Becoming a mother is one of the most beautiful, wonderful, amazing experiences you can ever have. However, it can also be one of the hardest, most draining experiences sometimes too.
If you are currently struggling with the various challenges of motherhood, here are a few things that may help:
1. Show yourself compassion
When you’re struggling with motherhood, it’s so easy to berate yourself, tell yourself you’re a terrible mother, and ruminate on all the many things you’ve done wrong. This is the worst thing you can do because it will only make you feel worse. What should you do instead? Show yourself compassion. What does compassion mean? It means having sympathy and doing what you can to help and alleviate suffering, and this is something that you can do for yourself as well as others. So, start practicing self-compassion right now.
2. Keep it simple
When you’re having a tough time, it’s fine to pare back your responsibilities to the essentials. Yes, you will still need to change the baby’s diapers or cook a healthy meal for dinner, but you don’t have to attend the millionth bake sale of the year or host a slumber party right now. Keep things simple and allow yourself to get some headspace until you’re feeling better and you can go back to being supermom again, or maybe not if that is what was causing you the stress in the first place.
3. Take some me-time
You’re a mom and you’re busy, I get it, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t or shouldn’t take some time out for yourself. As a mom, there is always someone needing your attention for something, and that can get pretty stressful. So, when times are starting to feel hard, leave the kids with dad or grandmama or hire a babysitter, and get out there and have some fun. Whether you go for a quick walk to clear your head or book into a spa for the weekend, anything that you can do that is just for you is really going to help you start feeling better once again.
4. Do away with unrealistic expectations
Some moms make themselves ill and their lives harder than they need to be by having unrealistic expectations. They feel like they should always be the perfect earth mother who meets all their child’s needs perfectly and never puts a foot wrong. It doesn’t have to be like that! You are human and humans aren’t perfect. So give up trying to be and you might have a lot more fun on your motherhood journey as a result; the kids won’t notice the odd TV dinner or the fact that you’ve let them watch TV for slightly longer than usual and in fact, they may actually enjoy it once in a while!
5. Prioritize food and sleep
If you want to be the best mom you can be, you need to get as much sleep as you can manage and you need to feed yourself a healthy, nutritious diet, it really is that simple, so make both of these things a priority and you’ll be feeling better in no time at all.
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