stay at home mom & 1 year old’s daily schedule
I don’t know about you guys, but I am always fascinated reading about other people’s daily schedules, especially now that I have a baby. Coming from my background in education, I am so used to having content and lessons planned to the minute. Going from such a strict and demanding schedule to having more “free time” (if that’s what you would call it) as a stay at home mom, I have been super lost and out of a routine which drives me insane.
At about 10 months after weaning Baylor from breastfeeding, he started sleeping through the night finally! That is one amazing thing that came out of that situation. With more consistent night sleep, he was producing more consistent day sleep and gave me some actual time to do things during the day. For the first 6-8ish months he would only take 30 minute -max naps. It was so hard to try to do anything around the house in that amount of time, let alone rest myself.
Now that Baylor has more consistent sleep at night and naps pretty well, we can stick to a much better schedule. I know this might be odd to share, but I found it helpful looking at sample schedules for infants as we were figuring this thing out. Maybe this will help somebody else too :).
This is what a typical day looks like for us:
6:00 AM - Wake up, diaper change, bottle
7:00 AM - Breakfast
8:00 AM - Morning walk or play outside (while it’s warm, otherwise we take our walk or play outside in the afternoon in more mild/cooler weather. Arizona’s summers are brutal)
8:45 AM - Quick bath if he is messy from outdoor activity and breakfast, if not then just change into our clothes for the day
9:30ish AM - First nap, bottle - I usually get a quick home workout in or write blog posts during this time and shower or get ready for the day
11:00ish AM - Wake up, diaper change
11:30 PM - Lunch
1:00 PM - If I ever plan play dates, I try to plan them around 12:00 or 1:00. If we don’t have plans that day we will run errands if needed. B might watch a show or we just play together inside if we aren’t going anywhere that day.
2:30 PM - Snack
3:00 PM - Maybe a 2nd nap, bottle - If he takes a second nap, (he’s really been fighting it lately) I finish up any blog stuff I need to do, clean up, laundry, anything I can fit into this shorter amount of time. I think we are on the verge of switching to one long nap a day since he is starting to fight the afternoon nap.
4:00ish PM - Wake up, if he naps, diaper change
5:00 PM - Make dinner
5:30-6:15 PM - Eat with the fam
6:15 PM - Bath if he needs one from a messy dinner, if not then just a quick clean up at the sink and jammies
6:45 PM - Read a book, play time with dad
Anywhere from 7:00- 7:30 PM - Last bottle, bedtime
7:30 PM - Clean up the living room if needed, time with my husband until bedtime
We are sticking to 3-4 hour wake windows right now. I took the Taking Cara Babies courses and though we didn’t have much luck sleeping in the beginning, he finally has it down. I hope this was helpful to someone out there looking for a sample schedule or maybe just interested to see what a day in the life of a stay at home mom is like for me!