Have you ever experienced mom burnout?
You know, feeling like you’re stretched too thin, drowning in diaper changes,
and an infinite to-do list has you beyond over it…
Or creeping fantasies tease a different, “better” life or at least one where you don’t feel like…a slug…at the end of the day.
(I mean, if you know, you know.)
Don’t get me wrong. Motherhood is an incredible and beautiful gift. But raising small humans as a full time job ain’t no picnic.
Just like most things worth doing, taking care of kids is hard work. There are bound to be hard days.
You can be a good mom and still feel the burn. Burnout signs are closely related to symptoms of depression, and 1 in 10 moms has experienced an episode of depression in the past year.
Unchecked, depression hurts your family, health, and well-being.
In this post, I’m sharing the ways my family and I have adjusted to make sure everyone’s emotional health is supported, beyond the well-intentioned “you got this mama!” comments you get on Instagram.
The good news is,
you can incorporate some of these tweaks into your lifestyle to make this whole ‘being a mom thing’ feel much more manageable.
What is Mom Burnout?
Mother burnout refers to the physical and mental fatigue that comes from the chronic stress of care-giving and parenthood.
Deep-fried, charred to a crisp, scorched–not unlike this morning’s pancake.
[Pro tip: I don’t recommend breakfast-making and potty-training simultaneously. ]
Mommy burnout, caregiver fatigue, depleted mother syndrome.
Call it what you want, but it sucks all the same, The ongoing stresses of motherhood can lead to complex physical, mental, and emotional exhaustion, leaving you overwhelmed and drained, at best.
When there are unrealistic expectations around the mental load and household chores, it feels near impossible to get out of survival mode, and that’s when mom burnout creeps in.
I don’t know about you, but I am like a marshmallow.
A properly roasted mallow requires a delicate balance- you gotta rotate it by the glowing coals for the perfect treat.
Stay too close to the flame, and instead of a warm, golden toasting,
you’re on fire.
Burnt to a crisp, not living your best marshmallow life.
Check yourself before you wreck yourself. Do any of these resonate with you?
Symptoms of Mom Burnout
You might be burned out if you feel…
- guilty or inadequate, feeling never good enough
- disconnected from people, especially your partner
- stuck on autopilot or “just going through the motions”
- easily triggered or agitated
- can’t find joy with your family
- feel purposeless or a reduced sense of accomplishment
- like you want to escape
- extremely fatigued, physically and/or mentally
- experiencing rage and hostility
- questioning your life choices
10 Proven Strategies to Beat Mom Burnout
1. Beat Burnout with Self-Care (Like Some Real Sleep)
Honestly, I hate the term “self-care”. It feels annoyingly selfish and is so overused.
Mindless self-indulgence (not the band) in the name of mental health? Like, how’s a bubble bath going to solve any real mom burnout problems?
The reality is actual self-care is not high-maintenance, but necessary, preventative maintenance.
You and I are not homemaking robots.
I remember at a particularly low point in my postpartum depression, I was doing (an insane amount of) laundry and I couldn’t shake the thought:
‘I am a just glorified washing machine. Machines are replaceable.’
While I now know this is a HUGE LIE, I felt like an appliance at best, and it freaking sucked.
When I finally got professional help, the first step my therapist addressed was SLEEP.
I would argue that prioritizing sleep might even be the most important thing to combat burnout.
Parents of children, especially new moms, struggle with getting enough sleep. Physical exhaustion that comes along with sleep deprivation directly affects mental health.
Self-care also looks like eating healthy and exercising, along with allowing yourself to enjoy the little things in life, like bath bombs or manicures, or date nights.
It’s okay to acknowledge your needs, besides just the physiological ones.
When I treat myself like someone I’m responsible for, I’m a better mom, wife, and person.
2. Prioritize Your Personal Time
Introverts, unite! (at home, individually!)
Even the most extroverted moms get touched out, over-stimulated, and need time away from everyone else. Breaks are good and healthy and important, but it ain’t gonna happen if you don’t create and protect the time to do it.
