in TWO new (and needy)baby siblings and it will be miserable.

Is the coop preschool shorter? Like 9-12 MWF- type? Have you asked about parent commitment? Not all coop are the same so just bc you both work FT doesn't mean you still can't be part of the classroom experience.

Agree.
"FT preschool" = daycare.
Preschool only lasts a few hours a day, preferably in the morning when the kids are fresh and ready to absorb the experience. By afternoon, they are worn out. It's a lot to put on a little kid.

Yes, Family Daycares are Preschool too. Our Provider has CDA, she's a preschool teacher with a family daycare of 8 kids total. We love it!

Yes, most academic activities are in the morning then they take a nice nap. But children recovers after the nap and they enjoy a nice afternoon in the Daycare eating snacks with their friends and babies, caregivers. Then they play free play inside. They choose their activity or just have free play with their friends.

Theres also a quiet room where kids go to lay down, read a book or watch the preschool drawings in the wall. That room is for kids who gets tired and got a lot of stimulation and needs an nice relaxing room for a bit.
But any kid can go there and read a book away from the noise.

An hour so so the kids go outside if they want to. There's 1 assistant inside with 2 babies and the other one is outside with the older kids and a baby.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FT preschool (i assume you mean 9-5 daycare) us asking a lot of your 3 yr old. That will be a super long day and a hard transition from what he's used to. Throw in TWO new (and needy)baby siblings and it will be miserable.

Is the coop preschool shorter? Like 9-12 MWF- type? Have you asked about parent commitment? Not all coop are the same so just bc you both work FT doesn't mean you still can't be part of the classroom experience.

There ate no other true preschools nearby which offer a good compromise of not being FT, but still offer socialization/friendships, etc.

Have you looked near your base elementary school? I ask bc there's a greater chance kids in a preschool near your base elem school also live nearby (easy play dates, commonality) and will also be familiar faces in 2 yrs when it's time for kindergarten. (that was our strategy).

The solution here is to start him in full-day preschool before the babies are born so that he can get used to it, and he will. We started my daughter in full-day preschool about 2 months before her baby sister was born (she was moving from a very small in home daycare so she moved from her+3 kids to a 12 kid classroom) and I'm glad we did it that way so we could have one transition at a time.

The only downside here is that you'll have a couple months where you're paying your nanny to do nothing.

Ugh....

If you are hiring temporary then pay your nanny a lot more. No one takes jobs for a few months...
Go hire your mom to do nothing

Did you not read the OP? She already has a nanny that she loves and is going to keep employed.

Go read again who she/he was responding to

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Thanks very much for all the responses and perspective. To answer a few questions that have come up in case that changes advice:

- Babies would be about 6-7 months by the time preschool starts for toddler, so we're hoping that is staggered enough so not too many transitions at once
- Toddler had been in nanny share and spends 2 half a days a week in a local library program (with nanny) so he has some social experience / germ exposure, obviously school would be very different
- FT preschool appears to mean 9-3 pm
- The closest coops only offer 2 mornings a week, one does have a buyout option, but still not sure what that accomplishes given that an adult still needs to be responsible for short turn around time and all the time NOT in school

thanks everyone!

I would do a 9-3 by age 4 to prep for K. The only issue with 9-3 would be pick up and drop off with nanny having to bring the babies out.

Anonymous wrote:Here's what I did: toddler was 2y9m when twins arrived. He went to 1/2 day preschool, 2 days per week at 2 different schools. I started him the month before I delivered. You have to know your kid, but I knew mine would be miserable at home with babies and nanny (and I was SAHM). I would have and should have put him in one of the schools for 3 days and the other for 2---because everyone was unhappy on Fridays!!

Toddler was a very social boy who had no trouble moving from one class/school to the other. I think he did 5 half-days the next year, and finally day pre-K the year twins turned 2
With three under three, if you have resources, it is worth is to pay for all the help you need.

That sounds horrific. Most two year olds would not be able to handle this. Kids that age need consistency.