Stay at Home Mom Archives - Montessori-ish Mom

October 17, 2017 8 Comments

As any parent of young kids knows, nap time is super valuable, and one of the best (only?) times to get things done. I actually find myself wondering how parents get anything done when their kids no longer nap, but I try not to think about that too much.

When I first had James, especially when his naps were often short and unpredictable, I found myself a little frantic during naps. I wanted to get so much done, but my brain was too foggy to remember it all and I wasn’t sure where to begin. Plus I also wanted to just lay down and relax sometimes, but if I did that, I just kept thinking about all of the things I should be doing.

Well I finally have a nap time strategy that works well for me, so I thought I’d share.

1. Make a plan – and write it down

This seems fairly obvious, but it took me a while to actually start doing this. I would come up with a plan in my mind, but I would often forget what it was and I still found myself questioning the best use of the time the whole time he was sleeping.

Now I take a few minutes on Sunday and schedule what I plan to do during each nap time throughout the week. I enter it all in my Google calendar. Jame’s naps aren’t always at the exact same time, but he always takes two right now and they’re roughly at 9 and 1:30, so I just use those times on my calendar.

Obviously things change throughout the week, so each night I look at what I’ve planned for the next day and adjust as needed.

2. Don’t save everything for nap time

Sometimes I’ve planned to get something done during nap time, but then I look around and the house is chaos and I decide to spend *just a few minutes* straightening up. It’s never just a few minutes. Even if it is, that’s still time I could have used toward whatever I planned.

So I really try to do that straightening up when James is awake. It is a more efficient use of my time and I also think it’s beneficial to show even very young children that cleaning up is a part of playing and a part of life. Sometimes it’s comical trying to put things away with my little sidekick following me around “fixing” everything, but I just remind myself that I have all the time I need. I also do things like folding laundry while James is playing next to me. Some chores, like sweeping and mopping, are pretty impossible with a baby nearby, but I am often surprised by how much I can get done while he’s happily playing in the living room or kitchen.

3. Divide the time

I’ve pretty much come to terms with the fact that I will never again be fully caught up on everything, at least not for eighteen years or so. Housework is pretty quickly undone around here, and that’s okay, it’s just part of this (mostly really fun) stage. Still, I don’t want to spend every minute of James’s nap time cleaning, that’s just no fun and it would leave no time for things I love (like writing this blog!)

So I roughly divide what I work on by his two naps. I generally use his morning nap for computer projects, like the blog, freelance writing, working on his baby book, planning trips, emails, etc. I then use his afternoon nap for cleaning and prepping dinner. This helps the house not get too out of control, but also ensures I have time to work on other things.

This also works for me because I’m a big time morning person, so it makes sense to do the things that require thought / creativity in the morning. I think it helps to figure out what time of day you do your best work.

Obviously he won’t always take two naps. When he moves down to one nap, I’ll probably either divide the time in half, or alternate days, depending on how long his nap winds up being.

4. Commit to relaxation

While it’s tempting to use every second of every nap trying to catch up, that would make me crazy. Everyone needs some time to just chill (and we’ve already established we’re never catching up anyway, so might as well take a break).

I usually use at least one Friday nap and read a book. This is one of my favorite times of the week. It feels luxurious to sit with a book in the middle of the morning and it’s something nice to look forward to at the end of the week. Because I’ve planned it ahead of time, I have an easier time just relaxing instead of thinking about everything I should be doing instead.

5. Be flexible

This is definitely the hardest for me. While I do think it really helps to have a plan, obviously baby isn’t in on this plan and he may only sleep for thirty minutes, regardless of what you need to get done.

One thing that helps me with this is setting a minimum nap time.

I didn’t do this when he was younger, and would often wake up crying, but now I pretty much always make nap time at least an hour, even if he wakes up sooner. He stays in his bed until it has been an hour (this isn’t a hard and fast rule, I would certainly go check on him if he was really upset). He usually just talks to himself in his bed when this happens, and sometimes even falls back to sleep!

How do you maximize your time, any tricks?

Are you a morning or night person?

On Staying Home More as a Stay at Home Mom

You would think that being a stay at home mom would mean you’re at home all the time. This is often not the case though and I recently found myself spending less and less time at home.