Each weekend, my husband and I plan out the week ahead and we actually put on schedule “Mom’s (or Dad’s) Alone time”. & we do our darndest to support each other in making it happen. Mom burnout is real, and dad burnout is too.
It’s my responsibility to honor my time, too. Sometimes that means leaving the house or getting up early to fit in restorative alone time if my evenings are already dedicated to work. There’ll be seasons where my husband needs more time to study, or I need extra nights to work, so there’s a give and a take to the system. But as long as we honor the other person’s time and eventually return to a balanced schedule, we’re both much happier.
3. Conquer Mom Burnout with Mindfulness Practice
Mindfulness? Really? It feels trite at first, like the “enjoy every moment” kind of advice you get from ladies at the grocery store. But mindfulness practice goes beyond occasional meditation or just putting your phone down for a minute. Mindfulness = basically learning to observe without judgement. Being aware of yourself and your surroundings without jumping to conclusions right away.
A great way to start is by just paying closer attention to the little things.
Meditation is one way you can practice mindfulness, but really any intentional moment counts.
It’s like putting a moment of time under a microscope. The tiny and seemingly mundane details of life are far more wild and wonderful if you take a closer look. Practicing this regularly combats negative thought patterns. Turn off the autopilot. Wake up to yourself and take a look at how you’re responding emotionally. Awareness of your emotional state is the only way anyone can effectively make an eventual change of habit.
This awareness of the wild and wonderful world around you will gradually morph into gratitude.
Mindful living literally retrains your brain.
My therapist introduced me to mindfulness practices last year, and I can confidently say I’m in a much better place, thanks, in part, to mindful living.
4. Quit the Comparison Game
Don’t should all over yourself.
When I do this, I set myself up for failure and a guilt/shame spiral.
“I should: _______ (scratch-cook, make more money, do less screen time, be way more patient, do gentle parenting…you name it.)
It’s like, here’s a standard, and here’s how I’m not measuring up.
Question the measuring stick you’re using. Are you coming up short because of societal pressures to parents a certain way?
Or maybe you’re putting unrealistically high expectations on yourself.
The crappy part of being perpetually online is that we are overexposed to others’ lives. It’s human nature to size up ourselves against others and it’s often subconscious. Social media algorithms are designed to firehose you with the type of content you relate to, which is usually people like you only shown in their best moments.
Stop comparing your life to the neighbors, the girl from high school, the content creators with curated galleries of their perfect lives.
Don’t forget that’s a highlight reel.
(or Reels, if we’re talking Instagram.)
This is great if the content you’re consuming motivates and inspires you, but if it’s skewing your perspective into resentment, it’s time to shut out the noise and be present.
This Psychology Today article dives into the comparison trap of social media.
Your imperfect, realistic life is beautiful,
and possibly even the source of someone else’s inspiration.
5. S.O.S! Ask For Help & Find a Support Group
Is your mental exhaustion from lack of support? Every parent needs a good support system. We aren’t meant to shoulder life’s burdens alone.
My heart goes out to single moms and those who live far away from family. I am really thankful that I had my parents to help me out so much, especially in the diaper-changing days.
I realize not everyone is lucky enough to have family help close by to help with child care. Regardless of your situation, getting plugged into a community and making some mom friends is invaluable.
Whether through church, homeschool groups, co-ops, coworkers or a good friend,
we all need somebody to lean on (I hope you sang that in your head, too).
It’s humbling to ask for help sometimes, but more often than not, people want to help.
Support is a two-way street, so when I’m in a position to lift someone else up who’s in a season of struggle, it’s much easier to accept the help when it’s my turn.
6. Lighten the Work Load, or The Art of Delegation
Delegate! Delegate everything you possibly can!
You are not a one woman show. Delegate dinner to your spouse, Hello Fresh, or a pre-made meal.
Even if it means sacrificing control and doing it the exact way you think it should be done.
This is especially hard for me, because I have a lot of anxiety around food; stress about eating processed stuff, etc,
but I’ve come to realize that the stress levels I grapple with when I’ve taken too much on my plate aren’t healthy either.
