My group has always been a bit older as I was lucky and would find older kids around my older daughter's age. I would have a couple babies in the stroller while the big kids walked. These kids left for kindergarten and my group is much younger now: my youngest daughter is 3 yrs in Jan, 2.5, 22 mos, 20 mos and 17 mos. I know a lot of you have groups this age and younger so I am looking for advice. I have a triple stroller and the 3 littlest go in it and my older 2 are being trained to walk next to the stroller with a strap attached to their wrist. This is going really well, however they don't make it too far. I am leaning more towards using the stroller for short walks around the block but other then that, staying on premises.

Has anyone ever made this change to their program and how did the parents react? I have been gradually cutting back on outings as my group grew in size (just started 2 yrs a go and started adding kids gradually) but this summer I had a helper come once a week to come with us to the park and the rest of the time we were at the daycare. Should I bother mentioning decreasing outings or just wait and see if a parent asks? I bought one of those 8 in 1 climbers to hopefully make up for the lack of park outings but I do worry about boredom (theirs and mine) with always staying in the backyard.