How YOU Can Avoid Stay-At-Home Mom BURNOUT! ＊tips and tricks＊
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Summary
Today let s talk about how to avoid burnout as a stay-at-home mom and how you can avoid it yourself. I know that burnout is a common issue for stay-home moms and I share my experience with burnout and how I managed to avoid it.
Transcript
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today let's talk about how to avoid burnout as a stay-at-home mom
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hello friends and welcome to my channel my name is abby and i would love if you'd consider
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subscribing and hitting that notification bell today we are in my son's new bedroom
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i just recently redesigned it this is where we're sitting and i've got my second son with me
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as you can hear and he's playing a little bit and if you hear him making noises or playing with his
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toys it's this little guy at my feet but today i want to talk about some ways that you can avoid
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burnout as a stay-at-home mom i know that i suffered with it just recently really really
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severely like i felt tired and exhausted and i was like this must be what motherhood is like this is
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what i've taken on and i just didn't realize but no that's not true and today i'm going to share number
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one my feelings about that and number two how you can avoid it yourself so let's get into it okay so
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the first thing i kind of want to chat about is how i got to the point of burnout i have a two year old
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and a seven month old and i had let them kind of dictate the day i had let them be the boss and i had
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neglected my role as the ceo of our household so i kind of was letting them tell us what our day looked
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like which got really hectic and overwhelming for all of us now there's a few reasons for that number
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one was my son was telling me he didn't need naps anymore and he was waking up in the night and it
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felt like his sleep schedule was off so i was like okay well maybe he's done with naps step two was that
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my son broke his clavicle and then refractured his clavicle and kind of our routine got messed up from
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that because he couldn't do typical activities the first time around the second time around we figured it
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out but the first time around he wasn't allowed to do a lot of things so that meant a lot of our
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normal typical routines went out the window and the third thing was we moved into my parents house
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for six weeks while we did renovations on our house so again out of our routine out of our schedule
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my son started kind of acting out a little bit more and everyone was telling me oh that's just the
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terrible twos i can tell you that now that we've reinstituted things that work as a family the terrible
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twos kind of thing so far really hasn't been true for us but when we didn't have the right schedules
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it was coming into play and so with all of that information i felt really overwhelmed and i felt
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like this is just not fun and most of the women that i am surrounded with are not stay-at-home moms
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have never been stay-at-home moms and don't have stay-at-home moms themselves and so when i would say
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things like i'm really overwhelmed it feels like things are out of control i don't feel happy with
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way the way things are some of the women i know would say well that's why women go to work because
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that's how it's supposed to be that's what life is with little ones it wasn't until talking to my
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friend who is a stay-at-home mom who gave me some guidelines and guidance about how to take on this
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role that i was like oh there are ways to make being a stay-at-home mom wonderful and great and there
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are a lot of misconceptions and misperceptions about what being a mom at home looks like
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by women who aren't stay-at-home so here's my chaos theory of motherhood that i kind of came up
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with as all this was happening i realized that if you are a mom who works the times you see your kids
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are the morning the night and on weekends so those are all times of chaos a little bit right like
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mornings are hectic so you're trying to get the kids out for school and evenings are hectic because
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it's bedtime and then weekends are chaotic in a sense because you don't have routines and schedules
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on the weekends for most people most people are using that as their vacation if you're a stay-at-home
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mom especially who homeschools then structures and routines are incredibly important because it's your
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job your job cannot be vacation all the time it cannot be perennial no routines no schedules vacation
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when that is your life and i kind of felt like that's what my life was becoming was just like
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perennial vacation we're just constantly trying to go out and do things and i was getting so tired of
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it because we just didn't have any structures or routines so for moms who aren't stay-at-home
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motherhood is in a sense chaotic because the times they're with their kids are not super regulated
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whereas moms who have to be home with their kids all the time have to have things more regulated and so
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there's the chaos theory of like when moms who work will say that's why women go to work because
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it's too crazy and hectic and chaotic i hope you guys can hear what i'm saying with my son he's very
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vocal right now because of all of those things because i was allowing things to become like a
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vacation all the time and i was allowing my children to run the roost and allowing them to dictate our
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day to day i was getting so burned out i was tired i was overwhelmed i was over stimulated and i was
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i was unhappy i just didn't really like my job like i felt like oh maybe this is why women go to work
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and one thing i'll say is that i think for a lot of people who see women online they're doing the
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stay-at-home mom thing and it looks really pleasant and lovely and easy and a lot of these women have
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built up such a great following that their husbands are home with them now my husband actually works
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from home and his help isn't even constant it's it's just a little bit here and there but it's still
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invaluable like i can ask him to hold one of the kids while i change the other's diaper or i can ask him
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to help me get the kids out of the car when we get home so i can transfer one of them when they're
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napping like even those small little things help now imagine that your husband is home with you all
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the time that's a really different dynamic so being a stay-at-home mom is hard but there are tools
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to make it easier and of course within all of this it's the recognition that this isn't exactly what
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being a stay-at-home mom was supposed to look like because that term stay-at-home mom isn't even
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accurate first of all outside of that i don't stay home very much we go out and do things but
