Most kids thrive on routine, actually. Not strict routine, but enough to meet my needs for predictability as well.
All of my kids (I have 4) were required to have naptime/quiet time every day until they were 5 years old. The schedule for naptimes had to be adjusted as each child grew older, but I knew basically what to expect. I read a lot about babies' sleep needs when my first was a baby (and not a good sleeper) so I could learn how to support healthier sleep habits for her. Turns out, the more sleep they get, the better they sleep. For example, a 2 month old will naturally settle into three naps a day, the times for which can be fairly well predicted based on when the baby woke up that morning. And they tend to sleep later into the morning (and better through the night) if they go to bed earlier. Seems counterintuitive, but it works fairly well up until a certain age. At some point, they transition to two naps a day, and around a year old, they're often down to just one nap a day. Then that schedule continues for us until they're 5 years old. (Time changes for Daylight Savings Time were always a challenge for about two weeks following the time change!)
Babies and young children don't need a huge variety of foods or toys or activities--set a schedule that works for both of you, and stick to it so it will continue to run smoothly. Have one day where you get out of the house, one day to focus on laundry, one day for the grocery shopping, one day to clean the bathrooms...that kind of thing. Then whatever that day's task is, work it in wherever it fits in the daily routine. I enjoyed "perfecting" my routines--I would study what worked and what didn't, and try making adjustments to see how to make our day run more smoothly.
Of course, you can't control everything. Sometimes a kid gets sick, or you get pregnant again and then add another kid to the mix, or the seasons change, or a loud neighbor moves in next door. It is a challenge to cope with all of that. But being a parent has stretched me in ways that really helped me grow and improve myself, as well as the sense of satisfaction of seeing a whole new human being set off into life. It's really cool, too, to see some of my own personality traits show up in my kids in new ways. It gives me a new perspective on who I am when I see who they are. My 13 year old, for example, has a dry, sarcastic sense of humor that is really entertaining. She's so confident in herself, even though she is very different from most girls her age. She inspires me to accept myself more as I am.
I'm not a typical mom. But that gives my kids freedom to not be typical kids. They're learning to think for themselves, and to relish people's differences, and to see ideas from new perspectives. I love watching them grow into the kind of person I might've been had my parents been healthier people.
