Time Managment And Parenting
How To Get Your Child Into A Successful Routine
Time Management is not a super common term in the parenting self-help world, but it should be! Whether you cant get your kids to eat, sleep, or stop crying in a car seat, time management is often, (not always) the culprit. I have worked with children for over ten years: As a Care Provider, Teacher, and Parent. I am still amazed at how simple solutions are, and how over complicated they are made to be. The thing is, if your child won't eat, he or she is probably not hungry. If your child does not sleep at nap time, he or she may not be tired. If the car seat is your infant's nemesis, they may need more opportunities to wiggle before they are buckled in.
The key to a good parent-child relationship is trust and obedience. Your child must trust you and must obey you. If you are laying your toddler in a crib when they have only been awake for two hours, they begin to question you. When you allow them to become overly hungry, they wonder about your authority, "maybe this lady (or guy) doesn't know what's going on?" So the solution starts with anticipating your child's needs, meeting them, and then managing them.
Children are simple. They need to eat when they are hungry, sleep when they are sleepy, play when they have energy and must have enough mental stimulation to advance to the next developmental step. Let me be clear: Not too much sleep, or too much food, or too much playing, or too much stimulation. There are other "per child needs" for example: Your child may be introverted or shy and need more calm time in between social situations. Your child may be more extroverted and hungry for social stimulation. However, those are for another blog!
Time Management and Sleep
We don’t sleep well if we are not tired. We don’t sleep well after lazy unproductive days. Our kids have all the same struggles we do. The first key to successful sleep is making sure kids are tired:
Infants should be awake for 1-3 hours before a nap.
Toddlers should be awake for at least 5 hours before napping or bedtime.
If your older child is not falling asleep at night, then wake them up earlier in the morning.
Time Management and Mealtimes
If you eat at 6 pm and your children don’t want what you have prepared, that probably means that they are not hungry. Assuming we are all trying to accommodate everyone’s taste buds (within reason). All things considered, when you are actually hungry, food tastes better.
Make sure your child has had up to 2 hours without caloric beverages such as milk or juice. True thirst is satiated by water. If they don’t want water, then they aren't thirsty. Your the parent, Just say No.
Generally, children need to eat every 3 hours. So if 2 hours doesn't seem to solve the problem, then push it back to 3. If you don’t have control over their snack time due to daycare or school schedules, then move your dinner meal forward to make the time gap.
Time Management and Commuting
Time in the car seat can be hard on kiddos. The 5 point harnesses are amazingly safe, but are also quite uncomfortable. Here are a few ideas to help them through it.
If you have an early commute and a night owl, it may work to put your little one in their seat first thing, before breakfast, with a cup of milk.
You may have a morning person on your hands who would like an hour in the morning to eat and then run around. (that's fine, put them to bed earlier the night before.) Kids need enough sleep to wake up happy.
Usually, parents don't struggle with the evening ride home because the kiddos have had a long day at work (just like you) and are pleased to rest in the car or chat about their day. (whether said chatting is decipherable or not.) However, having special toys that are only available in the car can give them something to look forward too as well.
Time Management and Bedtime
Your child cannot watch cartoons until he or she falls asleep. Its science, that blue light messes with our brain chemistry. They need a routine that tells their brain its bedtime. This idea is very similar to muscle memory, and we have all heard about our internal time clock. You are hurting your efforts if you aren't using these mental cues to your advantage. Here are some good evening cues:
Take a bath or shower every night. Do they need this every night? NO! However, it tells their brain that it is almost time for bed.
Thirty minutes to an hour of wind down activities. Whether you snuggle in for a bedtime story or or give them a bin of books to flip through in bed, this quiet time will save you a few tip toes out of the bedroom to ask for a million and one things.