Of all the words you could’ve used to describe my life before marriage and kids, “routine” would not be one of them.

With no real responsibilities other than work a decade ago, I never really knew what my day would hold from one day to the next. I came and went as I pleased. It was the life – at the time, of course.

But fatherhood changes things. It’s transformative. And those changes can be a rude awakening if you’re not prepared or equipped to deal with them. 

Friday night lights out

I think back to just a few Fridays ago. I was hanging out on the couch in the evening, decompressing after a long week. The kids were asleep and my wife was upstairs watching one of her shows. Alone I sat, aimlessly flipping channels and scrolling on my phone. Looking at my contacts, it quickly became apparent that most of my friends who I would consider sending a “what’s the move?” text to in the same boat as me – parents worn out from the week and not willing or able to get out and do anything.

So just as the story goes for most Friday evenings these days, that night ended with me falling asleep while watching TV. A thrilling turn of events. 

That’s my routine now. A life that was once free-flowing and spontaneous, is now structured and predictable, with little-to-no wiggle room. From school and daycare pick-up and drop-offs, to weekend activities, to bedtime routines, the look and feel of my days as a dad rarely changes. I know what needs to be done and when. Rinse and repeat. 

Accept today’s routine, change is coming fast  

While having a routine and structure can be tedious, it’s ideal for how I’ve chosen to approach fatherhood. My kids are 5 and 2 so stability and consistency is vital to their development at this stage of life. Their routine has pretty much been their norm since birth and it keeps things somewhat in order. For me, however, it has been and still is at times tough to accept.

For all its joys and rewards, dealing with the lifestyle changes that come with fatherhood is tough. I’ve struggled with the loss of my “old life.” I’ve longed for just one weekend where my responsibilities could be put on the shelf so I could go to happy hour. Or just hang out with my friends. Or maybe play a round of golf.

Don’t get me wrong, I do get out and have fun here and there. But the “heres and theres” are few and far between. The routine of fatherhood is where I am now. I’ve come to accept that, even though I’m surrounded by energetic little people, the loneliness I feel navigating through the day-to-day routine is just for a season. Kids grow up. Their needs and demands of you will change until one day it will pass.

But for now, I’ll keep checking my Google Calendar daily to make sure I know where the kids need to be, and when.

Tips for breaking out of a parenting rut

If the routine of parenting is running you down, first realize that you are not alone. Then do something about it. Here are some helpful tips from online parenting experts about practicing self-care and changing things up:

• Schedule a date night with your spouse/partner. Hire a sitter and take a night every few weeks to have a quiet dinner out or catch a movie or a concert.
• Find time to decompress every day. Whether it’s five minutes of peaceful meditation, a walk around the block or a cup of coffee in a corner cafe, take a break for some quick relaxation.
• Join a parenting support group. Whether online or in real life, there’s a like-minded group of moms and dads to commiserate with and draw strength and support from. Dads can find a local City Dads Group, join the The National At-Home Dad Network or one of Fathering Together’s popular Facebook groups.

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This blog post is part of the #NoDadAlone campaign. Fathering Together/City Dads Group, the National At-Home Dad Network, and Fathers Eve are joining forces to amplify messages that help dads recognize we are not alone! Follow #NoDadAlone on Instagram, and learn more at NoDadAlone.com.

Photo: © globalmoments / Adobe Stock.

One obvious way for parents to get more sleep is by having children who are good sleepers!

On a quest to become better informed, we recently enlisted sleep expert Dr. Whitney Roban, to spend 90 minutes giving us the scoop about how to get our children to sleep better. Her common sense approach comes from her years of experience consulting with families, practicing her strategies on her own two children, and influence from the strategies suggested by another guru, Dr. Marc Weissbleuth.

Twelve dads spent the evening sharing our war stories with Robanz. Our challenges came in all shapes and sizes. Going to bed too late, waking up before 6 a.m., night wakings, falling asleep on a bottle, sleeping with a pacifier, not being able to self-soothe, getting out of their bed, climbing out of their crib, not napping, no schedule, and the list is endless. What is worse — even if you have a child who has always been a fantastic sleeper — life anxiety, a vacation, or getting sick can derail everything you have worked so hard to establish. Basically, you always have to be on top of your child’s sleep routines.

Sleep is a health issue that is as important as food. During sleep, growth takes place. Sleep patterns are also linked to academic results.

