How to Be a Happy, Healthy Stay-At-Home Mom

How to Be a Happy, Healthy Stay-At-Home MomHow to Be a Happy, Healthy Stay-At-Home MomLife as a stay-at-home mom is full of interesting moments. Some moments have you feeling like Supermom, others leave you reaching for the aspirin. Take care of your emotional well-being with these simple tips so you can be a happy, healthy stay-at-home mom whos ready to tackle anything. Take Time for Yourself When you first have a child, you automatically want to be with them 24/7. After a while, the walls close in, and you might start gasping for kid-free air. There should be a balance. Mothers hesitate to admit it to anyone, but sometimes we need a mini getaway from our children. Take a walk. Read a book. Go for a drive. Remember the relaxing activities you enjoyed before having kids? Revisit them. You wont have time to knit a sweater in one sitting but every minutes worth of peace will rejuvenate you. Be committed to taking regular breaks away from your children. Its easy to brush off the imp ortance of me time, but its a must to keep you from experiencing ?mommy burnout. Make Time for Your Spouse parte of a healthy mental outlook as an at-home mom comes in sharing quality time with your spouse. Its crucial for your time together to be more than just being in the same room with one of you staring at the computer and the other flipping through the TV channels. Full-fledged date nights are nice, but theyre not always practical. Try to spend time together at home every day for some face-to-face interaction. Plan activities with your husband that are just for the two of you. Play cards. Talk about your day. Put a puzzle together. You dont have to be whisked away to a deserted island to benefit from alone time with your spouse. Even if the children are around, steal moments together right in front of them. A kiss. A hug. Your kids may pretend to be disgusted, but youre fostering their ideas of what makes a good marriage at the same time youre strengthening your relationsh ip with your spouse. Talk to Grown-Ups Your conversation with other adults is severely cut when you stay home with kids all day. Even if you head out to the playground, the discussion topics with your mom friends range from breastfeeding to bowel movements. Get together with other adults for a night out. Brave a weekend vacation with your girlfriends or throw a girls night in party. See if you can leave the conversations about your kids at home. This is a big challenge when youre out with friends who are also parents. Set a few rules beforehand, so youre not spending all of your adult time discussing report cards and trying to top each other with gross-out stories. Think of your conversations with adults as your structured playgroup for your mind. Its hard to keep your social skills sharp when youre talking to your children all day. As much as we love our kids, its totenstill important to talk to grown-ups too. Brag About Your Job You must be too lazy to work. You wear your pajamas all day while watching soap operas. You probably dont even brush your hair. At-home moms certainly know this is far from reality. Unfortunately, theres still a certain stigma attached to the stay-at-home job title. You will run across people who act completely unimpressed by your commitment to stay home and raise your children. How will you react when asked, What do you do for a living? You may take that long, awkward pause before you answer. Dont let someone elses jaded views affect your self-esteem. Be proud of your stay-at-home mom career. If youre nervous when someone asks what you do, show off those social skills youve been practicing without the kids around. Tell people youre the CEO of SAHM, Inc. or the Operations Manager of the Smith Household. Your answer will break the ice, and youll be the witty SAHM everyone remembers. Create a Time Management Plan We joke that mommys brain has dumbed us down. In reality, our head is swimming from a schedule packed with socce r practices, naps, and kiddie bathroom breaks. No wonder we cant remember anything. Were too busy trying to remember everything. Create a realistic time management plan to get better organized and simplify your day. This will also free you from that constant stress of thinking youre forgetting something on your mental calendar. Thats a fast way to brain drain. Celebrities dont bother trying to remember everywhere they have to be on their own, and youre much busier than they are. A time management plan is like your personal assistant, and youre the rock star with a small, sometimes screaming, entourage.