How do people in NYC keep kids home in the summer?

amother

Lilac

Fri, Jun 26 2015, 10:44 am

camp is a fortune. I am well aware. It is also a luxury.
This year I made the decision to keep my kids (4 of them-ages 8,6,4 and 2) home, and have day activities, I'm a teacher, so I'm off..I'll save a couple thousand dollars, it will be great! and my dh was on board, (even though he is never home)

Fast forward to the summer, its been ONLY one week, (where real camp didn't even start) and we are all going bonkers. I really prepared, I did. I made us schedules, I made charts, and routines, and activity lists, I found coupons to go to great places, I had everything set up all to go.
but I am honestly falling apart. My apartment looks like a war zone,I haven't done any laundry yet, I haven't cooked a meal all week, forget about shabbos....my kids are non-stop fighting (which I dont usually struggle w that much, like my 6 year old is fighting with my 2 year old )
I spent SO much money already on these activities, I spent a TON on projects, so much on random ice cream trips, slurpees, and what not.... and instead of being excited (Which they initially were) my kids are being extremely kvetchy, going to sleep late, waking up early, and just everyone is in a bad mood.

so, to my op, how do people in NYC (without big back yards, and community pools and wtvr) keep their kids home in the summer?

bnm

Fri, Jun 26 2015, 10:52 am

not everyone is cut out for it. My kids didn't even manage 3 vacation days without asking to go back to school. One kid is off for 10 days between school and camp. I have a cleaning lady twice a week, supper has been chicken nuggets and frozen pizza and I'm counting the days till day camp starts....

PinkFridge

Fri, Jun 26 2015, 11:05 am

Big hugs.
Re the money, we cheshboned that we spent x a month on tuition (over ten months) so we had some breathing room for summer.
Now I did do Camp Mommy but not to the fullest extent. When my kids were little, there were still inexpensive home camps so they could go for part of the summer. And some years I sent my kids to the school camp for some weeks, but not every week, or all the kids. I hope you'll have some relief before school starts. Is a mother's helper a possibility?
Oh, and when I did have all the kids, for some outings I'd take the baby to a sitter.
And - biggest and - I'm out of town. We had lots of parks options, and the kids could play outside too.

Next week, try to focus on getting Shabbos ready early. Maybe you can spend Sunday prepping chicken, and focusing on an easy menu (marinated salads you can make Thursday night, or dressings you can make early, buy Southern hash brown potatoes - the cubes - you can take out of the freezer and put under the chicken before baking, that kind of stuff.) Make doing something for Shabbos daily, even if it's putting away laundry, part of your schedule. Let Shabbos be something they're building up to and waiting for.

Set some rules. Sorry, they won't get slurpees every day, but maybe you have freezer space so they can get freeze pops on demand. (I think that when my kids were little, had you stuck a pin in them freeze pops would have come spurting out.) Let the treat trips not be so random and frequent. (Easy for me to say.)

You don't want to start relying on videos, that's for August desperation time Tongue Out

(Occasional videos are fine.) But your kids have to understand that there will be at home downtime. That's when I brought out stuff from my garage sale stash, the kids listened to story tapes, colored, etc. (Yeah, it was a simpler time back then.)

I hope this helps and continues the conversation.

gp2.0

Fri, Jun 26 2015, 11:08 am

I did it with a 4 year old and 1 year old last year.

Every Sunday I went to amazing savings (or cheap store equivalent) and I got brand new toys for that week. Special markers and activity books, play doh, stickers, crafts, beads, puzzles, etc.

Once a week cleaning help is a must with little kids home all day, they wreck the house.

Every morning we went out to the park. It was empty in the morning and cooler.

Every day I filled up the wading pool in the backyard. I also got a sandbox for them to play in.

Once a week we got slurpees. Once a week pizza. Once a week a bakery run. Once a week a grocery run for candy. Once a week library. Once a week a special trip to a park or place like the beach, Brooklyn bridge park, chuck e cheese, Etc.

I let them watch videos for a couple hours when they were too tired and hot to play.

