I have done this before, and the house pretty much fell apart, the kids had a grease fire while making pancakes one morning,and school suffered.
We recovered and it all just makes a good story right now.
Here are some things that help:
I know it's hard, and I am not good at this, but if somebody else offers to help, let them help. If somebody says, "If there's anything I can do, let me know," immediately let them know you could use somebody's help doing laundry, or picking up the house once a week (or daily) or you could borrow a teen a couple hours a day, or you'd love it if you could buy ingredients for meals and somebody else would cook a few for you.. This is, I firmly believe, one reason God designed His church to be a family, and you should have a supportive church.
Get good at delegating. My kids have made a lot of things by measuring a single ingredient at a time and then coming to me for the next step in a recipe. Send the kids to perform various tasks and make sure they have frequent reports back to you. Sometimes you can give them a camera to take a before and after picture.
Get easy foods to prepare and eat- sandwich fixings, cereal, milk , granola bars, fruit, cheese cubes.
Let the kids make cheese tortillas in the microwave, bake potatoes, and make hot air popcorn.
Set yourself up on the bed or on a couch and do school while you stay in bed. Read alouds are good tools for bedrest and homeschooling
Once a friend of mine was bedrest and since we were both doing unit studies together at the time, I just packed things up out school things and headed over there wtih the kids.
Accept that this may be a time when you have lower your standards.
AmblesideOnline has a free homeschooling plan for those in crisis- it's not specifically tailored to homeschooling on bedrest, but it can be adapted for that use. You can find that here. It was initially developed for families in shelters during Hurricane Katrina, but it can be used beyond that. Here's the intro:
This is a free, complete, user-friendly curriculum plan for homeschooling families who need support, encouragement and alternatives to the curriculum they've lost in a disaster, and also for churches and other groups needing to set up temporary schools for children who may not have been homeschooled. All texts and teaching materials needed to implement this plan are free online. The only things you need are access to a computer and printer, paper and pencil. Please print out and share this information freely with anyone who might need it.Think about principles, not just practices. If you can't play ring around the rosie, you can supervise it from your bed. If you can't play 'hunt the thimble,' you can be a merry co-conspirator, giving the hider ideas about where to hide the thimble in your room, and then letting the rest of the children back into your room to watch them look.
We know that there are more important things than missed schooling during a crisis. But sometimes in the midst of disasters, creating a small oasis of normalcy and continuity is very important. In the midst of such a disaster, grown ups with many urgent details on their minds cannot focus on thinking up things for children to do, and it is our prayer that this free resource will fill a need.
The most important things to do during a disaster are simple things that bring the family together -- special times that build memories and connections. This includes things like singing hymns, folksongs, reading poetry, playing silly but educational games like Mad Libs, telling stories to each other, reading and retelling the old favorites like The Little Red Hen, The Gingerbread Man, and doing silly things like dancing together, playing hide the thimble, and ring around the rosie.
There really aren't any magic bullets that I know of. What about you- what are some of your tips?
P.S. Here are over 25 ideas of things for toddlers/preschoolers to do to keep them productively busy and interested while Mom is hsing older children or on bedrest (or both)
I've never been on bedrest, but I did sever a tendon in my right pinky finger when I was 20 weeks pregnant with my 3rd, which required surgery, 8 weeks in a splint completely unable to use the right hand, and physical therapy 2-3 times/week until the baby was born. My oldest was 6 at the time.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree about having your kids do jobs in simple, tiny parts. If you have the money to do so, there are some things you can buy to make certain jobs easier. For example, a 6 year old who can't change a diaper on a wiggly 2 year old can probably change pull-ups. A child who can't take the trash out when you use cheap trash bags that have handles you tie yourself or close with bread ties might be able to handle the bags with the drawstrings. Dishwasher tablets are easier to manage than a huge (heavy) box of regular detergent.
There are seasons in our lives, and some seasons have more exacting standards than others. I was blessed that my husband works from home, so getting childcare for while I was at physical therapy wasn't hard. However, he needed to really work while I was gone, so our kids watched a lot of TV and played a lot of computer games during those times. It wasn't ideal, but they're fine now.
