get out the pencils, get out the books...

It's that time of year again!  Nope, not the holidays already, but something even more logistically draining - preschool admissions!

You will recall from previous posts that Linda and I are HUGE, HUGE fans of preschool for several practical reasons:

1.  Time for you to spend with Little Baby alone (can you just imagine the luxury of breastfeeding for 20 minutes without interruption?)

2. Time for you to get chores or errands done without the hassle of strapping and unstrapping 15 kids into car seats at every stop.

3.  A mini-break for you, which means you are refreshed when your Bunch returns home.

And last, but not least -

4. Your kids get to make friends their own age and learn to share, craft and play nicely.  Bonus that cleanup is someone else's problem for once.

Linda and I both live in major metropolitan areas.  This means that the preschool admissions process tends to be even more complicated than it was for the two of us to sign our names on pre-filled scan tron "applications" to get into COLLEGE at the University of Texas a little over a decade ago. 

When my oldest started preschool, to get into the school of our choice you had to camp out in your car overnight to get one of the coveted first spots.  I put hubby on notice that pregnant girls (I was pregnant with #2 already) were exempt from that rule and he would have to do it.  Fortunately for him, they moved to a lottery system that year.  Yeah - you heard me, a LOTTERY to get into preschool. For those of you in smaller towns, we do hope that you have an easier time of it.  

So while your Bunch may seem tiny now, please know that fall is a full (and very long) NINE MONTHS from now.  By then, they will certainly look older, more robust, and capable of being away from you for one or two mornings a week.  Especially in larger cities, the time to worry about "Back to School" for toddlers is not in September - it is now.  Here's how to get started:

1.  Survey your mommy friends and neighbors where their kids to go preschool, if they like the school, and why/why not.  In the interest of time, email and Facebook are great ways to collect this preliminary information.

2. Call the top 3 schools that you hear about and find out about schedules, cost considerations, etc.  Do yourself a favor and weigh some of these things BEFORE you make an appointment to do a tour.  A Baby Buncher's time is precious (especially if she's dragging her Bunch with her), so really think hard about what you want in a preschool (a place that can take both your kids, a school that's known to feed into certain private schools, more academic vs. a social-emotional curriculum, etc.)

3.  Set up a tour and take your kid (or at least one) with you.  One of my kids once vetoed a preschool move on the basis that the place smelled like pee, even if the playground was more awesome than his current school.  We can't underscore enough how important it is to go SEE the place - there's no substitute for first-hand impressions.

4.  Make notes of application deadlines and fees, and be sure and ask the Directors about typical/historical space availability so you know what your chances are of getting in.  If you're thinking about sending both of your kids, consider scheduling constraints as well. Sometimes when you're a Baby Buncher, the harsh reality is that being able to get complimentary schedules for both kids may actually outweigh your top choice school for other reasons (location, academics, etc.) 

5.  Start filling out applications and writing deposit checks!

May the Force be with you.

Comments

[Natalie @ Naddy's Blog]

It isn't easy financially sometimes to be a one income family so that mama can stay home with the little ones, but we've made that choice. Having done so, paying out big bucks so somebody else can take on the little ones at preschool isn't that appealing, and frankly, I was kind of irritated when I saw the wording of your tweet. I *should* be thinking about preschool? Really?

Here are some reasons why preschool isn't right for us...
- I am a stay at home mom so I can care for our children, not so I can pay others to care for them.
- I don't need my kids to get sick more!
- I don't need more places to be on time.
- I don't need him to be bit by some other little kid.
- preschool is a modern invention, somehow small children survived through history without it... I did, as a matter of fact.
- I would have to drive 45 minutes one way to find a preschool that was more than a daycare.

As far as socialization, my little ones play with other little kids regularly with all the moms watching and talking, so I'm not concerned that my kiddos are missing out by not being with a herd of other little kids fighting over the little red car...

I recognize preschool may be a good choice for some, but just because I have kiddos close together doesn't mean I need (or want) to split them up, or split up with them for regular chunks of time.

