Daily Schedules
I've been working on tweaking my schedule. I don't always follow it perfectly, but I do refer to it and consider it my ideal. The schedule is there to guide and encourage, not to be a set of handcuffs. Things happen. If they do, I just try to jump back in at the new point in time and go from there. After all, I used to go for WEEKS before my sheets were changed or my floor was vacuumed!
I homeschool my son. Sometimes what we're doing takes longer than the time I've allowed, so I treat the schedule as a flexible tool to meet OUR needs. It's my own customized encouragement tool.
I'm going to post mine. I would LOVE to see your general outline of the day. Even if you don't work by a printed schedule, how do you lay your day out? When I was working outside of the home, the schedule was completely different, of course. Organizing my day brought about more productivity and accomplishment, even then. I really hate the feeling of standing in the middle of the room and not knowing where to start!
So, here's my outline. Will you post about yours and put a link in the comments? Even if it's just "Get up, Go to work, Come home, Eat, Go to bed," I'd still like to see it!
Roxanne's Customized Encouragement List:
- 6:00 wake up
Get dressed, minimal makeup and brush hair - 6:15 Start laundry
Make breakfast and start supper preps - 6:55 Let family know breakfast is nearly done (son does room chores)
- 7:00 Breakfast and morning devotional
Clean table, empty dishwasher, load dishwasher, wipe kitchen.
Clean bathrooms, make beds, straighten bedrooms
Check email - 8:30 Homeschool
- 11:00 Exercise while J works on project or plays
- 12:00 Shower, dry hair, dress, makeup
- 12:30 Eat simple lunch
- 1:00 Clean up, load dishwasher, wipe kitchen
- 1:15 Play time outside or projects inside with J
- 1:45 Cleaning chores for day
- 3:00 Homeschool
- 3:45 – 4:15 Computer time for J while I:
Prep homeschool
Put away laundry
Do cleaning or organization extra project - 4:15 Free time for both of us
- 4:45 Finish supper prep
- 5:00 J eats supper
- 5:30 J showers and gets ready for bed
- 6:00 J's bedtime
- 6:30 Husband home--eat supper together
- 7:30 Clean kitchen, sweep floor, turn on dishwasher
- Evening plans such as paperwork, meetings, or just rest
- 9:00 Get ready for bed
- 9:30 Lights out
Now, about that exercise time. Stop laughing. It's in the schedule, but that's definitely one spot I tend to allow other things to use. I'll work on that one, too!
12 comments:
Wow! I'm impressed! I'm a new mom (well, my daughter is 8 months old) and I'm still trying to get us on a schedule!
My son is 7 YEARS old. At 8 MONTHS old, I was trying to do too much and ended up feeling overwhelmed by everything.
Here are some things I recommend, though, now that I've BTDT:
Keep the house chores to a minimum. Do only those things that NEED to be done.
ENJOY your daughter and spend as much time appreciating this first year. It's an amazing time that will never be the same again.
General routines will help move you in the direction of a schedule. For example, have a regular play time, a regular resting time, and a regular training time each day.
Like:
9:00 - 9:15 read picture books
9:15 - 9:30 play with tactile toys (blocks, etc.)
9:30 - 10:00 go for a short walk with stroller
10:00 put down for a nap/rest (nap with her if you're still nursing)
Make lunch, have lunch
For 15 minutes after lunch do a little "training" time like learning to hand something to you, etc.
If I had had another child, I would definitely have made use of a sling, too. Just BEING together, hearing your voice singing, talking, etc. is so good for her.
Babies are SO awesome. Enjoy every second. The house will still be there, even if you do have to find it under a few layers LOL!
I have a couple of questions, and they are none of my business. You don't have to answer if you don't want to. Why does your son go to bed so early? Don't you all have dinner together?
Packrat--LOL! I'd be glad to answer that. I'm so used to it that I forget it's not typical.
The boy is a Morning Person. Confirmed, hardened, Morning Person. He did NOT get that from me. It doesn't matter what time we put him to bed, he still gets up between 5 and 6. At points he's even gotten up at 4:30. The latest he's EVER slept in his life is 7:45--and that was only twice. He went to bed at midnight on those occasions.
Since he's up so early, we all get up early and have a big family breakfast time together and he spends a major block of time with my husband before he heads off to work. Since my husband spends that morning time with him, he works later to compensate, which doesn't get him home in time for a family supper, too. I suspect that will finally even out when Son gets down to needing only 8 hours of sleep a night.
