Homeschooling with a Baby

A week or two before I had my fourth baby, I had a fleeting thought – How am I going to homeschool with a baby? Some you of might wonder why I didn’t think of this sooner. I had nine months to think and plan, right? I have learned that sometimes over-planning is a waste of time. I decided not to really think about it a whole lot. It seemed better to figure it out after the baby was born. Fortunately, I had a few ideas that I thought would help. It turned out that homeschooling with a baby was easier than I thought.

Tongue Tie & Feeding

I didn’t start doing school until my baby was feeding normally. Most of my babies had tongue ties. With my first baby, the tongue tie experience was very overwhelming. The third baby (My second born son didn’t have a tongue tie), it was a little bit better. By the time my fourth baby had his tongue tie, it was hard, but it was not anything I couldn’t handle. He had his tongue released and started breastfeeding just fine. I was very thankful that life could move on. After all numerous the doctor appointments were done with, then we started school. 

Starting School Again

I got some interesting advice after I had my fourth – Take six months off or jump right back into everyday things. There are many ways to approach homeschooling after a baby is born. My kids are small, so I need to be there directing them to some degree. They do well when there’s some sort of routine to the day. When there’s no structure, then that’s when more problems occur. For me, doing a little bit of school after a week after having the baby or so worked well. It wasn’t a lot, but we did enough to feel like we had some structure. 

Also, newborn babies sleep a ton. They love to be snuggled in a baby wrap and sleep for hours close to mom. As long as I had a descent amount of sleep and coffee, then I felt ready to slowly ease back into normal everyday life. Also, some things don’t stop after you have birthed a baby – co-op classes, sports, and church. In some way, it’s good to keep the normalness of life going.

Personally, I loved having a newborn and homeschooling. Here are some things that I did that worked with homeschooling and a baby.

• Wearing my baby. I wore him all the time! Wearing a baby helps him/her feel safe. It also helps with bonding. I wore him on walks, in stores, at home, or in the backyard. I had him snuggled up close while I cooked and cleaned as well. In fact, his first time in a stroller was about seven months. None of my babies were content in car seats. I blame it on always wearing them. I wear a a light weight, breathable Moby wrap since I am in Arizona where it’s hot for a large part of the year.

• Read and snuggle the baby. When I read aloud to my kids, one of us got to snuggle the baby. Not only did he get attention, but he also got some good linguistic input to help his language development. 

• Feed and Read. When he needed to feed, one of my kids would sit beside me and read aloud. Multi-tasking while feeding is doable, but I find that only some things work well, like reading.

• Be Flexible. I couldn’t get everything done, and that was okay. We did as much school as was feasible. Sometimes things were done in a different order than usual.

• Get Out. My favorite part of having a newborn is that they can sleep anywhere at any time. That means I can go to the zoo, the library, or the park and not worry about waking him up. After all, he’ll just fall asleep again in a few minutes if he’s really that tired.

Final Thoughts

My kids all loved having a baby brother. Today a family with four kids seems like a lot, but it doesn’t seem like a lot when you’re in the middle of all the wonderful craziness. I think it might be easy for some to see a baby as getting in the way of homeschooling, but having a baby made us love being at home together even more. It didn’t hurt anyone’s schooling. In fact, a new baby has always forced my older kids to become more independent. 

Sometimes people ask how I homeschool with a baby. It seems like they think my children sit in complete silence while doing workbook after workbook all morning. In that case, the baby better not make a peep! They probably aren’t imagining all the read alouds and snuggles. Homeschooling can work in so many different circumstances, and a baby always has a place in a homeschool home.

Homeschooling with a baby is easy (although it might depend on whether you have an easy baby or not). Homeschooling with a crawling baby…that’s more of a challenge. I will write about that another day.

From Carly at DesertHomeschoolDays