Confidently Beautiful with Ciera
Confidently Beautiful with Ciera
Practical Systems for Stress-Free Motherhood: Creating Your Confident Mom Routine
Every mama knows that feeling—the moment when it seems like the chaos of motherhood might just be winning. But what if a few simple routines could transform those overwhelming days into confident ones?
That's exactly what I'm sharing in this practical episode about mom routines that actually work. From my weekly Sunday power hour with my husband (where we sync calendars and eliminate those mid-week surprises) to the game-changing habit of always keeping filled water bottles in the fridge, these aren't complicated systems—they just work.
You'll discover why Monday grocery pickup followed by afternoon meal prep has eliminated my "what's for dinner" stress, how one daily load of laundry prevents Mount Washmore from forming, and why weekly outfit organizers have revolutionized our morning routine. These five simple strategies have helped me feel more in control, less stressed, and genuinely confident about facing each week.
Whether you're deep in toddler chaos or juggling school activities and sports practices, these practical routines can be adapted to fit your family's unique rhythm. The beauty lies in their simplicity—pick just one to start with and watch how it transforms your daily experience. Because motherhood doesn't have to feel like constant firefighting; with intentional systems in place, it can be a journey where you feel prepared, present, and yes, confidently beautiful.
Share this episode with another mom who could use these sanity-saving tips, and don't forget to connect with me on Instagram @confidentlybeautifulpodcast to share which routine you're implementing first!
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You're listening to Confidently Beautiful with Ciera, a podcast to help you stay confidently beautiful, because we all have confidence inside us. We just need to bring it out and I'm here to show you how Body image, dreams, parenting, style, personality and more. Here we cover it all. Get ready to stay confidently beautiful. Ready to stay confidently beautiful. Welcome back to Confidently Beautiful. I am your host, Ciera, and today we are going to be talking about routines that make mom life smoother, saner and a whole lot more joyful, because when mama is happy, then everyone's happy, right? Isn't that the saying? So this episode is about small, practical habits that can make a huge difference. These are things that I have found over the years of motherhood that have helped me. I am not perfect at it, but these are some things that are helpful for me, that I have learned from other moms that hopefully can be helpful for you. These are things that helped make me feel a little bit more in control, less stressed and, honestly, just more confident about going back into the week. I actually love Mondays because of a lot of these reasons that I have set up. So, whether you're deep in toddler chaos, juggling school activity and drop-offs, or just somewhere in between, that I've got you covered and I hope that these tips can help you out. I would love it if you would share this episode with another mom. So stop, pause this episode, send a quick text, send it to another mom who might be able to use these tips in their life and make things a little bit more easier for them. Did you know that I finally did it? I finally have an email newsletter and I'm so excited. I have put together a brand new website, confidentlybeautifulwithciera. com C-I-E-R-A. com, and you can sign up for my newsletter there. I will have a newsletter full of my favorite things podcast episodes that maybe you have missed. Anything beauty and self-care related is going to be there. It's going to be full of things that I hope bring some value to you. So if this is something that you are interested in signing up for, head on to my website, confidentlybeautifulwithciera. com and sign up for the newsletter, or you can click the link in my bio or in the show notes and it will take you directly there, and I can't wait to be in your inbox.
Ciera:My number one strategy is my Sunday power hour. Now, this is called power hour, but it sometimes is like power 15 minutes. Sometimes it's really fast, sometimes it can be a full on hour. Ideally we can do it away from our kids. That is the best, but if if the kids are running in and out, then that's okay. Sometimes that is just what we have to do. So I love to do this on Sundays, after I have done my own personal planning.
Ciera:This is when, like my husband and I will come and we will sit down together for as long as we can If it's an hour, great. If it's 10 minutes, that's fine too and we'll sit down and we will go over our calendars and go over what each of us have going on that week. That's really big and stressful. We go over our budget and just do a quick check-in and anything else that needs to be discussed, like kids activities, like what we want to do for date night, maybe we have some family plans coming up, or I need help with some pickup and drop-offs. Then we can discuss all of this.
