Thanks for writing this up! Appreciate the personal anecdotes too. Curious if you or Jeff have any tips and tricks for maintaining the patience/discipline required to pull off this kind of parenting (for other readers, I enjoyed some of Jeff’s thoughts on predictable parenting here). Intuitively to me, it seems like this is a reason that the value-add from paying for childcare might be higher than you’d think naively — not only do you directly save time, you might also have more emotional reserves to be consistent and disciplined if you get more breaks.
I don’t think I have anything much to add in the way of specific tips.
I do think I’m a worse parent when I have less support (when I was home on maternity leave with a newborn and toddler, or when Jeff has been traveling and I’ve been alone with both kids for longer stretches than usual.) I agree that having childcare available, either paid or any kind, can help you be more patient and in-control.
Thanks for writing this up! Appreciate the personal anecdotes too. Curious if you or Jeff have any tips and tricks for maintaining the patience/discipline required to pull off this kind of parenting (for other readers, I enjoyed some of Jeff’s thoughts on predictable parenting here). Intuitively to me, it seems like this is a reason that the value-add from paying for childcare might be higher than you’d think naively — not only do you directly save time, you might also have more emotional reserves to be consistent and disciplined if you get more breaks.
I don’t think I have anything much to add in the way of specific tips.
I do think I’m a worse parent when I have less support (when I was home on maternity leave with a newborn and toddler, or when Jeff has been traveling and I’ve been alone with both kids for longer stretches than usual.) I agree that having childcare available, either paid or any kind, can help you be more patient and in-control.