Stay At Home Mom Schedule

A Real Life Stay at Home Mom Schedule

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Let's just clear the air and assume I'm NOT speaking to the newborn mom, who is getting less than 3 hours of sleep at a time and is in survival mode. There will definitely be ideas in here that may be helpful, but many more of them won't be realistic for you yet. No worries, just save this blog post for when baby starts sleeping and waking predictably (and well). It'll still be here for you! I'm also not necessarily directing this article towards moms of school-aged children and older. While, again, I'm sure there will be helpful ideas here, they won't all be applicable to your current life stage. Just skim it, use what will work, and ditch the rest!

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So who am I writing this for then? It's for you: the mom who is staying home with young children, who blessedly are out of the infancy stage but aren't quite ready to be in school 5 days a week. Which means they're with you, almost constantly. Dependent on you for survival, stimulation, emotional development, structure, and comfort. What sort of SAHM routine could you possibly create that will hold up under the ever-fluctuating needs and moods of your small children? Not to mention the other members of the family!

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I am here to hopefully provide some guidance, creativity, and hope in this endeavor to do mom life well. If I can make a realistic schedule for my family (as a mom who cried almost daily caring for two boys 14 months apart, working two part-time jobs, married to a husband working 60+ hours a week, and personally battling anxiety), then you absolutely can too!

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Let's zoom out first and look at the big picture. Why have a stay at home mom routine or schedule at all? Why not just let life happen and maybe check off some sticky-note to-do lists as you're able? Here's where we get into the secret sauce of creating a good schedule. If you've read my other article about being a SAHM, you know that I credit much of my success to budgeting. Now, creating a good schedule is a lot like creating a good budget. You start with the amount of money/time you have, and then you give it all a job. Just like you will spend your money whether you have a plan for it or not, you will spend your time whether you have a plan for it or not. The beauty with time, though, is that everyone has the same amount of it each day. So those people who seem to have all the time in the world, who get so much done in a day? They've just learned to be intentional with their time, but they still have the same amount as you.

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And where can a schedule trip us up? I think the number one reason moms can get overwhelmed or discouraged by their routine is that they're trying to fit too much into it. I remember reading an article in a dentist waiting room magazine that if a person did everything the "experts" said one should do each day to live a healthy, wholehearted life, it would take almost 48 hours a day.

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How depressing, you might say. And maybe you'd have a point. But I think this should also make you feel liberated. Here is quantitative proof that you in fact can NOT do it all. You must pick and choose what you will prioritize in your life and what you will lay aside. So please don't embark on a doomed mission to fit everything that could possibly be good for you and your family into a daily routine. You still have the same number of hours in a day. Do I think that with a good and practical schedule you can accomplish more than you could without? Absolutely. But you are still human. Give yourself grace and lots of breathing room.

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What Are Your Priorities?

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Okay, so let's jump into the nitty gritty. I'm essentially going to provide a few ideas that have guided the way I schedule my time as a stay at home mom, and hopefully they'll help you as well! We'll start with the first question I ask, whether I'm helping someone set up a budget or a schedule: what are your priorities?

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And I don't mean this in a rhetorical way. I mean, list out your priorities on paper. Name them. What are the main overarching priorities of your time, and thus your life? This is not the time to list out things like "call my mom on Wednesday mornings" or "drink a gallon of water a day." Those are fine goals, but not priorities. What are the categories under which all of your big and small goals fall? To help get you started I'll name some of mine:

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• Strengthening my relationship with my family (husband, children)
• Raising my children to be happy, healthy, and responsible
• Running my small business well
• Pursuing physical, mental, and emotional health for me and my family
• Strengthening my relationship with God
• Investing in a community of friends and family
• Running a hospitable and peaceful home

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These will not be the same as yours, but I wanted to show you how broad these priorities are. You can boil them each down to a word: family, mom-ing (that's a word, right?), work, health, God, friends, home. And because each of these priorities are so big, they also will each take up a significant portion of my time. A podcast host I like once said that you can only have 6-10 broad priorities like this at a time, and you can only really actively pursue 1-2 of them each day. Now, that doesn't mean that if I exercise today I probably can't also clean my house. But it does mean that outside of small habits like brushing my teeth (health) and tidying my kitchen at night (home), I won't be able to actively pursue and give time to all seven of my priorities each and every day, and that's okay.

