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I have 6 children, ages below. The three oldest go to co-op classes two days a week.

 

Right now, I need to go see an optometrist, an osteopath, a podiatrist, my dentist, and, quite honestly, a psychologist.

 

How do I get all this done? I can't take even my three smallest children with me to most of these appointments. What do you do?

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Some of those people probably have Saturday and/or evening appointments, if you have a spouse who is home during those times and who could watch the kids for you while you go. And for those who don't have weekend/evening appointments, do you have a neighbor, relative, or friend, or even a homeschool group who has a mom or teen, who might be willing to watch the kids for you long enough for you to take care of those types of things?

 

Otherwise, worst case scenario, if I had to, I'd take the kids, putting the 20 month old in a stroller with some finger food treats, and possibly the 3 year old if necessary, too. The others I would think could sit quietly in a waiting room together if they had something to do and a talking to in advance? (Well, maybe I'd keep the 5 y/o in the room with me, but the older ones together I'd leave in a waiting room if I had to).

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Hire a mother's helper. I have one, a 17 yr old homeschooler attending college, come 2 mornings a week (6.5 hrs per week) to help. Yesterday I did dd's math lesson, gave her the independent work which the MH supervised while I went to the Dr. and ran an errand. I did the rest of her lessons in the afternoon.

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My kids are older now. When they were younger I did a combination of things-mostly traded off with friends who also had appointments or hired teen sitters. Sometimes I scheduled appointments first thing in the am or late in the afternoon. That way, dh could go in a little late or leave work a little early and I could still make my appointment.

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Hi Hayes! :D

 

I'm only dealing with half your load but I know that my 3 can be a logistical nightmare sometimes! I can't even fathom 6!!!!! That said, I am lucky to have dh here with me everyday so if we MUST get to an appointment he can either watch the littles or he can shuttle to & fro. Something I've done is to start using resources right here in our area instead of having to go 20-40 minutes for an eye exam, dental work, etc--we just go right down the road now. There are great physicians all around & I've found that I mesh with the ones "out here" a lot easier than I do doctor's in a hospital setting.

 

Anyway--rambling! You could always have someone watch the littles while you take the big ones where they need to go. There is no way I could schedule 2 outside classes per week and still have time for library, field trips and school each week. I've had to give up the co-op option this year so we can make progress on our work. As much as we love road-schooling, it does NOT work for is to be out & about everyday. We need downtime for learning! :)

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My mom comes to visit us 2-3 times per year. She is actually here right now. I schedule all of my yearly or bi-yearly appointments while she is here (she actually encourages me to do this). Yesterday, I had to go to the gyno (I know TMI), and the day before I got my hair-cut. The last time she was here I went to see the dentist. I'm no fool, I know she really only flies across the country to see the grandkids ;) .

 

Krista

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Hi~

I had exactly what you have. You can either try to find someone to watch the kids and schedule all the appts in one day or you can just do one per day. I liked one per day best. I would schedule an appt around 10:00 am. It is hard to get there earlier than that. I brought all of them. I brought easy to eat munchies, cheerios or something like that to make sure no one was hungry. Then I brought books and other things to do. I just kept the littles in the stroller and lined up the others against the wall where I thought they were out of the way of the doc and had them sit quietly and read. I know it looked bad, but as soon as the doc came in I passed out suckers. That gave me about 15 solid minutes. Afternoons did not work as well as mornings. It is not fun, but I really do not have much help, so I just did what I had to do. Just a little FYI, I brought them to a therapist once. They were very quiet and sat nicely in the waiting room, but all the therapist could talk about was how oppressed by my dh I was. She even said that SHE would call him and tell him that I did not want any more kids because apparently I was not strong enough too.

I had to find a different one.

Sheri

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