Why I sent my toddlers to preschool at 2

Happy Friyay! Corey and I attended the girls art show this morning at their preschool. Each child had the pieces of their 'best' art and a hand print hung on the wall in the sanctuary. It's so much fun because you have to basically walk the entire room in order to find each of their artwork so naturally you look at all of the other children's as well. One of the things that I love most about the drawings at this age is their stick people lol. Ophelia now gives her people a body and fingers and toes but Scarlett's is a head with arms and legs, no body LOL. SOMETIMES, she includes eyes and a mouth but when she does the eyes are always blue like hers.

We've been blessed to have not had to send any of our children to daycare. Jaiden attended mother's morning out when he was 3 and 4 at our church in GA. Unfortunately they didn't offer a pre-k program so he attended at a daycare but they had a different building for Preschool. I felt that it was important for him to be socialized with other kids his age because he was an only child and the only other child interaction he had was with my younger sister who is 5 years older than him. He has always enjoyed school and never threw fits getting out of the car which was a HUGE blessing. My brother and I were THAT kid that screamed and cried and even faked being sick to avoiding going to school when we were in pre-k and kindergarten (sorry mom).

We moved to NC in May of 2015 so Ophelia was 1 and Scarlett was 3 months and at that time preschool obviously wasn't needed. We found a church that we loved and one of the first things I asked about is if they offered a Mothers morning out (preschool) program. They don't which was fine but I knew I needed to keep looking for future reference. My mother in law's neighbor told her that the church that they attend has a preschool program so I looked it up and checked the reviews. The reviews were really good so I made an appointment and checked it out. I instantly knew that it was a good place for the girls to go to when the time was needed.

I'm not going to lie, one of the reasons I wanted Ophelia to go was because I needed a way to get things done. It's so hard to go grocery shopping with two toddlers or run day to day errands with them. She started in the two's class and she went 3 days a week for 3 hours each day. Ophelia is very advanced for her age, she always has been. She loves to learn and its almost like she needs it. It blows me away with how much information she is able to retain and I knew she needed to be challenged. You can tell her something once and she knows how to do it or what to do- she gets that from Corey. She's also very shy with people outside of immediate family so school has helped break her out of that shell and she's more willing to talk to people she doesn't know now.

Scarlett started preschool this past fall. She also started in the 3 day two's. She basically spoke her own language for the first two years of her life and I honestly think it was because Jaiden and Ophelia would always speak for her so she didn't really have to try in order to get her point across. Corey and I would worked with her to try to get her to pronounce things the proper way and she would say it back to us the right way in the moment but then later would say it her own way again. Preschool helped SO much with this. We can understand everything she says now and its no longer gibberish lol. This is partly because of age but I noticed a huge difference within the first month of school. She also didn't like to share- she was the baby (and still in her mind is because Blakely isn't taking her toys yet) and Jaiden and Ophelia would just give her whatever she wanted. School has helped with that as well but she still has her days lol. She has two friends at school that she constantly talks about and you can just tell that she loves them so much. She actually has to hug both of them bye every time I pick her up from school lol.

Overall I think its good for kids to have their own outlet and for them to be able to interact with kids their own age. Also to be in a routine. While you can do this on your own if you have friends with kids the same age or are in a moms play group- I think kids having to listen to other adults not just their parents is important too. It's also important for us sahm's to have a BREAK. The days that the girls have school usually go much smoother than the days that they don't.


When did y'all send your kids to preschool or why didn't you? I'd love to hear your opinions!


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Keep on keeping on: Breastfeeding

TGIF and thank goodness spring break is almost over! My kids have been going stir crazy because well let’s face it... there’s only so much you can do with 3 kids when you have a newborn.

Today I wanted to share my experiences with breastfeeding. As I had mentioned in one of my previous posts, I struggled with breastfeeding with my other children. I think one of the main issues was that I wasn’t educated. I just figured there’s a baby and there’s a boob and it just works.. um absolutely not. It was very disappointing and very discouraging so ultimately I gave up. I tried with Jaiden but with me being so young I didn’t have the slightlest clue how to take care of a baby much less breastfeed. My mom had even made me an appointment with a lactation consultant because he wouldn’t latch which made me frustrated because I didn’t understand why he wouldn’t (goes back to there’s a boob and it just works mentality) and babies can obviously feel that your frustrated and it’s just not a good combo. I EBF Ophelia for 2 1/2 months but I supplemented for Scarlett from day one. She had colic so she cried a lot as is and I was just flat out exhausted to be honest. Her and Ophelia are only 13 months apart so I just felt like my body was drained. Breastfeeding Scarlett only lasted 3 weeks but I honestly didn’t give it my all.

There was never a question in mind if I would try again with Blakely. This time I was DETERMINED. I read books, articles, other moms blogs and posts on the WTE app because I wanted to be 100% educated this time. I already knew the pain of breastfeeding the first few weeks (I would cry when I breastfed Ophelia for the firsr two weeks) so this time I started putting nipple cream on before she was even born. That really made a difference in my opinion. I told myself from the get go that it was going to be tough but like I always say- mind over matter. Ive kept a positive attitude and that’s made a world of a difference.

Blakely is a big baby so she nurses a lot and on week 4 my body was struggling with keeping up. I had pinned lactation recipes when I was pregnant because my milk supply was low with Ophelia and I just wanted to be prepared because I knew I would need them. I went to GNC and purchased fenugreek and brewers yeast. The brewers yeast was for the lactation power balls I wanted to make and the fenugreek is a capsule that I take with my prenatal vitamin everyday and then I take it again in the evening to just keep the milk flow coming lol. The fenugreek works quicker than the brewers yeast in my opinion and the brewers yeast is very bitter even if you mix it into a smoothie or milkshake.

I’ve noticed on days when I don’t drink a lot of water that my milk flow is not as heavy. I’ve read several different contractions that say increase of water won’t help or you don’t need to drink more water than you normally do. For me that is false. I have to drink a ton of water. Plus breastfeeding makes me extremely thirsty anyways so it’s not really that big of an ‘inconvenience’. Another thing that I was prepared for is that one of my breast wouldn’t keep up with the other. Some moms call it the “dud boob” lol. While I don’t think one is a dud so to speak, I did notice that my left breast wasn’t getting as full as my right. But we fixed this by starting on the left breast for every feeding for a couple of days. On day two of doing this I could already tell the supply on that side had picked up. Now that she’s a little older and staying awake for the majority of the feeding, instead of falling asleep within 5 minutes, we switch sides halfway through to help encourage an even supply.

We’re only 6 weeks in but I’m beyond satisfied with how it’s going so far. We are taking it one day at a time but I mentally set goals. Right now my goal is to make it to 3 months and once we reach that goal it’ll be 6 months and so on.