Skip to content
The Coronavirus pandemic has been nothing short of a total change to the way most of us live our lives. Yet the lockdown has brought some positives with most of us being able to spend more time at home with our families. We caught up with Rowena to discuss how she has been changing her family routine to keep the whole family healthy and look after their immune systems.
Rowena is a Primary School Teacher, a travel loving mum of two boys Zackary and Jake and wife to Matt. She loves reading and travel and also is a big Disney fan. She loves day trips in the UK and her favourite city break is London. Discover Rowena's healthy family lockdown routine below or read her full blog here.
During lockdown as well as having more time together as a family I have also had more time to think about our overall health and strategies to improve this. I started to think about my tops tips not only for myself, but my family. These tips can work well in isolation but also amalgamated together to make a healthy family routine for us all to follow! Below are my top 7 tips which I hope we can continue once lockdown ends!
1. Exercise
Exercise is so important to our overall mental well being and health and I have to admit before lockdown with a busy schedule teaching and being a mum, it was often the first one I would miss off my daily routine! I have since realised since the lockdown began having our daily walks/ bike rides really does make an overall difference to our well-being and happiness.
2. Diet
Recently I have been taking time to improve our whole families diet. Taking popular advice such as eating five portions of fruit and veg a day has really helped but I often would still feel run down and lacking energy. Sometimes I would also forget to always have a variety of fruit and vegetables too. I was also very excited to find Tonic Health the first Mumsnet rated vitamin drink.
3. Meal Times
We have been trying to meal plan during lockdown and we have found this has made a significant difference to our overall health and has helped with budgeting too! We have found that having something to stick to not only saves money, but helps us include a variety of dishes into our weekly schedule. There is nothing worse than being super busy working/homeschooling to find you don’t have the ingredients to hand for the evening meal! We have also enjoyed slow cooking as often we can prepare our meals in advance and this leaves less stress at dinner time when the boys can be hungry and tired.
4. Routine
Having a routine is really important. I have talked previously about homeschooling and how having a routine really helps structure our day. This really important in terms of our overall family health as it our days go much smoother when we have an overall plan of activities and down time. This then can be used to incorporate the above tips and make sure they are all implemented.
5. Stress
Without a routine I often find things can get out of control and this contributes to stress and nothing then gets done! Keeping on top of my health really does help me keep stress free along with time to relax as a family together and enjoy our time. I also make sure to find time for myself because I often forget that spending time to do something that you love whether it be read a book or even paint your nails, it can really help your overall well-being!
6. Sleep
As mums we often talk about sleep especially where newborns are concerned. Sleep is important at an stage though and lack of sleep can really impact your overall health. I often find a good healthy sleep schedule helps including some down time before bed such as a favourite activity, a nice hot bath along with enjoying a good book before bed. This sleep routine works for the whole family and is something we stick to regularly.
7. Hobbies
Last but not least hobbies! This is so important as ‘as all work and no play’ is a recipe for disaster! We actively encourage the boys to explore their favourite activities such as bike riding, sport, music and art. We love music as a family. Myself and my two boys play the piano and my husband plays the guitar. We find having shared hobbies like this really good fun and since the lockdown began we have been having family music sessions together. I hope you have enjoyed hearing my routine.
This post was originally posted on Rowena's blog and can be found here.
