Time Management for Moms

This post was primarily written for stay at home moms, but I believe it is applicable to all moms. Because after all, even if you don't stay at home you still have a big job to do at home. How do you mange it all??? See some tips below.

• Focus more on having a routine than following a schedule.  Children are comforted by routine. A schedule may work for two days until your baby hits a growth spurt and needs to nurse constantly or your toddler gets sick and refuses to sleep.  
• Plan your days so that one thing usually follows the other and keep it consistent.  
• Keep meal times as consistent as possible for toddlers.
• Have a solid bedtime routine, even if you co-sleep.
• Relax about the housework.  Your house isn’t suppose to be perfect when you have small children.  Even if it was perfect, it wouldn’t be that way for long.  Shoot for one chore per day that is not dishes or laundry.  If all you can do in a day is dishes and laundry, then just do dishes and laundry!
• Make weekly (or monthly if you are an ambitious mama!) meal plans!  Yes.  Do it. Love it.  Okay, you don’t have to love it, but do it anyway.  (Seriously, if you struggle to make meal plans, all is not lost.  Holistic Squid has done it for you.  Check out Paleo meal plans! and 100 regular meal plans here )
• Plan one or two “errand days” per week and limit errands to those days.  Leaving the house five out of seven days per week makes you feel like an In-The-Car mom instead of a Stay-At-Home mom!
• Don’t feel compelled to answer the phone just because it rings.  Friends and family tend to feel it’s okay to call stay-at-home moms anytime of the day simply because they are home.  If I tried to have a phone conversation while my boys were still babies and toddlers, the house would have fallen down around me!  Plan a time each day when your partner is home or after the children are asleep to return phone calls.
• Be strict with yourself about media usage.  It is easy to spend hours online with only one eye and ear attuned to your little ones.  Don’t miss their lives because you are staring a screen. 
• Implement a daily quiet time for preschoolers.  Toddlers and babies nap during this quiet time.