As a stay-at-home mom, you often wear many hats. You’re resolving conflicts between your kids, helping them with homework, cleaning the house, and maintaining your relationship with your partner. In the process of your daily tasks, burnout can happen. You might feel depressed, insecure, angry, fearful, or even confused during this time. One thing you can do is seek out counseling from a licensed therapist if the burnout has turned to depression. Another thing you can do is write entries in your journal about your feelings. Here are additional ways to overcome burnout as a stay-at-home mom.
Get Rid of Unrealistic Expectations
Some moms experience burnout because of unrealistic expectations. Accept the fact that because you have little ones at home, your home will not look perfectly spotless every day. Realize that you’re not a horrible parent because you occasionally lose your patience with the kids and yell at them. If you feed them frozen pizza and ice cream bars for two nights straight because money is tight, you’ll be just fine and the kids will understand. When you adjust your expectations, the burnout will gradually decrease.
Say Yes to Help from Others
It also helps to accept help from relatives and friends to decrease burnout as a mom. Call your older brothers and ask if they can hang out with your sons for a few hours while you take a nap or go somewhere fun by yourself. If you’re having a hard time with teaching the kids certain math concepts, maybe your spouse or parents can help the kids instead. It is okay to admit that you can’t do it all and that you need assistance at times. This doesn’t make you a weak or lazy parent.
Let the Kids Entertain Themselves
It’s not necessary to entertain the kids and micromanage their playtime. Instead, you should give them a variety of activities so that they can entertain themselves for a few hours while you do housework or work from home on the computer. When kids learn to entertain themselves, it fosters creativity and independence.
Being a stay-at-home mom is rewarding but also challenging at times. By taking these steps to reduce burnout, you can enjoy your kids more and thrive in your motherhood journey.
If you’re a mom who needs help in overcoming your depression, contact us. We offer the compassionate counseling you need to thrive in your journey of motherhood.