oh those girls are really good kids, started their Horse experience early in life
daughter’s competition horse inspecting the girls at a show
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My trainer hired an au pair and brought both of them to the barn with her each day. She could spend time with him between rides and lessons, and he had the au pair to entertain him the rest of the time.
And of course, he grew up loving horses.
19-0420 Ben Riding
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I ride early in the morning before work. If hubby is working from home, he watches her from her wake up around 7 am until the nanny arrives around 9 am. If he’s going to the office, we have the nanny come early (around 730).
During maternity leave, I brought her with me some, but mostly on days when I was watching my trainer ride. If she was fussy, I just walked her around someplace where I could still see. I’ve never attempted to leave her alone while riding (she’s 7 months now, I went back to work when she was 4.5 months).
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My not helpful response is - it’s different when it’s your child that is crying. I feel the same about barking dogs.
If you’re going to ride 3-4 horses a day I think you will likely need child care. Especially in the cold.
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I wasn’t talking about crying children, I was actually talking about the poster who said it’s not what I want to hear but I should consider hiring a babysitter. But I agree, it sounds like people are maybe able to make it work for one horse, but trying to get 3 (let alone 4!) won’t work
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It won’t work. I am sure you will find some slightly deranged horse woman (in the best of horse crazy ways) who will tell you how she’s a single mom who rode 8 horses a day 2 weeks after giving birth to twins with no one to help with childcare. 
But for most of us, we need help.
I’m trying to work from home today and can’t even get an email written with my toddler “helping.” At least a COTH post I can edit after he hits send!
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LOL I totally misread that then; it was right after the person who called their child “The Crying Child that Never Slept” or something and that’s what I thought you were referring to.
In general, I don’t mind crying children or barking/whining dogs but when they are your own you are so tuned into that sound that you can’t ignore it. 
Been a while since mine were little, but everything takes 3x as long.
I didn’t own a horse when mine were little, I couldn’t make it work time wise with working full time. It was too stressful. I just took lessons and half leased when I could.
So those of you that can, major kudos.
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No kids for me yet, but
I have a friend who had a baby but was also running a small boarding situation. She would do barn chores with the baby strapped to her back in one of the hiking slings, which seemed to work well for her. She then had a automatic bouncer/rocker that her little one would sit in when she rode. She put her right by the arena, so she could always see her. But, her baby was super chilled out when young.
When she was old enough to start crawling, she had a few months of issues because she always wanted to be with or around mom, but also didn’t want to be held or in a sling. I think the grandparents did a lot of babysitting during that time.
When she was old enough to enjoy toys, she had a playpen that she would put her in during riding. She always made sure the toys in the playpen were ‘new’, never from the house, so she would usually get a good 30-40 minutes before her kid would grow tired of them. The rest of the time, she was just her ‘little helper’ and could usually be found in an empty stall digging through the shavings. Once she was 3 and older, she was a lot easier to direct and could entertain herself for a while if given the proper toys.
She’s 8 or 9 now, and loves horses and helping her mom at the barn. She was no worse for wear from getting dirty as a little one
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There’s a woman in my area who taught a yoga class in the morning, went to the hospital in the evening, had her baby, then taught a super difficult level yoga/Pilates class the next day.
I don’t know if I hate her or am just in awe. When I met her she was only a few weeks out from birth and she looked like she had never been pregnant.
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The trainer in the video I posted above rode 6 horses the day she went into labor. The kid in the video is the result. For a long time, the easiest way for her to get him to sleep was to sit on an exercise ball and pretend to be cantering. The motion sent him right off!
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