I kept them to their schedules. Wake up same time, bedtime same time.

saw50st8

Fri, Jun 26 2015, 11:53 am

Take advantage of free places.

Take them to Brooklyn Bridge Park/Pier 6. Take them to the Bronx Zoo on Wednesday (take the subway) - it's free. Go to Coney Island and use the beach.

Come up with a feasible budget and talk to the kids about doing one big thing a week or a bunch of little things.

It might be cheaper to hire extra cleaning help for the summer rather than sending kids to camp but will keep the laundry done and the house in decent shape.

When I was home with my kids, I got us up and out early. I tried to be packed the night before with lunches and snacks so that the morning was wake up, get dressed, eat breakfast, daven and then leave. We would come home mid afternoon, have a snack, bathe, eat dinner, read stories and then go to bed at a normal time. Make sure to have dinner basically ready (in the crock pot, pre-cooked and just reheated etc). I found this absolutely key.

Also, if you go to neighborhood parks, change up which ones you go to. The change of pace is nice.

Don't some of the Brooklyn parks have sprinklers also?

Check out http://mommypoppins.com/ for lots of ideas.

Bedtime is super strict in my house. If my kids go to bed late more than one day in a week, they just cannot function normally.

mummiedearest

Fri, Jun 26 2015, 12:02 pm

I have a new rule this summer: we only go out on our outings once the first floor is clean. the kids have assigned chores that they don't do during the school year, and they are scheduled right after davening. then we go out and have a great time. they are also supposed to help me cook this summer. we do have a backyard pool, and we go out every day but friday. we arranged to meet a few other families in the park one morning a week with activities planned, so the kids get to socialize. it can be done, but don't plan to make the whole summer about the kids. they have to be involved in housekeeping, or it won't work.

amother

Papaya

Fri, Jun 26 2015, 1:00 pm

We have been doing this for a few years now, but with a wider range of kids and at times it is stressful but we continue to do it for financial reasons and that my kids really look forward to it. It also helps to only do it for half a summer.
Yes, only go on trips when davening, learning and assigned jobs are done. A job can be cleaning a room, watching a younger sibling while you prepare something or it may be getting lunch ready so that you can leave. We give the kids tickets for all different types of things and we have a listing of what you can buy with the tickets. My kids are excited by small things so we get away with cheap/dollar item (I.e. snapple drink, ball, slurpee, 99 cent bracelet, stickers for little ones...) at the end of the week.

I find the biggest trick is to get them out of the house most of the days and to come well prepared with enough food, drink and snacks so everyone stays as least cranky as possible. We also only do one nice (I.e. expensive) trip each week, but try to do free or really cheap stuff the other days. We also found that going with another family sometimes made it more exciting and less stressful for the adults.

My kids are older so the focus has changed, but at your kids ages we got memberships to kids museums, zoos and aquariums. And yes you can go back to the same one if you make it exciting and fun. We made sure to use the membership at least once a week. As they get older, you may consider a membership to an amusement park, if they have that near you. We also found out every free thing to do. Our library, friends, imamother and internet searches, were all good source of info. We made sure to have some backup plans for indoor actiivities, so we didn't get disappointed when there was an unexpected rainy day. We also made sure to always check the weather. One summer we made it a fun thing to try to find all different types of parks and rate them based on what we liked and didn't like.

Here are some ideas that might not fit your kids ages, but I figured I would incldue for others as well:
Scavenger hunts or treasure hunts are fun - can be done at home, a park or in a mall. Color war could be fun. Fruit/veggie picking at a farm that may also have farm animals. Then make smoothies with the fruit picked. Plant your own fruits/veggies and water and watch everyday and then cook/bake with the fruit/veggie. Baking/Cooking (including the clean up). Making choirs, plays. Fuse beads. Arts and Crafts. Hiking - to make it more interesting, can pretend to be different animals or anything else using your imagination. I find it is all about the attitude. Try to get involved as much as possible (play that ball game with them, don't just sit on the side) and keep the positive atmosphere. Also try to get all ages involved in each activity so no one gets bored. In a reall camp, they always have cheers and themes and all those stuff to keep it fun. Make a family cheer or anthing else that you think your kids would like. Consder having a different theme for each week. Consider having a different child each day telling your husband all the exciting things that you did. You have to make whatever you are doing fun. We also try to do fun suppers. We celebrate everything exciting with a bbq (colorwar, finishing something in learning or summer homework...) That is all I can think of now, but another good idea is to read real camp newsletters and get ideas from what they are doing and tone it down for just your family.