Ciera:One of the reasons that I have found that this really helps is it has reduced a lot of like the middle of the week surprises. It helps us to feel more like we're a team together, so that we're not like all of a sudden, something is being thrown onto one of us that we're like wait, this is happening or wait, this is my responsibility. It just helps with the communication and helps to take away those surprises, and it is a lot easier for us to be able to say what we need right up front rather than in the chaos of the moment. At least for me, if I can be up front with what I'm going to be needing help with right away, then I don't have to worry about stressing about it at the last minute or making sudden changes. It doesn't need to be fancy, just make it consistent. If you can just do it once a week, I love it to do it on Sundays, because then it can just start off our week in a fresh way. But whatever works for you, there was a season that we did this on our Friday night, date night. We would typically go to dinner for date night and then we would go and get a dessert somewhere and this is when we would do our quick check in. But now we do it on Sundays and that is working for us really well right now. So find something that works for you. It doesn't need to be fancy, just grab a notebook, grab your calendar, grab your phone and use your phone calendar whatever it is that you use and just go over all of your things. We love to use the Apple calendar. We have shared calendars. I have different colors for all of my kids and that helps to keep me very organized and it also helps him to be able to see at a glance what is going on during the busyness of the week.
Ciera:My favorite budgeting app is the EveryDollar app. This is an app that I just have found that has been very helpful with me for online stuff and then also I can have it on my phone as an app and it's helpful to keep track of our budget that way, and it also is helpful with us as we are on our journey to paying off our debt. If you would like to try every dollar, I have a code to get you $10 off, so just click the link in the show notes below and that link will take you directly to where you can get $10 off. An annual plan. I highly recommend getting the annual plan because it automatically syncs all of your bank account transactions so that all you have to do is categorize them, and you also get access to all of the Ramsey books and audio books and a whole bunch of different trainings and it's really, really beneficial. I have found that I really enjoy it for our debt-free journey.
Ciera:My system number two that is super simple but is literally a game changer, and I actually didn't start doing this until we moved into our new house this last summer. But I don't know why I didn't do it before, because it's so much better. I think the answer is because I didn't have a fridge in our garage at our old house and now I have a fridge in our garage at our new house. But the what I do is I fill the water bottles all like they come out of the dishwasher, they're filled with water, like they are always filled with water and they always go into the fridge. They are very rarely put into the drawer, if ever. Um, at least the kids water bottles sometimes Seth's and mine will be put away in the cupboard. Least the kids water bottles sometimes Seth's and mine will be put away in the cupboard. But the kids water bottles they come out of the dishwasher, they get water put in it and they get straight in the fridge.
Ciera:And this has been game changer for like those chaotic moments where we're all getting in the car, we're in a rush, whether we're going like to somewhere fun, like maybe going to the park, or we're going to rent errands or we're going to school. Wherever it is that we're going, it happens every single time that somebody wants a snack and is thirsty Every single time, and so I have just started the habit of leaving snacks in the fridge in the garage that are like super easy grab and go snacks, and also filled water bottles. So this does take a little bit of effort every day, because my kids do bring a water bottle to school every day, and oftentimes my littles will have water bottles with them as we're running errands or out doing fun things during the day, and so I do need to remember every single night to refill the water bottles and put them in the fridge, and every time I unload the dishwasher, refill the water bottles and put them in the fridge. But if I always have water bottles in the fridge, man, this is a game changer for so many things Soccer practice, dance practice, school errands, all the things. It is so nice and so convenient. It's just one less thing that I have to try and remember in that morning scramble or that trying to get out the door scramble. We have a designated spot. We just know that the outside fridge in the top right corner. That is where all of the water bottles go, and so that's where my husband can check. If he's running out to a practice with one of the kids, then he can check and see if there's water bottles in there.
Ciera:My system number three is my Monday grocery pickup and meal prep. So this kind of actually goes from Sunday to Monday. So we talked a little bit about the power hour that I do on Sundays. Another thing that I do on Sundays is my grocery order. So I do all my meal planning for the week. I plan out what we're going to have on what days. I look at my calendar, know like, okay, this day I probably need a crockpot meal, this day I could do a little bit of a more relaxed, slower meal. And then I know what to should be planning. And then I place my grocery order on Sunday and and then I know what to should be planning. And then I place my grocery order on Sunday and then I plan to pick it up on Monday, and I will typically pick it up in the morning and I'll pick up the groceries and then later in the afternoon after the kids get home from school when I'm doing their after school snack, I will also do my weekly meal prep, so I will prep any staples.