The biggest help I need is how to entertain one extroverted toddler/preschooler who cries at the thought of having to play by herself.
ReplyDeleteI'm very happy that the surgery I had in November actually seems to have helped my illness, and a wonderful side effect of the surgery is that I'm finally pregnant again. Of course, this means I'm on partial bedrest for a few months. TV has become too much of a crutch for me, and though I'm very careful what she watches (no commercials, usually watching it in a foreign language), I'm still need to minimize it.
Any suggestions?
(DHM, the pregnancy is still a facebook secret :-D )
Ooooh, Harmony, I acted like such a silly when I read your news! I squealed. Good thing you told me it's a secret! I'll be praying. I know how scary it is.
ReplyDeleteI'll share some more ideas tomorrow, but off the top of my head:
Youtube folksong videos and you sing along with her
Play a game or two with her- you can play on the bed, or set up a TV tray next to the bed- suggestions- I Spy, how many fingers am I holding under the sheet, get out a deck of cards and match numbers or suits; memory.
Blow bubbles
read aloud
tell her stories about when mommy was little and when daddy was little
Can she call grandparents on the phone or skype?
teach her some easy origami things
chalkboard
whiteboard
you start to draw something and have her finish (stick figure missing his head or a leg, a stem with leaves and no flower, a house with no windows or doors). )
Harmony,
ReplyDeleteSome children need to be actually taught how to play by themselves. Have you read Charlotte Mason's books? I'm fairly certain that in one of them, she talks about nature studies where the mother is supposed to sit down and then send the children to look at some natural item a distance away. When they come and tell her about it, she asks some more detailed questions, and then they go off and look for the answers. (The DHM may be able to confirm if that's in one of her books. It's possible I read that in a book about CM or in the Handbook of Nature Studies, but I don't think so.)
Anyway, you can do something similar to teach children how to play by themselves. My oldest two are only 19 months apart, so they've played well together for a long time, but I realized that they needed to learn how to play on their own and a little more quietly and less destructively when they were about 3 and 2. I instituted what I called "blanket time" for them, and I timed it while I was making dinner each evening.
For blanket time, I'd spread a baby blanket on the floor for each child, and then I'd put some toys on it. I usually picked the toys, at least at first. We keep different types of toys in their own bins, so to make it more interesting, I'd give one boy two bins. For example, I'd give him blocks and Hot Wheels cars. Then I'd tell him to make a town with the blocks for his car to drive through. I might give the other one another type of building toy and some small animal toys and tell him to build a zoo. Then I'd set the timer and have them play alone. I also had rules that they had to stay on the blanket and not make much noise (I'd play classical music to help that), but my goal was some sanity time as well as playing alone. Eventually, they were able to pick their own bins for blanket time, but they needed more direction at first.
Dolls are really good for teaching playing alone, too. Pick up one of her dolls and say, "Your doll seems hungry. Has she had lunch yet? Go cook her something to eat for lunch." Then you can make suggestions about reading a book to the doll, playing "This Little Piggie" with her toes, etc.
As a bed rest survivor (3 mos with each of my last 2 pregnancies), friends should keep in mind that just because mom had the baby does not mean she could not still use help. When one is on strict bedrest (pre-eclampsia in my case) for a very long period of time, you start loosing muscle mass very quickly. Your stamina is gone out the window soon after ward as well (since you are not doing much more than eating, using the restroom & breathing. It took me months to truly physically recover - and I had 2 older children to help around the house and baby hold, etc. I am sure some recovered like a champ, but many of us do not (and with PE, there can be lingering effects for several weeks). So, be a fabulous friend and still help out for a couple of months after the baby arrives! Mom will hug you for it and probably cry with gratitude. And ladies who have to do a long bout of bedrest - don't have too high of expectations of yourself after you come home - keep doing those simpler things with those little ones.
ReplyDelete