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In recent years I've started assigning a priority to each day of the week. Or more specifically, to nap time during each day of the week (my only consistently child-free time). So when I have a cleaning task that needs to get done, I automatically slate it for Monday, my "home" day. When there's a sermon or religious podcast I want to listen to, I know I'll get it done on Sunday, my "God" day. When it's been a while since I've written in my boys' baby books, I make sure to do it during nap time on Thursday, my "mom-ing" day. And on it goes. Again, not that each priority is completely relegated to a specific day of the week, but rather I know that I have built-in time for those priorities later in the week if I'm feeling overwhelmed and unable to work on them now.

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Schedule Fun Time Too

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This brings me to my next point: if it's a priority, schedule time for it! A few months ago I was discussing how difficult family time had been recently with my therapist. I made the comment that either my husband or I seemed to always be distracted or multi-tasking, and the kids felt the lack of attention and started acting out, which in turn frustrated us and made family time less enjoyable for everyone. "Hmm," my therapist considered. "When are you having your family time?"

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"Well it's nothing official. Just when nothing else is planned," I answered.

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My therapist leaned forward in her chair and smiled knowingly. "And what else are you trying to fit in when nothing else is planned?"

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It hadn't occurred to me until right then that our "nothing planned" time was disguised as family time, but really was a catch-all for all of the leftover tasks of the day. So of course we weren't focused or fully present. I had worked with this same therapist just months before to learn to prioritize alone time for myself and put it on the calendar. But now I had to relearn the same lesson with family time. In order for all of us to be fully engaged, we needed to set aside time on the schedule for us to be together. And probably in order to not be distracted, we would need to set aside time to get those last few tasks done too.

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So pull out your calendar, grab your list of priorities, and make sure that there is intentional time set aside for each thing that you value. Schedule the work, but schedule the fun time too!

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The Secret to a Great Stay At Home Mom Schedule

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If I could pick one secret to a great schedule though, it would be habit stacking. And here is where I begin to deviate from referencing your daily schedule and start saying “daily rhythms” instead. If you’ve ever had young children then you know that they by no means stick to a schedule. For weeks they can insist on eating breakfast the moment they wake up and then one day they aren’t hungry until noon. Even children who engage in independent play well can’t be depended upon to do that predictably or consistently. Kids don’t care about clocks (unless you’re my three-year-old who is obsessed with always knowing what time it is, but I digress) or being on time. They march to the beat of their own drum, as they say. Obviously one of our jobs in the home is to create a safe and predictable structure for our children, but how amazing that we can also come alongside our children’s own rhythms!

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Okay, so habit stacking. I’m borrowing this idea from the book Atomic Habits by James Clear, so I’ll include it in the reference list at the end of this article for further reading. Let’s learn by doing though. First write down some tasks that you would like to complete in your daily life. I’ll write mine below:

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• Tidy house
• Run dishwasher
• Laundry
• Exercise
• Devotions
• Go on a walk
• Take vitamins

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To begin you don’t need to be exhaustive. Maybe just start with a few that you’re having trouble getting done each day. Next, write down the rhythms in your life that already happen on a daily basis. Or maybe just the ones that happen on weekdays, if the schedule you’re trying to make doesn’t necessarily apply to the weekends. Examples could include wake/bed times, meals, nap time, school drop off/pick up, when your partner returns home from work, etc. Here are mine:

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• I wake up
• Kids wake up/breakfast
• Lunch
• Nap/rest time
• Dinner
• Kids bedtime
• My bedtime

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And now, you do the quick work of tying each task with a rhythm in the day, like I did below:

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• I wake up - devotions
• Kids wake up/breakfast - take vitamins
• Lunch - laundry
• Nap/rest time - exercise
• Dinner - go on a walk
• Kids bedtime - tidy house
• My bedtime - run dishwasher

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Everyone’s day will look different, but this is just a quick example to guide you. My recommendation is to start with adding one new habit to your rhythms each week, or every couple of weeks. I am the girl who always has 20 New Year's resolutions but then gets overwhelmed by them all and gives up, so trust me when I say: start small. And also don’t get discouraged if you eat out for lunch so you can’t do laundry, or come home late from a hang out and forget to run the dishwasher. Because you are doing these as daily rhythms, they’ll get done tomorrow! You have room for flexibility and grace when you create rhythms and habits for your family, not strict schedules and rigid routines.