Here are some important notes about sleep and how we can all get more sleep:

Children ages 4 months to 4 years old need 11 to 12 hours of uninterrupted plus naps. Naps schedule by age:

• 4 months: three naps, each one hour
• 6 to 9 months: two naps, 1.5 hours each
• 15 to 18 months: one nap, two hours (around noon)

Interestingly, by 3 years of age, most children have given up naps but they really still need them until age 4:

• Good sleepers nap more and change to fewer naps when they are older
• The goal of sleep training is “falling asleep unassisted,” learning to self-soothe
• Unfortunately, crying is involved in the learning process. Many parents can’t deal with that, but sleep training can be effective in as little as nights.

Tips on how parents and children can get more sleep

• Two notable methods of sleep training: one “extinction” from Dr. Marc Weissbleuth and the other is Ferber method which entails check and recheck
• Consistency in the method you select is essential
• No water or milk bottles in bed. Parents need to remove them anyhow during potty training (not to mention the potential dental problems they can cause), so why let them get used to it now?
• A rigid schedule is really important when it comes to sleep
• Night wakings result in sleep deprivation … for the child and the parents.
• Put them in bed before any sleepy clues (yawning, rubbing eyes). Seeing these clues tell you are too late to put them to bed
• More daytime sleep will mean more at night, too
• Respect the bedtime schedule – and get your spouse/partner on board as well
• It was suggested that you don’t take them out before 6 a.m.
• Try to have them in bed before 7 p.m.
• Remove most toys from the bed if it distracts your child in bed
• Give them a 5- to 10-minute rule after waking up. Let them be by themselves so they can stretch and gain composure.
• If your child wakes up crying, let them cry for a few minutes, sometimes they go back to sleep on their own
• Move to a toddler bed around age 3
• If the child climbs out earlier, then give them a mesh tent over the crib

Editor’s Note: We’re digging into our archives to find great articles you might have missed. This article about how to get more sleep comes from 2011. It has since been updated.

A fellow stay-at-home dad/native of Cincinnati and I recently took our little girls into what we thought would be hostile territory to watch a Reds/Mets baseball game at New York’s Citi Field. It probably didn’t help our cause much with my wearing a Yankees cap.

However, everybody was very polite and nobody said anything.

At least not to our faces.

Given it was around naptime for my Little One when we got off the subway in Queens, I tried to stroller her into a nap. After 10 minutes, I succeeded. Since we could use the strollers in Citi Field, my friend and I decided to push her right inside.

I pulled my diaper bag out of the bottom of the stroller in advance of the gate and unzipped it so the security personnel could inspect the innards to ensure that I wasn’t toting in C4 with my Burt’s Bees Diaper Ointment. With half a glance at the bag, the security guy then asked me to take my baby (she’s really a toddler) out of the stroller, please.

A sleeping baby (um, toddler).

Wake the baby or make a break for it?

Now, as everybody knows, you are asking for a huge world of hurt if you rouse a sleeping baby — toddler — even for baseball. But what was I to do?

My friend was already inside and to turn around at the security checkpoint to hang out in the parking lot until she woke up 35 minutes later likely would have only brought suspicion down on my head. Which might have resulted in my not being allowed into the game at all. And then I would have come to Queens for no reason.

Trust me, if you ever go to Queens, you really ought to have a reason for doing it.

So I pulled her out. She immediately woke up. Satisfied that there wasn’t a grenade strapped to the ass of my kid, the guard waved us through.

This is going to be a disaster, I thought. She was groggy, blurry eyed and cranky. She immediately started with her patented “Go! Go!” that she uses when she doesn’t want to be someplace.

I had made a terrible mistake. And I hated that security guard.

We settled into our seats, which were excellent, by the way: three rows back from the left field wall where home run balls are a real concern when you’ve got a baby (ugh – toddler) on your lap. The seats, had they been crosstown at Yankee Stadium in The Bronx (if you go to The Bronx — brother, you REALLY better have a reason) would have gone for something like $350. Here, they cost only $19 on StubHub. Little One kept up with her “Go! Go!” but then they started to turn into “Yay! Yay!” and clapped her hands with everybody else once the game started.

She actually stayed in her seat and let me put on her hat (pink, Yankees – sorry) and she let me put on her sunglasses (pink), apply sunblock (chalky), and change her out of her pants and into her (pink) shorts when it got hot. My baby — TODDLER — even tracked the baseball that Cincinnati’s Joey Votto hit into the seats about 15 feet from us (in the ESPN SportsCenter highlight of Votto’s home run blast later that night, she appeared as the light pink blur that doesn’t move while everybody else around her stands up and leans left).

