Homesteading with 3 kids, 3 and under
 

Our oldest is 3 1/2 and he loves helping with whatever he can help with but he still needs a nap. Our 2 year old gets by with only 1 nap but most days she could still use 2 naps and we have a 6 month old also. We have our house and 13 acres paid off but everything needs a lot of work and not all of it is kid friendly work. My husband works 3 days a week (gone 13 hours a day) still until our property gets up and running a bit more and we can support ourselves from it. We have a milk goat (soon to be two in milk) and chickens (5 layers now but we have 67 more dual purpose chicks and 6 ducklings) and 3 meat rabbits. We will be getting our garden in in the next week but it's been too rainy for anything so far this year.

My question is this...
Do you have any tips for keeping the kids occupied while we get stuff done? I can babywear our 6 month old for some stuff but I can't for others and we are going to buy a folding play chair for her that we can haul out to where ever we are working so she can sit and play too. The 3 year old can help A LOT and likes to but he IS 3 and his interest wanes and he wants to do something else after a while. The 2 year old is the hardest to entertain. She isn't quite old enough to understand and help and truthfully doesn't want to. She's content to wander around and loves playing in water. Most of the time the hubs and I take lead on a project and the other one wrangles the kids and helps as they can but at some point we have to pack it in for an inside nap. Yesterday I got so frustrated because my hubs was telling me he'd take care of everything and blah blah blah. I didn't want him to take care of everything. I wanted to do it. I wanted to get my hands on stuff and do it and I felt like he was relegating me to the house with the kids and dishes. He quickly understand when my tears started and came in with the kids (one was still sleeping) and then took them outside to play and I took care of all of the daily chores. It got REALLY real the other day when hubs was at work, the 2 year old wasn't feeling great, it was raining and I had to pack them all outside to milk the goat (new additions). They did good but I'm interested to see how others do it. Thanks for any advice or tips.

My daughter (at ages 12 months to 3 years) used to HATE stepping on grass in her bare feet. So, anytime I needed to do something outside, I took a thick quilt & toys out to where I was going to work, spread the quilt and took her shoes off and placed her on the blanket. She would never get off the blanket and I could work without worrying.

Used to fish at gravel pits and would tie a rope around her waist and the other end to the car door AND use the blanket. Just a double safe, would probably put me in prison now.

You COULD construct a small "play yard" several feet long and wide with fence & gate, near where you do MOST of your work, and stock it with special toys. Have to make SURE they couldn't unlock it themselves.

Or, you could just buy a playpen...or several.

Your problems are 1. keeping the kids safe, and 2. being able to do some work.

Mon

My folks put us out underneath a clump of willow or elm trees while they planted corn. Dad on the tractor, mom on the planter. She checked on us once, and I guess we fell asleep thereafter. Funny how one can remember things clearly thereabouts after their mind has been promped in that direction. That would have been around 1951

Man I feel your pain and I only have (1) 14 month old right now. I finally came to the realization that I was leaving him with my wife while I did all of the choirs. And really she never got the peace of doing choirs without having our little guy dragging along. So now I get Saturdays to do what I need to do and she can do her paper grading(teacher) and clean the house, while I occupy the kiddo.

I've found things like stacking wood is easy to entertain him. We also just recently bought a Ranger that he likes to ride and just sit in. So i'll run around the property in it doing choirs with my little buddy by my side.

With such young children it really means that you can raise them and do some homesteading activities but not a lot unless your husband is home and then you are still restricted in what you can do since one has to watch the kids. Sounds like you need an Au Pair - especially in the summer. There are companies in the US who will hook you up.
Definition:
An au pair is an unmarried young adult aged 18 to 30 years, who has no children and travels to a foreign country for a defined period of time to live with a host family. The au pair is considered as a full member of the family during the entire stay. As such, he or she helps the family with childcare and can be asked to assume some light household tasks. In return, the host family provides free board and lodging, as well as pocket money. However, the au pair is neither a housekeeper, nor a nanny.

