To most, being a stay-at-home mum means living a super demanding, exhausting, and sometimes, isolated life.
But in reality, being a stay-at-home mum is an amazing experience. It can be such a wonderful gift to you and your family.
You can be a stay-at-home mum and still nurture your dreams, meet your goals, and live a very fulfilled life. Here’s how:
1. Embrace It
Life as a stay-at-home mum has many benefits to it, including:
- You are able to spend a lot of time with your child, see all the developmental milestones as they happen, and afford to raise them exactly the way you want.
- It helps you get to give your family the privilege of good home-cooked meals all the time.
- You have the time for more fun family activities
- It helps you set family standards and be available to see it through.
- You can better support your spouse/your children’s educational activities.
- Your schedule is more flexible as all your hours are self-dictated.
- You can dress how you want and not have to wear make-up when you don’t want
- You have more time to take proper care of yourself.
The earlier you embrace your reality, and see it from an optimistic point of view, the sooner you’ll find fulfillment and start living your best life.
And, believe it or not, there are several “office mums” out there, wishing they had as much flexibility you have with your daily routines and the time you have to spend with your family.
2. Chase Your Dreams
Last century, this would have sounded far-fetched, but not today. Thanks to innovation and technology.
The world we live in today is a global village and access to the internet means access to the world.
As a stay-at-home mum today, you can literally learn any skill from your kitchen table and live your dream of becoming a great entrepreneur as a bespoke stylist, writer, photographer, or a successful author.
Dig up that passion of yours, learn and sharpen your skills, and chase your life’s goals with full intensity.
3. Find A Hobby
To have a fulfilling stay-at-home mum experience, try not to make your mummy status your entire identity.
Find a hobby to do during their nap/screen time, or even with them. Be it sewing, crafting, blogging, vlogging, designing, or dancing.
An activity that’s yours and brings you joy, something you can invest in without pressure or competition and provides you fulfilling opportunities outside of cooking up and cleaning your home.
In the throes of motherhood, it can be so easy to lose yourself in the day to day of caring for your kids. This is why it’s important that you become intentional about spending time on things that excite you can bring about a sense of normalcy.
Whatever that might be for you, it’s all about finding things that fill you up.
4. Invest In Your Self-care
It is no news that stay-at-home mums seldom get time to themselves, often spending all day concerned about their kids and the upkeep of their homes. Also in the mix is how they would keep their partners happy.
This is why stay-at-home mums probably need more self-care than any other group.
Being a stay-at-home mum shouldn’t mean you don’t get a break.
It is important that you periodically find a way of connecting back with yourself and society in fact.
This is no doubt one of the reasons stay-at-home mums get depressed.
Understand that self-care is essential to your mental and physical health.
And no, you don’t have to spend hours at the spa/massage house or several days a week at the gym to take care of yourself.
It could be spending just a few hours each week doing something that makes you feel relaxed, something you truly enjoy.
This could be reading a book, writing in a journal, watching a TV show, or yoga in your living room. A DIY home facial masks, or social media for a few minutes.
READ ALSO: You Cannot Pour From An Empty Cup Mama!
5. Exercise
Aside from the remarkable positive impact on depression, anxiety, ADHD, and so on, exercise releases feel-good endorphins. These endorphins relieve stress and get you into a positive headspace.
It also improves memory, helps you sleep better, and boosts your overall mood and confidence.
Exercise is especially helpful if you’re feeling frustrated or reaching your bandwidth’s end.
It takes only a couple minutes; you’ll feel the tension leaving your body and have a better perspective on things, feeling healthier, happier, more energized, and in better control of your day and life.
Even better, you don’t have to be a fitness fanatic to reap the benefits of indulging in the workout lifestyle.
6. Make Friends
Friends are essential life ingredients that help reduce the friction of navigating through life. Having a one or a couple to reassure, comfort, and often times motivate you, is pure bliss.
In the high of being a stay-at-home mama, ensure that you seek out time to make friends/keep in touch with the old ones.
If you’re not up for having a nanny or house help, they are the ones to help you keep an eye on the kids while you do your thing.
Honestly, the hardest thing you could do is having to face it all alone, with no trusted adult to share your thoughts and exciting moments with.
Everyone needs that, especially stay-at-home mums for whom it sometimes seems like they’ve been cut out of the rest of the world since the majority of their time is spent in their homes.
7. Enjoy Your Time With Your Children
The joy of motherhood is in holding your babies in your hands and seeing your child/ren grow into young adults and so on…
Your children are one of your biggest blessings and in the midst of the mopping and cooking and wiping, stay-at-home mums sometimes lose sight of this.
You might not be able to do much now, but eventually, they will grow up and you can afford to double your passion for chasing your dreams/goals.
So, in this present time, count your blessings and focus on spending quality time with your children now that you can afford to.
It’s only a phase. Use it well to nurture your kids and they’ll no doubt benefit from it in the long-run.
You can get back the time lost with a job but you can never recapture the time lost by not spending time with your children when they’re small.
They’re only little once and once that time is gone you can never get it back.
Find more tips on parenting here.
