As a mom with Mental Illness, I have found it completely necessary to have structure to our days. My personality is naturally very laid back and I love the flexibility of a daily rhythm as opposed to a daily schedule. I first looked at what my kids naturally tended to do at certain times of day, and then I wrote down a loose schedule including the things I want to accomplish.
*things look different for us this summer because I babysit 2 older girls.
Around 7- we start our day
- get ready
- go for a walk
- eat our ‘first’ breakfast (smoothies or fruit)
- clean up the house if anything was left out the night before
Morning Block – start babysitting
- ‘second’ breakfast
- clean up
- Circle Time (yoga, meditation, read books and poetry, dance, learn new songs)
- Outside play
Lunch at noon
Afternoon block
- Activity (Crafts, painting, storytime + project, water fun outside, sensory stuff)
- Clean up
- outside play
- Naps/quiet time
- Snack
- babysitting ends
Dinner 6:30 or 7
Evening block
- Baths (sometimes)
- Quality time (walks, bike rides, reading, praying, cuddling and talking)
- Bedtime (I either sleep then with them, or get up after they fall asleep and clean up or do projects.
You’ll notice there is plenty of outside play. I try to be outside for at least 2 hours everyday to make sure we get sunshine. I love the saying, “Kids can’t bounce off the walls if there aren’t any” or something like that. Our days run pretty smoothly when we have a little bit of structure but not so much that I have to plan a lot or I’m constantly trying to keep my kids from being bored.
I believe the most important times of the day are the first hour after we wake up and the last hour before bed. This is a really special time for us to reconnect.
I hope you enjoyed seeing what our days look like. Let me know if you plan to implement any of these things in your day.
Peace.
