SAHMs: What is your daily routine that you do with your LOs? Looking mainly for 1-2 year olds?

I’m not a mom, but I’m a nanny for a 1 and 2 year old. I thought this question would be fun to answer. Here’s my schedule!

Kids are usually up before 8, so we eat breakfast, practice brushing teeth, changing diapers/using potty, getting dressing, combing hair

8: am-11:30 am: learning, playing, doing different activities (like go outside for a walk or play, arts and crafts/coloring, reading books, whatever comes to mind), maybe go somewhere, and most of the time we have a little snack around 9:30, and I RARELY use the t.v except in the evenings or sometimes when I’m trying to prepare meals.

11:30 am-12: pm: Eat Lunch and start getting ready for nap (cleaning up, changing diapers/using potty, read a story)

12: pm-2: pm: Break time for me lol! The kids take a nap. And I’ll clean up stuff (like the vacuum/sweep the floor) which doesn’t take long. And just chill.

2: pm-5: pm: wake up children gently or let them sleep a little longer depending on how they feel and whatnot, change diapers/use potty, have a little snack around 2:30ish, and do the same type of activities we did in the morning

5: pm-6: pm: I’ll allow some t.v time (Sesame Street!) and start making dinner and eat around 5:30ish

6: pm-7: pm: play outside if it’s nice or play inside then see if they want a snack before bedtime routines

7: pm- bedtime which is anywhere between 8: and 8:30 pm: bath, practice brushing teeth, changing/using potty, getting pj’s on, story, then prayers, then BED! Each child has their own room by the way.

8:/8:30 pm: BED!

I don’t know that our routine is too healthy, but here it is:

Wake up at 9:30. Diaper change, then breakfast for whoever’s in the house (my husband works odd hours, with no set schedule, and my 14 year old is occasionally up and out with a neighbor before then).

After breakfast, I turn on BabyFirst TV for my 19 month old, then do house work. The TV isn’t for her to just sit and watch; she usually “helps” me, but it is there if she gets bored. Like I said, maybe not the healthiest schedule, but it does for us. She’s actually learned a lot from that channel.

Around noon, whoever’s in the house gets lunch (usually a sandwich or salad or soup). Then we have an outing of some sort, pretty much every day. Usually it’s the park or the library. Sometimes, it’s just play time in the backyard. That’s only come about recently, as we had a pond that we wanted to get filled in before our daughter spent much time out there. But now that it’s safe for her, we spend a lot of time in the yard.

We’re back by about 3:. We usually do either some more house work (deeper cleaning) or sometimes some yard work until about 4:30. Sometimes we cook together in this time or do some sort of “art” project. We also do a lot of reading in this time.

If I need to go to the grocery store, I go from about 4:30-6. Then I start dinner, which we have around 7, because my husband is usually home around that time. We settle in at 8: or so and watch a movie or some TV. Sometimes we go for a walk or play out in the yard all together, or get in the hot tub as a family.

10: is bath and “get ready for bed” time.

At 11:, we all go to the “big bed” to “play.” This usually means the baby jumping on the bed while our son tries to creep into the room to scare her, some reading together, etc. We all just play around for awhile until someone gets tired. By one, we’re all tucked into bed.

This is probably a later schedule than most people have, but because of my husband’s work schedule, it’s just easier right now, while there’s no school for anyone.

My daughter is 2 years old and while our daily routine is not set in stone, we do try to follow it pretty closely.

7:-7:30- wake up

8:- breakfast

8:30- clean up, wash face, brush teeth, get dressed

9:- I straighten up the house, do dishes, start laundry, etc. while my daughter watches an educational TV program

10:- we run errands, shop, go to the library for storytime, go to playdates, take a walk, play outside, or play at the park

12:- lunch

12:30- quiet activities such as read children’s books, do puzzles, color, or play tea party

1:30- naptime

3:- wake up from nap and have a small snack

3:30- more playtime

4:30- daddy gets home from work and chills out for a minute

5:- playtime with daddy while I get dinner ready or we may get ready and go out to eat

6:- dinner

7:- bathtime and brush teeth

7:30- quiet playtime

8:- bedtime

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I have older kids as well and I`m home all day with my 2-yr-old 🙂

6-7 AM: the kids wake up, breakfast, teeth brushed, etc.

7.30: we pack up the stroller and walk to school — drop my older 3 at elementary school and my little girl at kindergarten) and then my baby girl (she`s 2) and I usually play at the park a bit

9: home. playtime. my little girl usually watches a 15-minute tv program that comes on around 10

10:30 I`m usually playing with her– sometimes we have playdates

11:30- lunchtime 🙂

12: we go to the kindergarten to pick up her 5-yr-old sis and then come back home; I usually do some chores and clean up and they like to play together, lots of drawing, lots of puzzles, lots of dolls, lots of stuffie animals

2: naptime for my girls while I do some chores or whatever

3: we go back to school to get the `big kids` (ages 11, 9, and 7)

4: they usually get to watch a tv show (another 15-20 min minutes) while I work on dinner. My big kids usually do their homework or play.