sneakermom

Fri, Jun 26 2015, 1:30 pm

Be kind but very firm. ( listening right away, no fighting)
Keep a clear schedule. Dress, eat, cleanup and daven...
Get out of the house early.
Find done downtime for when they get home.
Early bedtime!

Bruria

Fri, Jun 26 2015, 2:24 pm

Go to parks with them, there are so many to chose from!Marine park, central park has a bunch of playgrounds, you could spend all day with them playing , making picnics!
Arrange playdates with others who are not at camp, take them to aquarium, zoo, etc, also coney island rides once in while.
Search for free summer events for kids, there are always tons of them!
If you allow them to watch cartoons, there are free outdoor screenings of cartoons for kids also!
For days that are rainy, board games , lego, drawing, crafts, endless possibilities!

seeker

Fri, Jun 26 2015, 2:29 pm

I did Mommy Camp for 4 weeks last summer with an almost-4 and almost-2 (that was 4 weeks of camp; there were also the extra weeks in between school and camp) and this year I'm doing 2 weeks at the beginning of the summer and 2 weeks at the end (including the between-breaks; I have more work weeks this summer and that covers day camp. B"H our camp lets us pay per week at the same rate as a full month) with an almost-5 and almost-3.

I can't help you completely because I don't have kids your kids' ages, sometimes little ones are easier to please. But here is what I learned:
TOP NUMBER ONE BIGGEST TIP EVER: The more time you spend out of the house, the less time anyone has to mess up the house. You leave a cleanish house in the morning and stay out all day, you get to come home to a nice clean house in the evening instead of facing a disaster zone after being exhausted from kid care. So get out as quickly and as often as you can. If you can prepare picnic lunches at night, you can take off in the morning and not need to come back for a while.

Our weeks mostly looked like this: 2 bigger outings (meaning need car/bus/train and visited an attraction, rather than local parks/libraries. You could also think of it as one "real" trip and one medium-outing), 2 chilling at/near home days, an errand day, erev Shabbos (don't know how that will work with bigger kids; mine were basically content to participate in Shabbos prep and play around the house), and Shabbos. I tried to alternate bigger outings with chilling at home days, that seemed to keep our energy and stimulation levels overall pretty balanced.

For bigger outings I looked for free or "admission by suggested donation" things (such as Museum of Natural History, which is big enough that you can do it at least a couple of times spread apart and visit different areas each time. So if you pay full admission it's a fortune, but because it's just a suggestion you can make it affordable) We also got together with a friend who had a family admission to zoos that could include guests and we all fit under the maximum people - I paid for parking but it was still a bargain. With more kids in the family, if you like zoo-type activities it probably pays to buy the WCS family membership - over the course of the summer you can get a lot out of it; Bronx zoo is good for at least a full day or even two, Central Park and Prospect are a little similar but smaller so you could do a little animal time and then park time (e.g. Prospect has that historical house thing right next to it, and Central Park is HUGE) and then the aquarium is something totally different. You can do the ferry to Governor's Island which is a nice boat trip and then there are things to do on the Island, I think the ride is free on weekends and $2 otherwise. There is really a lot to do. A couple of times we did a bigger trip out of the city which is more effort and more expensive but when you do it just a couple of times in the whole summer, it's manageable.

