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[quote=Anonymous]Honestly, I don't think I would have such a structured day like this with 5 yr olds. I think asking that they do many of the activities you are asking for, and asking for lunch to be around a certain time and with a "quiet time" afterwards sounds normal, but saying that they have to do an educational activity at A time, and arts and crafts at B time etc is just too much.

I also have never understood doing bath and pj's before dinner. I think having dinner and then going and doing the whole bath and bedtime routine makes more sense. Even kids that don't make much of a mess eating can still get food on them which would end up being pj's instead of their daytime clothes, and bath is better to wash away everything from the day (I also wouldn't do a bath and then have the kids be playing a game where there might get sweaty afterwards). The whole bath/bedtime routine is good to calm kids down, the transition from the activities of the day to getting their body ready for sleep. It should come after stuff like eating.

There should also always be at LEAST 2 hours after eating dinner before the kids go to sleep. That means, if they finish eating at 5:30pm, then reading around 7pm and them going to sleep by 7:30pm.

I don't understand why you have them going to bed quite so early either (unless the reading is for at least a full hour). 7pm really is the absolute earliest I would do for their age. I know other families that have a 7pm bedtime for their kids this age and a couple years older but that is because they go to a school that starts very early in the morning, so they have to get up REALLY early for it. If the kids are not having to get up super early (like 6:00-6:20am) then I would probably have them go to sleep closer to 7:30pm unless they are the type that really need a full 12 hours of sleep.

I highly doubt that any nanny who actually considers themselves a nanny and not just a sitter would have the tv on all day long and just be letting them do whatever, but I think trying to structure things too much at this point is not necessary. They are getting structure from their Pre-K classes, and will slowly gain more structure in regards to play and educational stuff as they go through school. I think as long as the different educational and creative elements are in each day, as well as physical/outdoor play, that is the most important thing. The biggest structure that they really should have is with meal times, quiet time, and bath/bedtime routine.

I don't think you need to be picky about whether they go out for their morning activity at 9am and come back for arts and crafts before lunch at 11am if that is how they all decide they would like to spend the day. I also think that breaking up "educational activities" with outdoor play or independent play can be a good idea. Most kids start to tire from practicing their letters and numbers etc after a short period of time. I have always found it is better to let them do a bit, then play independently, then come back and do a different sort of "educational" thing, then go play outside and so on. If you try and clump it all together during a 2 hour time period in the middle of the afternoon, they will start to get bored and will fight an activity that they might otherwise enjoy if spaced out appropriately.

Anyways, those are just some of my personal opinions and things I have seen from experience. Nobody says you have to do things like anyone else does, but letting a nanny come up with a schedule (with the kids) is usually better than just writing something down and telling her to follow it.[/quote]

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