When Routines Become Ruts: Finding Freedom in Flexibility

In episode 243 of The Pulling Curls Podcast, Hilary Erickson dives into the pros and cons of sticking to routines, especially when life throws unexpected challenges your way. She reflects on her own experiences, such as postpartum cleaning and creating flexible family schedules, and explores how sometimes stepping back from strict routines can help maintain balance and sanity. Join for an insightful discussion on when to hold on to routines and when to let them go.

Find it here on Apple or Spotify Podcasts

Big thanks to our sponsor Family Routines while routines can definitely be a rut, they can also keep our house on a schedule that allows us more freedom!

Timestamps:

00:00 Non-routine days help maintain sanity amidst chaos.
04:30 Evaluate routines: beneficial or unnecessarily stressful today?

Keypoints:

• Introduction to the episode topic: being too tied to routines and its implications.
• Hilary’s personal background as a nurse, mom, and the creator behind Pulling Curls and The Pregnancy Nurse.
• Mention of Family Routines as the episode’s sponsor and its relevance to the topic.
• Anecdote about Hilary’s habit of sticking to routines, including cleaning routines postpartum.
• Discussion on how being too tied to routines can become problematic during unexpected situations like illness or having a sick child.
• Example of Hilary incorporating “non-routine” days into her structured weeks to balance routine and spontaneity.
• Reflection on how rigid routines impacted Hilary’s enjoyment of early motherhood and thoughts on potential future as a grandparent.
• The concept of occasionally allowing children to break from routines as a form of a treat, and emphasizing the importance of returning to routines thereafter.
• The importance of evaluating whether a routine is helpful or harmful, and being flexible enough to adjust.
• Tease for upcoming episodes focusing on birth plans with Dr. Nicole Rankins and a discussion on local voting with a school board member.

Producer: Drew Erickson

Transcript

[00:00:00.000] – Hilary Erickson

Hey, guys. Welcome back to the Pulling Curls Podcast. Today on episode 243, we are talking about being too tied to routines. It’s one of those episodes that Hilary really needs, and you guys just get to listen in. Let’s untangle it.

[00:00:13.760] – Hilary Erickson

Hi, I’m Hilary, a serial overcomplicator. I’m also a nurse, mom to three, and the curly head behind Pulling Curls and the Pregnancy Nurse. This podcast aims to help us stop overcomplicating things and remember how much easier it is to keep things simple. Let’s smooth out those snarls with Pregnancy and Parenting Untangled, The Pulling Curls Podcast.

[00:00:41.800] – Hilary Erickson

This episode of the Pulling Curls Podcast is sponsored by Family Routines, which is confusing because I’m talking about too many routines. But if you are looking to get routines in your life, if you’re rolling your eyes thinking, If I could just get on a routine, come join me in Family Routines. I clearly am great at it. So come join me in there. It’s going to make your life easier, and it’s going to your family more involved in helping out around the house.

[00:01:03.200] – Hilary Erickson

My dad has a phrase, Everything in moderation, including moderation, which I always laugh about. He uses it a lot with me because I tend to be the person who goes to extremes, but also the extreme of moderation. He’s like, No, you have to go to the extremes every once in a while.

[00:01:18.570] – Hilary Erickson

I often get too tied into routines. I’m like, This is the day that I do my bathroom. I will say that when I came home postpartum, I was unable to stop cleaning my house. I cleaned the bathroom on Tuesdays. I still went in and cleaned the bathroom on Tuesdays, even though I had just had a baby two days before, and my husband was completely capable, willing, able, just didn’t get in there before I did it.

[00:01:42.090] – Hilary Erickson

I was so tied to the routine of, ‘that’s what I do on Tuesdays’ that I couldn’t let it go. I don’t know if anyone else is here with me, but that is Hilary.

[00:01:50.770] – Hilary Erickson

I think you can see this as a problem when something big happens. You’re sick, you have a sick kid, and you’re still so tied to those routines. You’re just scrambling to get it done because that’s your routine.

[00:02:02.030] – Hilary Erickson

Sometimes I actually build non-routines into my routine. In the summer, we’d always have a really clear plan about what we did during the day. In the mornings, we’d get up, the kids would do some learning activity, and then we would have some screen time, and then we would have reading time, and then we would have… I had a routine.