[kelly]

I've just started thinking about enrolling my 2 year old next year (he'll be 3 and my new baby will be 1 and 4 months in sept). I want to sign him up, but the preschool goes from 9-1 and i guess i'm just worried that on those 2 days i'll have to be running around to drop off/pick up at times when my little baby will need to be napping- i'm assuming she'll still be taking 2 naps a day. how do you get around that? right now i just stay home and we rarely have to be anywhere at a specific time so it hasn't been an issue. any ideas?

[Cara Fox]

Natalie - you raise some important considerations and certainly, preschool is not of interest to everyone. Thanks for raising the opposing viewpoint. This post was primarily intended for those who are interested or considering it, letting them know that many schools run on an admissions cycle, which means that you can't always get in at any time. So for those that are on the fence or debating your options, now is the time of year to look into them.

Kelly - your concern is totally valid and something I struggle with to this day (#3 would prefer to be napping from 10:30 to 1:30 but #2 needs to be picked up at noon). Not sure if there are alternate preschools in your area that go from 9-12 (or if bumping up by an hour would even help your situation) but many do. Also, carpooling can be a lifesaver, as it is for me. Even if you live across the road from the school as I do, it can be helpful to have another mom do pickup while you do dropoff (or vice versa), which saves you the trouble of waking a sleeping baby. I always found it hard to plan because babies' sleep schedules change so rapidly in the first two years that it's almost impossible to predict when they will be sleeping six months from now. So I always just tweaked the nap to meet the scheduling demands (and certainly paid the price on occasion with a fussy baby who would've preferred to have napped earlier). But for us it worked somehow. Others may have other ideas?

[jean grow]

we were going to to preschool, since our twins were a bit behind in language, but then they jumped ahead... and somewhere in the process, I realized that they have a really awesome variety of kids to play with at church, and we can just hang around there three times a week, since we're always the last ones to go home anyway. Then I can spend all the tuition we save on things like books, maps and chalkboard paint. We're going to have to repaint sooner or later, anyway!

[Linda]

I think the decision for preschool is a personal one depends on so many things: your termperment, your children's temperment, your current living situation and proximity to family. My kids have both been...how should one say...high energy from Day 1. I never had kids who would just hang out like many of my friends. I am a SAHM, but my husband works ridiculously long hours and travels frequently. As a side note, when my kids were little, my family was an ocean away and now they are still pretty far. Preschool is based on so many things and in no way are we saying Baby Bunchers should do preschool. And it's something some may reconsider year-to-year. Maybe it's not right this year, but next the situation may look very different. (I pulled my son from a preschool because of a safety issue and we homeschooled for half a year.)

And in these economic times, adding new things to the monthly bill perhaps is not the easiest/best choice. For our household, we made other cuts on things because I wanted a couple of mornings a week to run errands (sans kids) and write. So this allowed me time to do that, but still gave me ample time to be with my kids.

[Linda]

I work PT, but this is not why I chose pre-school for my son. In fact, it would be logistically easier for the sitter to keep him at home. But his behavior was TANKING! and I knew he needed an outlet. He needed different activities and more creativity than I could give him. His time in preschool only benefits me personally one afternoon a week, on the day I don't work, but I sure enjoy that time with his 2-yo little brother, who I felt had been getting the short end of the stick in the attention department since he was born!

[aekap]

One other consideration... if you live someplace with full-day kindergarten and your child has never seen the inside of a classroom, kingergarten may be something of an unpleasant shock.

By the time my oldest was 3.5 she was ready to start having a bit of her own life with her peers... with two younger children (who needed to nap twice a day) it was not possible for me to meet her intense needs for socialization. Beng stuck at home most of the day with two babies (and having to be quiet to boot) was pretty much torture for her.

BTW the first year she went she did have a very large number of colds (and the norovirus, which she got from her father!), but now her immune system is amazing. It's the middle of January and she has been sick only once-with a mild snuffle- since September. From all the moms I know, it seems most kids will have a winter when they get sick a ton... either when they start preschool, or, if they don't go, when they start kindergarten. I don't think there's really any way around it if you plan on ever having your child in a classroom setting.