@pollyton I can relate somewhat to this. I'm the father of a bi-national family (American/Dutch). I don't speak much Dutch, so English is our community language.
To complicate things, we moved to Sweden (neither of us spoke Swedish), from the US, when our daughter was 2 years old and just learning to speak a bit of Dutch and English words.
Our approach for most of our life has been:
To sppeak:
English to Me
Dutch to Mom
Swedish at school and our swedish friends.
As most comments mention, there is a lot of double speak and mirroring of conversations, and sometimes feeling left out (for me at least) when at home, but I have felt this helps tremendously to keep exclusivity of language/parent so their little spongey brains can context switch. Ie this is Mommy's language and this is Daddy's language, and this is how teachers talk.
This was further exemplified when I would picker her up from Swedish school at ages 2-4. I'd come to school and watch her speak swedish fluently to her teachers and friends, probably better than Dutch/English, and automatically when she would see me she would have to pause talking for a few minutes and not be talkative in either kanguage till we were walking toward the car to leave. It almost felt like her brain was having a bit of trouble context switching because I was there. Time went on and she grew out of that, but would still speak swedish to her teachers and English directly to me.
Really, it took patience and trust in your child and your parenting. Just because she wasn't speaking as fluently compared to other kids didn't mean she was behind. There was just a lot jumbled together and needing to be connected. Now she speaks all 3 fluently at 4.5 yrs old. It just clicked one day. Just yesterday for the first time she said, "that is how you say it in English." My brain, nearly exploded because she was actively understanding not just Mommy vs Daddy language, she knew which was what!
TLDR:
Be patient.
Have trust.
Keeping one parent, place etc connected to one single language greatly helps with context switching and connection.
Your child and their development might be slow at first, but it will help tenfold later on.
Bonus - This journey may help you speak your partner's language a bit better too.
To complicate things, we moved to Sweden (neither of us spoke Swedish), from the US, when our daughter was 2 years old and just learning to speak a bit of Dutch and English words.
Our approach for most of our life has been:
To sppeak:
English to Me
Dutch to Mom
Swedish at school and our swedish friends.
As most comments mention, there is a lot of double speak and mirroring of conversations, and sometimes feeling left out (for me at least) when at home, but I have felt this helps tremendously to keep exclusivity of language/parent so their little spongey brains can context switch. Ie this is Mommy's language and this is Daddy's language, and this is how teachers talk.
This was further exemplified when I would picker her up from Swedish school at ages 2-4. I'd come to school and watch her speak swedish fluently to her teachers and friends, probably better than Dutch/English, and automatically when she would see me she would have to pause talking for a few minutes and not be talkative in either kanguage till we were walking toward the car to leave. It almost felt like her brain was having a bit of trouble context switching because I was there. Time went on and she grew out of that, but would still speak swedish to her teachers and English directly to me.
Really, it took patience and trust in your child and your parenting. Just because she wasn't speaking as fluently compared to other kids didn't mean she was behind. There was just a lot jumbled together and needing to be connected. Now she speaks all 3 fluently at 4.5 yrs old. It just clicked one day. Just yesterday for the first time she said, "that is how you say it in English." My brain, nearly exploded because she was actively understanding not just Mommy vs Daddy language, she knew which was what!
TLDR:
Be patient.
Have trust.
Keeping one parent, place etc connected to one single language greatly helps with context switching and connection.
Your child and their development might be slow at first, but it will help tenfold later on.
Bonus - This journey may help you speak your partner's language a bit better too.