Life lessons learned

She also learned from dear ol’ dad that you never throw the baseball back. Never, ever toss it back on the field! No matter how many home fans around you are clamoring for you to do so. Why? Because:

1. You might hit and injure a player who isn’t expecting a baseball to come from behind him, and
2. This will very likely never happen to you ever again.

You keep the ball. No matter what. Always. The bozo kid who caught the ball in the next section over from us tossed it back, much to the delight of the 30,000 Mets fans on hand. What are parents teaching kids these days?

Little One, it turned out, was great. In fact, both babies — dammit, TODDLERS — were great. Much better than ever could have been hoped for. They even let us stay through the entire game (Reds won 7-4). Who could ask for more than that? A perfect game on a perfect day with the perfect effing offspring? Who could want more than that?

Well, if Joey Votto had smacked that ball about 14 or 15 feet farther to the left and about three rows up, that would’ve been all right, too.

About the author

Jason Duncan (holding Little One in the photo) is a full-time stay-at-home dad, writer, blogger, fly fisher and terrier owner.

Baby and baseball photo: © Katrina Brown / Adobe Stock.

“No screens on school nights.”

It’s the newest rule around our house. Before you think I turned into the sinister dad who banned dancing in Footloose, hear me out.

Screen time isn’t evil; it just needs to be used in moderation.

Our family started out allowing two 15-minute sessions of screen time per day. All was well. It became a problem when those 15 minutes turned into 30 minutes, then 45 minutes or longer. Our kids were coming home from school and quickly arguing who was getting what screen. They would also spend far too much time playing Minecraft or watching kids play with toys on YouTube. (Why kids would prefer to watch someone play with a toy rather than actually play with a toy themselves is beyond me).

Our kids weren’t interacting with each other or with me or my wife. They weren’t burning off any extra physical energy that didn’t get out of their system during their 15-minute recess (yes, 15-minute recess.) They were restless at bedtime, whined when we told them to get off their screens and whined again asking when they could get back on their screens.

It wasn’t working out.

Limiting screen time didn’t really help and eliminating screens altogether seemed a little unnecessary. My wife and I devised a new plan: “No Screens on School Nights.”

In the two months since we started this new approach, it’s worked really well for our family. The kids play together more. They are more creative, less whiny and go to bed easier at night — likely because they’ve exhausted themselves with physical play and they haven’t been staring at the blue light of a screen for an hour right before bed. On the weekends, we go back to giving them tokens to use for 15 minutes of screen time at a shot. Since our kids aren’t on screens during the week, we don’t feel bad if we let them stay on their devices a little longer on these days.

This system may not be for everyone. However, if you’re frustrated with your own kids’ relationship with whatever screen they choose, a “No Screens on School Nights” policy may be something to consider for your family too.

A version of this first appeared on Indy’s Child.

Screen time photo: © Africa Studio / Adobe Stock.

When COVID-19 hit in March, I had to assume caring for Mr. Pre-School and teaching Ms. First Grade. About two days in I thought to myself, “OK, I think I got the hang of this. Put in a solid day’s work. Maybe start dinner soon. But lemme just rest my weary bones, after all it’s … 1:24 p.m.!?!?!!”

I realized at that moment that I faced the very real possibility that if the virus didn’t kill me, being the sole parental/educational figure in each of their lives would.

To get through the day after having these COVID sleep issues, I had to find the fuel, and my personal options are limited. Coffee is a mirage for me – too many times I’ve been lured in by its pleasant aroma only to be burned by its rancid taste. Usually my morning caffeine intake consists of Diet Coke (because if I refuse to change some college habits because that means I’m still young) and tea (because I am a fancy man). Turns out, I had to hit myself with that one-two punch multiple times a day to make it through. At first the only side effect was peeing so much that even pregnant women were like “Damn, son, you’ve got a thimble for a bladder.” But at least I was getting in my steps going to and from the can.

Over time I noticed my sleep habits started to resemble that of a farmer. Where my night once had not been complete until I had caught a little late night TV, I was now eyeing the clock at 8:45, trying to calculate how much longer I had to hang in there before I could begin getting ready for my own beddy-bye. All in all, it’s pretty humiliating. I already have reading glasses, I don’t need this.