For medium outings I mean libraries and parks that are nice and maybe have some special feature but are not right in our neighborhood. There is a "discovery library" in Queens, parks near us don't have sand which my kids love so if I go to Hudson Pier 25 or Brooklyn Bridge Park there are more interesting attractions than local. Also, visiting relatives. When it's a grandmother or something it's not the world's most exciting for the kids but it's something they should do, it's a trip, and that kind of trip will usually include some treat like ice cream or the like to balance out the slight boringness. But if you have siblings or old friends with kids, that's a little more fun, playing with someone else's toys is always more fun than your own. If you know someone with a pool who likes having guests, that's awesome Very Happy

For the home days, your 8-year-old might get bored but my little ones just never get tired of local parks with sprinklers, and some library time for variety (better a/c than parks! and not home, remember rule #1 as long as you're not home you are saving yourself hours of cleanup!) We don't do playgrounds every single day because *I* get bored of it and also sometimes it's just too hot and we're too tired out from a big trip. The rest of the time, I did do a lot of arts n crafts and stuff but nothing was very expensive. Amazing Savings is your best friend for supplies, also Michael's with coupons/sales is terrific. With a little resourcefulness, you can do a whole lot with just paper, colored paper, crayons/colored pencils, scissors, glue, and a few other things you probably have around the house. We went to the library and took out a couple of interesting-looking books of age-appropriate craft ideas. Also pick up a couple about household science experiments. After a special big trip, you can all sit down around the table and make a book about what you saw and did on the trip. Write letters to friends or relatives who are out of town for the summer or always. Do some fun cooking/baking project with jobs for everyone. And have some chill time - if you're out of the house 3/4 of the time, they can definitely enjoy bonding with their toys for the small amount of remaining time. I guess you need to rotate who you're going to be involved with, because there's only so much solitary play kids can handle and you have diverse ages. So you may need to be involved in a board game or something with 8 and 6 while 4 and 2 play alone with legos or something (that is some even spacing you have there!)

Try to get together with friends who are also doing mommy camp. Better for you, and more faces for the kids so they don't only pick on each other.

And definitely stop the ice cream and slurpees. This would have been a lot easier if you had never started. I am VERY liberal with ice cubes in the summer, and also juice ices on average once a day, but my kids know that ice cream is a once-in-a-while treat. They ask for it but don't beg for it. And I am quite sure it correlates with hyper/hard to manage/late falling asleep type of behaviors, especially if you're buying it and the portions are bigger than you'd give at home.

Good luck. I also agree that not everyone is cut out for this. If I had to do the whole summer with 4 kids, I might go crazy too. For me it's 2 kids and broken up into 2-week shifts so I think we'll be fine. I try to focus on this being my quality time with the kids. As much as I look forward to having someone else take care of them in day camp, I know it will be also a loss for all of us because then we hardly see each other, just a l ittle in the late afternoon when it's already practically supper and bedtime.

Last edited by seeker on Fri, Jun 26 2015, 3:23 pm; edited 1 time in total

smss

Fri, Jun 26 2015, 2:52 pm

seeker wrote:

She's STILL almost-2??? Wink

seeker

Fri, Jun 26 2015, 3:19 pm

smss wrote:

She's STILL almost-2??? Wink

Oops. Hit wrong button. If that were the case then she is the most precocious one-year-old you've ever met!

Pooh

Fri, Jun 26 2015, 5:14 pm

Ur op is exactly the reason why I INSISTED in actual camp this year after 7 of camp mommy (kids are now age 7,4.5,2.5) It's a lot of work. It's a lot of sun. A lot of schlepping snacks and fun but to an extent. They do fight. The 3 weeks kick in and I pretty much stayed home to avoid dangers. Which meant my house was destroyed. Laundry (at the laundromat cuz I don't own machines) was a nightmare once a week. Meals had to be thought of in advance.

