Looking to add a little more structure to your home life? Here are 7 of my homemaking routines!
Life is chaotic. It’s uncontrollable for the most part, but as homemakers, we are given the choice to either steer our home lives away from the chaos or to let it drown our very existence. One very effective way to bring order to our lives is through our homemaking routines.
I’ve been contemplating on the truth that God is a god of order. 1 Corinthians 14:40 says…
“Let all things be done decently and in order.”
This means that it is our calling as christian homemakers to bring order to our chaotic home lives. The simple truth that we often struggle with though is that because we live in a fallen world with fallen beings, there will not be an end to wrangling the chaos into order until we reach heaven.
There is no magic routine that will conquer our chaos once and for all. Part of being a homemaker is surrendering to this truth, but there is also hope that we are not called to fix our entire life’s problem with chaos today or even in the current season we are in. There is peace to be had and delight to be enjoyed that we are only responsible to address today and let tomorrow take care of itself.
It’s okay if the routine you are living out now morphs by tomorrow when your child start teething again, when you have another child, when you move, or when life changes in some other way. It’s perfectly normal for a new season to come with new challenges that call for new solutions.
I was frustrated for a good long while as a homemaker because I thought I had solved my chaos problem. I thought I had successfully arrived because I had implemented good routines into my homemaking and then life changed and my routines no longer worked for me to the same degree as they did before. It felt like I was starting over in many ways and it was discouraging.
If you find yourself struggling with your routines or struggling with implementing routines for the first time, I pray you find encouragement in that you are not alone in this struggle. This is a common struggle and challenge for all homemakers alike, especially those with small children.
You didn’t fail. You didn’t choose bad routines. You just have to surrender your homemaking to God, tie on your apron once more, and keep at it. It’s not about arriving, but striving day in, day out.
We may not be able to completely erase chaos from our lives, but we sure can enjoy a life with whole let less of it. Here’s one set of my homemaking routines that I very much enjoyed keeping and that brought a lot of order and peace to my home.
Morning Routine
Do you love reading other homemakers morning routines? I do even though I have a simple morning routine in place. Seeing how other busy homemakers do to prepare for another wonderful day of homemaking is always inspiring!
Mornings can be such a struggle, but having a simple morning routine is a game changer. Not only will this morning routine help you get up early, but it will also help you get a head start on homemaking before your kids wake up. And who doesn’t want to be ahead?
I know for me that a productive morning leads to a productive day so here are my 5 simple morning routine ideas to help you be a more productive homemaker!
Read the full morning routine here!
Evening Routine
You have been working hard all day caring for your family and home. At the end of the day, you don’t need to do more housework if you can help it. Sure, you might have to wash dishes or sweep under the table, but this is not the time to catch up on all the stuff you couldn’t get done during the day.
It’s time to do what needs to be done, enjoy a meal, clean up the kitchen, and then just relax.
Here’s what we strive for in our evening routine as a family.
Daily Routine
Structuring your days as a homemaker can really help you be productive. There’s so much to do and having a flexible daily routine cuts down on the stress, too. My daily routine is like a template that makes time for all my duties and some hobby time, but it’s still flexible enough to stand up to all the chaos that children can bring.
Weekly Routine
As I learn and strive to be the keeper of my home, I find it ever so necessary to have some sort of system to help things run smoothly and to actually get things done. Unfortunately, I am one of those people who can make lists all day long, but to get around to accomplishing all those things is a vice of mine.
There is no doubt that most homemakers can relate to how hard it is to get every single thing done that we think ought to be done. There is a quote from a vintage homemaker from the late 1800’s that says it best.
“It is almost appalling to look at the list of daily duties of the household, when one remembers that it frequently happens that there is but one part of hands to do all the work; yet there are thousands of women who are well and happy in passing their lives that way, knowing that they contribute to the health and comfort of their families. If there be a system in doing the work, that burden will be materially lighter.” ~ Miss Parloa’s Young Housekeeper, 1893
All the work that we as housekeepers must do can easily be laborious and discouraging to think about, but if we create a simple system that can hold all our responsibilities, then we can more easily and joyfully succeed in our role as keepers of the home.
