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How You Do This?

2K views 12 replies 12 participants last post by  StepGirlfriend 
#1 ·
Hi there.

I need some suggestions. I'm feeling really overwhelmed by all that I'm responsible for as a mom who works outside the home with a child. My husband stays home with our son while he's looking for work. I have a good job with flexibility but still the demands of working and parenting can so easily feel overwhelming for me. I feel like there is always, always much more to do and that I don't get enough time to relax. My husband has health issues and so I end up doing a lot of the work around the house and with the yard. (Why will the weeds never end?) I've been trying this summer to work on cleaning up our home and taking some time to exercise and take care of myself. I've seen some progress but I do still feel so overwhelmingly tired and like there's no time to do much of anything fun. I need suggestions on how you keep your home going while working full-time and parenting. I just can't seem to get this under control. Wisdom please?

SpiralChrissy
 
#2 · (Edited)
I think its very telling that there have been 123 views (so far) and no responses.

No body is getting it all done. :smile:

I cheat -- we have a cleaning service that comes in once a week. I still have trouble working in exercise. I get some in, but not as much as I would like to or as I should.

As far as wisdom, my advice is to watch how you talk to yourself. Use positive self talk and focus on the what you got done. Think about the things you have to be grateful for (such as a husband who loves you and is great with your son).

For fun, last night my DH and I sat on our porch together for about 15 minutes. It was lovely, and didn't take a lot of time!
 
#3 ·
Could you have your older child help out more? He should be old enough to make dinner or do the dishes while you take care of other household stuff. DD's friend (9) made dinner for her family a few nights ago and even brought us muffins she had made from scratch. Sooo....I will definately be teaching my kid to cook in the very near future!

Our weeds are out of control. I kind of just gave up on it. Someday we'll save up the money to zero-scape with rocks or something. We used to hire a weed-killing service. They came and sprayed the weeds once a month and cost about $100 for the summer.

I usually work out 3-4 times a week at about 5:30 in the morning. I'm always exhausted. My go-to cure for that is extra coffee! lol
 
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#5 ·
Oh man. I completely gave up on the yard. I'm just waiting for the day we can afford to get some low-maintenance landscaping done and a sprinkler system put in. That might be next spring, or not. I also took two personal days last week to clean. It felt hilarious at the time, but it turned out to be such a great thing. I sent the kids to day care and spent hours cleaning things that hadn't been touched in years. I worked so hard that I was grateful to get my sore body back to the desk when it was all done, haha! Can you do any exercising during the day? I don't have access to an on-site gym, but my office is surrounded by nice walking trails. The weather is too brutally hot right now, but most of the time I keep walking shoes in my desk drawers and take walks on my lunch break. I also use lunch breaks for alone time. Sometimes that means eating at my desk while listening to music or browsing online or sometimes I go shopping.

And sometimes it's 9pm and the kids are in bed and there are a million things to do and I just have a glass of wine and go to bed myself anyway. You can't do it all. Sometimes it's best not to try. Remember everyone else feels this way, too. :)
 
#6 ·
I agree, none of us is doing this "well" or alone.

You've gotten great ideas already, but I'll add my 2 cents.

I read this great article in some cheesy women's magazine I picked up at MIL's house but it has stuck with me. The writer asked a big shot at Microsoft how he gets through his days & he said he always has a to-do list & then he strikes off everything from the list except for the top 3 items because that's all he can reasonably accomplish in a given day. For me, I keep my daily to-do on a small post-it at work so it doesn't get unmanageable. And at home... I give myself one thing to do each day... One small task that will make me feel I accomplished something & contributed to my family's home life. And some evenings I admittedly don't even do one thing. I just spend time with my son & go to sleep early.

For exercise, I would REALLY like to do more but for now I just try to move throughout the day. I plan in a mile walk on each end of my commute & during the day I will randomly get up to walk the stairs for a five or so minutes. And my rule is to always take the stairs when they're an option. This way I add some movement into my day without having to plan to "exercise."