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What Time Should a Stay at Home Mom Wake Up?

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So you have priorities tied to days, and tasks tied to rhythms (which can be applied to weekly/monthly/yearly rhythms too, not just daily). But you still have these precious (and sometimes infuriating) children who demand so much of your energy. How do you combat the fatigue enough to do even the basic necessities, much less play with your kids, or get ahead on work, or engage with your partner?

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As an intermittent insomniac, I have spent countless days barely conscious enough to function. Add children waking in the middle of the night (of course always in the middle of a stretch of actual good sleep), and fighting the fatigue can feel like a hopeless battle. But through therapy and my own research over the years I have picked up quite a few habits that help support my circadian rhythm. I can’t tell you when you should wake up each morning (that’s personal to you), but I’ve compiled a list of good sleep/wake habits here in the hope that they might help you as well!

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• Right when you wake up, spend 10ish minutes outside to take in that morning sunlight as part of your morning routine, even if it’s cloudy!
• A 1-3 minute cold shower or bath will also help wake you up because it triggers your body temperature to start rising. (I haven’t committed to this one yet but I know it works!)
• Try to get moving first thing in the morning too, even if it’s just a short walk, so that it raises your body temperature and heart rate.
• Morning light is important, but so is evening light! Try to be outside when the sun is setting to help your body know that it’s time to start winding down. (This sounds awful. Watch the sunset every night? Twist my arm.)
• After the sun sets (or around 7-8pm if the sun sets pretty early/late in your area), start using very dim lights in your house and limit the use of screens.
• Take a hot bath for less than 20 minutes as part of your bedtime routine to help stimulate your body temperature to drop. A lower body temperature is required for restful sleep.
• Keeping a somewhat consistent wake time is important for maintaining a good circadian rhythm. It’s better to take a nap in the afternoon (not too late) than to sleep in!
• If you’re having trouble falling asleep, you can choose to do something restful like reading or listening to an audiobook/podcast for 30 minutes. Then try again once you start feeling tired.

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What do I need to lay aside?

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As I mentioned in the beginning, you do NOT have enough time in your day to do it all, unless possibly you have no children, no job, and a full-time housekeeper/personal chef. But speaking to all the rest of us, there have to be things that we lay aside, that we choose to not make a priority.

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Will it hurt to say no? To the book club you were invited to join? To having an immaculately clean house? To weekly piano lessons for your child? Yes, of course. But it will hurt a LOT less when you realize what those “no”s have allowed you to say “yes” to: a girls’ weekend with your daughter, quality time with your partner, an at-home spa night for yourself. Whatever your priorities, if they really are your priorities, the joy of pursuing them will far outweigh the disappointment of letting go of everything else.

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One of the most hidden and yet obvious “no”s that we should all be saying is to excessive screen time. I mean, yes of course, studies show that you should limit your kids’ screen time. But that’s not even what I want to address here. I mean, limit YOUR screen time. If recent studies are to be believed, the average American spends almost 5 hours a day on their phone, and over 8 hours a day on screens in general.

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Even if you just cut your phone time in half (because let’s be honest, not all the time on your phone is scrolling, some of it is genuinely useful too!), you would regain 16 hours a week to pursue your priorities. With that recovered time over one calendar year, you could read 75 books, become conversationally fluent in two new languages, walk off enough calories to burn 83 pounds, make eight new close friends, knit 20 sweaters, play 166 rounds of golf, swim the English Channel 52 times, or have 41 Harry Potter movie marathons.