5: dinner for everyone

6: more playtime — daddy usually gets home so they love to play with him. we usually do `quiet play`after dinner (so books or imagination games or singing or whatever – something to get them starting to wind down for bedtime)

7: bedtime routine starts: bathtime, brushing teeth, etc. My little two are in bed by 7.30, my 7 yr old is in bed around 8, and my big girls are in bed at 8.30

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I have 27 month old (2 1/4 year old) twin boys.

We also go to bed late and wake up late. Hubby leaves for work around noon and gets home around 11pm. For awhile I was keeping the twins up for us all to eat dinner together, but that was getting too crazy with them not getting to bed til after midnight.

Typical day this week:

8:30am – I wake up shower, walk dog, start coffee etc.

9:30am – wake twins and play / snuggle

9:45am – breakfast and 20m TV

10am – get ready to head to YMCA or to a playdate, museum etc.

10:30am – they play at the Y while I workout for 2 hours, or we have fun at the playdate, zoo, various museums, YMCA pool etc.

12:30pm – lunch in the car while I drive my carpool job (TVs in the car, we are working on sight words now with the Preschool Prep Co. DVDs)

2pm – Back home and free play 30m or 20m TV while I clean up a little

2:30pm – nap with about 10 minutes bedtime stories

5pm – dinner and 20m TV

6pm – YMCA pool or playground or stay inside and do arts and crafts, or do something messy just outside our apartment. They eat again while we are out.

8pm – dog park with our pup. I’ve been leaving the twins in the car while I run in and grab the dog and we drive down there, or if we are already home we take the stroller and walk down.

9pm – back home and bathe the twins.

9:30pm – they mostly free play while I clean up a bit

10pm – 20m TV before bed

10:20pm – bedtime after about 20m bedtime stories, work on sounding out words for about 10m

Basically there are 2 outing times, but sometimes we stay in for 1 of them. We go to the dog park everyday these days because we have a new not yet completely housebroken dog. The YMCA is our preschool alternative. It gives them some socializing away from mommy time, and I get some much needed exercise! The pool there is also very toddler friendly, so we go to the Y a lot, often twice in one day.

We are a bit TV heavy, but the TVs in the car play basically memorization DVDs, and half of the other TV they watch helps them learn to read (SuperWhy and the Leapfrog word factory DVD). They also pick 1 show a day on their own that they want to watch. Tonight it was Chuck and friends (they love trucks), yesterday it was Diego.

I know TV should be kept to 1 hour a day, we pretty much do that except for the TV in the car, but I don’t think staring out the windows is really THAT much better than TV in the car, and they stare out the windows and point out big rigs etc. even with the TVs on. We have netflix online through the Roku, which is GREAT for watching kids shows as they are always there whenever you hit play!

I need to clean the house for 1.5 hours a day, and keep their nap time to myself. Some days I just clean for 1.5 hours straight and let them have free play with a little TV when they start to get fussy, but lately I have been breaking it up into 2-3 cleaning sessions (enough time to pick up toys, vacuum, do dishes, and do 1 load of laundry). I find if we don’t get out of the house the TV tends to be on too much, and I refuse to let it be on for more than 2 hours a day (outside of the ones in the car).

I have a 7 month old, a just turned 2 year old and a 3 year old.

Wake up, change diapers, wash faces and hands, eat breakfast, get dressed, brush teeth.

Outside time! My kids would live outside if I let them and it’s really good for them to get that energy out! Good time to teach about putting our own shoes on. 🙂 We sing the colors song while we’re out there. We go to parks or nature centers at LEAST 3 times a week.

Inside for lunch. Clean up, then nap time.

FUN TIME! Easy crafty things, play dough, coloring, singing nursery rhymes, playing with flash cards. Every once in a great while I let them watch a short kids movie, like Veggie Tales or Thomas, stuff like that. Work on letter recognition and they’re both working on spelling short words.

During the middle of the day (usually around 3 pm), they like to have a little snack, crackers and cheese, or carrots etc and, I like to allow them one glass of juice, then water after that.

One thing I find they REALLY like to play with is cups and tupper ware. They like to stack them and put things in them and really just figure out interesting things to do with plastic cups. We talk about colors and shapes and stuff with those.

We read stories, around 3-5 kids books a day and it depends on them if they want to read them all at once or if they’d rather have a couple here and one there etc.

Everyday is different from the last, but I try to keep a semblance of order, haha! I reserve some days to go visiting with family and/or friends. And shopping days or days to go on fun kid outings like the zoo or the children’s museum.

And, never forget the importance of play dates! Have at least one a week, it teaches them how to cope with other children in their space, and they learn to play nicely with others.

My 2-year-old is a little mommy, she wants to play with dolly all the time!

Then at some point Daddy comes home. I give him about half an hour of quiet time, then hand the kids over and take some me time!