“And then she realized she was replaceable in every area of her life except her home. So she invested her time, her energy, and her heart wisely.” Jillian Benfield
Welcome to life as a stay-at-home mom where your home is your new office. A large part of the work you do each day will take place inside these walls.
When I became a stay at home mom and was in my home for countless hours a day I realized I needed it to be a place that was orderly, efficient, but more importantly warm and cozy…my nest. The place where I was going to raise my tiny humans from scratch and create lovely memories.
The way my home is set up now is nothing like it was when my kids were newborns. Or when they were 14 months old and had all the mobility of an adult with none of the self-preservation skills required to keep themselves alive. There was a period of time it felt like I was constantly saying, no small human you may not put everything in your mouth that is poisonous or airway obstructing.
When setting up my new home office I focused on the areas where the majority of my work took place. This will look different for everyone depending on the layout of their home and current age of children; however, there are some areas that will be universal.
Childcare Area
“A smaller more manageable quantity of toys invites deeper play and engagement, an avalanche of toys invites emotional disconnect and a sense of overwhelm.” Kim John Payne
I designated an area of my home as a space I could use for my child. It doesn’t have to be a whole room, maybe the corner of the living room or a spot in the kitchen.
Here are a couple of examples of the way I set up my childcare area of the home at different ages and stages…
When Anika was a newborn, we had stations in our living room that we rotated through during the day. She had her tummy time mat, the big comfy chair with a basket of books next to it we read in, the bouncer she sat up in and looked around while I played music, and a diaper changing area. I would rotate her through these stations when she was awake.
As she grew our work area evolved. When she was a little over a year old, we moved to a different house and I turned the room intended to be a dining room into our own small playroom, but really it ended up looking like a small room you would see in a daycare. It had a child size table and chair. A wooden play kitchen. A book shelf with open cubbies where a few select toys were stored. A box of blocks, a felt board and a reading nook with some comfy pillows. It was super basic and minimal.
Kids do not need a lot of toys. It’s ok to be selective and carefully curate a beautiful collection of high-quality toys that will last and you can hand down to others.
There have been countless studies that have found the fewer toys’ children have the better they are in the long run. They play with the toys for longer periods of time, have better imaginations and are overall happier. Choose higher quality materials and avoid toys that light up or make noise when pushing the button. Anything that does the work for the child. Keep the toy as open ended as possible to allow for the child to do the work. The less details the better. A bin of Magnatiles can replace 10 toys in our home. They become a house, a car ramp, a barn, a rocket ship, a swimming pool.
The Kitchen
When I was pregnant, I got lots of advice. I heard about how my life would change, how I wouldn’t sleep and all the things I would need to do once I was a mom. No one, and I mean NO ONE, informed me about the one thing that is perhaps my least favorite part about being a mother. The feeding of tiny humans. I hate cooking. Hate it so much. I now spend approximately 50 percent of my day feeding other people and thus a good chunk of my life is lived in the kitchen. It’s not my favorite. Ok, it really sucks, but it is what it is and I’m learning to embrace the task with enthusiasm, or at least acceptance for now.
It’s because of this I highly recommend a massive kitchen decluttering. I make multiple meals and countless snacks a day. I needed to get rid of anything that I wasn’t actually using and make the space as streamlined as possible. A big revelation on this journey of being a stay-at-home parent was that if you want to have less laundry to do, you have to have less clothing. If you want to have less dishes to wash, you need to have fewer dishes and if you want to spend less time putting away the toys you need to reduce the number of toys you own. That’s it. Magic.
Our house is not picture perfect clean all the time. Absolutely 100 percent not. Quite the opposite really. All four of us are in it all the time. We use every inch of our home. I’ve learned to let go and change the way I view the messes. Since we have less, it’s not going to take the time it once did to reset. I know we can get things back to good quickly.
After I decluttered I created zones that allowed my kids to easily work with me in the kitchen. For example, when Anika was younger, we did a lot of baking. I created an area in the kitchen where my stand mixer and all baking ingredients were kept together. We had aprons that my mother-in-law made that we kept in that area too. Anika knew when those aprons came out, we were going to have some fun and make something yummy. I purchased nice looking step stools that stay in the kitchen all the time. The kids could easily grab them and move them around to help as needed.
I had a station where I kept cutting boards and knives for chopping. I had small child size cutting boards and kid friendly knives and veggie peelers that actually work for each of my children. I keep their tools right with mine for easier access.
Toddlers want to help us in family activities and it is important to foster that in them so they will continue to want to help when they get older. It’s hard when I know I could do it so much faster and just want to get it done, but I would remind myself, what’s the rush right now, while they are so young and I am home with them? Slow down. Where do you really need to be? What’s really important right now.
The Landing Zones
Before having kids, it took me fifteen seconds to get ready to leave the house. Grab my purse and keys and I’m good to go. After kids it’s a whole other story.
When my kids were younger I’d have to pack the diaper bag, change Jacob’s diaper, make sure Anika goes to the bathroom, find the kids socks that they previously had on but have since taken off and left somewhere, convince Anika that she wants to go somewhere and that it’s her idea to prevent melt down, let Jacob walk down the stairs by himself and get both of the kids settled in their car seats and now we are ready to go….wait where’s my keys? Oh, and darn it, I forgot my purse.
To alleviate some of this chaos and stress I created a landing area for this. This was a spot near our front door in the hallway closet of our old house where I repurposed a bookshelf. The bottom two shelves held the kids’ shoes. One of the upper shelves holds a basket for socks. I’ve given up on having kids put on socks when they first get dressed. They don’t like to wear them in the house and now they just wait and put them on right before we leave when they put on their shoes. The top shelf held their school backpacks at the time and another bin that in the summer has summer hats, bug spray and sunscreen and in the winter, winter hats and mittens. There was a hook for each child on the wall low enough for them to hang their jacket. Next to that area was a coat rack where I keep my coat, purse and shoes.
I cannot tell you what a difference creating that area made. It took a couple of days for the kids to adapt to the routine but now without hesitation they get their stuff on when we leave and put their shoes and coats away when we get back. I find with my kids if I put systems in place they can understand and access they like them and easily buy in.
The landing area is going to look different depending on the ages of your kids, the climate you live in and the space you have. You don’t need a big fancy mudroom to create a space like this. In fact, when I created that initial setup I described above I had a big fancy mudroom in the basement off the garage and we never used it. It was always filled with stuff that spilled over from the garage or the workshop area in the basement and was hard to walk through. The kids couldn’t reach the coat hooks or the shelves. It wasn’t working for us. That small little area keeps us so much more organized than that big space ever did. And one of the first things I did upon moving into our current house was set up a new landing zone for us. It’s that integral to the success of our day.
The Trunk of my Car
One final area was I established a mobile office. For the first five years of my kids’ life, I cannot tell you the amount of work that took place in the trunk of my car. Diaper changes, breast feeding, potty breaks, snack breaks and not to mention storage of essential supplies while out for the day with two kids.
I kept a small bin of materials in the trunk of my car and would swap them out depending on the season. We stored diapers, wipes, change of clothes, a travel potty, garbage bags, snacks, a lightweight stroller and baby carrier. In the winter we’d have extra mittens and hats. In the summer sunscreens bug spray and extra towels. Things like this. It was so much easier just to have these stored in my trunk then lugging it all in and out of my house every time we went somewhere.
It is so important for you to take some time to setup your new work environment. Just like if you got a new job outside of the home you would spend a period of time creating a new office space, finding efficient ways for you to get your work done in this new space. When you take on this new profession as a stay-at-home mom it’s important to do the same thing.
