It Gets Better

After I went back to work full-time when my firstborn was four months old, we had a decent routine going with regards to everything except meals. In our household, eating quality, hearty and home-cooked meals is a core “value.” Being married to someone from a different country has made me aware of how deeply meal preparation and eating habits are tied to culture. In the United States, it’s fairly standard to see most families doing take-out, fast-food, frozen food or grocery store pre-prepped meals on a regular basis, especially if you’ve got kids. In Peru, where my husband is from, you typically won’t see this practice as much. Someone – mom, dad, MIL, hired help – is doing the cooking, big meals prepared from scratch. 

In those first few months, we were arriving home from work late and exhausted. We would do a few things around the house, try to come up with a plan for dinner (you know how hard it is to make even simple decisions while sleep deprived) and then start cooking. Sometimes we were missing key ingredients and one of us would have to run to the store. If I was the one cooking that day, I’d get delayed each time my son needed to nurse. We’d finally have dinner ready sometime around 8:00 or 9:00 p.m. I literally remember thinking, “How on earth will this work when Matthias is old enough to eat? We can’t serve a child dinner this late!” 

This is a classic mom thought. One reason it was ridiculous is that I was worrying about something years in the future. My anxiety was also fueled by a gross misconception: At that moment, I assumed our current situation would be our permanent reality! 

If you’re in that first year of motherhood, mama, I feel you. Sleepless nights. That one Sunday morning when you think chipperly: “I’m going to make a nice brunch like in the old days!” Four hours later: The baby’s finally asleep, you’re sitting down to cold eggs and you and your spouse are no longer on speaking terms. Mom, if you’re in the thick of it right now, I’m sending you a bear hug. I’m also smiling for you. Because, what you might not know is: It gets better. It really does. 

There’s something you need to do, though, for your current situation of overwhelm not to become a permanent reality. You need to take some action. You will need to identify the areas of your routine that aren’t working and make some adjustments. If there is another adult in your home, you will need to communicate. I don’t always feel my husband and I have the best communication (we got into a bitter argument over tacos two days ago). However, when I look back at the progress we’ve made in life and as parents over the past 3.5 years, we must be doing something right. 

I want to share a few simple strategies and adjustments of routines that have made our lives as parents more manageable. Sometimes we have tried a new approach and it didn’t work out, or it required tweaking over time. If you work or have a hobby, I encourage you to think about how you solve problems in those contexts. Apply those same creative thinking skills to your home life. Often we feel so overwhelmed as parents that we let ourselves believe we are stuck. Dare to let your brain go to work on some solutions.

Here is what has helped us:

#1. Meal Planning. Probably not the first time you have heard this suggestion. Here is exactly how we do it. My husband and I have a shared “Note” on our iPhones with the days of the week written out and a list for Fred Meyer and Costco (the two major places we grocery shop). It’s my responsibility on Fridays to type in the meals for the week. I often do this on the commute home from work, since we carpool and can bounce ideas off one another. I don’t make the whole grocery list but do add items that might be out of the ordinary or that I need for a recipe hubby isn’t familiar with. We can also add items to this ongoing list any time that we run out of a staple ingredient, such as salt. My husband takes the list of meals and does the grocery shopping from there. We also write the meals out on a whiteboard calendar in our kitchen for convenient viewing, and as a reminder of what meat to defrost the night before. While planning, we keep in mind any appointments we have throughout the week and plan easier meals on those days. We both cook, so I try to balance the amount of meals we each make. However, we realized I’m the faster chef, so one change we’ve made is that I now cook most weekdays. Before kids he did most of the cooking. It can be difficult coming up with ideas, so clipped to our whiteboard we keep a master list (scribbled on the back of a random recipe from my mom) of the dishes each of us knows how to make. On another “Note” in my phone, I have a running list of recipes I come across online so I can reference them all in one place. As you can see, our systems are all rough and unsophisticated, but they work efficiently for us. I’m sure there are some cool apps you can find for meal planning and saving recipes (and please comment below with your favorites).

