Parents 2 competitive gym athletes...dolla dolla Bill ya'll

[JMACAZ]

I have 2 in gym 2 different gyms one XG 1 T&T. Last year was a little zrazy but only had 1 meet that overlapped day but not time. This year 3 overlap, 1 meet 1 DD will have to miss because it is a travel meet for the other, 1 DH and I will divide and conquer and 1 State-I am crossing my fingers that they are one different days. We pay a lot but they love it and for now it is doable. Now T&T DD has added club track to the mix so that may make it even more interesting....

 

[wrzos]

I had 2 competing last year. Luckily, my dd competed fall, and my ds competed spring. We had one meet overlap at the start of his and end of her season. My husband and I divided and conquered.

What I really hated though was that their practices were on opposite nights. So I was running every single night of the week, and never had all the kids home on a single night..

 

[SurpriseGymMom]

I think having 2 in the SAME sport would be slightly easier. At least at our gym, most of the competitions are attended by as many levels as we choose for that particular meet, and includes MAG if possible. The lower the level, the fewer meets you attend. The boys DO usually go to a few different ones than the girls, so that would be slightly harder (having 1 boy/1 girl) but the coaches try to take that into consideration if we have sibling pairs on team.
In the lower compulsory levels, the cost would be ok and possibly you'd get a tuition break. Moving into Optionals the cost would skyrocket though!

I am lucky enough to have one fresh Optional gymnast and one serious competitive dancer. . Both sports are extremely expensive (dance is even costlier than optional gymnastics!!) and, lucky me, the seasons run at the same time. I only have a couple of serious conflicts this year, I have solved one of them by sending the older one with her friend for the weekend which stinks because truly I LOVE being there and watching her dance (and it's a big competition) but there's no way I can be in 2 spots several hours apart at the same time. All our competitions/meets are minimum 2hr drive, most 4hr and (again, so lucky, lol!) this year we are supposed to do 2 flyaway meets (which of course coincide with either competition or rehearsal for my older one, so she wouldn't be able to go) . Going from the first weekend in January to the second week in May I have exactly TWO weekends I will not have to travel/stay in a hotel, and the first "free" weekend isn't until late March.... I do it mostly myself, DH is supportive but has to work. He's willing to go to meets, but not dance competitions. We also have pets that would need to be kenneled for overnight trips, so most of the time he simply stays home and I make it work.

We couldn't say no when YDD was offered (and wanted) a spot on team. Not fair to allow one kid to pursue her dream and not the other.....

ETA: for every day, they practice at similar times and both are old enough that I can simply go back and forth dropping off and picking up, and on the nights I work late at the gym and my dancer is done before me, luckily we have a family at dance who live close enough to carpool and they take her home. They both have practice every day/week except Sunday, well I take that back, sometimes dancer has rehearsal on Sunday's too....

 

[gymmomtoo]

Used to have two gymnasts and the biggest hit was to the budget. Never realized how short we really were on money until we went down to one gymnast (the other graduated) and we could eat more food than just ramen! (slightly joking, but at one point I did have to tell younger DD's coach (who was insisting she get beam shoes) that I could either buy beam shoes that week or I could buy food--I was going with food. She stopped bugging me about it--and to this day, DD doesn't wear beam shoes).

And I do agree that it's easier time-wise than kids in different sports. We have a swimmer too and her meets conflict ALL THE TIME with my gymnast's. At least when my son did baseball, it was in the summer!

 

[vbdb]

I have two in gym. My middle DD was just invited to the competitive program this season. Luckily some of our gym commitments are per family, so I don't pay the annual comp fee twice or double up my volunteer commitments either. But the increase in fees and paying for two sets of meets were not fun. Luckily all of our meets this year are driveable and won't require hotel stays even if the girls compete on different days that weekend which I'm 100% expecting.
We are back and forth to the gym 6 days a week between the two of them but training is 3-4.5 hours so we never stay, nor are we allowed to stay and watch. Carpooling with other local families in our girls' groups has helped tremendously too.
So after all that I'd say that money is the single biggest challenge but we couldn't in good conscience allow only one of them to chase their gym dreams so we're sucking it up for now.

 

[refugee]

We had two girls in gym at one time (both started at level 4, eventually a level 6 and 8 when the dual track stopped).

While the cost was challenging (about the same in each gym), what made it worse was they were in two different gyms, slightly different directions from home, and in two different districts (for making it to State)! So two different gym obligations, two different booster clubs, two different parent groups to know, etc. Amazingly, only once in four years did we have as conflict of meet schedules!

 

[B&M's mom]

Two too, at different gyms. I'm a single mom so meet season is always a challenge when they have different meets on the same weekends. Sometimes the gym god smiles on me and they are on different days but within an hour or two of home so I can make both. If the times overlap or one has a travel meet, then I go to the meet the farthest away with that child and send my mother with the video camera to the other closer meet. Really not ideal as I'll have a resentful child but they understand that they both chose to do this sport and there's only one of me.

Money, well, it's a challenge but we make it work. Our schedule revolves around practices as each has a different schedule at a different place.

 

[refugee]

Our schedule revolves around practices as each has a different schedule at a different place.

I forgot about that part! And do you ever have to coordinate car pools for the kids in different gyms?

 

[B&M's mom]

Carpools are huge in my life! For the daughter who is at the farther gym, we didn't have any carpooling opportunities until recently. Now having that is huge. Thankfully all the families we carpool with understand our situation and work with us to make it work.

 

[UnoMas]

I have three on team and definitely make sacrifices in all areas of life to keep them in the sport but it is all (usually) worth it.