Ideas for life with new baby

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busybee4
Posts: 103
Joined: Sat Apr 05, 2008 7:39 pm
Location: Southwest NC

Ideas for life with new baby

Post by busybee4 » Sun Oct 12, 2008 10:08 am

We just welcomed our 4th little blessing into our home Friday the 10th. She is adorable and we are enjoying her immensly!! However my homeschooling mind has already began to wonder what life will be like once we start back with school.

We started school early so that we could take time off once she arrived and not have to worry about fininshing up quickly or too late. We are on day 4 of week 12 and are planning on putting everything on hold for a couple of weeks...at least. That way we will only work for two or three weeks before we get another break at Thanksgiving and then we'll go back to our routine for three more weeks before we get a break at Christmas. (That will be an extended break because we're traveling to FL. as well.)

So, what kind of things did you ladies do when you brought your new babies home? I don't want to be too lax with school but I don't want to miss out on enjoying this little one's first few weeks either...nor do I want to stress myself or anyone else out.

Any suggestions would be appreciated!!
Krissy, wife to a great man for 10 years and busy Mom to
dd '02 (BLHFHG)
dd '03 (BLHFHG)
ds '05
dd '08 watching it all happen...but not doing it very quietly!!
http://www.rubyslippersschool.com

MamaMary
Posts: 970
Joined: Fri Jan 11, 2008 7:52 am
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Re: Ideas for life with new baby

Post by MamaMary » Sun Oct 12, 2008 11:00 am

Hi Krissy,

Congratulations! I love how your heart and priorities are in the exact right place! I know you will get wonderful suggestions from all the Mama's here. Personally for me, I followed "babywise" scheduling in our home which allowed me to have a loose idea of when the best time to get subjects in would be. I did all hands on projects while baby was down for nap and read a loud while the baby nestled on my shoulder. (or his brothers :wink: )

The GREAT thing about HOD, (I know you already know this) is that you won't even need to think about scheduling. As the babies got older I did almost ALL of my schooling during morning and afternoon nap times.

Blessings Sweet Mama,
Mary
Mary, Mama to 4 amazing sons and wife to one incredible husband! Come check us out on the blog: http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/MamaMary/

water2wine
Posts: 2743
Joined: Mon Nov 26, 2007 7:24 pm
Location: GA

Re: Ideas for life with new baby

Post by water2wine » Sun Oct 12, 2008 11:17 am

I started my baby days out with two babies and two toddlers all at once. I also did the strict schedule things. Then later when I had babies I did the same thing. My babies were always happy and they slept through the night. In fact I had to wake them up to feed them. Maybe the scheduling thing is it, maybe God had mercy on me. Either way I will say having a schedule with a little one really helps. And then if you work around the schedule you have a situation where you can give them attention when they need it and be doing school when they do not need it so much.

Good luck. I am sure you are going to do fine. You are on number 4 everything from 4 on is smooth sailing. :lol: Enjoy your precious little one!
All your children shall be taught by the LORD, and great shall be the peace of your children. Isaiah 54:13
~Six lovies from God~4 by blessing of adoption
-MTMM (HS), Rev to Rev, CTC, DITHR
We LOVED LHFHG/Beyond/Bigger/Preparing/CTC/RTR/Rev to Rev (HS)

inHistiming
Posts: 1301
Joined: Tue Aug 28, 2007 2:30 pm
Location: Central VA
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Re: Ideas for life with new baby

Post by inHistiming » Tue Oct 14, 2008 10:09 pm

I just wanted to bump this up, as I will be in the same situation in March when our new little one arrives. Ideas for scheduling school, housework, grocery shopping etc. would be wonderful. Please help those of us who are increasing in number! :shock: :lol:

Mommamo
Posts: 616
Joined: Mon May 05, 2008 1:31 pm
Location: TX

Re: Ideas for life with new baby

Post by Mommamo » Wed Oct 15, 2008 9:51 am

I just have 3 kiddos, but we started homeschooling when the little one was a few weeks old. Honestly, it hasn't been big deal at all to incorporate school into our life with a baby. And I don't schedule at all. I just wore the baby in a sling and would nurse when she was hungry. She'd sleep in the sling a lot of the time. We would just do school with her in my lap or in the sling. In fact, that's pretty much what we still do. She plays on the floor during school now some. And we do most of school when the toddler naps because he's crazy! :lol: But the baby doesn't affect school much right now.