It has been my quest to create a system that helps me as the homemaker and my household flourish. One old fashioned part of this system that can be seen in the lives of homemaker’s in the late 1800’s to the early 1900’s is to have themed days as part of a weekly routine.
Laundry Routine
The struggle to stay on top of the laundry is a common challenge for homemakers. It is a never-ending cycle of dirty clothes, finding the time and motivation to do laundry, sorting clothes, and the constant need to fold and put away clean laundry. Staying on top of the laundry requires consistent effort and organization to prevent it from becoming an overwhelming and time-consuming chore.
Laundry used to stress me out, but then I started a laundry routine. Now it rarely gets out of hand, and even when it does, it is so rare that it doesn’t seem stressful. My brain knows that it’s not the norm now so it’s okay.
There is no right or wrong laundry routine. Some people like to do all of it in one day, but this is the method that helps me flourish and stay on top of the laundry.
Here are the 4 parts that make up my laundry routine…
Dishwashing Routine
Do you dread washing dishes? Maybe you were blessed with a dishwasher…and then it goes out. Now you are stuck with hand washing dishes and you are struggling to be a happy homemaker about it.
Maybe washing dishes takes up way too much time. You want to relax after a good long day of homemaking, but the piles of dirty dishes are staring you in the face.
Did you know that you can actually enjoy washing dishes? Creating a dish washing routine orders this monstrous task breaking it down into manageable bite size pieces so that you can do this task efficiently and joyfully.
2 Year Old Bedtime Routine
Do you struggle to get your two year old to go down to sleep easily? Here’s my two year old bedtime routine that me and my daughter love!
sit down in silence and take a breath, but….the children aren’t in bed yet. It’s highly tempting at this point to rush through the necessary to-do’s of getting your two year old to bed, but take it from someone who has learned the hard way. It’s so much better to slow down and make it a meaningful time.
Let me be real for a minute. Before I started this bedtime routine with my wild two year old daughter, bedtime felt like it was time to go on the warpath, war paint and all! A little dramatic, but bedtime was such a struggle for me.
I was so ready to be done for the day, but it hit me one day that bedtime might be hard because of me and not my daughter. I might actually be the reason it was such a struggle so I decided to do a little experiment and eventually settled into the bedtime routine I’ve shared here.
We were actually doing most of this things before, but not in a set order. Now we do it just like this every night because familiarity calms.
Something else that transformed our bedtime routine was that I had a change of heart. I realized I was being selfish and demanding things be done hastily which never ended well so I decided to loose the war paint and take on a gracious spirit reminding myself to…
- slow down and be patient no matter how long it takes because this brings peace into the situation
- take some time to snuggle and rock with her while singing a few extra songs because this helps us have a wonderful end to our day no matter what the day held
- choose love and kindness in the moment and not my selfish and hasty spirit
It felt like a huge sacrifice at first and I was tempted to think that taking extra time would be a waste because I hadn’t experienced the peace that could be there if I choose to slow down instead of rushing through everything.
It took surrender and honestly still does most nights because I’m still a selfish human being. Bedtime takes a little longer now, but I don’t really mind because a peaceful bedtime is so worth it!
If you’ve struggled with getting your two year old down, here’s my peaceful two year old bedtime routine to inspire and encourage you that you too can have peace at bedtime!
Final Thoughts!
Routines give structure to our days. Structure helps get us into a rhythm and as you live that rhythm over and over again, you start to get familiar with the flow of your life. Familiarity calms and calmer days are peaceful days.
Building in homemaking routines to all the different times of our home life has greatly reduced the chaos of life. We are creatures of habit so a structured life naturally is a more enjoyable one.
If you are struggling as a stay at home mom, I hope these homemaking routines inspire you to give your life a little more structure and enjoy a little more peace.
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