How to Home School With a Baby: Ideas to Help You Succeed

Adding a little one can be a challenge for any family. However, adding a baby to the mix presents a unique challenge for a home school family. How exactly do you make time to meet baby's needs while educating other children? The simple answer is plan, prepare and cut yourself and your kids lots of slack as you learn together! Here are a few more details.

Step One: Plan your Schedule

This step is really about taking some time before you tackle school to think about what an ideal day would look like. Ideal meaning everyone gets their needs met and important things are attended to. I generally start by asking and then thinking out the answer to these questions:

What: What really needs to be accomplished? Maybe math is a priority or maybe you really need to give spelling some special attention, listing out your priorities can take some of the pressure off of needing to get it all done and can help you make the most of your available time.

When: When is the best time to accomplish these things? Is baby quieter and more content in the morning, if so we'll do these things then. Maybe during afternoon nap when baby is physically in another room presents you the best opportunity to accomplish your goals.

How: How has this changed? Taking time to think about how your priorities or timing might be different from week to week can help you notice patterns and help your communicate with your school aged kiddos so they know what to expect and why. If you notice that math needs to happen in a different time slot, let them know up front so they're not shocked.

Once you have a game plan for what you want to accomplish and have pinpointed some times that might be good to get it done, make an actual schedule. I use a teacher's planner with squares. Each week I write the subjects in the order that I plan to teach or accomplish them. This is what it looks like for us:

When baby was an infant: Morning-Math, Afternoon-Reading. It really was that simple for the first three months or so. I did a lot of on-line learning games and videos as well as workbook activities with my girls during the rest of the day, but reading and math were the only two I planned for and kept records of during those sleep deprived months. This is why I think knowing your priority and knowing your schedule really helps accomplish the big things when it can be tricky to just function.

As baby got older: I decided to add back in our other subjects one in the morning and one in the afternoon and try it for a week. Our days looked like, morning-math and writing, afternoon-reading and science. Again use your priority list and your own schedule to decide what to add and when to add it.

By 6 months: We were back to full a full day of subjects by the time baby was about 6 months. It really helped to arrange the order of subjects so that I could teach and then they could work independently. I saved things like social studies and science that I knew would take more time and more supplies for times I was sure baby would be asleep and that worked great for us.

Don't forget baby: Now that our baby is one, it is really important to me that there is time planned to meet her learning needs to. We work hard to make sure she gets 5 books read to her throughout the day and we make time to sing and play instruments as well. Baby is also included in some way in nearly all of our art projects and she loves it! (Just be sure to use non-toxic materials.)

Step Two: Plan Your Space

For me, this is an ever changing step and one of the hardest to accomplish. When our baby was tiny this was super easy. I carried her in the sling a lot of the time so she was literally at the school table with us. As she got a bit bigger I kept a bouncy seat in the kitchen and she sat near us while we worked, then she started moving and it got a bit more complicated! Here is what helped us at each phase:

Infant: Sling, bouncy seat, blanket with soft toys or play mat

Sitting Up: Blanket with toys, high chair, exercauser

Crawling and Walking: Child Proof room with buckets of toys

Having a space for baby to be while you are learning allows you to focus on instruction knowing that baby is safe and sound near by. It really is worth the time it takes to think this through and make changes to your space. Our space is small. We have a little living room, kitchen and hallway. Now that baby is moving the entryway is gated and we keep all the hallway doors shut while she is awake. That means her choices are the living room and the kitchen. Here is what we did to make them a baby friendly environment.

Kitchen: child locked all the cabinets with chemicals, glass or cans in them

emptied the bottom drawers of everything but towels, washrags and safe plastic cookware

put shoes on her or let her be barefoot on the wood floor

tied up the string controls for the sliding door curtain

Living Room: removed all low decorations (this made me really sad, but was totally necessary), covered all outlets, secured all cords, secured the fireplace and tv

Now that we have two spaces that are safe for her to roam and play in, we can do school in the kitchen, I sit where I can see both rooms, and she is free to play and explore. That means we get a lot more done in the morning when she's awake!

We don't have a separate school room, so we use shelves and bins to keep our supplies in. When baby joined our family we moved that unit from the kitchen to the entryway so it could be on the other side of the baby gate. That has worked great for us. The ideal space is well out of baby's reach yet easy for school kids to access and to keep neat.

