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S/O Routines -- Shift work and odd schedules?


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I had such a lovely time last night reading the thread about creating lovely daily routines. But my problem is that DH has a non-traditional work schedule. He has five days off, then five days on, then two days off, then two days on. 12 hour shifts. Every three months he switches working days/nights. So basically, we're guaranteed he's home Mondays and Tuesdays, and he always works Wednesdays and Thursdays. And he has every other Friday/Saturday/Sunday off. 

 

Since we hardly see him when he IS working, we like to maximize FAMILY time on the days he's off. Which means we need to maximize SCHOOL time on the days he works. But then weekends get in the way. 

 

I just feel like we're having a hard time settling into a routine on the days DH has off. The days he works go fairly well as far as routine goes. 

 

Right now my oldest is in K, so it's been alright that our schedule changes a lot and that we don't always get to school work. But looking ahead I know that we're going to have to be more diligent about keeping routine so that things get done.

 

So if you have an odd work schedule AND still have a nice daily routine, can you tell me how you make it work? Do you keep a M-F routine whether or not DH works? Or do you have different routines depending on if he's working or not?

 

Thanks:)

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I am not in the same situation, but this is what I would do if I were:

Your DH's work schedule is quite complicated, and I would find it difficult for the kids to keep track and mimic his schedule. OTOH, for the forseeable future (i.e. the next few years), the seat work for schooling will not take longer than 2-3 hours. So, I would simply have school M-F from 8 to  10 or 11 (or whatever time you start in the morning) and have still plenty of time for family time. If he is home every other weekend usually, you could see and fit in some school on the weekends he is gone; I would do plenty of extra educational activities and field trips on weekends, so the rhythm is clear that this is not a seat work day. 

Since schooling K requires very little time, I don't see why that can't be done daily, even if dad is home. I could imagine your DH wanting two hours for himself or a project or an errand. Or to take care of the little ones while the older are doing school.

 

ETA: If other days work better for taking off, it does not have to be a weekend. But I would consider it important if the kids had a clear idea how their week is going to look like: xy days are for play and outings, the their days we do a bit of school in the morning.

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I'm not in your situation either, but I can see a couple ways of making it work. Either a if "Dad's at work, we're doing school" or do the same routine daily and fold dad into it. Since your kids are so young, I don't think you have to worry too much. You could combine some family and school time by designating a certain day for field trips. (If he's usually home on Mondays, then Monday could be field trip day.) Or doing science/art projects with dad. I know if dh was around during the day at all, I would get him to take some of the kids to do something while I gave each kid some focused one on one attention. You'd be able to cover a lot that way in very little time.

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My situation is a little different. When my husband travels, once he returns he usually takes a day off to spend with us. It can be disruptive to our regular schedule. What I have found works for us is to all eat breakfast together and then start school a bit late.

 

Then Dad does something with the two younger kids like running errands or playing a game. We have a separate homeschool room so I take my son up there to do school. He is just in K now so school goes pretty quickly, especially without the other two causing distractions. It works well for us because my older son then gets alone time with dad later in the day while the other two nap. As the kids get older we will probably do light days when my husband is at home.

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I have a significantly more complicated and shifting schedule than this to work with. My hubby used to work something like this before we started schooling. It's tough to deal with shift work on any level, but this is cyclical and regular, which is a big help.

 

In addition to what regentrude says, I would add that you can actually create 3-4 schedules to cover the days on, days off, and night shifts. I would suggest (and know families that do this) that you have an A schedule and a B schedule--A would be days dad is home, and B are the days he is not. Then, we he flips to nights, you can tweak the A and B days for night time schedule. Without knowing what 12 hours he works, I am not sure how to offer specific suggestions for tweaking things for nights. If his 12 hour shift at night or during the day cuts your day in half (like 3 PM to 3 AM), it can leave family time high and dry, but with such regular days on and off, you should be able to tweak it with some work.

 

As for weekends, you probably need to change how you view them. We attend church, so church stays put, plus or minus hubby. If we do something special (like a class), that stays put plus or minus hubby. Otherwise, Monday is just as good a day as Saturday to do something like tackle the yardwork. Then, you can do family work or play on Monday, and school on Saturday. If K is your only grade to deal with right now, you really should be able to get school done and move on. Or, have your day and then work on school near bedtime if your child is not all done in (my little guy likes to do some in the AM and some at bedtime sometimes). If you want completely uninterrupted family time in the form of an entire day or two days off of school, then I think you need to build that into the schedule since you can predict it. Make it part of the cycle.