At night, I would start to get a slightly panicky feeling if we had nothing planned for the next day, and try to think of something we could go do together.

I think this happened for a couple of reasons. James has gotten to an age where it’s really easy to take him out and about. He is also awake for much longer stretches of time now and I think it can be daunting to think about three hours at home with nothing to “entertain” the little one.

Also, while I used to largely sit back and watch James play fairly independently, I had gotten out of the habit of doing this when he started pulling up to stand. I was a little bit terrified when he started pulling up because he would just let go and fall straight backwards and hit his head. So I followed him around constantly. While this may have been necessary for a week or so, it is certainly not necessary any more. He’s super capable of coming down gently and intentionally now and rarely falls. When he does fall, he almost always catches himself with his hands. I just needed to retrain myself to take a step back again and let him be.

I started reading Your Self-Confident Baby, by Magda Gerber, because I was curious about the RIE philosophy and how it was similar to / different from Montessori. I am loving the book and it really reminded me that 1) children need long, uninterrupted periods of time to play and 2) to interfere as little as possible when a child is playing / working on something.

These two things are definitely emphasized in Montessori as well, I just needed a reminder.

So last week, I took a step back. And we were both so much happier. I chose a spot to sit in the room and let him play without hovering to make sure he didn’t fall. He played happily and periodically came over to check in with me. He would usually come over very briefly and climb up on me for a hug before zooming off again. Sometimes he would choose a book for me to read him before continuing on his own. It was so fun and interesting to watch him play.

I also realized, while it seemed like James was getting “bored” playing in his room or playroom for a long stretch of time, I think this was really “false fatigue”.

False fatigue is a term we used to describe how the children behaved late in the work period at school. In a Montessori classroom, the children have three-hour long work periods where they choose work independently. Often around 10 AM or so, some of the children would start to act a little bit crazy and would stop working. They would wander around aimlessly chatting with other children and getting silly. It would seem as if they were done for the morning. In reality, they were a little fatigued from all of their hard work and needed a little help settling back in. After connecting briefly with a teacher, many of the children would settle back in to do some great work. I’ve seen the same thing with James.

He will start “rage crawling” as we call it around the room, not choosing anything and grunting or whining. It will seem as if he’s totally over playing in that room. I’ve found that I can often help him settle back into playing by connecting with him. First, I just talk to him about what I’m seeing, what he may be feeling, and some things I see that he may enjoy doing.

I also find it helps if I put all of his toys back on the shelf where they go. Since he doesn’t yet restore his own toys, the room is a mess after a while. I think it becomes visual clutter to him when everything is on the floor and it’s as if he can no longer see anything interesting to work with. As soon as I put the toys away, he often sees something that strikes his interest.

If that doesn’t work, I’ll read him a couple of books or sing a couple of songs with him and then help him get started playing with something, before backing away and letting him play on his own.

These things usually work really well, unless it’s late in the day, at which point he just may be too fatigued to be as independent as he is most of the time. At that point, I’ll continue reading books with him or singing songs as long as he enjoys doing it, or take him outside for a change of scenery.

When he is playing happily on his own, I try to really observe him, which is a big part of Montessori as well as RIE. Honestly though, I don’t find myself able (at this point at least) to just sit and observe him all morning. So I also bring a book or a notebook and read or write after observing him for a while. I find that if I have nothing else to do, I often wind up jumping in when he doesn’t need my help.

I alternate observing him with reading or writing, and always put down my book as soon as he comes over to me. I choose a book because I at least think that it’s beneficial to model reading and writing, rather than being on my phone. I think that seeing adults read helps children want to read, as they want to do everything we do. I hope that, with practice, I’ll be able to observe him for longer stretches of time.

While this is just a change in outlook, it has seriously made such a difference in our days. I enjoy being with him at home so much more, and I no longer feel like we have to have something to go do every day.

I also believe that a baby is part of the family and that involves compromise. So if I’m going crazy being in the house, I will take him for a walk in the stroller, which he seems pretty neutral about, but I really enjoy. I try though to make sure he has some free time to play in every block of “awake time” throughout the day, and that he has at least one really long stretch of time every day to play freely. So far, so good!

Do you like being home a lot or being out and about more?

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Five Tips to Maximize Naptime

On Staying Home More as a Stay at Home Mom