Our Daily Routine Trying to Balance kids and working from home citygirlsearching blog-01.png

Aaron Jack has just turned ONE, and I finally feel like I am slowly getting a little more into my groove when it comes to finding a work/life/home balance. I don’t always get this right, and I often feel like I have to decide which balls to drop as I can’t possible manage them all on a day to day basis (sorry to my darling husband, who often feels like it’s him who is dropped more often than not). But man alive this whole parenting thing is hard enough as it is, never mind when there is more than one child and then the next juggle of working from home (or rather when you TRY to work from home). And then us mamas are also supposed to fit in feeding the family, doing housework, giving the hubby the attention and care he deserves AND trying to fit in the elusive ‘‘self-care'“ that we all know is so important, but is generally the last thing on the list and the first to be postponed.

Today I want to share with you my current daily routine, and how I juggle all the balls in my life. This ‘routine’ is constantly changing, and I’ve had to work REALLY hard at being okay with things changing. Especially as what ends up changing things is my kids (ie waking up early from naps, being super clingy all of a sudden, teething, dropping a nap, wanting to do everything ‘by self mom!’ and the normal emotions that come with being a mom. Like some days, you just don’t feel like parenting, and you wish you could just go back to a moment before kids, even if it’s just for 10 seconds, to drink a hot cup of coffee and not be clung to by sticky fingers…I adore my little ones, but feeling like this is SOOOO normal. And, as long as we don’t wish we were back in those days all day every day, I think it’s healthy to have those feelings. Anyway, I’m going off on a tangent now, so let’s get back to the point of this post.

Here is my current daily routine for me and my family.

For anyone new around these parts, I am married to a dairy farmer and we live on his family dairy farm in a teeny tiny town called Creighton. The closest shops are an hour and a half away. I have two little ones (Everly Rose is 2.5 & Aaron Jack is 1), and we have a wonderful domestic worker who works Monday - Friday. I mention her, because she is essential to my mental and physical well being (because she is as dedicated to maintaining a clean & tidy house as I am) and is also here to lend a hand or two with both kids if I have to meet clients/have Skype meetings. Everly has just started going to play-school (she goes to school for two mornings a week…school is a good 40km ONE WAY and although I’m able to share one of the 4 lifts, I take her and fetch her and this takes up most of those mornings. It’s just not always feasible to take her, drive home, and then go and fetch her again and so I often take her to school and then run errands in the small town where her school is based. I actually often organise tea dates with friends in this time,as this is a wonderful way to get a little ‘me time’ in and make the most of the long drive. I had also only planned to send her to ‘school’ much later on, and to rather focus on more of a home based learning environment, but with another baby and trying to actually build my business, it works so well with her going to school. And she just loves it there.The wheels have yet to fall off in the 5 weeks she’s been going. We do cloth nappies (click here for all of my posts on cloth nappies), have 2 dogs (well, technically 3 as we just got a new puppy), have 2 cats and 6 chickens (this is where we get our eggs from…we eat A LOT of eggs, with both my kids eating two eggs for breakfast every day). We follow a REAL food diet (I used to say we followed a Banting/Low carb High Fat diet but we aren’t that strict anymore, and rather focus on eating real food, nothing processed, no added sugar and because of this I make 99% of my kids food…ie I spend a lot of time in the kitchen…click here for more posts on what my kids eat). I sleep trained both my kids from an early age (and because of this they sleep for a solid 12ish hours a night, and both still take naps…Everly is on the extreme side of the scale when it comes to sleep though, and has always needed lots more sleep than the average, but Aaron, who was much harder work getting into a good routine from 0 - 5 months, has been so much easier since that happened. I breastfed both my kids (and am still breastfeeding Aaron…they both wouldn’t take a bottle, and this is not something I forced because I didn’t need them to, as I was always able to be here at home…the boobs were always available haha and this meant no formula was needed). Gosh this is becoming a bit of an odyssey but bare with me! When I started weaning my kids (Everly at 5.5 months and Aaron at 6 months) they both went straight onto real food (no cereals!). They both only drink water & cows milk (although Everly is now very into Kombucha…a type of fermented tea…full blog post coming on this soon showing you how to make your own!) and we sort of follow a very loose Montessori approach to learning and play. Bedtime in our house is 6pm for the kids, which I know seems unattainable for lots of parents (and obviously won’t work if you are at work during the day and only get home at that time) but this has been key to my own mental wellbeing because I often collapse at 6:05pm and there are evenings where you will find me in bed by 6:30pm. I have been blogging for over 10 years now, and am a self taught photographer & website designer. I started my own online business in 2016, but it’s only really taken off in the last year…with this past month being my busiest month ever. I’m from Joburg, and have been married for nearly 8 years. I studied English Literature & Psychology at Rhodes University (this is where I met my hubby) and we both moved to South Korea to teach English for 4 years before settling back here in SA. I am also a qualified teacher & have a diploma in Online Journalism from the London School of Journalism. I also work for the farm, doing basic admin work as well as the payroll for the staff. We have been living out here on the family farm for nearly 3 years.

