Building Routines for Busy Moms

How to find success at home through routines

What comes to your mind when you hear the word routine building?  For some it may be peace and structure and for others you may feel confined and controlled.  But even if routine doesn’t sound appealing to you, hear me out.  Especially if you have a larger family.   Do you see those four kids down there?  Those are my babies.  They aren’t angels.  We still spend lots of time with sibling squabbles and we have our share of bad attitudes.  But I can honestly say we end most days I feel pretty good about what we accomplished.  That is something I never would have said earlier in my motherhood journey even when I had less kids to take care of!  But I found the power of routine.  Believe me when I say it can help you lighten your load!!

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Routine building:

Routine can help all families, but honestly if you have more then a couple kids routine is a game changer.  As each child in my family has come along I have realized more and more how chaotic my life would be without routines.  I would never be able to do educational activities with my kids or create any content for this blog without routine.  The truth is when you have more kids you have more to juggle.  I often have mom’s ask me how I get things done with four kids.  Especially right now when we are together 24 hours a day during this pandemic.  And my answer is simple.  Routine.  

How do I set a routine?

Let me tell you first that, there is no one size fits all routine.  I am going to show you our routine right now, but it hasn’t always been the same.  In fact every new season or phase of life my family has entered has required some sort of change of routine.  Even this last week, with our transition from school to summer we have changed our routine.  Routines don’t have to be set in stone forever.  In fact I don’t think they should be!  But, kids thrive with routine.  They feel safe knowing what the day will hold.  Have you ever noticed how elementary classrooms always have their daily schedule posted on the wall?  They don’t do math in the morning one day, after lunch the next, and at the end of the day at the end of the week.  That’s because they know and see the power of routine. 

(Our family walk)

So how can we use this power of routine at home.  I don’t want my house to be boring or rigid.  Hang with me here and trust me for a minute that routine does not have to equal rigid.

When creating your routine, first, think about what is important to you.  What things do you want to get accomplished every day? These are the things you want to incorporate into your routine.  For example, I know I want to have time where I get to workout and then also read my Bible.  I want my kids to have time to do their morning chores, and I want to have time for them to use their brains in a more academic way.  I also need time to get my own work done!  This is where our daily alone time and outside time comes in.  (Another post coming on this!!)

Those things then guide our morning routine.  You can see from our typical routine above, I have worked those things into our routines.  I am not going to pretend that I never hear complaining about chores, but honestly just having it a part of our daily routine helps makes the push back less.  We follow this routine every weekday, so my kids know I will ask them to do their morning chores every day when they come in from playing outside.  But if your kids could use some more encouragement, stay tuned because I will be sharing some of our motivational tools in a few weeks!!

I know some of you are still worried about this being boring.  But look at that schedule again.  There are TONS of opportunities for creative and imaginative play.  They choose what they do during alone time and outside time.  I choose their first activities for school time, but they are different every day!  I even rotate which chore each kid does.  I honestly don’t think any of these time periods look the same from one day to the next.  We are not looking for the actual activities to be the same every day, but for the framework of expectations to be the same each day. 

Updated:  This is the schedule we used during covid quarantine.  Now that my kids are back to school, our schedule looks much different.  Most of our routines come before school and afterschool.  But I still stand by the advice in this blog post.  Routines help kids thrive!

Don’t forget about you!!

One more thing I want to encourage you to make a priority in your routine is some time for you.  Right now that may be time you use to get your full time job done.  You may be like me and using that time to work your part time husstle.  Or maybe you will use it to binge your favorite TV show.  I know as a mom, our day goes better when I am able to have some time for something that is mine.  So think about activities your kids can do independently and make that time yours!!  It may take some time to establish a routine.  And the younger your children are the longer it will take to establish this, but it is possible! 

I am so passionate about seeing moms succeed that I have created some routine building planning sheets for you.  Download them.  Use them and then tell me how it goes!  Remember don’t quit if your first routine doesn’t work!!  Make a small change and try again!  You have got this mamma!!  

Ready to find success in a healthy routine for your family?  Become a subscriber below and get the Routine Building Planning Sheets and access to a free five day email Routine Building Course! 

Looking for educational activities to use during your new routines?  Try my Preschool Made Easy Program HERE.

Or check out the posts below for more FREE alphabet games and activities.

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