Ciera:It seems like I make muffins quite often, so I'll usually make some muffins, grab some snacks and cut up the veggies and like just have everything all ready. Sometimes I will meal prep like chicken in the oven. I just seasoned a bunch of chicken and put it in the oven and that is really helpful for when I need chicken for meals, then it's already cooked and it's ready to just throw in. Or I like to have that sometimes for lunches for me when I'm at home I can just like grab a bag of salad and put a salad together and then throw some chicken on and that's perfect. So I love to do my meal prep that way and it is just so nice because I find myself eating a little bit better throughout the week. I find my kids eating better throughout the week and it has taken away that what's for dinner stress at the end of the day, because I have have it all planned out and I can find my rhythm. So it doesn't have to be on a Monday For me. That's what works for me and my schedule. But find your rhythm, find your day and just get into the routine. And as long as you're having the routine, then like the goal is to just have the less stress of what am I going to eat today, what's for dinner? We don't have anything to eat that can just take away so much stress, if you can have that planned.
Ciera:Number four is one load of laundry a day. This is so much easier said than done, but if I can try and remember to start a load in the morning, switch it midday, either at lunch or when we get home from school, pick up and then put it in the dryer at around dinnertime and then hopefully fold it before I go to bed and put it away, be so helpful in keeping up with all of the making sure we have outfits for the week and staying on top of all of that. Plus, it also keeps that mound of laundry that away that always seems to creep up and just overtake my laundry room. I just always seem to have just piles and piles of laundry. So this is one area that I am trying to be better at, but I have found that when I actually do stick to this, the one load of laundry start to finish every single day. It makes such a difference.
Ciera:And number five kind of goes along with laundry is my weekly outfit organizer for my kids. I have shared about this on my Instagram a couple times. Actually, it is probably one of my most favorite organizing items. It is just one of those hanging organizers and it has a slot for each day of the week and every weekend I just go through and I pick out the outfits for my kids. So if they have like crazy sock day at school or where, like this coming week, we have teacher appreciation so they're supposed to wear their teacher's favorite color, I don't have to like try and remember the morning of, because I'm never going to remember that, and so I can just look at my calendar Okay, this is what we have going on this week, so these are the things that they're going to have to wear, and so I can know what clothes to put in what day, so that when that day comes, we don't even have to think about it. We just grab the clothes out of the slot and they put those clothes on and it is done. And so I have one for each of my kids.
Ciera:I actually don't have one for my baby, but he's getting to the point that I really do need to get him one. We were going through like so many outfits a day because he was still so little, but now he's pretty good about just sticking to one outfit a day. So I do need to get him one, and it just makes it so much easier if I can just pick all the clothes on the weekend and then just put all the outfits in and then we don't even have to think about it during the week. It just makes the morning so much smoother. And the bonus is my kids can get dressed themselves. They don't always, but at least they can, and they have that option because they know what to grab. They don't have to say I don't know what I'm supposed to be putting on.
Ciera:A quick recap Sunday power hour water bottles in the fridge bonus if you want to put some snacks in there too, that are super easy. Grab-and-go snacks. Monday grocery pickup and meal prep. One load of laundry start to finish every day. And the weekly outfit organizers for kids Bonus if you want to do it for yourself too. They're not super complicated systems, but they work. They have helped me feel more confident, prepared and present, and that's what it's all about right. That's what we're here for. That's what we're listening to this podcast for is to be more confident, and I have found that these things really help. So just pick one of these. Maybe you're already doing some, so maybe just pick one that might be new to you, or, if you already have one in mind that you know might work for you and your family, start with that and just start small, stay consistent and you'll notice the shift.
Ciera:Mom life doesn't have to be chaos. It can be confident. So I invite you to share this on your Instagram. I would love to hear your routines. I know I love to hear other mom routines, so tag me confidently beautiful podcast on your Instagram and your stories and tell me what your routines are and what you're doing this week to help make things a little bit less stressful and help you to feel more confident in your mom life.
Ciera:Next episode is going to be something really fun, as we are getting the end of school year. I'm going to kind of be going along with this episode of organization and systems and we're going to be talking about how to stay sane during the end of school year. Chaos, because Maycember is crazy. Right, maysember is crazy and we're getting here close to the end of the school year and we can do this. I know we can stay confident and we can stay organized and we can power through this end of the school year chaos. So stay confidently beautiful and I will talk to you next time. Thanks for listening. Connect with me on Instagram at confidently beautiful podcast and share this episode with someone in your life who could use a little reminder of just how amazing they already are. Stay confidently beautiful.