Late work schedule...

[katiad]

I'm a single foster mom who works a 10:30-7pm schedule. Right now, I just have a 5 month old infant (who will be going home soon!) but I am possibly going to be getting a pair of boys, ages 3 & 6. Right now, I can adjust the baby's schedule to my own without a whole lot of problems, but I'm not sure how to juggle older children with my cruddy schedule. For example, I am assuming that they will have eaten dinner at daycare - and lunch, which means, family meals are out. By the time I drove from work to daycare, then back home, it would be edging close to 8pm, which is pretty close to bedtime. In the school year, I wouldn't be available to assist with homework very easily unless they stayed up later, and I'd be looking at the kids being out of my care for close to 12 hours a day -and most of the remainder would be spent sleeping! 

Does anyone else here work a nonstandard shift? How do you manage to get any quality time in with the kids? I'm starting to wonder if I should even bother with this.

[annekevdbroek]

I have just started a 700 - 530 schedule, but I leave teh house at 630 (soon to be 6) and dont make it home until 6pm or later. I will be using daycare instead of a nanny at the start of teh school year. Basically, with homework, I expect the nanny or after=schopol care to make sure it gets done. I just look it over. There isn't time to sit down adn do it w/ him. I am working on meal planning so it is as fast as possible (e.g. cereal makes an excellent dinner).

Since you start work a bit later maybe yiour family meal time could be in teh morning?

I am still figuring out how I am going to juggle it all. Make weekends important in my main plan, and any days off I have. I may got back to having a cleaning lady so I don't have to use precious time on cleaning.

[Polliwog]

This thread is a few weeks old but I just found it and wanted to add my two cents. I've been fostering for years and I would advise against your fostering school age children. If the six-year-old is at school, you will not have any family time in the evenings. And foster kids need to build that sense of family that they often don't come with. And most child care centers and afterschool programs close before 7:00 but I'm assuming that you already have that in place. In addition, I would assume that you would be dropping the little one off around 10:00. That's a really awkward time for a child to come into preschool. Most programs want the kids there by 9:00 at the latest.

If I were in your shoes, I would only foster infants and toddlers because they have more schedule flexibility.