This month at our local Godly Encouragement for Moms GEMS® meeting a panel of Moms shared about their routines. I was asked to present my routine ideas based on my situation of a Mom who works part time outside the home. We have a 2 year old daughter, Isabelle, and I am a dental hygienist 2 days a week. My mother-in-law takes care of Isabelle one day a week, and my husband does the other on his day off.

I am going to split the talk I gave into 4 posts, so look for the rest of it, but this post is about how I work out my routine with my mother-in-law -”Mimi”. While we don’t agree on everything one thing we absolutely do-she adores Isabelle! Even before she was born Mimi agreed to come to our Prep for Parenting class, and for the most part she has honored us on eating and napping times. We are careful to choose our battles wisely, and try to be honoring in our requests of her as we remember Mimi has already raised 3 children!

Mimi began keeping Isabelle at 3 months old and by that point we had her basic eating/napping routine established. As Isabelle has grown from a baby into a toddler her routine has transformed many times, and we keep Mimi aware of changes. There are a few things we feel are very important to maintain in Isabelle’s routine while at Mimi’s.

First is Nap-this is a non-negotiable because we don’t want to come home to a grumpy baby. Nuf said there.

Second, we are clear on a few health and safety issues that may have changed in recent years such as sunscreen and bike helmets. Nutrition is important to us, and we bring her food, however two young adults still live at Mimi’s so there’s alot of junk available. Finally, we have requested limited TV watching-once Isabelle turned two we incorporated a video time into our routine after nap and Mimi does this also.

As for training times in our routine, when we are working on a specific behavior with Isabelle we gently make suggestions, such as “Yes Mimi, coming”. Weekly we have dinner with the in-laws and my husband and I are careful to model our training in front of Mimi so she can see ( and hopefully reinforce) our methods.

The biggest concern we have at this point is that when Isabelle is at Mimi’s her life is full of choices. Mimi asks Isabelle’s opinion on everything, and waits on her hand and foot! As you may know that makes for quite a demanding child at the end of a long work day for Mommy. Also its clear Isabelle misses me but instead of being lovey dovey she often acts out so she can get some negative attention. So how do we handle it all?

We do gently ask Mimi to limit choices, but practically speaking here’s what has helped us most.

First, I pray on my way home from work for an extra touch of patience. Next, we try to make the transition home as happy and smooth as possible. Then Mommy and Isabelle have some positive one on one time-just 10 minutes or so but no interruptions. Finally, Isabelle gets to help me make dinner and we all sit down together to review our day. Shawn and I are committed to couch time, and we are a little more lenient knowing that we are all tired at the end of the day.

If you are reading this and thinking Wow, must be nice to work so little, what about Mom’s who financially must work full time. Let me share with you some kind words of advice Gary Ezzo gave to a working Mom in our GKGW class. “You can still reach your parenting goals as a working Mom, but because you have limited time its just going to take you a little longer.”

Let’s all value every minute we have with our children, use it wisely to train their sweet little hearts, and trust God to give us that extra measure of grace we need.

Other related posts in this series:

Structure & Routine Series Introduction

Routine Ideas Part 2

Routine Ideas Part 3

Routines and Temperaments

Structure and Routine with Special Needs

Structure and Routine with Special Needs Part 2

Structure and Routine - Children in School

Structure and Routine Tips