I did do a lot of free things tho. I probably only went to kids in action a couple of times (a stressful experience in itself) and paid for shoe rentals only for bowling cuz I was signed up to kids bowl free and parks w sprinklers. Or pool at home. Or bikes in marine park. I'm sure u have ur own ideas and I'm not sure if this post is helping but what I wanted to get to is that although it's soooo hard and this year I made sure camp mommy was a no no, I still feel so weird that the summer will be so different and I won't get to enjoy the kids as much cuz it is kinda nice even tho it's so hard

Don't spend so much money. Do sprinkler parks

Rules: don't leave the house for the day's activity without house looking spotless. Kids davened. Kids did summer hw. And u prepared or defrost something for dinner when u come home starving and tired. That way it will be less stressful. Leave one day for errands (Thursday or Wednesday do groceries and laundry) have a strict bedtime!!! (If they don't sleep early they miss out on tomorrow's activity)

Leave in car change of clothes and snacks and beach mat bikes or scooters

mommy3b2c

Fri, Jun 26 2015, 5:19 pm

I love doing mommy camp in NYC! I find the summer ends and we did not do half of the stuff we wanted to do. We pretty much do trips everyday with a chilled arts and crafts day, every once in a while.

seeker

Fri, Jun 26 2015, 5:51 pm

I was just going to say, I think NYC is the best place for his. Anywhere else I would probably lose my mind but NYC has amazing public parks, events, libraries, transportation that is relatively convenient and air conditioned. And more museums, attractions, "fun" stores, and the like than probably any other place in the world (within the same travel time/distance.) botanic garden has one day a week free, various museums have certain hours or events that are pay-as-you-wish, Bronx zoo has a free day but I hear it gets jammed so never tried that yet and it doesn't include half of the best exhibits. But probably worth a try for vacation on a budget. NYC is the place to be for this kind of stuff, I don't love everything about living here but that is one thing I know I'll miss when we figure out where else to settle.

amother

Lilac

Fri, Jun 26 2015, 6:29 pm

WOW! (op here) thank you all for the amazing advice!!
So when I wrote that post this morning, I was still shaking from an awful day yesterday, but today was a lot better. bh. I didnt aim that high with the activities, so we were more relaxed.

Thank you to whoever said I should drop the baby off a few days. I think that makes a huge difference, like going on the subway without a stroller.
I know where my problem lies- its that once I made the decision to keep everyone home, and save money, I felt I needed to save money EVERYWHERE. but your right cleaning help, and some babysitting will go a really long way. and that I can afford.

another issue is that I am so bombed at night, that the thought of preparing for the next days lunch and snacks exhausts me! but I guess I have to if we are out by 10am..

I really really must stick to early bedtimes. but its hard. I feel like my kids get a second wind at 6pm, when we are still outside (after kvetching and being exhausted at 430 pm) and then it takes me a loooong time to get them back inside and get bathed and showered early.
thanks again for all the advice!

livinginflatbus

Fri, Jun 26 2015, 6:40 pm

Im with u. This week before school and camp I was literally ezhausted. Kept on telling everyone its a good thing im not a sahm

amother

Oak

Fri, Jun 26 2015, 7:28 pm

mommy2b2c wrote:

I love doing mommy camp in NYC! I find the summer ends and we did not do half of the stuff we wanted to do. We pretty much do trips everyday with a chilled arts and crafts day, every once in a while.

I am doing mommy camp this summer in NYC as well. Can you please share specifically what trips you went on.

rowo

Sat, Jun 27 2015, 8:52 pm

I just wanted to add that as you settle into it and the kids get used to the different routine it does get easier. We only have 6 weeks summer break, by the last two weeks I always feel like we've gotten into a groove and almost dread restructuring the schedule again once school starts. I enjoy the break from the hectic rush of school mornings and afternoons.
But there are things that definitely take a back seat with the kids around...
I don't do major shopping besides for essentials etc unless someone else is watching the kids.
I often hear of teachers that use their time off during summer to organise their house or bake and stock their freezer... No idea how they do it?!?

buzz

Sat, Jun 27 2015, 9:01 pm

I am a full time teacher, I use my holidays for appointments and shopping, and just not having to be up every night preparing the lessons.. Smile

I am now on winter vacation and I have a lot planned for the next two weeks but I am giving myself one week mornings off - two older ones in a day camp and the youngest in creche and second youngest in a kinder holiday program.

My expense for this holiday was the $160 for the two oldest for the day camp in the mornings.

Otherwise it is parks, libraries, baking and cooking, science museum which is free, bike riding, play do etc