Our Daily Routine During Social Distancing

Happy Monday!  Hope you had a nice weekend.  The days seem to be a little hard to keep track of with so many of our regular routines gone.  The kids keep asking the day and are looking for new norms to mark time by.  We have started a birthday countdown for Fletcher - 6 days until his 4th birthday!  And talk about what day it is often.

I keep seeing  lots of scheduling related posts on social media.  They seem to fall into two camps:
1. VERY detailed home schedules or 2. No schedule at all.

The days are usually mapped out for every 30 minutes and are jam packed with very specific tasks.  Or you'll see moms campaigning for you to just survive the days and have no plan for the day.

I love routines and schedules, but honestly, this strict schedule sounds awful for my family.  My kids don't want to be bossed around all day and I don't want a schedule to rule our lives.  That feels like a good way to steal joy from our moments together.  It also sounds terrible to just wing it every day and hope for the best. 

We are taking things ONE DAY AT A TIME 
and doing our best to be thankful for the gift of time together.

So instead of a strict schedule, we have started to establish daily ROUTINES.

These things usually happen in a predictable order, just like during the regular school year, but I'm not a stickler for the event time or activity.

Our Daily Routine.

We don't set alarms.  Wake up when you wake up.

Eat breakfast - something quick during the week and a hot breakfast on the weekend.

Watch a show or two.

Play in your pjs.

Get ready for the day.  This includes getting dressed, brushing teeth, doing hair, tidying up your bedroom and making your bed.

Do some school work.  Learn together.  We don't currently have any elearning in place in our district so I'm doing my best to remember how to be a first grade teacher pulling all the resources for Olive for the coming weeks.  I made Olive a checklist that has been just the right amount of structure for her.  I slid it into a plastic sleeve and she checks things off with a dry erase marker every day.  She's the boss of her days and picks the order she wants to do her first grade learning options.  I lay out printables, workbooks, books, pull up websites and materials for her to use.  She picks the order.

Tidy up.

Play outside.

Eat lunch together.

Play / watch a show / art / screen time / music / free choice.

Chores.  Projects.  Mom business.

Dinner prep.  Tidy up.

Get outside.

Dinner.

Family time - games, game shows, books, etc.

Baths/showers.

Tidy up.

Bedtime.

Grown ups stay up later, debrief about our days, watch some news (we don't watch news or openly talk about current events around our young kids during the day.  It's just too much for them to process.  We feel like it's our job to shield them from the details right now) and then head to bed.


Our routine is nothing fancy, but it's become predictable and routine in a VERY unpredictable time in our lives.  While I don't have a long term game plan or long term answers about social distancing, I do feel good about establishing norms and routines for my family.  Olive told me she had a great day at Mom School on Friday and Fletcher has said several times that having Olive home makes it THE BEST DAY EVER!!  We're doing just fine!!

Kevin is still working right now.  He's our designated errand runner and is the only one going out and about much.  Who's home at your house?  I'd love to hear about your daily routines during these unprecedented social distancing times.

What things are you doing to make your days feel more normal??

Thinking of all of you across the country and sending happy, healthy vibes your way!!