As a stay-at-home mom, schedules are so important for my sanity. It helps keep my days from all blending together and feeling like Groundhog’s Day. The first few weeks (or months) home with your baby are often spent in pajamas and purely surviving. Eat, sleep, and hopefully, shower, all while taking care of your baby's every need. Once you and baby start to get the hang of things, even the newborn days become more scheduled, which I think is an important factor in earning your baby’s trust. I can imagine that life is scary for them when they are brand new, and starting to know what to expect each day makes them more confident that everything is going to be ok. I feel like my doctor would tell me I’m giving babies far too much credit for their internal dialogue, but this is my opinion ;)
Once your baby becomes mobile, it’s time to start getting out of the house. I always took my babies out to run errands just for a change of scenery and new experiences (the grocery store is SUPER exciting for babies) but once they were toddlers I moved on to more structured activities. I try to have a different activity for each day of the week, and I only pay for one or two of them!
As far as a structured morning, I like to have my coffee first thing in the morning (around 7 AM) while my girls eat breakfast and play independently. We put on some music and have a cozy morning before getting ready for the day. My husband and I alternate mornings for our workouts, so one of us heads to the gym (around 8 AM) while the other gets the girls ready for the day. For my gym days, I lay out clothes and pack lunch the night before, so all I have to do is make sure their hair is done before I head out. When I get home from either the gym or school drop-off, I let my youngest have some screen time on her Ipad while I shower and get ready for the day. She loves to watch Cocomelon or Sesame Street, so I don’t feel too terrible about it. I actually think it’s good for her vocabulary (at least that’s what I tell myself to shush my mom guilt). Once we are ready to go (and I have my green smoothie, of course) we are off to whatever fun morning activity we have planned for the day. I make sure to bring my diaper bag stocked with diapers, wipes, a change of clothes, some snacks, and water bottles for both of us before heading out. We try to get out of the house each day from around 10:00-11:30.
My absolute favorite toddler (and baby!) activities are at the local libraries. Story time is such an amazing pastime for little minds. Honestly, I think it is just as enjoyable for moms! I absolutely love singing all of the songs and hearing the cute stories and just watching my child learn and grow. We get so much more out of this experience than we would from reading books at home. This is also an excellent place to make mom friends! I have met so many great people through my girl's activities. At most libraries, there is a children’s area with educational toys to play with, so after story time, we stay and play for even more socializing and fun (for both of us!) so we spend a good chunk of our morning out of the house, which is really great. I feel like both of my girls learned so much about sharing and socializing with other kids before preschool from our mornings at the library. We have a music-based story time that we go to one day, a regular story time another day, and we even have a different library we go to once a week for their story time which is a change of scenery and new toys and children to play with. This means 3 out of 5 weekdays we are participating in awesome learning activities- for free! I highly recommend looking up local library programs in your area, not just in your town, but in the neighboring towns as well (I actually almost never go to the library in my town, I actually prefer the county library programs). If you spread your visits to a few different branches, you could probably find free library programs Monday-Friday (many even offer Saturday events!).
My other absolute favorite activity to do with my girls is classes at The Little Gym. This is a national franchise, so check it out to see if there is a location near you. This is an activity that I pay for. It is actually membership-based, so I pay a fee every month. When you have a child under 3, I think this activity is well worth the money. In my area, it’s around $89 per month. This may sound a little bit pricey, but while they are this age and in the “parent/child” classes, they can participate in their regularly scheduled weekly class as well as a bonus class! So if you are going twice per week, this equals out to only be about $11 per class. My girls absolutely love The Little Gym. It is definitely a major highlight of their week. They are able to run around and burn off some energy while also making new friends and learning so much. The instructors there are so caring and they incorporate so many learning activities into the activities such as ABCs, counting, and even sign language. They are also learning to share, socialize, and are building confidence in themselves as they advance to new skills from week to week. I still pay for my 5-year-old to go here as well, even though she can only go once per week. She has made so many great friends at this gym and looks forward to seeing her teachers whom she just loves. It is a really special place for my kids that I highly recommend checking out.
Another great resource I suggest for moms of young kids is your local recreation center. This is another one that we pay a membership for, but at most rec centers you can just participate in activities for a fee instead of paying for a yearly membership. For us, it made sense to get the membership because my husband works out there and they also have an indoor pool which is so much fun to do on a cold winter weekend. Our rec center even has an indoor playground that is free for residents, including non-members. Once a week, I take my girls to a “Squeaky Sneakers” event which is basically an open gym for little kids with fun activities set up for them to play with such as tunnels to crawl through, inflatables to climb on, trikes to ride, etc… This is a great way to spend the morning. In the summertime, spending the day at the outdoor pool area is another activity that our whole family enjoys.