The main purpose of the au pair placement is a cultural exchange, which gives the the au pair an opportunity to improve his or her language skills. For this reason child minding in your own country doesn't count as an au pair stay. The au pair should also attend a language course in the host country. He or she should, however, have some basic language skills beforehand. Whether it is the au pair or the host family who pays for the language course depends on the prevailing practice of the relevant host country. The same applies to the cost of travel and insurance.

I worked as an Au Pair - in the city and the country - in Europe and it was a wonderful experience.

ah au pair' s are by no means free, $1500.00-$3000.00 a month. and some are more. maybe you could post a free one for this lady.

playpens help a lot. working during naps.

Working during naps
fenced in playground near the garden

Movies I love Chitty chitty bang bang It is very kid friendly and very very long:clap:. Though all the kids refuse to watch it now.:rolleyes:

Going out to work at the crack of dawn in the summer ~4:00 in the morning before it get daylight out and after the kids go to bed.

Put them to work-Just had the 4 year old help plant 50lbs of potatoes. She had a blast. Before that we planted about 50 onion starts.

We usually work outside in the morning till noon come in have lunch then work on things inside.

We set up a trampoline for ours, near the garden. They played and napped and interrupted us. One with the netting around cuts sun bugs and breeze pretty well. Roped it to a fence too in case the wind tipped it.
Even with that, short attention spans ruled the day. Afternoon naps gave time to get a bigger project done (if I didn't fall asleep too) but everything else had to be broken up into little projects.

Sorry, cannot do. Nothing in life is free. Au Pairs must have training which makes them valuable for child care. Otherwise if you have work that must get done and you cannot do it while supervising very young children you could also just hire a babysitter.

I have yet to meet a 3 year old who will stay in a playpen - unless you mean a cage.

yes I meant cage, we have a 2 year old ! Just call it a play yard with roof so CPS wont come calling.

Or a sun room lol!

With all of them being little, it is hard. We used to be foster parents and had 4 kiddos ages 3 and under. I had to wait until my husband was home to do some of the chores. Babywearing the youngest took care of the baby, but the remaining 3 needed to be watched. If you have time, do an internet search on busy books, busy bags, and busy boxes. All are fairly inexpensive activities that can be made for kids as young as 1. Most of them you can make with what you have around the house. My 3 year old loves a simple food storage container with holes in the lid. She can push pom poms throught it sort them by color and I give her tongs to pick them up and move them around. Another fun thing for her to do is pushing pipe cleaners through holes in the top of an old cleaning wipe container (Clorox wipes) We just drilled holes in the lids and with the wipe container she can pop it open easily and get them out herself. The pom pom container we just sit the lid on top of the bowl so she can get it off herself. We also have sensory bins with rice and beans that I colored with food coloring. I picked up some cheap toys at the dollar store for the kids to play with in the bins. A lot of the busy books can just be glued together and are made of felt so they aren't too expensive to put together. I also laminated pages that I printed and give the kids washable markers so they can color the pictures, practice writing letters, etc. The 3 year old likes tracing so I found some simple tracing worksheets for her. While I do chores I found side jobs for the kids that were age appropriate. A one or two year old can sometimes be a big help in retrieving an item if they know the name of the item. There are a lot of ideas out there and so far for us, they have saved our sanity when it comes to getting chores done.

Don't have much to add, just to say you are really really brave!


I think the kids will have the best experiences growing up like this. No helicoper parenting & lots of outdoors. Bug catchers would be fun but someplaces you have to be careful about the bugs...

one thing i did do was find a close by family that we could share babysitting with, i would watch hers so she could get stuff done then she did the same.

LOL I just about spit lemonade all over my laptop while reading this. How did we ever get by as a young country when things were wild and remote.

