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7 Tips for Creating a Daily Home Routine with Kids

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Create a daily routine to help you cut some chaos and bring calm and order in your home

7 Tips for Creating a Daily Routine with Kids -athomewithzan.com

Moms, do you feel yourself frazzled on the daily and have a strong desire to bring some calm into your home? You keep telling yourself that you just cannot seem to get it together and something’s ‘got to give?’

  • You find yourself feeling sad, like a failure, going around in circles and you just cannot seem to get “anything” done.
  • Your meals are quick and thrown together, or further more, you order take out quite regularly for your family.
  • You just cannot seem to get that huge pile of laundry folded that was washed two weeks ago.
  • You’re always late or find yourself screaming at the kids to hurry up already when you need to be some place.
  • You get easily frustrated because your emotions from your frazzled-ness just takes over everything.

I know you’ve probably heard it over and over but if any of the above describes you, then it might be time to start following some kind of consistent daily routine. It’s one of the best ways to organize your home and family and bring some a little calm into your home. I speak from experience:) It’s why I’m writing this post because I’ve been there and still find myself there from time to time.

Why Do I Need to Create a Consistent Routine

It’s simple. Because it will help you and your family thrive.ย I’ve seen how having some consistency can help everyone in our own home: me, the kids, hubby, the dog, cat, cows and chickens, everyone! OK. Maybe not the dog, cat, cows and chickens – we don’t have any of them by the way, but it helps everyone else. Here are some of the benefits:

  • You as the mom will feel less frazzled on the daily
  • It will aid you mentally, emotionally, and physically, too
  • You will become more productive
  • The kids will know what you expect of them
  • The hubby will feel a sense of calm and will get on board
  • Your home will feel less chaotic and more ordered
  • Your home would run much smoother

I’ve heard or read somewhere that kids thrive better on routines. In fact, I think they expect it. They will know “what comes next”. When they don’t know what you expect from them, they can be all over the place doing doing the opposite of what you want them to do.

What Inconsistency Does

I’ve also seen times when we were out of consistency and a good rhythm how it affected everyone. As an example, your kids might be used to playing with their play kitchen after breakfast, like they always do. But you’ve moved it for the sake of attempting to rearrange your home and temporarily placed it where they cannot easily play with it. So now they’re jumping around the house after breakfast and it’s making you a little bit frustrated. The kids are wondering why you’re frustrated when indeed, they’re “just playing”. It means they simply don’t know what else to do at the moment. They were used to a certain consistency and expected to play with their play kitchen.

Create Consistency But NOT Rigidness

Have you ever tried to do something in such a rigid way that it ended up backfiring on you? Well, we want to be less rigid when it comes to creating a routine. While creating some consistency is great for the family, you don’t want to be too rigid and go overboard. The idea of a routine is to create a little bit of order instead of an “army” like list of things to do. It’s more like a guide to help everyone.

So many times when I’ve tried to follow a rigid routine and something didn’t go the way it was planned, I ended up feeling even more frustrated. I wondered why things weren’t working as planned. It’s because I expected too much of myself and others. So don’t be so hard on yourself and on others to keep up with it. Also, keep in mind that routines change as needs and schedules change. As the kids grow into different stages, you will have to make changes. Just go with the flow and adjust accordingly.

So How Do I Create a Workable Daily Routine?

Here are 7 things you can begin working on today to help you create a simple routine and start bringing some order into your home within the next few days. I say “the next few days” because your routine would not be perfect from day one. It will take some work and everyone co-operating to adjust to something new.

