A mom’s daily routine can be super stressful. For many moms though, the evening routine can feel like the most pressure. The evening routine for working moms as well as for stay at home moms (SAHMs) can lead to such exhaustion and tension that no amount of sleep helps you to recover from it before you wake up to do it all again the next day! Getting your weekday evening routine down is vital for your family life.
In this article, you will find seven sample weekday evening routines that you can try out for your family.
Try a few of them out till you are sure that you have settled on the perfect one.
Before we move on to the sample routines though, perhaps you are wondering why a family’s evening routine needs to be so well defined.
Why is the evening routine so important?
The evening routine is so important particularly for a family with kids because sleep is so important. The evening routine after school can set the tone for how good your family sleep is and therefore for how well the next day will go.
Getting sufficient sleep is essential for being able to handle whatever the day throws at you.
How to have a good evening routine
In order to have a good evening routine, you must ensure that you have the following in place:
- The right tools and materials. It starts with the most basic tool: clocks or watches around to monitor the time. You cannot adhere to a routine if you are not conscious of the time.
- The right attitude. In order to create the most realistic weekday evening routine for your family, you have to be realistic, flexible and disciplined. Realistic because you must manage your expectations. Flexible because as with all things to do with kids, nothing is set in stone and things can change from one minute to the next. Disciplined because there is no point in creating a routine if you do not even try to stick to it.
How long should an evening routine be?
Your evening routine should ideally start from the time your kids get home from school and end when you get them in bed at night to sleep. That can be anything from 3-5 hours.
Realistically, your weekday evening routine can turn out to be even longer than that if you have a lot of necessary things to do as part of that routine.
Also, if you have kids of different ages, they may have such vastly different bed times that you are unable to do some parts of their bedtime routines at the same time. This stretches out the evening even further.
READ: The Best Hacks for Dealing with Two kids Under Two!
Keeping a house with toddlers can also make your weekday evening routine challenging if cleaning up and tidying are highly important to you. You may feel the need to spend a lot of time tidying up after them which means that you will be dedicating a larger chunk of your evening to cleaning.
For that reason, it is important that you adapt each of these example evening routines appropriately for your own family life. There may be some things that you must do each evening that lengthen your routine or add extra steps to whichever sample routine you settle on.
Do not be afraid to cut out unnecessary duties from your weekday evening if it means that you all get more sleep that way.
Here are 7 sample weekday evening routine options which will make your evenings feel less tiring.
7 Sample Weekday Evening Routines for Tired Moms with multiple kids
The routine you settle on may need to be adapted slightly for various reasons. This is when you must be both flexible and disciplined.
The after school routine for working parents, for example, may be a little different from that of parents who work from home or stay at home throughout the day.
Whichever one you choose and regardless of how many tweaks you need to make, try to keep your evening routine after school simple.
Routine 1
- Small portions of snacks for each kid
- Put them together either on the couch or on the floor to watch tv or in a playpen
- Prepare dinner
- Dinner for all of you
- Put them all in a contained safe space again to play a little
- Tidy up – stack the dishwasher or do a little washing up, load the washing machine, sweep up dirt, crumbs
- Go over homework
- Run a bath for all the kids together or start with the kids who do not have homework to do
- Read them a story and tuck them into bed
- Tidy up the bathroom post-bath
- Prepare school bags and uniforms/school clothes for the following day
- Go back to check up on the kids
- Get ready for bed yourself/have some alone time
Routine 2
- Homework/colouring/quiet play for smaller kids while you prepare dinner
- Settle down for dinner together
- Stack the dishes or do the dishes with help from older kid(s)
- Put the kids in a safe area to play together
- Tidy up and clean up a little
- Run a bath for the kids together
- Read a bedtime story and tuck them in
- Tidy up bathroom
- Have some alone time before bed
Routine 3
- Bath time for everyone as soon as they are all home from school or daycare
- Homework/colouring/quiet play for smaller kids while you prepare dinner
- Family dinner time
- Playtime/more time to complete homework while you tidy up
- Lay out school clothes for following day
- Bath time and bedtime story before tucking them in
- Get yourself ready for bed
Routine 4
- Make dinner while kids play together in safe space
- Family dinner time
- Do some laundry/stack dishwasher while kids watch television or play together
- Tidy up
- Prepare school clothes for following day
- Bath time for all kids
- Bedtime story before tucking them in
- Get yourself ready for bed
Routine 5
- Make dinner while the kids play
- Play with the younger kid(s) for a few minutes
- Family dinner time
- Bath time
- Homework time/Read bedtime story to younger kids
- Tuck kids in for bed
- Do some cleaning and tidying up
- Have some me-time before bed
Routine 6
- Make dinner with kids playing in a safe area
- Dinner time as a family
- Tidy up and clean a bit while kids watch tv
- Prepare for tomorrow’s breakfast and school lunches as much as possible
- Bath time for all kids
- Prepare school bags and uniforms/clothes for next school day
- Reading and independent play for older kids while you put younger kids to bed
- Check up on older kids and tuck them in if necessary
- Get yourself ready for bed
Routine 7
- Screen time for all kids while they snack/quick nap for much younger kids
- Speed clean/tidy up
- Prepare dinner
- Do some laundry
- Dinner time as a family
- Bath time for younger kids then put them to bed
- Bath time for older kids then bedtime story before tucking them in
- Prepare school clothes for the following day
- Get yourself ready for bed
Which of the 7 weekday evening routines above work the best for yourself and your family?
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