Step Three: Prepare your Strategies

Kids, especially babies, are unpredictable. Even if you spend a lot of time on your schedule and space there will still be times when baby just won't cooperate. These are times when it really helps to already have some strategies ready to use. Here are some that work for us:

Book Boxes: Both of our older girls have book boxes. It is a wide box with handles so they can fit books flat inside it and move it easily. At all times they have a journal, fun writing utensils, and 2 books in the box. I add other things like a learning game or puzzle, crossword or word puzzle books, or an electronic game to the box as well. In the event that the baby is fussy or needs me to meet an immediate need and the girls can't continue their current lesson without me, I simply say "book box". We practiced after we made them so they would know exactly what to do. When they hear me say "book box" they leave their things where they are grab their box and head to their room or any room other than where the baby is having trouble to get to work. They can choose anything from the box to do, but they have to be working on a book box project until I come for them. They like this time, it keeps them doing a learning focused activity and it frees me up to help baby.

Listening Center: This is really easy to set up. I put mine in a fabric bin that is fairly tall so the books stack in it without falling over. All you really need is a container to keep the books in. If you don't have books on CD you can often check them out from your local library. I try to keep 3 or 4 choices in the bucket at all times. In the event that baby needs me for what I know will be a short amount of time I tell the girls "listening center" they take the box to their room and choose a book to listen to. We did have to work out a few kinks like taking turns turning the pages and agreeing on which book to listen to. They both really like this activity so they have worked it out well and it makes a nice project, that again is learning focused, while I need to focus on baby.

Baby Box: This box is for those times when I might need to attend to baby for a long chunk of time. I keep this in a tub that can tuck in a closet. In it are a few fun educational movies and learning games and puzzles. Sometimes I add a seasonal art project as well. When the need arises I tell the girls, "Mommy needs to help baby for a while. You may choose a baby box activity." It did take some practice for them to actually do the activity instead of start it and then head on into free play time. They are pretty good now about understanding that this is a different type of learning and it's their "job" to stick with something in the box until mommy is available again.

Busy Baby: Our baby is very busy these days. Most of the time she is thrilled to wander between the kitchen and living room and play with her bucket of toys, on the occasions that she isn't so happy with that plan these strategies really help her.

Bowls: She loves to carry things around. If she really isn't settling in to play or is really fussy and wanting to hang on me, I often give her a large plastic bowl and put just one or two things (usually little toys) in it. She loves to carry it around, dump the things out and find new things to put in. A quick, easy distraction that keeps her busy for quite a while.

Baskets: Along the same lines as bowls, baskets can provide a great deal of fun for baby. I typically use the laundry basket or a sturdy fabric basket. I don't use wire or wicker as they can scratch or become safety hazards. Our baby really likes washrags. When I need something for her to do, I put clean dry washrags in a basket and set it in the middle of a room. She loves to play with them and before long has found all sorts of things to add to the basket. The adding, dumping and starting over keep her very occupied!

Snack Time: If I know at the beginning of the day that baby is struggling I rearrange our schedule to do the thing that will require the most of my attention for when baby is having her snack. Sitting in the kitchen with us, eating her healthy snack makes her happy and gives us a chance to get our work done. Typically her snack time is their break time, so they too can have a snack and some time to regroup and so she can get some of my full attention. If I need to change that routine I try to let the school girls know ahead of time so they know what to expect.

Fridge Toys: Keeping a few fun magnetic toys on your fridge can really serve as a great distraction for baby. Ours loves to take a small white board on and off the fridge. She also has a fridge radio that sings her little songs and a magnet puzzle that she enjoys taking the pieces in and out of. While it does provide great play for her, we are careful to keep all other magnets well out of her reach.

Be creative as you look for ways to keep baby busy. Remember her specific developmental phase and then use what you have to really occupy her attention. Allowing her to move safely between rooms with activity choices in both really lets our baby enjoy her time and "do her thing" side by side with our learning and that is one thing I love most about this thing we call home school.

Home schooling can be hard, it is often even harder with a baby. Be really forgiving with yourself. Remember each day is new and it really is ok if today wasn't great, you are learning and growing right along with your kiddos.

Don't forget to plan for yourself. You too need a bit of a breather. Take a few minutes to enjoy a book or magazine, watch your favorite show, listen to music and drink your favorite drink, exercise, go to the store alone, whatever it is that releases your stress and renews you spirit, give yourself permission to do it!

Hang in there. It is worth the thought, effort and work that it takes, you can do it!