Parents please help me with scheduling

[l.c.o]

At 4 years old, I probably would not make waves and ask for any exception.

I would just tell Coach, "We know gymnastics is a huge commitment if our daughters stay in long term, and we are already looking ahead to arrange our own schedules to make sure they are always here when they need to be. For right now, though, I do have a conflict (explain conflict briefly), and so to work around this, I'm thinking my younger daughter could take a Rec class on X day instead of the developmental class, just for the next year. Do you think this would be OK for her? Might she be invited back to developmental next year?"

Then if the coach has another suggestion, or has any concerns about the arrangement, you will hear that directly and can make decisions accordingly. If needed, you could withdraw her at 4, and return at age 5 and still be just fine. Some programs are crazy strict, though, and might look down on a withdrawal from an invite-only class, so always good to ask in advance.

^THIS. You said it way better than I could have. I agree 100%.

OP, one more year of rec for your YDD won't hurt her eventual progress in any way, as long as the program is OK with it. My DD's gym has made exceptions in the past for siblings in rec only... Like my DS was moved up a rec level once despite being under the listed minimum age (by some six months) to work with my DD's schedule. But my only experience with this thus far has been with rec.

 

[my4buffaloes]

I am a firm believer that parents should not sign their children up for something that they can not get them to and from. I love carpools and rely on them as well. But we also have a back up plan in place for every day so that so that we can drive our children if need be. My girls were on opposite schedules for years and we were at the gym 6 days a week with no overlap between the 2 groups. It is a big commitment and if you can't do it at such a low level how will it work when each girl is going 4-5 days a week? That being said - do the best you can to make it work and then talk to the coaches about a solution. Maybe some weeks the 3 days works for you and only some weeks will have to be altered. Also can a grandparent or spouse drive that third day?

 

[profmom]

At my kids' gym, I've seen that the longer a family is in, the more the coaches will make a few quiet adjustments to accommodate families with more than one team gymnast. We did not even ask for it, but when we got our school year schedule at the end of last summer, we were thrilled to discover that we and one other family with a L8 girl and an optional boy had almost perfect alignment between our kids' five days of practice in the gym. The gym has even done some adjustments to groups to keep carpools together. But this sort of thing is built on top of long-term relationships.