Whew! You made it…well done. Go grab yourself a cup of something & catch your breath before continuing with this post.

I say all of the above to help set the scene and knowing the above helps you understand more about my family and the choices we make, and why & how I structure my day. Things don’t always go the way I plan, and some days I just DON’T feel like standing in the kitchen at 10 o’clock at night making yoghurt..but for the most part I know that you have to be prepared if you want to feed your kids good food, and if you want to have a second to breath during the day you have to be strict about routine and be firm with little ones who like to test the limits of your patience. I think it is also VITAL to your marriage to have time together in the evenings, before your both exhausted from the day, to catch up & connect. Although this is something hubby and I need to work on, as I generally just feel like crawling into bed to switch my brain off while mindlessly watching series.

I hope you enjoy this post & that it offers you some inspiration to help make your day run a little smoother.

Here is my week-day schedule:

04:30 Hubby goes to work, I snooze till 5am and then go make myself a cup of tea
5am-6/6:30am I do client work, check emails, post to Instagram/reply to social media comments
06:30ish - 7:30 Both kids wake up, change nappies, get them dressed and play time
07:30: Zanele arrives for work (she comes in at 7:15 on the days that Everly goes to school as I have to leave the house at 7:30…she then takes over Aaron and has him until I get back from school at about 12:30.
07:30 - 09:00 I make breakfast for the kids, I try and make a big portion of scrambled eggs & bacon so that hubby and I can eat that too…otherwise I generally eat a handful of nuts and lots of cups of tea.
09:00 - 10:00 Aaron naps, Everly potters around outside/drawing/playing puzzles (here are some nice activities that encourage independent play). I am generally able to do a little but of non-focused computer work during this time. I often have to wake Aaron up from this nap, and I do this to ensure he still has a good nap over lunch time, which is more important to me as this is when both the kids are down.
10:00 - 11:30 Play time with the kids
11:30 - 12:00 Lunch time for both Kids
12:00 - 14:30 Everly naps (if she’s been at school she will nap at 12:30/12:45 - 14:30. Although often I have to wake her up from the nap.
12:45 - 14:00/14:30 Aaron naps. This is my sacred time during the day, because both kids are down and I get to rest/watch series/work on client sites.
14:30ish both kids wake up, and it’s play time.
15:30 is often a time when my kids will have a snack, or if they are super cranky we go for a walk down to the Willow tree with the dogs. We generally spend the afternoon outside in nature (nature for me is anywhere with grass…so even the front lawn is considered nature. I’ll often set up the water table with water and bubbles, or bring out our little blow up pool for the kids to splash around in. If it’s cold, we’ll stay inside and play with blocks or puzzles.
17:00 Supper time
17:30 Bath time
17:45 Aaron has a feed, and straight down to bed.
18:00 Everly changes into pj’s and then has quiet time (we have just started this to help prolong her evening…as she still takes a really long nap over lunch time and isn’t ready to drop it yet…haha although I’m sure it’s me who isn’t ready for her to drop it!) it’s not really fair for us to expect her to go to be bed at 6pm. But then it’s story time, prayers, and lights out. I watch her on the monitor and she generally sings, and talks to herself, only passing out around 7/7:30. I’m okay with this, because she’s happy to lie there quietly. It would be a different story if she was really upset and fighting us for that hour, but right now this works because she is quiet and content to lie there until she falls asleep, and this means hubby and I can begin out evening.
18:30 Take dogs for a little stroll (this doesn’t happen every day) or this is generally the time that I start making yoghurt/making chicken stock/preparing food in batches for the kids ( I make big batches and freeze portions for every day). I try to also get supper ready for hubby and I for at least 5 out of 7 days of the week. Generally this is meat (chops/boerewors/mince/roast chicken/leftover stew from the kids) and veggies and sometimes a salad if I have the ingredients and feel up to it.
19:30 - 21:00 Series
21:00 Bedtime (if not earlier)

The only difference over the weekends is Zanele isn’t with us (she goes home on a Friday afternoon) and so on a Saturday 7 Sunday I also feed all the pets (I have some form of help in a very eager & enthusiastic Everly) and collect all the eggs from the chickens. Zanele and I also ‘share’ the washing of the nappies, as I wash every 2 - 3 days, and this often falls over a weekend. I’ve only had her step in to help with the nappies in the past couple of months, as I was so determined to ‘do it all’ but I’ve realised there are certain things that you just have to relinquish control over, and accept the help that’s offered (this is actually one of the biggest motherhood lessons I’ve learned over the past 2 years). On the weekends when hubby is on duty, he is still generally around a bit during the day (depending on how busy the farm is) and so we are often able to at least have breakfast together in the mornings.