Son has lights out at 6 and is usually asleep by 6:30.
Let ME tell you, his internal timeclock has been a shock to mine! I used to stay up until 2 and 3 in the morning and sleep in until 10 or 11am. (That was when I wasn't working outside the home.) That came to a screeching halt!
Oy.
Packrat--I forgot to mention that on my Homeschooling blog I've mentioned here and there about his Morning Person-ness. He's quite productive in the wee hours.
Ah, that explains it! LOL (I keep forgetting about your home school blog. Sorry.) I have a daughter who was like that. I was like you - a complete night owl - then along comes this baby who always woke up at 2:30 or 3 AM and wouldn't go back to sleep. As she got older her clock changed a little. She'd sleep in until 4 or 4:30. uhhggh She really didn't "out grow" that until she was almost 22.
Packrat--You know, I really hope he doesn't "outgrow" this. It is just so much easier to deal with daily life if you don't have a desire to sleep half the day away.
When I was working outside the home fulltime, I HATED the feeling of ripping myself out of bed, attempting to apply eye makeup and barely (sometimes not) making it to work on time.
He's really productive in the mornings. I tried for two solid years to "adjust" his clock and he'd just get up earlier.
Now, we've got a nice routine. I also expect him to begin to be available for evening activities at some point. When, exactly, do you think that will be? When did your daughter reduce her nighttime hours to the average of 8?
Notice it's 10:15 and I'm still on the computer. I'm getting off RIGHT now so I can deal with that 6am alarm!
Good night and God Bless! We just took our daughter with us and packed her home. (This got to be "fun" when she was as tall as me.) She hardly ever woke up. If she was having a good time with friends, she'd stay awake for a while. She still sleeps 8-1/2 to 9 hours when her schedule allows.
Hi Roxanne! We don't have a written schedule (although we have tried it!) but generally it looks like this:
7am - wake up, start laundry, tidy any leftover stuff from night before
7:30 - wake up kiddos, start breakfast
8:00 Eat b'fast, daily devotions
8:30 - clean kitchen, make bed (mine - kiddos do their own while they wait for b'fast), shower, remind kids to start homeschooling after they check on the chickens, laundry while schooling
11:30 start lunch
12:00 eat lunch
12:30 clean kitchen, start dinner preps, send off kids to finish up any school or chores
2:30 Errands, check emails, lengthy chores (house cleaning, bills, research for projects, doing projects, etc) or we go visiting
5:00 pm evening activities like 4-H, sports or dinner (sometimes, this time slot gets really crazy!) The whole family is together. Lots of times this is used for family meetings or movie watching while we eat if we are staying in for the eve.
6:30 clean up kitchen
7:15 movies, (or dinner!) games, last minute or finish up chores, get kids ready for bed
8:30 kids to bed - we usually read a story together snuggled in my bed and then we send the kiddos off to their own beds
9:00 My bed time - usually, but occasionally I enjoy the solice and quietness of the late evening and I stay up way late telling the world about my daily schedule!
FarmMom--
"9:00 My bed time - usually, but occasionally I enjoy the solice and quietness of the late evening and I stay up way late telling the world about my daily schedule!"
I HEAR you on this. It's so nice to have uninterrupted time that I tend to let it stretch out as well.
Thanks for posting your schedule! It's fun to see how others order things according to their family's needs.
Can I go to bed at 6 o'clock? Pleeeeaaassee???
Seriously, I'm just like your son. Left to my body's schedule (like before I married a night owl and compromised by staying up a little later) I used to get up so early, that all the "unsavory characters" were still out for the night.
One time on January 2nd I got up at 4 am and went to get the paper. I forgot that it was still celebration night for some people and one of them that has obviously celebrated too much started banging on my car window and screaming at me when I pulled up to a stop sign. From them on, I learned to stay in the house until closer to daybreak.
Trixie
Trixie--LOLOL!
I KNEW there were some who would understand my son's clock!
When he was 3yo we were staying in a hotel in Tampa. The boy was getting up at 4:30 EVERY morning and we had to try to keep him quiet until at least 7:00 when a few things opened. It was so funny. We were wandering around Ybor City (hispanic section with AWESOME food) at 8:00. Nothing was open.
He's just always ready to get on with the day!
If you'd like to see how "productive" he is with all that early morning time, check out my homeschooling blog.
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