  1. Decide on a task or two you’d like to get done in the early morning. See my 5 minutes to a cleaner house and better morning here. Make it a task that will help your day feel structured and organized (such as washing the dishes, sweeping the floors, folding the laundry, cleaning the bathrooms, taking out the trash, etc.) Do any task that will help you feel productive and make your space look automatically cleaner (or clean enough). Most of these tasks I do before breakfast but I also find that when I wash the dishes and sweep the floors after breakfast, the kitchen areas automatically feel so much ready for the day. It puts me in a better mood to attack other areas.
  2. Try getting up at least 15 -20 minutes before the kids get up. You would be amazed at how these few minutes could help structure your day. You can decide what you will use those minutes to do. But make it quiet time for yourself. Read your bible, pray, do some stretches, clean your face, brush your hair, change out of your PJs if you so desire, grab a shower to help you wake up even faster, or take some quiet time to drink your coffee. Some moms like to put on coffee and drink it before the kids are up. I’m more of a put on some coffee if I feel like it kind of person and drink it calmly after breakfast (while the kids play or have started homeschool). I don’t want to be rushed with my coffee, lol. I like to sip and write a to-do list at the same time. If you could get up earlier (say 30 minutes to an hour) that would be even better. You could get quite productive and knock out a chore or two during that time – stuff mentioned above like starting or folding laundry, cleaning bathrooms, making breakfast, etc.
  3. Set a time for school kids to wake up. If your kids are in a local school, set a time that they should start waking up. When our kids were in the local school, their alarm was set to wake up 1-1/2 to 1-45 mins before they needed to be out the door. Why so early? Well, they were in Kindergarten and 2nd grade and one of them required extra time. Keep in mind that you would have to be up and awake 15-20 minutes or longer before they have to get up.
  4. Prep the night before. If you need to head out the door in the mornings, set out your and the kids clothes the night before. If the kids are old enough, have them choose their clothes and lay them out. Prep school lunches the night before (some moms do a weekly prep and keep all the food in the fridge/freezer). Depending on what the lunch is you may not be able to prep it fully the night before but you can get the bulk work out of the way. If you are going to do pasta with veggie sides, wash and chop the veggies and put them in the fridge overnight, then cook or (heat up) the pasta in the morning and add it to their lunch box. Have a plan for what breakfast would be the following morning. Clean the dishes (or load and run the dishwasher) after dinner, clear the counter tops or any un-necessaries so your space can be clean and ready to make breakfast the following morning. It makes such a difference. You won’t be wandering around in your kitchen trying to find a clean spot to prep breakfast.
  5. Have a general plan for the rest of the day. Are you staying home all day? Going out? Having a play date? Will the kids play at home? Do you have a little baby to tend to?
  6. Create a naptime, rest time and bedtime routine for the kids and for yourself. Will the kids go for a nap after they’ve eaten lunch and have played a little? What will their bedtime routine be? If you do bath, books, bed, then try to keep it this way so the kids would expect to go to bed after you’ve read to them. Once they’re in bed, then you can carry on with your own personal routine.
  7. ย Be consistent but leave room for failure. The first day probably would not go as planned, the kids may not get it all right, you may even have to remember what the order of routine was you’d planned, you may sleep in, etc. but keep trying. Eventually, you and your family will start to see a much desirable daily rhythm toward a successful daily routine.

Still Need More Help?

If your’re saying to yourself, well all of that sounds good but I actually need someone to “hold my hand” and tell me exactly what to do in a step by step fashion each day. Then I’d highly recommend Make Over Your Morningsย and Make Over Your Eveningsย courses from Crystal Paine at Money Saving Mom. Crystal is a mom of 3 growing little ones with another on the way. She understands the importance of creating a system to help bring order to her family’s lifestyle. She has written these courses to help overwhelmed moms and women “take control” of their day by creating routines. You’ll get the step by step guide you need to help you create better routines. I have taken Make Over Your Mornings Course and it has helped a ton in making such a difference in my day. Click on each link or photo below to check out these courses. I know you’ll find it helpful.

Make Over Your Mornings

Make over your Evenings

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7 Tips for Creating a Daily Routine with Kids -athomewithzan.com

Work on these mama and you’d be amazed of how some consistency can create calm and bring some order into your home. Do you have a consistent routine that you try to follow?

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