Quote Originally Posted by eoinsmom View Post
I've found that the biggest stress/problem is when you have too big of a gap between ages in the group....at one time I had 6 year olds, 3 year olds and 1 year olds and (2 of each) and it was a nightmare. The 6 year olds were too cool to play with the younger kids, and just plain rude; the 1 year olds weren't walking steady yet and couldn't keep up to the 3 year olds and the 3 year olds were bored with the pace of the 1 year olds. Plus I said I would take the 6 year olds to school and the 3 year olds to preschool; different schools and different drop off/pick ups. (I learned my lesson on that one! no school runs for me anymore) Having a group of 4 toddlers would be just fine once they all got into routine, IMO. I had to do the mixed age group as I started out with an agency, which was a bad experience within itself!
It totally depends on the kids - I have an 8 year old, a 4 year old, two 3 year olds, a 17 month old and a 15 month old. I had a 6 year old boy this summer too and that was fine also. They get along great and have lots of fun playing together - I find the two 1 year olds to be the worst for getting along since they are just learning about playing with others. Having the mixed ages is a good thing, they learn lots from each other.