On the flip side, I found myself getting up earlier and earlier. These days I am clocking in well before the sun even considers rising. And know what? I LOVE IT!

There’s no yelling, whining or screaming. I don’t have to make sure any one is doing schoolwork. There’s no need to oversee what anyone is ingesting or excreting. Most of the time I just bask in the dark and silence of my personal sensory deprivation tank.

So, what gives?

COVID sleep problems common

An informal survey of random parents (i.e., people I know) reveals that there is a lot of this going around. The morning people among us have described their pre-dawn rising to a phenomenon scientifically known as “the only goddamn time I ever get to myself.” The night owls posit that staying up till two or three in the morning is “the only goddamn time I can get anything done.” For this latter group of moms and dads, it helps to have older kids who are (allegedly) self-sufficient enough to get themselves up and fed in the morning or a priceless spouse/partner who can handle the morning routine while you sleep in (hi, honey!). Everyone agrees that between kids and work, they are drained whenever it is they get to sleep.

Is this bad? Not necessarily. As someone with apnea, I have my very own sleep doctor (not to be confused with this sleep doctor) and the generally held belief is that the pandemic has knocked everyone’s schedules off kilter. If you are getting seven to nine hours a night of restful shuteye, you are ahead of the game. Once enough people get vaccinated in this country (within the next 15 years at this rate) your lifestyle will get back to what it was and so will your body’s internal clock.

But if you’re not …

Then it’s time to talk, to put down this blog and see a doctor. COVID-related sleep issues such as anxiety is a very real thing with very real consequences – up to and including your physical and emotional health. Insomnia, alcohol/substance abuse, and nightmares when you finally do manage to go down are just part of it. Let’s face it, if you’re on this site you have other people in your life who need you to be sharp. So talk to your physician, do some relaxation exercises, and get some rest.

Then you can tell me all about how you hadn’t noticed how much this stupid virus kept you sleep-deprived, and how great you feel now. Just not over a cup of coffee.

COVID sleep anxiety photo: © dream@do / Adobe Stock.

So we did it. We finally got ourselves a king-size mattress.

Unfortunately, we also got ourselves a kid.

My son was always a good sleeper. We cried it out, he got the point, and from a few months in, he was sleeping through the night pretty consistently. There have been speed bumps, but nothing out of the ordinary. So when we converted his crib to a bed we foolishly told him he could get out of it when he woke up, rather than sit there and scream our names for 30 minutes. Not the best idea.

Over the last few weeks, he’s been waking up repeatedly, and having a hard time getting back to sleep. He claims he’s scared and just needs a snuggle, but I think it’s a ploy. (If it’s not a ploy, then I’m a mean, heartless asshole, so I’m sticking with “it’s a ploy.”) He’s a trickster, this kid, and his endgame is our bed.

Apparently, we let him in one time too many, and now he’s addicted. It’s fine once in a while; I won’t deny it’s nice to have him next to me some nights. But it’s also nice to sleep, and most of the time when he’s in our bed, he’s the only one sleeping. (At least, I think he’s sleeping. If he’s consciously kicking me in the face and crotch all night, then let’s just say we have bigger problems than him pretending to be scared of stuff!)

I know there are people who love “co-sleeping” as it’s sometimes called, and as I mentioned, it has its perks. But I cuddle my son plenty during the day, so I think I’m covered there. And I desperately need the little sleep that is left in my life. With him in my bed, that goes away.

The one thing that makes his presence even slightly tolerable is our king bed. We had a queen for the first two years of his life, and trying to fit a third person in that thing, even a tiny one, was like playing Tetris and always losing. We thought the bigger mattress would help, and it does, but even the king isn’t always big enough. We’ve even taken to turning the sheets sideways when he joins us so that he can sleep between us without potentially falling off – though the sound of a toddler kerplunking onto the floor is undeniably delightful! – and we can each have some room to navigate without feeling trapped.

But now that he keeps waking up and demanding to sleep in our bed without taking no for an answer, it’s becoming more frequent. And because we’re caving, the bed-sharing cycle continues, and his dependency grows stronger.

If he were still a baby, it would be easy to share a bed with the little guy (if I weren’t worried about smothering him to death, of course). Or we could even cry it out again (spare me your protests), but there’s something different about ignoring someone who can actually scream your name (not that that’s stopped me with my wife!) I’ll gladly ignore my son when he’s a teenager, but right now it just seems cruel.

