My family is a unit that thrives on routine. We really do. All of us are creatures of habit and our routines help us get through the day. Sometimes, though, our routines dictate the day. How many times have I cut an activity short because nap time for my 2 year old is approaching and we need to stick to the routine? 

More than I care to admit. 

My husband and I have worked so, insanely hard to give our child the gift of sleep. It was almost a year before our son slept through the night and once we got to that milestone, we did not want to go back. There are other parts of our routine that I like to stick to though because I’ve seen the outcome when we don’t. Such as meal times. When meal time is earlier or later than our routine… it causes chaos. Straight up chaos.

Eat too early and you are the snack dispensary for the rest of the day. Eat too late and you have a very upset toddler who is unable to self-regulate until they are fed… and maybe not even then. We are also potty training our son so adjusting his eating time also adjusts his poops… yup.. Food in and food out. 

It’s a very fine line to balance with having some structure and predictability as well as flexibility. 

This week, I’ve been feeling restless and tired of the same old same old routine. Maybe it is because I feel that summer is coming to a close, or I just literally want to get out of my house. Whatever the reason, I decided to intentionally change the environment around our routine this week. 

I still kept our routine but I changed how we did our routine this week and I feel like a new person. Let me share just one example of how I changed the environment around our routine and what happened because of it. 

Yesterday, I was done with work early and I decided to take my son to the beach at 330pm. Dinner for us is usually at home and at 5pm. So going to the beach at 330pm seemed kind of silly because by the time we got there and started having fun, it would be time to leave to go home and have dinner. Instead, we played and played and played some more. Instead of going home for dinner, I decided to go downtown Grand Haven and pickup takeout. I put in the food order when we were at the park so it would be ready when we arrived. 

We found the perfect parking spot across from the Toasted Pickle, then walked down to the channel where there is the perfect place to sit in the grass and have a picnic. We watched the boats float through the channel and out to Lake Michigan while we had dinner instead of going home.

Just doing that felt like a vacation. Even though I kept to the routine of having dinner at 5pm, I changed where we had dinner and that made such a big difference in the experience. My son, Jay, was really engaged with watching the boats and he ate all of his food while sitting still - which is so rare for him to sit still. 

After dinner, we went for a walk on the boardwalk, jumped down a ton of stairs, watched a huge freighter go through the channel, and rounded the evening off with ice cream and a local splash pad. All without going home, all by just enjoying a change of environment. 

Spending that evening with my son made me feel better. I was craving more freedom and less structure. I am so glad that I made the conscious decision to just go somewhere else to have dinner. It turned into a very memorable evening. Now, I’m thinking about other parts of our routine that we can switch up the environment… who knows what we will try next.

If you are looking for routines and schedule examples with fillable worksheets, checkout my Routines and Schedules for Newborns to 2 Year Olds resource.