Solo Parenting Rhythms

Caleb doesn't travel all that often now, but when our kids were little there was a season where he traveled pretty frequently. Travel like that took a big adjustment.

Caleb helps out a ton around our house. I've mentioned before he cooks the majority of our meals (which wasn't always the case). We do many things together as a family and in general, when it comes to parenting, we are a team—especially when it comes to mornings, dinner, bedtime, and discipline. To have half of your team absent is hard.

Over the years I developed a few rhythms that helped make it easier when he traveled.

This month was a heavier travel month for him again.

It is much, much easier when he travels now that my kids are older. But it's interesting that some of the rhythms I implemented years ago have stuck around.

I'm sharing a few this week. If you have littles (or not-so-littles) I hope this helps! If you don't have littles (or not-so-littles), maybe pass this on to a mom who does have littles still!

Mindset

In general, I found it really helpful to adjust my mindset completely. "This week will be nothing like the weeks when Caleb is here to help. Let's form a completely different rhythm because if we try to continue our normal family rhythm without one member of the family I'm setting myself up for failure because I can't do it all alone."

That mindset served me so well because all of us had the expectation that this time without dad was different. It helped each of us (even the littles) form a new rhythm, together. I think this is important no matter how old your kids are.

Breakfast

If you are accustomed to teamwork in your family’s morning routine, then mornings are hard when you are solo parenting. They were for me. My solution to this was to make breakfast something my kids looked forward to so there was zero fighting and happy hearts as we got ready for our day.

Nothing makes breakfast as anticipatory as sugary cereal. (This is still true for the teen crowd today.)

We normally eat pretty healthy breakfasts (eggs, anyone?) but when dad is gone I throw that out the window. The week before he travels all my kids together pick one box of sugary cereal for breakfast. Eventually I no longer had to ask what they wanted. It was always Lucky Charms.

Even this past week when Caleb was gone: Lucky Charms was for breakfast. At this point it's tradition!

It is certainly not nutritious, but it's a fun treat and something that makes our morning rhythm easier simply because it's fun and exciting.

Going Somewhere

When my kids were smaller, spending days on end at home with them, alone, without other adult interaction didn’t work well for me.

This was my solution. The week before I would plan a more involved playdate. I would arrange to meet another mom and her kids at a place that would take up most of our day. We would meet up at the San Diego Zoo or the San Diego Safari Park. Or we would spend the day at the San Diego Botanical Gardens or we would go to the beach or splash pad together.

Usually Caleb would be gone for three to four days, so my rhythm was to schedule this outing on day two or three of his trip so we could stay as late as we wanted, often until dinner.

My next tip?

Drive Thru

Because we would stay late at our playdate, I would plan for dinner that night to be drive thru. I would let my kids pick, and often they ended up with the biggest splurge of their childhood: Happy Meals.

I would end up with zero dishes, happy children, and a shrimp cocktail after they went to bed.

We were all winners in this scenario.

The Witching Hour

If you are a mom of littles, you are very familiar with the witching hour. It's that hour between 4:00 and dinner when everything that can go wrong? Does.

I always tried to make the witching hour easier on myself. Here are some examples:

• frozen pizza (clearly we were not winning any health goals while dad was gone!)
• picnic dinner (blanket on the living room floor + dinner served picnic style)
• the kids rarely watch movies in the evening, so a movie paired with picnic dinner was always very exciting!
• nothing else on my calendar. I would never schedule family FaceTimes, or any other meeting on the nights Caleb was gone. Not multitasking and giving my full attention to the kids from witching hour until bedtime always made it easier.

Years later, I still do this!

These little tricks of shaking up our rhythms and crafting routines that only happen when dad is away have served me so well over the years! I hope a few of these tips help your rhythm the next time you are solo parenting!

The Wellness Bath

I discovered this bath years ago when I was solo parenting 4 kids and my husband texted that he had the flu in Wisconsin. I was sorry for him, but also a tiny bit glad that the flu was 2000 miles away from me. However I started to feel horrible within 2 hours of his text (while I was at the Safari Park, incidentally). So... I gave this bath a try after seeing several other oilers swear by it.

They were right.

I could feel myself wilting and so I took this bath 2 times over 5 hours. I woke up the next morning and was fine. I did some other things too (oiled up + Ningxia + diffuser + Inner Defense) But this bath was a huge part of it!

Now everyone in our family uses the wellness bath. The minute that someone starts to feel off/wilty/not their best, I make a bath like this. (I think those ancient Romans were on to something with their baths for health, saunas...)

Here's a list of all of my favorites for the Wellness Bath.

Snippet from my week

We have had so much rain since Christmas. Last week we were socked in with another three days straight of rain. Theo and Clara spent several hours one morning building a fort (using an obscene amount of tape). They made tea, a spot for the dog, and cuddled up inside having a “meeting.” I had to snap a picture because everytime I see a fort like this I wonder if it will be the last. (I know, a teary thought!) Just holding on and treasuring simple moments like this up!

Thanks for reading! Do you have any solo parenting tips? I'd love to hear about it and cheer you on! Just hit reply if you'd like to respond. (When you hit reply, your message goes directly to my email. It’s a private conversation between just us.) I read all your messages and try to respond, but not always in a timely manner. Sorry! And if you enjoyed this email, you’d be doing me a favor by forwarding it to someone else who might like it.