Early or late? I’m hardly ever on time…
I find getting out of the house for a specific thing within a timeframe challening. It seems there’s always an extra nappy to change as we’re walking out the door, can’t find B1’s socks or sunglasses, forgot to replace the spare clothes in the nappy bag, don’t have a clean dummy for B2… The list goes on.
It frustrates my hubby no end. I either overcompensate and everything goes as planned and we’re ridiculously early, or I plan it “just right” and all the abovementioned things go wrong and I’m ridiculously late.
What’s your best tip for getting ready to go out with kids, and not be late??
I repack the nappy bag when I get home so that it is always ready to go. I keep a dummy in my hand bag as well as in the nappy bag so we don’t end up without one. I have a calico bag packed for my older kids with colouring in books and pencils and some toy cars so that I can grab that on the way out if we are going somewhere that I might need to entertain them. I also try to keep some snack food in the pantry already packed into little containers so that I can grab food for the kids without having to chop/package items.
I used to pack the nappybag the night before or whenever I got a spare moment (ha!). That way it would generally be ready to grab as I walked out the door.
Best advise i could give (as a childcare ‘professioal’ lol not as a mummy) would be..
To get B1 a little backpack where he keeps all of his extra but sometimes very handy spare/lots of stuff: socks, shirts, pants, undies and his sun safety things. You could leave it in the car each time you arrive home and only add to it when you know its running low on something…eg only 1 pair of undies left. Although I cant really give to much advice on being ‘on time’ for things cause I have no kiddlings and Hubby and I are always fashionably late 😛
When hubby and I had baby 2, we were always late too. We came to accept it as part of being parents. But for times when you MUST be on time, write down the appointment as half an hour earlier than it is. For example if you have a gathering at 10am, write it on the calendar as 9:30, so everyone is working towards getting out the door at 9:30am. That way when the little things go wrong, you have breathing room, and won’t end up super late.