[00:02:20.850] – Hilary Erickson

But on Fridays, it was a day for non-routine. We tried to go do something fun. It got us out of the house, got us doing something different. Because Friday was my non routine day, it helped me not get so tied to the routines, but also still have a routine so we didn’t all lose our minds on the other days of the week.

[00:02:38.320] – Hilary Erickson

Sometimes I find myself tied to this when I’m like, Today is my kitchen day, but my kids have made a huge mess in the bathroom, and I’m in my head like, Well, I have to clean my kitchen, maybe even first before I get to the bathroom, or I have to clean my bathroom and my kitchen, overwhelming myself, when in reality, something’s crazy happened, we’re going to take care of the bathroom, and then maybe we do some of the kitchen on the next bathroom day.

[00:03:01.820] – Hilary Erickson

We notice it when things out of the ordinary snag us up, and we notice that we’re so tied to this routine that we’re having a hard time letting go of it while trying to keep our own sanity in the situation. That’s when I notice it, at least.

[00:03:15.510] – Hilary Erickson

Going back to when I had babies, I clung to these routines so much. I did have my babies on a schedule, and I clung to that schedule so much that maybe I didn’t enjoy them as much as I could. I often wonder what life will be like when I’m a grandparent and I won’t have to care about anything like that.

[00:03:29.460] – Hilary Erickson

I, of course, will do whatever my children want me to do with that baby, but I won’t have that inner drive of it’s three hours that baby has to go down for a nap, right? When I just want to sit there and hold on for another five minutes. Hopefully, I can override that as a grandparent. Which, by the way, is probably not for a really long time.

[00:03:47.430] – Hilary Erickson

Something I like to do is I gift my kids not being in the routine every once in a while. We do a Saturday morning clean. If a kid has just been super busy in a play or has something like that, I’ll say, You know what? This week, you’re out of the Saturday morning clean. Just enjoy Enjoy your day. The rest of us are going to take care of it.

[00:04:02.460] – Hilary Erickson

But the next week, you got to make sure that they jump right back into that routine because otherwise, they’ll sense your weakness and they’ll be like, Well, I guess we don’t have to clean the house on Saturdays. And that’s not what I want. I love getting my family involved with the Saturday clean. I I have a whole podcast on it.

[00:04:16.320] – Hilary Erickson

But sometimes when you want to give your kid a treat, the treat is that I do some of the work for you or you get out of this routine, and that shows you that I love you by doing some extra work for you instead of buying you a bag of Skittles.

[00:04:29.220] – Hilary Erickson

Everything in life is a balance. Sometimes I have to step back and really look at, is this routine helping me or hurting me, or is today the day just to skip this routine? Could I just skip it? Could I just lightly do the bathroom? Do I have to go full bore on it? When we look at how things are affecting our lives and we step back and look at it, sometimes routines can be really a bummer.

[00:04:52.970] – Hilary Erickson

I think that in general, routines help my house run really well and it makes me less stressed. But when I find that I’m getting too stressed out by the routines, got to step back and figure out why. If it’s just today or if it’s the actual routine that’s just too much. I would encourage you guys to check that out. It’s just something that I’ve been noticing in my life, and it might help you guys as well.

[00:05:13.450] – Hilary Erickson

Stay tuned. Next week, we are talking about birth plans with Dr. Nicole Rankins. Then the week after that, we’re going to be talking about voting in some of the smaller elections around us with my friend who is on the school board. So stay tuned for that.

[00:05:25.450] – Hilary Erickson

Thanks for joining us on the Pulling Curls Podcast today. If you liked today’s episode, please consider reviewing, sharing, subscribing. It really helps our podcast grow. Thank you.

Keywords:

Pulling Curls, podcast, episode 243, routines, overcomplicating, Hilary Erickson, serial overcomplicator, nurse, mom of three, pregnancy, parenting, Family Routines, cleaning schedule, postpartum, bathroom cleaning, moderation, routine balance, sick kid, summer plan, screen time, learning activities, non-routine day, kitchen day, baby schedule, grandparenting, Saturday morning clean, family involvement, routine flexibility, household management, birth plans, voting, school board.