Oh, I love these types of threads.

I love my new schedule change. I always start children at 10-12 mos. So they still need two naps usually. It was a long day with no downtime as I would let them sleep 2 hours in the morning and then they wouldn't be ready for their later nap until everyone else was getting up. It was hard to get anything done and reduced our outdoor time.

Now my double nappers have a one hour nap in the morning. While they nap is when we do our sensory and creativity stuff and our morning circle activities. Then I wake them and we all go outside to play. Everyone eats lunch together and then everyone goes back down together for afternoon nap. Love it. Makes my day flow so much more smoothly. They seem to adjust to group care a lot more quickly, too.



ETA: I also changed my mindset. I started treating this as a business and a job. Not just a way to stay home with my own children. I enrolled my children in afterschool care, which they love, and now can focus 100% on running the daycare. It has taken so much stress out of my day, my girls are happier, and I feel more professional. I miss not having them here but it works so much better all around, for everyone. Plus, I feel a lot more capable of enforcing my policies, more confidence in how I run things, and I enjoy it a lot more. I felt pulled in a hundred different directions before. Now it's so easy to focus on the group, what is best for the group, what is the group going to be doing next, etc etc.

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