Daily life and schedule for a 12.25-year-old tween who was raised on Babywise. See her daily life, the activities she is involved in, and her daily routine.
This is a summary for Brinley from 12 to 12.25 years old.
SLEEPING
Sleeping is good! With middle school starting, she has had to wake up much earlier than she did for elementary school. She definitely doesn’t love it, but she has always had low sleep needs and an earlier riser (I would not say EARLY, but she naturally wakes around 8 AM on weekends as a tween, so she isn’t really one to sleep in).
EATING
Eating is good. She does not like the lunch option in middle school. She does not enjoy most of the food and the lines are really long. It makes it hard to get food and eat in the time they have. So she started taking a home lunch every day. We bought Bento Lunch boxes for each girl. It has been really nice! They all like it. They are able to eat enough to be full instead of just eating enough to survive until they get home.
MIDDLE SCHOOL
Middle school has gone well so far! She was nervous for it, but she has finished her first trimester and is liking it. She has made some new friends and everything has been good with her old friends.
Middle school can be a time when old friendships change. This really is pretty normal if you think about it. People shift closeness with friends all the time. Kids in school often hang out most with kids who are in their class. Then they get to middle school and they have many classes a day. This shifts dynamics. You also often have many elementary schools converging into one middle school, so their are lots of new people to meet. This shifts dynamics. It is also an age when kids are really struggling to figure out who they are and who they want to be. This shifts dynamics.
Brinley’s mind is always going and working. She wants to know EVERYTHING and by the end of every summer, it seems like her brain is starving. The questions never cease. It is always nice when she is in school and can get constant information all day.
MUSICAL
Brinley is currently doing the musical at her school. It is “Annie Jr.” and she is playing Miss Hannigan. It has been fun and another good place to meet new friends.
SOCCER
Soccer went really well! Nate took over coaching Brinley’s team this “year” (soccer year runs June-May). This fall was their first season with him coaching. They went from winning two games the entire fall and spring seasons last year to taking second place in a harder division this fall! They made a lot of improvements. The girls have always had good attitudes even when losing all the time, so it was fun for them to win a bunch of games.
PIANO
Piano is good! She has taken an interest in learning to play Jazz music. None of my other kids have been interested in that (which may be part of what draws her to it as a youngest child). She has been better about practicing.
TECHNOLOGY
We decided to limit technology to just Friday and Saturday for Brinley. With the older kids, we gave them an allotment for the week of how much technology time they had. She struggled to track that–it is very easy to lose track of time when doing technology. We also are just busier in general and I wasn’t able to track it and monitor like I was when the other kids were around her age.
This has been a very good change for her. We still do a technology fast one week a month, too.
BRACES
Brinley got braces during this period. They are just “pre-braces”, so she will get them off and back on again once her permanent teeth are all in. When she got her braces on, she still had 8 baby teeth! She was a late teether as a baby. My kids who were late teethers lost their teeth later.
She was being really self-conscious about her teeth and wouldn’t smile showing her teeth. So I decided she needed pre-braces so she didn’t have that on top of everything else that goes on at this age. I didn’t want her to train herself to not smile, either.
It has been good! She will likely get them off in February or March.
DAILY SCHEDULE
Here is her typical daily schedule.
6:10 AM — Wake up and get ready for school
8:00 AM — School starts
2:45 PM — School ends
Snack, piano practice, free time
5:30 PM — Dinner
Family time, practices, free time, etc.
9-10 PM — In bed sometime in this time frame
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