So we’re trying to find new ways to break him of this habit. I’m thinking that maybe letting him catch us in a compromising position might do it, except every time he sees us hugging he runs over to join in so that could backfire in spectacular fashion.

The kicker about sharing a bed with the boy is that my wife kind of loves having him there with us. So there’s a decent chance I’ll just be on the couch until he’s 12.

A version of Bed Sharing first appeared on Dad and Buried. Bed-sharingPhoto: © chikala / Adobe Stock.

Working from home — especially when you have children around to also care for — requires a certain self-discipline, but even the most organized and motivated of us can falter at certain times of the year like the winter holidays or the summertime. I speak from personal experience.

Since I left my old office job to become a full-time dad who works from home, optimizing time has become essential. I’ve found the best hours to work are in the morning when the boys have school and at night after they go to sleep. Today’s smartphones work almost as well as laptops do so I sometimes squeeze in business while waiting at the gym for my son to finish his hip-hop lesson. One way or another both the work for my job and of tending to my children get done.

However, summer always brings added challenges to my attempts at working from home. Some days the children may be home all day, especially during those gaps between the end of school and the start of summer camp and vice versa. Babysitters may not be available or too expensive. The grandparents may not be around to help. Working from home while having two little monsters call for your attention every five minutes is impossible

Having experienced myself, I would like to offer you some practical advice on how to best manage these “emergency” situations that are constructive and help you avoid placing children in front of the television so you can get something accomplished.

From chaos, create order

An activity that works well for both my children, ages 7 and 3, is to organize our bookshelves. I give them a mission: for example, dust the books them reorder them by grouping them by color or height.  Since our house has many books, this provides the children with a couple of hours of autonomous work that requires concentration and skills.

I also found the Marie Kondo method of organizing works quite well, at least at the beginning and with children age 6 and up. Tidying up your drawers according to a precise discipline that the Japanese writer explains very well in her tutorials available online.

Let them cook

I taught both of my children to do little things in the kitchen. Matteo, the oldest, loves preparing shakes and making pancakes. With our youngest, Noah, I often entrust culinary assignments that require a bit of dedication, such as shelling pistachios for pesto sauce or peeling shrimp.  In this way, they feel part of the family activity … and save you some work.

Their nap time is your work time

If the children are small, the afternoon nap is your oasis — for work or your own rest. However, when children become older, it is a problem to get them to sleep. In this case, I’ve found some apps that simulate the noise of nature, a stream, the chirping of birds or even a moving train help lull them into dreamland. Combining this app with a brief story can lead to an afternoon nap that allows you to avoid the noise pollution and quietly make a few phone calls.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

We have three children ranging in age from 3 to 7. The bedtime routine in our house is simple.

First, my wife takes the youngest upstairs while I stay downstairs to get the older two into pajamas and ready for bed. On her way upstairs with the little one, my wife pauses at the top to say good night and wave to the two older children below. If you’re having trouble picturing this, think of the classic party scene from The Sound of Music when the Von Trapp children sing their good night song and wave good night from the upstairs balcony and the adoring party-goers shuffle to one side in mass to sing good night back. It’s exactly like that, but slightly more choreographed.

Sometimes, while the youngest’s bedtime routine is in progress, I try to get a jump on things by taking the older two upstairs. We gather in one of their bedrooms and sprawl out on the bed or floor like house cats. Then, when the youngest is asleep and my wife finally escapes from her bedroom, I take the younger of the other two and my wife stays with the oldest. I’m not totally sure what happens in the older child’s room, but my wife is typically missing for at least 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, the 5-year-old and I rock in the rocking chair for a few minutes and then we migrate to his race car bed. My son arranges three to six stuffed animals and a blanket that he brings to bed with him so we both have equal cuddling access. Then I lay down on the Black Panther pillow on the edge of the bed and he lays down ostensibly on the regular pillow, but mostly on top of me. After he talks about crustacean facts or lists the middle names of children in his preschool class for a few minutes, he usually drifts off. I then extricate myself by removing his arm from the back of my head and barrel rolling out of the bed. Simple.

To be clear, this routine only holds when both parents are home at bedtime. I could explain how bedtime works on solo parenting nights, but I would need more note cards, push pins, and yarn than a detective trying to hunt down a serial killer. And possibly a beer to wash away some traumatic memories. Possibly a whole six pack.