As far as housework, etc, I am sort of sceduled with that. We have a routine. We pick up bedrooms and living room before lunch/nap and before Daddy gets home. I made up a bunch of food to freeze before baby was born, and that helped there. I still cook extra just about every time I cook in order to freeze it to have for later. I do one load of laundry every morning except for diaper days, then we do two. I do a little actual cleaning every day, and then clean the kitchen every night. That seems to have helped a bunch with having a baby in the house.

Enjoy your little one! They are only newborns for such a short time!
Momma to my 4 sweeties:
DD 14 - MTMM and DITHOR (completed LHFHG, Beyond, Bigger, Preparing, CTC, took a couple years off, and now she's back!)
DS 11 and DD 9 - Preparing(completed 2 rounds of LHTH, LHFHG, Beyond, and Bigger)
DD 6 - LHFHG

busybee4
Posts: 103
Joined: Sat Apr 05, 2008 7:39 pm
Location: Southwest NC

Re: Ideas for life with new baby

Post by busybee4 » Wed Oct 15, 2008 12:21 pm

:D Thank you so much for you replies. What I've kind of boiled it down to is what will work best for my personality and our family style. I'm trying to get the baby on a little schedule but seeing as she's only 5 days old I'm not pushing it too much. I'm trying to let her nurse as much as possible to establish that first but I'd really like to have a simple schedule when we do start school work again...but maybe we'll just ease into it, a little here and a little there. I just don't want to be a nightmare to live with while we are working out the kinks!! :evil:

Anyway thank you for your advice and please, keep it coming!!! :wink:
Krissy, wife to a great man for 10 years and busy Mom to
dd '02 (BLHFHG)
dd '03 (BLHFHG)
ds '05
dd '08 watching it all happen...but not doing it very quietly!!
http://www.rubyslippersschool.com

Carrie
Site Admin
Posts: 8128
Joined: Wed Aug 15, 2007 8:39 pm

Re: Ideas for life with new baby

Post by Carrie » Thu Oct 16, 2008 12:26 pm

Krissy,

I just wanted to celebrate with you on the birth of your little one! :D We did different things with my various pregnancies, depending on how tough the delivery was and how my health was doing after delivery! With my healthier pregnancies, we shifted into school at half-speed about a week to two weeks after delivery. It seemed like the kiddos were craving time with my anyway, and their routine with school was pretty stable and comforting. We did school at half-speed for a couple of weeks doing the left side of the plans one day and the right the next. We just schooled with the little one in the bassinet near us or with me holding the little guy. If it felt like too much we scaled back. 8)

I was suprised how easy it was to get back into the school mode. It was almost a relief to have part of my older kiddo's day more structured. I found that by NOT changing the school kids' schedule (that I already had in place before the birth of the new baby) things went more smoothly, because if I changed their schedule to meet the baby's schedule, no one knew what they were doing! The baby's schedule often changed day-by-day in the beginning, so I just kind of went with the flow feeding every 3 hours or so. Then, as the little one got a little older I tried to make the baby's schedule match ours as much as possible (rather than the other way around). :D

Blessings,
Carrie

Kathleen
Posts: 1980
Joined: Mon Feb 11, 2008 3:23 pm
Location: NE Kansas

Re: Ideas for life with new baby

Post by Kathleen » Thu Oct 16, 2008 9:07 pm

Krissy,

Congratulations on your new little girl! :D I love to hear about new babies! :D I also have followed the suggestions in Babywise with my kids...and it helped a lot. We're more of a "general flow to the day" type schedulers than anything rigid though. I'd say enjoy her...and don't take on too much too soon. (When I get stressed out from taking on too much, I KNOW I'm not fun to live with! :shock: )

:D Kathleen
Homeschooling mom to 6:
Grant - 19 Kansas State University
Allison - 15 World Geography
Garret - 13 Res2Ref
Asa - 8 Bigger
Quinn - 7 Bigger

Halle - 4 LHTH

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