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second of all being a mom being at home with your kids was supposed to be a group endeavor a group
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project so it wasn't supposed to be one woman with all of her kids doing all the stuff by herself
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it was really more of a communal activity of women all together taking care of their kids that was the
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village for me i have my mom who comes and helps about an hour a day and honestly that's kind of
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spotty lately and my husband who helps just here and there but for a lot of people that village doesn't
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exist and so the burnout thing is even more intense and easy to come upon so here's how you can avoid
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burnout have schedules and routines making your days predictable makes a huge difference because
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number one it means you're gonna have time for yourself and number two it means that you can know
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what to expect as each day begins i know that once i started instituting routines and schedules back into
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our day-to-day it has made a huge difference not only for me but for my kids i feel more well
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regulated i feel more rested i feel calmer i feel like i know what to expect i have time for myself
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carved out each day just for me and it makes a huge difference to my mental health and i feel better i
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can be a better mom because i'm more collected i don't feel exhausted i feel excited to spend time with
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my kids within the structure we've created for my kids it's made a huge difference too because
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they're not overstimulated they're rested and they have more impulse control when my sons are getting
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the rest that they need during the day when they are knowing exactly what to expect as the day goes
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through what they're going to eat what the schedule is they don't have to control their impulses their
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impulses kind of are controlled for them and that makes them feel a lot more calm as well i can see
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how quickly once i instituted these routines my sons benefited so having schedules and routines doesn't
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make you a strict mom it makes you a good mom because it means you can be better for your
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children and your children can be better for you so i want to share a few of our schedules and routines
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and how we make it work did you spit up again and i also want to share kind of our plans for the future
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and how we plan to incorporate these schedules and routines moving forward so as it is now our day
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starts at 7 a.m my sons wake up at 7 a.m and of course that means they can wake up really between like
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6 45 and 7 30 it really just depends on the day but somewhere in that window is when they wake up
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and if they wake up a little early they go back to sleep generally but that's kind of the rule that's
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when we start the day after that we have breakfast together we always have a similar breakfast one that
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we share and then we get ready to leave the first half of the day we spend out that is our rule before
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my older son's nap we go out and get him tired so we go to play gyms in our area we go to museums we do
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active things that first part of the day oh where are you going now this is the integral part we
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reinstituted naps my friend said to me she was like abby you cannot drop the nap quite yet he needs it
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still he's still falling asleep if you get in the car past a certain time and you need it you need that
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time now i thought this was really smart because and this is what i meant when i said how we're going
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to carry things through in the future we're going to do nap time but by the time my son is about three
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we want him to learn how to read so that we can transition into quiet time transitioning into
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quiet time is really important to us because i want him to still have that hour hour and a half
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by himself and i need that time and i think it's going to make it easier if he can read while he's
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doing quiet time so we're going to transition him to quiet time when he's older but right now he still
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has his nap and it's super important he keeps that my goal is always to try and overlap my two sons naps
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so that i at least get an hour off as a mom so when we come home we make sure we're home before
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his nap time we eat lunch together and we make sure he doesn't fall asleep in the car because he
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doesn't transfer and we get him down for his nap my son still doesn't like going down for a nap he
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doesn't like sleeping right now he's going through some separation anxiety but he knows he's safe he
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knows he's loved and he feels physically better when he sleeps so it's really important that he does so
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second half of the day is a little more variable but i try to write a schedule every night about
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what we're going to do where are you going over there something we just started instituting which
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i actually saw on reddit which made a huge difference to our day-to-day was stations so when
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my son is down for his nap i set out four or five stations and they're fun things for him to do to
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take care of himself while i maybe cook dinner or clean the house or do some chores so right now an
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example would be he has a yodo player so a yodo player a few books a car station a play-doh station
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and a sticker station and then you can just rotate between all those stations while mommy does some
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things around the house and he's getting some entertainment but i don't have to be directly
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involved that has been a great option for us another one is grocery shopping and cooking dinner
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together we do that as a team and then it's bath time bedtime but we have a really specific structure
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to our day so i get those few hours in the middle of the day while my son's nap and i can have an
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idea of the morning and an idea of the afternoon now the morning can be really nice too because
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sometimes we go to small play cafes where i can do a little bit of work or just sit and read while my
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son plays or we can go to a museum where i have to be a little more involved or we can go to a class
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you know we have a lot of options for the morning and we have a lot of options for the afternoon but
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the the going out in the morning nap and then something a little closer to home for the second
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half of the day has worked wonders for our family i would love to know in the comments what are some
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of your favorite routines with your kids how have they benefited you and your life how do you avoid
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burnout as a stay-at-home mom let me know your thoughts i can't wait to hear if you watched all
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the way to the end i would love if you would leave an emoji of your favorite hobby whether it be like art or
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photography or something leave it in the comments below thank you guys so much for watching and i'll see