Two full weeks in and we’re back into the cadence of normal life, and the sheer amount of logistics are weighing on our shoulders: making sure the PE and swimming kits are washed, ready and packed on the correct days; clashing delivery dates for homework assignments already rearing their heads; and let’s not even get started on the after school clubs and activities.
An exasperated dad shared his struggle at the school gates earlier in the week. He’s trying to get his family to start using a Trello board to put some sort of structure around their activities. Another dad told me how he and his wife are using Slack to keep things coordinated. In our house, the song remains the same: “if it isn’t in the Family Google Calendar, it doesn’t exist.”
This weekend I want to know what tools are you using to keep on top of parenting logistics? What’s working for you? What isn’t? Maybe they’re apps or sites, but I’m just as intrigued (maybe even more so) by good ol’ pen and paper methods.
Let’s see what we can learn from each other, and hopefully help a few dads along the way.
We finally broke down and got a paper calendar on the wall that we mark up along with a pencil and paper chore chart for the kids. Both are hugely nostalgic for me, which gets me excited about marking things down and being able to show the kids how much (or for our oldest, how little) allowance they will get that week.
Side note: seeing your note that a family resorts to slack made me cry a bit and confused me. To me, slack is the junk drawer of messaging apps: things go there to get lost and their search function is worse than Apple Mail’s.
Violet is 2.5. We haven’t worked out a perfect system. But huckleberry for monitoring sleep/food etc - a life saver when little, a shared iCloud calendar. But we haven’t been able to agree on a task manger. We use notes on a project by project basis.
It was good to keep check of basics like when one of us had fed her and not to overdose on Calpol. But I agree you can concentrate more on the app rather than the baby. I think the big one is task management and I haven’t found a perfect solution. If only all the big tech firms would allow better Integration 🤣
Currently my own methods to stay organised are very much a WIP - currently there a series of Kanban boards for family, me, house, finance - with the hope that they will contain what I need to do and all the information I need (ie the account details for all our utilities).
For the family it’s another paper calendar for key dates, and a shared Reminders list for shopping - this is actually really great to add stuff when you run out of it and check when your at the shops, on more than one occasion my wife has had great fun adding things as I go round too...
More interesting by a long way is that we’re starting to visually show Casper a lot more stuff, so he has the days of the week printed out and on his magnetic black board and then he has a little ‘Polaroid’ picture for where he’s going to be each day.
This worked great until we showed him we were going on holiday tomorrow two days ago and have had tantrums every more since when he realises he’s off the nursery.
Wow. Glad to start thinking about this. Mama has been our coordinator for years, long before baby. She makes it a point to buy a paper calendar every year, hangs it in a visible place and writes in it, but I don't orient around it. I imagine a shared calendar will be the way to go when it's time for it, but as of this moment, I have never used google calendar in my life.
2 and half year old boy. Second one on the way. Our primary way is a paper calendar hanging off the fridge. It has multiple columns for each family member. Because of our erratic work schedule (with occasionally long days and nights), it was nice to have a paper calendar to see any clashes and ensure toddler is covered. We put nursery booking on it, swimming classes, baby dates with friends and holidays. In terms of zoo and aquarium visits, it is more often a solo parent and toddler event.
We don’t have a shared baby email. The rest of our organisation is division of jobs and communication (whatsapp mainly) between the two of us. We don’t have any family in the same country so we are more cautious in terms of childcare coverage.
Pretty old fashioned here… we have an actual, made-of-glossy-paper, calendar on the wall (we get given the BBC Country File one from the in-laws every Christmas!). It’s on the wall by the front door so we can’t help but see it. If I book or arrange something while I’m out and about I’ll email myself a reminder to write it on the calendar. Not the most efficient by any stretch but it works for us and I much prefer physical things than keeping my life on an app screen. Similar rule that if it’s not on the calendar it doesn’t exist.
