In our house, our evening routine starts at 5:15 PM when we walk in the door. We get home, change, and eat dinner (Monday-Thursday my in-laws cook since they are already at our house watching the kids).
At 6 PM, my in-laws leave, and if the kids need baths, it’s bath time for Mav. He gets a quick bath and then jammies, lotion, and a few minutes of playtime. Once he’s out, Harlyn gets in the bath.
By 6:30 (or 6:45 if we’re behind!), we’re offering Mav his last cup of milk, and then we brush his teeth and put him to bed. We hold him for a few minutes in his bedroom and then lay him down with his pacifier. He falls asleep within 10 minutes, and we don’t hear from him for 12-13 hours. (Let’s all throw up some praise hands for that, shall we!?!) Mav seems to go through phases where he likes one parent to put him down more than the other, so we switch off on his bedtime duties. Whoever is not getting Mav ready for bed helps Harlyn finish her bath during this time.
On non-bath nights, or when my MIL has already done baths by the time we get home, we use the 6-7 PM hour for PLAY TIME!! When it’s not super hot, we can spend some time outside. When it is too hot to play outside, we will play with both kids in the living room—tag, catch, trucks, or the play kitchen are the go-tos. The cool part about non-bath nights is that it gives us a bit of real QT with both kids, and then once Mav goes to bed, we get extra special time with just Harlyn. It varies on what we do with Harlyn from 6:30-7. Most often, she’ll request Barbies (with me or sometimes with both of us), or occasionally she’ll get to run up to Food Lion with Daddy. Sometimes she’ll want time outside in her Frozen Jeep. I know she cherishes this time, so I try my hardest to remember that she needs me, even when the house needs to be picked up!! And also, it is pretty fun to take 20-30 minutes and do nothing except plan Barbie and Skipper’s next adventure with my favorite 4 year old. ☺
At 7 PM (or 7:15), Harlyn is getting jammies on, going potty, brushing teeth and “watching videos” –which is her using her Kindle to watch Caillou. (SIDE NOTE: WHO ELSE HATES CAILLOU?? WHY, OH WHY, IS HE SO WHINY?) Brandon and I use the 30 minutes that Harlyn watches videos to clean the house, start any lingering laundry, etc. We can get the house pretty decent in one Caillou episode.
Then at about 7:45, Brandon, Harlyn and I go to Harlyn’s room and read 2 books, one Bible story, and do her Veggie Tales Devotional.
Around 8 PM (sometimes more like 8:15), Brandon leaves Harlyn’s room and I stay for a few minutes of “talking” or “asking questions”—she picks the topics usually! After 5-10 minutes, she announces she’s ready to go get Daddy, so we BOTH must get up and go get Daddy from the living room. Then I say my final goodnight to her (well, in theory) and they go hang out for a few minutes, pick out a book, and stuffed animal for her to take to bed, and get chapstick on. On the nights she fights us, this is when she’ll say she needs to go potty, or has an itchy mosquito bite, etc., but thankfully this is not every night.
Generally speaking, our childcare duties end around 8:30 PM, and we plop down to watch TV together. Or during football/basketball season, B watches the game and I read! And although we love and adore our kids, we definitely look forward to bedtime. It’s nice to unwind with a semi-clean house and no kids to chase!!
The other thing I wanted to mention is that I also have been running in the evenings 2-3 times a week, which has altered this just a bit. I don’t run on nights when we are doing baths. So on the nights I do run, we usually get Mav down and then once Brandon and Harlyn are settled into whatever they are going to play, I hit the road. On short runs, this is working wonderfully, because I get back and they are just switching gears from play to potty/teeth. The longer runs we are still trying to figure out. If Mav is really tired and goes to bed at 6:15, then I can run for an hour without it affecting much. But when he’s not down til 6:30 or so, I don’t really have an hour or else it’ll push Harlyn’s routines back too much. So for now, I’ve been trying to do the best I can with the time I have, and then do 6+ mile runs on Saturday mornings.
What does your evening look like? And if you have an tips on how to fit in running/exercise while raising young kids, I am all ears!!
so sweet. i document our routines every once in a while, too. you’ll appreciate them so much as they get older & can remember what that season of life was like. My oldest is 15 now 🙂 such a different routine from when she was itty bitty.
Wahhhh! I can’t believe there will be a time that my kids are 15!! Hehe…and yes, blogging is so perfect for this type of thing!!
This was so fun to read! I enjoy hearing how other families do things. Sounds like you have a really nice routine in place with your kiddos. Yay for your youngest sleeping so long too, that’s awesome!
Thank you–I love reading about “day in the life” type stuff from other mom bloggers!! I will say that there was a time when our routine for actual bedtime was so out of hand (read: LONG), I started hating bedtime. But we seem to have figured it out a little more…WHEW! 🙂 And yes, my little man knows his mama is better when she sleeps LOL!
That’s a great idea about having the older one watch a show and do the clean up too so it’s done once they are in bed! I’mm Going to have to try that tonight.
YES! I hope it works for you! It feels nice to just be done with all the hard work and ready for some ice cream on the couch 🙂
Man this is truly inspirational. Way to go on your evening routine!
LOL–thanks girl! Hopefully you can get your *NEW* routine in place soon 🙂
Love this! Totally using the show for my older while I get my baby ready for bed. 🙂
I hope it’s a game changer for you! Let me know!!
I really liked this post! My night time routines look very similar with my 13 month old except I’m at work at nights 3-4 nights a week & then that’s on daddy haha! I think making time for running constantly (key word) is getting up before the babies as hard as that sounds!
Missy Smith
http://www.Thesimplysmiths.com
Oh my goodness, you are a superhero! 3-4 nights a week?! How do you do it? 🙂 Yeah…I always think running early sounds good, but the thought of going at 5:30 AM when it’s dark out creeps me out a little!!
Oh my goodness you’re an ambitious mama! Unfortunately, I have no tips on working out but I want to be an early riser and do it before the kids get up. I’m so not there yet…one day! I loved reading this post to get a behind-the-scenes look at another family’s nightly routine. My oldest boy is at the phase where he is pulling out all the tricks to procrastinate going to bed which is getting pushed back to about 9pm. It doesn’t leave much personal time in the evenings.
I want to be an early riser too! I think if I could just get up at 5 AM, I could get lots more done in my days!! Yeah, with our four year old we go through times where it’s definitely harder to get her down and she ends up awake til 9 or later! Thankfully, it always resolves itself and we get back to our “done by 8:30” thing !