How to Balance Time with 3 Small (needy) Kids

Having a child changes the balance in your life (if it had one before). Just on a practical level, you have less time to spend on your work, friends, partner, or self.

Having another child changes this balance again. You now also have less time for your first child. Add in a third child - and you have less time for the first two.

Most parents expecting a second child worry about not having enough quality time with their first. They are used to one-on-one time with this child. With the third child, one wonders whether one will ever have one-on-one time with any of the three, not to mention quality time with one's partner - or any time for oneself.

I have, with the birth of each child, tried to combine "children" time. In practice, this means that, contrary to many parents, I do not try to schedule "one-on-one" time for each child. I find such an endeavor a great idea in theory, but have not found it to be implementable in practice. My day simply does not have enough hours. And I believe - or perhaps try this way to justify our daily reality - that our kids just have to accept that there are three of them together, not one at a time on some calculated rotational basis.

As any other parent of several children, I guess I feel like I never have enough quality time with an individual child. On the other hand, the kids themselves keep rotating our focus. There is always one child - if not two - who is in some difficult phase, developing or falling ill, and hence requiring more attention. Somehow, I feel that it all just works on its own - without too much "analysis", "scheduling", or "conscious rotating".

Instead, I leave all this scheduling and analysis to making sure that the kids do not eat up every aspect (and hour) of my life. Kid-free time for friends, partner, self. That, if left to the kids, would not happen on its own.