Plan Time To Love and Have Fun With Your Baby

Do You Know How to Plan Time For Your Baby?

Do you want to spend more time with your baby? Want to love them up and have fun?

Would you like more time to do musical activities? More time to read to them? Maybe more time to play with them? Or just have more time to snuggle with them?

The struggle is real to plan and find the time to do the things you REALLY would like to do with your baby. If you’re like me, you may have tried lists, schedules, and planners to arrange your day.

However, they never really seem to work. The reason they don’t work is we don’t use them properly.

Put Into Practice Planning Time For Your Baby

What can a busy parent do to find time in their schedule to do more things with their baby? I would like to offer three suggestions that have worked for me in the past when my children were little. They still work for me now that they are grown and gone.

They are simple things to do. However, many people find them difficult to do. They are difficult because, for most of us, it will require a major shift in our mindset.

We are creatures of habit. Habits are hard to break. It is possible to replace one habit with another. But, it takes time to put into practice.

Sadly, not many people actually put into practice the actions required to accomplish a goal. So, in this case you have to ask yourself this question:

“How important is it to me to spend more time with my baby?”

I believe you already know the answer to that question. That brings us to Suggestion #1.

Suggestion #1-Put It Into Practice

Dr. Shinichi Suzuki said, “Plenty of people often think, ‘I should do this or that.’ We have the ability to think that. But it usually ends there and people who put their thoughts into practice are very few indeed.” (p. 88 Nurtured By Love by Shinichi Suzuki)

The ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu put it another way. It may seem harsh, but it is true: “Time is a created thing. To say, ‘I don’t have time’ is to say, ‘I don’t want to’.” Ouch!

You have to decide that you are going to be that person who puts their thoughts into practice.

“Time is a created thing. To say, ‘I don’t have time’ is to say, ‘I don’t want to’.”

Lao Tzu

Consequently, your first step will be to shift into the mindset that you ARE going to do whatever it takes to find more time to spend with your baby. Period!

Now, I know what you’re thinking: “OK, Susan. Just HOW am I supposed to do that?”

Stick with me and find out HOW in Suggestion #2.

Suggestion #2-Use My #1 Secret

Let’s consider this “put it into practice” idea to deal with the mistaken notion that most of us think we have no time. Here is my #1 secret for getting back some time we think we don’t have: USE A PLANNER!

Steve Jobs said, “It’s really clear that the most precious resource we all have is time.” Will you spend that precious resource on the baby you treasure?

I have always been a list-maker. There is a certain satisfaction in drawing a line through a task completed. So, instead of little pieces of paper with notes on them to myself all around, I use a planner.

In a planner, you can write down all your tasks and plans. Next, put them in a time slot. Then, as the famous foot wear ad says, “Just do it!”

We make appointments for all sorts of things: doctor, hair dresser, attending events (OK, pre-Covid, anyway), etc. You get the idea. You planned it, wrote it down, and kept the appointment.

“It’s really clear that the most precious resource we all have is time.”

Steve Jobs

What if you treated your desire to spend more time with your baby as your most important appointment of all?

You can do that! So, write it down, put it in a time slot, and KEEP that appointment with your baby!

What Would Your Schedule Look Like?

This is only a SAMPLE schedule. It will look different for each of you. I am also well aware that babies do what they want!

Sometimes the schedule just plain goes out the window!! But, it might look something like this:

• 6 pm-arrive home from work/feed your little one (and yourself!)
• 7 pm-get baby in their jammies/you do the same or comfy clothes and prepare baby for bedtime
• 7:30 pm-you are ready to snuggle with your baby, read a story, sing a favorite song, lights out, and listen to your quiet instrumental music

Or suppose you want to plan a time to do some musical activities, read books, or listen to music with your baby.

That might look like this: schedule that activity right after a nap, say 10:30 am. This could be everyday or on certain days.

It is up to you when these activities are scheduled. But, do make sure you have written them down in a time slot in your planner. You are much more likely to hold yourself accountable if it is in print.

Here is another thing I have learned. What do you do when you have to cancel a doctor’s appointment? Right! You usually reschedule it.

Give yourself permission to reschedule that music time to another time in the day or the following day. But, be sure to keep that appointment with your little one. They are depending on you.

Make Life With Baby Easier

I have learned yet one more thing. If you schedule that time with your baby, it becomes routine. You and your baby come to expect it.

However, a certain flexibility will begin to develop in the schedule. Suppose you can’t do that reading time you had planned.

That’s OK. Most likely, another time during the day will present itself to do that very thing.

Because you are in tune with wanting to do that particular activity, you will promptly use that time to do things with your baby.

Bonus Suggestion!!

You must also remember that most activities you do with your baby really don’t consume a lot of time. Reading a book, doing a musical activity, playing with a toy, etc. can take only 5-15 minutes. Block out those 5-15 minutes in your planner.

Realize that you can waste that much time just trying to figure out what to do with that much time!

“Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.”

William Penn

When I have not used my planner to its fullest extent, I find that I spend way too much time “spinning my wheels” figuring out what to do next.

Unfortunately, that is when I get NOTHING accomplished. So much for not using a planner wisely

Final Thoughts About Finding More Time

Please know that I am NOT suggesting that you schedule every single moment of your day. That is a recipe for disappointment and disaster. In fact, it might be as bad as planning nothing.

But, I am suggesting that you wisely choose your activities to do with your child, write them in your planner, and make sure to do them.

Your baby is counting on you to plan more special time with them. You should be counting on more special time with your baby, also!

I know you want to find more time to spend with your baby. So, I KNOW you can make it happen with your planner.

Finally, wise, old Benjamin Franklin said it best:

“If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”

Don’t let that happen to you and your baby. Just do it!

On the “Beautiful Heart Musical Journey” with you,

Susan

P. S. “The most effective way to do it, is to do it.” (Amelia Earhart) It turns out that Amelia said it before Nike did:)

Also, in case you are feeling cheated out of my #3 Suggestion, please come back and read next week’s post. I promise it will be there and you will either grow to love it OR immediately hate it! You get to choose:)

OR if you start using a planner and find more time for your baby, you may want to find out about a Suzuki Early Childhood Baby Class program in your area.

Comment and Share

Do you feel like you just have no time to spare? Could a planner help you to find the extra time you want to spend with your baby? Or if you use a planner, what kind do you use? Tell me about your frustrations or ideas in the Comments below.

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