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If we are trying to recover lost time, my friends, here is where we should start. Books have been written on this topic and I have nothing new to add, so I’ll end my phone usage rant. But please, for the sake of your family and yourself, consider aggressively attacking this addiction and time-stealer.

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How to Stay Sane - Some Final Thoughts

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I have learned as a mother of two young boys that my day is largely dependent on my mindset. So I have begun to depend upon a morning and evening liturgy, or reset. This will look different for each person. Whether that’s meditation, journaling, grounding, praying, quiet time, or setting intentions, I would encourage you to make space for even just a few deep breaths right when you wake up and then again right before you go to bed. Putting my day into perspective has changed how I parent and how I love those around me.

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Will I always have a good day because of this? Or because of any of the scheduling tools I’ve mentioned here? Of course not. But I have learned that being intentional with my resources (time, energy, attitude, money, attention) has drastically improved my mental health, my relationships, and my quality of life. Not only that, but it sets an amazing example to my kids. I want them to see that no matter what happens to them, they can choose how they’re going to show up and how they’re going to be intentional.

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Tips to Create a Stay at Home Mom Schedule

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Here are a few other ideas and a few summarizing thoughts:

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• Everything takes longer than you expect. If you’ve ever loaded multiple toddlers into a car then you KNOW. Schedule lots of margin into every day!
• Your schedule will be unique to you. I’m sure it would be so nice if I could send you off with a free printable schedule template that will 100% work for your family and situation. But that wouldn’t be realistic. Hopefully this article has given you some ideas and tools that you can use to create your own rhythms and routines to best serve your family.
• Don’t compare. As I just mentioned, each family has their own needs. Don’t compare your family life to anyone else’s. You have no idea what other moms are going through, and what her life looks like behind closed doors. Just focus on you and your family. Comparing will just derail any progress you’ve made and rob you of any joy you have rediscovered.
• Never do tasks when the kids are asleep that you can do when the kids are awake. In other words, do as many tasks while the kids are awake as you can! And invite them along for the ride. Dishes? Let the kids help rinse while you load. Laundry? Let the kids put their clothes away or move clothes from the washer to the dryer. Exercise? Strap a toddler onto your back, let the kids exercise with you, or push the jogging stroller for a run. Your kids want to be with you, doing what you’re doing. So let them help, and even if it takes longer than usual, at least you’re all entertained, and you don’t have to do the chore during your precious kid-free time that night.
• Create a doable cleaning schedule. Cleaning and tidying can take up a huge amount of time for a SAHM. I can’t tell you the best cleaning schedule for everyone, but I would encourage you to try one and see if it’s a good fit for you! What has worked for me is a timed general tidy every night: for the length of two songs with the kids before they go to bed, and then no more than 20 additional minutes just for the adults after the kids are asleep. Other than that I pick one cleaning task a day that I can either tack onto my general tidy or complete earlier as able. Examples being: vacuum, clean out fridge, take out trash, clean bathrooms, etc.
• List your priorities and reference them often. Or, as my therapist says: “You can’t do it all.” These priorities will help you know when to say “yes” or “no.”
• Creating a schedule is like creating a budget: every hour/dollar will be spent whether you have a plan for it or not. Let’s agree to be intentional with all of our resources rather than having to deal with the consequences of our whims. And also, if you need help budgeting your money in addition to your time, here’s a link to get started. You’ll get a 35 day free trial with a coach to help you each step of the way!
• Start slow. I know that when you’re struggling, it’s tempting to change everything at once. But it won’t stick! Start by implementing one tool at a time.
• Give yourself grace! Not only can you not do everything, you also can’t do any one thing perfectly. You will make mistakes, you will get behind. Give yourself grace. You’ve got this, Mama.

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Some Resources for Further Reading

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• Rhythms of Renewal by Rebecca Lyons (book)
• The Lazy Genius Way by Kendra Adachi (book)
• Master Your Sleep & Be More Alert When Awake by Huberman Lab (podcast)
• Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport (book)
• MyBudgetCoach.com (website)
• Atomic Habits by James Clear (book)

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