Our lockdown routine

Around six weeks ago I wrote about how I work from home productively. This was pre-lockdown, in anticipation of a lot more people working from home.

I wrote about how you should stick to your usual routine, take regular breaks, have a tidy work environment and try not to over-snack.

So, things have changed. A lot. As soon as schools and childcare closed, all bets were off. We were left wondering what the hell we were going to do. My husband is a key worker in the financial sector, who is luckily able to work from home. I'm not a key worker, but again I'm able to work from home.

My mini coworker

As we have a toddler, it's just not possible for us both be working simultaneously while she is awake. We created a rota so that one of us is working while the other is looking after the kids. Luckily I work part time, so I was able to spread my hours out over the week to make this a little easier. Both of our employers have been very flexible with our working hours. 

I work Monday-Friday, 7am-11am. He works 11am-7pm. 

This means I have to be up, showered, dressed and have my computer on for 7am. I eat my breakfast at my desk whilst doing my daily headline check.

As I'm only working for four hours per day I don't take a proper break. I might get ten minutes with the kids while A is on the toilet - glamorous, I know. I clock off at 11am and fly straight into parenting. 

Usually I'll make an early lunch, then when S goes down for her afternoon nap I'll do some learning with W. I've found picking a 'theme of the day' works great for him, as we can base all of our activities around it and he barely realises he's learning. If he thinks he's doing school work he often has an absolute meltdown. We had a dinosaur themed day last week that went down really well - we created a dinosaur land in our tuff tray, learned about different types of dinosaur and made an illustrated fact sheet about our favourite one.

See post on Dinosaur Day

I'll be honest, it's exhausting, especially with my added physical and mental health challenges. Some days are really rough. Sometimes whole weeks are rough.

The one thing that is really keeping our spirits up is those little nuggets of quality family time. My husband takes his 'lunch break' at tea time, so we always eat our evening meal together. Food is a big deal in this household, so I'm really pleased we can do that.

At the weekend we make sure to go out for our daily walk together and have lots of relaxed, unscheduled time. We've started getting a takeaway every Saturday evening and watching a movie. This is something we'd usually only do about once a month, but I think it's important to give the kids that little treat every week since they are missing out on so many other things they enjoy.

Another thing that we have realised the importance of this past few weeks is alone time. For us parents, but also for my 6 year old. His little sister is intense, and likes to be in his face all day long. We encourage him to go upstairs to play independently in the afternoon when she hits the witching hour, which has really helped. At the weekends, my husband and I take turns having an hour or two to ourselves to do whatever we please. I admit, I usually take a nap!

It's not perfect, but it's working OK. We know we're very lucky to be able to stay at home, and would like to thank all of the key workers that are going out to work to enable us to do that. You're our heroes <3.