On a typical homestead, the husband could spend daylight till dark to plow just a few acres with a single bottom and a team. During this time, 'ole wifey dear tended the garden, gathered eggs, fed the chickens, milked and fed the cow, slopped the hogs, did the laundry, mended clothes, cooked the meals and cleaned the uncleanable soddy, AT LEAST. She still found the time to take care of the children, which included some learnin, during the day. By the historical homesteader family size, she even found the time to make more babies once in awhile... "but not a lot" my fuzzy, white hiney...

You can do it all if you want to, you just have to find ways that work for you.

Ted

Our friends have 9 kids and rely on the older kids to watch the younger. Everyone one we know that has a large family all say that they had the older kids watch the younger ones. I laugh because they obviously don't remember the early days when the older kids were the younger ones.

And those families either had older children of their own taking care of the younger ones or they had a sibling of the husband or wife who came along to help. They also lost kids to all sorts of things back then due to not being able to pay attention to them all the time.

OMG! how did we ever survive? :hrm:

Ted

A pack and play is a big help. You can get the little ones to nap in there while you do your work. Or play in there too.

Not all as in "either". Sure some did but many did not.

Ted

A fairly large chunk of us didn't actually survive. Google infant mortality rates in the 1800's.

A pack and play for a 3 1/2 year old and a 2 year old? Mine would never have it. They aren't that little... And I'm not lugging 3 pack and plays out to each barn.

And wifey tended to die young. As did many of the children. If you ever visit a pioneer cemetery you see the toll that was taken on the women and children. Attitudes were very different back then and it was expected that not all children would survive - and they didn't. We are a little more advanced today.

My dear friend who was ninety-five when she passed away last year told us many stories about what it was really like in the good old days of the twenties and thirties. Her brother, born before she was, died at the age of three when he was kicked in the head by their milk cow. A few seconds of inattention by Mom. She herself had a scarred arm and hand from falling into the open fire when her Mom left the cabin for a few minutes to get water. And Mom only lasted through 8 pregnancies and died at 29. Stepmom lasted a few years longer.

Personally I would rather see the garden go to weed than the very young kids lack proper care and supervision.

We prepared a spot for the children much like we did for the goats. LOL We built a play yard, dirt pile and sand box that I could see from the barn and swing around the corner while in the garden. I am all for homesteading and becoming less dependent on commercial ag, but we had a few close calls that convinced me to scale back and do a little less. I prioritized, picked more child-friendly projects while they were out with me, bigger projects while they were sleeping or just had to wait for my husband. From time to time, I also would recruit budding babysitters to play with the little ones to get experience. Some projects have to be done, kids or not, but looking back (and my oldest is only 10) I haven't looked at my children and said "I wish Kevin and I had spent more time working the farm instead of with the kids." Be easy on yourselves, you are doing great!

My kids are 5 and 3. When they were younger I used a pack and play outside. Or went out while my youngest was napping and took my daughter with me along with the baby monitor. Anything that required getting really dirty and lots of time had to wait till hubby came home.

Now things are a lot easier. We've moved and have ample space. I can do my outside work while they drive their dune racers, help themselves to drinks from the fridge in the garage, hunt bugs, and now and then help me.


It's tough when kids are under 3, but keep in mind those years go fast. You might have to take things slower right now, but in a few years you'll have extra hands to help out[emoji6]

Do you have any teenagers near by who could entertain the kids even with your supervision which would allow you to get more done?

We don't have a lot of family that are willing to help and I'm not comfortable with an unknown teenager watching them. We did find this and it's on it's way to my house next week. Attachment 47088
It folds up like a camp chair so it should be easy to move around and that will at least keep the littlest one contained. Ha!

Toys r us sells a free standing (no bottom) play yard fencing that can be added to. That is what I used for Nina when she was tiny and in to EVERYTHING! We were able, after a couple add ons, to fence off a huge portion of the back yard. Threw all her outside toys in and presto! A happy little girl playing outside while I tended chickens and turkeys and hung clothes on the line, etc..