As work at home moms, we know that a daily routine is important. We are told time and again that a daily routine is how we can balance everything, get things done, and keep our sanity. But yet, somehow a work at home mom daily routine just never seems to happen quite as planned. Life always has a way of changing things up a bit. Here is how I generally plan my days.
6:30am– Get up, get some quiet in before the day starts, do some blogging work before the kids wake up
7:30am– Kids up, feed the 4-year-old breakfast, nurse the baby
8:30am– Eat my own breakfast
9am-noon– Life with kids, chores, errands if we need to
12noon– Lunch time
1-3:30pm– Quiet time/nap time for the older one, blog work for me in between nursing sessions with the baby
3:30-6pm– Life with kids, more chores, make dinner
6pm– Dinner
7:30pm– Bedtime for the 4-year-old
8-10pm– Baby care, TV time with my husband, social media work from my phone
10pm– Bed
Here is what a daily routine actually tends to look like.
8:15am– Wake up to the baby crying. Realize I turned off my alarm and went back to sleep after having dealt with a baby who didn’t want to sleep all night. Get the baby fed while the 4-year-old watches TV while waiting not so patiently for her breakfast.
9:30am– Try to get my own breakfast between getting the baby down for a nap and getting the 4-year-old her 3rd piece of peanut butter toast. Realize I’ve done no blogging work yet and try to get some social media posts scheduled between bites of breakfast.
10am-12noon– Deal with a 4-year-old who is cranky because I’m taking care of the baby yet once again, try to get some chores in but the baby is having a clingy morning and refuses to be put down.
12noon– Throw some lunch in front of the 4-year-old and put on a show for her to watch while she eats and either nurse the baby or inhale a sandwich before she wants to nurse.
1pm– Fight with the 4-year-old to go potty and go to her bed. Somehow pottying takes 25 minutes. Meanwhile, the baby who didn’t want to nurse earlier is suddenly starving. Try to feed her while convincing the 4-year-old she is not skipping nap today and needs to hurry up.
1:30-3:30pm– Finally attempt some blogging. Get half a post written before the baby is having a meltdown about something. The 4-year-old has had to go to the bathroom 3 times and now wants to get up from rest time even though she never actually rested.
3:30-4:30pm– Just survive until Daddy gets home
4:30-6pm– Attempt to function and make dinner at the same time. Hopefully the 4-year-old has gone outside to help Daddy with firewood.
6:30pm– Dinner because as I was trying to cook, the baby wanted to eat even though she only ate an hour ago so I had to put dinner on pause.
8pm– Bedtime for the 4-year-old, half an hour late because she wouldn’t eat her dinner and then I suddenly remembered she hasn’t had a bath in a week.
8:10-10pm– Deal with a cranky baby who hates evenings but also hates to go to sleep.
10:15pm– Crawl into bed next to the co-sleeper, continue patting the baby’s butt because it is the only way she’ll sleep. If you stop before she is completely dead to the world asleep, you will have to start over. Oh, and somehow figure out how to keep the pacifier in too. Listen to husband snore and envy how quickly he falls asleep and gets to stay asleep.
11pm– Finally start to drift off to sleep and realize you never got on Pinterest that day and you have 12 tabs still open from the blog post you were trying to work on early. Oh, and you haven’t worked on your Etsy shop in two months. Make a mental note to get up earlier the next day to get it finished even though you know that you’ve just kidding yourself and probably won’t get out of bed until 8am again.
11:30pm– The baby wakes up crying and won’t be soothed. Give up and either put her in bed with me or take her out to the sofa to sleep there for the third time this week.
A #WAHM daily routine is rarely what we hope it will be... Click To TweetTrue, a work at home mom daily routine is important but sometimes, life just happens, especially when you have a baby (who hates to sleep) and small children. Sometimes the business just has to come second and the kids come first, no matter how frustrating it is because you want to work.
As I write this, I have spent what feels like my entire day convincing a baby she wants to sleep them having to re-convince her of that every few minutes because she won’t stay asleep. I have written in 2-8 minute increments over the course of 8 hours. It’s just life. Best laid plans and all that. If you are a work at home mom struggling to work with littles at home, you can get frustrated (trust me, I get there too) or you can choose to find the humor and just work in the fringes of your day. Frankly, the latter is more fun. 😉
(A great way to keep a calm atmosphere and help with focus is with the use of essential oils. Some of my favorites for that are Peace and Calming for a calm atmosphere and orange and peppermint for focus. To find out more about essential oils, head on over the Getting Started with Essential Oils and my Essential Oils page.)
danielle says
hahahahah! I love this! It is exactly the way my days go some days!!! I have a 2 year old and newborn, but I fear the same challenges face us both 🙂 It’s funny that I saw this because I just began writing up a blog post about how my actual day goes – our daily schedule. I thought it might be a help to other moms. This is definitely a help to me! It made me laugh and realize that our days are acutally quite “normal” for having babies in the house! Hope your day today goes more smoothly than “normal” 😀
Julie says
My day actually has gone pretty smoothly today. Rare, I know. lol
Kendall Patton says
Love this! I have these same struggles. Right now, I’m (mostly) successfully getting up early and getting some quiet time and blogging done. Other days, I’m lucky if I breathed a deep breath all day! It’s such a struggle and seemingly unnecessary, yet if I don’t Try to do something I enjoy and want to do then everything and everyone is in trouble because I’m so unhappy! 🙂
Julie says
I do miss the days where I could get up early but they will be back again at some point. You are right about doing something you enjoy. 🙂
Debbie Rodrigues says
I live by planning and I help my clients develop a schedule that allows them to live balanced and stress-free.
And while I’ll always be for having a pre-defined idea of one’s day, accepting that things aren’t perfect is part of the plan too.
Great sharing!
Savannah says
Yep, sounds a lot like my day-and I only have one! I try and create a schedule so I’ll have SOMETHING to follow, but it usually just ends up being a list of things I didn’t get done again today haha! Thanks for sharing the real stuff <3
Julie says
Ha! My list is like that sometimes too. 🙂
Liz Jo says
It’s always tough getting children to follow the schedule you’d like to have! But I think you’re doing just fine mama!
Thanks for linking up with Welcome Home Wednesdays! Live every Wednesday at 7AM CT.
liz @ j for joiner
Melony says
Thank you for the honest and amusing (because it’s not me) post! My work at home life would be full of letting the puppy out and dealing with the older dogs since I’m in my fifties, different but similar. I guess it just shows us that having big chunks of time uninterrupted is simply a fantasy!
Julie says
No! Say it isn’t so! I’d like to think that once the kids are older I’ll have those chunks of uninterrupted time. 🙂
Leslie says
Yes! Thankfully our youngest sleeps through the night these days, but it was pretty much impossible to get much done when he was little. Even still, I spend most days feeling guilty for either working too much or too little and then stay up late working until my eyes just won’t stay open any longer. But I wouldn’t have it any other way. Thanks so much for sharing your story and for joining us at the #happynowlinkup!
Leslie recently posted…Design Hack: Make Your Own Marble Shelves for $8!