I was talking with a friend recently who has a daughter the same age as my middle child and he asked me about our bedtime routine. “Do you just put the kids in bed and leave them to fall asleep?” he asked. After I laughed hysterically for several minutes, I replied, “No, we kind of stay in there sometimes until they fall asleep. No big deal.”

We discussed logistics some more and from the sounds of it, our routines are similar. I mean, I’m sure his isn’t as circus-like as ours — he does only have one child — but the basic outline is the same. He asked me if we still used the same method for my older son who is 7 and I told him we did. He seemed relieved.

We agreed that our kids are only young once and we were happy to spend the extra time with them while we could. And the funny thing is, I wasn’t just saying that because it sounded good. I really meant it. And while my wife has the longer end of the bedtime routine now because our youngest insists on mommy putting her to bed, the burden shifts from time to time and we have to stay ready for anything. Tomorrow I could be on the hook for all three children’s bedtimes and it could stay that way for months. But still, I wouldn’t mind.

Because, despite how difficult and frustrating our bedtime routine can be, particularly after a long day of parenting, I know this stage is not going to last forever. Like many things in life and parenting, you never know when the last time is going to be until it’s already happened. One day, they won’t want us to lie in their beds or on the floor in their room. They’ll go in their bedrooms, close the door, and that will be it. We’ll be left alone to watch TV or read or do whatever it is people do at nights. And while I’m sure in some ways I’ll be relieved to have the nightly burden in our rear-view mirror, there will be a part of me that will miss it.

And that’s why I’m not rushing change. I’m willing to sit (or lie down) and wait. And revel in the extra minutes of connectedness while I can. With a small arm draped over my head and the plastic railing of a race car bed digging into my side. Because once this period of our lives is over, it’s over. And there will be no going back.

Photo: © Daxiao Productions / Adobe Stock.

The stress and commotion of the workplace can attach to you like a leech. By the time you get home from another long work day, any desire you had to do anything with your family can suddenly become the lowest of priorities. You kick your feet up and reach for the remote, but …

You know dang well that your kid and family need you. They want you to play, help with things around the house, and plan for the future.

But you are just so exhausted.

So how does one find the “life” in work-life balance?

I’ve been on a constant search for that during the past few years. I look to determine what I can do to light a flame, get a second (or third) wind, and make myself more emotionally available to my wife and daughter. One of the major changes I made was to start working from home, but that’s not an option for everyone. As such, I’ve gathered the best advice I have heard or received that has allowed me to be a better partner, father and person by achieving work-life balance:

Seek flexible work-life schedules

Work-life balance starts at the workplace. In the same way a good employee should be loyal, take on tough assignments and make decisions that are good for the company, a good employer should do the same for a valued employee.

Don’t be afraid to ask your employer for arrangements that make things easier for you. Can you work from home one day a week? Could you leave early on certain days to pick the kids up from school? You’ll be surprised at how many companies are willing to do this to keep their best people. All you have to do is ask.

If you feel this may come with repercussions from your peers or bosses, think about your role as a father. You probably already have the mindset that you need to provide for your family, so use that. Realize that your responsibility is to provide in all ways — not just financially, but also with time. Pressure your employers to value you or find a company that will. The ThirdPath Institute helps people do just this and can be a great work-life resource to tap into.

Structure life as you do work

I better understood what needed to be done around my home by organizing tasks in the same way I did at the office. My job uses several productivity tools and programs to track what needs to be done. We decided to adopt one for our home! We use Trello to create and update our to-do lists in the same way that I do for work.

This helps you can start treating home tasks as extensions of your job because, ultimately, your day job is only one to fulfill your responsibilities as a father. It’s going to feel good to get items off your checklist and doing it in an environment that you understand will help you achieve those quicker.

Dress for the success

For work, you gotta dress for the part, right? Do the same at home. For me, if I dress too comfortably, I equate it to relaxation and I don’t want to do anything. My daughter, just as any toddler, requires a lot of energy, so the best way to dress to keep up with her is by throwing on my running shoes and workout clothes. Wearing my running shoes just  psychologically makes me more agile and keeps me from just laying around.

Learn, obey your sleep patterns

What really helped me use my time more efficiently was understanding my sleep patterns, particularly when it’s impossible to get a full eight hours of sleep.

