A homemaker tries to play her role to perfection by neatly juggling between household jobs and nurturing children, but stress is something that eventually tips the balance. There are many stressors that a stay-at-home mom experiences but learning to manage them can bring more happiness to herself and the family. Here are a few tips on ‘stress management’, which if implemented, can effectively help keep stress at bay.
Pre-planning and organization
The key to stress management is time management and therefore, being organized is a very important skill for a stay-at-home mom, just like it is for the average working person. You should be equipped and totally in control of certain situations like tantrum triggers, food needs and other things that can help you avoid a crisis. Try to make a chart with your daily routine according to the different days of the week to avoid forgetting things and last minute rushes. This will definitely make your day much smoother and if you have time allocated to each activity during the day, you will end up fretting less.
Assign realistic time goals for each work
Before being a mom, we all worked on time-bound assignments that had a particular start time and an end time, but it isn’t the same when we have kids. Being a mom requires you to be on duty throughout the entire day and night and being a housewife means that you are the one who ends up doing a lot of volunteering in terms of duties, cleaning and cooking. A lot of stay-at-home mothers do not assign limits to certain tasks and try to do as much work as possible and end up exhausting themselves completely. It is important for moms to make realistic goals for themselves that include rest periods and naps in between, so that you don’t end up getting over stressed. Try chalking out all the tasks that are important and all those that you can say ‘no’ to.
Devote quality time to kids
The only reason a woman chooses to stay back at home for children is to be able to look after them, bond with them and watch them grow. However, this can only be realized if you are not overburdened by other housework. Moms go all out in trying to be the perfect supermom and end up getting stressful. It is not humanly possible to cook a three-course meal, clean the house, attend to the kids and do the grocery and a whole lot of other jobs without getting stressed out. Try to think about the main reason that kept you from getting back to work and spend more time with your children rather than striving to be a supermom.
Pamper yourself and stay happy
Looking after children can drain you both emotionally and physically. This is not a good state to be in, if you want to be a great mom. There is a lot of stamina that is required for a stay at home mom. This can be possible only if she gets the much-needed ‘downtime’ to pamper herself with healthy food, naps, a spa session or some movie-time. It also helps a lot on the motivation front, if her partner keeps her happy and lets her know of the wonderful contribution that she’s making to the family.
Ask for help if you need it
Stay-at-home moms are supposedly free most of the time and are therefore expected to do other work, apart from looking after the kids. Little do people realize that it takes a lot of hard work and energy to juggle various household chores with the kids demands, leaving little or no time for moms for themselves. Kids love emulating adults and they are all the more happy when you ask them to help you with something that they absolutely love. Do not fall short of asking your husband or partner for help when you are too tired to do the dishes at night. You could perhaps ask your friend to babysit your kids while you went out grocery shopping and return the favor by babysitting her kids some other time. You could also opt for an affordable domestic help for cooking and cleaning at times. Try to enlist help when you need it the most, instead of stressing out too much.
Reflect on how you can avoid stress
A stressful stay at home mom also leads to an unhappy family, a strained relationship with the spouse and more conflict in the marriage. It is important to identify the trouble signs beforehand and to put a tab on all the factors that bring out stress in the mother.
a. You can probably try calming yourself down with breathing exercises that are very good for your nerves.
b. You could also try taking some time out for doing something that you enjoy the most to serve as a stress buster like a hobby, a sport and so on.
c. You could pen down your stress and the situations that led you to it in a journal.
d. Don’t try to go overboard playing supermom and comparing yourself to other women, because the comparison game only leads to more stress.
e. Listen to your inner voice and try to make yourself more positive by shunning negativity.
f. Take pride in what you do, after all you are the one who is molding the new generation.
