In my last post, I talked about planning homeschooling around a pregnancy. But, what happens when the new baby arrives, or possibly two babies arrive and you feel as if you’re getting nothing done? You still have math to teach, science experiments to do, and essays to read.
You already know the most important thing you need to know about babies: they require time, attention and love. If yours happens to require lots of sleep as well, I envy you. Mine never seemed to need that. The amount of time, attention and love they require necessarily alters a homeschooling environment a bit. However, the first year with a newborn isn’t as hard as you might think. The more challenging years can actually come at ages one and two (and I’ll have more to say about that in future posts.) Newborns and older infants do require a lot of mom’s attention, but it’s often the kind of attention that can happen while you’re tending to your other children as well.
It was true with the pregnancy, and it’s still true: strategic planning ahead of time will keep you sane and functioning. A basic plan, solid ideas for activities for your older children, and a fallback position will again serve you well.
The Basic Plan
Lower your expectations. By this, I don’t mean to encourage laziness, or a defeatist attitude. But, realistically, fewer things will be taught formally when homeschooling is happening in a newborn year. There’s nothing wrong with that. Formal teaching isn’t the only way to teach, and the many things that are soaked up through informal activities are just as valuable, if not more valuable, than “table time.”
Solid Ideas
Rely on the same kinds of things you did during the hardest part of your pregnancy, when you could manage only to drag yourself out of the bathroom long enough to tell the kids to put their books down and go to bed. The great literature that they can read on their own, the educational software, and the educational TV shows are all your friends. But, unlike the days when you were feeling sick, you can probably do a bit more now; you just have to do it with your arms full. Read-alouds can start happening again while you nurse, and meaningful discussions are possible while you bounce the baby and keep her happy. Think of breastfeeding as your friend, too: it releases hormones that relax you, so everyone’s calm when Mom’s nursing.
The Fallback Position
Perhaps you’re too sleep-deprived to do anything, or you’re dealing with a colicky newborn, or maybe there are even some medical issues with the newest little member of your family. If that’s the case, go back and reread some literature on unschooling. Though I’m not strictly an unschooler, I do believe in and employ many of the principles of the method, notably that loads of learning can and does take place when we’re simply going about our daily life.
Daily life with a baby is overflowing with opportunities for learning, so don’t worry that you are “doing nothing.” Observe, record take a few notes. You’ll be amazed at how much your kids are learning from and with their new sibling.