13yo boy: Printed out weekly schedule in the kitchen and entrance + google calendar for the extra and occasional stuff. Same, "if it's not in the Family Gcal it doesn't exist" stance.
Trello? 🤔 Anyone tried Maple?
And to remember to buy stuff for him: cram "Shopping" events with notes in the weekend on your Google Cal, with 20 reminders. That's the only thing that works / doesn't get ignored.
This is a fantastic question. We used babytime in the early days to track feeds/nappies/sleep etc. But we had some medical issues to deal with at the time which made everything really hard - i think we used it for 6 months.
Nowadays we don't really use anything - we have a familial icloud calendar but looking for an alternative. My partner isn't a fan of additional apps if we can avoid it - but also doesn't like seeing a tonne of stuff in the calendar. Apart from anything it makes it hard to determine when you are actually busy and when you are not!
Has anyone used Picniic? I've read good things about it - but it's not available in the UK...
Gabriel is only 5 weeks old so I’m keen to know what other people do for the future.
We’ve started with a shared family email address so that anything we sign up for for him (any classes, nursery etc) will be in a common place and won’t get lost by only going to one busy parent.
We were tracking breastfeeding and nappies in a nice app called Nara, but we’ve all but stopped that now. I think it gave us a sense of control and organisation in those crazy first few days. But it feels overkill now.
Shared email address is a great idea. We signed my daughter up for her own email address, but I think it got closed down because she was under 13.
You point out a fascinating paradox with some of these apps. I remember we were using Huckleberry to track sleep patterns, but it began to cause more stress than it solved.
I use Airtable to track things we need for Alba (clothes etc) just as a fancy spreadsheet (just as I use it for other personal spreadsheets) and we have a shared Google calendar for all things that affect us as a household - basically evening and weekend plans for my wife & I to know ahead of time... But Alba is less than 2 so its pretty simple living for us still...!
We finally broke down and got a paper calendar on the wall that we mark up along with a pencil and paper chore chart for the kids. Both are hugely nostalgic for me, which gets me excited about marking things down and being able to show the kids how much (or for our oldest, how little) allowance they will get that week.
Side note: seeing your note that a family resorts to slack made me cry a bit and confused me. To me, slack is the junk drawer of messaging apps: things go there to get lost and their search function is worse than Apple Mail’s.
Violet is 2.5. We haven’t worked out a perfect system. But huckleberry for monitoring sleep/food etc - a life saver when little, a shared iCloud calendar. But we haven’t been able to agree on a task manger. We use notes on a project by project basis.
We used Huckleberry for a while. And I think it helped. But it also maybe contributed (rather than removing) to general anxiety levels.
It was good to keep check of basics like when one of us had fed her and not to overdose on Calpol. But I agree you can concentrate more on the app rather than the baby. I think the big one is task management and I haven’t found a perfect solution. If only all the big tech firms would allow better Integration 🤣
Oh boy, so much to be talk about,
Currently my own methods to stay organised are very much a WIP - currently there a series of Kanban boards for family, me, house, finance - with the hope that they will contain what I need to do and all the information I need (ie the account details for all our utilities).
For the family it’s another paper calendar for key dates, and a shared Reminders list for shopping - this is actually really great to add stuff when you run out of it and check when your at the shops, on more than one occasion my wife has had great fun adding things as I go round too...
More interesting by a long way is that we’re starting to visually show Casper a lot more stuff, so he has the days of the week printed out and on his magnetic black board and then he has a little ‘Polaroid’ picture for where he’s going to be each day.
This worked great until we showed him we were going on holiday tomorrow two days ago and have had tantrums every more since when he realises he’s off the nursery.
Turns out patience is a little harder to teach 😂
Love the little Polaroid idea Jon. So cute.
Wow. Glad to start thinking about this. Mama has been our coordinator for years, long before baby. She makes it a point to buy a paper calendar every year, hangs it in a visible place and writes in it, but I don't orient around it. I imagine a shared calendar will be the way to go when it's time for it, but as of this moment, I have never used google calendar in my life.