Another great activity offered through the rec center is Stroller Strides. This is a workout class designed for moms and their kids. There is a great one-hour workout for moms while also providing entertainment for their little ones. I honestly have not tried this class because it is new at our rec center and my girls are older now, but it looks amazing for new moms (and I’m sure is an awesome way to make new mom friends). This is a nationwide program, so I suggest looking into whether there is a class near you. Our rec center also has a daycare where you can drop your kids off while you go and workout, which is a mental and physical break that all moms can benefit from. Our location also has kid's yoga classes, summer camps, and all different kinds of sports like tennis, swimming, soccer, gymnastics, dance, baseball, etc… once the kids reach age 3 and up. If you have a local rec center, I highly recommend checking out what they have to offer!
These are the main activities that I like to do with my kids. I also like to have “adventures” either on Fridays or Saturdays where we will do something special like go to the zoo (we have a yearly membership), the Children’s Museum, an indoor trampoline park, or something like that. We also go to church on Sundays, so basically every day of the week we are getting ready and getting out of the house. I do like the occasional lazy day where we stay in our PJs late and watch movies, but for the most part, everyone is happier when we have a scheduled day with something to look forward to. I think you will find the same to be true for you! There are definitely times when I get into a slump and will take a week off from activities, but I honestly find myself getting depressed during these periods. I have so much more fun when we go out and experience life together rather than sitting in the house (we did enough of that during the pandemic!)
We typically eat lunch around 11:45 and I try to get my little one down for nap by 12:30 and up by 2:30. After nap time, we pick my oldest daughter up from school and come home and have snack time. I like to set up some sort of independent play activity for them during this time (3:00-4:00) like coloring, sticker books, Play-Doh, or if I’m feeling especially crazy, painting. My oldest loves painting so I do this more than I would like to ;). We then try to get outside for an hour before I make dinner from about 4:00-5:00. We have a playground in our neighborhood that we can walk to, so we often do that. On other days, we will check out another playground in the area to change things up. In the wintertime when it’s too cold to go outside, we have a small inflatable we will put up in our downstairs den. We also have a small indoor trampoline and a ball pit with a tunnel that gives them a way to burn off some energy. These activities were total lifesavers for me. We also have legos, magna-tiles, and other toys down there that give them a new play area for a change of scenery. I put on a show or movie while I cook dinner and that brings us all the way to dinner time, which I try to start around 5:00 and have ready by 5:30.
After dinner, my husband and I take turns doing bath time or dishes. I try to make the bath last a while (around 6:30-7:00) so they can play and have yet another change of scenery. They absolutely love these mermaid toys and I also like to get bath toys that do not have a squirting water spout so they don’t get moldy. After baths and jammies, we will watch a little bit of a show and have a “dessert” snack (7:00-7:20) before brushing their teeth and heading to bedtime (7:30).
Our bedtime routine always includes reading books. Both of my girls absolutely love to end their day this way. I love how much they enjoy books and I know it is because it has been a part of their lives since they were babies. We love to borrow new books from the library and also have a pretty big library of our own. If you are looking for book suggestions, check out another blog post I wrote on some of our family's favorite children’s books. After we finish reading our books, we say our prayers. My daughter and I sort of made up our own short bedtime prayer. “Dear God, thank you for this wonderful day. Please keep our family healthy and safe. Amen”. We say this every night before we sing our bedtime songs. We sing the “Cuddle-up” song from Doc McStuffins and an original “It’s Time to go to Sleep” made up by my husband when they were babies 😊. After we sing, we talk about what we will do the next day and what we hope to dream about (usually vacation or a fun upcoming birthday or holiday) and we give a kiss goodnight and go to sleep. We try to have them fall asleep by 8:00.
Having these set activities each day and night really makes everyone in my family happy. I like to have something to look forward to outside of the house each day and also enjoy the routines at home. One of our favorite local restaurants has a sign that says “Imagine how grand life would be if we lived a little every day.” I really took this message to heart and think about it all of the time. Life is all about the little moments you create in your daily life. Vacations and holidays are wonderful, but if you can make the normal mundane things in everyday life a little bit special, life can feel pretty magical! I hope these ideas are helpful in creating a routine for your littles. If you have any other fun activity ideas to share, please send them my way and I will include them in an updated post! Have a magical day :)
Sample Schedule:
7:00 Wake-up/coffee for mom, breakfast for kids
7:30 Get ready for the day (outfits/hair/wash face/brush teeth)
8:00 School drop off or Gym (rotate)
8:30 (or 9 depending on the day) Smoothie for mom
9:00-9:45 Mom gets ready, screen time for the little one
10:00-11:30 Activity out of the house (Library/Little Gym/Rec Center, etc…)
11:45 Lunch
12:30-2:30 Nap time
2:30 School Pick-up
3:00-4:00 Snack/Independent Play
4:00-5:00 Play outside or in the downstairs den (change of scenery)
5:00 Mom cooks dinner, kids watch a show
5:30 Family dinner
6:30-7:00 Bath time/Dishes (Rotate days)
7:00-7:20 Bedtime snack/show
7:20 Brush teeth
7:25 Bedtime routine (read books, say prayers, sing songs)
7:45 Bedtime