Are you planning to have a well structured baby routine or plan? The early you start, the more organized & stress free your life will be.
I remember when I became a mom, I used to wonder how I will plan my days now. Babies are really unpredictable in nature. During the early days they sleep most of the time and wake up only to take feed. After a few months they start recognizing their surroundings & that curiosity makes them awake. Now this is the time to plan their day schedule so that you can be sure about how you are going to deal with your daily routine work as your previous routine won’t workout anymore. You have become a parent now. Your priorities are changed. So lets create a schedule that goes well with your little one.
First, you need to observe their current routine & signs like what time the baby wakes up, How long their nap time is? What time gap between two meals or feeds? When do they poop usually? And at last what time do they sleep? etc.
Let me tell you what I did while planning my daughter’s schedule. I write down the timing of every activity in a journal and I observed her routine for approximately one week. This made me analyze how I can plan her schedule which is almost similar to her current schedule, by doing this I can be rest assured that I am not disturbing or changing her schedule completely which will make it difficult for both of us to adapt. So now after observing and noting down the baby’s daily routine, we can proceed further creating a proper daily routine.
Here is an example of a daily routine for a kid, but let me tell you everyone is free to create their own routine as per their kids behavior.
Their day plan will definitely not go to work for long term because as your kid is growing their routine will change. They might take less nap time and include more play time, etc. So you will have to rearrange the schedule according to age. Let me tell you that setting up a kids routine is not that easy. There will be hurdles but be punctual and follow the routine. For example if wake up time is 8 am then make sure they are up by that time. Same way breakfast, lunch, nap time, play time, dinner and sleep time should not be changed as it will make them confused and they won’t be able to be comfortable in particular routine for long. Any habit or new routine takes time. You need to be consistent and strictly follow that.
In my case what I do is, I always keep her breakfast, lunch & dinner ready on time, no matter how busy my day is. I never make her routine get disturbed because of my schedule or extra work load. I remember that I used to change her routine after every 5-6 months till the age of 4 years. Because kids grow so fast that you can’t say their routine will be the same. When she was 1 year old then she used to sleep a lot but as she grew up her play time increased. Later when 2 ½ she started going playgroup and her routine has new slots of School and Homework. Study got entered and now her playtime also has study with fun activities.
So all you have to do is make sure you plan their day well that keeps them busy throughout the day and a well structured routine teaches them discipline.