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As a stay-at-home mom, time is your most valuable asset. Whether you’re raising one child or several, the time needed to care for a family is significant and can feel overwhelming at times. However, with a little thinking ahead and planning, it doesn’t have to be that way. If you’re looking to improve your quality of life as well as the quality of care in your home as much as possible, read on for some helpful tips.
Make meal planning a priority
You don’t have to be a Martha Stewart or a professional chef to feed your family well. However, having a basic meal plan and a list of meals that you and your family enjoy helps when it comes to grocery shopping and planning ahead. Having a meal plan helps avoid impulse buys at the grocery store, and it ensures that you have at least one meal ready each day that will feed your family. Choosing healthy meals like casseroles or this shrimp and steak recipe is another great way to save time as a stay-at-home mom.
Keep your house organized
Whether it’s a family room, the kitchen, or a shared area of the house, keep it organized so that it’s easier to find things when you need them. Use baskets, bins, or a specific system to keep each room in your home organized so that you have an easier time finding things and so that the house is more welcoming when guests come over. Organizing the house also helps you keep track of your child’s belongings, including toys and books, which is helpful when it comes to cleaning up after them. You’ll feel less crazy when everything has a place and is in it.
Be selective with activities and outings
As a stay-at-home mom, it’s easy to feel like you need to be doing everything. However, this is rarely the case, and it’s important to be selective about what you take on. Select activities and outings that are meaningful to you and your family and are appropriate for your child’s age and maturity level. This will help you spend more quality time with your child.
Set aside time to do activities you love
There are a lot of tasks that are necessary for running a household. However, some of these may not be something that you love to do or that you want to be doing. Try setting aside time to do chores and activities that you love. It doesn’t have to be an all-day affair, and you don’t need to do it every day, but it can help reduce anxiety around the perceived “pressure” of chores and add an element of fun to each chore. However, it’s also important that you remember to do tasks other than chores simply because you enjoy them. While making your work fun can have huge benefits on your life, you should also strive to continue your hobbies and activities outside of the house into motherhood. If you feel lost, pick up something new like knitting or gardening.
Develop a routine for daily tasks
Many moms find that a daily routine helps them feel less overwhelmed and more focused and on track with their responsibilities as a stay-at-home mom. Scheduling specific time throughout the day to do certain tasks can help you keep your home running smoothly and save time when it comes to doing things like grocery shopping, laundry, reading to your child, or completing other daily tasks. A routine will also help you to feel more purposeful as a mother. Routines are satisfying in the way that crossing things off a list is satisfying. It will make your day to day feel more rewarding, even if you’re doing ordinary thing
Don’t let childcare overwhelm you
This may seem vague, but it really is the gist of the matter overall. You are a mother, and a great one at that. You do a very difficult job every day. It’s completely natural to feel overwhelmed, like you’re drowning in laundry and lunchboxes and carpooling. But you’re not! You’re doing a job that’s just as difficult, if not more difficult, than sitting at a desk every day. So when you feel overwhelmed, take a step back. Kids will be able to pick up on your stress, so it's important to identify it and find a healhty way to deal with it. In fact, stress management can truly be the most effective way to improve your parenting and lifestyle as a parent.
Great advice. We do much of that already. Not the childcare though.
ReplyDeleteHave a fabulous day and rest of the week, my friend. ♥
I work from home so I try to do all of these. I'm not as organized as I'd like though.
ReplyDeleteI can use more time. We stay at home moms are busy people.
ReplyDeletethis is great advice, I must try some of these. thanks for sharing this with us
ReplyDeleteThis post is really informative, thanks for sharing these tips.
ReplyDeleteThese are all such great ideas. I use to meal plan and then stopped. I would love to get back in to doing that again. It's so helpful.
ReplyDeleteThis was super encouraging to read. Especially the last part about stress management!
ReplyDeleteMeal planning is a time-saver! I have to do a new one though. It saves time thinking of what to cook and buy at the grocers. Agree witht the other tips too.
ReplyDeleteYou have great ideas here! This is a really great and very informative post! Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteLove this! I'm a SAHM and it truly is amazing how time can get away from you!
ReplyDeleteI'm a work from home mum so these apply for me. Anything that can help save time is great. I try to be selective with what I take on so it's not too overwhelming.
ReplyDeleteMeal planning is a definite time saver, but also developing a routine for daily tasks and being able to delegate them in a way that doesn't put all the pressure on one person can be very helpful too!
ReplyDeleteMeal planning has save my life over the years. I am happy my mom taught me that!
ReplyDeleteIt is important to budget time and be organized as a mom. Being a SAHM is a lot of work and you really have to make things go smoothly.
ReplyDeleteI still need to work on meal planning. Organizing them can reduce time and save money.
ReplyDeleteI need to work on organizing my house. There are a few pieces of furniture that I would like to get rid of sooner than later. I've put it off for a long time and just need to do it.
ReplyDeleteGreat advice. Though I think back sometimes to when my girls were little and I was SUPER organized. I mean, to the point where it drove everyone batty. I wish I would have relaxed a little, let the house go by the wayside in favor of more bike rides or park visits or spontaneous outings. Don't get me wrong. Organization is very important, but don't let it control your whole life.
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