How on earth I manage to blog with two kids under 4 years old…

And manage an Instagram account with almost 10,000 followers!

So, I am a stay at home mom of two little boys, age 12 months and 3.5 years. To say I am busy is an understatement!

My day is full of diaper changes, potty breaks, accident cleaning-ups, making snacks, crumb cleaning, tantrum calming, snuggles, kisses, owie-kissing, and not to mention the household tasks like cleaning, laundry, yard care, and meal prepping…

We are also at the age where my younger one is getting a little easier, a little more independent… But not quite.

He is still breastfeeding, and is still not the best sleeper.

And I hate to admit that he is not really on a schedule.

Our older one, who is 3 and a half, is on a pretty basic schedule, and usually goes down for a quiet time every day in the afternoon for a few hours. During this time I just set him up in his room with books, toys, and snacks and let him do his own thing. And, if he is tired, he will go to sleep. So that has been an amazing set up for us!

Our parenting style has never really revolved around a schedule. I found that having a schedule and sticking to it actually made my anxiety and irritability (hello, mom rage…) way higher.

So we naturally just kind of moved to the style of “following cues” rather than going by times or wake windows.

But that is a blog post for another time.

All that to say, every day is a gamble on when or if I am going to have time to actually focus on my blog or on my Instagram page, @bryanathatboymom, which just surpassed 9,000 followers last week!

Content Planning is an absolute MUST

Content planning has saved my sanity.

When I was first posting on my instagram account last year, and it hovered at 1,000 followers, I did not have as much of an obligation to “show up” every day, and I could just post whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted.

Plus, I only had one child, as I was pregnant at the time.

So, while my two year old played, I could just film my silly little reels and let the Instagram magic happen.

But, as my account grew, so did my obligations. To keep my momentum going, it was important that I posted consistently. This meant a lot of brainstorming, and a lot of ideas.

But, I didn’t write down my ideas, or schedule them, and as a result my feed was pretty sporadic and inconsistent, and I would find myself rushing to film something while I was trying to make dinner, editing reels while trying to spend time with my husband, or being on my phone way too much around my kids.

It felt like Instagram was taking over my life!

And that of course led to some major burnout.

I worked with a friend of mine who suggested content planning, and it changed everything!

I tried several methods of content planning, through the Notes app, and a few scheduling apps, and found that good old fashioned pen and paper was the best thing for me.

So, I got a yearly planner and copied down all my ideas.

Why I love my content planner

I love my planner because it shows you a month-at-a-glance, and then opens up to each week-at-a-glance, with lots of room to write down your content, ideas, and deadlines on each day, with even a little section to track your priorities and goals for each week.

How I use my content planner

On the month-at-a-glance page, I visually decide what type of content I want to post throughout the month. Here I write down my reel ideas based on my niche and and my obligations in categories – “Stay-at-home-mom”, “Humour”, “Sentimental”, “Collab with ___” etc. I track how much of each I am doing each month, and each week. Based on what performs the best, I will do more or less of the next month.

I also write in any real-life obligations I have, as this impacts when I will be able to record and edit posts/reels.

Then, each week, or even a few weeks ahead, I put down all these ideas and schedules into my week-at-a-glance, and from here I can decide on which days I will be able to film a bunch of content ahead of time (“content batching”) and when I will be able to take the time to write and post blog posts.

Then, I just check off what I have done, and track what I have missed.

Whatever I missed, I just put back on the rotation for the next week or weeks.

It has taken the pressure off SIGNIFICANTLY!

Where can I get one??

So, I got this one from Costco, and I can link it here, however if you do not shop at Costco I will find some to link from Amazon on my LTK (https://www.shopltk.com/explore/bryanathatboymom).

So you have been able to manage the content you put out, but what about content you take in? And engagement with others?

So, this is a little bit of a trickier one, as you can’t exactly schedule when you consume content, as you have no control over when someone else posts their content.

What I used to do, is set aside an hour or so a few times a day (like when I am rocking Ryker to sleep, or when I am making dinner) to scroll through my feed and engage with other creators, especially ones that consistently engage with my content. I always try to return the love 🙂

What helped me a lot with this was adding those accounts to my “favorites” list on Instagram, and then when scrolling your feed, you can choose to only show “favorites”. This let me know who I have or have not engaged with recently.

Unfortunately, a week or two ago Instagram started cracking down on some stuff, and now when I do this, my account gets flagged for too many likes and comments in a short amount of time.

This really sucks for me, as I am having trouble just opening Instagram and “engaging authentically”, when for me, my previous method WAS authentic! It was the only time I had in the day to be authentic!

UGH.

So, now I don’t really know what to do, so if you have any ideas, besides setting a timer and engaging on Instagram every hour with no more than five accounts (or whatever their limit is…)… I am all ears!

Find more of my tips and tricks on how I manage my blog and Instagram account, on my Instagram account… @bryanathatboymom.

As always, thanks for being here!

xx Bryana