#2. Online Grocery Shopping. This has been a life-saver for our family. We used to spend hours in the grocery store on Friday night or Saturday afternoon, cutting into a major chunk of what could be fun family time or an opportunity to rest or finish chores. Now, my husband takes the list of meals and uses Fred Meyer online ordering. The app automatically saves your choices from one week to the next so you can easily select items you buy regularly, as well as offering tons of coupons. He places the order Friday night and picks it up Saturday morning on his way home from playing soccer. This works perfectly for us, since he doesn’t have to make a special trip, and we get our fresh batch of groceries each week in time for Saturday morning breakfast. Online shopping has saved us money as well, since it eliminates those “extra” purchases you make grabbing goodies and buying useless crap to keep your kids entertained when you drag them to the store with you. If my husband sees the total exceeding $100-120 for the week, he can delete some unnecessary items in order to stay within budget, versus being surprised during checkout. With online shopping, you can review your order and make sure you have everything you need from the space and calm of your own home. (I know I’m not the only one who gets anxiety trying to make decisions in the grocery store!). A major issue I have with the online shopping is they give you tons of plastic bags. We have tried talking to the manager about bringing reusable bags, but it wasn’t an option. (If you know of a store that lets you use your own bags for online orders, please let me know in the comments). 

#3. Designating Tasks. Another obvious one, but it cannot be said enough that communication with your partner is key when you have young children. It can be such a challenge to find even five minutes to have a conversation. I will often remember talking over an important matter with my husband, but I won’t have any recollection of what we actually decided. Our toddler chats loudly and relentlessly every time we try to discuss anything. It’s crucial to work out over time who will do what tasks within the home. Nothing needs to be set in stone, but continue to have ongoing conversations. Make time during those rare kid-free moments for a short check-in, or a longer conversation in bed once the kids are asleep. Once you know what’s expected, you can get to work on your tasks with more efficiency and eliminate misunderstandings about who should be doing what. You’ll find yourself falling into a groove.

#4. Hiring a Housekeeper. I would recommend doing this when and if you can, and don’t stress if you can’t. We were pretty broke when our first was born and wouldn’t have dreamed of spending money on a housekeeper. A couple years later, I was working several hours every Saturday on an intensive certification for my career. We were drowning in chores on the weekend. Our financial situation had improved, so we brought a housekeeper in a few times a month for a period of time. This relieved a tremendous burden of stress for us. If finances are tight, you might consider hiring a housekeeper once a month just to give yourself an occasional break. It could even be once every few months, just to free up a few hours of time to knock out an important or long-overdue task. Sometimes we think it has to be all or nothing, which is not the case.

#5. Using To-Do Lists. My to-do lists are ugly, but they work. I have a few different systems for different areas of my life. Again, I’m sure there’s a nice app that could consolidate everything, but I sort of like my messy and unsophisticated style. At my job (teacher), I have a physical notebook where I list only school-related tasks. I cross them off as I do them, and when I’ve managed to accomplish the majority of items on the list, I transfer the leftovers onto a fresh page and then start adding to the new list. On the aforementioned whiteboard calendar for recipes, there is a notes section to the side. Here, I list reminders pertinent to the entire family for both my husband and myself to see. This summer it was: Open 529, add T-Mobile phone line for MIL, call Orthobank about late fee, etc. I just glanced at our board now, and literally the only item on it is “Will.” Not my cousin William. As in, make a will. We have two small children and no will, so this is a pretty important one. Another list I have is more for myself, and again I keep it in my phone “Notes.” I set mini-goals to support my larger goals, and I usually plan these in three-month chunks of time. The goals are very concrete and specific, ending up looking much like a to-do list. Sometimes I’ll have a couple different lists going – one is for mundane tasks I need to take care of while the other is more along the lines of action items to support a goal. It works very well to have separate lists for each area of life in order to compartmentalize and focus on one area at a time.

I sincerely hope one or more of these ideas can help you restructure your routines to make your life a little smoother. None of the strategies I suggested is rocket science, but often it just takes hearing something multiple times or presented in a new way before it clicks. If you are currently trying to get a better routine going for your family and feel like you aren’t getting anywhere, remember that solutions can take time and tweaking. Try not to abandon hope. Keep talking with your spouse. Continue adjusting. Let that tired brain of yours keep mulling over ideas in the shower. There are always multiple solutions to any problem. You’ll find one. You got this.