It is believed that the first 5 years of a child’s life are crucial. This idea can send any parent into panic mode. My son Carter turned 19 months last week and I’ve been feeling the pressure to make sure he’s happy and developing the way he should long before he was born.
I will disclose that I’m just a regular, albeit resourceful, mom. I’m not a licensed educator, child psychologist, or doctor in this field. I just read a lot and learn from each experience.
I’m also an entrepreneur and a blogger and work with no child care during the day. So I guess you can say I am a working-stay-at-home-mom. I work and sleep around his schedule in order to get things done. My husband also has a flexible work schedule and leaves late morning and is back by 4:00 pm every day so I am not entirely on my own.
I first want to say that we are extremely grateful for his sleep schedule. He sleeps at 6:30 pm every night and wakes up at 6:00-6:15 am every morning. After being awake for 3 hours each morning, he goes down for his first nap. If we are lucky, he will take an afternoon nap, but this is becoming less frequent.
The 12 hours per night sleep is wonderful for a thousand reasons. Friends, this was not by chance; we did not get lucky. My husband and I worked at this by developing routines for our son. We got him to this schedule in the most loving and patient way. There was no letting him cry it out – that method in our opinion belongs in the past. All you need is consistency and a lot of patience.
I’ll share how we got him to sleep through the night, uninterrupted, on a different post, but I will leave you with this: develop routines.
Okay, back to the topic at hand – The activities I do daily with my son:
Read – we started a two-person, sometimes three (dad!) toddler reading club (ha!). We are currently reading The Giving Tree also in Spanish (El Arbol Generoso).
Life Skills – We juice and make smoothies together regularly and will be including other meal planning activities as he moves to the next level of difficulty in this area. He also really enjoys cleaning and tidying up; he goes wild over the opportunity to vacuum, unload the dishwasher or load the laundry. He continues to want to repeat these tasks which lets us know that this is what he’s interested in so we allow for repetition until he’s ready for the next adventure.
We turned this Ikea Play Kitchen into a real “starter” kitchen for Carter.
It is his favorite part of the house. I only used part of this set, replaced the toy stove burner with wooden cutting board, and removed the play faucet and replaced it with a drink dispenser where he can learn to wash his hands, wash his dishes, and use as a real sink.
The cabinet space below holds his dishes and eating utensils. It’s probably one of the coolest things we’ve done together.
Get outside daily – We live in Southern California where it’s almost always sunny and make it a habit to go on a family hike, visit a park, the beach, and a dog park at least once each per week. We also walk to the library and have other weekly family learning excursions.
Foreign Language – I try to add one word to his Spanish vocabulary every day. Spanish is my first language and I want to make sure he is bilingual as well. I have family and friends that spoke to their children only in Spanish at first but eventually, that came to an end and children were left understanding the language but not being fully immersed in it. I want to implement a different approach. One that is consistent and easy to manage, so we are starting with one word per day and block an hour each day when all I do is speak to him in Spanish. The rest of the day is a mixture of both languages. I am being intentional with his vocabulary and as soon as he’s old enough (and we are ready) we plan to put him in a bilingual school.
Focused Play – I give him time for independent play without interruption or interference from my part, unless he asks for it. I’ve been working on a Montessori inspired home school and set out 2-3 activities each day for him to engage in at his leisure.
The Montessori philosophy has resonated with my style of parenting and I have made great strides to get into the mindset that my child should be given the opportunity to choose what goes on in his young life. I’m currently reading The Montessori Toddler, a phenomenal book for any parent, teacher or caregiver, even if you’re not a full “Montessorian”. There’s a ton of information available about the teachings of Dr. Maria Montessori if you’re interested. I’ll also share some of the Montessori-friendly-and-inspired products we use at home.
So there you have it, friends! What about you? What’s a day like in your child’s life? Comment below and if you found this post helpful, give it a like, share with a friend and don’t forget to subscribe.
Xo,
Iris
