Routines for my Joey

Last Tuesday was another one of those long and taxing days with Josiah and his exuberant amount of energy, so that night during date night, Seth helped me brainstorm what we might do to minimize the frustration and exhaustion surrounding this. In talking to him, I realized that my Joey baby needs some STRUCTURE in his life! I remembered the lessons from BabyWise that I learned when James was a baby. I have let a lot of these principles go with Josiah.

So, I decided that I would create a daily schedule for him, which included independent room time, and see how it goes....

I searched for schedules for 21 month old kids, and found this blog - Chronicles of a Babywise Mom - yes!! http://www.babywisemom.com/2010/07/reader-sample-schedules-12-24-months.html

Here is the schedule I came up with for Josiah:

Josiah’s Daily Schedule:

7am wake
7-9:45am breakfast, bath, free play, chores
9:45am snack
10-10:30am independent room time with music
10:30-11am learning time and reading with mommy
11am lunch
11:30-2pm nap
2-4pm snack, free time, play (outside if possible)
4-4:30pm independent room time with movie
4:30pm play with daddy and James
5pm dinner
6-7:30pm free time, bath (if not this morning)
7:30pm bedtime

On Wednesday, my mom had Josiah in the morning, so I started it on Wed. afternoon. I realize the need for flexibility within this structure, so we changed it a bit to fit the day's needs. He did his movie time from 3:30-4pm, and he did it in brother's high chair (he thinks this is sooo fun, for some reason), and in the living room - not in his room. He did well.

Yesterday (Thursday), we did the whole day's schedule. I was pleasantly surprised to find that he could do the morning room time alone and actually stay there, out of my hair, for a half hour! It was snowing out, and I didn't want to go find the baby gate in the garage, but I decided I better, if this was going to work. I found it fairly quickly and brought it in, only to find that it doesn't fit his bedroom door right, so I just had to lean it there, and tell him not to touch it. Yeah, right....

So, I leaned the gate up against the doorway, told him not to touch it, turned on some music, got out some toys, and then left the room, telling him that it was time to him to play all by himself. I admit that I was one skeptical momma!! I thought I would start out just expecting 15 minutes, and work up to a half hour. I put him in there at 10am. He stayed the entire time until 10:30am, and we didn't even have to work up to a half hour! He didn't touch the gate or try to get out!

Wow.

In the afternoon, I did the movie in brother's high chair in the living room again. This works well. I don't think this necessarily has to be room time, but it does give me a chance to get dinner going.

Today did the morning room time again. He wasn't quite as good about it, because after about 20 minutes, he knocked the gate down, and came out and peeked around the wall in the hallway, to see what I would do. I told him, "no, you're not allowed to touch the gate" -- and went back into his room with him, but the gate back up, and played with him for about one minute, and then left the room, telling him not to touch the gate... about three minutes later, he stood at the gate and said, "momma!"

I came over and asked him if he was ready to be all done. He said yes, so I removed the gate and told him, "Thank you for not touching the gate! Good boy! Yaaayyy!!!"

And he said, "YAAAAAYYYY!"

That was that.

Not bad.

We'll see how movie time goes this afternoon.

Ah, I can see my life getting quite a bit easier now!

Boundaries. That's what he needed.