 

If you are already trying this kind of thing, then you need to pinpoint the problem areas and retool--I know that an untrained or go-with-the-flow hubby who doesn't know what it looks like when he's not there can muck up any well-planned day. :-) Weather-dependent hobbies can do the same. If that is the case, discussing the problem should help. Establishing realistic expectations for everyone can help. If the shifts cut your day in half, I might be able to make specific suggestions with the areas you are having trouble with--we have had shifts like that, and they are horribly, horribly disruptive. My husband truly didn't realize how they affected us, and for a long time, he would be really disruptive (unintentionally).

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My DH works 12-hr shifts (switching days/nights) in a much more complicated manner than what you described (but it repeats every five weeks). It all depends on how much HELP your DH is. My DH throws in laundry, takes some of the kids (who are not schooling) to go fishing or play a game, and cooks lunch for us when he's home.  :001_tt1:  It helps to have him around and it doesn't disturb our schedule at all. In fact, things go more smoothly because there are two of us to help with everything. So, if eldest needs help with her science at the same time I'm trying to listen to ds#1 read, we can divide and conquer.

 

Now, if he isn't (as) helpful (as my dh), I would echo kbutton with all her suggestions.

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I like the A and B schedule idea. When dad is home, you could do a shorter day with your main things. When I have a light day for any reason, we always try to do Bible, math and Language Arts. For a while when my childer were younger, for a really light day we just did bible together and math for my daughter and phonics for my son. (Their weakest subjects that is helpful to get a bit of extra repetitions in, even if it is just a bit.). We do a bit of science and history 4 days a week but I will do extra on another day if we need to have a lighter day and are falling behind, if we are ahead I sometimes do not add extra in later.

 

So, you could plan in advance to do basics plus all your history and science and art, etc. on your B days and just the basics on your A days when dad is home. It might help to count it out over a few months and see how many days he is home and not home during school days to see how you should arrange the workload.

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Thanks for the input :) These ideas make a lot of sense. I think we'll try to stick with a M-F schedule and fold DH into the routine, having him help out with the littler kids or let him use it as time for himself. I guess he deserves a little time to him self occasionally!

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My DH is on a fuel supply schedule.  We tend to do school when he's at work and take more time off when he is home.  If it means we do school on the weekend because we took time off during the week then so be it.  It's a little harder with my oldest because she has outside classes that are on a set schedule, but she just knows that her deadlines must be met.  DH is also off one week a month, so we take part of that week off and use an adapted year round school schedule.  We aren't off school every day DH is off because as you mentioned he needs time off to, but we adjust things as needed so we have as much time together as possible as a family.

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My DH has worked crazy schedules in the past too. Four weeks on 3rd shift, 4 weeks on 2nd, 4 weeks on 1st, days off rotating two back every time his shift changed. His "weekends" are different every month. When his weekend is on Wed/Thur and the kids and I have normal weekend stuff on the actual weekend it started getting crazy! Throw in unexpected, last minute double shift order ins (which he wouldn't know about until he was already at work) and I felt like I was never getting anything done! More recently his schedule has changed to all 2nd shift with just rotating days off. Then he was injured and out for 3 months and just last week went back to work on light duty - meaning M-F 8am to 4pm. I could absolutely get used to this!

 

The first thing we did was to switch to a year round schedule. This gives us the flexibility to take time off around his schedule. Different seasons of the year have different work loads/emphasis so summers usually end up being a little lighter. We plan to take one of his weekend days completely of  from school for a family day but do at least our 2 or 3 most important done in the morning of the other day. Occasionally we'll take a whole week off but we try to do 4 days most weeks. When my husband worked the rotating shifts we had 3 different schedules. I'd fill the kids in on what the new routine was going to be like the day before so they'd know what to expect but usually it went ok as long as *I* was prepared to make the switch. We've also tried to have a basic family schedule (meal times and bed times) that stays the same regardless of his work schedule. 

 

It can be challenging to home school when dad has an unsteady work schedule but it definitely gives the kids more time with dad than they'd get otherwise. You just have to figure out what system will work for your family - and accept that that will never look "normal" :-)

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We're singe plating a similar schedule for my dh, and my proposed solution was if dad is home, we're off, if dad is working, so are we. And on those days when he has to sleep, well we can do school work to catch up, and play outside. We have a 180-day school requirement on NC, and adopting my proposition we'll have plenty of time to meet the 180 days/year and have time left for vacations :-)

 

Good luck!

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