7 Ways to Add Presence and Intention to your Day

There is so much value in being intentional and present with your children every day. We’ve seen how much of a difference it can make for all of us when we are more intentional and present, but at the same time, it’s a really tricky thing to do day after day. Life is busy and we have what feels like a million different things to accomplish in a day, so slowing down to really appreciate our children and spend intentional time with them can be a difficult thing to do some days. Today we want to talk through a few strategies we love to use to help bring more intentionality back into our days so we can appreciate those meaningful moments while they’re still so little.

Build intentional time into your daily routines. The easiest way to do anything is for it to be as automatic as a daily routine. Do you ever get to the end of the day and realize you didn’t brush your teeth? Well sometimes maybe but most of the time you get it done without even thinking about it. The same holds true for intentional time during the day. Think about the times where you most need to reconnect with your children. Typically we routinely need to reconnect after a disconnection like sleep or work/daycare. How do you start your day with your babies? Is there time for some quiet moments together? How about after naps or when you all get home from your day? With a baby you may just need to greet them with a smile and then offer a few snuggles. With a toddler maybe you have a special way of reconnecting with them like spinning them around in a hug or playing your favourite game or singing your favourite song together. The beautiful part about building these into your daily routines is that you don’t have to reflect back at the end of the day to see if you spent intentional time with your child at the end of your day because your routine ensures you do!
Connection time. We love a good 20-30 minutes of dedicated connection time a day. This is uninterrupted time that is completely child-led and free of distractions (no phones or chores during this time). During this time we can engage in true play with our children, which should be free of planned outcomes and completely spontaneous as it’s led by the child. It can be helpful for some to set a timer so that you know during those 20 minutes you are completely free to be with your child without having to worry about your to-do list or running late for the next part of your day. Some of you may be feeling like 20 minutes of child-led play seems like a long time, and it can definitely feel like that at first. It can be difficult to engage in pretend play or building towers or doing the same puzzle for the 3rd or 4th time in a row, but we want to encourage you here. Try to think of it as filling your child’s cup with connection, it’s much easier to play when we reframe it like that!
Schedule your own screen time. We are totally guilty of getting lost in the scroll of social media when we mean to be present and attentive with our children, and we know we’re not alone in that. It’s hard to be present consistently throughout the day, especially when you’re tired as a lot of parents of babies and toddlers are. One strategy we use in our own homes is to “schedule” our own screen time. That means we set times for when we’re going to check our phones or reply to emails. Outside of these times, we do our best to keep our phones in the other room or tucked away in a bag, except to snap a cute pic or video of course! Most smart phones also let you set limits on when or for how long you have access to certain apps. This can be a helpful tool to ensure you are more present and intentional in the mornings or at bedtime. It’s always a bit of an adjustment but we always feel amazing after reducing our own screen time to intentionally chosen times of the day.
Laugh together. This is a big one! At the end of it all, the payoff for all the hard work and effort you put into your children is the ability to enjoy them. Laughing with your babies and toddlers is a great way to feel closer and connect with them as laughing releases oxytocin, which is the bonding hormone. You deserve to have fun with your kids and if you do something that has all of you laughing together, you’re likely to want to do it more often, because you’re finding it enjoyable! To do this, we encourage you to find a way to play that you enjoy as opposed to the completely child-led connection time. You can come up with a completely ridiculous variation of tag, or start up a classic like hide and seek or freeze dance. Pick something that lights you up and that you truly enjoy.
Daily Gratitude. One practice that can help increase your daily intentionality is a daily gratitude practice. To do this, pick a quiet time of your day and commit to writing down 3-5 things you’re grateful for in the past 24 hours. Sounds simple right? But here’s the trick, they need to be specific to something that happened in the past 24 hours. So of course you could say you’re grateful for your children, your partner, your home, etc. But those aren’t super specific, and lead to more of an empty practice of re-writing the same list every day. Instead, try to pick something specific that you are grateful for from the last 24 hours. To give you a few examples, it could be something like the way your baby giggled when you played peek-a-boo, or the way your toddler “hid” under a glass table. When you know you need to write down the things you are grateful for at the end of the day or the next morning, you will find yourself looking for those things and intention follows your awareness!
Use caregiving activities. Being intentional during caregiving activities is such a great way to fit presence and intentionality into your day. You are spending hours a day taking care of your babies and toddlers, so bringing intention into the way you are caring for them can go a long way. These activities can include feeding, diapering, bathing, or dressing your child, to name a few. If we take diaper changes as a time to look our children in their eyes (as much as possible anyway), or mealtimes as a time to speak to and listen to our children, we can add hours of connection and intentionality to every day.
Do something for you. The final way to bring more presence and intentionality into your day with your children is to take time to do things for yourself. You are going to feel like you’re more attuned to your world if your basic needs are being met. You will feel much more present if you feel like your needs for play, movement, and social interaction are being fulfilled. So we want to encourage you to take the break you need, ask for help so you can do the things that you love and that light you up, and remember that you were a person before you were their mom and that person matters, a LOT.

We hope that you found one or two things you can try to add to your day to increase your daily presence and intention with your children. Parenting is a lot less stressful when everyone’s connection needs are met and taken for granted and you’re likely to find your children more endearing when you spend time enjoying them.

Categories: connection, Motherhood, Parenting, Routine