Basically, a sleep cycle lasts 90 minutes and goes through five different stages. Within those stages, there are shallow/light periods of sleep and deep/heavy ones. The secret is waking up when you’re in light, shallow sleep. If you do, you won’t feel so groggy and you’ll wake up in a much better mood. This means you can feel more refreshed even when waking up earlier if you do it while you’re in a light sleep period. You can use that to extra time for either yourself or to get things done so you have less to do later.

A bunch of fancy tools can help you map your sleep cycles, many found within fitness wearables. If you want to use any of these, an app called Sleep Time can help you via your smartphone.

Once you figure out your optimal sleep times, you can make it a routine to go to sleep and wake at the same time. I use a light-emitting alarm clock that mimics the sun rising over a 30 minute period. I lets me naturally wake up during light sleep without those obnoxious alarm clock sounds that pierce right through your soul.

Cleanse from time-drainers

This one is hard because it takes sacrifice. If your family struggles for time with you, then time-drainers shouldn’t be given any priority. I’m talking about TV, sports, video games, Netflix, social media … you know, those things that suck up your time but you always somehow make excuses for.

You don’t have to stop these things altogether, but you should really focus on decreasing your time with them. We think these are things make us who we are, but as soon as you get rid of them you’ll realize how much you don’t need really need them. I have a hard time with binge-watching TV shows. Whenever I get started, it’s hard for me to stop so I try my best to avoid getting sucked into a new one.

Don’t be discouraged if you fall into a wave-like pattern of alternating good and bad periods. The important thing is recognizing the valleys and then trying to correct course.

Give time to yourself

Finally, carve out “me” time where you can. This could be going to the gym or a taking a break to consciously enjoy a time-drainer. Talk to your partner so they understand you need to occasionally decompress, but limit these breaks so they happen either when your time isn’t needed by your family/job (such as early in the morning before work), or perhaps on certain days you feel like you may need them most (Monday Night Football, anyone?). Setting up this time will keep you also looking out for yourself and I assume can do well for mental health.

Try these work-life balance tips out and see if they work for you. Be that super dad you know you’re capable of being and make time work in your favor.

Work-life balance achieved photo by Val Vesa on Unsplash.

The distance between them is a mix of years and meters, measures in degrees of space and sound and time. Two boys joined at the bloodline, bound by fate and floor plans, my sons have shared a bedroom from the beginning, their bunked barracks always a common ground. That changed last week.

For the first time ever, the boys are each in their own room. They believe they have gained freedom and independence, which is true. But I cannot help fear a paradise lost in nightly confidants and the whispers between them. Also, a place for potential guests should any care to visit.

This change in the dynamic of our family feels compounded by another shift, the thinning of a friendship. One of the boys is facing changes at school and we feel the effects at home, relationships being connected as they are.

Granted, friendships are fluid. Even the best can grow stretched or frayed, only held together by past adventures and Facebook. Relationships exist in a state of flux.

Over the years, our boys have bounced in and out of social circles, playdates to sleepovers to group chats always pinging. However, the Venn diagram between them has stayed a steady waxing, rarely casting out into the waning.

But it is happening now. A friend that was is a friend no more, despite my wife and I pleading to the contrary. Our case built against mob mentality, suspecting the other child a victim of it.

Or perhaps it is the other way around. We only know one version of one side, pulled reluctantly through sighs and deep, deep eye-rolls.

It could be this is the way life is supposed to work, bonds breaking as they strain across calendars not yet tethered by the archives of social media. All parties free to expand and explore despite the confines of relative history, now replaced with new paths and nods in the lunchroom. After all, it’s their life, no matter how much we like the other parents.

Therein lies the lesson. What happens in the world gets practice in the home, and while temptation waits around every corner to apply our experience to their discovery, nobody benefits when we do the work for them. Some problems solve themselves, regardless of the making.

At home, our boys didn’t lose any sleep once the new arrangement was decided, dividing bedding and decor in the most amicable split ever. Neither, it seemed, cared as much for the stuff they shared as for the room they needed. All they wanted was privacy and possibility. All they wanted was freedom to expand and explore with the comfort of relatives and history sleeping softly in the room next door.

There are diagrams here, too: sibling dynamics, rivalries and overlaps of everything. Yet since the move the boys have played together more than they did in the countless months that preceded it. Perhaps it is the optics of option, spending time together by choice rather than sentence. Perhaps it is the comfort of commonality.

The distance between them is a mix of years and meters, but it is closer where it matters.

Bedroom bunk bed photo: larkin.family on Foter.com / CC BY-NC