A friend asked me recently, “What does a typical day look like for you?”
I can’t recall being asked that question before. She wanted to know what I did all day long at home with two kids, and how I juggled the demands of motherhood, homeownership, marriage, and dance.
So here I share with you, what a typical day looks like in the Dersch household.
8:00am: L wakes up and comes into my room. C usually wakes up around this time, too. I nurse C and L eats a granola bar to tide her over, and I get ready for the day.
8:30am: Head downstairs, change diapers, let out the birds for the day (Onni and Loki, our cockatiels, and Ahti, a green-cheek conure). We talk about our day.
9:00am: Breakfast. We usually eat different things, I don’t make a formal meal.
9:30am: The girls get some play time while I clean up the kitchen and tidy from the day before.
10:00am: Play time. There’s a good mix of independent play and time I play with the girls. We like to play with Legos, Duplos, play kitchen toys, magnetic play tiles, and play dough, and sometimes we do some coloring, read books, or play a game.
11:00am: Snack time for everyone!
12:00pm: I get C ready for a nap and nurse her. She falls asleep on me then I put her in her room.
12:15pm: L gets settled for some TV time while I get some time to meal plan, attend to house things, catch up on my phone, etc.
12:45pm: C wakes up and we transition to more play time.
1:30pm: Snack time!
2:00pm: We start getting ready for a walk. Everyone needs walk-appropriate clothes, to be well-fed, with full water bottles, shoes on, fresh diapers, sunscreen, etc.
3:00pm: We get to the walk part. L gives turn by turn directions on which way to go. We talk about what we see.
4:00pm: Home again. Unload and head back inside (or play outside a bit first) and have another snack. I like to sit down and rest, as I’ve often been on my feet most of the day until then. Start thinking of dinner…
4:30pm: We call someone for a video chat. My mom, my mother-in-law, or grandma are the usuals.
5:00pm: Start dinner prep. This is usually very slow-going. The girls tend to get hangry, and we are all ready for Daddy to get home. I do a lot of sibling mitigation and holding of a child, which inhibits dinner-making. If dinner has a sauce, needs kale or herbs torn off their stems, or involves the salad spinner, L helps with those things.
6:00pm: My husband gets home from work. Sometimes this is earlier, sometimes it’s later – it’s not very predictable.
6:30pm: We eat dinner around this time; whenever it’s ready or whenever my husband gets home, whichever is later. We all eat the same meal together. When my husband is working overnight, we make boxed macaroni and cheese.*
6:50pm: Play time for a bit while we put dinner stuff away.
7:00pm: Bedtime process begins. Change diapers, put on jammies, brush teeth, read stories, have a bedtime chat.
7:30pm: This is the goal time for L to be in bed and falling asleep. One of us takes C downstairs while the other tucks L into bed.
8:00pm: On a typical night, this is when both girls will be asleep. Usually I nurse C and then put her down in her room. Then, my husband and I process our days together, clean up a bit from dinner, and make plans for what else has to be done before bed.
8:40pm: C wakes up, nurses, and goes back down (hopefully).
9:00pm: We do the tasks that need doing, or if there is nothing pressing (or we are tired), we talk or watch TV.
9:20pm: C wakes again, and nurses before falling back to sleep.
9:30pm: Put the birds to bed, close up downstairs, then head up to shower and get ready for bed.
10:00pm: C wakes up again! I nurse her. This is bedtime for my husband, and I get in bed too and wind down, catching up on messages, looking at the calendar, making plans, following up on emails, and making sure I know what’s on the agenda for the next day or two.
11:00pm: My aimed-for bedtime. Many nights, C will be up again and need to nurse before I can get to sleep. I fall asleep listening to a podcast.
12:00am-8:00am: C wakes up two to three more times during the night. She usually nurses, but sometimes just needs to be snuggled or to have a diaper change. My husband wakes up around 5:30am to head into work.
Then we do it all over again.
Of course, this schedule is not exhaustive. During the day I also nurse C, change diapers, refill water bottles, reach things, tape things back together, answer “why” questions, respond to screaming and crying and pushing, take pictures, check my phone, start laundry, do small cleaning tasks, wash dishes, feed myself, chat with friends and family, add things to my online shopping cart (grocery pickup is amazing), schedule appointments, clean up messes, tidy toys, manage our short-term rental property, pay bills, and more on demand throughout the day. The girls and I snuggle, talk, play, learn, grow, and relax together, too.
You may notice that my day does not have a time set aside for training. That’s because it doesn’t! In this season, I have no set time to work out. Nap time ebbs and flows, and sometimes can be two hours long but usually is not. Evenings are occasionally luckily slow and open, but more often than not we have “life stuff” to take care of, and I also need to connect with my husband in the limited time we have together. My workouts are typically five or six minute EMOMs (every minute on the minute) that my pelvic personal trainer programmed for me so I can fit them in throughout the day. Some days I get a proper session; other days, it’s only a few minutes.
Thankfully, my husband is incredibly supportive of not only me as a person but my dancing pursuit. He tries his best to help me make time for my training. On his day off each week, I get some time to either practice in my garage or rent studio space to dance. When I have a competition, he requests the time off work to make sure he will be home and stays with the girls so I can go. When he can, he helps me get some dedicated work out time throughout the week.
So there you have it – a look into our daily routine.
*A note about feeding kids: If you’re looking for an amazing, helpful, balanced, realistic resource for feeding kids OR yourself AND just learning about nutrition, bodies, and food in general, I highly recommend @kids.eat.in.color. Kids and adults can benefit from her approach and reminders!