So, as far as a routine goes, the above has only really fallen into place since Aaron dropped down to two naps. Before this, everything was higgledy piggledy and I was often left feeling frazzled because there was never any downtown for me. I wasn’t able to get anything done (work-wise) during the day, I was too exhausted to wake up early (and actually both my kids took turns waking up at about 5 am on and off for a couple of months). This was killer for me, and considering I wasn’t able to get them on the same nap schedule I felt like I was being stretched far beyond my means. Luckily, one realises after the fact, that as with all things, there are seasons to everything, and the tough times don’t last forever…unfortunately this is also true of the easy times too. But up until Aaron was about 5 months old (click here for a post on the very early days of #TwoUnderTwo and click here for one 6 months in), I really didn’t think we would ever get to a point when I enjoyed both my kids every day. Now that he is crawling and pulling himself up on things, he is a different child, and far happier to play by himself (within reason haha and not for very long!) but at least it happens ever now and again.

Some Tips for figuring out your routine

Accept (or be like me and at least ‘try’ to accept) that things change, and that the world won’t end when it does. When one (or both!) of my kids wake up early, my heart sinks. Especially if I’ve just say down to a hot cup of tea. I have to take big deep breaths, to help me ‘release’ the frustration I feel, and I remind myself that they are my babies and they need their mama. This helps a lot. In the early days, I had to often pick which little one to leave to cry during moments of the day, because I only have 2 hands and physically can’t feed a baby, change a nappy & prevent the entire bottle of powder from being shaken all over the carpet. Also accept that there aren’t any more ‘lie ins’ in the morning, unless you wake up at 2am and then have a ‘lie in’ from then till 5am ;) I’ve found the mornings that I don’t get up earlier than my kids, and if they are the ones to wake me up from my sleep…then I am a far grumpier and irritable person than the days I wake up intentionally earlier. Even if it’s just 20 mins earlier to have a cup of tea and let my brain log on for the day.

Decide on your priorities as a Mum and also a person. I decided very early on what my priorities were when it came to my kids. For me, I want them to eat the best food (this means I have to prepare it), I like a clean & tidy house (this means I am always picking up after them even though I have an amazing full time helper…the house is big and two kids make double the work…and for me, I can’t relax or function if things are chaotic. So this is a choice I make, to run around like a madwomen because at least when and if I get that cup of tea, I can enjoy it in a tidy space). I also have to be able to do something for myself, and this is my business. This means I need my kids to be on a schedule that gives me pockets of time to focus on this (ie my kids need to be in bed by 6ish pm and they need to be staying there until at least 6am…#hellosleeptraining which has allowed this to be a reality). My choice to breastfeed as long as I have has also meant I wasn’t really able to be away from Aaron for a good long time. But it wasn’t for that long, and it feels like I’ve blinked and here we are.

It’s either a good morning or a good afternoon. This was a wonderful saying that my friend Sophie told me in the very few weeks. She said she would focus on either having a good morning or a good afternoon, because it very rarely was every a good ‘day’. But, this means if the morning has been a dog show, the afternoon can only get better!

Be intentional with your free moments. Use them to focus on the things that leave you feeling rested/recharged. If this is scrolling through Instagram, that’s fine! If this is taking a quick shower, do it! Find something that’s just for you at least once a day, and be selfish with that time. For me, its the hour or so over lunch when both kids are sleeping. I try not to organise anything over that time, I don’t see friends, I don’t go anywhere, because I need that time to mentally prepare for the rest of the day.

Love on your kids. Kiss them, hug them, hold them, even if you feel like you are about to explode with frustration. I’ve found nothing makes me feel happier than my kids giggling because of something I have done. So in those moments where I feel like I just can’t parent (and there are lots, #justbeingreal) I take a walk outside around the house (because 30 more seconds of crying/winging won’t make a difference), take some deep breaths, and then I grab one (or both!) of my kids for a tight hug, put on some crazy music and we dance. This solves most things. And if that doesn’t work, snacks generally do the trick (always have some biltong on hand for these moments!).

It’s okay to live your life according to a nap schedule. This doesn’t work for lots of moms, and obviously if you have to work during the week (I am going to be honest and say there are plenty of days I wish I had a day job that took me out the house) you probably don’t want to be tied down by naps on the weekend and are more likely to be okay with naps on the go. I’m not this kind of free spirit, and you know what, for this season of my life I am okay with this. I know it’s just a season, and even though I’d love to be less fixated on naps and just go out for the whole day with my kids, as they are both so small, we ALL function better and are happier when they’ve had a good nap.

There you have it, a mammoth post on my routine. What’s your routine like? I’d love to hear how you make things work for you and your family, especially if you work from home.

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