How I Stay Productive with a Baby

Now that I’ve been doing this parenting thing for almost 6 month (and to a fairly easy baby) clearly I’m an expert. Hahaha. But all joking aside, there are certain things I do to stay productive during the day so I can get things done whether it be around the house or in my shop or on the blog. Some days are better than others. Some days are an absolute mess and it’s a struggle to even take a shower. But on the good days, the great days, I can have a clean house, work on the blog, update the shop, get in some knitting time and have some quality time with James.

These are my tips and they work great for me. They may not work for everyone. They surely won’t work if we had more than one kid, and they definitely wouldn’t have worked when James was a newborn. But while he can entertain himself for a short period of time they’re great.

How I Stay Productive with a Baby

Clean when the baby is playing. I choose one or two areas of the house to clean during the day (sometimes if James is in a great mood I’ll clean up the whole upstairs bathrooms included). I put James in his bouncy seat, give him a few toys, put on some Adele (he loves Adele) and start cleaning. I can usually get a good 30-40 minutes out of him. When I notice him getting restless I vacuum. He loves the vacuum, it’s an instant soother.
James is the king of 30 minute cat naps. I hate it. But I’ve learned to deal with it. He’s not a fan of watching me knit on the couch or watching me eat or anything that involves me trying to relax. So this is what I do while he naps. Either food, potty break, or knitting. On a side note, when he was a newborn I would sometimes “sleep when baby sleeps”. But now it’s unrealistic by the time I actually shut my mind off for a nap he’s waking up. So unless I have someone to watch him (when my mom comes to visit) I rarely sleep when baby sleeps.
Develop a routine (or something routine-ish). On the days that I do decide to clean, it’s always in the morning after his first bottle. He’s in the best mood at this time and most willing to sit in his bouncy seat and entertain himself. On the days he wakes up being a monster, I typically don’t clean.
I let him nap where he wants to nap. For the last few months, I would make sure he naps in his crib. I kept reading that this was the best spot, it gets them used to their bed, it’ll make him a better sleeper and so on and so on. And for whatever reason I stuck to it even on the days where I would have to go in there 100 times to soothe him. Then my mom came to visit and while I was cleaning up my craft room, she let him sleep for 2 hours on the couch. That’s right, this I only sleep for 30 mins max kid slept for 2 hours. And she told me that he doesn’t always need to sleep in his bed. I didn’t believe her and thought for sure I was going to ruin this kid by letting him nap in places other than his crib. But I tried it out and it was great. I’ve been letting him take naps where he falls asleep, in his stroller, in his swing, on the couch. They aren’t much longer than 30 minutes but it’s not a struggle to get him to nap. And I don’t waste precious minutes (many many minutes) trying to get him to sleep in his crib. And the great thing is that he lets me know when he wants to sleep in his crib. It’s like no other place will do and the moment I put him upstairs in his bed he’s out. And the bonus is that he’s still a great night sleeper.
He has a bedtime. And a bedtime routine. At about 7:15pm my hubby takes him upstairs and they play on the bed and make a few Facetime calls. This gives me a chance to clean up after dinner and tidy our main living space for the next day. I love this time because all I need is 30 minutes and our main floor is clean and organized and ready for tomorrow. When I’m done I head upstairs, we do bath time (every 2 days), then lotion (well his eczema cream and vaseline), then bottle. Sometimes he falls asleep near the end of the bottle and sometimes we sing him a few songs (Au Claire de la Lune puts me and dog to sleep now) and by 8-8:15 he’s out. and he sleeps for the most part for 11 or so hours. This means that by 8:30 we’re free to get things done. I usually knit or work on blog posts while we try to catch up on our TV shows and try not to fall asleep before 10pm.
This brings me to mornings. I wake up before James does. Every week day. I get up at around 6am and he will wake up anytime between 715 and 745. This gives me about an hour to work on whatever I choose. It gives me a chance to have a coffee, plan our day and actually wake up nicely. And on good days, he wakes up all chatty and playing with the one light up toy that I put in his bed (my mom said he must be so lonely in his cage with no toys — so now he has one toy in there). I’ve grown accustomed to these morning and feel somewhat cheated when I accidentally sleep in or James wakes up early. So when I get them I cherish them.