4 readers of the blog have asked what a typical day looks like for me as a stay-at-home Dad. Since my reader base currently stands at 13 subscribers, this is a significant portion of my readers. So by popular demand, here’s a “typical” day in the life of this SAHD.
6–9 am | Early bird gets the poopy diapers
Depending on how the night goes, 6 am is my wake up time. Usually, the twins are the first up, and I’m pleasantly awoken by their babbling baby talk. On rare mornings, I have the motivation to get up before the twins and sneak in a shower and get myself ready for the day. First stop is the twin’s room, where I am greeted with giant grins and kicking feet of excitement. After some morning snuggles and diaper changes, its time to head downstairs and get breakfast ready for the crew. The twins have been upgraded to solid food for breakfast, which mostly consists of bananas, strawberries, and apples. A quick zip in the Nutrabullet and were ready to go. FW Jr. is a cereal fan, but some days we can sneak in some eggs, toast or even pancakes if I’m feeling ambitious. Breakfast is a bit of controlled chaos but compared to dinner, the calmest meal of the day.
FW Jr. heads out the door around 8:15 for Pre-School via his full-time Lyft driver aka my father-in-law. The twins and I hit the floor for our first round of playing and get some army crawling out before the first nap. Sneak in a bottle in, and we’re ready for nap #1.
9-11 am | Nap #1: The only time to do anything
The twins LOVE their first nap. Generally, they aren’t the best sleepers at night, so after two to three hours of playing, eating and crawling, they are pretty exhausted and go down without any complaining. Paci in and asleep, it’s a beautiful thing. On most days, this is a 2+ hour nap. This has quickly become my central time to actually do things around the house. Here’s a shortlist:
- Shower and put on acceptable clothing
- Mow the yard (with the baby monitor on volume 10)
- Put in the first load of laundry
- Make the bed
- Clean the kitchen post breakfast
- Wash bottles
- Try to clean a bathroom or vacuum
- Sit for a second a drink my coffee….write a blog post
11-2pm | Out of the house!
Coming off of a 2-hour nap, the twins are usually happy, rested, and ready to get out on an adventure. We have another quick bottle and head out the door. Most days, this is in the form of a walk, depending on the weather. Coming off of my mystery illness, the walks have been progressively getting longer with a quicker pace. My Fitbit tracks speed, so I have a mini-competition to walk a greater distance and improve my pace. I plan to evolve this into actual running, which may result in a jogging stroller, but I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself.
Days that we don’t get out for a walk are generally errand days. Whole Foods is our favorite stop, loading up on fresh fruits and veggies for baby food or questioning again how FW Jr finished yet another gallon of milk. The most significant victory in my mind was discovering that I could use the kickboard on our double stroller as the platform for the grocery basket.
We’re home by about 12:30 and its time for lunch. Time to bring in something green and balance out all of the fruits from the morning. Our typical 8-month-old lunches are:
- Pureed peas, carrots and pears
- Pureed Green Beans
- Avocado Mash
- Eggs cooked and made into a smoothy of sorts
- Mangos are a favorite mixed with a variety of things above.
2-4 pm | Wildcard nap, better move quick!
Nap #2 is a bit of a wildcard, could be another 2-hour snoozefest or it could be 30 minutes. This one requires a bit more convincing to get them to sleep, but usually nothing more than a couple of minutes of rocking. Given the unpredictability of this one, I tend to hustle. First stop is the laundry, swap washer to the dryer and get load #2 going. And yes, there is laundry EVERY DAY. Head upstairs to wash bottles and clean the kitchen (this one will become a theme). Once the kitchen is clean again, and bottles have been rinsed, scrubbed, and dried, its time for a bit more organizing and start to think about dinner.
4-7 pm | Let the chaos begin
FW Jr comes home around 4:30 from daycare and this is when things start to get fun.
Depending on the twins #2 nap we might try to squeeze in a quick nap #3 around 4:30 or roll the dice and push through the evening and witching hour (this is a real thing, look it up if you don’t have kids). Either way, some combination of FW Jr, the twins and I get dinner ready. The summer has been great for being outside and being able to grill dinner.
Mrs. FW wraps up work around 5 and its time for dinner. The twins get some variation of the ingredients above, and we enter into full-scale negotiation mode with FW Jr who’s 3.5 and loves to try to escape dinner at any cost.
Post dinner we have about an hour before the bedtime routines start, which usually means a quick walk over to our favorite playground and helping FW Jr expend his last bits of energy.
7 pm | Bedtime
Ahh, bedtime. Being outnumbered during bedtime is tough. Everyone needs their particular attention, so there is lots of shuffling and an unspoken dance that Mrs. FW and I have mastered. Bottle prepping, warm washcloths, clean diapers, and settling in a pre-sleep bottle for the twins. FW Jr. has a great time playing in his room building ramps for his cars or putting on his baseball clothes. Once the twins are down, FW Jr. gets cleaned up and into his jammies. Bathroom and brushed teeth, a couple of stories and he’s asleep too.
8 pm | Breathe
We made it. Everyone’s asleep and we can finally take a breath, well almost. Still need to clean the kitchen and wash some more bottles, again.
So there you have it, the “typical” day for this stay-at-home dad.
Alex, sounds like you are settling into your new routine. Your boys are so lucky, keep up the good work💖
Thanks Cindy!
Thanks – Enjoyed this update, can I set it up so I get an email sent to me when you make a new article?
Glad you enjoyed it. There is an email sign up on the side bar.