Perfectly-balanced, scratch-cooked healthy meals every night aren’t worth it if they’re served with high levels of anxiety to make it happen.
Delegate a night to make that happen, and let go when it doesn’t.
I am also learning the fine art of delegating chores to my kids.
I’ve spent way too long just doing most of the chores myself, rather than enforcing house work responsibilities on the kids. Fighting with kids to get chores done took way more emotional energy than I could take, so I’d just do everything myself. (Bad plan, 0/10, would not reccommend.)
It requires playing the long game, but a chore system in place to get the kids pitching in is magic for lightening your own load.
7. Routines Are Your Friend
Routines are not a prison, despite what my ADHD brain wants me to believe. A good routine is a system that serves you and eliminates decision fatigue, a contributing factor to mom burnout.
Decision fatigue is a real issue in today’s world. We are constantly bombarded with choices, and it can be difficult to make decisions due to the sheer number of them.
We can become overwhelmed and there’s evidence to support the idea that we are physically and mentally impacted. It’s important for us to take breaks from decision-making and give our brains time to focus on other things.
I don’t think I will ever become a “routine person”–personally, strict routines require too much energy to enforce. Instead, try simplified routines, like Taco Tuesdays or a daily rhythm, which help eliminate some of the 35,000 decisions we’re faced with every day.
8. Let Go of What Isn’t Serving You
Clutter. Obligations. Let that ish goooo.
Easier said than done. I love giving gifts, and blessing the kids with all the presents at birthday/Christmas time feels so good.
But it might be time to pass those on when they’re now blanketing the entire floor and a source of mental chaos.
Excess clutter = mental processing = exhaustion . In other words, when your brain has to constantly process disorganization, it causes cognitive overload. This drains your cognitive resources, leading to fatigue and brain fog. Ditch the unwanted to make room for peace.
9. Set Boundaries with The Power of No
Stick to your boundaries.
No means no.
In other words, if you told yourself you aren’t going to volunteer next month but then someone expresses a need and you’re like ‘I can totally do that!’,
Don’t.
Tell them I said no.
If therapy has taught me anything, it’s that I have a tendency to overcommit.
-One, because it feels good to say yes and feel helpful.
-Two, because saying ‘no’ risks disappointing other poeple, and that’s really tough for me.
Decide ahead of time what you’ve gotta say yes to and what you’re gonna say no to. Ideally, this is determined by your core values.
So, get clear on what’s important to you– You’ll be much more at peace with your ‘no’ when you’ve got a good ‘why’ behind it.
Priorities, baybee.
10. Goal Set Your Way to Bliss
The daily grind feels less arduous when you’re excited about something. Goals are the milestones that break up the monotony of any journey. A natural antidote to mom burnout.
When you accomplish a goal, your brain releases dopamine, a natural mood booster. (This Psychology Today article explains it better.)
Even completing a small goal like “I will put all the laundry away today” dispenses dopamine like a coin-operated toy machine.
You literally get high off a win.
With big goals, break every step into microsteps. This reduces the overwhelm and each completed step is like a slow drip of the feel-good juice for your brain.
Plus, it’s a great excuse to treat yourself to something special once you’ve achieved your goal. This is especially helpful for us squirrelly ADHD folk who crave the dopamine rush that comes with novelty.
I like to have personal goals and goals as a family
Learn to enjoy the process, and try not to get too hung up the outcome.
Invest into future-you
Motherhood is a pretty high-stakes job, so it’s not hard to see why stress often comes along for the ride.
Burnout can affect anyone, and it’s important to recognize the signs and take action to combat it. As a stay-at-home mom, it’s crucial to make time for yourself, set goals, and seek support when needed. There’s no shame in acknowledging your very human needs.
Without restorative breaks or even basic upkeep, anything will fall apart.
By incorporating some of these strategies into your daily routine, you can help prevent burnout and improve your overall well-being. Remember, taking care of yourself is just as important as taking care of your family.
Give yourself permission to invest in your future-self. You’re worth it, friend. <3