Anyone done afternoon preschool with a younger sibling (p.m. napper) at home?

[ourbabygirl]

We're moving to a new town, and since I honestly didn't think we would end up in this town/ school district, I didn't register DD (age 4) for the preschool at their elementary school. I talked to their coordinator today, and unfortunately, they don't have any openings for MWF mornings (it's full, with 3 people already on the wait list), but they do have space in the MWF afternoon class (meets 12:45-3:15, I believe).
I never really wanted an afternoon class for the older DC while the younger DC are still home and napping (I'm a SAHM), as I didn't want to disrupt their nap (currently DS is 2.5 and napping from around 2-4 each day). DH does work from home when he's not traveling for work, but I can't be guaranteed that he can stay home with DS while I go pick up DD 3 times a week.
DD is fine with doing the afternoon preschool (she hasn't napped for a while, so that part isn't a problem for her), but I'm wondering if it would still be better to have DD in morning preschool so I can have some mornings for just DS and me.

What are your thoughts on afternoon preschool? I guess I'll be in the same boat in a year and a half when DD starts kindergarten, if we have the choice of a.m. or p.m. (although she could probably ride the bus so I don't know how much that would interfere with DS' naps).

Thanks! :)

[wellyes]

I wrestled with a similar scheduling question for DD's kindergarten next year. I decided against putting her in an afternoon program. Even though a 2.5 year old napping at this point may very well drop the nap by next September, I think the risk of rough afternoons is still rather high.

In your shoes I'd investigate private preschools. But, I'm sure it will work out either way.

[janine]

It's a challenge but doable. My DD1 is not a morning person so afternoon clases were ideal. Once DD2 came along, it wasn't a huge thing until she dropped 1 nap and it left the afternoon one. So DD2 ends up falling asleep during the 2hr preschool stint so it does disrupt things. Only a few more weeks though (and school is out) and next year it's morning classes..which will be rough on DD1 for other reasons but easier on DD2..fingers crossed her nap sticks, she'll be 2 by then.

[hellokitty]

I battled this same dilemma with DS2 and DS3. We ended up going with mornings. We too have a preschool that is part of the public school and to be honest, the main reason I didn't want to do afternoon preschool (assuming its end of the school day coincides with the rest of the elementary school), is that after-school pick up SUCKS. I had no desire to drag a toddler through the parking lot to get my kids (you have to go in to get your child) during that chaos. That's not to say that mornings aren't a bear too. It turned out that it was good that I stuck to mornings, since DS3 didn't really want to nap anyway (crappy napper), so he was really fussy be late afternoon. At least in the morning, the baby would still be, "fresh" and we could run an errand after dropping off DS2 and then after pick up, we'd come home and have lunch and we could relax the rest of the day and I could also get dinner started w/o having to worry about having to go pick up a child. I'd look into a private preschool close to your house. My motto about preschool is that most of them are pretty good, so go to whichever one is affordable to you and close to your home (esp if you have younger kids too).

[schrocat]

I've been doing afternoon preschool with a napper and it's actually worked out really well. I had to do this because DS2 goes to 2 different preschools. He does chinese immersion preschool 2 mornings a week and goes to montessori school in the afternoon from 1-4 pm 5 afternoons a week. Basically, we drop DS2 off at preschool and we go straight home for DS3's nap. He usually naps from 1.30 -3.30 and wakes up just in time to pick DS2 up from preschool. It actually works alot better than when DS2 was going to preschool from 9 am - 2pm.

[KrisM]

I did it twice. DS1 started afternoon preschool when DS2 was 6 weeks old and DD was 2 and still napped. Then, DD did it 2 years later and DS2 was 2 and still napped. It was fine. I am only 10 min from school, so we'd come home and nap and I enjoyed the quiet. Or, we'd run errands and they'd sleep enough in the car to make it okay. I really liked afternoon preschool as a get-ready for kindergarten year.

[nfowife]

I did it last year and it was great. My DD naps 1-3 so it worked out perfectly. I'd try to adjust your child's naptime earlier to accommodate it. It is nice to have some time to yourself and I have found there were more activities to do in the morning together- we did gymnastics, playgroup, library storytime. It was nice.

[SnuggleBuggles]

Not preschool but full day kindergarten. I hired a mother's helper (our preteen neighbor) to hang out in the house while I did pick up. It worked out fine. I hated ruining ds2's nap otherwise.

[sf333]

We've been doing that this year and I am not a fan. My DS had morning preschool last year and I MUCH prefer that to afternoons. Not only does he do better in the mornings (he tends to be tired in the afternoons), but my DD still often needs a nap or quiet time. It just disrupts the flow of the day and the quiet time that I insist on (even for my DS on his days off from school). If you can avoid it, I would.

[belovedgandp]

I've had a total of four years of pm preschool or kindergarten and LOVE it.

The first time the normal naptime was a bit later than school pick-up, but we had to get up earlier during the school year (compared to our summer or no school routine) and the time younger sibling went down for nap gradually moved up.

Yes, I regularly had to go in and wake the younger sibling to pick up the older, but it was always after a minimum of 90 minute nap and sometimes as much as 2 hrs and 15 minutes so I didn't feel too badly. It is the price of being a younger sibling.

I did not like the idea of morning school with napping sibling. Older kiddo would go to school in morning, have lunch and then have to play quietly at home for naptime. All my school age kids were well passed napping themselves by that age. Nice to run around with both kids in the morning and then have time at the house by myself in the afternoon.