Very happy when paper calendars work for people. I find they just become invisible, or I’m out and away from it and need to know what’s there.
2 and half year old boy. Second one on the way. Our primary way is a paper calendar hanging off the fridge. It has multiple columns for each family member. Because of our erratic work schedule (with occasionally long days and nights), it was nice to have a paper calendar to see any clashes and ensure toddler is covered. We put nursery booking on it, swimming classes, baby dates with friends and holidays. In terms of zoo and aquarium visits, it is more often a solo parent and toddler event.
We don’t have a shared baby email. The rest of our organisation is division of jobs and communication (whatsapp mainly) between the two of us. We don’t have any family in the same country so we are more cautious in terms of childcare coverage.
Strange Planet, an excellent webcomic, once had a strip about “adhere this to the food preserver—a place of high honour” https://twitter.com/nathanwpyle/status/1127588042368331776?s=46&t=YAzhbviPBU5csxHTYRXJ7w
Pretty much a calendar, a wing, and a prayer here. We’re both of pretty organized people, so it’s not overly crazy.
There’s an app called Maple that I’m interested in giving a try, though.
Pretty old fashioned here… we have an actual, made-of-glossy-paper, calendar on the wall (we get given the BBC Country File one from the in-laws every Christmas!). It’s on the wall by the front door so we can’t help but see it. If I book or arrange something while I’m out and about I’ll email myself a reminder to write it on the calendar. Not the most efficient by any stretch but it works for us and I much prefer physical things than keeping my life on an app screen. Similar rule that if it’s not on the calendar it doesn’t exist.
A lot of paper calendar love here this weekend!
13yo boy: Printed out weekly schedule in the kitchen and entrance + google calendar for the extra and occasional stuff. Same, "if it's not in the Family Gcal it doesn't exist" stance.
Trello? 🤔 Anyone tried Maple?
And to remember to buy stuff for him: cram "Shopping" events with notes in the weekend on your Google Cal, with 20 reminders. That's the only thing that works / doesn't get ignored.
I’ve downloaded Maple because it looks great, but can’t get it register without a US number.
This is a fantastic question. We used babytime in the early days to track feeds/nappies/sleep etc. But we had some medical issues to deal with at the time which made everything really hard - i think we used it for 6 months.
Nowadays we don't really use anything - we have a familial icloud calendar but looking for an alternative. My partner isn't a fan of additional apps if we can avoid it - but also doesn't like seeing a tonne of stuff in the calendar. Apart from anything it makes it hard to determine when you are actually busy and when you are not!
Has anyone used Picniic? I've read good things about it - but it's not available in the UK...
Picniic looks great, but isn’t available to me (and my App Store is set to the US, so who knows where you can use it?!)
Gabriel is only 5 weeks old so I’m keen to know what other people do for the future.
We’ve started with a shared family email address so that anything we sign up for for him (any classes, nursery etc) will be in a common place and won’t get lost by only going to one busy parent.
We were tracking breastfeeding and nappies in a nice app called Nara, but we’ve all but stopped that now. I think it gave us a sense of control and organisation in those crazy first few days. But it feels overkill now.
Shared email address is a great idea. We signed my daughter up for her own email address, but I think it got closed down because she was under 13.
You point out a fascinating paradox with some of these apps. I remember we were using Huckleberry to track sleep patterns, but it began to cause more stress than it solved.
I use Airtable to track things we need for Alba (clothes etc) just as a fancy spreadsheet (just as I use it for other personal spreadsheets) and we have a shared Google calendar for all things that affect us as a household - basically evening and weekend plans for my wife & I to know ahead of time... But Alba is less than 2 so its pretty simple living for us still...!
Early days, no need to over complicate things at this stage. Life is difficult in other ways.
Same here. Lenny's 3 so the only plans he has are regular Saturday morning activities (currently swimming), and the odd party for someone from nursery