Creating a Schedule

I am a big scheduler. I like knowing what time I am going to wake up, go to bed, eat meals, do stuff with the kids, do stuff around the house, etc. It helps me because I can work around my natural rhthyms throughout the day. Plus kids really love routine and schedules. They like knowing what to expect. Well my life has been very unscheduled the last year since I was pregnant or a new mom the whole year. I would sometimes go to bed early and/or sleep late or take naps plus my sickenss and/or lack of energy required a lot of sitting and resting so I didn't really do as much as I normall do.

Well now that things are settling down with Nathan and we are going to be getting back to a few things that got put on the back burner for a while - working out, homeschooling, normal cleaning routine - I decided that we needed a new family schedule.

Lee and I sat down when things were quiet and worked out a schedule for our family. I am really excited about it and thought that I would share how we did it.

Since we have 4 people with 4 different schedules and sets of needs, we wrote out what each person did during the course of a day.

Lee's List - Wake Up, Get Ready for Work, Make Breakfast, Lunch, and Snacks, Leave for Work, Drive to Work, Work, Leave Work, Drive Home, Get Home, Eat Dinner, Play with Luke, Help Luke Clean up Toys, Shower and Get Ready for Bed, Bathe Luke, Get Luke Ready for Bed, Put Luke to Bed, Relax/Spend Time with Ashley, Go to Bed

Luke's List - Wake Up, Get Ready, Make Bed, Eat Breakfast, Play Alone, Play with Mommy, Play with Daddy, Homeschool, Arts/Crafts, Watch TV/Movie, Eat Lunch, Read Books, Clean Up Toys, Take a Nap, Wake Up, Eat Dinner, Clean Up Toys, Get a Bath, Get Ready for Bed, Go to Bed

Nathan's List - Wake Up, Eat, Play, Take a Nap (Repeat all day until bed)

Ashley's List - Wake Up, Get Ready, Make Bed, Start Laundry, Wash Bottles/Pumping Supplies, Make Breakfast, Eat Breakfast, Clean Up Kitchen - Dishes/Wipe Down, Feed and Play with Nathan, Workout, Shower and Get Ready, Daily Cleaning, Weekly Cleaning, Finish Laundry, Feed and Play with Nathan, Make Lunch, Eat Lunch, Clean Up Kitchen - Dishes/Wipe Down, Homeschool Luke, Feed and Play with Nathan, Read Books with Luke, Put Boys Down for a Nap, Down Time - Prayer, Devotion, Bible Study, Read, Scrapbook, Blog, Watch TV/Movie, Nap, Feed and Play with Nathan, Play with Luke, Arts/Crafts with Luke, Make Dinner, Eat Dinner, Clean Up Kitchen - Dishes/Wipe Down/Sweep, Feed and Bathe Nathan, Relax/Spend Time with Lee, Feed Nathan and Put to Bed, Go to Bed, Middle of the night feedings (if needed)

Then we put how much time each thing would take (some things we grouped together).

Then we started with our wake time. We decided that Lee, Luke, and I would wake up at 7:00am and do our morning things and then I would wake Nathan up at 7:30am and start his routine. Then we decided on a bedtime for each of us. Luke will go to bed at 9:00pm. Nathan, Lee, and I will go to bed at 11:00pm (until Nathan starts sleeping all night). Then we decided on a naptime for Luke (and Nathan). His naptime will be around 2:30pm to 4:30 or 5:00pm. I wanted to have time in the afternoon when both boys napped together so I could have some downtime.

Then we decided on meal times. Breakfast is around 7:30am (yes, I will eat while I feed Nathan for now), lunch is around 12:30pm, and dinner is around 6:30pm.

Then we decided on when we would homeschool, I would workout and shower and get ready, when I would have focused playtime with Luke, and when I would clean and Luke would have alone playtime. We also decided on when the boys would get their baths and factored in time to get ready for nap and bed (clean up toys, read, pray).

I did all of it in an Excel spreadsheet. I put all the time slots (15 minute increments) from 7:00am to 11:00pm and each of our names across the top. I plugged in everything and that way we could see where each person was all day.

That was our basic daily schedule. Our weekly schedule will be the same spreadsheet but with different things added in. For example we go to church Sunday morning from 10:00am until 2:00pm (driving time, church, and we go out to lunch, so I will have that change on the schedule. We will have a different weekend schedule, but will try to keep wake time, bed time, meal times, naps, and Nathan's schedule consistent those days.

If anyone is interested in seeing the Excel sheet, just email me at ashley-webber@hotmail.com and I will send it to you. You can just change it how you need to. It's super easy to use.

NOTE: This is our proposed and ideal schedule. There will probably be tweaks and changes (especially when Nathan goes to a 4 hour schedule or our homeschooling takes more time, etc) and we probably won't follow it exactly each day (hey, that's life), but it is good to know what to expect each day.