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Finding Time for Quiet Time

Day 1: Its 5:15am and the baby is awake. My husband rolled over in an attempt to see the alarm while I sit upright and start to gain my bearings. I head to the kitchen to make a bottle for him.  I change and feed the baby and put him in the playpen to play. My morning has started. At this point it is almost 6am, and I can either shower, have a quiet time, or unload the dishwasher.  Before jumping in the shower, I chatted with my husband for a few minutes about our grocery list. Then give him a kiss before I take a shower and he goes off to work.  By the time I finish it is near 6:40 which gives me just enough time to eat breakfast and unload the dishwasher before I have to get the kids up at 7:15. Once again my quiet time has been pushed out by my morning tasks.

Day 2: I wake up at 5:30 am- And start get ready for the day. I manage to shower, eat breakfast, drink coffee, and have a full quiet time while all children are still tucked snuggly in their beds. Prior to the children getting up, I even have a chance to fold a load of laundry, unload the dishwasher, layout the kids clothing for the day, and set out the breakfast (including making the baby’s bottle and cereal). It is a glorious morning, and I feel like an awesome supermom.

These two extremes illustrate that anything can happen when you are a mom. It doesn’t even matter how many or how old your kids are. Every day is different, and being flexible is the only way to stay sane. I used to be really hard on myself about not being able to fit everything in that I wanted in the morning, particularly a quiet time.



Making time for a prayer and Bible time can be hard especially when mornings are so busy and often start so abruptly. I prefer having some time for myself in the morning to get my bearings in the quiet of the morning without the kids being awake. This is the time I usually prefer doing a quiet time, but it seems more times than not it gets crowded out by other items on my to do list.   It seems that I may need to rethink my routine so that I don’t feel so overwhelmed in the morning. Mornings are so hard when you have a lot to fit in before the kids wake up. It’s even harder if you have to get everyone out the door by a certain time.

My new plan when the morning is hectic is that I’m going to try to do a short quiet time after my kids go down for their naps after lunch. This is typically the time I call “quiet time” in my house this summer where I send the kids to separate parts of the house to either read, or color quietly. Though the morning time is ideal prior to the kids waking up, at this stage of motherhood I need to fit it in when I can.

“Quiet Time”- At this stage of motherhood, the times when my house is actually quiet. Sometimes first thing in the morning is the only time of day when it is quiet. However, other times the naptime is the only time it is quiet. The principle of having a quiet time is an opportunity to sit down and actually spend time in my Bible and prayer for a few minutes. Once the day has started, I have to force my brain to slow down. Often, I get distracted by things like the phone ringing, or by social media.

Social Media- How much time was I spending on social media during the day and when was I using it the most? My answer to this question was during my children’s naptime. While I was not always constantly on my phone, I often watch YouTube videos of news clips, or my favorite channels as a way to take advantage of the quiet while I folded laundry, washed dishes, or cleaned the kitchen.  Even if I found a free moment where I was able to sit down, I didn’t usually do this without my phone.

My new goal is to put my phone away for the first hour of naptime so that I do my quiet time (if I had not previously done it as part of my regular morning routine). If I previously have done my quiet time in the morning I still want to make use of this time by taking the time to read a book, or write in my journal.

Lesson: Choose your priorities but being flexible will allow your priorities to match where you are in your stage of motherhood.

 This post is linked up this week at http://www.lifeoffaithblog.com/


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