Other than this, I let a lot of things go... House is not perfectly cleaned or decorated or neat. I don't plan enough social outings for DS. I haven't had a haircut for 1 1/2 years. I have a growing army of dresses that need pressing. Etc. But we're mostly well-fed & well-rested & those are the things that are most important to me. If you cans keep your expectations low, you might find more room for fun & joy. Some days at least! ;)
 
#7 ·
THe only way I ever came half close to getting things done was through using the Flylady system (you can google it). Focuses on getting little jobs done, keeping routines, taking care of yourself foremost, and a lot of letting go!! Lately most things have dropped off, but I'm going to try to do some decluttering today. Hang in there!!!
 
#8 ·
Honestly, you need to first realize that you cannot get everything done. Remove that thought and you'll feel so much better. We are so hard on ourselves and this in return makes the daily to do list longer than there are hours in the day.

Some things that I have been doing to keep the house cleaned and dinner on the table without going crazy is spending one day or two days in the month preparing freezer crockpot meals. It takes between 2 - 3 hours depending on how many meals you prepare I usually make 15 - 20.

Here are a few things that I need done in order to feel like I accomplished something in the day. My floors need to be vacuumed and my table and counters need to be decluttered and cleaned. If these things are done I feel less stressed and when I feel less stressed I tend to get more done.

Flylady has great tips for cleaning and keeping things organized.

Hope this helps. Remember your not alone in the way that you feel we all feel overwhelmed and lack the time needed to get it all done.
 
#11 ·
I agree with everybody!
And it's all in the choices you make, really. When DS was a little baby, people were asking me how I wasn't tired and went to work and looked like nothing happened. I would tell them that I get good nights sleep by breastfeeding and co-sleeping with my son, so I don't get up every 2hours.

Every once in a while I'll feel like a bad wife/mama, when the laundry is piling up, and I'm sitting on the couch watching tv... But you know what? The laundry can wait :) I usually do it on my "Friday" night (which is Sunday lol), for some reason at the end of my work week I just feel like cleaning, putting some music on, and be silly with my son, all in the same time!

The exercise... I haven't been exercising, but when I lost 20 lbs last summer, I did it with my son. Pushed him in the jogger stroller or did the 30 day shred (20 minutes!! It'll kick your butt!!) while he was napping.

The little things you need to do to yourself (like take a nice bath, shave, go to the hair dresser) do become treasured (ans rare lol) moments, that you just need to take the time to do. I hadn't had a haircut in a year, I kept complaining to my husband that I needed one badly, so on one of my days off, he said let's go uptown! I'll take the baby to the park there, and you go to your favorite hair salon! Then after that we took the bus to my favorite clothing store I hadn't been to in forever, he took our son for a stroll while I was shopping, it was awesome!!! Because I could have done all that by myself, but as a working mom of a toddler, I want to spend my little time off with him and when I dont, I feel extremely guilty! So that's a way to do it all :)
 
#12 ·
What a great thread with some brilliant ideas! As for me, I'm currently a novelist (and with such an unstructured job, I could easily work 80 hours a week if I let myself). My husband has a senior-level corporate job outside the home, so I'm definitely the primary child care provider, though when he IS home, he does at least 50% if not more. My really big secret is:

We outsource as much of the housework as we can, especially when one or both of us is on deadline/business trips, etc. This means we have a weekly cleaning service, we pay for people to clean the exterior of our house, our cars, etc. During deadlines, we also order out a lot so we don't have to worry about making dinner for four. We also have someone who grooms our dog regularly. I've found that it's the littlest things that add up to a lot of time spent when you really have NO time to spend. We decided what's most important to us is: 1. Quality time with each other and our kids and 2. Our careers, and most of our energy and a healthy portion of our finances goes into reaching those goals (but we make sure we're sticking to our budget as well, as financial stress is not something we want to add!).

In January I'll start on my second career, which entails a few years of graduate school. I'm hoping this system will serve us well even then!
 
#13 ·
This might sound silly, but this is something I was doing in conjunction with working out at the gym and I felt like it gave me a LOT of energy and I just felt strong (even if I was still having a hard time picking up the 30 lb weights lol).

I juice! Get some veggies and fruit like carrots, kale, apples, chard, whatever you like and throw it in a juicer and drink 1 big one for breakfast and if you can another one with or for lunch. My 55 year old mother even said it gave her a lot of energy and that she felt more awake throughout the day. I involve daughter by having her put the raw food into the juicer or letting her push the plunger down to smash the raw food into the juicing blades.

Other than that, I think don't stress about being perfect, just do the best you can like everyone else and it will be good. :)
 
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